One of the greatest kindnesses you can do for other adults is to add positive surprises to their lives. Think about it: When you're a kid, surprises are things like "Our teacher let us watch a movie today," "someone brought cupcakes for their birthday," "my parents got me a puppy," etc. But when you become an adult, surprises are things like your car breaking down, conflicts at work, and unexpected bills. No one plans fun surprises for adults, and you can do so much for morale if you do. Ex: One time I found a tiny unlocked door in one of my university's buildings. It was empty, but because I'm a whimsical bitch, I decided to put something fun behind it for the next person curious enough to open it. See below: The Egg Gnome.

The eggs were filled with tiny plastic plants (I tried candy first, but mice got into them, and that's not good for health and safety). Just for the hell of it, I decided to announce the hidden gnome and basket of eggs in the big college group chat, offering hints to which building it was in. People went BONKERS for it. It added fun to people's days as they inspected buildings they went into every day but didn't pay much attention to. They asked me for hints, tried to remember what building had those floor tiles, and proudly announced it in the chat when they had found eggs.

I did several things like that where I just hid things around the university and challenged people to find them, and it did so much for student morale. Some people messaged me to tell me my random antics were their only source of real fun on a daily basis. Adults are just big kids. We're supposed to play long into adulthood, and the games are just supposed to scale in complexity with age, but even simple things like a scavenger or prize hunt can make people so much happier. If you have any kind of morale-keeping duties or have the option to take them on at a school, workplace, etc., I highly recommend planning fun surprises for the people around you. Planned events are a lot of fun, but it's a totally different kind of fun to find out there's a scavenger hunt going on on a random Tuesday.

As I type this, my coworkers are exclaiming over an adult busy book one of them was given out of the blue - fun papers and paperclips and textured pages and even a few scent sachets! It's unique and beautiful and she loves it.

Earlier in the year, I bought a 12 pack of these for like 2 dollars.

I hid them all over the office - I thought they'd find one every few days but came in to find one of my coworkers actively and eagerly hunting them all down! She'd found all but two by the time I got there. She even helped hide some again so other coworkers could look for them when they came in. Everyone has their own chicken at their desks and at the employee computers. Some have been decorated (one has butterfly wings!) and for a while one was "sunbathing" with a little lifesaver floatie.

We need whimsy! We need enrichment! It doesn't have to be much to make people happy and it's always worth the time and effort to set it up.

just overheard my wife spelling something on the phone and i shit you not saying the words “E as in Eeyore” i am on my hands and knees wailing screaming crying pleading and begging people to learn the NATO phonetic alphabet

like the reason this exists is because none of the words sound like each other, which means that even with a terrible signal both parties should be able to clearly understand the words being spelled

i am dead serious that i believe this should be taught in school

There are so many different shades of white light bulbs, I am so overwhelmed walking down the light bulb aisle, and then I'm never happy with the one I choose, no matter which one I choose, I get it home and I put it in and I'm like, ugh, I don't like THAT white

Color temperature range charts may be useful when going to try the next option (i kept a list of "nopes" in my wallet until i discovered I want shaded reading lamps, bathroom and kitchen lights all between 3800-4200 and everywhere else not above 3200 nor below 2800. YMMV, I enjoy warmer tone colors but not too warm or I'll get sleepy/depressed).

Different temp-colors for different areas/tasks.

Omg but this is so helpful, I am so glad I am not the only person just completely bewildered by how many different tones are being labeled with a single word! This will help me so much!!!! Thank you!!!!

i’m actually scared that food safety is going to get so much worse. of course i expected that it would stay bad - since it’s been basically unchanged for the last four years. but now, we gotta worry that it’s going to get more privatized and lax all over again. people shouldn’t have to live in fear that their food could make them sick or kill them. people shouldn’t lose access to their main sources of food because of an illness outbreak.

tagging on to this - in addition to recommending everyone watch out for meat products because of listeria, i'm also going to recommend maybe you start avoiding fresh/uncooked leafy greens, especially in spring and summer, especially in bagged salads. this past year I got a very bad case of cyclospora, a protozoan parasite, which was most likely from fresh produce, and which may have been part of a wider outbreak as there were cases elsewhere in my state around the same time. cyclospora and other protozoan illnesses have been drastically rising in the US over the past several years, up from a few hundred cases per year a decade ago versus several thousand per year now, likely due to farms depending on migrant workers and not providing them with adequate bathrooms/sanitation facilities, leading to fecal contamination of crops or irrigation water (which is how these illnesses spread) - historically, cyclospora was not endemic to the US food supply and was only found on imports or in people who had traveled recently, but that has been changing as more and more cases appear to be spreading domestically.

