Bird Chaser

The man does not know from cheese. The man "ain't never seen no cheese but orange before" and "I showed ya list to the cheese lady so if it's wrong it's her fault ok?"

I am 80% sure she sent him there for a really specific bleu cheese, 40% sure he does not have the very specific bleu cheese, and 100% sure he's done with her shit.

Our flight is delayed.

Cheese man has been demanding payment because apparently he went like six hours out of his way and paid with his own money and between the cheese and price of gas, he is pretty sure he does not have enough money in his account for an Uber home.

The lady is FLABBERGASTED that he is demanding payment at all, as she was under the impression he was doing this for her out of the goodness of his heart.

"OR ELSE WHAT?"

"I'm gonna-? THE BABY SHOWER? MONICA CAN'T EVEN HAVE THIS CHEESE SHE'S PREGNANT!"

"The cheese lady asked if it was for someone because the mushrooms or whatever in the cheese are dangerous for the baby or something?? You wanna poison Monica?"

"WHY WOULD I LIE ABOUT THAT?"

"YEAH OF COURSE I GOT THE CHEESE, THATS WHY I DON'T GOT MONEY FOR UBER!"

"YEAH, GO TELL! GO TELL MOMMA I STOPPED YOUR STUPID ASS FROM KILLING MONICA OR THE BABY! FUCK!"

*hangs up phone*

*head in hands, borderline hyperventilating*

The man in the three piece suit is in the chair next to him. He waits a moment, then reaches into his carryon and pulls out an entire bottle of wine with the TSA pre check sticker on it, and taps cheese guy on the shoulder.

2. Cheese guy is crying a little about the cash and opening up about his problems. The cheese lady is his younger sister. Suit guy is being very generous with his Pinot Blanc. We are having a picnic/improv family therapy session.

3. This is apparently the latest in a long string of his sister asking for something and then flaking when he asks to be paid back. Started with paying him back only some of what he was owed, then claiming something she paid for him was of equal value when it was not, then recently telling him his memory is wrong and he said it was a gift or that he'd do it for free.

"Yeah, the specific thing of trying to convince you your memory is unreliable is called gaslighting and it's really fucked up." I say

"yeeeeah. The other stuff I forgave because she's never really had a good job so she can't pay me back all the time but at least she was making an effort y'know? But that was. That was over the line."

"If you haven't already, check on the rest of your family's finances. My brother started trying to gaslight everyone when he started stealing from our parents." Says Pinot Blanc.

4. Shiba Inu Lady has purchased a cheddar. Apparently, the dog's name is Donut, and he's her service dog because she's severely visually impaired.

"Oh, he's a guide dog?" Asks cheese guy.

"oh, no." She laughs. "He's too short, and the way my eyes are, it's easier for me to navigate with a cane. No, the problem I have is that some morally impaired people see the cane and think they can get away with stealing my bag or assaulting me because I wouldn't be able to give a description- which is wrong, but rather than deal with that I got Donut, and he helps me by howling at anyone who gets in my personal space and biting anyone who grabs me!"

"Uh." Says Kirigumi. "He's been staring at me do I need to back up or..?"

"Ohdear! No, no- He wasn't looking at you! He loves cheese but he knows he's not supposed to beg so he decided the way to deal with something he wants but can't have is to stare in the other direction."

"OKAY!" Says Kirigumi. "I'm wearing fox pajamas and thought like. He thought I was another dog or something."

"No, no- he doesn't care about dogs, and you get a warning before he goes for the calves. Very helpful, when I was living in Italy!"

"Oh what part? I have family in Tuscany." Says Pinot.

2. I know they're planning to continue because Pinot talked to the gate agent so he and cheese guy can sit together and talk about family drama and cheese.

3. Pinot has been teaching him about different types of cheese and how to enjoy them.

4. Cheese guy apparently repairs computers and other technology devices for a living and is currently doing the software version of scraping barnacles and other crap off Pinot'macbook.

Now that I've heard the word aloud, and they are an astrophysicist. Who correctly believes in being comfy as fuck on planes. They are also familar with the concept of a meet-cute and is rooting for them too.

Got to walk the nice lady and her Tactical Assault Shiba to her next gate because it was on the way out and talk for a bit. Donut is called that not because he is the color of a Donut (which he is) but because he likes to sleep curled up in a perfect circle. He has a sister who does the same thing named Bagel.

Lost track of Pinot and Cheeseguy for a bit but when I saw them again at Baggage claim, Cheeseguy was holding both their jackets, and Pinot was on the phone to his hotel about "Well do you have any rooms with TWO beds?". The rest of the call indicated that yes, there were rooms with two beds, but Readers, I Had A Moment.

:)

The original concept that humans complete the act of creation by making bread from wheat is from the Talmud! And the specific "wheat but not bread, grapes but not wine" phrasing is from Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel but it is missing "clay but not bricks".

And among trans Jews the sentiment was already popular before I ever started seeing this specific phrasing so I knew, knew, knew a Jew and likely a trans Jew was involved.

