woman inherits the earth

11 years since nationwide gay marriage in the US

23 years since sodomy was legalized

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

Today, Mouse’s principles had been compromised, because (among other things) I had allowed their two-year-old friend to finish eating an apple core that Mouse had not entirely abandoned (violating an ancient rule of chivalry) but when this was pointed out, I hissed privately that we had to let the baby eat the apple, citing some obscure law about ‘hospitality’. I had also asked Mouse to overlook this baby’s other crimes, such as chucking toy cars about, and flagrantly hogging a small balloon.

“That,” mouse says strongly, all propriety outraged, “is NOT sharing!!!”

Earlier in the day, after swimming, when Mouse’s best friend Bess acquired some gummy snacks, Bess did NOT trade them with a favourable exchange rate for Mouse’s generously offered cheese snacks; and one of Mouse’s other good friends, Syndy, has invited them over to play fire engines NEXT week. Attentive minds will instantly notice that this is not THIS week, when Mouse would prefer it to happen.

Syndy furthermore is persisting in having their birthday party in MARCH, not tomorrow - I DO hope you can understand the stress that Mouse is under. Also, Mouse has - in their own opinion- generously offered to forgive these crimes, by kissing and making up; but, although their friends often accept the snog, they continue the crimes. Thus, poor Mouse! The last defender of good manners! A parfait gentil knight! Is reduced to screaming: THIS IS NOT WHAT WE DO. That is TOO MUCH.

(Bess demonstrated being Too Much this morning by uncoupling their car seat and climbing into the boot of a car, and sprinting across a parking lot while their sire howled in anguish; while respecting Bess’s tremendous coolness and defiance, Mouse is the first one to condemn their wild behaviour, and the loudest voice to shriek: “NO BESS YOU ARE BEING TOO MUCH.”)

When Mouse, aged 3, and I came downstairs this evening - I had just had a Mouse-assisted shower- we found that Bear, aged 9, was watching Galaxy Quest with their sire.

Mouse watched with appreciation as a pretty lady on the screen snogged an attractive man. “Oh,” they said, tenderly, delighted.

The kiss deepened. “OH!” Mouse hooted, and coo’ed with approval, as someone who snogs their friends with almost-alarming lack of discrimination - they said, supportively, “oh good! A good kiss.”

The lady produced some tentacles.

“Oh, WHAT?” mouse said, aggrieved by this. “Oh WHAT!!!!”

The lady produced more tentacles, and helpfully dragged the man under.

“THAT IS NOT,” howled a beleaguered Mouse, “HOW WE KISSING.” And they proceeded to shriek in outrage; “NO LADY! That is NOT NICE KISSING! YOU STOP IT!”

The snogging continued. The man disappeared.

“MUMMY,” Mouse shrieked, “MUMMY, LADY NOT NICE KISSING!”

“Er,” i said.

“HIM SAD,” mouse said, feeling tremendously on the side of the gentleman, “THAT IS TOO MUCH.”

“Well, you see, Mousey,” I said, inadequately: “sometimes, some ladies are squids…”

I petered out.

anyway we like pacing around together and ranting in the attic but sometimes instead of pacing one of us will just hang on the pole and spin, and the other person will watch on the beanbag, which makes for these really goofy conversations where the person on the bag will say something that gets the other persons goat, such as, hypothetically, that xylophones do not belong in rock music, and then the other person will go on a tirade about this, but they'll actually only be facing the Hot Take Speaker half of the time, what because of the pole, so the response will sound something like

I can't believe

you would even suggest such

a stupid opinion. You've

been to a Danny Elfman

concert! How can you

have heard Oingo Boingo

live and say with a straight face

that they alone do not justify

rock and roll xylophones

and then that person will continue until they get too dizzy, then they'll get off the pole, and by unspoken agreement, the person on the bag will get up and trade places with them to deliver their rebuttal while also spinning and it just creates this sort of crazy strip-court lawyers debating absolute nonsense for no reason kind of vibe that frankly just really does it for us.

i’m like “you can totally go downstairs, but just so you know, right now the only thing down there is the genealogy department. that’s like the history of this area and the people who lived here a long time ago.”

i’m expecting them to lose interest, but to my surprise, they go “we want to see the genealogy department!!!!!!”

so i’m like “alright let’s do it!!!!” and lead this group of maybe six elementary school kids across the library make way for ducklings style and downstairs to our extremely not kid friendly genealogy room. our genealogy librarian is super cool, though, and he pulls out a few interesting things for them to look at & they ask a lot of questions and try to find where they live on maps from the 1800s

after about fifteen minutes, their curiosity has been sated, so we go back upstairs and over to the children’s department in that same duckling parade style