little bit of Jewish history: for several centuries, Jews didn’t have fixed, hereditary surnames. they went by “Name son of Father” or similar. Ashkenazi Jews mostly didn’t start taking on surnames until the 18th and 19th century, when surnames were made a condition of being recognized as citizens of modern nations. and apparently there was one Jew in Germany who thought hey, if we’ve got to take it a surname, let’s make it a damn good one.
and the fun doesn’t stop there. roughly translated, this name means “Ages ago, there were conscientious shepherds whose sheep were well tended and carefully protected against attack by their rapacious enemies. Twelve hundred thousand years ago there appeared before these first earthmen, at night, a spaceship powered by seven stone and iridium electric motors. It had originally been launched on its long trip into stellar space in the search for neighboring stars that might have planets revolving about them that were inhabitable and on which planets a new race of intelligent humanity might propagate itself and rejoice for life, without fear of attack by other intelligent beings from interstellar space.”
and then this gentleman’s great-great-grandson was given a 26-word “first name” featuring names beginning with each successive letter of the alphabet: Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus.
but of course that’s impractical for everyday use, so he often went by the name Hubert B. Wolfe + 666, Sr. he was born in Germany in 1904 or 1914, emigrated to Philadelphia, and died in 1997.
Alicia Archer fights for France – Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire – August 11, 2018 (and yes, in the rain) Photo by Douglas Herring
I love how genuinely battle-scarred her shield is
1. She’s so rad
2. I went to Renfaire this year, this very one on that very weekend in fact, and I’m glad there is photographic evidence (however blurry) of the dude who just showed up dressed as Geralt from the Witcher games
When I was 18 I took a ballet class at college and every morning our beginner adult class started just as the Ballet Majors in the studio next door took a mid-class break.
Many mornings they would gather in the doorway of my classroom and watch us struggle through our bar warmups or jumble up a new technique while they smiled and whispered to each other.
And every morning I dreaded seeing them there because I knew they were making fun of me.
I had other classes with some of them, and I was always embarrassed when ballet came up, and it always did, them being ballet majors, because I loved to talk about it but knew they’d seen me dance, and I was sure they thought I didn’t belong in the conversation.
At the end of the semester, our instructor announced that she’d like to invite the dancers from the next door studio to sit in on our final performance as an audience, and everyone in my class hesitated. We’d worked so hard, we wanted to celebrate our progress during our final without being judged. Most of us left class that day suddenly more anxious about the final than we’d ever been.
The next morning, in one of my other classes I had with the ballet majors, one of them approached me, and as if she’d been reading our minds the entire semester, she said
“Hey. I just wanted to say that I know we watch you guys dance a lot, and I wanted to make sure you know we’re never laughing at you. When we watch you guys learn the basics…..it reminds us of when we first started when we were younger. It’s like…looking at ourselves when we first fell in love with dancing. That’s why we love watching you guys.”
It shocked me. I felt awash with relief and utterly stupid all at once.
Here I had spent an entire semester assuming the worst of people who had otherwise been nothing but nice to me in every other setting, and I had no one to blame for that but my own insecurities that I’d allowed to rule me for months.
I’d been so unfair to these girls, because I was self conscious. I was so worried about being judged that I’d judged all of them.
Here I was worried they were laughing at me, and all along they were looking at me with nothing but absolute delight, even envy for what I was getting to experience.
This encounter changed my entire attitude, permanently.
It made me realize that, yeah sometimes people are jerks for no reason, but more often than not, people really are just….Good.
Since that day, I’ve started giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong, for their sake and for my own.
And I’ve learned that the world becomes a lot better and life becomes a lot easier when you accept that maybe not everyone is judging you. Maybe you’re the one who’s hardest on yourself.
Let yourself be. Let yourself exist and breathe and be happy.
It might seem a bit odd for a tech at a shelter to be excited about a pregnant dog about too give birth, but i helped nurse her through pneumonia and emaciation so I’m happy that she’s healthier and finally going to not be full of 10+ puppies. She arrived at about 50 days along and this is day 63. She also was found running loose with an intact male husky that we are assuming is dad.
So the entire shelter is basically on puppy watch and demanding updates from the foster mom and were all going nuts over puppies. We’re human and well… Puppies.
So apparently she waited for my coworker to get off work (she’s super bonded and won’t sleep unless my coworker is snuggling her), was let out to pee, and then dragged foster mom to the whelping box and went into labor proper! I should have puppy pictures to share tomorrow morning!
I seriously love this mama dog. She’s so sweet and just wants to be loved and even dad is unusual calm and affectionate for a husky. The babies should be really good tempered with such parents. And they’re gonna be little potato pups and I hope they’re all sorts of colors and patterns and eeeeeeeeeeeee
The first puppy has landed!
He has husky face mask! Looks like husky is indeed the daddy!
puppy #2 and it’s a little boy. Looks like he’s going to take after dad.
Mama dog is popping babies out left right and center now. There was a 2 and a half hour break between the first 2 and now there’s five total, 4 of those born in the last hour. Four of the pups are pale, leaving the first born girl sticking out like a sore thumb.
Final tally was 13 puppies! I was sure there was at least 12 (vets thought 10 so HA!). When foster mom sends me a family pic ill post it. Most puppies are pale colored apparently.
