Animals
Yes, it's an animal. I've never seen one, but it exists in my part of the world; it's the sort of thing that could become a serious nuisance if people tried to "control insect pests" with poison sprays. Apparently our Slug Caterpillars, which are mauve-taupe in color, have a cousin species that are colorless and semitransparent, called, for obvious reasons, Spun Glass Caterpillars. This one has, obviously, been photographed crawling on a mirror for its fullest dramatic effect.
The fleshy tentacles that mimic the stitched ribs of a cushion are covered in venomous spines; more spines stick out along the bottom edge of the body. It doesn't really have legs with clawed feet; more like suckers for feet, attached directly to the body. So there's no airspace between feet and bristle and, unlike stingingworms, this one can't crawl onto your hand without stinging. Stingingworms will eventually sting if they walk over your skin very far because they waddle and roll when they walk, but this baby leaves traces of venom wherever it goes.
It does show some color, in most light--a faint icy blue in the shadows, and icy green along the center of the body. The body is transparent enough that you can actually see leaves in the digestive tract as a greenish dorsal stripe.
More information is where the photo came from:
Now, a more appealing kind of animal...While working out of McDonald's, earlier this week, I saw lots of cars come and go in the parking lot below the trees. And during a slow period in the evening I saw a large, apparently well kept, tailless calico cat walking around the picnic tables. A stray foraging for scraps? Maybe--but it wasn't interested in scraps. It was looking at the parking spaces. It went around the parking lot as if looking for a specific car. Then, not finding the car, it ran off in the direction cars take leaving the parking lot, as fast as it could go.
Had it been dumped? Animal dumpers do sometimes dump animals behind stores and restaurants, in order to sneak away while the animals check out food waste.
That cat looked capable of finding a home for itself if ever a cat could; tailless Manx-mix with an appealing three-colored face. It did not look likely to want to move into Serena's territory, or be allowed to. (She's nice to kittens and to polite, respectful males, but the last time she saw another calico Queen Cat, the other cat suddenly remembered an urgent appointment in Pittsburgh.) I went out into the parking lot and called "Kitty, kitty, kitty," in case the cat wanted help; it didn't. So it's not my problem. I hope whoever's found it can appreciate it. I hope it's a spayed female, and I hope it's still able to bond with you.
Charm Course
This meme was on the Meow a few years ago, and it still makes me laugh every time...
"
"I've shaved half my head, and dyed the rest of my hair green. I'm up to thirty five tattoos, and fifteen piercings. I've changed my pronouns three times now, and still the boys won't give me a second glance. What could possibly be wrong?
(AI anxiety coach)
You're obviously a victim of the sexist patriarchy. Have you considered joining antifa?
"
For those of The Nephews who are in literal fact nieces...Lack of male attention has never been a problem for any of the women in our family. It might conceivably be seen as a problem by a baby-faced girl, in which case the solution would be to age a little; I started looking old enough to vote, drive, or date grown-up men, around age 25. I think there were benefits in starting dating at 25 actually. At 25 a man has reached his full height and is finally starting to develop emotional maturity. Before that you don't even know what they're going to look like when they grow up.
For those who want to attract a specific man, or woman for that matter...years ago a book sold with a money-back guarantee was called How to Marry the Man of Your Choice. Its instructions were simple: First pick a man you want to marry, because it's cruel to use this technique if you don't. Then, get him talking, and really listen. As I recall, the contract under which the book was sold said that women had to use it for two years. We were young then, believe it or not, and had short attention spans just like the young people of whom we now complain, so the question was raised whether anyone ever did write to the publisher and demand that refund. I just checked that for you. Google says used book sellers on Amazon and EBay do offer refunds if the physical condition of the book isn't satisfactory, within two weeks...but nobody's ever publicly claimed the two-year refund.
Did I try it? you may ask. I did not. That is, I did listen to my husband, and to my Significant Other, and to my official boyfriend, and to my parents, friends, relatives, and customers, because what they had to say was (generally) interesting. I did not set out to marry anybody. Listening is also a valuable technique for keeping a relationship together once it's happened. More relevant to our family's needs, listening is a way to turn the off-putting label "smart" (with its undertones of "selfish and conceited") into nicer labels for intelligence like "deep" and "understanding."
For the nephew with special talents for math and computers, listening is the difference between the math-head as old-school drill sergeant who couldn't keep students or employees, and the math-head as expert teacher everyone wants to work for and learn from. You have the ability. The world is yours.
Education
I am not a mother. I don't have a mother. So when Mothers Day posts popped up in my blog feed yesterday I thought, "No need to open those!" Joe Jackson put a lot of other good things under the Mothers Day cartoon rerun, though. What I wanted to call attention to was the one about how the cost of education has gone up. How do we get it down again? What administrative flab do colleges need to trim?
Gossip, Local
I let myself be seen while in Puffball Mode last week. Sure enough, word trickled back around that local idjits thought I was pregnant. I think I'll try to be seen cuddling someone else's baby (no, it does not make us baby-free adults want to give birth), some time this summer, just to see how badly idjits can confuse themselves. Maybe a year-old baby would make the idjits most ridiculous; and definitely a White-looking one. According to Mendel there would have been a 25% chance that, if I'd married a blue-eyed blond, I might have given birth to a blue-eyed blond baby--if there'd been a baby at all. Many undiagnosed celiacs' pregnancies end before they produce a recognizable baby.
Anyway I told the person who relayed that information that person looked old, and after 48 hours we were on speaking terms again. I take this to mean that old is approximately as undesirable a way to look as fat. Though I would look old, as well as fat, if glyphosate poisoning weren't making my white hairs fall out again.
Music
4 Non Blondes.
Linkin Park.
Salt N Pepa.
The Animals.
John Baldry.
Politics
Strange idea of "democracy" in the Democratic Party these days.
Religion
The position of this web site is, as regular readers know, that our President violated his covenant with those who elected him, first by encouraging more production and use of glyphosate, then by declaring war. Is he capable of sincere repentance? Was he capable of sincere faith in the first place?! I'm glad I'm not the Judge.
However, possibly as a gesture of loyalty to our Israeli allies, as we leave them to deal with Hamas while we hold off Iran, Trump has taken it upon himself to proclaim a National Sabbath--not the traditional day of prayer, but the Sabbath as observed by Jews and by whole-Bible Christians. He has made this an invitation, not a command. He has left it to the individual to decide which set of Sabbath rules, if any, the individual may choose to follow.
(Orthodox Jews don't use the telephone or other electronic communication devices on the Sabbath. Some un-Orthodox Jews, like Andrei Codrescu, blog primarily or only on the Sabbath. I generally abstain from blogging on the Sabbath, though I'm not fanatical about it and will make up for lost time if I have to. Then there's the question of whether Sabbath dinner is to be cooked fresh from the garden right after church, or left simmering in an earthen pot through the night and the temple services...and so on. The Bible gives pretty specific guidelines for keeping the Sabbath but leaves quite a few of these details up to the believer's conscience.)
Bradley Burnham expresses the Seventh-Day Adventist reaction:
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