brownthrasher

[brownthrasher]

The Turkey Story

So it’s 2001, and my family drives from fucking California and like three blizzards to get to Ohio for thanksgiving, becuase my grandparents are moving into a nursing home and it’s their last holiday in that house.  So its a bit bittersweet but ultimately a good thing.

Since it’s their last holiday there, the family pulls out all the stops when it comes to dinner, all the Russian desserts come out, as does the Lethal Bacon Mashed Potatoes and the horrible candied yams with the mini marshmallows dish because not all expressions of love are good, even if they are sincere.  In the spirit of going all-out, Uncle Bobby smokes a Turkey.  

Uncle Bobby started cooking as a boy scout by tossing foil-wrapped potatoes into a campfire and has been addicted since, and now has a hand-made smokehouse in the backyard where he makes various cured meats and other delights.  He seasons the turkey in the traditional manner, but he and grandpa have a shared passion for a spicier mesquite-style bird, so Bobby makes a Cornish Game Hen seasoned that way, for them.

Then Bobby has a Brilliant Idea.  He realizes that he can stuff the turkey (once it has been smoked) with regular stuffing, and there is still plenty of room for him to put the game hen inside THAT, and stuff the game hen becuase why not?  He confers with Mom, and she explains how to cut open the turkey so there’s  dramatic reveal as the stuffing and game hen come out.  It’s Genius.

Except, of course, that my Aunt Sue is attending, Uncle Cliff slouching after her.

So the day of the dinner, tensions are running a bit high, between the marathon cooking, the kids all being trapped indoors due to aforementioned blizzards, and Uncle Cliff deciding that the best way to amuse himself is by hiding from the adults in the basement, getting drunk and rambling about how various ethic groups were destroying America.  Being that I had close Muslim friends that were leaving the country becuase of 9/11, I was near tears from this nonsense and ready to fight a man roughly five times my size.  

Sue, for some reason, keeps coming down and defending him, or telling us we’re rotten children for ‘attacking’ him, becuase she Must Stand By Her Man, even if her man is a hefty bag of dog feces with an ugly mustache.

My sister eventually bolts upstairs to tattle and my grandfather limps down to the basement and brandishes his Hip-Bone Cane, hands rock-steady in spite of the Parkinson’s slowly taking over him.

“Firstly Cliff, It may not be my roof much longer but while you are under it you will be civil, or I’ll beat your skull in.  Also, dinner’s ready, everyone go wash up.”

We go upstairs and sit down, and do the traditional “Name one thing you’re thankful for” as the bread gets passed around the table, and things calm down a bit.  Bobby brings out the Turkey and everyone goes OOH becuase it’s really pretty, them Mom carves it open so that the stuffing spills out dramatically along with the game hen and there’s an appreciative gasp all around becuase it looks cool.

Only Sue KEEPS gasping, in utter horror, before getting up and clasping her hands to her face ala Edvard Munch and shrieks-

“OH MY GOD IT WAS PREGNANT!”

We all stare at Sue.  We all look back at the fully-dressed-cooked-and-stuffed birds that in no way had any internal organs in them or ever gave live birth. Then we all looked back at Sue, trying to figure out where to begin but since she’d been trying to justify Cliff’s behavior she was pretty much free-associating conspiracies and scandals now, and just kept going.

“IT WAS PREGNANT MY GOD WE’VE COMMITTED AN ABORTION WE’RE ALL GOING TO HELL FOR THIS, I’M SO SORRY JESUS-” She goes into full pearl-clutching gibbering horror at this point and falls back into her chair like it’s a Victorian fainting couch only it’s a shitty chair from the Eisenhower administration so it collapses and she slams into the floor, sobbing and kicking her feet like a toddler.

Everyone watched for a moment before my Mom sighs heavily and starts carving and serving the turkey while my grandmother mouths “she’s not coming back”.   

Cliff, reactions delayed by about six beers, finally notices his wife is on the floor and tries to pick her up, falls on his ass himself.  They are assisted by Dad, who is saintly patient man and less immune to this jacknapery at that point. I am stuffing dinner rolls into my face to keep from laughing at this grand spectacle and it’s not working.

“I CAN’T EAT IT, I REFUSE TO PARTAKE IN THIS BARBARISM-”  Sue begins but Dad puts on his best Kindly Father voice (he was heavily involved with the catholic church and even considered becoming a priest before getting drafted but that’s another story) and assures Sue that she need not eat, or even be in the room if she wants.  She nods, placated by being the center of attention again, and Dad goes in for the kill.

“I wouldn’t want you to go hungry.  Can I make you some Eggs?”

“That would be lovely.” Said Sue, joke flying over her head like a boeing 747.  I recall watching my grandmother nearly choke to death on the green beans over that, and everyone pointedly trying to avoid talking about anything poultry-related while Sue sat there and ate the most ironic scrambled eggs in the history of mankind.

