The Celestial Quill

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Heat exhaustion is quite literally your body getting too hot and Exhausting itself to cope. Heatstroke is your body Failing To Cope.

Heat Exhaustion signs include:

You get a headache that Will Not Go Away

You feel confused and dizzy (balance who? Idk her)

You don't feel hungry but you feel sick as well (this sucks and happens a lot in high heat so try and snack regularly)

Sweating and clammy skin like the kind that has people go "you're freezing!" because you've sweated so much you literally end up with a chill on your skin

Cramps. Feckin cramps. Arms. Legs. Stomach. They suck ass.

You have a heckin fast pulse or you're hyperventilating like you've just had a Scare

Your body temp is over 38°c (because you're literally boiling like a lobster in a pot)

You are Beyond Thirsty and no matter what you drink it Does Not Abate

If you end up experiencing any of these symptoms, or multiple, and you're in a hot/warm environment, then sit your ass down in the shade, get something to drink, and get a damp cloth on your head or a change of clothes that are cool.

Basically, stop what you're doing and give your body a chance to Not Keep Boiling

Heat exhaustion is NOT THE SAME as a heatstroke.

Heatstroke is So Much Worse™.

Heatstroke signs include:

Still feeling like utter shite 30 minutes after you sat your ass down, rested in a cool place, and rehydrated

Not actually sweating even though you really do feel like a lobster in a pot that has the heat up High

Your body temp is 40°c+ (which is bad btw, that's temp for causing your to pass out etc)

Hyperventilating/fast breathing or actual shortness of breath (I struggle with this because asthma so I'm always like "idk if I got this oops)

Feeling confused but in a like "I don't know what's going on, I can't think, I have no idea about anything, someone help me please I'm crossing into traffic and don't even realise" way

Having a fit/seizure because your body temp is so high your brain is Actually Getting Boiled In Your Skull 🙃 [upside down smiley emoji]

Passing out and not actually responding or waking up from a brief fainting spell (this is the Serious™ kind of passing out that has doctors going "oh shit, we need an IV STAT!" or whatever it is they say when Shit Is Going Down)

Heatstroke can be really dangerous if it isn't treated quickly so please don't ignore these signs. Right now, I'm in a cool environs, with hydration, and am avoiding moving and am gonna have a nap because I'm going very dizzy, can't focus properly, have a headache, and am only coherent here because I'm HyperFocusing on this post. I can't even understand words being said to me right now hence nap, hydration, and cool environs.

Some additional hot weather tips

If you have low blood sugar, but are having a hard time eating because you feel crappy from the heat, try sucking on some hard candy

If possible, after you get out of the sun/heat drink Gatorade or something similar to replenish what you've been loosing from sweating

When drinking water or Gatorade (no matter what you have it is important to stay hydrated!) it is important to drink slowly, even if you are very thirsty, because if you drink too fast the water might come back up

In hot weather, bandanas are very useful, even as a preventative measure, because you can pour some water from you bottle (or anything else) on them, and then put them on your head (as mentioned above) or neck. A few other areas help as well, like armpits, but I would personally recommend your neck.

It is not recommended to use a fan at or above 99°f or 35°c, because they can actually start to make the heat worse. (I know these are different temps, the recommendations come from different governments, 35°c is around 95°f, but this also depends on conditions like humidity, so just use your best judgement with this info)

Most importantly, if you think you are getting heat stroke call 911 or your equivalent, heat stroke kills several people each year, even in my area, where it normally only gets to 100°f for a few days each year

For fahrenheit users,

38°c = 100.4°f

40°c = 104°f

It's why it's so important to rest and keep hydrated when it's warm. I hope you eventually felt better and maintained your hydration levels with water and other fluids.

I had three days of feeling the after effects of heat exhaustion myself and felt like I had a cold, a constant headache, and random chills all at the same time as having a dry throat, not sweating properly, dizziness, and even muscle cramps from the rapid dehydration I experienced.

In general, to anyone who sees or reblogs this:

It's really important to take care of yourself, both immediately after you recognise you've got heat exhaustion, and in the long term. It can affect you for days after.

Please take care of yourselves aka TAKER:

Take breaks

Avoid too much sun

Keep hydrated

Eat regularly

STAY IN SHADE.

HYDRATE.

EAT IN EARLY HOURS AND LATE EVENING.

NAP WHEN YOU GOTTA.

Lemonade can absolutely work. Pickle juice and diluted vinegar are also good. They both provide electrolytes just like sports drinks. They might not have all of the salts (pickle juice does, though), so you might want to add a touch of salt to them to help with that, but they absolutely help to hydrate you like sports drinks do.

You...you do realize that's what people used before electrolyte drinks were invented, right? It's why lemonade's so popular in the summers. Why there's many forms of drinking vinegar (drinking vinegar, shrubs, sekanjabin, etc) in the world to act as a summer drink?

Beer and caffeinated drinks don't help as much as you might like (but still can!) because caffeine and alcohol are diuretics. You need to make sure you then drink more than the caffeine and alcohol cause you to pee out.

Alcohol also doesn't help because it can dilate your blood vessels and all, which make you even hotter than you would otherwise be, so avoiding alcohol on particularly hot days are important.

So.

NOT THE CRABS WE EXPECTED BUT STILL SOME CRABS WE DESERVE!!!

you are in the medieval era and you have this role!

Spin the wheel again. That’s who’s trying to protect you.

(If you have zero idea about a name you got, spin until you see someone you recognize.)

thank you!

I call this a 3-2-1 method to make it easy to remember; 3 eggs, 2 cups water/fluid of choice, 1 cup flour.

