Best posts made by Aria

I'm working on a cowl for my sister-in-law's birthday. This is made with two different strands of yarn held together while knitting for a marled effect.

I call this colorway "unicorn poop".

Guys. Guys. I really super hate to be the party pooper here, especially as the resident "angry feminist" who thinks vasectomies should be far more common place, that men should take ownership of their own birth control as well women, that pregnancy shouldn't be a "consequence" that happens to "sluts", etc. etc., but....

This is how you end up with state-backed eugenics programs.

And no, I don't just mean in countries we don't like. I mean, like..... Indian Health Services were still sterilizing women who came in for regular services in 1976. That may seem like a long time ago, but for context? That was the year my parents met. The state of Oregon was still enforcing sterilization as part of 'social protection' in 1983. Think that seems like a long time ago? Several of us were born that year, or right around there. The state of Washington still has mandatory sterilization laws on the books.

And that does not include horror stories coming out of ICE detention centers as recently as last year or the pretty horrific "Ashley Treatment" being conducted on a disabled girl in 2007 that included a hysterectomy and fusing her growth plates together so she'd be easier to take care of and the 2010 debate within the medical community of whether or not they should do that to more disabled people.

While I understand that y'all are definitely trying to come from a good place, at the very least this should be moved to the Politics board if you're going to keep talking about it, but more than that, I'd strongly suggest giving some reconsideration to supporting government enforced medical procedures complete with fitness tests for 'the improvement of society' and what that sounds like.

Like, for real for real. It ain't shiny and good, lovelies.

I think the thing that's getting me is how many people are saying "We're back to normal! We're back to normal!" except.... we're not.

I'm still working from home every single day of the week and because of various health issues in their respective families and households, have seen literally any of my friends in person exactly once, fully masked, standing outside in the street since.... March 1st of 2020.

My husband is still working the shitty, shitty job that was the only thing he could find after his company laid him off and for all these claims of being unable to find workers, he's had at least have a dozen companies email him to schedule interviews and then never reply to his reply, schedule interviews and then not show up, or get him through multiple rounds of interviews to never call or email him again, even with a form letter rejection.

Almost all of the ways we spent our free time were ones that involved very large crowds -- concerts and comedy shows and movie theaters, none of which will be happening for several more months where we live.

I still get an email about once a month from my program announcing another one of my classmates who just died from COVID. Including yes, literally this week.

So when people say that things are "back to normal", I honestly don't know what the fuck they're talking about. What is the phrase for feeling like you're being gaslit by 300 million people?

I am not one of those wildly popular players. But the friends that I do have are of the "Holy shit, you guys......" level of amazing, some in mind-boggling ways.

So thanks. I'm going to go happy-but-overwhelmed snot-cry because someone was unexpectedly nice to me on a really bad day.

I am the executive assistant for a department of 127 people.

I am often both whined at for providing free candy out of my own pocket -- but not often enough! and not in their favorite flavor! and how come I switched to the less expensive stuff! -- and the one responsible for figuring out how to cater events for our department whenever management decides to 'bring in a special treat!'

We have multiple vegetarians, one vegan, two people who are gluten-free out of medical necessity (so cross-contamination is an issue), one person who says she's gluten-free but everyone in the office has seen her eat plenty of wheat, one person who is allergic to tomatoes (which are in goddamn everything), one person allergic to eggs, my own seafood allergy, one nut allergy, three women who basically won't eat anything unless it looks like something from the kids' menu, a guy who basically thinks all vegetables are Satan incarnate, my boss who wants seafood everything (did I mention I'm the one doing the ordering and am allergic to fish?), and another manager who says he will 'try anything once if it isn't weird' which means he wants steak and potatoes.....

.....Fuck all of you. Seriously. ALL OF YOU.

Be nice to your assistants, people. You have no idea how many of you narrowly escape justifiable homicide on a regular basis.

@silverfox said in MU Things I Love:

My phone autocorrecting 'dicks' (as in male assholes) into 'ducks'.

It will never not be funny.

....I think my boyfriend is psychic.

A couple of days ago, we bought some frozen cookie dough from Hope's Cookies. I just went downstairs wanting cookies and we had the following conversation:

"Can you make cookies?"
"They're in the oven."
"....You mean the ones from the other day?"
"No, I mean I mean they're cooking in the oven right now."
"But... I didn't ask you to make cookies yet."
"Yeah, but they're in the oven."
"Already?"
"Yes."
"<stares, dumbfounded and amazed>"

PSYCHIC.

I mean, it'd be great if he could tell me the winning lottery numbers or something, but I will settle for the selective ESP ability of "Knows When Girlfriend Wants Fresh Cookies."

So....I'm going to be the bitch here and say it, because while on the one hand I am very happy that -- for once -- there are actually consequences coming to bear against people who have repeatedly, publicly, provably been accused of sexual misconduct, I am also very, very, very tired of the number of people (almost all men, but hey, sure, I'll play your stupid game and say 'people') coming out and saying "I'm so surprised!" and "I'm so saddened!" at the effects of the Weinstein accusations, #MeToo, and all of this spiralling together at once.

