sophia_sol | Network

Posted by Matt Kiser

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2026/05/06/day-1933/

Day 1933

Today in one sentence: The FBI searched the office of a Virginia Democratic state lawmaker who helped lead the state’s redistricting plan earlier this year; Trump helped defeat at least five incumbents in Indiana’s Republican primaries that had blocked his mid-decade redistricting plan; Tennessee Republicans unveiled a proposed congressional map that would eliminate the state’s only Democratic U.S. House; the FBI reportedly launched a criminal leak investigation into the Atlantic writer who reported about concerns over Director Kash Patel’s drinking and conduct; Iran is reviewing a U.S. proposal to end the war even as Trump threatened Tehran “if they don’t agree, the bombing starts […] a much higher level and intensity”; Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee about his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; 87% of Americans have a negative view of Trump’s social media post depicting himself as Jesus; 63% of Americans blame Trump for the increase in gas prices; and 61% of Americans say the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but not anymore.

1/ The FBI searched the office of a Virginia Democratic state lawmaker who helped lead the state’s redistricting plan earlier this year. FBI agents executed a search warrant at Sen. L. Louise Lucas’ office and a neighboring cannabis dispensary she co-owns as part of a corruption investigation into possible marijuana-related bribery that began under Biden. Lucas has not been charged. The search came weeks after Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional map. Lucas helped push Virginia’s mid-decade redistricting plan that could give Democrats up to four more House seats. After Republicans complained that the new Virginia map was unfair, Lucas replied: “You all started it and we fucking finished it.” (Fox News / Associated Press / New York Times / CBS News / NBC News / Bloomberg / Politico / Washington Post)

2/ Trump helped defeat at least five incumbents in Indiana’s Republican primaries. The senators had helped block his mid-decade redistricting plan that could’ve helped Republicans target Indiana’s two remaining Democratic U.S. House seats. Trump-aligned groups spent more than $12 million on races that usually draw little national attention. In Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican nomination for governor, while Sherrod Brown advanced to a U.S. Senate race against Jon Husted that could help decide control of the chamber. In Michigan, Democrat Chedrick Greene won a state Senate special election, giving Democrats another off-year win and securing their majority in the chamber. (Washington Post / Politico / Axios / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / CNN / ABC News / Associated Press / The Guardian / CBS News / NBC News)

3/ Tennessee Republicans unveiled a proposed congressional map that would eliminate the state’s only Democratic U.S. House seat. The plan would divide majority-Black Shelby County across three districts and give Republicans a shot at a 9-0 delegation. Lawmakers, however, must first repeal Tennessee’s ban on mid-decade redistricting and pass new election rules before the August primary. (NBC News / Axios / Politico / New York Times / The Hill)

4/ The FBI reportedly launched a criminal leak investigation into the Atlantic writer who reported about concerns over Director Kash Patel’s drinking and conduct. Patel has sued The Atlantic and Sarah Fitzpatrick for $250 million, claiming the story was false, while the magazine said it stands by the reporting and will defend its staff against “government harassment.” The FBI, meanwhile, said “no such investigation” exists, calling it “completely false.” (MS Now / New Republic / The Atlantic)

📌 Previously on WTFJHT – Apr 20, 2026: FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic and a journalist for defamation, seeking $250 million over an article that said he showed “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences,” was “often away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions,” and had become a point of concern inside the FBI and Justice Department.