As it happens, Ortberg's friend Julian is Jewish and they have strongly negative feelings about the way the quote has been removed from the context of their life as someone trans and Jewish. They used to have a thread up on xwitter about it but have since made their account private and only have a very terse FAQ online from which you can glean the treatment they likely received when being more open about their Jewishness, relationship to transness, and the interaction of both.

I recommend a Brother or a Janome, you can find those at stores like Walmart, and Singer has a really janky reputation for their machines of the last couple decades. If you have the time and are machine oriented and have the good luck to find a vintage Singer (or almost any vintage machine, really), by all means buy and restore that piece, it will treat you right, but Brother or Janome is the way to go. (Also, you don't necessarily NEED a sewing machine, but if you can pull together the funds for one it helps. If all you can manage is a sewing needle and a spool of thread and spending a lot of time hand-sewing for a couple hours a night for weeks on end? Yeah, you can make really good clothing that way too. It just takes longer.)

Other brands for inexpensive but decent quality supplies: John James (needles), Dritz (seam rippers, measuring tapes, chalk sticks), Coats & Clark (thread), Gutermann (slightly more expensive thread), Wrights.

Invest in an iron and figure out a place to throw down a towel and press everything. My sewing got 50% better just by pressing all the seams after I sewed them. It doesn't have to be a big investment, just get the mid-range iron at Walmart instead of the absolute cheapest. If you have shitty tap water, maybe get a jug of distilled water too and keep it by your iron so you don't use the tap water.

Rit is (or was for the longest time) a terrible dye because it tries to be all things to all fibers. Different types of fiber need different types of dye: plant based fibers (cotton, linen) act different with dye than animal based (wools) which act different than synthetic (polyester, nylon, etc). Rit does now sell at least one type of fiber-specific dye! If you can afford it and find it at Michael's or wal-mart, look for dye that says it's specifically for cellulose (plant) or protein (animal) or synthetic (polyester) fibers. If you can't afford fiber-specific dye or can't find it, don't sweat it, lower your expectations a bit and take your time and try and do test pieces if at all possible; you can work through an astonishing amount of problems by adding or subtracting heat, salt, time, labor (standing over it with a big dye-only spoon and stirring endlessly), etc. Craft forums can help guide you here. How do you find out what kind of fiber you're working with? You do a burn test, and craft forums, CraftTube, etc will help you here.

Search out videos on: felled seam, flat felled seam, and french seam. These are different ways of sewing enclosed seams so that your fabric doesn't fray nearly as badly. If you're not confident on these at first, you can also use FrayCheck. It's a glue for the ends of fabric and you can get it at WalMart.

This is all very overwhelming? Start small. Make a skirt. Make a cloak. Make a vest. Make something that's a few pieces of rectangle or a circle stitched together. Decorate it how you want! Write down all the skills you practiced. Did you learn how to do a French seam? Did you learn how to sew on a button? Did you learn how to read a sewing pattern, or what a grainline is, or how to thread your new sewing machine? Write it down! Make a list of all the things you know. Because over time you will realize that you know things, and you will go, hey. That skirt's just a few circles and some sewing and ironing and a lot of lace added onto the edge. I can do that.

Obvious disclaimer that you shouldn't have wild animals as pets.

But like, cheetahs are the only large cats that keepers will do free contact with. Hell, even most small cats don't get free contact. (Because small cats can be VICIOUS. They'll have a baby pallas cat wearing thicker gloves than when handling an owl. Because small cats can just be vicious.)

Like I think the only other cat at our zoo where I've seen free contact with was servals? Because I know they've used servals in shows to demonstrate their natural jumping ability. But I know servals can sometimes have a mean temper as well. Meanwhile they'll do the cheetah run and afterwards put the mic by the cheetahs and it's just like an engine with them purring. It's fascinating to watch when the message in every other large animal is "no free contact because it's dangerous even when they're born in captivity".

anyway i wanted a memento of my first pride, you know, and this one vendor was selling keyrings, and i liked it, so i bought one. do you remember those italian charm bracelets that were all the rage like 10-15 years ago? it was a keychain like that, and it had a rainbow rooster, a rainbow cat, and then just a rainbow, and so I bought it.

i run into my mom a couple of vendors over and she goes oh you bought something? what’d you get? so i showed her, and i was like, “I’m not sure why it’s a rooster and a cat. Seems kind of random. But I liked the rainbows.”

and my mom, who was some form of minister’s wife for most of my childhood and teenagerhood, stares at me like she thinks i’m joking.

“What?” i say.

…relic…

Happy pride month to my fellow psychheads. 💪😤 💗💛💙

There are 760,000 Australians on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the system that - if they feel like it and your personalised plan says you get to have it - provides funding for everything from personal hygiene care to support workers to therapies to assistive technology. It's already very hard for disabled people to get on the NDIS, regardless of your disability. It's near impossible to access most support and equipment without being on the NDIS. And the government has announced that they want that number to drop to 600,000 in four years. 160,000 of us cut off the Scheme - and countless more denied access. This will cause deaths. People will die and people will suffer because there is no safety net. The NDIS is the only option for most of us. Even private health insurance doesn't cover most of these things. Nobody will swoop in to save us.

