iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

I just finished a book I won't name, because if you can't say something nice... Still, around two third of the book, I thought, 'We're not going there, aren't we?' We did go there. There are two types of story endings I don't ever want to see: 'It was all a dream' & 'It was all in his head.'

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

For sale now, only at the Bald Satan Shop, unfortunately - and 'thanks' to scandalous Amazon blackmail, I had to make the books more expensive: $8.17 for the paperback and $3.50 for the ebook. #Booksky #NewBook

Pic of the front book cover. Really hard to describe, so let's start with the easy bits.

Author name above: Jan Thie
Title below: In Meg we trust.

Illustration: a cropped pic that started out as a photo of part of my house, close to the front door. The roof is snow-covered and icicles hang from the gutter (and from wherever else they can hang). The small outside lamp is on.

In the cropped pic this means the icicles seem to shine from within. The open door is merely a black rectangle with icicles covering the top of it. The snow-covered roof is a ghostly blue that becomes a dark blue where the sky starts.

It has a slightly alien feel to it, which is helped by a twig of ivy that has escaped the snow and now resembles the V of a bird (or a spaceship.)

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

I was just looking at a promising recipe, when *that* line hit my eye again: 'Remove from the pan and set aside.' As in the reasonable alternative being: 'Remove from the pan and throw straight in the bin'? It's not a serious gripe, obviously, but really. #Foodsky #Recipes

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Cslmn @rapsacnomlas.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

We have two straight men in the restaurant, and one of the ways I know they're straight is they're sitting diagonally from each other at a 4-person table

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

I tested out an interesting-looking recipe. Technically an appetiser but I had it for dinner with a cucumber salad: foodmymuse.com/stracciatell... It's really good. #Appetiser #ItalianFood #Ciabatta #Breadsky

All the ingredients in mise en place. To the left a ciabatta-type bread. Above that a bottle of light soy sauce. (I only need a teaspoon of that.)

Then the bowls.
The two bigger ones on top. One with the mozzarella & cream, the other with half a finely cut fennel bulb.
Below: six small bowls.
The top three: olive oil, herbs & sugar, sliced fresh green chilli pepper.
The three below:
Fresh basil, thinly sliced garlic, blitzed almonds.

On a green glass plate.
First a layer of, cheese/cream, topped with some of the raw fennel and fried garlic.

On top of what I mentioned in the previous pic a layer of the peper and almond and herbs & sugar. Those I had in a bowl and ai poured the very hot garlic oil over it. Also, more garlic and fennel.

I added fresh basil on top. Leaning on the plate are three slices of a sourdough ciabatta bread.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Those who will read my coming book (and read past chapter 12) will get this. Others won't. Not ever #Booksky #SpaceOpera

A blue rubber suction ear syringe bulb, held up in my left hand.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

'Tis the season to take all the logs outside again, and to start the soot-clearing of the living room; especially the big fern, since its leaves are covered with the dust of ashes. As is the small bookcase and that small cupboard in the kitchen. I'm late this year because laziness. #SpringClean

A pic taken in the winter. The wood burner is burning and a huge pile of logs lies on the two metre long shallow elevation in front of it. There's also a wooden basket with kindling wood.

Same wood burner and elevation but no more wood and freshly cleaned.

My huge fern that sits on a small table. To its left is a small bookcase. To the left of that, half of an open kitchen cupboard is visible. It also gets covered in soot. I can't close the kitchen door because of cat.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

I don't know what he thinks he'll find up there. (I think I'll call him Musk.)

A pic of a snail climbing one of the beams that keep my terrace roof up.
It's more than halfway up that two-and-a-half metre beam. Nothing to eat for him there and he passed my young strawberry plants on the way up.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Great. I managed to delete this post. In short: I'm shit at promoting my own work and I need an agent. I'm willing to pay 50% of the profits. Anyone can apply because anyone will be better at it than I. I won't look over your shoulder: see above. #Booksky #Agent The books are here:

amazon.com

Jan Thie: books, biography, latest update

Follow Jan Thie and explore their bibliography from Amazon's Jan Thie Author Page.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

One of the best jokes ever? “I wanted to be a writer when I was eight, and it was only later in life, when I was nine, that I wanted to be an actor.” A good article, and I know it doesn't say everything but still: "[He's'] celebrating 68 years and counting with his wife, Arlene." #AlanAlda

theguardian.com

‘My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six’: Alan Alda on childhood, marriage and 60 years of stardom

Best known as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H in the 70s, the 89-year-old actor has topped the Netflix charts with a revamp of his 1981 film The Four Seasons. He talks about Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen – and w...