now, to the safety PSA: simply washing your fruits and vegetables will not fully remove protozoan parasites. it will help, but in order to truly protect yourself, you need to peel them or blanch them in boiling water in order to render them safe. cases usually peak during warm weather, when less of your food is coming from greenhouses and more is coming from fields - be especially careful during that time, and consider growing your own produce if you can.

to underscore how bad this infection is, I was not able to pass any solid stool for over a month when I had it - it resulted in severe, continuous, unrelenting diarrhea, rapid weight loss (I lost around 10% of my body weight during that time), chronic dehydration, and profound fatigue/malaise. you do not want this infection. if I already had other health problems, this infection would have hospitalized me for sure - I barely stayed out of the hospital as it was. cook your food.

Obviously not everyone is able to do this, but growing some of the produce that are most affected by outbreaks of listeria and such is a really good idea. Of course you still need to wash them thoroughly before eating, but you'd be far less likely to get a food borne illness from something you grew yourself and ate at the peak of freshness.

Tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, herbs, onions, scallions, potatoes, strawberries, etc. are pretty easy to grow with a limited amount of space and resources. When I had a roomate she grew potatoes out on the apartment balcony. Growing tomatoes in pots is a breeze (just rememberto give those suckers some support).

If you buy store bought produce, try to buy it as whole as possible. Pre-chopped things are far more likely to harbor bacteria and stuff (this goes for meat as well). You'll need to pull apart certain things like celery and lettuce heads to eat them, and you should be sure to wash them really well, especially where they were connected to the base, because that's where the most dirt accumulates. Chopping off the bits nearest to the base is also good practice.

I know there is a stigma against frozen foods, but I need you to know that it's bullshit. Frozen produce may not have the ideal texture or flavor, but it's less likely to have any food borne illnesses (I say LESS because there ARE some things that can survive being frozen).

Frozen food is also nutritionally equivalent (or sometimes even superior to) the "fresh" version. I say "fresh" because a lot of things are picked in a semi-unripe state and have been sitting around partially or artificially ripening for days or weeks during shipping, getting bounced around and bruised. They don't always taste as good or have as many nutrients as home grown stuff that's allowed to properly ripen. But frozen foods are frozen immediately after being picked and washed, and don't go through the same shipping issues, so they're allowed to fully ripen, as the issue of potentially rotting before getting to the customer is no longer a problem.

If you can peel it, like a carrot or an apple, this is helpful from a food safety standpoint, but isn't always necessary. If you're boiling those carrots or potatoes, you don't need to peel them. (A lot of nutrients are in potato skins, so it's healthier to leave them on). You still gotta wash 'em, though.

When you order fast food, you may want to customize the order and take out onions or lettuce as a preventative measure, since those ingredients have been affected by many outbreaks recently and will likely continue to do so (onion rings should be fine though, since they're fried).

It's also more important now than ever to pay attention to news about food recalls, and yes this means actively looking up sites that list recalls, rather than hoping you'll randomly hear about it before unknowingly eating a contaminated product. We are going to have so much more food safety issues after Trump & Co. start gutting the FDA (again).

All this to say, wash your produce (even if it says it was already washed), don't buy stuff pre-cut, don't be afraid to buy frozen, stay up to date on the latest recal news, and maybe try out growing some of your own produce, if you can.

クロスステッチで基板を作ったのは私だけかもしれません

It's fucking

CAUSE EVERY TIME WE TOUCH I GET THIS FEELING

EVERY TIME WE KISS I SWEAR I COULD FLY

CAN’T U FEEL MY HEART BEAT FAST, I WANT THIS TO LAST

NEED YOU BY MY SIDE

This is the closest gif that can really capture the utter chaotic energy that is released when people hear this song

^

fair trade

It's finally Leaf Time, and someone is very excited about it

pic i took years ago while driving home from work past the scary snail playground. i stopped in the night and pointed my headlights at it

everyone who is yelling at me in the tags for saying this is scary, and telling me it is not scary, I'd like to understand why you are lying. please send me a report explaining why you are lying for me to read by next monday. thank you

@elodieunderglass

Thank you!

@onenicebugperday thought you might enjoy this silly little guy <3

netflix subtitles are great for when you want to read a caption with like 50% resemblance to what's being spoken

character in a movie: buddy, i'm gonna tell you what i've got to do

netflix subtitles: i'll say what i must do

character in a movie: *exhales*

netflix subtitles: (blows raspberry)

character in a movie: ciao!

netflix subtitles: (in italian) bye!