Shortly thereafter, Cliff threw up in the sink and they went home, and the party got underway properly, with Grandpa raising a toast to Mom and Uncle Bobby “For marrying well, for a change” “Pregnant Turkey” has been an Ohioan thanksgiving staple since then.  I’ll see if I can hit Uncle Bobby up for instructions but if you decide to make it 1. you HAVE to shriek “OH MY GOD IT WAS PREGNANT” when you carve it open, or it’s not authentic and won’t taste as good 2. Share the pictures with me.

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[brownthrasher]

[brownthrasher]

So today I want to talk about puberty blockers for transgender kids, because despite being cisgender, this is a subject I’m actually well-versed in. Specifically, I want to talk about how far backwards things have gone.

This story starts almost 20 years ago, and it’s kind of long, but I think it’s important to give you the full history. At the time, I was working as an administrative assistant for a pediatric endocrinologist in a red state. Not a deep deep red state like Alabama, we had a little bit of a purple trend, but still very much red. (I don’t want to say the state at the risk of doxxing myself.) And I took a phone call from a woman who said, “My son is transgender. Does your doctor do hormone therapy?”

I said, “Good question! Let me find out.”

I went into the back and found the doctor playing Solitaire on his computer and said, “Do you do hormone therapy for transgender kids?” It had literally never come up before. He had opened his practice there in the early 2000s. This was roughly 2006, and the first time someone asked. Without looking up from his game of Solitaire, the doctor said, “I’ve never done it before, but I know how it works, so sure.”

I got back on the phone and told the mom, who was overjoyed, and scheduled an appointment for her son. He was the first transgender child we treated with puberty blockers. But not, by far, the first child we treated with puberty blockers, period. Because puberty blockers are used very commonly for children with precocious puberty (early-onset puberty). I would say about twenty percent of the kids our doctor treated were for precocious puberty and were on puberty blockers. They have been well studied and are widely used, safe, and effective.

Well. It turned out, the doctor I worked for was the only doctor in the state who was willing to do this. And word spread pretty fast in the tight-knit community of ‘parents of transgender children in a red state’. We started seeing more kids. A better drug came out. We saw some kids who were at the age where they were past puberty, and prescribed them estrogen or testosterone. Our doctor became, I’m fairly sure, a small folk hero to this community. 

Insurance coverage was a struggle. I remember copying articles and pages out of the Endocrine Society Manual to submit with prior authorization requests for the medications. Insurance coverage was a struggle for a lot of what we did, though. Growth hormone for kids with severe idiopathic short stature. Insulin pumps, which weren’t as common at the time, and then continuous glucose monitoring, when that came out. Insurance struggles were just part and parcel of the job.

I remember vividly when CVS Caremark, a pharmaceutical management company, changed their criteria and included gender dysphoria as a covered diagnosis for puberty blockers. I thought they had put the option on the questionnaire to trigger an automatic denial. But no - it triggered an approval. Medicaid started to cover it. I got so good at getting approvals with my by then tidy packet of articles and documentation that I actually had people in other states calling me to see what I was submitting (the pharmaceutical rep gave them my number because they wanted more people on their drug, which, shady, but sure. He did ask me if it was okay first).

And here’s the key point of this story:

At no point, during any of this, did it ever even occur to any of us that we might have to worry about whether or not what we were doing was legal.

It just never even came up. It was the medically recommended treatment so we did it. And seeing what’s happening in the UK and certain states in America is both terrifying and genuinely shocking to me, as someone who did this for almost fifteen years, without ever even wondering about the legality of it.

The doctor retired some years ago, at which point there were two other doctors in the state who were willing to prescribe the medications for transgender kids. I truly think that he would still be working if nobody else had been willing to take those kids on as patients. He was, by the way, a white cisgender heterosexual Boomer. I remember when he was introduced to the concept of ‘genderfluid’ because one of our patients on HRT wanted to go off. He said ‘that’s so interesting!’ and immediately went to Google to learn more about it. 

I watched these kids transform. I saw them come into the office the first time, sometimes anxious and uncertain, sometimes sullen and angry. I saw them come in the subsequent times, once they were on hormone therapy, how they gradually became happy and confident in themselves. I saw the smiles on their faces when I gave them a gender marker letter for the DMV. I heard them cheer when I called to tell them I’d gotten HRT approved by insurance and we were calling in a prescription. It was honestly amazing and I will always consider the work I did in that red state with those kids to be something I am incredibly proud of. I was honored to be a part of it.

When I see all this transgender backlash, it’s horrifying, because it was well on the way to become standard and accepted treatment. Insurances started to cover it. Other doctors were learning to prescribe it. And now … it’s fucking illegal? Like what the actual fuck. We have gone so far backwards that it makes me want to cry. I don’t know how to stop this slide. But I wrote this so people would understand exactly how steep the slide is.