The bill wants to give the (non disabled!) NDIS minister basically unlimited power to cut our funding. They're already planning what they'd do with that power. What rights they'll strip from us. What dignity and freedom they'll remove to make their budget look better.

The bill wants to force people to try every treatment out there before they're allowed to be on the NDIS. Including if the treatment is literally impossible to access. There’s a lot of us living in regional areas or out bush who can't just pop to the capital cities for specialists. This will especially hurt disabled First Nations people in regional and remote communities, who already experience limited access to healthcare. Oh, and it includes chemical restraint, too. The government has directly refused to exclude chemical restraint from the required process, calling it "trialling medication".

If you're australian and worried, the ABC did a good breakdown of the proposed changes.

I know australia stuff doesn't really pop up on the radar on this site, but I want everyone to know what's going on. What we're fighting for here. Your australian disabled friends might be NDIS participants fearing for their life, rights, and freedom. They might not be a participant and afraid these changes mean they never will have access. We deserve better. The government built a system with no backup plan, and now they want hundreds of thousands of disabled people to pay the price for their bad planning.

- Nobody needs to apologise for venting in the notes or reblogs. We're scared and upset and deserve to be heard.

What to do:

- australians: don't give up! There's still people fighting this, it's not law yet. And even if it passes we can fight them on it. Most disabled peoples' organisations are fighting this, so organisations like People With Disability Australia and area specific groups. Membership to most of them is free if you're disabled. PWDA sends out a list of the news about us each week to keep us informed.

🔗Disabled People Against Cuts are leading a charge. There's always a way to make politicians pay attention even if we have to park our arses on their front step. Share support and resources where you can and keep an eye on the others in your community if you're able to. Talk to local support clinics about Coles and Woolworths vouchers for those facing a lot of uncertainty. And get your flu shot if you're able. Nobody needs the next protest to give everyone the flu.

- non-australians: keep watching. You might also benefit from seeing what DPAC are doing and if they ever call for international support. Supporting the disabled australians you know and refusing to be kept in the dark about what’s being done to marginalised people internationally is good preparation for lots of ways to help, it means you're ready to go if something you can help with appears and don't lose time educating yourself. Many of the situations with the NDIS have deliberately had short time frames to act, to try and stop us from having a voice.

context from the notes:

- When I said health insurance doesn't cover disability supports, I don't mean "it's very expensive so people can't access it". I mean the services often won't take on anyone who doesn't have an NDIS plan. Even then, it's common for services to prefer people who are "plan managed" or "agency managed", meaning someone else handles our invoices, because they feel "self managed" people might not pay them fast enough.

- People have been getting "check in" phone calls from the agency. It’s secretly plan reviews for them to reduce people's funding. If they call you and you don’t have your support people with you, they are lying when they say you don't need them. Tell them to organise a time to call later so you can have your support people. This kind of warning is the only reason I knew to contact my support coordinator when I got this phone call. Others I have seen didn't know and got their plan cut. And it takes years to try and change a plan or appeal it through the tribunal.

- Someone in the notes has identified herself as a support coordinator and offered to help with questions for people concerned about their plan via DMs (thank you @andromedusia). This is very kind of her and I also hope mentioning this here doesn't cause you any trouble, very sorry if it does.

- Also, not thrilled to find out they might be phasing out support coordinators. Lots of us are dependent on them - a support coordinator is someone who helps us understand out plan and connect with supports, and often helps with advocacy too. They’ll save money on us purely because we won't know where to go or what the plans mean. They use a lot of confusing terms in the plans. I'd be screwed without my support coordinator.

- Oh they also want to use a standardised assessment tool to tell how disabled we are, after a decade of having to pay out of pocket for specialists who know us to provide reports. This is actually worse because the tool doesn’t have to be done by a qualified professional and doesn’t work on people with a lot of different disabilities. The government is very good at somehow turning "bad" into "worse".

- Yeah. 760,000 australians is actually not that many. There's 27 million people living here. 85% of disabled australians aren't on the NDIS. Now, a lot of disabled people don't necessarily need the kind of support the NDIS provides, but you know who I don't trust to make that decision? The government who doesn't want to pay for it.

- None of this fixes the existing problems with access for First Nations people or people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. I'm pretty sure a standardised assessment tool will actually only make that way worse. No room for professionals to work with cultural sensitivity and humility to understand the impact of someone's disability, or the varying ways First Nations communities may construct and talk about disability that don't necessarily align with the settler government's convenient definition. Just checkboxes.

- This isn't even our "conservative" government party in power. This is the centre/centre-left party, Labor. The 'Liberal party' (note: not liberal) would likely do worse. But I don't think there's much to be grateful for when this will kill people. And probably won't stop later conservative cuts anyway. Because we cost too much.

one and a half minutes of Just This Guy