5/ Iran is reviewing a U.S. proposal to end the war even as Trump threatened Tehran “if they don’t agree, the bombing starts […] a much higher level and intensity.” Hours later, Trump said the U.S. had “won” the war and held “very good talks” with Iran, adding: “We’re in good shape” but “we have to get what we have to get.” The reported one-page memo would start 30 days of talks on the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, frozen funds, and limits on Iran’s nuclear program. (New York Times / CNBC / NPR / CBS News / Axios / Associated Press / Reuters / ABC News / CNN / Bloomberg)

Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 U.S. military structures or pieces of equipment across the Middle East since the war began – far larger than the Trump administration has publicly acknowledged. (Washington Post)

6/ Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee about his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Justice Department files showed Lutnick visited Epstein’s private island in 2012, four years after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, and then kept in contact after he previously said he cut ties in 2005. Committee Chairman James Comer said Lutnick was “forthcoming” but “wasn’t 100% truthful,” adding that the transcript would let “the American people judge.” Democrats, meanwhile, called Lutnick “evasive, nervous” and “dishonest,” and described his answers as “contortions and lies.” The interview wasn’t videotaped, which Democrats called part of an “egregious cover-up.” Lutnick is the first sitting Trump Cabinet official questioned as part of the panel’s Epstein investigation. (Associated Press / NBC News / MS Now / Bloomberg / New York Times / ABC News / The Guardian / CBS News / CNBC)

poll/ 87% of Americans have a negative view of Trump’s social media post depicting himself as Jesus. 9% had a positive reaction. Trump later deleted the image. (Washington Post)

poll/ 63% of Americans blame Trump for the increase in gas prices, including 32% of Republicans and 63% of independents. (NPR)

poll/ 61% of Americans say the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but not anymore, while 27% feel the country is currently a great place for immigrants, and 10% say the U.S. was never a great for immigrants. (Associated Press)

The 2026 midterms are in 181 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 916 days.

Today last year: Day 1568: "Never say never."
Two years ago today: Day 1203: "Not serving as a deterrent."
Six years ago today: Day 1203: "We've solved every problem."
Seven years ago today: Day 837: Legitimacy.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2026/05/06/day-1933/

sage

books
The Jeeves Omnibus Vol. 3: (I'm interspersing the Jeeves & Wooster novels with the rest of what I'm reading.)
Ring for Jeeves (1953). OMG such idiots. Not even Jeeves can redeem this. (I kind of despise gambling, sorry?)
The Mating Season (1949). Delightful beginning. Tedious middle (Bertie, you ass). Good, if brief ending.
Very Good, Jeeves! (1930). More vintage, not historical, Jeeves and Wooster. This is a collection of short stories, most very charming.

Wyndham & Banerjee #1: A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee. 2016. Really satisfying in terms of setting: the colonial India is vivid and fascinating. The plot is kind of a mess, complete with monologing villain. But I'll read the next one happily.

The Wild Atlantic Murders #1: The Clew Bay Detectives by Pam Lecky. 2026. ARC. ( gah )

Wyndham & Banerjee #2: A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee. 2017. I love the setting so much! There was a bit more literal running back and forth than was completely necessary here, and the opium subplot is appropriately skeevy, but I loved all the women and really appreciated the ending. Looking forward to the next one.

Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From by Tony Joseph. 2018. Brilliant, if very slightly outdated wrt the prehistoric DNA research.

Wyndham & Banerjee #3: Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee. 2018. So good!! Nearly a perfect novel.

next up: rereading all of Murderbot bc I don't remember where things left off before Rapport.

healthcrap
Wrapped the wrist-thumb joint in kinesio tape, since I can't find where I put the thumb brace. Fibro is flaring & I'm way too sore. Still sleeping 12 hrs a night and not resting. /impatient to feel better.

I hope you're all doing well! <333

redbird

I went to the dentist this afternoon, and they did some uncomfortable things as part of creating a new/replacement crown for one of my teeth (which had cavities under the old crown). I currently have a temporary crown, and will be getting the permanent replacement in three weeks; it will be ready sooner, but that's the next available appointment.

I was pleased to see that my Lyft driver, the dentist, and the dental assistant were all masked when I first saw them. I told the driver it was nice to see other people masking, and I tipped extra because of it.

When I checked in, the receptionist told me there would be a $750 copay. I told her that I had been told that the crown was fully covered, and asked her to check. A few minutes later, she confirmed that I wouldn't have to pay anything. I do not understand dental insurance, including this dental insurance, which is an add-on to my Medicare Advantage plan; I would have paid the $750 if I had to, but I'm glad I don't.

