L. Wednesday

@lizzywednesday.bsky.social

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Jersey girl. Amateur linguist. Student of history. Sci-curious. Reader of books. Former theatre kid. Insufferable pedant. Mediocre karaoke singer. Radio belter. Order Muppet. Mom. Newly-minted paralegal. 3rd-gen Girl Scout Leader. Still marching. (She/Her)

Text from Rutgers Football's FB page: "The Scarlet Knight wasn't always the face of Rutgers. When the University was known as Queen's College, teams wrre referred to as "Queensnen." Starting in 1925, you could find a chanticleer on the sidelines of football games, officially seeving as the school mascot." Photo, in black-and-white, depicting a large, felt rooster-like anthropomorphic bird on the left, accompanied by a young, clean-cut, dark-haired, smiling, besuited white man on the right.
Text reads: In the country of Philadelphia, it’s actually an insult not to be booed. Some people have no respect for different cultures.
An illuminated photo panel depicting Flyers' Mascot Gritty, at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, ON. CHAOS RULES!!
A tall glass of cloudy lemonade, with a lemon wedge & sugared rim. It is perfect for a summer day.
Ray is disgustedly informing Peter he never studied. Dr. Peter Venkman is a creep and a poser, but he's quick with a snappy comeback so audiences love him. (But I still don't get why a certain NY Phil cellist gave him the time of day in the first place.)
From the Norton & Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art at the Zimmerli, this piece depicts the word Molotov behind a muscled arm holding a green glass Coca-Cola bottle with a lit fuse.
[Screenshot of text convo; my (LW) comments are in blue bubbles; my teenager's (G) are gray.] LW: Hey kiddo, are you reading Romeo and Juliet in English? G: Yeah LW: You got any questions? (Also, I suggest we do a movie nite with Baz Luhrman's take on the story from 1995.) G: No
Dr. Ray Stantz, while explaining the architectural anomalies of Dana Barrett's building (dubbed "Spook Central"), turns to Dr. Peter Venkman in utter disgust (after Pete's "they don't make 'em like they used to" comment) responding, "you never studied." It is, bar none, my most-quoted Ghostbusters line.
A paper doll, representing the Silent Sentinels protestors, dressed in a dark hat, jacket, & skirt, wearing a gold, white, and violet sash with "VOTES FOR WOMEN" written on it. Next to her, a yellow banner reads "MR. PRESIDENT HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?" (Doll worksheet courtesy THEEEE Cheyney McKnight, aka "Not Your Momma's History" and an online program she ran during spring 2020 on historical dress for The New York Historical.)
Closeup of Sir Patrick Stewart as Sejanus in the BBC's 1977 miniseries adaptation of Robert Graves's novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Man was wearing s wig & stiff AF leather costume armor, playing an antagonist (the dramatization of whom telegraphs at every turn that this man was a traitor) but he could totally get it.
A larger-than-life, bipedal anthropomorphic squirrel draped in a green cape wears a crown of acorns while holding a very large acorn in its paws. It is one of the sculptures in _The Animal That Therefore I Am_ by Jeffrey Gibson.
Two loaves of home-baked soda bread sit on a baking sheet lined with white parchment paper. This is my teenager's favorite part of St Patrick's Day celebrations, and, yes, she helped me throw one together after homework.
A colored version of the original Pauline Baynes illustration of Mr. Tumnus's parlor. It has a roaring fire in the fireplace, paintings hung on the walls, a pair of mismatched arm chairs arranged facing each other in front of the hearth, a door leading to either the pantry or the kitchen, a bookshelf, and china hutch. Last, a tea table set for two, laden with cakes & cookies. This is what cozy has looked like since I was 6.
A painting resembling an ad poster with a diagonal red stripe at the upper left, a black-and-white print of a man's head & shoulders, the word "Molotov" in black text against a white background. At the lower-right, a muscled arm & shoulder in a blue work shirt w/sleeve rolled above the elbow, ends in a hand holding a Coke bottle filled with liquid, from the opening of which a lit fuse can be seen in an s-curve. Piece is one of the works in the Norton & Nancy Dodge Collection of Russian Nonconformist Art at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus. (You should go see it if you can.)