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Question: I am writing about an alien species, and it makes sense to give them they/them pronouns. Which is easy enough to do but I hit upon one problem: X was 'close to Duez's growing ground.' What should I do with that possessive? (I have to use the name, and can't do 'their'.)

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

'Oh come on, I saw you with that woodpecker!' #Birdsky #BirdFeeder

A pic taken my bird feeder camera.

Two sparrows are near the feeder, their sides showing and their heads close together.
A few metres behind them is a hanging bird feeder. One of the woodpeckers is busily eating there, but he is visible in the background between the sparrows' heads.

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

One of the cartoons from Physics for Cats

Title: Soren Kierkegaard, 1843

Image: A three panel comic strip that shows Mr Kierkegaard saying
"Life can only be understood backwards" as he walks from right to left through the three frames (i.e. against the usual order in which these panels would be read)

A dog walks from left to right, saying: "But it must be lived forward"

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

A visit from the Health & Safety inspector is always somewhat fraught. The feeder passed the test though. Yay! (Sorry.)

The bird feeder camera captured a jay, who is standing to the left of the feeder but poking his head and neck within the camera's reach.

He looks suspicious and judgy. Still beautiful, though.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I still like this sentence: 'The potential time paradoxes were smoothed over with banking jargon.' (I think the first draft was 'The potential time paradoxes involved were smoothed over with financial jargon'.) #Editing #Booksky

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Listening to this is a spring ritual. It's in Dutch and the lyrics are great but absolutely untranslatable. You can do it but then you lose him. The refrain: 'So I am, thank God, worth yet another spring.' As someone living with cancer, I get that. He died of lung cancer not long after this.

youtube.com

Maarten van Roozendaal - Mooi (Live)

YouTube video by funky stuff

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Those days that you hate it when people start a chat, or text - because you're busy editing. Those days that you hate it when people don't start a chat, or text - because you're busy editing. #Editing #Booksky

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Reposted by Jan Thie

womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Mother and Child #2, 1971 wood carving by Elizabeth Catlett, artist and sculptor who often focused on the experience of fellow African American women #WomensArt

Wood sculpture of a simplified mother and infant with figure holding a baby close to her chest while holding her head

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I have four big freezer drawers for fruit, mostly from my garden, but I also freeze things like lemons, after I've used the peel. I had two big freezer bags with cut up lemon. So, I made lemon syrup. These will end up in one small freezer bag. #LemonSyrup

The syrup (more a jelly) in a small plastic tub (with its green lid half under the tub). It still weighed 610gr.
The syrup almost looks red. That must be all the herbs (mint and lemon thyme) reacting with the lemon & sugar, I guess.

There were two big bags with cut up lemons in the freezer, and they weighed close to a kilo. I added 350gr of sugar. Not a lot for syrup but I used all the flesh, so there was more pectin. I also let the lemon/sugar/herbs mix sit over low heat close to 50 minutes. 20 is normal for syrup.

Two ice-cube trays next to each other on a small oven tray.
The left, light green one is large for an ice-cube tray. 12 big sections. I filled that tray first.
The one on the right is black, with 35 small sections. I managed to fill half.

I will bag the syrup cubes tomorrow. I guess it will take up less than a fifth of the space the cut up lemons did.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Okay, that's just weird:

A Worldle grid.

My first word: all letters wrong.
Second word: only one letter right. The first letter, in the right place.
Third word: I guess the correct word.

