#i bring a stuffed animal everywhere i go and inevitably someone will ask me its name

[rivereddies]

honestly genuinely my favorite part about being human is how willingly people will go along with it when you tell them an inanimate object is your friend

[sigmaleph]

@serinemolecule asked me for hot takes on this 2006 article on Argentinian food, which I am now reorganising into a proper post for y'all's consumption. you're welcome.

First of all: the titular thesis that you should eat two steaks a day. I am forced to clarify that as 'should's go you should eat zero steaks a day, but this is ethical rather dietary advice and I don't follow it as well as I should, so, y'know. I would engage with this on the level it was stated, but I actually have no opinion on it. Moving on...

Argentine beef really is extraordinary. Almost all of this has to do with how the cows are raised. There are no factory feedlots in Argentina; the animals still eat pampas grass their whole lives, in open pasture, and not the chicken droppings and feathers mixed with corn that pass for animal feed in the United States.

This is, as it happens, completely false. There absolutely is plenty of feedlot beef being eaten in Argentina, and this was also the case back when this article was written. There's grass-fed beef too, and maybe the writer structured their life around only eating those, but the claim that there are no feedlots is just not true.

if you let them make the call, you get a two-inch thick of meat[...]The Argentine steak stands alone, towering three inches over the plate,[...]This gorgeous specimen is called a lomito; it's a standard lunchtime steak, clearly so thin that the Argentines are embarrassed to send it out into the world without a protective wrapping of ham and cheese

I have no idea what their obsession with steak thickness is; meat exists at various levels of thick and thin to suit various tastes. If you like yours thick that's fine but quit the projecting, y'know.

As you might expect, vegetarians will have a somewhat rough time here. For most people in Argentina, a vegetarian is something you eat. One's diet will accordingly lean heavily on pastas, gnocchi, salads, and (for the less squeamish ) fish. Vegans will not survive in Argentina.

This is, unfortunately, true (well, hyperbole, but). Rinna had a rather bad time trying to find vegan food when fae came over for visits. The situation is improving slowly, at least.

The homemade cookies bought in the minimarket downstairs taste of steak. [picture of alfajores de maicena[

Jesus. Find somewhere better to buy your snacks.

It should be no surprise that the land of beef also has excellent milk and butter. The milk comes in plastic bags that would give any American marketing department a heart attack. They proudly advertise "GUARANTEED 100% BRUCELLOSIS AND HOOF-AND-MOUTH FREE". One brand even brags that its bacteria count never exceeds 100,000 per mL, and prints daily statistics to prove it (only 82,000 bacteria/mL on Monday! mmm!).

Are you under the impression American milk doesn't contain bacteria and that when it spoils it's because of the molecules' sheer willpower? Or do you just object to the reminder that they exist?

This menu is delicious, but with rare exceptions it is all you are going to get. People coming for more than a few weeks are advised to bring a discreet bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Eat at better restaurants.

With any order from the master menu comes the Bread Basket, which should be treated as you would treat a basket of wax fruit, that is, as a purely decorative ornament. It is considered bad form to actually eat anything from Bread Basket

What are you talking about. Do all your dining companions just suck, eat some bread.

Dulce de leche is a culinary cry for help. It says "save us, we are baffled and alone in the kitchen, we don't know what to do for dessert and we're going to boil condensed milk and sugar together until help arrives". This cloying dessert tar is so impossibly sweet that you wish you were ten years old again, just so you could actually enjoy it. It is everywhere. There is a special dulce de leche shelf in the supermarket dairy case, and the containers go up to a liter in size. Even the churros are stuffed with it - the churros, Montresor!

It is rare that I feel insulted for the sake of my country, but this? How dare you.

Yes, of course we fill churros with dulce de leche; the real question is why anyone doesn't, short of dietary restrictions. Finding out that people do otherwise was like learning that in other countries, "sandwich" just means two slices of bread. Live a little. Eat a real godsdamned churro.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how meals work in Argentina, and they remain a mystery to me. Dinner is clear enough: people tend to go to restaurants beginning at ten o'clock (for those with small children), with the main rush around eleven, and dinner is pretty much over at one or so in the morning. And breakfast - or rather, its absence - follows as a logical consequence of eating a steak the size of a beagle at midnight. But I have yet to figure out whether people eat some kind of meal in the afternoon, and if so, when.

