Find your peace

I mean it

We’re all making a mass exodus from Tumblr, and the site is sealing its own fate. If this is the end, if this is TRULY how Tumblr comes to an end

Then let’s end it the way it began

Shitposting about Doctor Who, Supernatural, and Sherlock. (Heck, if you guys still hate Benedict Cumberbatch, you can shitpost about that new Will Ferrell movie if you like)

In 1943, a team of ingenious Italian doctors invented a deadly, contagious virus called Syndrome K to protect Jews from annihilation. On October 16 of that year, as Nazis closed in to liquidate Rome’s Jewish ghetto, many runaways hid in the 450-year-old Fatebenefratelli Hospital. There, anti-Fascist doctors including Adriano Ossicini, Vittorio Sacerdoti and Giovanni Borromeo created a gruesome, imaginary disease.

“Syndrome K was put on patient papers to indicate that the sick person wasn’t sick at all, but Jewish” and in need of protection, Ossicini told Italian newspaper La Stampa last year. The “K” stood for Albert Kesselring and Herbert Kappler — two ruthless Nazi commanders.

The doctors instructed “patients” to cough very loudly and told Nazis that the disease was extremely dangerous, disfiguring and molto contagioso. Soldiers were so alarmed by the list of symptoms and incessant coughing that they left without inspecting the patients. It’s estimated that a few dozen lives were saved by this brilliant scheme.

The doctors were later honored for their heroic actions, and Fatebenefratelli Hospital was declared a “House of Life” by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

I see many Winnie the Poohs at the hospital (aka Winnie aka Pooh aka Pooh Bear), as you may guess.  Many look like this, a bit flat and with small wounds, designed to have a removable shirt:

They come for spas:

New hearts and stuffing:

And plumping up so they have a proper belly again:

Sometimes they look like this:

A bit more loved… or as his person said, in more “desperate condition”.

He also had a spa (not everyone does):

As you may’ve noticed, he needed a new nose and there were several options:

His heart had a pooh on it as well as some magic from a heffalump:

And after a bit of arm and smile surgery, soon he was healthy and ready to fly home:

His person wrote “He looks wonderful!”

The final Pooh I’m going to show you today just flew home yesterday.  He is always called Pooh Bear.  He is 14 years old and showed every year of hugs.  

Here are the photos his person’s mom sent for diagnosis:

As you can see, Pooh Bear was a bit flat and a bit gray.  He came in for a spa:

Got new stuffing and a magical Heffalump heart to preserve a bit of his original stuffing:

And finally was clean and plump and fluffy and ready to fly home:

1. It is impossible to get machine made crochet. If you own something crocheted, I will personally guarantee it was made by a human hand holding a hook.

2. Crochet can give you repetitive stress injuries. I have had my wrist worked on for exactly that.

3. Wool, decent quality wool, is not cheap. A hank of cascade 220 worsted runs about $10. $8/skein *is* getting it on sale. Want Lamb’s Pride? $12. Malabrigo? $12. Think I’m going for the fancy stuff? Not even close. I have seen hanks of wool go for $40 or more.

4. I’ve crocheted a queen sized blanket (see also the note about injury above.) Trust: $240 at the going rate for even unskilled work doesn’t get you a queen sized blanket, and even the $800 at the end is still underselling the work of a skilled crochet artist.