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Happy 6th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent lunar colony, to all who celebrate

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It’s Fourth of July Eve so make sure to leave some milk and cookies out for Captain America

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why did they make oreo flavored oreos. where’s brennan lee mulligan

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Annoying that dairy products are demonized as Unnatural and Disgusting when it's actually kinda neat that humans figured out a way to fulfill omnivorous nutritional requirements without killing any animals (and populations historically dependent on dairy even evolved lactase persistence!). This is biopunk to me

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NASA just dropped the closest image ever taken of Jupiter.

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This morning I came downstairs to discover that the dogs have invented a New Crime.

My husband get up very early for his Real Adult Job, and feeds Charleston (Black-and-cream Sighthound mix, mostly leg) and Herschel (40lb cardigan welsh crime tube), then lets them out into the fenced yard before he leaves.

I get up at the same time but take longer to boot up, so the dogs frolick about and discourage the local tree rats from lingering about the property while I get dressed/brush my teeth/try to not be psychologically crushed by The Horrors (TM)

Now it's pretty normal for me to find Herschel doing a high-speed yet startlingly efficient MC Hammer Shuffle on his stubby little legs around the base of the large honey Locust tree we have in the middle of the yard so he could keep his face pointed directly up the trunk at something in the canopy, because this his how he tries to herd squirrels.

...but Charlie is usually nearby, cheerfully play-bowing and encouraging the squirrel to come down, nothing bad will happen-!

This time Charleston is nowhere in sight.

I go outside to investigate and Herschel pauses to tackle me about the kneecaps as a greeting before returning to the tree.

Charleston is not behind the garden bins, nor in the side yard.

I am growing concerned, when I hear a telltale guilty scrape of claws above me.

Charleston is on the roof.

I shuffle out to the middle of the yard, until I can make eye contact with him.

He looks down at me, cheerfully wagging his tail, clearly anticipating praise for being such a clever boy.

I at least know how he got up there.

My house has a deck built off the second floor with a set of stairs leading up to it, and a large honey locust tree grows next to it. Part of the roof is easily accessible with a small hop from the deck.

The deck has only a minimal amount of railing ad the roof has none, so I blocked off the stairs with a board that was too high for Herschel, an inveterate explorer and criminal, to jump, but not Charlie.

I didn't worry about this at the time because Charleston is, in fact, The Best Dog In The Universe, and understands that even though he *could* easily jump various barriers, it would be *impolite* of him to do so.

Charleston is Extremely Polite and thus almost never commits any crimes.

...Almost Never.

Charlie has exactly two vices, which aren't even vices because his ancestors were bred for millennia to do these two exact things.

The first is that he is HIGHLY leash aggressive when I'm present (We were both attacked by a St. Bernard the first day I had him and Charlie has decided Strange Dogs Are Not Allowed To Approach Me)

The Second is that he has the Prey Drive From Hell.

He has chased bears and bulls with full murderous intent.

He almost got me arrested because he cut his leash to chase a pronghorn antelope in front of a park ranger.

It is only for the sake of my saftey and pursuit of prey that he will break the rules.

Today, he has his nemesis cornered

Charleston isn't clever the way Herschel is. He's never really explored using his toys as tools, whereas Herschel speedran the early stages of hominid tool use as a puppy. Arwen was a logistical sort of genius who managed to terraform my parent's yard into Rabbit Thunderdome.

Charleston's genius is... psychological.

If the Squirrels see both dogs, they run for the fence, but if they only see Herschel, they run for the tree.

Charlie is much better at tracking and guessing the route his prey might go, so Charlie runs for their preferred escape route of the tree instead of chasing them.

The squirrels compensate by running for the fence, which is farther away in general, but they have a head start on the dogs.

At Some Point, charlie managed to work out that if he stays in the shadows under the deck, the squirrels won't see his mostly-black body, especially when Herschel charges into the sunlight and catches it on his white ruff.

Charleston realized, long before I did, that there is only the ONE branch that overhangs the roof, and therefore if a squirrel runs up the tree, it only has ONE way out of the yard.

The real genius was combining all of the above into the realization that he could let Herschel charge the squirrels, run through the under-deck shadows and up to the deck and roof while the squirrels are distracted, and plant himself on the roof where the squirrels HAVE to land without them seeing him until it was too late.

-And so we stand this morning.