At... noon? Like. We eat lunch. Usually somewhere around 12:00. I am eating lunch right now, and I have done so essentially every day of my life. This is just baffling.

I've come to think the culprit in the missing Argentine lunch scene is yerba mate.

how.

Where the ignorant foreigner may see just another kind of herbal tea (yerba mate is a very unassuming shrub that grows in the northern parts of the country) the Argentine sees a taste treat of unimaginable subtlety, and a tonic for all his problems. The Wikipedia article on proper mate preparation should give you a warning of the level of obsessiveness attainable here (the Urugayans are even worse). To the virgin palate, mate tastes like green tea mixed with grass clippings. The beverage is traditionally drunk out of a little gourd, through a metal straw called a bombilla, with hot (but not boiling!!) water poured into it (without wetting the surface!! clockwise!!) from a thermos.

Yeah, this is accurate. Well, not the clockwise part, never heard anyone complain about that and I can't imagine it mattering.

What distinguishes mate from coffee and tea is the social context - two or more people share a gourd, with a designated pourer in charge of refilling it with hot water after each turn. The ritual is low-fuss but indispensible. You can buy mate gourds and thermoses in any grocery store, and get your thermos filled with hot water at any convenience store or gas station, but you will never see mate served in restaurants or sold in little disposable paper gourds, to go. it's not that people refuse to drink mate alone - anyone working a solitary shift will have a gourd in hand - but that the concept of being served mate by someone who does not share it with you seems impossible.

This is also true. Attempts have been made to sell to-go mate but it's never very popular, the social ritual is important. Also unfortunately a disease vector, I haven't had any mate in a year and a half.

Mate aficionados will tell you that mate contains a special compound, mateine, that serves as a tonic and mild stimulant, promoting alertness without making it hard to sleep, reducing fatigue and appetite, helping the digestion and serving as a mild diuretic. Scientists will tell you that mateine bears a suspicious resemblance to a chemical called caffeine. Mate aficionados will then grow indignant, explaining that mateine is really a stereoisomer (mirror image) of caffeine, with different effects, which will in turn irritate the scientists, who will snap that caffeine doesn't have a chiral center, so it can't have a distinguishable mirror image, and why don't the mate aficionados just put a sock in it.

The first part of this is true; some people definitely think "mateine" is different from caffeine and it absolutely isn't. Never heard the stereoisomer claim before but googling it does confirm some people say so.

still have no idea what any of this has to do with lunch, though. I promise you nobody skips lunch because mate is just too filling.

The wine here is very good (something has to stand up to that steak), but Argentina has no liquor to call its own, relying on whiskies like Old Smuggler and the low-maintenance Don Juan cognac to carry the flag.

There's a fundamental omission from this list and it's called fernet.

Beer is ubiquitous and comes in a bewildering variety of sizes, although there is a skittishness about the full-on liter. Things level off at 970 mL. In my case, it means I end up drinking 1940 mL of beer as a kind of personal protest, and all is well with the world. To make up for the abundance of sizes, beer comes in only one variety, Quilmes, which inevitably comes served with a tripartite platter of snacks - nuts, salty cylinders, and aged potato chips.

I never had trouble buying beer by the litre, but I confess I never tried to do so in 2006 on account of being under 18 at the time.

Anyway, beer comes in a lot more varieties today, thankfully, because Quilmes sucks. I'll never be a beer person, but at least these days there's options I tolerate.

[original post]

[bakugou-ou]

Bakugou scenario when he found out that his gf is pregnant but she's not telling him yet? (because she didn't want to tie him down and take responsibility before he become a pro hero? They're at college and mature enough to have a baby) a little angst with happy ending? Thanks

*whispers* this reminds me of an RP I did with my pal Vampy, it was BakuJirou, and it was amazing, and I’m feeling nostalgic so I’m gonna do this now… >:3

For the fifth time thatday, Katsuki was stood outside the women’s restroom, waiting for his girlfriendto come back out. He wasn’t a theme park kind of guy, but he was on a mission,and there was no better place to go to get someone sick than a theme park.Sugary food, violently spinning rides, hot sun beating down, noisy children, itwas a recipe for sickness…

They hadn’t been on asingle ride yet.

