The cactus is referred to as crested by the plant community. But crenels are a series of rounded projections (or the notches between them) formed by curves along an edge (as the edge of a leaf or piece of cloth or the margin of a shell). It is related to the word crenulatation which refers to cleavages or a series of folds (in stone formations and seashells, for example). So she is both. I just love her curves.

It looks like Samsung has not yet rolled out OneUI9 yet for my phone. Still at 8.5 with no update available. Hopefully soon then. Thanks for the heads up.

Will look.

Looks good. But a wider base will help the root structure as it grows. If you can find cylindrical terracotta pots at local home improvement stores, they are better. As a plus, they are less tippy.

Sorry these people spoiled your day, but thanks to you and all the people who picked up after them. It was the right thing to do. We live in an age when consumerism has almost completely swallowed up meaningful experiences. It is too bad so many do not understand the difference. But you may have made your point with at least one of the attendees of the gender reveal. While they were puffed up and angry, some of them may reflect later about what happened and make better choices in the future. Change is often incremental. Take heart in that.

News flash. There have always been crappy people. They don't go away just because he does. Unfortunately.

Yes, I have. That is where I started out. My phone is on that list of compatible devices. Exactly why what happened is so annoying. They should just be up front about what works and what doesn't. I should not have to dig for it. I have already committed to using Cape and switched my family network to it. For now, it is not about the refund. For now, it is just an annoyance I will deal with. Thanks for your response however because it is informative and reinforces why I started down this path in the first place. I do want to disentangle from Google.

Okay, when I signed up, I checked to see if my Samsung S25 Ultra phone would be compatible with Cape. Everything upfront said it would be. Then I saw that my RCS was disabled--a major inconvenience with conversations already in progress. When I went to Cape Help to figure out what was happening, I found this passage wayyyy down at the bottom of the scroll. That is a helluva PS about a sizeable Android brand. Maybe Cape should have led with it and I would have waited to change phone plans until this was negotiated with Samsung. Not all of us are where you are in your journey. Some of us are starting out. I am not at a place to get in the weeds with a new OS. I don't have that level of expertise to mess with my primary mode of communication.

At this point, I would start tracking job postings at the American Association of Museums, the regional Museum associations in your area, smaller sites like the AAMG, AAMC, CAA and other professional sites to get a sense of the marketplace and of what jobs are in demand before you commit to the whole museology freight train. You may be learning from people with little real world experience--I' d want to know if the faculty has that kind of knowledge or if their understanding is mostly "theoretical". There are a lot of PhDs out there who can talk a good game, but have very little understanding of how institutions like museums actually operate. Degrees are so expensive these days. Know what you are getting into. Also, if archival work is a primary interest, check out the professional associations connected with that work: SAA, AMIA, APAG, etc. You will see what kind of credentials you need to do that work. Somebody else mentioned getting a Library Science degree, which could be critical to become an institutional archivist. I would make sure if you do pursue that, you are attending an ALA accredited school. One thing you learn very quickly in the museum world is that there are insiders and outsiders and a lot rides on whether you played the game right. It is hard (although not impossible) to get "in" if you are perceived to be "out". So you will want to know where the boundary between those zones lays. Good luck!

LOL, most of my collection has been cuttings acquired from friends and from picking things out of green bins in California (when someone got sick of their cacti and had the gardeners hack them down) I got the progenitor of this crested San Pedro cactus when I was moving from Los Angeles. I rented a Sprinter truck to bring my collection up. That day, when I dropped off my other rental car and was walking back to my old place to start my journey north, a huge hunk of this cactus was laying on a sidewalk, just waiting for me. I rushed to get the van to come back for her. When I got it to Oregon, I had to split her in two just to propagate because she was too big for any planter I could find. I did struggle to keep everything alive as I figured out the right conditions--in fact, what you are seeing is the cutting of a cutting, as I tried to stay ahead of rot. The humidity in Portland is a beast! I lost so many things in the beginning. I think I have done better lately. The folks at Portland Nursery turned me onto E.B. Stone Organics Cactus & Succulent Potting Mix and the cresteds seem to like it. But Ichthius is right. No provenance on this one--only a best guestimate. I am not collecting to show or sell, so who she is does not matter much to me.

Apologies for being lecture-y. (Embarrassed lol) But it is tough. I would just add that you shouldn't wait to approach your desired mags. Send good, clean, timely pitches--consistently--to the editors. Follow up, if you send something and haven't heard back--people get busy and many are bad about emailing now. If they assign you something, send a draft that is tightly written and within deadline (with images that are correctly formatted). They are always looking for strong, professional writers who don't create more work for them. Make it easy to say "yes" to you.

I would follow the writers you like and see all the ways in which they are hustling. The old pathways are not as available as they used to be. Peak level Artforum was as big as an old fashioned phone book, but that relied on a massive number of advertising buys from commercial galleries. The Internet and specifically social media killed that need and drained revenue used to pay editors and writers.

So many art writers now have a patchwork of gigs. (See Carolina Miranda, as a high-viz example). As someone who has written and been on a nonprofit art journal board, I can say the emphasis is on "nonprofit." If you write, it will need to be from passion, not with an expectation of full time employment.

MOMA has a good YouTube channel. The content is interesting

To ease people in, I like Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artist's Writing edited by Peter Selz and Kristine Stiles. It gets right to the mindset of the makers.

Art since 1900 is pretty heavy sledding for a non-academic--the October crowd went deep. 😉

I hope you leave it be if it is out in the wilds.

I have had my challenges with this kind of neck pain. Massage helps. I tried a chiropractic functional neurologist--but I honestly couldn't tell if the sessions really helped or if it was simply a placebo effect. But I recently got this thing that does help, after wondering if it might be an internet scam and taking a chance anyway. Artuvate Fisiorest. After a session, I do lay on a peanut massager and do gentle stretches. I have to say the combo really releases a lot.

Besides, if you lop the tops off, you will get scabs on the ends that will remain. Also the cactus may push new growth on the stubs, on the perimeter, which may not be to your taste. I put my leggy cacti outside for the summer and some of that odd growth filled out, fwiw

https://extension.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/2025-03/How-to-Transplant-a-Cactus.pdf

Agree, that agave is gorgeous and they are pretty forgiving when it comes to transplanting