This is Pepper. He is a miniature snow leopard stuffie, purchased from the Cape May Zoo. Then-smol child took him EVERYFUCKINGWHERE. Usually reasonable about leaving him in the car; was not reasonable that day. Lost at the Freehold Mall in 2015, bc then-smol child REFUSED to leave him in the fucking car while also refusing to get out. It was hot, I was tired, and we still had 8 million things to do. Trip was only supposed to take 30 minutes; lost stuffie & crying child meant it took exponentially longer. Still pissed I didn't confiscate it, but, again, tired & frustrated with child refusing to get out of the fucking car in a hot, crowded parking lot and I'm only one person.
A snow-covered tree, in front of a snow-covered wooden fence, in a snow-covered yard. Backyard, New Jersey (USA), 23rd February 2026
My vintage mass-market paperback copy of The Queen of the DAMNED ... black cover, white & red title text. I've owned this book for going on 34 years ...
Text reading: "The UEFA Champions League Anthem, officially titled as simply the "Champions League", is the official anthem of the UEFA Champions League, written by English composer Tony Britten in 1992, and based on George Frideric Handel's Zadok the Priest.[1]" The last clause is highlighted, for choral music nerd reasons.
No, I do not want to drink this. It's purported to be sangria, but tastes like Manischewitz and disappointment. (Bad Matty.)
About 2 dozen freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, ostensibly for Santa. Nothing but THE best cookies for Santa at our house, y'know?
Two-and-a-half dozen (30-ish) freshly-baked double chocolate chip cookies, laid out on two aluminum cooling racks atop a tan marble countertop. We will bake plain chocoloate chip cookies tomorrow.
An artificial Xmas tree, lit with multicolored lights, hung with some of our family's favorite ornaments. There are Star Wars and Doctor Who ornaments as well as souvenirs from family vacations. And so many birbs, including a clip-in peacock and many MANY owls.
An unlit Xmas tree, slightly listing to the right, in front of a white-painted mantel & dark stone fireplace. The listing happens if the tree goes up without an assist from the other Household Adult.
A cover of Bridge to Terabithia, which is a Katherine Paterson novel about two outcast kids who're besties. They invent this imaginary world, Terabithia, but set it in the woods near their homes. To get there, they swing across a ravine on a rope swing. Don't tell me Artax sinking in the Swamp of Sadness (but when Fantasia re-sets at the end of the movie, HE IS FUCKING FINE) is *worse* than going on a trip to the museum & losing your only friend bc they went to play in your spot but the branch the swing was suspended from snapped and she fell.
Jon Proudstar - Canasetego, Chainbreaker, Old Smoke, Shawnee Delegate Matthew Rhys - Thomas Paine (and Edinburgh Amusement) Liev Schreiber - Nathanael Greene, Samuel Adams, and Lewis Beebe Chaske Spencer - Dragging Canoe, Shingas Dan Stevens - William Howe, Rochambeau Meryl Streep - Mercy Otis Warren Yul Vazquez - Henry Knox, José de Gálvez
Charlotte Hacke - Friederike Riedesel, Hannah Davis, Lucy Knox, Martha Reed Tom Hanks - Andrew Eliot, Josiah Bartlett, Isaac Bangs, David Griffith, Thomas Jones, Ezra Tilden, Albigence Waldo, Ebenezer Denny Ethan Hawke - Anthony Wayne, John Andrews Maya Hawke - Betsy Ambler Lucas Hedges - Ebenezer Fletcher, John Laurens, Garrett Watts Josh Hutcherson - James Potter Collins, (and Thomas Mellen, Jabez Campfield, and Unidentified)
If Ken Burns docs are your superbowl, then let's meet the players! The voices that brought The American Revolution to life include: Adam Arkin - James Parker, Ashbel Green, Andrew Hunter, Samuel Shaw, Enoch Anderson, Timothy Dwight, Robert Morris Tony Beck - Ludwig von Closen Leon Dische Becker - Johann Friedrich von Bardeleben, Johann Conrad Doehla Jeremiah Bitsui - Twethorechte, Stockbridge Petitioners Corbin Bleu - John Joseph Henry, Daniel McCurtin, Nathaniel Bacheller, Isaac Jefferson
A navy-blue full-zip bear-ears hoodie emblazoned with the Philadelphia Union crest. It's for sale in the team's online shop, but it made me laugh for suppprters' group tailgate reasons.