All they had done so farwas eat some funnel cake, play a few carnival games, during which he wonseveral large stuffed animals for her, and walking around a bit. Between almostevery game they played, she had ran off to the nearest bathroom, or trashcan ifshe couldn’t make it that far, and they’d only been there about two hours.

For weeks, Katsuki hadknown something was up with his girlfriend; she complained about the way hegroped her chest during sex, saying he was being too rough despite him being tamer than usual, she became inexplicablydefensive when he asked about them having sex right through the week her periodusually arrived, she started complaining about being nauseated by the smells ofher favorite foods, and then the vomiting started.

Even if he wasn’t smart, being a genius wasn’tnecessary to put two and two together to make four; or, in this case, one andone to make three. Looking back on the months leading up to that day, he knewhe had fucked up along the way, they both had, throwing caution to wind a fewtimes in the heat of the moment, and as he stood, leaning against a railingsurrounding an artificial lake, watching the entrance to the women’s restroom,he could hear his mother’s nagging voice: itonly takes one time.

They were usually good about using protection, butsometimes they ran out, or they just didn’tuse anything, which he knew was stupid, but it wasn’t ever his idea, that was all on her… Except he let it happen, so he wasjust as at fault, and he knew it.

His goal that day was totry and get her to admit it; usually, he would have just flat out asked, buthaving tried that several times earlier in the week and being yelled at for it,he figured that he’d tire her out and get her to cop up to being pregnant thatway. Even though she was constantly getting sick, she seemed to be in a goodmood, appreciative of him calling out of work for the day to take her on adate, but he was sure she was just as suspicious of him as he was of her.

Why wouldn’t she tellhim? They were partners, weren’t they? And if she was pregnant, which he had no doubt about by that afternoon, he hada right to know. It irked him, it kept him up at night, but she just wouldn’tsay anything to him.

He heaved a heavy sigh,and as soon as he had resigned himself to the fact that he might not actually hearher say she was pregnant until after the baby was born, with how pigheaded shecould be, she came out of the bathroom, looking exhausted.

“Must have been somepretty bad funnel cake,” Katsuki remarked, smiling softly as his girlfriendreturned to his side, “Maybe we should just sit for a while, get some fluidsinto you.”

“I’m fine,” She protested, glaring daggers at him, “We came all the wayhere, we need to at least do something.”

“Well, so far we’vewalked around, played some stupid carnival games, and you’ve thrown up fivetimes,” He replied, moving closer to her, “I don’t think you’re up for rollercoasters, or bumper cars.”

“I can handle it,Katsuki.” She hissed, knocking her shoulder into his arm as she moved past him,heading for the path to the nearest roller coaster.

“I can handle it, Katsuki.” He mocked quietly, rolling his eyes andfollowing after her.

Of the many qualities heloved about his girlfriend, her stubbornness and determination to conquer any adversecircumstances were probably two of his favorites, even if they often got intosilly little arguments because he was even morestubborn and determined to win than she was… But that day, it was justconcerning.

Her pants weren’t fittingright, there was no denying that her abdomen was just the smallest bit rounderthan it had been before, and she was wearing baggier shirts. He wondered if shethought she was slick, or if she was just in denial; either way, he knew, andnothing she did to hide it would work now.

“Hey, loser, wait up!” Hesaid, tapping her shoulder with the large cup he’d gotten, filled with Gatorade,“Drink some of this, you’re gonna get dehydrated if you keep throwing up andnot replacing what you put out.”

As irritated as he wasthat she hadn’t just said somethingto him, he was more concerned with her health, and making sure she was takencare of. He found himself unintentionally being more concerned about her,cooking her dinner, making sure she was constantly drinking water or otherstuff that was healthy… He was always a bit of a protective person, but hissuspicion was bringing that nature out in spades.

She snatched the cup fromhim and took a few good sips from the plastic bendy straw, blue liquid flowingthrough it, and then she stopped, looking at him like she was suspicious of hisintentions.

“Why are you acting soclingy today?” She questioned, shoving the end of the straw back into its holeso that the cup wouldn’t spill.

