gghostiis-shenanigans

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

Pay attention, 2014 Mad Men: This little girl is holding a LEGO set. The LEGOs are not pink or “made for girls.” She isn’t even wearing pink. The copy is about “younger children” who “build for fun.” Not just “girls” who build. ALL KIDS.

In an age when little girls and boys are treated as though they are two entirely different species by toy marketers, this 1981 ad for LEGO — one of our favorite images ever — issues an important reminder.

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[gghostiis-shenanigans]

never knew i could draw horses (kinda) well

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

i let the furby skins soak in fabric softener after i washed them and my sis found them and sent me:

and i have never laughed so hard x’D

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

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!

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

howling

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

citationless behavior

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

imagine you're some guy and you're going through the woods one day and you stumble upon a house and the people who live there just give you free food and eventually let you inside and it's like nothing you've ever seen before and the people are so nice and loving towards you and then one day they decide to never let you leave again, steal your balls, and give you a stupid fucking hair cut

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

can you draw trickster dave plzz??

3/21

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

my favorite video of all time ever

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

giving increasingly loud sighs as I wait for my crush to ask "what's wrong?" so I can say I'm in a state of depression unless I can touch someone's boobs with no bra

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

i like this.

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

hey i'm free later if you wanna go insane together or something

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

Look at my collection of Loop Memes boy

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

One day I washed up on the shore and now I'm making it everyone's problem

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

Early bird gets to hold hands with their clone while getting depressed about scars and the memories they once held!!! #JustLoopThings

Fun(?) fact: Not only does their body not have any of their past scars, but Loop doesn’t remember much from before the loops!

They remembered a lot more when they were a star with a direct connexion to the Universe’s absolute knowledge, but now that they came back as a human(?), these memories are limited and completely drowned out by the trauma. Whenever they try to remember something, they remember the loops first, which prompts them to swiftly stop trying to remember anything at all!! Which sucks because they do want to remember past events!! But it is also pushing them to not hold on too hard on the past and create new memories? They feel very conflicted about all of this

Little bonus sketch <3

(Siffrin fight for his life rn)

[gghostiis-shenanigans]

“I want you to do this with me for one month. One month. Write 10 observations a week and by the end of four weeks, you will have an answer. Because when someone writes about the rustic gutter and the water pouring through it onto the muddy grass, the real pours into the room. And it’s thrilling. We’re all enlivened by it. We don’t have to find more than the rustic gutter and the muddy grass and the pouring cold water.”

— Marie Howe, Boston University’s 2016 Theopoetics Conference  (via mothersofmyheart)