I'm sparing you the obligatory backstory on my path to cooking extremely flat pancakes because we both know that neither of us care. If you want to hear me overshare check my blog between 1-4am pacific time.

•Anyway, start with three eggs and beat with a fork until they're all one color (you can use a whisk or an egg beater but I hate the extra steps. Fork it):

•Add 1 cup flour:

•Add whatever dry flavoring you want (I usually go with cinnamon and cardamom, today we're doing matcha cause that happens to be what I'm cooking. Some mornings caffeine is meant to be eaten):

•Add sugar to taste if desired. It's not necessary for the recipe, and if you've managed to add enough to throw off the consistency you've got other shit to worry about, so follow your heart. I usually use like two tablespoons or so (I prefer brown, but white tastes better with matcha):

•Decide on your fluid of choice. Water and/or milk is the usual, but you can do literally whatever you want; hot cocoa, coffee, tea, soda -whatever you want them to taste like. Go nuts with it. Use soup if you want idgaf it's between you and your chosen god at this point. I recommend starting with 2 cups for simplicity, but you can add more if needed for the right consistency. At this point I just eyeball it tbh.

•Add a little at a time and start mixing until it's as smooth as you can get (this is also where you'd add wet flavorings, like vanilla extract):

•Add the rest until the batter is roughly the consistency of heavy whipping cream, or like thin tomato soup (if you actually ran with the soup joke, add a little water to thin it out). Just get it to where it's still a little viscous but will run if you pour it on the pan:

•For best results cover and let it sit in the fridge overnight or for a few hours (it will separate a little, just mix it again). For last minute "I forgot to prep this last night but I really want crepes" results, we're putting it aside while I wash dishes and heat up the pan.

•Ladle out like ¼ cups worth onto a hot lubricated pan (butter or cooking oil, medium heat) and swirl it until it coats the bottom. Don't stress if it looks like shit the first few times, that's what practice is for, add a little more fluid if it's not spreading well:

•cook until the top is no longer wet and edges start to lighten:

•Flip it with either a very flat spatula or sheer hubris (spatula recommended for beginners), and cook for like 45 seconds (I have no sense of time), then slide it onto a plate:

•Top with whatever you want and try whatever folds/rolls you saw in that one show that made you think these were cool.

Go forth, have fun, eat well.

It's so much easier than most folks would expect crepes to be. The hardest part is not ripping them, but the oil in the batter, along with a bit of oil spray on the pan, and a nonstick pan all help to make them pretty easy to flip.

Yeah, yeah. It's bad. We get it. Kinda hard to miss right now. You know what? So is everywhere else. You are not going to find a single government, a single nation, anywhere on earth that is perfect and unproblematic.

We need to acknowledge this. Nowhere is perfect. Everywhere has corrupt people who actively seek positions they can use to exploit power and enrich themselves at the expense of others. The vast majority of countries in the world have a lot of blood on their hands and were founded in war; loads of countries have a history of colonization and exploitation of other countries, and a lot of that is continuing to this day.

Now raise your hand: who here was taught as a child to believe in the good your nation can do for its people and the world? Who here was raised with the idea that your country had an awful past but has learned better and is trying to move forward to do better and be better in the future?

Short of buying a boat and hiding away at sea, you are never, ever going to be free of nationality. Not even if you burn it all down; something new will just arise in its place. This is the world we have; this is the society we have to live in. Do you not wish it was better? Do you not wish that is did reflect that optimism you were raised with?

The reason children around the world are taught to believe in the good side of their nation is NOT because the people teaching us want to indoctrinate us into the cult of nationalism (okay yeah, some do do that on purpose, and sometimes that's just the result despite teachers' best efforts), but because they want us to see that good side, see what things are like now, and get angry and disappointed and energized enough to fight to make it reality. To actually do better and become a better world for everyone.

It says we are creating a more perfect union. In less flowery language: a better one. Closer to what we want to be. We're not there yet. (Fun fact, many of the founders agreed we were nowhere near there yet!) But we have the tools to get closer, and closer. And perhaps one day to reach it.

Each of the lyrics comes from an old-time hickory song for fiddles, and is a lyric from that corresponding song.

"Fire on the Mountain" --> "Fire on the Mountain, run boys run"

Fire On The Mountain - Fiddle Player POV

"The House of the Rising Sun" --> "The Devil's in the house of the rising sun"

House of the Rising Sun

"Ida Red" --> "Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough"

Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

"Granny Will Your Dog Bite" --> "Granny does your dog bite? 'No child, no'."

FTC #149 Granny Will Your Dog Bite

And for your furthered education, The Mountain Whipporwill.

in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.

the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.

Strip away his demons, and he's basically running up and down a scale, if that, to be honest. Here's the clip of the actual song, in one of the original performances:

(actual solo starts at about 1:56)

If you watch carefully, the actual fiddle doesn't start up until, like, 2:14. He only plays for about fifteen seconds.

And here's Johnny's part:

(starting around 2:39 of the performance)

Jonny's actual fiddle playing is ~2:44, but that's also where they're calling each song. His uninterrupted playing is around 2:54-3:12. Even that uninterrupted section is longer than the Devil's, and while he's not chopping at the strings or pulling off creepier sounds from the strings, he's got a more technically complicated solo. It goes all over the place, references his people's music, and it's just a better solo, even if it sounds like it's simple or whatever.

There's a better fiddler and fiddle player here, and it's not the Devil. I don't know why people want to minimize Johnny's skill in this song at all. He's got the better fiddle part, the better fiddler skills, and all of it.