Today’s North American river otters were spied among the ice on the Charles River in Needham, Massachusetts. Boston.com continues:
The Charles River Watershed Association hailed the documented presence of otters so close to Boston as a mark of important progress. “It is a sign of the health of the river,” said Rebecca Scibek Wickham, outreach coordinator for the local environmental group. “From our perspective, this shows that the river is becoming cleaner, and it is able to support more wildlife.” [...]
Otters dine on fish, frogs, and other aquatic life and are near the top of the food chain, which makes them vulnerable to concentrations of harmful chemicals. Pollution also tends to kill off their food supply.
Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart desires. Is there anything great happening in your life? Anything you want to get off your chest? Reading a great book? Anything in the news that you’d like to discuss? Commiserations, felicitations, temptations, contemplations, speculations?
I have had one hell of a week. :( It started with Family Stuff, got worse when my partner and I got an eviction notice (because the landlord wants to move family into our place) telling us we have to move within the next two months, RIGHT WHEN I CAN’T AFFORD TO HAVE MY THESIS WORK DISRUPTED, and was topped off with the general feeling that I’m coming down with something Nasty, even though it hasn’t hit me with full force yet, mostly because I’m staving it off with asprin. The overall result of this is that I haven’t done any work on my thesis at all this week, and I’ve spent the last few days teetering on the brink of a major panic attack.
I just want to go away and hide now, except that I have to go house hunting. :/
Hugs, Beppie, and a cup of nice soothing chamomile tea. Thesis-finishing-time is awful, and horrendous, and ghastly, without complications of family and househunting. Good luck with that – may you find the perfect house within 20 minutes of setting out to look.
As for me, I had some rape apologists turn up on an old thread of mine. Complete with abusive comments. Nice.
Thanks, Deborah. Hopefully we’ll get the move sorted out as quickly as possible, so I can get back into it.
And, so sorry to hear about the rape apologists — that sounds so stressful and upsetting. :(
Deborah, that’s really awful. I went over there to leave an angry comment (what a pack of turds, really!) but then I tried to log out so I could not have a shitfight over at my blog (just got rid of one troll) and it totally wiped the comment!! :(
Hugs to you Beppie, good luck for the house hunting. I hope you find something really awesome and quickly!!
Good luck Beppie *hugs* if you want them.
I had to deal with real life rape apologists at school yesterday. I’ve known one of them since he was eleven. Needless to say, I was written off as the crazy feminist who doesn’t realise everything is equal now (after all, who cares about those sluts who die from unsafe, illegal abortion? “So?” was the response to 68,000 women dying a year). And just to add to the pounding headache of frustration: two of my awesome female friends are dating the apologists.
Thanks FP and Hellon — all feminist hugs are gratefully accepted. :)
And, ugh, face-to-face rape apology is even harder to deal with. “There is no excuse for rape” should not be a difficult concept, and yet… Hope your friends are okay, Hellon.
Poor you, Beppie! [hugs] I went through a pretty similar thing, in the last year of my PhD. Which is to say, tis a bitch, can be done.
And sympathies and strength to all of you dealing with rape apologists, live and virtual. Poisonous…!
Thanks, fp. I’m going to put up a comment in reply to the rape apologists later on today; I’m not going to let them have the last word. And I’m angry rather than upset. Fortunately, two of my regular readers and commenters, both male, left comments in reply. I found it disconcerting to realise that what I had written was being discussed elsewhere, and in very hostile fashion. But teaspoons, you know, teaspoons. Gotta keep on saying these things.
I’m much more upset over the link that tigtog posted in the femmostroppo reader, to Caro’s post at The Curvature on rape culture. NB not over the link, but over the back story, which I pieced together from comments, and tigtog’s comment on the femmostroppo round-up thread. Oi vey….
Yeah, I was furious upon reading them. Such deliberate misreadings of your words and thoughts. Grr!! I haven’t clicked through to that link. I’m having a bad day. Forgetful Mini FP lost a fifty dollar note, and then I called to ask him to have his room clean by the time I got home. In the meantime my mother and aunt are in the area having travelled 90 minutes for Fair Trade Choc and are currently ten minutes away from my house but apparently with no intention to visit. Though I’m sure the fact that I’ve not slept over since Christmas has been noted and is the source of grudge-holding – oh yeah, I don’t drive and they have a car. Hmm…and of course I got home and mini FP has NOT cleaned the room. Bugger you all (family that is, not you people) I’ll go for a swim and forget it all for a while.
Best to Beppie and to everyone. Makes my sinus headache and laziness of a Friday look subdued.
Which I originally typed as ‘subdude’.
Posting from my phone. *hugs* to all who need one. Had to share that I have spent at least one small part of Otterday watching the otters at Dubbo zoo.
Urgle, Beppie, I would probably burst into tears and be incapable for another week if that happened to me right now. My thesisis due on April 7 and I am so near a meltdown that… I’m up at almost 4 a.m. here in Canada-land, too tired to write but not tired enough to actually sleep.
