The Mandelbear's Musings

Well, here it is, the last week of 2025. One of my goals for the year was to write an infodump post that I could point to, quote from, or email to people who I've been out of touch with. I never got around to it, and it's late, but maybe this will do.

If you're tuning in late, I need to mention that I moved with part of my chosen family to Den Haag, in the Netherlands, in October of 2024. Specifically myself, N, N's husband G, older kid m, and our four cats. N's younger kid, j, was already here, starting university in Leiden.

We're here taking advantage of the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty, which lets Americans emigrate to the Netherlands (or vice versa) and get permanent residency or citizenship provided they start a business here (or bring one with them). We're sort of doing both, with our little indie publishing company HyperSpace Express.

Our plan for the business had been for N to get into sewing and fabric arts, and me to (at long last) record a new CD. The best-laid plans, etc. What's actually happened is that I got very discouraged about my musical ability, and N decided to turn to writing. She's already published her first book, The World As it Ought To Be -- Stories from a Protopian Future. Please buy a copy!

Back in the US, my son R turned FORTY last July. On his birthday I started trying to write a "state of the Bear" post, got nowhere, and abandoned it three days later, a few days before the fourth anniversary of Colleen's death. I have written very little since then. But here I am. The last week has been kind of bleak, and a week from tomorrow will be our fiftieth wedding anniversary. It will be the fifth that I haven't had her with me to celebrate.

Fortunately, Bronx never fails to get a laugh out of me when he jumps up onto the dresser when I'm getting the food bowls ready. And this evening I was mentioning to G how the IBM 1620 has to load its addition and multiplication tables when it boots up, and he said "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?" I haven't laughed that hard in ... I don't know how long.

Um... not really enough, but I want to post this today (see music), and it's almost bedtime. And I have cats to feed.

A better week than I was expecting? N, G, and m are at OVFF, and I'm left here with the cats (modulo the housekeeper on Saturday mornings, and j on the weekends), but it's been magageable, and not too lonely. (I'm usually somewhat isolated down here on the ground floor anyway.) The main extra work was the two extra litter boxen, and feeding Brooklyn (who I swear is part hobbit -- four meals a day). (Cricket eats only kibble, so it's just a matter of making sure her bin stays filled.)

Also, I've taken six walks (though none longer than .7km), ordered some of my favorite groceries (including fish-other-than-salmon and bread-other-than-plain), and gotten a fair amount of work done on the HyperSpace Express website. In particular, the Books page, from which you can find out where to get N's book, The World As It Ought to Be, and subscribe to her newsletter.

And I have somehow managed to log a two-year streak in Duolingo. For what that's worth. Lately that hasn't been much.

I have gotten somewhat less done yesterday and today, because OVFF over Zoom.

Those of us with hidden disabilities may be interested in the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Official website Disabilities index, search (The list is extensive.)

For those of us who couldn't get to OVFF, here are the 2025 Pegasus Award winners:

Best Villain Song: "The Evil Eyeball," Sibylle Machat
Best Hero Song: "The Ones Who Walked Away," Beth Kinderman
Best Performer: The Blibbering Humdingers
Best Writer/Composer: Eric Distad
Best Classic Filk Song: "Merry Meet," Steve Macdonald
Best Filk Song: "One Small Boat," Marilisa Valtazanou

( Notes & links, as usual )

This weekend, Thursday through Sunday, m and I were at D.F.D.F. | Das Frühlingsfest der Filksmusik in Hanstedt, Germany -- one of the two German filk cons. We got in a couple of good rehersals, Sunday and Wednesday. We'd signed up for a two-song set in the Main Concert, which is basically a couple of hours of two-fers interspersed with voice auction items. This is f'n brilliant, because the auction items overlap the tech setup for the next concert set, allowing the whole affair to proceed seamlessly.

Our "set" was Millennium's Dawn and Ship of Stone. We'd done quite a bit of hacking and slashing to bring "Millennium's Dawn" up to date (removing the verse that starts "There ought to be talking computers...", taking out the first chorus, and making some minor wording tweaks.) We absolutely nailed both songs.

The open filking mostly started after my bedtime, We did get to perform Gentle Arms of Eden and The Bears (middle-sized and middle-aged). m stayed up later, and their singing was also well-received. We'll be back.

There may be a proper con report in a few days.

The flight back was not fun, with hassles in both Hamburg and Schiphol. And Sunday afternoon and evening were kind of a blur due to ( a health issue )

I note in passing that the song pages for Kaleidofolk are in pretty sorry shape right now and badly in need of troubleshooting. Later this week. I also need to put up a page for our new album (in progress), Winds of Time.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Today I am a record. I am also grateful for...

• Still being alive. At this age that isn't necessarily a given.
• Having gotten out of Amerika in time. (Hoping I'll be able to go back and visit. But that's not a given, either.)
• Help. In particular, this week, help from pocketnaomi putting up four bookcases in the living room.
• Finding some beloved books and a few other things, in the process of unpacking. In particular, some songs I wrote at Carleton, and sheet music -- with chords -- for a song of N's that we'd both forgotten the tune for. It might have been performed once.
• Kids who remember my birthday, including an hour-long video call from my daughter E. (Still waiting to see if I get anything from R on top of the "in case I forget" email they sent a couple of days ago.)
• Support groups. It's nice to be among people who "get it". Different "it" in different groups -- widowhood in one case, cancer in another. But still.

Well, it's a new year, so it's time for some goals. Parts of this post are recycled.

1. I'll start with a bit of unfinished business from last year: writing a "what has the bear been doing lately" infodump to be distributed mostly by email to people who aren't keeping up with Dreamwidth. Next this?? year, I guess. (Please ignore the fact that I'm picking an easy goal that I can check off early.)
2. That is of course related to another goal from last year and the one before: to get back in touch with more people -- including relatives and old friends. At least tell them where I am these days, and what I've been up to. See above.
3. Writing more in general is still on the list, including introspective and autobiographical journaling. Also see above.
4. Our taxes are going to be an effing nightmare. So the main goal is finding someone to do them for us.
5. I'm going to put setting up our DAFT business next. It has several moving parts, which will get goals of their own, so this one is just getting the legal paperwork and the bank account set up. Also see above.
6. The business will have two main divisions: Colleen's Closet -- fabric arts and related projects -- will be N's half. HyperSpace Express is my multimedia arts and record label. So I need to modernize HSX's website, and make one for C-C. A large part of that will be deciding whether to use a CMS, and which one. Or simply use Etsy and Bandcamp, tacked as subdomains onto the kind of static site I prefer. (I welcome your suggestions in the comments.)
7. I also need to go through all of my websites, and their infrastructure, and make sure they are up to date, functional, and well-documented. A lot of the bits have flaked off over the last decade or so. I noticed last night that some of the build tools are missing.
8. I need to record at least one album, so that my half of the business will have something to sell. But in general, do more music. The New Year's Eve zoom circle was, like last year, a good start.
9. Along with starting the business, N and I need to (belatedly) do our EOL planning and paperwork, including our wills. We're business partners, we co-own the house in Den Haag, and we have kids. It damned well has to get done this year. I have ordered this book on the subject, more for hack value than for reference.
10. Self care is on the list, as usual. Starting with physical -- that includes getting my health care set up, including finding an oncologist. That also includes more exercise and more walking.
11. Mental health care is "last but not least", but like last year it will be hard to quantify.