A post from Threads reading: " I hate gay halloween, what do you mean you're going as Five Miso Soup Four Seaweed Salad Three Soy Burger Dinner Two Tofu Dog Platter and One Pasta with Meatless Balls?"
Donald Sutherland, as Watcher Merrick in 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer film.
A small light tan and brown rat snake is in a black-and-white oven mitt. The snake's mouth is open and its head is pointed at the camera. My niece found it in the kitchen.
NJ Turnpike billboard for Cure Auto Insurance, located an exit or two south of MetLife Stadium, featuring Saquon Barkley. Go Birds.
I told my teen that "Broadway Boogie Woogie" had been hung upside-down. I was wrong; the upside-down piece is "New York City I" but it was funny seeing her bend to view "Boogie Woogie" upside-down at MoMA in 2023. The photo shows a yellow, blue, and red abstract painting by Piet Mondrian hanging on a white gallery wall in the background while a blond teenage girl wearing a red t-shirt is bent over to see the piece upside-down.
The cover art from CM Nascosta's Morning Glory Milking Farm, subtitled "a Monster Bait Romance" It features a Pre-Raphaelite style painting of a very muscular ginger-tufted minotaur posing with a swooning, dark-haired white woman wearing an orange and green drapey dress showing a lot of cleavage. Her lower body, and her hands shown pouring a milky fluid out of a large vase-like container, is partially hidden by the book title. If one is interested in the "Monster Romance" subgenre, this book is a good place to start, especially if you follow it up with the other Cambric Creek interconnected stories.
A white billboard with a bust photo of Philadelphia Eagles player Saquon Barkley, a Black man with close-cropped hair & well-groomed beard, wearing a green shirt, at the left-hand side. The text on the billboard reads "Saquon says ... 'Record breaking savings are here!'" followed by the blue ball logo for Cure Auto Insurance. The tagged poster & I disagree as to whether or not this is trolling, bc Saquon was traded from the NY Giants. Who knows?!?
A left-facing profile of the Mike Judge cartoon character Butt-Head (a white male character with a brown bouffant-like hairdo, beady eyes, a long nose with prominent nostrils, serious underbite, metal tooth braces, and prominent gums) shown against a bubblegum pink oval with the character name "BUTT-HEAD" in red uppercase bubble letters inside a jagged yellow caption balloon. Settle down, Hegseth.
A dark blue ceramic bowl filled with pale egg noodles and chicken thigh & chickpeas in an orange-red sauce. It's my riff on my mother's recipe for chicken paprikash, which suited the cool, wet weather and "operation clear out the freezer."
A green pixellated rendering of mountains, an ox-drawn covered wagon, and a winding river with a rectangular text-box at the bottom of the screen which reads "You have died of dysentery" This is a screenshot/reconstruction of one of the many causes of death in the early "educational" computer game The Oregon Trail, inspired by the actual westward expansion of the mid-19th century USA. Beloved by many, the game turned 50 in 2024.
An Xkcd strip; 3 panels left-to-right: 1st panel: A stick figure, wearing a hat, entering panel from left. A speech string reads "New headcannon:" 2nd panel: another stick figure, seated in a rolling chair at a desk with a computer monitor. A speech stting reads " Yeah?" 3rd panel: the hat-wearing stick figure from panel 1 tips their hat to reveal ... a cannon on their head, which has fired some sort of projectile at the stick figure seated at the desk. Puffs of smoke and explosion lines surround the figure saying "AUGH!" as they are blasted back from the now-broken desk. Above the action the cartoonist has written an onomotopoeic allcaps "BOOM!"