I'd been planning to stop and visit some lilac bushes on the way home, but it was raining, which made that less appealing, so I didn't. I did stop at Lizzy's on the way home, and now have a total of five unlabeled pints of ice cream: three today, because a broken freezer meant I had to get the clerk to hand-scoop the ice cream, plus the two from Tosci's. However, I have blank sticky adhesive labels, which should make this easy.

nnozomi posting in

guardian_learning

部首
艹 part 4
苏, to revive; 苔, moss; 苗, sprout/Miao ethnic group ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=140

语法
4.4 part 1 由 (because of)
https://www.digmandarin.com/hsk-4-grammar

词汇
部, part/department; 部分, part; 部门, department; 北部, north; 东部, east; 南部, south; 西部, west; 全部, all ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

Guardian:
我的苏醒是这个世界给我开的一个玩笑, my awakening was the world playing a joke on me
[no 由 of this kind, I think]
那为什么小部分人不能和大部分人和平相处呢, so why can't the minority get along with the majority in peace?

Me:
这里叫做苔寺庙。
迟到了是由闹钟没响的。

trobadora posting in

sid_guardian

Just a reminder that the 520 Day Reverse Exchange deadline is now one week away. Please post your completed assignment to the AO3 collection by 11:59PM UTC Wednesday 13 May! (What time is that for me?)

(Actually, the first entry has already been posted! Congrats! \o/)

Your work must be complete to fill your assignment. It's fine to keep editing until reveals, but the first and each edited version must be a work that stands on its own. If you're unsure how to post, see the instructions here.

If you have any questions or, for any reason, you can't make the deadline, please let us know NOW by replying to your assignment email (don't change the subject line) or commenting here. Comments here are screened.

General info, schedule and minimum requirements

*cheers everyone on*

green

I'm 48 today! I made a hummingbird cake but it looks boring so I won't post a pic. but it's gonna be delicious. the texture is just right so I KNOW this.

Current Mood: grateful

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/trying-out-a-new-recipe-sugar-spiced-dreams-banana-coffee-cake-muffins/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60586

One of my friends recently told me she’s pregnant with her second child, and as much as I love nice cards I knew I wanted to do something a little more for her, so I asked her to tell me what baked good she was really craving. She answered muffins, and my muffin making journey began.

Though she never specified what kind of muffins she wanted, my mind immediately went to a coffee cake type of muffin. In my experience, coffee cake always hits the spot, and there is virtually no one who doesn’t love cinnamon and brown sugar (shout out to the one person I know who is allergic to cinnamon). I just needed to find a good recipe for such muffins.

In my search for coffee cake muffins, I came across this video, showing banana coffee cake muffins:

View this post on Instagram

I knew this recipe was the one. Banana bread vibes enhanced by cinnamon brown sugar streusel?! Yes, please!

Looking at the recipe, it’s very interesting because it uses butter, neutral oil, eggs, and sour cream. So you already know we are in for a MOIST muffin. Especially with the addition of the bananas.

Honestly this recipe is very good for a casual home baker, as there’s nothing weird or hard to come by on the ingredients list. I only had to go buy sour cream and bananas, everything else I had on hand. Though I did use the very last of my flour and brown sugar for this, so sadly I will need to replenish those on my next grocery trip.

Anyways, let me tell you, this recipe is super quick and easy and these taste so flippin’ good! They were so good that I decided to make them again, and this time document it for y’all. So technically this was my second time.

Here’s the ingredients lineup:

King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose flour, Domino dark brown sugar and granulated sugar, Nielson-Massey vanilla, Kerrygold unsalted butter, two bananas, Daisy sour cream, two Vital Farms brown eggs, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.

If you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll notice I left the oil out of the photo. That was an accident, so just imagine a tall bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil in the photo. Thanks.