None of this is new. None of this is secret. None of this is shocking in any way, shape, or form. Women have been saying this for generations. Women far smarter, and bolder, and stronger, more powerful, and more eloquent than me -- and I've beating this drum for almost twenty years now.

If you're in any way surprised by the depth or the scope of this, by the number of women you know you have been assaulted or harassed, by the fact that so many have gotten away with it? It's because you weren't fucking listening.

@jibberthehut

"It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new dog who comes into my life, gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are."

-Unknown

Dude just got fired and escorted off our site by the VP of his firm. He was so new, he didn't have his badge yet.

And according to said VP who followed up with me, the guy didn't even try to deny it. Fuck you, guy.

@sunny Yeeeeeeup. Their VP of Field Operations was on our site today, and their firm really doesn't want to lose our business after working with us for 35 years and us no longer even going out to bid anymore. When I told him that I called and left a message for their site manager today and didn't hear back at all? He seemed a bit shaken by that. Moreso when I said that at 2PM, after waiting more than half the day, I went to HR about it, so he's probably going to be getting a phone call from the people that hold their contract.

Happily, when the head HR relations rep for our division gets back to me, I will be telling them he handled it well once we sat down. Within an hour of actually getting back to me and hearing me out, he identified the guy, confronted him, and let him go. Then came back and confirmed with me that he's been escorted off-site and doesn't have further access to my building.

This is Melia, the orphaned baby elephant that my husband started sponsoring for me at a rehabilitation nursery during our first Christmas together. This year, he sponsored a new elephant for me, a little girl named Mteteo who is about three years old.

Why the new elephant after eleven years, you might ask?

Because Melia is all grown up and now considered an 'ex-orphan' living wild at Tsavo National Park in Kenya, a fact which I discovered when logging in to look at the photos of my new 'adoptee'. She apparently likes to stop by with her herd every few months, to snuggle with and comfort the new orphans being raised there.

I'm not crying. You're crying.

So some dumbfuck lawmakers in Tennessee are expressing concerns about classifying tampons as a necessity -- and thus removing the sales tax on them -- because they're concerned that women will just go crazy at such fabulous discount and buy 'too many', whatever that means.

That is not the thing I love. What I love is that several of my friends and I have turned this into a chain of ideas on possible uses for a dragon hoard's worth of tampons. Among my personal contributions to the discussion:

• Combat rising sea levels by using them to build strategic levy walls
• Soak them in flammable liquid and then use the little string to ignite what are now weaponized projectiles
• Reduce tissue waste by just shoving one up the runny side of your nose during cold and allergy seasons

^ How to store your extra cats.

(Also how to keep them from climbing on your desk while you're working.)

My husband. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I picked a good one.

What prompted me this time?

Me: "I donated another $100 to X."
Him: "Good."

He could freak out that I've blown almost half his paycheck on charities in the last two days, but no. His only response every time is just "Good." And as long as we can pay our bills, I know he'd have the same reaction to me saying I donated ten times that to anything we both support.

He is a precious baby angel, when I don't want to choke the ever-living shit out of him.

I literally laughed until I couldn't breathe.

I AM PICKING UP MISS KITTY TONIGHT AND WILL PET HER MAJESTIC EAR TUFTIES.

I'd say I'm sorry for the all caps shouting but I'm not.

A friend of mine has had a super shitty six months and today was his 50th birthday.

I got to turn me yelling at him about how he's not buying his own birthday cake and to stop it and let his friends love on him instead of worrying about "putting anyone out" into a hilarious little production involving three other friends. One quite literally trumpeted in the arrival of his cake that another carried, while a third recited the absurd and pun-filled "quest" that I went on from bakery to bakery to hunt down the particular flavor he wanted while all the locals were panicking about some especially miserable incoming winter weather.

In a room full of SCAdians, relating the tale of how "I braved the Doom-Singers of the Snowstorms of 2019, defeated the Hoarding Hounds they have unleashed upon the land to scavenge every bit of its 'bread' and 'eggs', and navigated the labyrinthine Maze of Minivans to deliver to my lord and Baron his carrot cake" reduced everyone to giggle fits.

He was all smiles and delight. I am smugly pleased. ^_^

In early March, we took one of our old man cats to the vet for a check up and he came home with a clean bill of health.

Somehow, since then, he's lost over a pound -- which is a lot, considering the fact that he only weighed about 10 pounds to begin with.

Bless our wonderful, wonderful vet, who absolutely 100% listened to me when I called and said that yes, he had just been checked out, but I wanted a CBC on him right away. They squeezed me in between my own medical appointments on my day off and the time from blood draw to results was less than 24 hours. He has hyperthyroidism, which is not great, but treatable with twice a day ear goop rubbing.

Considering the last time we had an old man cat lose weight suddenly, we were told "pancreatic cancer" and he was gone within a month of diagnosis? I may have ugly-snot-cried (and then paid half again the cost of the prescription to get it shipped faster).

My boss just handed me 26 pages of content and a (proverbial) red pen.

You want to make the English major turned communications consultant happy after a shitty, shitty day? You unleash them with a red pen.

My only question was "Chicago style or AP?"