Kin Without Rules

me on their blog now looking for pics of zapa and trunky:

They're so cringefailures I love them ...

We ended up having a lengthy conversation about how a disease, sea star wasting syndrome (SSWS), decimated the wild populations of that species and many sea stars a few years prior and how that aquarium was actually one of the few in the country exhibiting Pycnopodia that didn't lose their entire population to the disease. We talked about some of the research that was happening to help protect them and she started to feel a little better. She wanted to feel like it was okay for her to visit the aquarium and that she wasn't just staring at caged animals.

Pycnopodia are now listed as critically endangered. They are a keystone species in their environment and SSWS is estimated to have killed 90% of the wild population. Without them, the shores of the entire west coast have changed. Now, ten years later, that same aquarium was the first to establish a successful treatment for the disease. Before that, most aquariums had the protocol to remove symptomatic animal and generally had to euthanize them because nothing could be done. Within a matter of days, they were completely melted. Now, there is a treatment. It's not a cure, but there's hope that something can be done. That same aquarium is also part of efforts to work towards reintroducing Pycnopodia to the wild to help restore the ecosystems.

People have started to understand that zoos work in conservation and education, but aquariums do, too. We talk about the California condor and black footed ferret as success stories and Panamanian golden frogs and rhinos as works in progress, but aquariums are doing that same kind of work! There are coral conservation labs, efforts to reintroduce wild animals and remove invasives (looking at you, Florida), housing of non-releasable marine mammals, research into new medical procedures and treatments, and breeding of endangered species. The fish (and inverts!) in aquariums have an easy life, and might even be part of something so much bigger.

(you can do it x don't give up): you will prevail. you have all the necessary skills to pull this off.

(you can do it x give up): you don't have to prove anything to anyone. let yourself rest.

(you can't do it x don't give up): the only way to learn is by failing. you will get the hang of it, but for now just push through.

Pizza delivery drivers of Reddit, what are some of the craziest reasons people have ended up on the “no delivery list”?

gameryamen

I worked for a pizza place that was near a very large software company. Deliveries to the neighborhoods or offices where all the tech workers lived was usually pretty awesome because they'd tip rather well. But there was one apartment that started to become a concern for us drivers. The man ordering was always polite, always paid, always tipped $4, and he would have been a perfect customer. He'd order breadsticks and a salad twice a week, and sometimes he'd include a bottle of root beer. Except when he opened his door, you could see an alarming amount of our breadsticks boxes stacked everywhere inside. Not like a few on the counter and a couple by the trash, stacks and stacks of them. Even worse, it was only our boxes in there. He wasn't just ordering from us often, we were the only place he was getting food outside of work. Now, I've worked in some of those tech offices myself, I know that there's enough decent food options just hanging out in the break rooms that this guy was probably not malnourished, but the way his living space was a shrine of greasy cardboard was a clear sign that this guy didn't have a healthy relationship with our food. Our manager was a really cool dude though, and he heard the drivers joking about the boxes and asked a couple of us "Is this like a messy guy or a guy who needs help?" We agreed it was probably the latter. So on his day off, the manager went to the guys apartment with an envelope that had gift cards for several other restaurants that delivered in that area and chatted with him. Manager found out that the guy was an immigrant on a Visa who was struggling to find American food he liked, and too socially awkward to ask anyone. So he talked with him through a few menus and helped him with some recommendations. Then he helped the guy load all the old boxes into his truck to take to the dump, in exchange for a promise not to order from us more than once a week. For a little while, the manager had a note on the calendar showing the last time the guy had ordered, and a couple times he had to hold his ground and refuse the guy's order. But after that chat, I never saw the stacks of boxes again, and the guy would boast about the different meals he'd had.

Drawing w/o fucky filters below: