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shhhh…kitties

Yes, thefritz wins the dick! w00t! My apologies – I got in too late to set up a new Dead Pool. Which is okay; I like to give people a couple of days to prepare themselves. You know, for the rigors of a new Dead Pool. I’ll push it to next Friday and hope your favorite doesn’t croak in the next seven days.

Here, easily distractible friends, look at the kitties! Our local big cat charity has announced their snow leopard has had two kittens.

If you’re looking for something to do this afternoon, there are worse ways to spend it than watching snow leopard videos on Youtube. There isn’t much footage of them, but they are amazing. Those tails! That coat! The weirdly human faces!

The adults anyway. The cubs are just BIG, FLOOFY KITTENS. Good weekend, all!

June 28, 2019 — 8:21 pm
Comments: 11

notes

Specifically Tironian notes, a system of shorthand developed at the end of the Roman empire by Tiro, a slave to Cicero. The system was widely adopted and expanded by Medieval monks until it contained thousands of symbols.

By which time, I would have thought, the whole business was too cumbersome to be practical. You know, if you’re having to remember 10,000 word-symbols, you might as well learn Chinese.

This image came into my feed today, anyway, and I thought it was neat. My mother knew shorthand. The non-Tironian kind. Occasionally, she slipped into it and left me impenetrable notes.

June 27, 2019 — 9:10 pm
Comments: 10

Inspirational

Too long for a bumpersticker, too much thread for a cross-stitch. I tried to subscribe to this woman’s newsletter, but it asked me for money.

Imagine expecting to get paid for your work in [current year].

June 26, 2019 — 9:27 pm
Comments: 7

Out the kitchen door

There’s something surreal about watching a small group of chickens. I think it’s an evolutionary thing – they’re constantly swivelling their heads to look around. But there’s a rhythm to it: one looks up while one looks left, then this one looks left while the third one looks down. It’s like a poultry Bob Fosse dance routine.

Downright hypnotic.

That, incidentally, is out the kitchen door. Sooner or later, they all discover the kitchen.

June 25, 2019 — 9:02 pm
Comments: 6

I had to buy 100 of these for the office today

They are finger cots, colloquially known as fingerdoms. Basically, rubber glove fingers. Somebody from the British Museum recommended we use them to handle medals because cotton gloves pick up junk and leave bits, and whole hand rubber gloves get sweaty.

I go to Amazon for this. My boss is watching over my shoulder. My boss is very old and very reserved. Sure enough, at the bottom of the page, Amazon cheerfully informs me “people who bought those also bought…” the biggest, purplest sex toy you ever saw.

I’ve never closed a page so fast in my life.

June 24, 2019 — 8:51 pm
Comments: 8

Happy solstice!

My big boy, wishing you a happy longest day.

We’re considering putting the heat on tonight. Global warming has hit us especially hard this Summer, just as the BBC et al have declared a giant hand-flappy climate emergency. You know. For all the warming.

Their instincts are unerring.

We were going to sit out tonight and look for fairies, but it’s way too cold. Also, we got a txt from our tame fox-shooter: he’s decided to go hunting in our garden as soon as it’s fully dark. I reckon he has a night scope.

Good weekend, everyone!

June 21, 2019 — 8:12 pm
Comments: 7

Auntie!

I’m not generally a fan of women’s suffrage, but OMG — LOOK AT HER NAME! It’s Patsy the Mink!

Okay, it’s really Patsy Takemoto Mink, but still. How awesome is that? How come I never heard of her?

She served 12 terms! She made a grab for a presidential nom! She’s a mustelid!

Okay, it looks like she was a dreadful lefty (because of course she was), but I would totally vote for her just on account of that wonderful moniker. I am just that reasoned thoughtful. I know a woman who chose a candidate based on his shoes, so I’m not that far out of the mainstream.

See what I mean about women’s suffrage?

The Smithsonian was blathering on Twitter about the vote, which is where I found this. I’m safe re-posted political posters, right?

June 20, 2019 — 9:20 pm
Comments: 4

Lightning strike! Lightning strike!

We’ve been without internet most of the day. We had a hellatious lightning storm last night. Those two things may or may not be related.

The storm was over before dawn and the internet went down mid-morning, but it’s hard not to think they’re related.

 

Without internet.

Most of the day.

I don’t ever, ever, ever want to go through that again.

I read a book.

 

June 19, 2019 — 9:20 pm
Comments: 12

Somebody order a bucket of chicken?

He’s fine. He wanted a dust bath and Uncle B had planted up the raised beds.

He. Yes. I tried the egg experiment last year, too, with tragic results. My flock already includes an excess of adult roosters, because I’m a slop-bag.

June 18, 2019 — 8:50 pm
Comments: 3

Two hours old

Get an incubator, they said. Don’t worry, they said, not all of the eggs will hatch. Buy plenty!

Got an incubator. Got 100% hatch. Up to my bits in chicklets. They’re a couple of weeks old now. Where am I going to put them all?

Sorry, I’d hoped to get the whole blog thing resolved by posting time today, but honest-to-dog you’ve never seen so much poop in your life.

June 17, 2019 — 8:51 pm
Comments: 17