“Enjoying a sunset on some rollerblades with your dog and horse.”

Hey Tumbls, are you voting in person? Here’s some info for you

1) If you are in line before the polls close, even if it’s 6:59 and polls close at 7:00, you have the right to vote. Don’t let them turn you away.

2) Electioneering within 25 feet of your polling place isn’t permitted. Don’t wear candidate or party merch. It is considered electioneering and you may be asked to leave and come back in a different change of clothes.

3) If someone is pressuring you to vote a certain way within 25 feet of a polling place, tell the poll workers. THAT’S ILLEGAL.

3) If someone is intimidating you or trying to drive you away from the polls, tell the poll workers. THAT’S ILLEGAL.

4) If you forgot your ID and you’re in a state that requires it, ask for a provisional ballot. You can still vote, even without the ID. Once your provisional ballot is cast, you can go home and grab your ID to show them, bypassing the line and going straight to the managing table.

(Disclaimer: I am a poll worker in MO, which has some of the stricter election laws in the country. Some laws may vary depending on region.)

There are 3 main types, but from my research, this looks to be American Gregg Shorthand.

As you can see, there are set symbols for every letter.

Let’s break one of the words down:

Using the Gregg Alphabet as reference, we can see most of the letters in “atrophied” are present. But why no “o” vowel, and why is “ph” written as “f”?

Simple. In shorthand, you cut out all vowels in a word when writing it down, with the exception of words that BEGIN or END with a vowel (hence the “a” at the start being present), or like in the “i” in “atrophied”, to make it more readable when the sound could be harder to distinguish if it isn’t written. In “atrophied” if the the “i” isn’t written, it could be hard to tell if the writer meant a “fud”, “fad”, “fod” or “fid” sound, for example.

Also, since Shorthand is a phonetic writing system, you are encouraged to write down the phonetic sounds of words rather than the actual letter blends - in this case, write an “f” instead of a “ph”.

So in actuality, these aren’t just meaningless scribbles - it’s Gregg Shorthand, a writing system developed to take down notes more quickly than when written out in full, which is very useful in a medical or journalistic environment.

Some people can even write over 100 words in a minute! And, it’s been in use since John Robert Gregg invented it in 1888! Wow! So old!

If you hold a small animal, any animal, and it starts to wiggle or push away from you put it down. Don’t just laugh. Don’t hold it tighter. Unless you have a good reason for holding it put it down.

I constantly have to tell children to put my chihuahua down and leave her alone when she wiggles. That’s okay. Children are stupid and don’t know anything about anything yet. We’ve all been there.

Adults have no excuse.

When you see a chihuahua like this you should not be thinking “demon dog” you should be looking at the owner and thinking “What did you do to this poor animal?” or alternatively if they got it from another person “What did that person do to this poor animals?” If a dog gets like this, any dog, the owner fucked up, not the dog. That is learned behavior. Those are extremely scared, uncomfortable dogs who has been mistreated. And by that I don’t mean beaten.

When people say “Treat a small dog like a big dog” that doesn’t just mean train and socialize it. It also means “Don’t do anything that would make a bigger dog bite your face off”.

Respect it’s signals. Let it know that it’s okay for people to hold and pet it by leaving it alone when it says “No more”. This can include wiggling, walking away from you, not responding when you touch it and looking at you in a way that shows the white in it’s eyes. It’s not hard to decode.

Only if you ignore signals like this will it start to show teeth and growl, and you have no right to get upset if it bites you after this. That’s on you. And eventually biting will be it’s first response because it has learned that the more subtle signals doesn’t work.

If it’s not your dog let it instigate contact with you. If it’s your dog respect it and you’ll find that it becomes much more tolerate of you and others handling it. Yes, if you try to clip its nails or something else it doesn’t want to do it might scream bloody murder, but it won’t bite because it knows this only happens sometimes and it’ll be over soon.

People have gotten so used to this idea that dogs have to be robots who should put up with everything we do to them and that’s really fucked up. They’re allowed to tell you no if there’s no reason for you to do it. It shouldn’t be forced to be held by you just because you want to hold it.

Hold it against its will to get vaccinated/groomed/other important things? Yes. Hold it against its will because you want to pet it? Big no. And of course teaching them tricks and commands are a must, but that’s not forcing them to do things. That’s teaching them that if they do the thing something good happens.

Of course animals are different. If people (me included) offer my shih tzu some food he will often show his teeth and it’s totally understandable that people get scared, but he’s not doing it to show aggression, he’s doing it because he doesn’t like to get food on his lips. How are people supposed to know that? I sure as hell didn’t the first time he did it, and it’s the right reaction for people to pull their hand back. Then I, the owner, can tell them not to worry, he’s just weird about food on his face.

And some dogs are more standoffish and take longer to warm up to people, and some trust you right away.

My point being, just assume every dog in the world show the same signals until the owner tells you otherwise.

I’ve said before that my chihuahua doesn’t like small children and avoids them at all costs because they do all the things I just told you not to do. She loves older children and adults though, and loves to be held even by complete strangers and is quick to roll up and snooze in the lap of any guest even if she has never met them before (trust me, no matter who you are, if you came to my home she would be sitting in your lap right now wagging her little tail wanting nothing but love from you), which is also why I panic when adults doesn’t respect her signals and try to force her to stay with them because Aw she’s so tiny and cute.