“Because you’re mygirlfriend and you’re acting weird as hell,” He answered, gently kicking theback of her calf, “Roller coaster, right?”

“Yep.” She nodded.

The two of them movedthrough the crowds towards the largest roller coaster at the park, all thewhile his suspicion eating away at his will to keep quiet. She seemed stoic,other than the obvious queasiness she was experiencing, the way she kept hermouth tightly shut and eyes planted on the roller coaster ahead of them.

Whywon’t you just tell me?

The queue was massive, a sign near the entrance to theline read current wait time: eighty threeminutes. Katsuki hated lines, he didn’t want to wait in one when he knewthey couldn’t even go on the ride.She’d get sick again long before they got on the ride, he was positive of that,but still she charged ahead, entering the queue even after he asked if she was sure she wanted to wait in that line inthe hot sun.

Every now and then, she’dtake the cup back and sip from it, watching a family a few people ahead of themwith their twin toddlers. Whenever she caught him looking at her, she seemedflustered and would look everywhere but at him or the family ahead of them.

He wasn’t actually sureif he wanted kids or not, he hadn’t given it a lot of thought. He lived in the moment,and he thought that if he was goingto have kids, it’d happen a lot later in his life, after he was already a prohero, after he had done everything he had wanted to do. They hadn’t ever talkedabout it, so he had no idea how shefelt, and she had no idea how hefelt.

Was that why she wasn’tsaying anything?

The idea of having a kidthen was a bit terrifying, but he had always known it was a possibility; sexmade babies, and they had had a lotof sex, so it was inevitable, wasn’t it?

As they stood about a quarterof the way through the queue, he spotted a large sign off to the side of thequeue, displaying the ride’s rules again. In very bold writing, it stated people with certain medical conditions, suchas heart conditions, those who are prone to motion sickness, and those that arepregnant, are not allowed to ride this attraction.

The closer they moved tothe sign, the closer Katsuki came to just flat out pulling the two fo them outof the line; his girlfriend was definitely pregnant, and he wasn’t going to risktheir secret baby’s existence because his girlfriend wanted to be stubborn andsay nothing about it to him.

“You sure you wanna go onthis thing?” Katsuki asked as they came parallel to the sign.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”She asked in response, looking to him with a perplexed look.

Katsuki glanced over tohis right, seeing the sign, reading the line again: people with certain medical conditions, such as heart conditions, thosewho are prone to motion sickness, and those who are pregnant, are not allowedto ride this attraction.

He reached out and tappedthe sign, pointing at the part that explicitly mentioned pregnancy.

It took a second, but hisgirlfriend’s expression when from neutral confusion to looking like the wholeworld had just crashed down around her. Her hand came up over her mouth, hereyes widened, and he sighed.

He reached out andgrabbed the hand that was still at her side, and he gently tugged, pulling hercloser to himself, and to the exit to the line. She didn’t protest, her handdropping away from her face as they ducked out of the line, heading to find asquiet a place to sit and talk at as could be managed at a theme park.

After a bit of wandering,purchasing a couple slices of pizza and a drink refill, they found a table nearan area of the park designed specifically for families with children to relax;that wasn’t them, yet, but it would be, so Katsuki figured he might as well getused to being there.

“So, when were you planningon telling me?” He asked as she took a bite into her pizza.

She was quiet, and shewasn’t looking at him.

“I wasn’t.” She answered,staring down at her pizza.

“That’s not how being ina relationship works, you know,” He replied, somewhat snarkily, “Especiallywhen it comes to something that’s as big of a deal as having a baby.”

“I just didn’t want totie you down, and you’ve never said you wanted a kid, so I didn’t know what todo!” She snapped, turning to face him, “You’ve got a lot you want to do, and Idon’t wanna make that harder for you.”

That was somehow the mostselfless and selfish thing he had ever heard, but whatever irritation he hadfelt with her before about her refusing to tell him she was pregnant, itdisappeared. He understood it, even if he didn’t like it, but he had to make itright.

“If I didn’t want to riskbeing tied down, I wouldn’t be in a relationship with you, let alone havingsex. Kind of how that works, isn’t it?” He said, draping an arm over hershoulder and pulling her closer, “Besides, of all the people I could have a kidwith, I think you’re pretty kickass.”