Herschel at the foot of the tree, preventing the squirrel from running back down and heading for the fence

Charleston square in the landing zone on the roof, at the ready

The squirrel paralyzed on the branch between them

...and me, only sort of awake and realizing that I'm probably the dumbest mammal here.

I need to figure out how to disentangle these beasts without anyone getting maimed. Charleston has the blood of his ancestors baying for the flesh of his nemesis in his ears. Herschel is dangerously close to figuring out how to get on the roof himself. The squirrel is contemplating some truly dire Maneuvers, including dropping out of the tree and assaulting me to buy time.

I haven't even had my coffee yet.

"Charleston." I say with a very aggravated sigh. "That's not where dogs go."

Charleston whimpers.

He has Disappointed (TM) me.

A fate worse than death.

He starts to walk back to the deck, but as he takes a step to leave, so does the squirrel, and he is pulled back by millennia of instinct.

This will require. Delicacy.

or delicacies.

"Stay. I'll be right back." I tell the dogs.

I go back into the house, and retrieve The Best Treat.

The Cat's Wet Food.

Both dogs crave this Most Forbidden snack with an irrational passion, and it is usually both out of reach in the cat tree AND defended by Mochi, who rules the dogs with an Iron Paw.

I return to the yard, and open the can in full view of both dogs.

"Charlie?" I call. "Do you want Wet Food?"

He is halfway down the stairs before I can finish the question.

Herschel switches his orbit from the tree to my person, and I have to shuffle to avoid tripping over them as we go back inside and the squirrel flees.

None of this is the new crime.

I go out with them later to pull Yet More Thistles, and a few minutes in, I hear a little 'huff' from Charlie.

I look up, and he's standing on the stairs, paw up to indicate he's going to jump over the barrier board and go right back up there.

You know.

...Unless there is wet food to be had.

The children have figured out how to commit extortion. I text my husband.

They're so smart! Do you think we can set them on the jackasses across the street? My husband asks, ever the practical man.

I'm going back to bed.

---

I'm a disabled writier who makes my living tellng stories. if you liked this, please consider giving me a Ko-fi tip, or pre-ordering the Family Lore book of stories on my Patreon. Thank you!

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reading nabokov is maddening because his writing is so playful and evocative and effortless and english isn't even his first language. he's doing things in a second language most people could spend their lives trying and failing to replicate in their first language. makes me feel like this

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Sharing another longer comic I made for The Nib back in 2016, since they'll be shutting up shop at the end of this year. This piece was such a great excuse to dig deep into the world of sail-powered cargo! I particularly loved talking to the team behind Ceiba, who are now years into their build and documenting the entire shipbuilding process along the way.

(Dig this? There's always room for more passengers aboard the good ship Patreon.)

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This is what posting your artwork after a mutual posts a big life update feels like

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RIP Richard Serra. You made so many people so so so mad

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EL MAR TE DERRIBARÁ

Ship on Rough Seas — Max Jensen (1908)

You’re Doing Just Fine — Charlotte Eriksson (2015)

The Little Mermaid — Edmund Dulac (1911)

By the Sea — Emily Dickinson

Seascape — Alfred Thompson Bricher (1890)

Temple of Poseidon, Sounion, Greece — Aris Messinis (2018)

Suzanne — Leonard Cohen (1967)

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Remember, history was awful. Never trust the romantics.

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some appear to believe that washing dishes is basically a ritual action, i.e. the dish reaches a "washed" state once you have performed the actions of dish washing, involving dish soap and sponge, and that your obligation ceases once you have done this, and not at the point at which the dish is actually clean.

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While I have no particular interest in seeing Tim Curry in Amadeus, there is a New York theater performance from the same era I did regret that I’d never be able to see due to the damnable linearity of time; Babylon 5’s Michael O’Hare in A Few Good Men, in the role that Jack Nicholson played in the movie. I’ve imagined if Jessep might seem more reasonable about the need for brutal, deadly hazing to make a fighting force powerful enough to stand up to the unstoppable war machine of (checks notes) 1980s Cuba with O’Hare’s steely resolve rather than Nicholson’s (admittedly iconic) frothing rage. And there is a recording!

So now I have something to do on my next visit to New York.

Whaaaatt? Aw man I wish I could go back in time and see this!!!

TIL: In the 1981 original Broadway cast of Amadeus, Tim Curry played Mozart to Ian McKellen’s Salieri. Both were nominated for the best actor Tony—McKellen won.

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Reason:

They shouldn’t ❤️ I’m just curious if tumblr thinks they should!