The recipe says to make the streusel first, and I have no arguments against that, so I did! The first time I made it, my butter was cold and cubed like the recipe says, but the second time it was definitely not as cold. But the streusel turned out fine, in my not-so-expert opinion:

A bowl full of crumbly brown streusel. Looks like wet sand, really.

You want your streusel to kind of be like wet sand. At least, that’s what I’ve heard in the past. I covered this with a tea towel and put it in the fridge while I worked on the batter.

The first step of the batter is to mash the bananas and mix in all the wet ingredients. Finally a recipe that adds the bananas to the wet ingredients instead of making you add them at the end. Lookin’ at you, Joy of Cooking.

It says to mix until smooth and glossy, and that’s looking pretty glossified to me:

A bowl of beige sludge with a whisk in it.

For both times I made these muffins, I actually did not melt the butter fully. It was just very, very soft butter, not liquid. So, melt if you want, but I don’t think it matters too much. Everything whisked together super easy!

In the recipe, it says to mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then fold into the wet ingredients, but why not make this a one bowl batter and just throw the dry ingredients in right on top of the wet, and then mix? Makes more sense to me. Here’s the completed batter:

A big bowl of beige batter!

I always use cupcake liners because I hate trying to get muffins unstuck from the pan, plus my pan is kind of not in incredible shape. It’s seen better days, so liners it is.

The recipe says to fill the cups halfway, then add a layer of streusel, then pour more batter and finish off with a top layer of streusel. So here’s the tricky part. How do you know how much streusel to use on the half-cup-layer to ensure that you have a decent amount in the layer, but also ensure that you don’t use too much and make it so the top layer is weak? You have to prioritize the top layer’s condition, but make sure there’s at least some in the middle.

Honestly, my line of thought is to have a decent crumble, but make sure you’re not completely covering the batter. Like you want to be able to see the batter. Then, when you do the top layer, that’s when you cover the batter completely and make it a very full layer of streusel that can’t be seen through. So here’s the half layer:

A dozen half full cupcake liners topped with some streusel.

See how there’s like, a good amount of crumbles in there but you can still clearly see the batter through the spaces? Here’s the top layer:

The final state of the muffins before baking. Each liner is full to the top and has a bunch of streusel on top.

Almost no batter visible at this point. I used every crumb of streusel in the damn bowl (ignore the streusel crumbs in the middle parts of the pan). These were ready to bake.

One interesting thing about this recipe that I haven’t really seen before is that she says to bake them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and then reduce the temperature to 350 after five minutes, without opening the oven door. How intriguing! I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Regardless, I listened and reduced it to 350 and baked for 13 minutes since it said 12 to 15.

They come out a little ugly, but they smell incredible:

A tin full of baked, golden brown muffins!

The streusel sort of just melds into the top of the muffin instead of being a defined layer on top, so they just kinda look bumpy and weird. But I promise they taste damn good. Look at that crumb!

The cross section of the soft muffin, presenting a moist crumb and golden brown exterior.

These are super soft, moist, flavorful muffins with a delish crunchy, sweet cinnamon streusel topping. There’s cinnamon in the streusel and the batter itself, so you’re getting a lot of warm flavor here. The banana is an enhancement, not a detraction.

I gave the first batch to my friend like I mentioned, and she told me they were “AMAZING” and “insanely good” and literally told me to come back and get one immediately so I could try it myself. Thankfully, I had enough ingredients to make a second batch shortly after, and now y’all can try it for yourself.

Some of the muffins from the first batch had a weird issue of sinking in a little bit on the top in the middle, but the second batch didn’t have that issue. Not sure why.

Anyways, this recipe is going to be one I return to often. These are perfect just to gift to friends and family, or have on hand for a morning snack with your coffee. I highly recommend giving them a try.