*character in a movie: ciao!

netflix subtitles: (speaks foreign language)

IF YOU LIVE IN THE USA

THIS IS ILLEGAL

REPORT THEM TO THE FCC

THEY HAVE A LINK ON THEIR WEBSITE TO RWPORT IT

ITS REQUIRED BY THE ADA THAT SUBTITLES EXACTLY MATCH THE DIALOGUE

i reported basically every Star Trek show on Paramount+ because the subtitles were all fucked up. they sent me auto emails to let me know they were working on it, and then a real life human being got in touch with me after they had fixed it, to ask if i was still experiencing the issue. they WILL do something, they are required by FEDERAL LAW to do something.

As someone who struggles with disordered eating thoughts a lot I will forever appreciate Dungeon Meshi for giving me the scene where Laios kicks Toshiro's ass before saying outloud that the reason he won is because he's been eating(and resting) and Toshiro hasn't.

In a world that is so fatphobic it absolutely demonizes needing to eat to the point we have whole entire adult humans who think being hungry is a sign you're addicted to food it means everything to me to have a show say "cooking and eating is not only fun, rewarding, and a way to bond and share/preserve our cultures, it is a necessary part of life that makes your body stronger, you cannot save yourself or others if you're starving, you gain nothing from denying yourself food" like...Dunmeshi is such a breath of fresh air. No fat jokes, no "oh tee hee I gotta watch my weight" comments, no fucking moralizing any type of food as bad or unhealthy, fatty meats and fried foods and carbs being shown as just as nutritious and valuable and necessary as vegetables and salads, the show even having a part talking about how eating isn't just about being full and you can still enjoy food even if you aren't doing it for nutrition or to sate hunger, and Laios literally proving that there is nothing noble in starvation and denial of our base needs....goddamn. I love this story so fucking much.

Also I really do appreciate the "eating AND resting" part because in stories and irl we always see like, driving yourself to the brink of exhaustion running on barely any sleep as almost...noble? Or aspirational, I guess? It's SO normalized to give everything all the time and never rest until your goals are achived, to run yourself ragged helping others, to put your needs dead last...but Dungeon Meshi just says "you need to put your oxygen mask on before you can help anyone else with theirs" and spends the majority of the narrative proving it true. Toshiro could not have saved Falin for a lot of reasons but the primary one was that he's the type to kill himself trying to save someone else. He isn't eating or sleeping, he's weak and exhausted and not thinking straight, he can't stand a chance against Laois in a fight, he's ignoring the people begging him to just take a break for a second, that is not sustainable and it makes him more of a liability than an asset.

And like I'm not Japanese but I do know about how bad Japanese Work Culture is and I don't think Toshiro was picked to be the one made an example of in this way by chance, Ryoko Kui's work does seem to be coming from a perspective that is very informed by her background and she's clearly not afraid of putting social commentary and critique into her stories. But even aside from that I know as an American we also get that "kill yourself for your job I'll sleep when I'm dead hustle culture" shit poured into our brains from day one, so legit having a story be like "hey bro actually you refusing to take care of yourself in the pursuit of this goal is kneecapping your ability to actually reach it and you need to take a nap and eat some bread" is also pretty fantastic.

Plus, in a lot of activist circles these days I see a lot of people convinced that you must always be on all the time regardless of how badly it's hurting you, which is so toxic because again, if you are traumatizing and exhausting yourself you CAN'T HELP PEOPLE. Exposing yourself to hell 24/7 so you're a good ally is making you a worse one. You cannot help people with their oxygen masks until you put on your own, you need to rest and take care of yourself so you can help others.

Also like, as a disabled person it's also nice to see rest being treated as necessary. Disabled people get so much flack for being "lazy" and it's very easy to internalize the idea that you must be productive to be worthy of life, but Dungeon Meshi is very pro "you can't do anything if you aren't giving yourself breaks and rest when you need it" and it's really validating!

All around the focus put in rest and nourishment being necessary not just for life but for being a force of positive action in the world is something I think a lot of us could use to hear from media. I love a good "you're beaten and bloody and exhausted but you're gonna keep fighting even if it kills you" dramatic moment as much as the next person but there is still so much to explore in a story that tells you to calm the fuck down and eat something so you can actually do the work that needs doing. It's compassionate and reassuring but also a bit of a wake up call.

Dungeon Meshi wants you to help others by helping yourself, and that's honestly fantastic.

Normalize this response

My thoughts exactly!

I also gave Slimevester a freeze-dried mealworm and he picked it up and held it in his foot to eat it

Snail fossil that has completely transformed into Opal