deweydecimalchickens

[deweydecimalchickens]

And here is Panther showing dominance to the cat carrier before The Incident.

He made it pretty clear he wasn't going to go quietly, so after his screaming rampage through the kitchen, I backed him into a corner, threw a towel over him, scooped up the whole snarling mess and stuffed it in the box, with him chewing angrily on the towel. We got away with one broken plate and three scratches this time, plus the psychological trauma. Misty is hiding under a sheet.

Get older cats, I said. Get ones that are already socialised, I said.

So she got feral kittens and now I'm tagged in whenever a job requires quick reflexes, a willingness to grab an animal that's hissing and snarling, and the ability to survive the subsequent mauling.

Doing this all over again in three weeks for their boosters.

[deweydecimalchickens]

Honestly even if the rest of the Rivers of London series doesn't sound as interesting to you (which is fair, I can see how the "Wizard CSI" concept would not neccesarily appeal to everyone), I feel like Masquerades of Spring is definitely still possible to read as a stand-alone and I cannot recommend it enough. Especially if you are feeling starved for fun aro/ace characters, because Nightingale is so great, and also in his young and even more unhinged than usual late 20s in that particular book.

(Also it just does queer history really well and balances being fairly historically accurate with giving its main character the opportunity to live happily as a gay man in the 1920s. And I like it)

[deweydecimalchickens]

*Sigh*

However nervous you are...

However much you were not expecting to run this meeting...

However much you need to make small talk and believe we're all friends here...

However much you have been traumatised in corporate psychology workshops by grifting liars who don't know or care how deeply unlikeable and bad with people they are...

When you are announcing redundancies, it is NEVER APPROPRIATE to start the meeting by explaining that someone else isn't here to chair it because they're on a lovely expensive foreign holiday.

I have a big gob and am flexible enough to put my foot in it on the reg, and I know NOT TO DO THAT.

[deweydecimalchickens]

Local circus group popped up in my adverts advertising a summer solstice aerial show and ceilidh. (I think I previously got an advert about their skating classes, clicked it, realised it was partner skating and I only like touching other people if we're hitting each other, and noped out. But now I get all their adverts.) So I asked my mum if she'd like to go for the ceilidh aspect, and we went.

And we had a really good time! It was really crowded and my mum had to nope out of a few bits as the night went on and the dances got faster, but we did a couple we recognised and a bunch we didn't. The callers were great and very accessible for the people who'd clearly never done it before. They also did gender-neutral calling, which I'm really pleased to see becoming normal.

It also felt like a very inclusive space. There were more non-white and non-British people than I'm used to seeing in folk music, which was great. There seemed to be zero dress code, which is just as well, because it was hotter than Satan's armpit. I also saw a bunch of people whose genders I couldn't begin to guess and someone wearing an ace flag bandana. So I've passed the details on to a trans friend who wants to get into aerial but *gestures vaguely at the state of TERF Island*.

The way it worked there were three aerial acts of increasing age and experience, interspersed with sets of three dances followed by a break. They've got another one for Halloween and I think I wanna go.

[deweydecimalchickens]

The saddest, droopiest little guy. An absolute poor little meow meow. A big monster (me) picked him up and stuffed him in a box and then another big monster took him out of the box and stuck a needle in him! Worst day ever.

He's had a Lick-e-Lix but he can't even bear to eat his cronchy treats.

Update: his brother came over and ate all his cronchy treats.

[deweydecimalchickens]

The probably-autistic experience of doing the safety training, memorising the safety training, correctly reporting a hazard as prescribed by the safety training, and getting a load of shit for it.

I'M SORRY OKAY. When you said "this is a legal requirement and also people might die horribly", I didn't get the secret clue that you didn't really mean it.

This is why people don't report problems.

[deweydecimalchickens]

We did! We did do that!

Context was a couple of women (unsuccessfully, thank god) prosecuted for using abortion pills after the legal limit, and an uptick in investigations about possible illegal abortions. Absolutely not in the public interest or a good use of police time.

I was kinda surprised tbh as we've had a petition about this on the government website but they responded they weren't going to change the law. This got voted through as an amendment to another bill.

Many people would be surprised to learn the legal position was that abortion was still a criminal act with the exception of it being signed off by two doctors for the health of the mother/due to foetal abnormalities. We did not have legal abortion. We just had a really big loophole.

Unfortunately this doesn't give us abortion on demand; it just means women will no longer be prosecuted.

In some good news the UK government just voted to completely decriminalise abortion

[deweydecimalchickens]

FWIW gay history in Britain was pretty much the opposite. The law decriminalising sexual activity between two men over 21 in private was so nitpicky that locked hotel rooms didn't count. After all the public had access to the room, in theory, at some point, if they paid for it. And so did the staff.

I used to know a guy who had a long-term campaign of disruptive civil obedience. He'd just call up the police and tell them he was planning to do stuff with his boyfriend that was still technically illegal. Waste their time and upset them with TMI. Absolute legend.

always remember gay men are the reason we dont have to pay for public bathrooms in canada

[deweydecimalchickens]

Suggestion: if a sitting representative dies a non-natural death, instead of a by-election, they should be replaced with a candidate from their own party.

Yes it's anti-democratic, but SO IS INCENTIVISING POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS.

The convention in the UK is that major political parties don't contest a by-election under these circumstances. But 2 is a poor sample size and convention is not a safeguard. Also, parties that don't care about the social contract do still contest them; the BNP and English Democrats both stood against Jo Cox's successor.

[deweydecimalchickens]

Today I'm coaching a rookie whose feet hurt when they skate.

I think having them try and do the thing they can't do, until it's unbearable and failure is inevitable, is a bad idea actually. Setting people up to fail generally is.

So I'm turning up with a bag of massage/balance/strength equipment, and a head full of off-skates exercises. I'm aiming not to have them on wheels for more than half/two-thirds of their current maximum before they get a break and a change of activity. I want to try and sneak up on skating via short intervals and appropriate cross-training.

We're gonna shoot this trouble in the face.

[deweydecimalchickens]

"ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT FATHER'S DAY GIFT?!"

Only if Poundland sells human organs and time machines, dear.

[deweydecimalchickens]

its crazy how nobody has ever been as objectively beautiful as danny john-jules in red dwarf and nobody ever will be again

[deweydecimalchickens]

cabin boy on an 18th century frigate: she's trending again cap'n!

the grizzled and weary Captain, his eyes narrowed, taking a long pull of rum and lazily turning the helm: aye

[deweydecimalchickens]

his dark materials will literally always work bc every small child wants an animal companion that loves you most and goes on adventures with you and every adult wants an animal companion that can shoulder some of life’s immense psychologically damage for you. and you can pet it

[deweydecimalchickens]

hkdthshfsgfegxjfndjtahfb convincing yourself you cannot do a task is a SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY. Skills not practised ATROPHY. Stop willingly SLIDING INTO HELPLESSNESS I SWEAR TO GOD.

the scariest thing about the generative AI thing is how quickly people have accepted it as an indefinite, irrevocable part of their reality. people have genuinely convinced themselves that ChatGPT is the only solution to most tasks - tasks they did with their own brain without any large effort two years ago. like you know damn well all of us used to write emails ourselves why are we pretending like this is an impossible task to do with your own two hands. what's with the fucking. AI revisionism. i feel like i am going insane.

[deweydecimalchickens]

[deweydecimalchickens]

A former stray very happy to be inside