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Reposted by Jan Thie

Steven E. Scribner @stevenericscribner.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

So I was noodling around on a piano the other day and came up with this little thing which is either weird or melodic or both. #Piano #MusicianSky sericscribner1.bandcamp.com/track/aftern...

sericscribner1.bandcamp.com

Afternoon, 5/5/2025, by S. Eric Scribner

from the album Granite: Piano Improvisations

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

I saw this Deborah Levy quote in a Dutch newspaper and couldn't find the original, so I translated it back: 'I think the point of reading, at any age, is that one life is not enough.' (Ik denk dat het punt van lezen, op welke leeftijd dan ook, is dat één leven niet genoeg is.) #Booksky #Quotes

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

A poem for the Dutchies here. The original is by JC Bloem, written in 1950. The title translates as 'The nightingales'. We don't have those here, so I rewrote it as 'The woodpeckers'. We have those. I will post a quick translation of both poems in the comments. #Poems #Bloem #Birds

The pic is 100% text, in Dutch:

Ik kwam net dit oude gedicht van J.C. Bloem tegen:

De nachtegalen

Ik heb van ‘t leven vrijwel niets verwacht,
't Geluk is nu eenmaal niet te achterhalen.
Wat geeft het? — In de koude voorjaarsnacht
Zingen de onsterfelijke nachtegalen.

We hebben hier (volgens mij) geen nachtegalen, dus maakte ik er dit van:

De spechten

Ik heb van't leven nooit echt iets verwacht,
Geluk is niet iets waar je voor kan vechten.
Wat geeft het? - Op een vroege voorjaarsdag
Hameren de hongerige spechten.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

A new Andre Nguyen recipe: Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango. It's mind-blowing good. #AndreaNguyen #StickyRice #Mango #Coconut

Sticky rice (cooked with water and coconut milk) on a green glass breakfast plate. A bit of lightly thickened coconut sauce has spread a little. Thinly sliced mango pieces cover the rice in a half-arse star points form.

Although my plating talents lack any talent, this still looks nice; which really is all about the colour contrasts of green plate, yellow/orange mango, and white rice.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Yea Gods, this one was mentioned in a Guardian 'As It Happened' football column I managed to endure three seconds of the singing. Still, I see no reason why I should suffer alone. #TheHorrorTheHorror #BadCovers #Nirvana #Hell

youtu.be

Paul Anka - Smells like teen spirit

YouTube video by ladyflowers2000

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Sometimes, I think I'm not at all bad at this writing thing. In the book I'm editing now an alien refugee smiles at one of the protagonists: 'It was a smile with a long history of not having much to smile about.' #Booksky #Editing

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Another footnote from the book-to-be: *It is hard to compare intelligent species, when it comes to technological progress, but there are a few basic rules. One of them is that you can only call a technology advanced if its fire extinguishers don't do more damage than the fire itself. #Booksky

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

I think this must have been the first time that I realised (during editing) that we should have been calling the dodo the donedone, for quite a few centuries now

John Tenniel's quite famous illustration of Alice (in Wonderland) meeting the dodo. Alice is wearing her usual Tenniel scowl. The dodo looks nonplussed. In the background a lot of animals look disapprovingly at A and the D almost shaking hands.

(My two cents: AiW is much less fun without Tenniel's illustrations. Avoid all imitations; even by Chris Riddell, who did what he could - which is a lot!)

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

I just saw this again on a friend's page, and whenever I read a comment by a member of this tribe I want to wave my arms hysterically, Kermit-style, and then just reread the column... ... since this tribe is wilfully incorrigible. They enjoy being performatively dumb & rude.

mcsweeneys.net

Did You Even Consider Every Possible Lived Experience Before Recklessly Posting Your Chili Recipe on Social Media?

Look, I get it. You thought what you posted was innocuous. Still, did you stop to think about everyone who has ever lived and how it could make the...

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

'My own personal overseer Someone ignoring my prayers Who doesn't care' #Catsky #JohnnyCash #Editing

More outdoor editing. I'm sitting half in the sun (out of shot.) The open laptop is sitting on my glass-top terrace table. Behind the laptop, on the right, is my anti-sun glare hat. To the left of the hat, my cat sits straight up, looking deeply unimpressed.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

'Me and you, and you and me No matter how they tossed the dice It had to be The only one for me is you And you for me So happy together' (Well, one out of two ain't bad.) #Birdsky #Birdfeeder #Turtles

The birdfeeder with inbuilt camera caught two sparrows in the same pic.

