She wasn’t going to live for ever they should’ve had a plan for the sudden inevitable random bank holiday that was obviously going to happen when she went, contingencies are so incredibly important when lives are on the line

i keep thinking about the number of parrots and mimicking birds that say love you! as part of their vocabulary. how often they must hear that in order to learn it as a song.

when i was a child and learning how to train dogs, we were warned against using puppy too much around the dog - it might get confused and think the word puppy was a name. we were supposed to use mostly command words - keep it simple and clear.

but when my dog is in the middle of a nightmare, i say i love you to him, and he calms down. i say i love you! and he starts wiggling, delighted. when i first rescued him, i love you got no reaction. he understood i love you! before he understood what stairs are. the first thing i ever trained him to understand, maybe, before even his name: i love you.

my sister used to say i love you! and her cat would come running. he knew his name, too, but her voice saying i love you was enough.

there's some debate about how many words our pets understand. maybe they understand the tone more than the actual word. science almost always seems to be coming out with new exciting information about just how much animals can learn and understand language. it often more seems that the only true barrier is that we don't understand them when they answer back.

goblin doesn't know it yet, but for the last 3 days, i've been telling him about the new bed i bought him. i had to save for a while in order to afford it - but it's specifically for big dogs like him, and (supposedly) won't flatten out after 6 months. it was twice as expensive as my own mattress, and i'm way-too-excited to give it to him. i keep reading him the stats - it says it'll help any joint pain! and one more sleep until it comes! he wiggles in joy at the tone in my voice, this thing i know i'm not really communicating, but something he seems to understand-anyway.

as of 7:30 AM today, the new bed is on the way. goblin is asleep on my couch, happily snoring. the truck is two towns over. i keep refreshing the delivery updates.

something about telling these creatures in our lives i love you, even knowing they can't understand exactly. even knowing each word in that phrase holds a concept maybe-outside of real communication's possibilities - to understand "i/you", to understand love, to understand holding love and passing it through you into something else. knowing, really, we've probably trained them with this phrase comes petting. and then saying it, over and over and over through the little lonely hours of our day.

hoping, with repetition and action and practice: we'll find a way to tell them anyway.

Feeling some kind of way about a 125-year-old book being adapted so many times, the title character being so ingrained in public consciousness that he’s become a complete joke…

yet when reading the novel, we’re all horrified by Lucy’s mother’s well-intentioned actions. We were on the edge of our seats when Jonathan’s journal entries ended. We cried for Jonathan’s and Mina’s love for each other, the kindness of the Transylvania locals doing what they could to protect Jonathan, the captain who fought to bring his ship to shore when his entire crew disappeared around him, the townsfolk who honored him and wanted to adopt the stray dog found aboard…

I dunno, this hundred year old book that’s been in the public domain forever still draws us into the characters’ lives and makes us love them. I just think that’s neat

calling a stranger online bestie is the modern equivalent of going up to a stranger in an old tavern and calling them “my friend”

hail, bestie! what news of the northern realms hath you to deliver!

absolute vibes my esteemed friend!

Remember, if it's been at least 2 months since your last covid vaccine (whatever it was), and you are over 18, you qualify for the new covid bivalent booster. This booster specifically targets Omicron B.A.4 and B.A.5., which are the dominant strains in the US, and account for over 98% of new covid infections.

As of a couple days ago, this was authorized for emergency use in the US. Your local vaccination place should be getting these in stock within a week or two.

Covid is still a threat. Get vaccinated if you can.

Excellent info!

Here is an article in case people want to read more about that sort of thing.

Get your booster!

i'm a substance abusing pseudo intellectual but you will respect me

i have feelings for u. not telling u which ones.

I don't know who needs to hear this but you've probably got vegetables in your fridge that are starting to go a little off so you should probably plan on making a frittata or a pot of soup in the next couple days.

I don't know who needs to hear this but almost every bit of fresh produce you've got that might be about to go off can likely be safely frozen for use later if you want to keep it, and that the amount of waste generated by consumers is a tiny portion of food waste generally and you're not a bad or wasteful person if you forgot your veggies or you weren't feeling well enough to cook.

Most fruits and veggies have a bit of a texture change when you freeze them, but if you're not planning on eating them raw or in a salad that shouldn't be a huge deal. Onions and garlic lose a bit of flavor when they're frozen, but onion and garlic powder are cheap and can add that back in while still letting you get the texture and bulk of using the real vegetable.

The way I generally freeze fruit and vegetables is:

Fruits and vegetables that are really juicy (watermelon, tomatoes, cucumbers) often don't freeze well (or at least they don't thaw well), but can be juiced or pureed and stored for later use (though I'm not quite sure what you'd use cucumber puree for, honestly).

This is ALSO a good place to remember that frozen fruits and veggies are just as healthy for you as fresh produce, and that putting a handful of frozen blueberries in your yogurt or mixing some frozen broccoli in with your mac and cheese counts as getting a serving of fruits or veggies.

Friend, you peel those mangoes and slice them into long strips and freeze them and they are like popsicles. My friend's mom used to make those as a special snack to bring to girl scout meetings. You can even put popsicle sticks in them. Frozen mango *rules* and if you thaw it out later the texture is different but you can still use it for smoothies or to put in salsa or chutney or bake or do a bunch of other stuff.