An iMessage exchange btwn me & my brother J: "Gonna bribe a Son of Adam with these" Me (blue text bubble): Did somebody give you Turkish Delight? J: responds with photo of 4 boxes of Turkish Delight candy; top is red/pomegranate flavor; next is green/pistachio flavor; then blue/rose flavor; and orange/hazelnut on the bottom. Stack is on a gray surface on top of an aqua blue sticky note, with yellow sticky notes to the left & right.
White text on dark blue background (which is an actual t-shirt I own) reading "That's what I do; I read books and know things."
A petite brunette woman wearing a pink headband, pink sweater, and green skirt holds up a yellow, green, and blue copy of Stay Curious and Keep Exploring: Next Level by Emily Calandrelli. She has her other arm around the waist of a tall, blonde teenage girl, wearing square eyeglasses, a green hoodie, and brown leather purse. Emily is the greatest and we love her.
A Medieval French prayer book; tempera & ink. (Photo my own, April 2025, The Met Cloisters.) Note the blue pigment ... even if small devotionals weren't expensive at the time, you'd be able to tell this particular object belonged to someone wealthy bc of the blue. I love how vivid it is, some 500, 600 years after the work was done. It's amazing how art endures.
"Molotov Cocktail", Kosalopov (1989) from the Norton & Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers U. A large canvas with red diagonal swatches, featuring a black ink portrait & the word "Molotov" in black on a white background. In the lower right-hand corner, a blue coverall-clad arm reminiscent of the We Can Do It Westinghouse ad holds a green glass Coke bottle filled with dark brown liquid; the bottle has a lit fuse coming out of the top. Art is political. Nonconformist art matters.
A battered mass-market paperback of Michael Crichton's 1990 novel, Jurassic Park, featuring the original cover art - the silhouette of a T.rex skeleton, mounted in an archaic upright position rather than the revised horizontal position of the 21st century, on a white background The silhouette wraps around the spine of the book, finishing with the hipbones & tail vertebrae on the back cover. Above the title (embossed, metallic royal blue, text ALLCAPS) is metallic gold ALLCAPS text trumpeting "3 months on the New York Times Bestseller List." Yes, this is an actual 2025 photo of my personal copy; I've had it since Christmas of 1991. It's being held together with packing tape and vibes.
Margate NJ: Lucy the Elephant's rear end; there's a window in her bum, which the tour guides will tell you is her "pane in the butt" ... there is a door in her right rear foot; thus is how you exit her belly. (I took this photo myself in July 2023.)
Robot dog companion to the 4th Doctor, K-9 stands next to the TARDIS. K-9 has a trapezoid-shaped body with "K-9" written in the middle. His tail resembles a thin TV antenna. His boxy, almost cartoonish head has tiny satellite dishes for ears and a red LED display for eyes. K-9 wears a red-and-tan tartan collar around his neck. If asked if he's a good boy, he will certainly answer "affirmative." (He is my favorite nonhumanoid Doctor Who character.)
A simplified cassoulet from a recipe in Chop Chop Family Magazine bubbles in a red enameled Dutch Oven on a black cast-iron stovetop.
Twelve seconds of sharks swimming around their tank, tsken from inside tthe Shark Tunnel observation area. Cool AF. I am fascinated by sharks; they're amazing animals with a really bad, completely undeserved, reputation.
A photograph of a tank of Pacific Sea Nettle (Chrysoara fuscescens) jellyfish. I like to watch them swim, because my internal monologue fills in a Pop-Up Video "bloop" sound watching them drift, expand, and contract. Coelenterata, y'all.
Segment of my family tree listing names: Ferdinand Frank Victir 3 x Twins Andrew • John (my great-grandfather) Mary? I am HAUNTED by that "3 x Twins" line.
