honestly, none of the tumblr deities are human-like. i mean, we have a fish, a shower thoughts bot, a pink eldritch being and various beings of an intergalactical species whose blog’s only purpose is to respond to the shower bot. i mean, there’s this seth everman guy, but i don’t know much about him and i doubt that he’s human either.
Yeah. xD.
don’t forget the giant chicken and vampire erotica editor who has survived waaaay to many health problems to not be immortal
Kitty here! Umm, I know this is a bit unorthodox, but… Y’all Tumblr bebes are super sweet about this sort of thing, so I’m posting something here and here only.
I just got a cat.
When New Cat is named and fully acclimated, she will def join the dogs, guinea pigs, and chickens as a Tumblr/Instagram regular.
But I have…mixed feelings.
My last cat died six months ago. We didn’t get another cat to replace her–c’est impossible, she was irreplaceable. Rather, we did it because we know two things:
1. A house that’s had a cat in it will always feel empty without a cat in it.
2. We have money and space and time and patience and love, and shelters are full of cats who don’t got none of those things.
Still, I’ve been thinking about my last cat Clementine a lot. And I think it would be healing to me to share a few photos of her.
This was Clementine. We adopted her when she was 14 years old. That’s old. If she were human, she would’ve been in her early seventies. Her previous owner had moved into a nursing home. She was lucky to land in one of the few no-kill shelters with enough resources to accept a cat of her age. Many don’t.
Clementine was terribly stressed out being in the shelter after so many years in one person’s home. Her fur started to fall out, and she refused to eat. She hid all the time and hissed if approached. No one applied for her.
We saw a lot of great cats at the shelter. For some reason, she was the one my partner and I both couldn’t stop thinking about. We talked about it, and decided we had the patience, emotional maturity, and financial stability needed to address the realities of adopting a shy geriatric cat. So we took her home, and released her under the bed.
“We might never see this cat,” I told my partner. “We might just know she’s here by periodic dips in the level of the food bowl.”
“I’d be okay with that,” he said.
“I would too.”
We didn’t see her for 36 hours.
Then, I heard a little sound while I was sitting in bed–not a meow, but a chirp. I looked down, and she sitting there, looking up at me. She chirped again. I patted the blanket. She sprang up beside me and started purring. Surprised, I took this blurry, crappy photo.
Within a week, she was climbing into our laps and kneading us with rapturous abandon. Sometimes she would start to drool out of pure joy.
Now, one complication was our dog. Clementine had never met a dog before, and I’d intended to introduce them very slowly and carefully. When she caught her first glimpse of our dog Brother, I was focused wholly on him, making sure he didn’t lunge or startle her. She darted past me, and ran to rub her face against him.
She was sleeping on top him by the end of the week.
To our complete surprise, Clementine was not scared of dogs.
Clementine loved dogs.
All dogs. Any dogs.
We foster dogs, and every new one that came home got the same treatment. She ran to them like an old lover, chirping her barely-audible chirps, paws warming up to give them a deep tissue massage the moment they sat down.
She put in an application to adopt Sunny, a red heeler mix who was our our 13th or 14th foster. We accepted her application and made him our second dog.
In the course of her four-year career, she cat-trained over a dozen dogs, making each of them infinitely more adoptable. Many went on to permanent homes with cats.
I was always hovering around her and the dogs, incredibly nervous that one might injure her. She’d been declawed by her first owner; she was defenseless.
But she knew exactly how to handle each one. She sat calmly and accepted sloppy licks from overly-affectionate dogs. She hid from excitable, high-energy dogs until after their playtime. We had one that was so afraid of cats that she was borderline aggressive towards them, but Clementine was absolutely determined. That dog was sleeping peacefully next to her after a month of relentless displays of patient friendliness.
Clem was the Nurse Joy of the house. She always knew if someone was hurting, emotionally or physically.
In this photo, our older dog Brother was suddenly deathly sick. Underneath the blanket he’s swaddled in more blankets and many layers of towels, because he was uncontrollably oozing blood. When we brought him home from the emergency vet, Clementine immediately crouched on top of his head, purring and kneading so intensely that it felt like she was in some kind of trance. He recovered fully.
When a (human) friend of ours was recovering from a horrible trauma, Clementine parked herself on her chest and refused to budge.
“But… But… I don’t like cats…” our friend said, a last feeble protest before submitting to Clementine’s healing ministrations.
We had four glorious years with Clementine. She made it to 18–a great age for a cat. She died peacefully, without pain, and is buried on our property, underneath a her favorite catnip plant.