I’ll never understand why people call Beyoncé overrated. People get so upset about a Black woman’s astronomical success it’s crazy. Why does it bother you? Her music is top notch and always sonically pushing the envelope, her voice is beautiful, her performances are always perfect. She’s a wonderful philanthropist and a serial entrepreneur as well. To be overrated you have to be untalented and Beyoncé is SO far from it in every facet in her life. She brings heat and competition that nobody can match right now. Why is it so edgy for people to say they hate her? Like why hate somebody amazing just to say you’re not on the bandwagon? Why?
That’s racism babe!
You right!
People just like being contrarians. *whispers* they think it makes them interesting.
shoutout to those random peacocks you find in places that are probably unsuitable for a peacock to inhabit in the first place
what the fuck kinds of lives are you guys leading. i’ve never seen a peacock in my life. where are u guys finding them.
Random neighborhoods in Florida
a gas station in morocco
middle of a busy road in england
middle of the woods in a rural town in Mississippi
Irish farms??
Roof of a house in a tiny English village
Screaming their heads off in abandoned fuel stations in the back-blocks of the Rangitikei
with a group of pheasants in the woods in maryland
Strutting outside the window of an elementary school library in Texas.
Walking down the street of a California suburb on a hot summer afternoon like he owns the place
At a golf club in Long Island
At a strawberry festival in SoCal
Outside a café in Ayia Napa
Walking thru my neighborhood in nebraska
watching over fish near a pond in switzerland
walking around the zoo parking lot
on a car roof pulled over on the interstate on the way to Myrtle Beach
Friend’s neighbor’s yard in suburban Maryland
Stealing the dog food off our back porch in rural Oregon.
There’s a big house on a major road across from a college in Salt Lake. They must own peacocks because I somewhat regularly see them on the sidewalk in front of that property.
A cattle farm in rural Australia.
In a buddy’s back yard fighting with a neighborhood cat in Arizona in the middle of fucking summer.
Walking through Lisbon Castle like a tourist.
Chastising its cat friend while strolling along a reforestation trail in northern Ontario, Canada.
Pub garden in England
At the Los Angeles Zoo. He doesn’t belong to the zoo, he just walks around displaying his plumage and posing for pictures. Occasionally chases small children with snacks.
chasing childhood me in Stanley Park in Vancouver. probably because I had snacks.
A hotel lobby in central Mongolia
The Glendale, Arizona library
Chasing dudes down a country highway in Northwest Washington.
At a campsite in South Carolina
Buddhist temple in West Virginia
My backyard in michigan
My cow field s i t t i n g on a back of one chilling, North Carolina
standing right in the middle of the sidewalk in san diego, like he was waiting for me
a viking village in western norway
Casually strolling through an open-air Celtic Festival just outside of Las Vegas.
They wander around inner city Cincinnati. They escape the zoo, and the keepers have to go with nets and grab them on occasion.
The zoo has officially stopped supporting the population because there are too DAMN MANY of them. They reduced the flock from 40 to 6 in 2008. I think they have more now.
They just LEAVE.
Roosting in our barn in Ohio. Roosting in our trees, roosting in our pool shed, just hanging out on our back porch. Look we just had peafoul everywhere for something like four years, and we’ve no idea why.
A breeding pair or two must’ve made it across the river from Cincinnati because I’ve seen a few wandering around northern Kentucky
Grass farm in Texas
suburban roof in small-town Saskatchewan
Southwestern college back in Chula Vista when I was attending an child development conference. Went outside for some fresh air and there was a couple peacocks chilling in the middle of the quad at 6pm. Guess they had a conference too. 🤷🏾♂️
cow farm in rural southwest virginia. it’s a convenient street to cut through, but they used to charge at cars that went through too slowly so you kinda had to watch yourself–it was a delicate balance between being wary of not wanting to accidentally hit them as you went over a blind hill, and not wanting to be going slow enough to suddenly attract them to risk that happening anyway.
Gibsonton, Florida. aka Gibtown. aka the place where circus performers have, traditionally, lived when not touring.
(they seemed to belong to this REALLY LARGE FANCY HOUSE that was settled between two trailer parks)
Also the phoenix zoo.
A tiny diner in southwest Michigan
In the backyard of my childhood home in suburban SoCal when we first moved in; they disappeared and I don’t know why or to where.
Hanging out next to a dairy farm in Louisiana, just chilling on the fence and watching the cows.
Outside the window of a high class hotel in Texas
In a hedge maze in England.
Sahuaro Ranch Park, a public historical park where I got married
The terrace of a restaurant in Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands
how did they learn to translate languages into other languages how did they know which words meant what HOW DID TH
English Person: *Points at an apple* Apple
French Person: Non c’est une fucking pomme
*800 years of war*
Fun fact: There are a lot of rivers in the UK named “avon” because the Romans arrived and asked the Celts what the rivers were called. The Celts answered “avon.”
“Avon” is just the Celtic word for river.
Fan Fact #2: When Spanish conquistadors landed in the Yucatán peninsula, they asked the natives what their land was called and they responded “Yucatán”. In 2015, it was discovered that in those mesoamerican languages, “Yucatán” meant “I don’t understand what you are saying”
W H E E Z E
I love entomology so much because so many words kind of happened by accident or by a native speaker trying to say “WTF are you saying?“
Steel Phoenix Studios 