Redied

Magikarp

Did you know that babies from affluent families hear an average of thirty MILLION more words before age 5 than babies in families below the poverty line? For context, Les Miserables is about 650,000 words and it looks like this:

So it’s like reading this book 46 times.* And that’s not the total number of spoken words, that’s the GAP between affluent and poor babies. And these are the years in which the brain undergoes the most development. It’s mind-boggling.

So what I’m saying is: keep doing the thing. Do it to all babies, all the time. Narrate your day. Ask them for opinions. (“Should we buy the large bag of potatoes or the small bag?” “Gaabooglagje.” “Yes, just as I thought.”) Point out colors and shapes and letters. Let them scribble outside the lines and treat their babble like talk. Sing them nursery rhymes and Raffi songs and songs from the radio. All of these things are going to build their brains to prepare them for kindergarten and beyond.

they are these wonderful tiny predatory birds

With great camouflage for multiple environments

And lovely plumage dependent on their species

BUT BEST OF ALL IS THEIR MOUTHS, which look small then their beaks are closed (they’ve even got cute lil’ whiskers!)

BUT ARE ACTUALLY HUUUUGE

Some beautiful environment concept art by Jane Bak for “To Belong”.

After that you have 2 options: drive away or protect yourself from the radiation.

Option one is tough because literally everybody else is going to want to do this, and you could get stuck right in the fallout. And lemme tell you, if you’re stuck out there when the ashes first fall for more than 15 minutes, you’re dead. Radiation poisoning.

Option two is harder, but has a better success rate. Get underground. Most houses have a crawlspace, but in this bad time just saw a fucking hole in your floor. Put table over hole. Pack some large containers (like tubs), with dirt, tight, and stack them on your table or wherever you’re going to be directly underneath. you need 36 inches if dirt to be protected from the radiation poisoning. You could preemptively buy lead and stick that in a container with a lot of serface area, i forget how many inches you need vertically.

How ever much serface area the dirt/metal/lead covers is how much you and your party will be able to move around. As long as there’s enough inches vertically you’ll be good so long as you stay under it.