I don’t know what her life was like before we met, but I know she was happy in those four years. She showed it to us every single day.
I’m so glad we took a chance on a shy senior. There were a lot of risks and a lot of unknowns. We were so focused on accepting those that we weren’t prepared for what we got: the best outcome of all possible outcomes.
That’s all I wanted to say, really! Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
New Cat is 14, the same age Clementine was when we adopted her. She’s in the early stages of renal disease, but we’re hoping she has a few good years left. I’m excited to get to know New Cat. I’m looking forward to posting pictures of her as she finds her place in our house.
I wrote an article soon after she died about why I think senior pets are totally worth it. You can read it here:
I’m so amazingly touched by all of the responses. I knew I could count on Tumblr bebes to appreciate Clem’s story! Thank you so much. My heart feels healed knowing she might convince others to give senior rescues a chance.
Also I’m happy to introduce New Cat.
This is Clover.
Like a clover: she is very smol and easily overlooked, but it’s good luck that we found her.
2) why does he look like mustacheod Mads Mikkelson
III) what is happen
?) ARE THEY BOYFRIENDS?????
AHEM! *dons his lore cape*
This is Biggs Darklighter, Luke’s best buddy growing up on Tatooine. There was a big chunk of story cut from A New Hope where Luke looks up at the sky, sees the Star Destroyer and Princess Leia’s ship shooting at each other in orbit, and jumps in his landspeeder to tell his friends like an excited puppy.
He arrives at Tosche Station (from the infamous line “But I was gonna go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”) and is surprised to find Biggs there, who had just gotten his certification from the Imperial Academy (mentioned in the line “That’s what you said when Biggs and Tank left” when Luke was trying to coax Uncle Owen into applying). Luke drags everyone outside to look but by that time the two ships have stopped shooting, so they write it off as Excitable Dumbass Luke getting his dumb hopes up again and go back inside.
It’s worth noting that Biggs takes the first look through Luke’s binoculars and says it’s probably just a freighter refueling. Having been to the Imperial Academy he’d know damn well what a Star Destroyer looks like and that having one in orbit over Tatooine means Srs Bsns is afoot. But he doesn’t mention this and lies, probably in an effort to keep Luke from going “ZOMG ADVENTURE!” and trying to get involved.
When everyone else inside, Biggs and Luke go for a walk and Biggs lets Luke in on a secret: he and a bunch of other Academy grads are going to mutiny and defect to the Rebel Alliance the first chance they get. Luke basically goes “GEE WHIZ!” and Biggs shuts him up. He explains that this is stupidly dangerous and is going to make him a wanted man if he survives, so this is the last time the two are probably ever going to see each other. Luke still doesn’t Get It yet and is mostly envious of all the excitement and adventure Biggs is about to embark on.
Fast forward past: Luke discovering real and innocent people get murdered by the Empire (courtesy of Uncle Owen & Aunt Beru’s smoking remains), finding out that dashing rogues can really just be selfish, trigger-happy assholes thanks to Han Solo, and watching the man who opened his eyes to a bigger universe get killed by the monster who Luke thinks murdered his father. His boyish naivety has taken quite the beating. But as he gears up to help attack the Death Star, who should he run into but his best buddy Biggs! How bad can war be when your best friend is at your side?
… oh.
Biggs gave his life to protect Luke, physically blocking Vader from shooting his best friend for as long as he possibly could. Between that, the reassuring words of Obi-Wan, and the timely return of Han (who Chewie threatened to tear the arms off of if they didn’t go back), Luke learned a critical truth: the universe was a lot darker than he ever realized, but no matter what there is always hope.
The Trump administration is advising people who work for the federal
government, who are not getting paid due to Trump’s stupid government
shutdown tantrum, to literally *barter with their landlords* and offer
to paint or do labor in exchange for partial rent.
Yes, really.
OPM is the federal agency that oversees federal workers.
Their advice for the 800,000 furloughed workers who are on day 7 with no pay: Try bartering for your rent.
The link in the tweet above provides sample letters in *.doc form
(super insecure!) that furloughed workers are advised to mail to their
landlords, if they can’t make their rent payments.
One of these sample letter templates suggests barting handyman services in exchange for rent money.
“I would like to discuss with you the possibility of trading my
services to perform maintenance (e.g. painting, carpentry work) in
exchange for partial rent payments,” the letter states.
No word on whether trading sex or other illicit services is off the table, because honestly, we all gotta sleep somewhere right?
The letter also asks landlords if they would consider reducing rent because of the government shutdown.
OPM also tells furloughed workers to “consult with your personal
attorney” if they need legal advice when dealing with creditors.