This is the "taco meme" which illustrates the difference between a weather "watch" and a weather "warning." On the left-hand side, the image is titled "TACO WATCH" with the subtitle "GET READY: Everything you need for tacos is on the table." Under the text, an illustration shows (clockwise from left) taco shells, an avocado, bowl of browned meat, a head of lettuce, a tomato, a lime, a ramekin of taco sayce, and a pile of shredded cheese. On the right-hand side, the image is titled "TACO WARNING" with the subtitle "GET TO YOUR SEAT: Tacos have arrived." Under the text is an illustration of a crunchy taco filled with meat, shredded lettuce, and diced tomatoes (or possibly pico de gallo.) Anyway, the difference btwn a watch & warning is whether the weather in question has arrived in your area. I'd rather have tacos.
A book cover, with "author of The Roommate Rosie Dannan" in pink text on an angle across the upper left-hand corner of a gray-green background that suggests stone walls. Moving right, a dark gray, wheel-shaped chandelier with a semi-melted, squat ivory pillar candle hangs over a centered, mullioned West-facing tryptich window, out of which a sunset, in shades of orange and yellow, can be seen. Two figures, a midsize blonde woman with a generous bust, dressed in an open black-and-white Buffalo-check flannel button down with the cuffs unbuttoned & turned up, white t-shirt, and dark jeans, with an annoyed-but-determined expression on her face glares at a dark-haired man wearing an oatmeal-gray Henley abs dark jeans, with an equally-annoyed expression on his stubbled face glares back at the blonde. Angled over the window, the title of the book, DO YOUR WORST, appears in boldface text.
A black-and-white animated GIF showing the ensemble of a cast of a stage production of Les Miserables in marching formation with Gavroche wavibg a small flag while a larger flag, mostly obscured by smoke, waves in the bachground. The GIF is captioned with the lyrics closing lyrics to "One Day More": "One more dawn, one more day, one day more" (I use Les Mis to advertise that it's "one day more" until GS Cookies go on sale in my area & and I can post my kid's sales links then.)
A closeup of a cluster of vivid yellow ginko leaves on a sunny autumn Sunday, 2024.
A pink book cover with the book's title, THE ROOMMATE, written in pink, glowy cursive that reminds me of neon signs. It depicts a masc figure with light brown hair and white skin, dressed in a black t-shirt, open turquoise button-down, mustard yellow jeans, and blue sneakers, sprawled at the left-hand side of a green midcentury look sofa. At the right-hand side of the sofa, a femme figure with long light brown hair, wearing a mustard yellow sweater, dark-wash skinny jeans, and white socks, sits with her legs tucked up to the right side while she reads a book. The author's name (Rosie Dannan) appears in green, boldface sans serif font at the bottom of the cover image.
An image of a blue book cover depicting from upper left: a brown-skinned femme figure with black hair, wearing a yellow short-sleeved dress, sitting sidesaddle on a broom floating above a white-and-purple house centered at the top of a dark blue hill. There is a yellow hatchback car parked on a darker blue, twisty driveway that leads up the hill to the house. At the lower right of the image, there is a masc figure with light skin & reddish-brown hair who is wearing a yellow shirt and blue jeans. He holds a stack of books against his right hip, and gazes up at the femme figure at the upper left. The title of the book is THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES by Sangu Mandanna.
A sloppy paper-doll inspired by the Silent Sentinels of 1917-'19 demanding that President Wilson consider extending the vote to women, as part of the final push to pass the 19th Amendment. The author of the article I linked in my skeet uses the slogan the Sentinels used on their banners - "Mr President! How long must women wait for Liberty?" - as the thesis for her defense & demand that the Equal Rights Amendment be published as the 28th Amendment.
A large python in an enclosure tank raises its head. The python is a varigated brown to yellow-cream color with dark brown markings.
A photo of an alligator swimming in a pond. I zoomed in, safely standing many feet away on shore; leave the ancient murderlizards alone and you live. Like bears, but less fuzzy.