I can’t cope with rape apologists this week. :( I’m sorry, and commend those of you who are brave enough to. Our local Public Interest Relations Group is under a concentrated attack as being a waste of $4 of tuition money and the Women’s Center on campus is being attacked for being pro-choice and thus worse than a coat hanger in the vagina – no really. Using that language, in our newspaper. I’m so considering packing it all in and moving back to Europe.
And then I lost my temper with the feminist blogosphere about ablism.
I should have some tea and go to bed. Or have a good cry. Or something. Friday sucks.
Moar cute otter pics, plz?
*hugs all around*
Anna’s last blog post..In which I finally lose my temper
Bonus baby otters for Anna:
And extra bonus baby meerkats.
I invested all my spoons today in a trip to Lullfitz plant nursery, which specialises in truly local plants. We arrived to find they had a sale with 50% off everything, so we went wild with kangaroo paws and grevilleas and melaleucas and all sorts of things. (Perthites: the sale is on till ‘at least the end of the month’, so check it out. No payment, no affiliation, they’re just a good spot, and lavish with their advice too.)
Hugs to all those needing them. Me? I think I’m moving from headcold to bronchitis.
I want a papercraft ceiling cat.
Hugs to everyone who needs them.
Oh, Tigtog, I hate it when that happens — the headcold to bronchitis transition. That’s happened to me a number of time, and, just, ugh.
Thanks everyone for the hugs and good wishes. My partner and I applied for a couple of places today, both very close to our current place, so hopefully we’ll have some luck there.
I’ve been reading Growing Up Asian in Australia, which has some great stories, for me it had some great moments of resonance with my own life. I had to gloss over a brief piece of fail re: overseas adoption from a white woman who’d adopted a Filipino kid, but aside from that it’s been fantastic. Highly recommended, and oh man do I wish this book existed when I was a teen.
Sheepies! (it’s viral marketing, as is revealed in the end, but when it’s this good I don’t mind):
Of course they’re Welsh. h/t Shakesville
I was totally about to post that, last night, tigtog. Bless.
That is so fucking awesome. Tell me it’s all true, please! Tell me they really really did do it! ;-)
@ WildlyParenthetical:
I’ve seen some seriously awesome herding at sheepdog trial events, WP. The routines here just strike me as requiring an obsessive level of planning and rehearsal. Obviously being able to plan out routines via computer programs would be of terrific assistance.
Moar kyewt animals:
Just wanted to send a hug to all that are in need. As for the troll infestations I can certainly relate.
OMG tigtog, lemurs! With birthday cake! I think my cute sensors are under critical strain.
According to the Telegraph, some of it is futzed with, computer wise, but all of the herding is real.
@ Lauredhel:
Aren’t they delightful? The rest of those animal pictures are well worth viewing as well. Click on the picture to go to the Telegraph’s gallery.
P.S. Check out these shots from the Tele weekly animal gallery from 2 weeks ago – mutual fascination between a Bengal tiger cub and a bottlenose dolphin (there’s 3 shots of them before the gallery moves on to other animals).
@ Bene #25
I had a feeling that the Mona Lisa was a bit too good to be true.
My favourite bit was the Pong though.
The Pong totally rocked :-) Also the fireworks. Yes. Awesomeness.
I found out that, uh, Wendy Harmer is not my fan. (see comments)
Ugh, hexy — the MSM quotes her out of context, and she blames you for it? Not cool.
And then chucks a sad for not checking what she was signing in as? Double not cool.
@ Purrdence:
Quite obviously she was using an old account, or a friend’s account, and doesn’t know how Blogger works.
This could be worth a post of its own, hexy, if you’re agreeable.
Fine by me!
hexy’s last blog post..Female Merit Badges
For those planning to watch Dollhouse episode six but who haven’t yet, please be aware that there are two extremely triggering scenes.
Lauredhel — I think there were three or four scenes that could be quite triggering.
Is it okay to post Ep. 6 spoilers on this thread? There’s quite a lot to discuss in terms of how the episode addresses rape culture and the different narratives that are used to justify it.
[...] to Otterday conversations, this is a thread to discuss episodes of Dollhouse that have aired up until now in [...]
Beppie: I’ve started a spoiler thread here.
http://viv.id.au/blog/20090324.4281/tv-tuesday-dollhouse-spoiler-thread/
Ack. :( My partner and I were rejected on one of our rental applications — for the place we most wanted too! Now we just have to hope that the other one gets accepted, or it’s another day of house-hunting for us.
Crap. I hope something comes up for you soon Beppie.
ugh, sorry to hear that, Beppie.
And now our second application has been rejected too. :(
I have a really bad feeling about this…
No, third time lucky! Positive thoughts positive thoughts. There must be a really good house out there just waiting for you.