The one closest to the camera has a kind of happy Elmo vibe. The one in the back is channelling Statler and/or Waldorf.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

In homage to yet another series of books, I am littering my coming space opera with silly footnotes. This is one of them: #Booksky #Pratchett #SpaceOpera #Elvis

Text in screenshot:

*For instance, a certain Earth singer liked to proclaim that he was so lonely he could die. He was quite wrong. Thirty-trillion microbes lived inside his body. The bacteria on his skin outnumbered the cells in his body ten to one.
Whatever else this peanut butter and banana junkie was, lonely he was not.

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Reposted by Jan Thie

womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, 'Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art', 1997 collagraph print made in response to the 5th centennial of Christopher Columbus’s arrival to the Americas, extending the history of American art to include the earliest indigenous peoples. #WomensArt

Print with the outline of a vertical running rabbit against a background of lines and symbols

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Reposted by Jan Thie

Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

For those still on other social media too (or have sleeping accounts), this could be fun: #PissOffTrump #SpoilTrump'sBirthday #Obama

ON JUNE 14
(Trump's Bday)
The world is going to post Photos of OBAMA on all Social media platforms.
Pass it on.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

There is a laptop somewhere, under the editing hat and the editing cat. Dr. Seuss would be so proud. #Editing #Booksky #CatsOfBlueSky #HatsOfBluesky #TheCatInTheHat

I'm sitting outside, in the sun (if the clouds don't intervene.) The hat keeps the sunlight out of my eyes.

I'm invisible in this pic. I was having a break, with the hat on the closed laptop, and so the cat leapt on my left leg. Here he is still sitting straight up, only parting resting on the hat. One corner of the laptop peeps out from under same hat.

The cat is now partly lying on my left leg but mostly on the hat that lies on the laptop. It's a soft felt hat, so it will survive. Part of my left hand is also in the frame.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Paler & flatter than the ones baked by our teacher Jack, so more like proper ciabattas but the crust is crusty, the crumb is very good, and the bread and sun-dried tomatoes are a perfect vehicle for a fairly ripe camembert. I declare these sourdough slippers a success! #Breadsky #BakeWithJack

The three breads on the cooling rack, seen from above. They really look like regular ciabattas, with that typical 'slippers' form, snd they are ciabatta pale too.

The breads seen from aside: flat slippers.

A third of one bread, sliced over the long side.
The crumb is absolutely lovely: all the holes you can wish for in a ciabatta. The sun-dried tomatoes folded into the dough are still nicely juicy (though I dried the outside of the tomatoes with kitchen towels before adding them to the dough.) A really lovely bread, this.

Same two pieces of bread but now topped with four slices of Camembert. And yes, it did taste great.

Strangely enough, this was not supposed to be a ciabatta bread. It's a sourdough bread. So I fed my sourdough starter yesterday, and today I built up the dough over six hours, and then I baked it (when normally you bake a sourdough bread on the third day). Still, the dough should have become at least a bit more solid over those six hours but it didn't. I don't mind: I love ciabatta bread - but I don't understand why the dough behaved as it did.

Again, lovely bread, so I don't care, for now.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

For those still on other social media too (or have sleeping accounts), this could be fun: #PissOffTrump #SpoilTrump'sBirthday #Obama

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Huh. 1 For the first time ever I decided (during the third) edit to use a lot of footnotes for the comic space opera. Another tribute act, yes. Computer pages are fluid though. Insert something on page X and all the later pages also change. Same for footnotes. #Booksy #Editing

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

The last of the kitchen (and shed) reorganising. Mostly replacing all the old and unpractically shaped pots with rectangular ones. It really is a huge improvement. #Kitchensky #KitchenShelves

Pic of the two last small open kitchen cupboards that also needed to be reorganised.