“Are you saying you’reokay with this?” She asked, looking astounded.

“As okay as I can be,” Heanswered, leaning over and stealing a bite of her pizza, “I’ve got a decent paidinternship, we’re almost done with school, I love you, I’m pretty sure you love me, we were going to move in together afterthis semester was over anyway, you��re already pregnant, I don’t see why thiswouldn’t be workable.”

He already knew how muchshit he was going to get from his parents, though they’d come around to the ideaafter a bit, since they weren’t really all that much older than the two of themwere when they had him.

“Forgetting for a secondhow worried you are about how us having a kid would impact my future, do you wanna have this baby?” He asked.

If she really wanted tohave his kid, he’d make it work. He hadn’t known before if he wanted kids, but ifhe was having a kid, it didn’t matter; he liked kids, he was pretty good withthem, in his own opinion, so if she was set on it, he could be just as happy aboutit and set on it as she was.

“Well, yeah,” She answered,“Before I found out, I was thinking about what I wanted for our future… Youknow, like a nice house, and both of us to work good jobs, you being a prohero, me doing what I wanted, a couple of kids who look exactly like you and your mom…”

She giggled, and it wasthe first time she had sounded that bubbly in weeks.

He could easily imagine allof it; nice house, being a pro hero, coming home after a long day at work toher and two tiny humans who looked freakishly like himself, but one having hernose and lips, the other having her eyes and hair. In his mind, they were bothboys, but he didn’t know what she was thinking.

“Cool, because I wantthat stuff, too.” Katsuki said, taking another bite out of her pizza, “But, you’regonna have to make it up to me for hiding shit.”

“And how would you like meto do that?” She asked, leaning into him.

“Well, you can start bytelling me if you’ve been to a doctor already,” He answered, “And if you have,and you’ve got ultrasound images, you can show them to me.”

“I haven’t, yet, but I’ve got an appointment next week,which I’d really like you to be there for.” She replied.

I’vegot an appointment next week, which I’d really like you to be there for.

He hadn’t really felt anykind of way about the situation until she said that, but as soon as he heardit, his heart felt unusually full, his stomach was fluttering, and he was excited. She wanted him there, and he wantedto be there for her. And he would be, there was no way in hell he’d miss somethinglike a doctor’s appointment, especially if it was the first.

“I’ll make it work.” Hesaid, kissing the top of her head.

And that was the truth,he would make it work; all of it,every bit that went into whatever their future was going to look like. It wasn’t the end of the world, it was morelike the big bang, and knowing he was right, hearing it from her and not fromhis own brain, he was looking forward to it.

[toolsforthejourney-blog]

Pain

January 2017

 To my family, friends, fans and seekers…

 I would like to write about pain, how and why it comes upon us, and what are its origins…

 Pain or hurt, are inevitable in this life, and I don’t know about you, but I find pain one of the most confounding aspects of life.

 Pain is associated with an injury, rejection, or loss.

 This world is infected with pain everywhere you look, and the fact that our world keeps spinning at all is in itself a miracle. There are wars, famines, epidemics, terrorism, hatred, crime, racial prejudice, natural disasters and death—to name just a few. These cause pain to the afflicted and to those that remain.

 There are some that would place the onus on Father-God for our pain—that He uses it to teach us. So it goes like this:

“Son, I warned you not to play with matches because they can start a fire and burn our house down. Since you can’t seem to obey me, I’m going to light this match and hold the flame to the palm of your hand until the match burns all the way down. It’s going to hurt and seriously scorch the flesh on your hand, but it’s for your own good; I’m doing this to teach you a lesson you will never forget, because I love you.”  

 Can you imagine? What uttter nonsense! This contradiction is what some misguided folks believe, when they ascribe pain to some part of God’s sovereignty, a.k.a. He creates “pain” for our good. This is a distorted view of His sovereignty and it misrepresents His will in the world.

 It’s not that I don’t believe He is sovereign, I do. But I also know that He has placed a great deal of trust in us as followers of Jesus; to bring His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. …as it is in heaven: where there is no pain. So there are great areas of freedom that we walk in for good or ill, depending on how we exercise that freedom. Our freedom is there for us to love or hate, bless or curse, to do good or cause pain.

