back on my bullshit

and when 12 monkeys (tv show) said death can be undone, love cannot

and when russian doll said "you promise if i don't jump i'll be happy?" "i can't but i promise you won't be alone"

and when palm springs said the pain matters, what we do to other people matters

Dude taught himself to compose and calls it fake

“Just string it together in any order, the more random it is the more complex it’ll sound" improvising music on the fly was one of Mozart’s party tricks

Past kittenhood, I mean. Kittens meow for the same reason human babies cry; to tell their mom "I have needs and wants and I'm so so small and I hardly even know it!" But adult cats have other ways to communicate with each other. They only continue to meow because they realize it's the only part of their language that gets have anything close to the correct response from humans.

Anyway. Whenever I see videos like this where a human and cat are doing that sort of call-and-response routine, like-

*human talks at the cat like its a person*

meow

*human talks at cat like its a person*

meow

-so on and so forth, like I dunno, it just hits different somehow. Like it's not the same as dogs barking at humans, dogs barking is a "natural" dog instinct (to my knowledge), but adult meowing is a specifically domestic behavior. They developed it for us. They know we can't really understand them, the same way the mom in this video knows the cat can't understand her, but they meow at us anyway. And this cat's plaintive meows are it begging to be set free of the grooming torture, obviously, but sometimes it seems like it's just a call and response.

Like you'll see a video of a human talking at a cat, and the cat meows back between sentences, and the cat is like lying with its eyes half closed or sitting with its back turned to the human and it's meowing back anyway and you stop and think about it and realize that they're doing the same thing.

The cat and the human talking at each other when they don't need anything from each other, that's- that's just conversation. It's literally cross-species small talk, because both the cat and the human are engaging in it just for the sake of hearing a response back.

They can't understand each other at all, but they continue to communicate purely for the sake of communication. For the pleasure of each other's company. For the sake of socializing with each other. We don't even understand each other, and it's still small talk.

it’s true you can’t draw one continuous line that would do the trick. but if the kitty and bunny set out by going through the doors they’re marked beside and each walked the certain way their colored arrows show at the same time their “collective path” as a team would go through each door only once. The moral of the story is actually about friendship , and cooperation, because in this world there are tasks you can’t do on your own.

So. Let’s talk evacuation bags. This is specifically in relation to wildfires, but it can translate easily to other disasters.

A great resource is the Ready for Wildfire website. But I want to expand on their list just a little bit.

For your “grab and go we need to run in the next three minutes” bag you should have:

Face masks of some sort.

Snacks that you can just open and eat. More food if you have specific allergies and such that will make it difficult to eat at a shelter. At least a couple bottles of water. (Water is probably easier to just keep in your vehicle, if you have one, due to weight.)

A PAPER map marked with multiple evacuation routes. (Drive them ahead of time to get a feel for them.) Your phone could die or lose signal at any time. You need paper, and you need to know how to read it.

Prescriptions and other medications. Things like ibuprophen, tums, etc.. Some other general first aid supplies like bandaids and wound ointments are good to have as well. I also tossed one of my free C*VID tests in there this year.

Change of clothing. Try and have two if you can, one set of day clothes and one set of comfy night clothes. Plus several days worth of socks and underwear.

Extra glasses or contacts if you wear them.

An emergency creditcard and/or some cash.

Phone chargers including wall plugs. Even if cell towers go down/get overwhelmed your phone will still provide a flashlight, music, any documents you have saved on it, etc.

A jacket. Light or heavy, depending on the season at hand. Gloves and a hat if the current season is cold.

A battery powered radio with extra batteries or a crank/solar radio.

Pads/tampons if needed. Honestly, bring some even you personally don’t need them in case anyone else does.

Shampoo, conditioner, soap.

Copies of important documents.

Pet supplies including: Medications. Carriers. Leashes/harnesses. A few baggies and/or cans of food. A travel litterbox and a couple baggies of litter. Treats. A toy or two. Anti-stress sprays. Bowls.

A deck of cards. This isn’t really REQUIRED, but it is small and easy to tuck in so you can have something to help pass the time.

You need to have a version of all these things that is JUST for your emergency kit. It can’t be something you take back out to use, it all needs to just live in the kit. I keep all my human stuff in a big backpack, and all the pet stuff (minus the carriers) is in a little backpack. The backpacks and carriers all live in my coat closet right next to my front door.

This is the stuff you grab when you have no time. If you DO have a little time, then you can grab other things like family photos, computers, small valuables, etc.. But your life is NOT worth those things. One of the two people who died in the Marshall Fire died because he stayed behind to try and rescue his family history documents. Know what you’re going to grab, who is going to grab what if there’s more than you in your household, and what the evacuation plan is.