Do you like banana bread or coffee cake better? Would you try this delish combo? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/trying-out-a-new-recipe-sugar-spiced-dreams-banana-coffee-cake-muffins/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60586

shroomystar posting in

drabble_zone

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delphi

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shipperslist

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xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3242/

Scientists occasionally invent alternative periodic table layouts, which is usually a sign that they don't have enough enrichment in their enclosures.

https://xkcd.com/3242/

oursin

What I read

Finished Tales From Earthsea, The Other Wind and the pendant short pieces in The Book of Earthsea 'The Rule of Names', 'The Word of Unbinding', 'The Daughter of Odren', and 'Earthsea Revisioned'. I don't know quite what it is, I can see how good her work is, but the feeling is more of distant admiration than what I feel for my beloved favourites? Might even cop to preferring her criticism and essays to her fiction? (not the only author to whom this pertains.)

Started a Dick Francis, Bolt (Kit Fielding, #2) (1986)

- and then, feeling all a-wamble and fretted because of the insomnia thing, fell back into Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution, old favourite.

- and then returned to the horsies and the posh owners and the psycho villains.

On the go

Martha Wells, Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries #8) which arrived yesterday.

Up next

No idea, apart from the recently arrived latest Literary Review

silversea posting in

booknook

First Wednesday of May! How are everyone's reading going?

badly_knitted posting in

drabble_zone

Title: Being The Slayer
Fandom: BtVS
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Buffy.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 500: Amnesty 50, using Challenge 442: It's My Job.
Spoilers/Setting: Season three.
Summary: Buffy’s priorities have shifted since becoming the Slayer.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.
A/N: Double drabble.

Being The Slayer

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

lightreads

Platform Decay

4/5. A good outing. Murderbot does a complex rescue in corporate space, and there are juveniles, terrible.

Things I like:

Getting a nuanced and varied look at just what life in corporate space looks like, particularly for average people. And how those people deal with the various kinds of violence and oppression that surround them. A lot of this was extremely sketchy and gestural before, but this book does a huge amount of background work on adding texture to the world.

Wells playing out some of the consequences of the governor module hack code being out there now in ways that the fandom has been chewing on for a while.

Murderbot getting to snark a bit on the ways that Preservation’s utopia is also sometimes really full of itself and incorrect about its own righteousness, as utopias do.

Emotional self-awareness (oh no, terrible, how could a murderbot have a worse fate).

So yeah, pretty good, even with the tragic absence of most of the usual main cast and crew.

shroomystar posting in

drabble_zone

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aurumcalendula

I so hope Jeannelle M. Ferreira's A Remarkable Rake will be published one day! It and Rose Lerner's The Girl in the Cellar are the historical romances I'm most looking forward to reading!

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/the-big-idea-andrew-dana-hudson/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60579

While we all know that technically our lives could end at any moment, sometimes that fact can feel far away. Author Andrew Dana Hudson brings that little known fact into the spotlight in his newest novel, Absence. Come along in his Big Idea as you think about what you would be leaving behind if you were to suddenly, mysteriously, become absent.

ANDREW DANA HUDSON:

What if people could disappear at any moment? How would the world adapt?

We were a year into the pandemic, and I was riding my bike, trying to get out of the house I’d kept myself cooped up in since the previous March. I found myself thinking about the weird pseudo-raptures that had shown up in pop culture over the last few years, like the “Thanos Snap” in the Avengers movies, or the “Sudden Departure” in The Leftovers—big supernatural events that impact everyone all at once. Where were the slow, crawling, banal supernatural disasters? Metaphysical catastrophes less like the rapture and more like the pandemic, or climate change: complex, unfolding, uneven, during which people have to go on living their lives despite unprecedented circumstances.

I got home, got off my bike, and wrote what would become the first chapter of my novel Absence. In this world, people are vanishing into thin air—with a loud popping sound—but it isn’t all at once. It’s one by one by one. Sometimes there are spikes, but mostly it’s ambient. It can happen to anyone, any time, which means everyone is wondering when it’s going to happen to them or their loved ones. Some fear it, others ignore it. A few are eager for it, for wherever people go when they pop. There are fakers and scammers and conspiracy theorists. A few tired bureaucrats try their best to manage the situation. We develop new norms and institutions and infrastructure, without ever ceasing to feel that it’s all so strange.