 I believe that love is the answer to the “why” of pain. Love is a risk, and it will cost us everything we’ve got to live in love, and to enforce it. We risk the loss of everyone or everything that we love. It is because of our capacity to love that we can feel, and sometimes those feelings are painful.

 I remember when I was a little boy, before school-age, our family received Jonas Salk’s polio vaccination in sugar cubes. In addition, my parents were ordered by the CDC to destroy all our older stuffed animals and other soft toys, in order to prevent the spread of polio. My Teddy Bear was a casualty of the war on polio. The after-effect of losing my stuffed pal was a recurring nightmare in which a 150-foot tall living Teddy Bear attacked our neighborhood (think Godzilla…). In the dream we were on the run from the beast and just when we thought we had escaped him and made it to safety, I looked up, and there he was. There was no place to hide or run. He reached down and grabbed my scrawny little self, and lifted me up to his gigantic mouth to eat me—not anyone else, just me. And right before I entered the dark cavern of his great mouth, I woke up.

 I had the same dream more than twenty times, the last time when I was fifteen. I went through more than ten years of waking up in a cold sweat from a very bad dream.

 No doubt the loss of my Teddy Bear had a HUGE effect on me.

 And then there is rejection. This may be the most painful of all. When we love someone who doesn’t love us in return, or maybe can’t love us because they lack the capacity—rejection can be like a dagger to the heart. As a matter of course we find ourselves asking the question, “What’s wrong with me that they can’t love me?”, even if it’s only asked in our subconscious mind.

 And eventually there’s death, which finds us all. My Great Aunt Alice is 102 years of age at the writing of this blog. She still has all her faculties and mobility, albeit assisted by a cane. Amazing! But even centenarians run out of time—eventually. The ratio of death to humans is 1 to 1. Losing a loved one leaves a void, and that can suck us down a vortex of grief if we let it.

 I remember losing my uncle Rico 25 years ago. He and I had done a few music projects together and had made plans to do more, but throat cancer took him. When people are ripped from our life through sickness or tragedy, it’s always too soon…too soon. I didn’t slow down to mourn his passing, and the grief I put off became a full-blown depression 15 months later. It was a situational depression, not chemical, but who really knows…is it the chicken or the egg when it comes to a depression?

 One of the Old Testament’s more quirky characters was a man called Jabez. He prayed to have more land, more influence, more blessing and protection from evil. But interestingly he ended his prayer with these words, “…that I may not cause pain.”

 Now that’s a good prayer for us all.  

 The greatest pain of all is when those we love choose to do us wrong; when they injure us. Nothing hurts more than a betrayal from a close family member. When those that should know better hurt us, we are left dazed and bewildered. As Bernie Taupin wrote for Elton John, “Love lies bleeding in my hand.”

 Well said and sung.

 Because God works all things to our good, nothing we go through is wasted. We do mature on the other side of pain. We do grow in character on the other side of pain. We do learn to better appreciate what we have on the other side of pain. We do gain the perspective of the pain we’ve gone through and how we emerged from it, and then we can comfort others who are going through similar pain. For sure, pain produces something positive if we don’t get stuck and wallow in it.

 Think manure...

God doesn’t cause pain, but He sure puts it to good use.

No, our God is the cure for pain. He is our loving Father. He is our Comforter. He is our Protector. He is our Restorer. He is our Vindicator. He is our Deliverer. He is our Defender. He is our Redeemer. 

He is our Healer.

 Pain comes from our ancient foe and accuser, and from us, for we are human; we are weak. Every one of us causes pain to someone or to ourselves, and when we do, we live in agreement with our adversary. We humans are fallible and given to error, sin and falseness. This is why we need a Savior. I wrote a song called ‘Only One’, which is on my album entitled Spring. It speaks to Jesus Christ being the only One who can solve the world’s macro problems. If we could have solved the world’s issues, wouldn’t we have done so by now?

 Pain reminds us that we are human, and humans never stop needing His love.  

 Remember in everything, Father will have the final say.

As always, you can respond to this essay to my email address, calcio.christopher@gmail.com, or at my website, Innocente.us under the blog button in the pull-down menu, or simply at tumblr.com/blog/toolsforthejourney

Keep it out of the box,

 Innocente