dooflizard

[dooflizard]

When I graduated high school my folks decided to go on a family trip to Europe. I was extremely surly about this as I had an undiagnosed UTI but I was extremely excited to speak German with native speakers, convinced I would be an asset to my family across our travels.

Tragically, it was immediately apparent that three years of public school German meant I could communicate at the level of a first grader.

I was nonetheless elated when a child approached me at the train station to ask “Haben sie ein Kuli?” “Do you have a pen?” I was able to say, “Nein, aber ich habe ein Bleistift!” “No, but I have a pencil!” The kid seemed confused by my triumphant tone but borrowed my pencil anyway.

But my absolute greatest victory in vocabulary came during an airline check. They had me go through a metal detector, and they assumed my belt had set it off. I knew my belt was non reactive metal but! My favorite jeans had lost their zipper and I had them safety pinned shut.

The man approached me with a metal detector and seemed puzzled my belt wasn’t reading. I remembered the safety pin in the front of my jeans and I happened to know the word so I joyously announced, “Ich habe ein Sicherheitsnadel!” “I have a safety pin!”

As if to an infant, the man said slowly, “Nein, das ist sein Gürtel.” “No, that is your belt.”

I waved at my crotch and insisted, “Nein, in mein Hose ich habe ein Sicherheitsnadel!” “No, in my pants I have a safety pin!”

I couldn’t remember the name for zipper but luckily he caught the shine of the metal where a zipper should be and finally realized why this crazy American teenager was gesturing to her crotch. He scanned his machine over the offending pin which pinged and he cleared me to go.

I marched off to board the plane in a glow of pride that I had gotten to use an obscure word and the poor man got to return to his day.

[dooflizard]

[dooflizard]

Being a little too cold: brrrr i’m a little too cold !!!

Being a little too warm: i am going to kill the next person who makes eye contact with me.

[dooflizard]

me: truly a well crafted tragedy is such a bittersweet pleasure to take in and serves a purpose, not just as a sad story but as a reminder that even that which ends badly might not have happened in vain or for nothing. The love, the grief, the actions still meant something simply for having taken place and for us partaking in it.

me when said tragedy is about to actually unfold, sweating: ok but consider this. i dont want this to happen

[dooflizard]

the trend of only associating feminity in men with being a twink has to end. a slimmer or hairless body does not make a man more or less feminine.

[dooflizard]

why are so many canners so determined to get botulism 😭

"our great grandmas fed their entire families with their knowledge. they didn't need the government telling them how to do it."

great grandma also lost babies for want of vitamin k shots and antibiotics and would have had fewer babies to start with if she'd had the option to access birth control.

great grandma did the best with what she had and knew.

why can't we do the same 😭😭

edit after

@princessxombie an excellent point!

the reason for a preference of bottled lemon juice over fresh squeezed for canning (as reported through the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach): "It is a USDA recommendation that bottled lemon juice be used.  And consistent with the recommendation, reputable canning sources will agree that the best source of lemon juice for canning is commercially bottled lemon juice, as opposed to the juice of a fresh lemon. The reason for the recommendation is that bottled lemon juice has been uniformly acidified or standardized per FDA regulations: “lemon juice prepared from concentrate must have a titratable acidity content of not less than 4.5 percent, by weight, calculated as anhydrous citrus acid.” With a guaranteed pH...there is a consistent and known acid level which is essential for the critical safety margin in canning low-acid foods and for making jams gel properly. "

as for resources:

the usda guide to canning (revised in 2015). you used to be able to find it on the usda website but for SOME reason (two guesses as to why 🙄) that website is now routing to a broken error 404 page not found. fortunately, it's available other places! here it is hosted on the internet archive! if you want it printed in color and spiral-bound, you can also purchase it for $25 from perdue university.

if you want more resources, the university of utah has a whole section of their preserve the harvest extension website dedicated to safe food storage practices including freeze drying, fermenting, drying, etc.

ball (the mason jar company) also has a section of their website dedicated to canning 101, including the basic process, recipes, a glossary of terms, and videos for their tutorials if you're a visual learner. they also offer free online recipes broken down in a way that's meant to be easy even for new canners.

go forth and enjoy canning without giving yourself and others botulism, friends.

[dooflizard]

If you live in the USA and you're pleading for donations to pay your rent, bills, or get food then dial 211! Please dial 211 before the last minute!

It's a toll free service with people who will help you find programs in your community to pay those bills, find food, and find housing! They will give you numbers to call so you can get help.

It is not 100% foolproof. Their job is to direct you to a program they believe will help your current issue, but it's still a step up from praying random strangers online will give you enough cash before a deadline! The added benefit of these community programs, which get funded by the local government most of the time, is if there are more people using them then they can get more money to help more people.

You're not taking resources from other people if you use your community services. Your taxes pay for them. Use them.

Dial 211 first to see if they can help, and if for some reason they can't, then make your donation posts!

https://www.211.org/

[dooflizard]

Spoopy Season Safety

[dooflizard]

The Onion continues to never miss

[dooflizard]

girl it’s just a 3 day trip, you do not need to bring your terracotta warriors 🙄

[dooflizard]

[dooflizard]

[dooflizard]

today at work a coworker warned me that my patient’s owner let us know her cat is homophobic, meaning he tends to attack gay people violently on sight, which I thought was a joke. but that cat saw me and may have been the angriest cat I’ve ever worked with and DID in fact bite me through Kevlar gloves because he hated me so much

[dooflizard]

[dooflizard]

Everybody always so bold when dunking from the other parallel dimension 😔

"Redraw tumblr post" time of the year again, based on this one specifically that i found weeks ago but I needed to do something with it hfgjdh (with the original post being on tiktok). I just love canon Blaze being absolutely ass at cooking💜

[dooflizard]

"Yeah, never worn. No, nothing happened to the baby. Well so what if it sounds ominous? We bought two pairs of shoes for the baby and got another two from the baby shower, and honestly, there's not much of a reason for a baby to be wearing shoes. Well I mean she's either in the stroller, in the bassinet, or being carried by someone, she's not being put down on the floor. I'm saying that nothing happened to the baby. The baby is fine, she's just a toddler now, the shoes wouldn't fit her. I don't think you can do that, just ask people if their baby died. No, it wasn't a miscarriage. Look, are you interested in buying the shoes or not? I'm sorry that 'never worn' filled you with a sense of melancholy, but that's really not anything to do with me."