For me, writing this book was a way to process and capture in fiction the looming dread that I’d felt over my shoulder ever since the first COVID lockdowns. It was existential as much as epidemiological. A fear that an invisible force could reach into my life and take away someone whose presence I’d relied on.

Of course, people have always been mortal, fragile. We’re all a heart attack or a car accident or a well-placed meteor away from being out of the picture. But during that first pandemic year, that inherent human fungibility felt much more present in daily life and public spaces. And when people did get sick, they often disappeared, into quarantine or ICU intubation or, in a few places, mass graves. Death became both more and less present in our lives, and that was something I wanted to explore.

So what would you do? How would you live if you or the people you care about might be gone tomorrow, or the next second? And how would we as a society cope if we couldn’t rely on everyone showing up every day to do the jobs that keep all the economic gears turning together?

In Absence, drivers vanishing on the highway cause enough crashes that solo car travel is discouraged, and pilots popping mid-flight have travelers feeling safer on trains. Theater productions need extra understudies. A lot quickly becomes automated. People try to keep an eye on each other, because the worst thing is to disappear without anyone to tell your loved ones you’re gone. Trust in institutions erodes—which we’ve seen happen in our world too, but here is supercharged by the impossible-to-explain nature of this supernatural phenomenon.

When I started, I thought I was writing a short story. Instead, I found this premise just kept on giving me new wrinkles to explore, and so I kept writing, until I had a whole novel with a twisty mystery and a messy X-Files–style romance. And lots of jokes, since as dark as it was, 2020 was the funniest year of my life. Everyone was suddenly online together, riffing about the many absurdities of our new situation and flailing government. I spent half my days in group chats, laughing at bad memes until I cried. Tragedy and farce were all rolled up in one.

It’s always bothered me that we never got vaccine Mardi Gras, a sudden moment in which we could all hug each other and dance together without fear. We just got more unfolding, more arguments, more slow disaster. For me, exploring this big idea and writing this book eventually provided a lot of that catharsis I’d looked forward to.

My initial big idea turned out to have a lot to say about COVID culture and how we’ve been frog-boiled by climate breakdown, but also about how uncertain and contingent life is and has always been. We tell our family and partners we’ll always love them, but often it doesn’t work out that way. We make plans and then throw them to the wind. We think we’re on solid ground, and it turns out to be so much quicksand. That’s just part of being human. Finding meaning and companionship despite all that is the challenge we wake up with every day, each day perhaps the last before something makes us pop.

Absence: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s

Author socials: Website|Instagram|Facebook|Threads|Substack

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/the-big-idea-andrew-dana-hudson/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60579

embraidery posting in

fandomcalendar

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the_shoshanna

in the Channel Islands!

A friend very kindly gave us a lift to the train that we took to the train that we took to a plane that we took to a plane to the Bailiwick of Jersey! Which (like the Bailiwick of Guernsey) is not part of the UK, but rather a self-governing direct dependency of the British Crown. Very cool! and also made it a giant pain to find a reasonably priced travel SIM that would provide both minutes and data in both England (since we transfer at Heathrow) and the Channel Islands.

