Year of 2025 - the end of

I know I've been out of sight for three weeks; in case you're wondering why: this Hive vacation was partly forced due to my VPN connection stopped working properly... and partly I was lazy, as simple as that. I just kept my nose and ears from outside freeze, sitting at home and staying warm. No traveling, no photos... although I still have a dozen visuals to share with you.

My first cup of coffee this year. (With a dried-out piece of last year's pie )))

The most of this long 2-week holidays I spent at home, immersing myself in reading. Occasionally I was hooked with some anime-esque teen reading... that's nothing to brag about. Perhaps I'll tell you more about this book someday. Actually it was a solid series of books, about 17,000 pages according to my e-reader. My eyes were tired from non-stop reading but I got through it in record time -- less than two weeks!

The stray kitty we've adopted last summer, is a non-stop spring of positive emotions and anxiety. For example, I now have a hard time staging photos without him poking his curious nose into it and ruining any composition. Also: early in the morning, he always acts as an extra alarm clock :)

Now, the fun part. I assume you are in the know, what the 'lucky cookies' are? This is a small pie, the filling of which is a strip of paper with a small fragment of text. This phrase, whether a promise or a philosophical maxim, is supposed to have divination powers and foretell what awaits you in the coming year. I've opened at least a dozen of these pie-shaped treats, and I can't say for sure whether the predictions I ate came true or not; but I can definitely say that this light, easy reading is a lot of fun. The phrases in these pie-shaped treats always sound resonant, vague, promising, and vague.

This is a small cookie, filled with a paper strip with small text fragment. A phrase, whether a promise or a philosophical maxim, is supposed to have divination powers and foretell what awaits you in the coming year. In my life I've explored a dozen of such cookies, and can't say for sure whether the predictions were true or not; but I can definitely say it was light, easy reading and a lot of fun. These phrases always sound resonant, promising, and vague. This time I got: 'You can handle any challenge!'

By the way, speaking of challenges... last year I strengthened my health consuming a little bit of dried fly agaric caps - and, as you can see (as I write these lines rn) obviously I'm still alive :))))

A few words about New Year gifts: this year I had a very small-wish list, and helped myself to fill it, at least partially.

I bought seven Radiohead promo photos at eBay; the most tricky part was... as my credit card doesn't work for overseas purchases since 2022, I had to find some middleman and add an extra zero to the price tag; delivery time also balooned a lot, but I was willing to wait even a year just to get my hands on this stuff).

Right before December 30, the mail brought in two envelopes with a bunch of stamps. I won several auctions with not-so-inexpensive stamps of "old Europe": Austria, Weimar, Romania, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, France...

Nothing super rare, but I'll definitely make a separate post to present the most interesting pieces from this scattering of old cut paper.

I took advantage of today's sunny lighting to take photos of said stamps; during the shoot, one persistent cat had to be chased away. Nevertheless: no cats were harmed during the whole shoot!!!