Today’s otters… have quills. And ickle cutesome noses. And teeny pink feet. And they’re not actually mustelids, as such. And… they’re hedgehogs. I couldn’t resist! Check these out! Via The Daily Squee.
see more Daily Squee
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 good book (or a bad one)? Anything in the news that you’d like to discuss? What have you created lately? Commiserations, felicitations, temptations, contemplations, speculations?
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
Getting out the ‘yes’ 
100 books by women in 2016 
Hoyden About Town 
BABYHEDGEHOGS! They are ADORABLE. 😀 😀
Thankfully, this week has been much better than last week. I approve.
OMGSQUEEEEE! So cute 🙂
Things are looking up in my neck of the woods too. I wouldn’t say my week has been great but I survived it and I’m feeling quite hopeful that things will improve. I’m currently spamming my own blog with a very boring series of posts about getting my disaster area of a house under control, and it’s working, stuff is getting done!
Mim, I am too scared/ashamed about the mess around here to document it photographically – you’re a brave woman! I salute you for getting things done. (I have at least sorted out some kitchen cupboards this week)
More squee: Pygmy hippo baby makes public Taronga Zoo debut
Jen – so glad to hear that things are looking up for you!
@mimbles I’m glad things are looking up for you 🙂
Hooray, good weeks for everyone! *imagines the good-week fairy prancing through the streets, flinging around good-weeks like confetti.*
News for Victorian hoydens – the blood bank is running out of O+ blood, so head over to the red cross website, or call 131495, if you’re able and willing to donate.
To amazing Kim – Oh dear no can do this year. I’m O neg but apparently that’s really good stuff 😀 so the blood bank used to be after me like Edward Cullen. Sadly since I found out I had this they haven’t let me give blood. I think it’s the small dose of cortisone I’m on for it, rather than the Poly.
It’s a nuisance, because giving blood was one thing I could do where I knew I was really doing something useful.
Another thing for Melbourne Hoydens:
stand up for refugees rally
"let the boats land"
"close all the detention centres"
Friday, 13 August, 5.30pm
State Library, Swanston Street
I’ll be the 50something woman in a black Katmandu polar fleece jacket with a blue and red spotted scarf if anyone’s going! (And a grey beanie if I remember to take it in the morning)
Hey, had my first argument about “PC lingo” on LP for a while (“spasticated in their thinking” was used and defended), but at least somebody else asked a clue-seeking question about ableist language on Saturday Salon, which gave me a chance to link to FWD/Forward’s Ableist Word Profile series.
Oh, Tigtog. There is NO defense for the “spasticated in their thinking” line, as spastic people have absolutely *nothing* wrong with their minds, it’s a motor control problem. I know, you probably already know this but I know my sister and her de-facto husband probably get sick of explaining that their son with CP does not have an intellectual disability.
If I’m quiet this week or so, or I seem distant, it’s not that I’m not caring about the world. I’m seeing more of this guy I’m dating and it’s taking a lot of mental energy to sort of adjust and deal with what’s going on in my head and my heart. It’s always scary for a rape survivor to see someone new, trust them, navigate their own desires with their own oft-delayed traumatic responses. That’s my biggest problem. Want the man like crazy, but I often have a next-day whiplash of guilt and depression, even though I know, logically, that I am totally happy being sensual with whomever I choose.
My biggest problem when dating people is the inside lurking doubt that my problems are too much for someone to deal with. I like to deal with my problems on my own but there is the rare moment I need help, and I am terrified of telling people that are prospectively dating me about those times. What’s hard is that I don’t look disabled. I have a good figure, I’m quite attractive and I seem like a real catch to some dudes. I just hate getting my hopes up and being let down, it happens too often.
Thankfully, this guy is very honest, respectful and sweet. So no matter how it turns out, it should be a fulfilling experience.
NB: When I say I “don’t look disabled”, I mean the stereotype TAB folks tend to imagine as disabled. I hope that’s clear and I’m sorry if I offended anyone with that slip.
@tigtog: Urgh. Well done on that thread, but urgh.
@napalmnacey: Good luck with things; I hope it works out well for you. 🙂
In amusing things of the week, I found out this afternoon that my brother in law’s partner seems to have decided she needs to take it upon herself to ‘talk to me about about my weight’, because I obviously haven’t noticed that I’m fat and obviously would want to rectify such a terrible state of affairs *snicker*. Apparently she has told the rest of Stephen’s family that she intends to do this “even if I won’t like her anymore” out of the goodness of her heart, or somesuch. I could not be more amused right now, because it’s faily as hell, but it’s also hilarious to me. Part of me hopes she tries it because I’m pretty sure I will fall out laughing in her face if she does.