I've already blogged some of our exciting adventures so far! Other than thinking for the first couple hours that I'd forgotten my wallet, the transatlantic overnight flight was fine. I didn't manage to sleep, even though we had a whole three-seat row for just the two of us, but I did watch a bunch of historical short PR films made by, or at least for, British Airways' predecessors, like BOAC, about air travel, dating from the late 60s or even early 70s all the way back to the 20s! That one was a day and night at a way-station airport on the south side of the Arabian Gulf, I think somewhere around where Abu Dhabi is now? A big fortress of an installation "in case of -- unlikely, but possible -- trouble from the local Bedouin tribes", it's been built because planes can't fly at night, you see. So the passengers traveling on Imperial Airways (yep) get room and board at way stations like this for each of the four nights it takes to get to India. Meanwhile engineers and mechanics climb all over the plane by lamplight (all, like, thirty feet of it), checking and adjusting it for the next day's flight, and dozens of jerrycans of water have been hauled in so the passengers can bathe, and also the local merchants bring camel-loads of goods (especially pearls) to be sold on in the great markets of the Empire. It was fascinating both for its actual context, of which I wanted far more, and for its attitudes and silences. Also fun was a travelogue from I'd guess the 50s, of two white British women having a grand time touring through Asia. I was struck by the immense amount of alcoholic socializing ("I'd never flown before, but by the time I had my first drink on the plane I felt completely comfortable!"), and of course the exoticism and all the smoking, but the thing that completely sent me was the baby hammock provided by BOAC, rigged to hang from the ceiling next to the overhead bins like a cradle in the treetops. Had turbulence not been invented yet?

Anyway, that flight got to London in good time, even had to kill time flying in circles because we were early and local noise regulations forbade us to land before six am. We didn't have to reclaim our bags, as they'd been checked straight through, hurrah, but we did have to go through immigration and security again ourselves and walk what felt like a kilometer or so. But it was nice to stretch our legs! We had enough time between flights for me to set up my UK travel eSIM, but Geoff's phone wouldn't start up, so we just had to hope we'd be able to deal with it in Jersey.

And that flight was greeted at Jersey baggage claim with the announcement that a whole lot of our bags hasn't made it on at Heathrow, but they'd be on the next flight they pinky-swore, and so thirty or so people, including me, lined up at baggage assistance to give them our bag check number, a description of our bag, and our local contact info. Sure glad I had a working phone! Also that at the last minute I jammed some clean underwear, another shirt, and my toothbrush into my carry-on. I've been flying since I was a child, and I think this is the first time I've ever had luggage go astray! And I don't understand why Geoff's bag was one of the first to arrive on the carousel in Jersey and mine didn't even make it on the plane; wouldn't they have been close to one another in the to-be-loaded stack at Heathrow? Oh, well, the auto-email I got from British Airways says they have it (i.e. it's not lost, just delayed) and if we're not at our B&B when it arrives our host says she'll be here all day and can receive it, no problem.

Having dealt with that, we took a bus into the center of St Helier, the capital, and from the bus depot walked about 15 minutes to our guesthouse/B&B. The proprietor is friendly and welcoming; I'd exchanged email with her in advance and it's paid through Booking.com, so she didn't even ask to see ID or anything, just gave us keys to the house and the room. Geoff is glad our room is on the ground floor because it meant he didn't have to climb multiple flights of stairs; I, relatively unburdened 😢, rather regret that's it's at the front of the house, facing a rather busy street. Oh, well. She said the place isn't very busy; if it's really noisy tonight I can always ask about moving to another room. We're here for more than a week!

Having dumped our stuff, I looked up the local Apple Store manqué ("authorized reseller") and we walked back down there and got Geoff's phone restarted, as previously blogged, and then just wandered around town for a couple of hours. We didn't try to actually be tourists, but we located a bus stop we'll need to catch a bus at tomorrow, and picked up some maps and walking advice at the tourist info, add checked a couple of groceries for good trail mix or the makings thereof but without success, and climbed many many steps to a high point from which we could admire the view of the port and the bay. Then we came back home, set Geoff's phone up with his UK number, and he showered and is now napping while I've been blogging and also trying desperately to stay awake; except for dozing maybe half an hour on each flight, I've been awake for [counts on fingers] twenty-nine hours, but if I crash too early I won't sleep enough tonight. But we're definitely going for an early dinner tonight; our host recommended a nearby cafe, and we stopped in this afternoon and it looks perfectly nice. And it's two blocks away, which is a big plus this evening. If I'm really lucky, my bag will arrive while we're out!

ETA: a nice man just showed up with my bag! Yay.