[brownthrasher]

4, 11, and 12 for the end-of year book asks!

Thank you!

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

I don't think I read enough from anyone new to quantify them as a "loved" author, but I am definitely looking forward to more Francis Hardinge now! Also, not new, but T Kingfisher is definitely getting close.

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Probably Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold! It's from 2003 apparently, I don't think I'd even heard of the author before a few years ago (thanks HOTE discord!). I'm glad I'm liking her fantasy more than her sci-fi.

12. Any books that disappointed you?

so many but I was really expecting to like The Watchmaker of Filigree street but I just...didn't really? Some parts of it maybe, but not others, and I'm not quite sure what people see in it.

[brownthrasher]

Bookwyrm :3

[brownthrasher]

I love this one 🤗

Materials: wool, silk, recycled cotton rope and velvet. Includes hand-dyed and hand-spun art yarn. Beading sewn on by hand, and I made the mushrooms out of polymer clay.

[brownthrasher]

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018), dir. Arwen Curry

[brownthrasher]

October 24: Pumpkin Carving

(Toasterverse All of these can be found under the tag Sci's Fictober)

“I think it’s clear that I won.”

“I think it’s clear that you cheated.”

“I don’t think using my natural talents counts as ‘cheating.’”

Clint stared at him.  Tony stared back.  “I don’t think you understand what most people would consider cheating,” Clint said at last.

“It’s more that I don’t care?” Tony said, tossing a toasted pumpkin seed into the air, catching it in his mouth.  “At all?”

“You understand he’s armed, right?” Natasha asked, rotating her pumpkin on the table in front of her.  She scowled at the fresh canvas, and turned it back.  “Thor, can you hand me the scoop?”

“I find this one the most useful,” Thor said, handing her a metal spoon. “The others are weak.”

“Harsh words for our kitchen utensils.”  Tony took a sip of his cider.  It had more of a kick than he’d been expecting.  He set it carefully on the table.  “And Clint is usually armed, I’m used to it.”

“He isn’t usually, uh, he’s not usually holding a knife,” Bruce said, his face scrunched up in concentration.  

“He usually is, actually,” Natasha said, digging enthusiastically in her pumpkin.  There was a chunk of pumpkin guts on her cheek, and Tony decided he was better off moving his chair away from her.  

“Not, uh, in his-” Bruce’s eyes darted towards Clint.  “In his fist.”

Tony looked at Clint, who was holding a carving knife in one fist.  As Tony watched, he smiled, slow and threatening.  “It’s not like he’s going to stab me,” Tony pointed out.

“I’m actively thinking of stabbing you,” Clint said.

“Right, and that happens, what, every other day?” Tony asked, unimpressed.  “Haven’t stabbed me yet.”

“Every day is a new day,” Thor said.  He smiled.  “With new experiences for us all.”

“No one is getting stabbed.” Steve sliced away a strip of bright orange skin.  “Nat?”

She looked at his pumpkin.  “A little more off the left, I think?”

He nodded.  “Right.” He went back to work, his large frame bent forward over the pumpkin.  Tony wondered if he’d chosen the smallest one on purpose.

“Give me one good reason not to stab him,” Clint said.

“Because if you do, I’m pretty sure SHIELD is going to insist on a redo on this teambuilding exercise,” Steve said.

“Only if you fucking narc on me,” Clint said. 

“I’m going to narc on you,” Steve said.  

“He’s cheating,” Clint said.

“I won,” Tony said.  He knew he sounded smug and he didn’t care.

“It’s not a contest, Tony,” Steve said, marking off a line with an oil pencil.  “So there’s not really any winning.”

“No, but there sure as hell is losing, and that’s what Barton is doing,” Tony said.

“Just a little stab,” Clint pleased.

“No,” Steve told him, his voice stern.  “He’s not cheating. He just wasted the last week trying to get something done in five minute.”

Someone snorted   Tony decided he didn’t want to know who the traitor was. “Excuse me?”

Steve picked up the paring knife. “You have spent the last six days working on a way to get out of this hour’s worth of effort,” he said, and Tony wished he could argue with that.

He could, but he probably shouldn’t.

“I didn’t spend six days,” Tony said, moving the bowl of roast seeds away from Steve.  “I might’ve refined systems and ideas I already had, to make them more efficient, but-”

“Did you ever get the pumpkin guts off of the workshop ceiling?” Steve asked.

“I don’t have to worry about that, because cleaning is Dummy’s job.”

Right, so he’s currently rolling in circles, holding a rag up as far as his arm can reach and still falling short by about five feet?” Natasha asked, her eyebrows raised.

“No, it means that he’s tried spraying it with the water from the sink hose,” Tony said. “We’re working on it.”

