Francesca Forrest's Blog

I've been reading Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo because it was our book group book. Usually I can take or leave (or prefer to leave) our book group books, but this one I expected I'd like, because I loved Acevedo's The Poet X (ended up teaching that one in the jail). And I am liking it! So much that although the book group date came and went, I've kept on reading it because I want to finish it.

It's about two generations of Dominican women, whose life stories we get in bits and pieces around ...

A while ago there was a brief, wet snow, and I made a snow cat:


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In yesterday's and last night's snowpocalypse, the cat has disappeared. All that's left is a Mount Fuji-shaped mound:

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He's under there, sleeping. The new snow is very dry, like sand. When our equivalent of the harmattan blows, his form will be revealed.

(  Also I doodled this the other day.  )

Oh hey, and if you're in need of cheer, here's a woman dressed as Klingon Elsa singing "Let It Go" in Klingon.

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I don't like to go so long without posting! Just offline stuff piling on (nothing personally dire, though). The offline stuff is doing a number on my ability to write, but I still manage to squeeze out microfictions, though not quite daily. Here's one from a few days ago:

I dreamed of a pharaoh, awaking after death and arranging to his liking the various precious items buried with him.

"You've got quite an ego," I snapped at him (dream-me is apparently rude to people's faces), "having this massiv...

Happy 2026 ... the microfiction prompt word today was "champagne." I ended up in South Dakota on Google Street View, and then downloading the New Lakota Dictionary to hear how a word was pronounced but ... have a microstory:

Driving through Bullhead, South Dakota, Mike noticed a sign on a roadside stand: "Bullhead Champaign."

He pulled over. Bottles with fancy labels in both English & Lakota stood in a row.

"You know you can't call something champagne unless comes from Champagne, France, right? Al...

Posting two days in a row, what?? Is this 2010?

But I wanted to share this quote from Zig Zag Claybourne's Breath, Warmth, and Dream, which I'm reading at a very leisurely pace:


"'There was once'--Orsys stopped to think--'that I taught a child queen to print her name in all the alphabets of her land.'"

Now that's a worthy thing for a child queen to learn. And after learning to write her name, she can learn to write the names of people who use these alphabets, can learn to conform her mouth to their...

The checkout line at this Walmart was going to be very slow: ahead of us were four grown-ish children and their mom, and their cart was packed to overflowing.

“How about you bring the car around for my dad,” I suggested. “You guys wait, and I’ll text when I’m through.” My husband nodded, and the two of them headed out.

Between me and the family with the packed cart was an older couple; behind me was a younger couple. All of us had just a few things—I had a laundry basket, a bathroom scale, and a s...

Earlier this month my mother's old sewing basket ended up with me. It had so many spools of thread, including ancient wooden spools that were sold, back in the day, for just 55 cents. These old wooden spools had a message stamped on them:

FAST
TO
BOILING



This blue thread swears to you that it will hold fast, will not turn fugitive and fade or run, even in the face of boiling water. What a heroic promise! In the face of torture this thread will remain (stead)fast.

If I sew with this thread, I'll do s...

Not to be all Youtube recs all the time, but the same mutual who shared the Greensleeves video shared this tribute to the city of Kyoto via a compilation of anime clips set in Kyoto, to the tune of "Toki Doki" by Takénobu, which has the chorus "boku no Kyoto" (my Kyoto), and I loved it very much.

Since several of my Dreamwidth friends have been to Kyoto and are fond of the city, I had to share. You can also go to the AO3 location and leave the creator some kudos if you're inclined :-)



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A mutual on Mastodon shared this mind-blowing Youtube video about creating a dress based on the earliest surviving version (1564) of the ballad "Greensleeves." It was fascinating for all the details about Elizabethan dressmaking (and also food--there's a verse about food, too; 18 verses in all). The way the expert creators researched their piece of the overall outfit (silk smock, crimson stockings, pumps as white as milk, gown of grassy green), the decisions they made (e.g., in the whole invento...

I don't like to go longer than a week without posting, but I just did! So this is me waving hello. The reason for the absence is family stuff: my dad is finally moving somewhat closer to me (and very close to my younger brother), plus the Tall One has also been moving. Stressful and time consuming.

Thanksgiving included a clogged main pipe out of my dad's (soon to be former) house, where we'd gathered for the day. This necessitated an emergency plumber! Plus there were some shenanigans with the t...