[/ID: a screenshot of a comment on the post by labralite, that reads: 'EVEN MANGOES???? LIKE MANGOES YOU CAN FREEZE AND EAT LATER??? MANGOES??? PLEASE GOD LET THIS BE REAL' /END ID]

A reminder that bats are superior to swords for their inherent potential for inflicted pain

Nothing rivals a sword in homoeroticism, but for just raw pain, bone breaking, blocking, and parrying, bats reign supreme

it took me a full minute to realize that you weren’t advocating using a flying rodent to inflict pain

Rabies

“why would we make plans in front of you if you weren’t invited?” babe i was left out of everything growing up, i need 100% confirmation you want me there or i simply will not go

You want to know why Inigo Montoya remains such an iconic and beloved character even 35 years after the Princess Bride came out?

It's because he's one of the few characters in fiction who has a story where he has dedicated his life to revenge, his whole motivation is about getting revenge....and he gets it! and then he isn't empty or despairing! he doesn't regret it! he's totally satisfied!

because so many stories about revenge or rage are about characters "seeing the futility of their actions" or learning "their desire for revenge has only made them the monsters they hated" FUCK THAT.

Inigo Montoya kills the man who kills his father, is allowed to live in the narrative after and be happy about it and it is so satisfying. it's fantastic. it's iconic.

let more characters rage against the world, bring it down with bloodied hands, and let them be FUCKING RIGHT about it. Let them celebrate their success with sharp grins, and let them live happy, full lives where they always remain proud/fulfilled for what they've done

I think another important thing about Inigo is that he's not some dark, gritty character so consumed by his desire for revenge that he'll go to any lengths to get it. He's still a generally good guy. He has a good friendship with Fezzik, forms one very quickly with Westley, demonstrates honor toward his opponents, he's very likeable. He's a criminal, yeah, but only, in his own words, "to pay the bills." He doesn’t seem to like unnecessary violence, agreeing with Fezzik that they shouldn't kill Buttercup. His hatred is reserved only for the six fingered man, and he never lets it out on anyone else.

And he does briefly face a "consequence" of his revenge! He flat out admits that he now doesn't know what to do with the rest of his life. But because he's a good guy who didn’t let his quest get in the way of making friends, Westley offers him the mantle of Dread Pirate Roberts, giving him a new purpose in life. That brief moment of "now what?" is solved almost immediately, because he wasn't an "I work alone/you'd never understand my pain/I'll kill anyone who gets in my way" kind of jackass.

And I think that's great, we need more revenge driven characters who aren't total assholes!

🚨help please!!!🚨

My roommate and I are homeless, trans, and disabled. We are in a gentrified area taking care of family emergencies, we found a cheap Bnb thankfully, and now we need to stay in it till we find somewhere more long term.

This goal is to cover Bnb costs, food, and to get my roommate a drs appt as he has been sick. We need to rebook more days today.

$40/$700

Dm for proof pls

$creepiecrippl

V3nm0: @tab-99

This is getting a lot of notes but we still don't have enough to rebook!!!!

$55/$700

if you want to actually start to end homelessness, you need to give homeless people unconditional homes, including when we use them to do drugs or sit around drinking. either housing is unconditional or it isn’t

someone sitting at home alone, an active alcoholic, squandering your charity, drinking all day is better situation than a street homeless alcoholic. someone using drugs in your charity house is better than them doing the same w no shelter

most of you would not like most street homeless people, I definitely don’t and didn’t when I was street homeless. for every one person who uses unconditional shelter to turn themselves around, someone else will do jack shit and very slowly, if ever, work through the issues that made them homeless, will maybe never be able to live independently. still better than street homelessness, still worth doing. ultimately either you believe that shelter should be universal or you don’t

homeless people actually can’t be rehabilitated if you want to end homelessness. we either affirm the right to shelter for the worst drunken, lying, filthy, cheating, self destructive homeless people that exist, genuinely irredeemable wankers, or we concede that shelter is not a right

This post is the distilled essence of everything I believe in.

[Image Description: a white blobby human figure, crying. Next to it is a skull that is saying "you deserved to have someone there to protect you." This is on a red background with the caption "I'm allowed to be angry that they let me down". End I.D.]

I think now that queens dead they should have her stuffed and put on display in Cairo for the next 150 years.

BLAZE REJECTED MY POST WOW LOL

We'll make sure at least 100k people see it for free then.

Look, yes, Van Helsing needs to talk more about what he’s doing and why. He needs to tell people his suspicions so they can help in the right way.

But.

This one is not on him. He didn’t tell Mrs. Westenra that the flowers were important because she hadn’t seen them. She hadn’t seen them because she wasn’t there. Up until last night she has spent her time avoiding her daughter and ignoring her health issues. Why would Van Helsing suspect that she would go into her daughter’s room in the middle of the night and remove all the flowers so stealthily that she did not even wake Lucy while removing the flowers around her neck? The flowers that were so obviously there intentionally, and in a place she has thus far so carefully avoided. Was Van Helsing supposed to seek her out to tell her this? If she’d come when Lucy was awake, Lucy could have told her. He told Lucy they were medicinal, same as he told Mrs. Westenra.

Van Helsing’s flaw may be keeping information too tight to the chest, but Mrs. Westenra’s flaw is being completely unavailable in a book about closeness.

I deleted your city off my weather app

if i was harry from the british royal family i would just tweet "the queen died? thats too bad mines still alive though xoxo" with a picture of meghan markle and then turn my phone off