Im Going To Be Thinking About This All Day...so Thanks Y'all 🤯

i am so serious when i say dark and quiet are both human rights.

i don't mean like absolute silence. obviously in an ideal community, there would still be sound and noise from people and music and work etc. but it haunts me that when i camp in the forest i can hear the howl of semi trucks on the interstate miles away. and the people who live beside it never know quiet. it haunts me that many people will live their whole lives never seeing the stars in the sky that were fully visible with NO electric light pollution as recently as my great-grandparents' childhoods.

so much of our lives is bright bright unnecessary noise. neon mcdonalds signs 200 feet in the air so we can see it from the road. led lights over billboards. parking lots lit up like sports stadiums at closed office buildings. advertisements playing at gasoline pumps. streets lined with led porch lights and decorative garden lights that genuinely threaten entire species of wildlife. music blaring outside pharmacies to deter homeless people. everything always shining and wailing for no purpose but profit and cruelty.

obviously not everything can be turned off or made quiet and i wouldn't want it to be anyway and there is a lot of nuance and room for "but what about" here, but MANY things HAVE to change because none of us are supposed to live like this and we shouldn't have to!!!

Please take a look at these videos, and talk with your friends and family who own cats about these automatic cat litter boxes. These types of litter boxes should not be allowed to be sold, sadly there’s no regulations. I feel so sad for the kitties that were victims to these, and I feel so bad for their owners. 💔

PSA: BAD LITTERBOX

i don't usually make posts like this, but this is a truly upsetting topic to me as a lifelong cat owner, so i feel i have a duty to share my knowledge with others.

there is a type of automatic litterbox for cats being sold that is EXTREMELY dangerous and has killed numerous cats through blunt force trauma, suffocation, etc. this litterbox is being sold under different brand names and logos, so i will include the picture of the model and two links to informational videos with more evidence and eloquence than i am able to provide.

please consider not having this type of litterbox in your home for your furry friends. me and my 16 year old tortie, puddy, want the best for all your kitty friends

image of litterbox below:

here are my two video links that provide proof and testimonials of this harmful product:

This Scam is Killing Cats by penguinz0

The DEADLY self-cleaning litter boxes that have flooded the market by One Man Five Cats

The last time I got a visit from a couple of JW young ladies I did this kindness thing. I tried my best to answer their (leading) question “what is your definition of’God’?” I explained that I am an atheist and I am happy. I reiterated that now they personally know at least one happy-atheist-mom. I wished them well thanked them for the chat, and politely asked them to remove me from their list.

This was my best religious person interaction. Never had a JW visit since then.

I am so proud of Kanga for weaponizing Roo.

With Winnie-the-Pooh and The Battle of Hastings sharing an anniversary today, did you know that E. H. Shepard once drew this amazing scene for an exclusive book bag?

He is a god of frontiers.

He is born again in every child who turns their eyes toward the stars, toward the sea, toward the horizon, and he grows with them.  He is young and old at the same time, all ages and all things, and always looking outward.

Windows are his.  Portholes.  External cameras.  He is not a god of surveillance, but he is a god of seeing, of the endless need to behold the wonders of the cosmos, of the world around us.  He only wants to look.  He has no desire to settle, or to damage, or to claim.

When first a maritime explorer donned a diving helmet, Yuri was there to egg them on, cajoling and encouraging, begging them to let him loose on new sights and new experience.  And when humanity set their skills toward space, Yuri was on the first satellite out, waiting for the moment when his faithful would join him, when they would see.

He was there with Laika when the heat grew too great, when her breathing grew too labored, and he did what good gods have always done, and held her close for so long as he was needed.  He looks now in her honor, as he looks in the honor of all those who have reached, whether of their own volition or at another’s.  She was not his by choice, but she was his at the end, and he is a god of his word.

He only hopes that you can have the chance to see.

He hopes you will keep your eyes open, and take him with you when you go.

"I would kill for you. I would die for you" would you take a break for me? Would you sit down and rest? For a day, a week, a year? Would you let others take care of your needs for me? Would you let yourself be held for me? By me?

I got to hold a 500,000 year old hand axe at the museum today.

It's right-handed

I am right-handed

There are grooves for the thumb and knuckle to grip that fit my hand perfectly

I have calluses there from holding my stylus and pencils and the gardening tools.

There are sharper and blunter parts of the edge, for different types of cutting, as well as a point for piercing.

I know exactly how to use this to butcher a carcass.

A homo erectus made it

Some ancestor of mine, three species ago, made a tool that fits my hand perfectly, and that I still know how to use.

Who were you

A man? A woman? Did you even use those words?

Did you craft alone or were you with friends? Did you sing while you worked?

Did you find this stone yourself, or did you trade for it? Was it a gift?

Did you make it for yourself, or someone else, or does the distinction of personal property not really apply here?

Who were you?

What would you think today, seeing your descendant hold your tool and sob because it fits her hands as well?

What about your other descendant, the docent and caretaker of your tool, holding her hands under it the way you hold your hands under your baby's head when a stranger holds them.

Is it bizarre to you, that your most utilitarian object is now revered as holy?

Or has it always been divine?

Or is the divine in how I am watching videos on how to knap stone made by your other descendants, learning by example the way you did?

Tomorrow morning I am going to the local riverbed in search of the appropriate stones, and I will follow your example.

The first blood spilled on it will almost certainly be my own, as I learn the textures and rhythm of how it's done.

Did you have cuss words back then? Gods to blaspheme when the rock slips and you almost take your thumbnail off instead? Or did you just scream?

I'm not religious.

But if spilling my own blood to connect with a stranger who shared it isn't partaking in the divine

I don't know what is.

how i became impossible by Mary Ruefle

Thank you 🙏 I appreciate, and I will not give up on dragon fruit

If you've ever been disappointed by dragonfruit, especially if you felt like it tasted like nothing, then I'm like 90% sure you had unripe dragonfruit, which tastes like nothing. There's a small window of time where it tastes amazing. You must have the patience of a hunter. Do not strike until your prey is at its most delicious