In the left, three-shelf affair, I had all my rice and some dried beans and couscous and soy beans... and everything was either in round containers or low square plastic boxes.
The smaller one, on the right, held all my bottles, with various salad oils and vinegars, and Chinese & Japanese cooking wines, and vinegars and special oils (sesame, chilli & avocado).

Thanks to the much more efficient boxing, the lowest shelf of the bigger cupboard now holds seven bottles, which means the small cupboard on the right is not overcrowded anymore.

A real success this.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Short story 1 It all went nits up It was an easy birth. Space spread its legs and out popped a planet, while its co-Creator paced the Milky Way and smoked cigars, until His beard caught fire; which was the only thing of note that happened - and nothing of note kept happening for quite a while.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

This is the place where I go for monthly recipes. It's great. Now here's a great offer: "It’s your last chance to enjoy full access to the HomeBaker’s Club for just £1. Enjoy a month access for £1. Bake as much as you like." CODE: 50BREADS #Breadsky #BakeWithJack #HomeBaker'sClub

bakewithjack.co.uk

Online Bread Making Courses — Bake with Jack

The Homebaker's Club Already a Member? Enter Here

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

A friend of mine is part of Leather Hearse. He's a damn fine guitarist. Southern Lord Recordings: Leather Hearse's 'Burn in Heaven'. These guys started out with speed metal and are now in the dark & heavy stuff. It's a pay-what-you-want offer, including nothing-at-all. #LeatherHearse #Metal

Pic of text:

Times are hard...our music is HARDER!
Download the following albums for NOTHING or close to it!
As always you can pay more if you like and help support these amazing sounds!!
-Leather Hearse-"Burn in Heaven 1"
the debut (burnt) offerings from the Richmond VA metallic beast featuring members of Loincloth and Triptykon.! Pay whatever the hell you desire!
leatherhearsesl.bandcamp.com/album/burn-in-
heaven-i
-NAILS-UNSILENT DEATH
Pay whatever the hell you desire!
nailssl.bandcamp.com/album/unsilent-death-10th-anniversary-edition
**limited quantities of colored vinyl also available
-Brotherhood-Till Death
Pay whatever the hell you desire!
brotherhoodsl.bandcamp.com/album/till-death
**limited quantities of colored vinyl also available
sunn O))) Oracle
Available for $1//Pay More if you want sunn.bandcamp.com/album/oracle
**limited quantities of metallic silver vinyl also available
Earth- Hex; Or Printing In The Infernal Method Available for $1//Pay More if you want
earthsl.bandcamp.com/album/hex-or-printing-in-
the-infernal-method
**limited quantities of emerald green vinyl also available
thanks for your continued support!
+Southern Lordt

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

My parents had a 50+ years' tight friendship with another couple. Us kids grew up together. We were family. The last one standing, my 'aunt', will get euthanasia in a week; she's 98. So, yes, feelings. Here's a photo taken during my father's last days. He loved that dog so much! #Death #Dogs

My father, in bed, with his dog. He is lying on his side, his left arm on the pillow, mostly in front of his face.
The dog lies beside him (closer to the camera). My father's hand covers its body. The dog is where it wants to be. During the last weeks of my father's life it was almost constantly beside him.

Luckily, we could find a great place for the dog, after my father died. Its adopting/adopted family sent pics to my sister for quite a while. Which was really nice.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Sometimes he forgets about that whole 'aloof' business. #Catsky #Caturday

In bed, with cat.

It was pretty warm still, so I was reading on top of the sheet.

Only the lower part of my left leg is visible. The cat is lying with his head on my ankle, his front legs folded in front of him, his back paws touching my legs. The good old (black & white) prawn position.

The sheet is very wrinkled, the way sheets sometimes are in models' shoots. My leg is spoiling the effect somewhat.

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Jan Thie @janthie.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

I replied to a @talkscaredpod.bsky.social reply, about pubs and the right not to waste time on idiots. Which reminded me that, back in Holland, people often complained how hard it was to get people to talk to them. My advice: Take a book. The moment you open a book people won't stop yapping at you.

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