@Helen I’m so sorry to hear that the blood bank treated you like a fictional teenage vampire D:
I’ll see your refugees rally and raise you a marriage equality rally, on Saturday the 14th, 1pm.
@Tigtog Geez that’s a nice example of cluelessness right there. On the plus side, if he had kept digging the rest of the way through the earth, we could have had a cheap and environmentally friendly alternative to air travel.
And because it’s Hogday, here’s a really good short story I found.
Wow, Jennifer, you should be so grateful for her concern! Why I bet that until someone told you that someone else was going to talk to you about weight you thought you were a five-foot-11 size-00 lingerie model! *headdesk*
@QoT: I know, right? Not to mention I should obviously be aspiring to be a size-00 lingerie model! Where are my priorities?! /snark
Of course, I also find this person deathly uninteresting and she’s been pretty racist and the bearer of some pretty heavy internalised misogyny in past experience, so the idea that I like her in the first place to suddenly dislike her for enlightening me to my fatness is pretty fucking hilarious.
@Jennifer: Oh, it’s a shame you can’t choose your in-laws. 😦 Thankfully I’ve been very lucky so far and all mine are lovely. I’m glad you can take it with humour, I think I’d be very hurt, but I’m a softy like that.
@napalmnacey I’d probably have taken it badly even a year or so ago; but the whole thing where she seems to think I haven’t noticed that I’m a fatty; along with the fact that she thinks I actually like her in the first place just makes it ludicrous enough that I can only laugh. That said, it does make me angry knowing how ubiquitous this attitude is, and knowing the high likelihood that others can be (and are) quite hurt by it all the damn time. And for the record, I don’t think being hurt by this sort of stuff makes one a ‘softy’ as such; change some of the circumstances and I’d probably still be hurt by it. It’s a hurtful attitude to have.
It’s one of the things I find least explicable or forgivable – the idea that seems to exist in the larger public consciousness that fat people are somehow deluded into believing that they are in fact not fat.
Preaching to the choir here to an extent, but: the belief of many fat people is in fact that fat is not the death-sentence that popular culture believes it to be, and that not sacrificing every other element of one’s life into removing fat from one’s body: that is in fact a valid life choice.
There is a balance to be found here, and it’s not necessarily on the side of the current visual unacceptability of fat rolls on one’s frame. We are the descendants of people who survived famines because they had fat reserves, and a reserve of fat within reason is not necessarily the worst thing in the world.
I think the thing the “did you know you’re fat” trolls are worried about is that we fatty fat fatties don’t think we’re fat enough. For example, we may well describe ourselves using words like “plump” or “chubby” rather than “gross”, “elephantine” or “oh my god I look hideously disgusting, someone shoot me, please, so I don’t offend the universe by existing”. It’s all public-spirited, you know. These people have to put themselves out and put themselves at the hideous and horrendous risk of being disliked (even by such socially unredeemable types as myself) in order to make sure we do something to improve our self-esteem… such as talking down to ourselves, denying ourselves pleasure (in good Calvinistic style) and starving ourselves in order to make ourselves healthier. Honest.
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(Drattit, the blasted thing appears to be sticking again. I hate election season…)
We’re right in the middle of childcare immune system bootcamp. Unscheduled adult person-days spent in bed in this house in the last week: four.
It’s a bit scary. We don’t have local friends or family, and even if we did I don’t know that I’d want to put them at risk of gastro (which is one of the things we’ve had), so what do we do if we are too sick to care for our baby? We nearly were, yesterday.
{{{{Mary}}}}
Definitely scary. I’m sure the local hospital would have some advice, and this is the sort of situation where they might consider admitting you and bub together to ensure his care.
tigtog, I might check with the early childhood nurses about what they recommend. Neither of us would have merited a hospital admission on our own (far from it I think) but as a dyad(/triad) we were pretty non-functional for a few days.
Sounds like everyone could use some footage of puppy fun (I know I needed it!)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hly0vuXPG-M?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Jennifer, what a charmer your brother in law appears to be dating! Ugh Mary, hope things get better soon!