“Carve your pumpkin, Tony,” Steve said.

“I did!”

Steve heaved a sigh. “You put your pumpkin on a workshop and shot it with a laser.”

“It’s carved, and unlike previous efforts, it is carved and intact,” Tony pointed out.  “You’re a trained artist, Clint and Natasha have wilderness knife skills, Thor grew up using swords, and Bruce is a doctor.”

“Wait.”  Bruce stared at him.  “How does my being a doctor-”

“You use scalpels,” Tony said.

“Right.”  Bruce nodded.  “You know, uh, that most medical professionals are strongly discouraged from carving anything into their patients?  Let alone any sort of, you knw, intricate pattern?”

“You still have the skills, and they translate to pumpkin carving.”

Bruce looked at the pumpkin, then back at Tony.  “They really don’t!”

“Neither did shooting it with a laser!” Tony said.  “I had to work at this, and I only exploded a few pumpkins, well within the normal allowed failure rate on a prototype.”

Steve nodded. “Right.” He looked around the table.  “Everyone done?  Then swap.”

Tony wrapped his arms around his perfectly carved pumpkin.  “What.”

“Teamwork,” Steve said with an easy grin.  He plopped in pumpkin in front of Tony.  “You’re responsible for finishing this one.”

“No, I did-” Thor reached for his pumpkin, and Tony considered fighting him for it.  He wouldn’t win, but he considered it anyway.  “I never agreed to this.”

“Yeah, well, this is the part of the teamwork where you learn to deal with unexpected changes to the plan,” Steve said.  He tossed the paring knife in the air, catching it by the blade and offering it, handle first, to Tony.  “Get to work, Stark.”

Tony scowled at it.  “I’m going to ruin it.”

“It’s a pumpkin, Tony,” Steve said.  “I think we’ll be fine.”

Tony took the knife.  “Looking forward to proving you wrong.”

[brownthrasher]

x

[brownthrasher]

Some very important facts in my life right now:

I'm currently visiting NYC with my kidlets, aged 8 and 10.

We are staying about three blocks away from the Empire State Building.

There is currently a giant inflatable dragon wrapped around the Empire State Building.

Kidlets are delighted by the dragon.

Kidlets are rather more delighted by the dragon than might be expected.

Yes, you might say, it's a dragon wrapped around a famous skyscraper, where's the surprise in that?

No surprise.

It's just that they're extremely excited.

They're reading Terry Pratchett 's Guards! Guards!

A book that features a giant dragon swooping off the tallest tower in the great city of Anhk Morpork.

They are quoting the book constantly

"The shape that looked like a large pair of wings unfurling was, in fact, a large pair of wings unfurling."

All the time

"Dragons don’t have friends! The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive!"

Little girls, wandering through the tourist attractions of midtown Manhattan, like

"A people united can never be ignited!"

With such enthusiasm

"This is going to be the world's first democratically killed dragon! One man, one stab!

I love them so much, I'm so proud, I picked the right partner, we made the best possible kids

(It's a promo for HBO's Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon)

[brownthrasher]

Same

[brownthrasher]

As a 13-year homeowner, La'Shaundra Benion has long been waiting for a new roof for her ranch-style home in Pontiac.

And after she recently received $25,000 in home repairs, it included that new roof and even windows through the Pontiac Home Repair Program. The program is using $3 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to help Pontiac homeowners complete major repair projects.

"I was looking to get my driveway done, my roof, the windows and some electrical work," said Benion, 44, adding that she needed plumbing work in her kitchen. "They did all of the windows in my house, the roof and some minor electrical work."

Pontiac received $37.7 million from ARPA and allocated more than $3 million for the home repair program. The program allows up to $25,000 per household in home repairs including plumbing, HVAC, roof repair and waterproofing for residents earning less than 80% of the area median income, adjusted for family size.

Thirty-eight homes in Pontiac have had repair services through the program, including 14 homes under construction. In addition to the four completed, including Benion's, 20 other homes have received approval to start renovations, according to a news release.

[brownthrasher]

a few extra To Shape A Dragon's Breath sketches!

[brownthrasher]

Firefighter demonstrates how to put out a kitchen fire

[brownthrasher]

opening of the bone harp by victoria goddard

[brownthrasher]

I should have been drawing the last 1993 contestant today, but instead I decided to sketch some of this year's artists.

It pains me that this Eurovision will forever be remembered in a negative light. Despite all of the talented artists this year, the wonderful hosts and production, it is indeed very hard to stay positive. I wished that the contest would live up to its 'United by music' slogan. Without exaggeration, Eurovision has always been my favorite time of the year... But not this year.

I am Dutch, so I will not be able to vote tonight. Regardless I hope we can show support for the artists tonight.

Because it has always been the artists that have made Eurovision into the wonderful show that it is. Not the EBU.