#my aunts

[unopenablebox]

experienced abrupt nostalgia for childhood, but specifically the part of childhood in which going to a bakery specialized in pies was always an exotic and thrilling adventure, because "what is a particular flavor of pie actually like, and is it good" felt like highly complex knowledge that only adults could master. the huge variety of pie flavors out there in the world would surely take one's entire childhood to catalogue

[inthecityofgoodabode]

January 2023: The Late Weekend & Monday Post

Found this little fellow in the house. I took him to the compost bin where there is much to delight a terrestrial crustacean: 

This weekend my queen & I hooked up with my aunts & uncles to celebrate my mom’s eightieth birthday. That’s the birthday girl in the center next to my queen: 

Seen while walking - 

The deepest shadows sometimes manifest in physical form: 

The cat, the stone angel & the shadow of bigfoot: 

[clown-college-honor-roll]

I have a similar-ish story

A lot of people with queer family members grew up not knowing that their family member is/was queer because no one told them, but in my case I was the only one of the nieces and nephews who this didn't happen too lol. A story from my aunts, Zoë and Gigi; when I was maybe five I wanted to ask Gigi where Zoë was. I was really bad at names (still am) so I said "Where is your wife?" My family didn't explain to any of the kids what kind of relationship they had, and especially not to me bc I was the youngest. So this made everyone pause for a moment until Zoë came into the room and I hugged her.

They told me this a few years ago well after I found out I was queer and over a decade after they found out as well!

Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?

Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.

All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)

But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.

But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.

I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?

It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.

Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.

Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)

[sca-nerd]

My friends who have never experienced flooding, and who are about to deal with it from this storm, please remember:

1. NO. YOU CANNOT MAKE IT THROUGH THAT WATER ON THE ROAD. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'RE DRIVING. TURN. AROUND.

2. DO NOT GO WADING THROUGH THE WATER. EVEN IF YOU JUST WANT TO SEE HOW DEEP IT IS. THAT. WATER. IS. CONTAMINATED.

3. IT IS CALLED FLASH FLOODING FOR A REASON. THE WATER RISES AND SURGES IN A FLASH. STAY. HOME.

4. If you're at risk of flooding, raise up any of your belongings now. Put the legs of tall things in buckets. Know where your important documents are.

5. Stay safe.

[rabbitcruiser]

Forefathers’ Day

Few things are more important to Americans than heritage. Remembering where you come from, and how hard you’ve worked to get where you are are all integral parts of the concept of the American dream.

For those reasons, no holiday could be more American in nature than Forefathers’ Day, a holiday that celebrates the first ever pilgrims courageously sailing across the vast ocean they knew very little about at the time, in search of a better life and freedom from religious prosecution.

When they set foot on the shores of North America, they themselves were the beginning of a new country that would one day become a world superpower. Now that’s definitely an event worth celebrating.

Learn more about Forefathers’ Day

Forefathers’ Day is designed to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in the Massachusetts area of Plymouth. This happened on the 21st of December in 1620. The observance of the day was introduced a lot later, though, in 1769, and we will tell you more about this in the next section.

There are a number of different events that the Old Colony Club put on in order to recognize their forefathers. There is a march on the top of Cole’s Hill on this day, which all members of the club participate in. After this, a proclamation is read, which honors the forefathers. The club’s cannon is then fired, which is another important ritual. You can read more about all of these rituals online to get a better understanding.

Another part of the tradition involves a succotash dinner. This is something that both the Mayflower Society and Old Colony Club do. This was recorded as part of the first celebration, and it has continued ever since. For those who are unaware, this is a type of culinary dish that is mainly made of sweetcorn, which is combined with lima beans and other types of shell beans.

Other ingredients that people include are okra, multi-colored sweet peppers, tomatoes, salt pork, turnips, potatoes, and corned beef. As you can see, it is a pretty versatile dish! In the early days, succotash was served as a broth, which contained big pieces of meat and fowl that were sliced at the table. So, as you can see, it has changed quite a lot over the years! Another surprising fact is that the Forefathers were not called “pilgrims” by the Old Colony Club. This is another thing that did not come until later.

The Mayflower Society and the Old Colony Club are worth learning more about. The Mayflower Society, which is officially named The General Society of Mayflower Descendants, is a hereditary organization of people who’s descent has been documented from at least one of the 102 passengers who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. This is the area that is now known as Plymouth today. This society has been running for many years now, as it was first established in 1897.

You then have the famous Old Colony Club, which is one of the United States’ oldest Gentlemen’s Clubs. This was founded in Plymouth in 1769. The club was established by eight gentlemen who said that their reason for creating the Old Colony Club was to avoid the following:

“the many disadvantages and inconveniences that arise from intermixing with the company at the taverns in … Plymouth.”

Their words, not ours! The traditions and history of this club make interesting reading. During the American Revolution, it actually went moribund because of a split between Patriot and Tory members. However, it was revived in 1875.

History of Forefathers’ Day

Forefathers’ Day is a commemoration of the pilgrims who sailed the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Mayflower, in 1620. As they had left England in search of better days, the Pilgrim Fathers settled on US territory, which they subsequently christened New England.

And as they had set sail from Plymouth, England, they decided to give their landing spot the whimsical name of Plymouth Rock. Therefore, Forefathers’ Day is a holiday celebrated mainly in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on December 22. The holiday was introduced to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1769, so it has quite a long history and tradition.

However, the joyous occasion was first celebrated in 1769, because 149 years after the forefathers actually arrived in North America, some descendants decided to gather for a feast in honour of their ancestors, who would have been their great-great-grandfathers.

How to celebrate Forefathers’ Day

The contemporary version of the feast is the Old Colony Club or Mayflower Society dinner party, which usually involves eating succotash. Nowadays, succotash is a hearty stew made from vegetables and often thick slices of poultry placed on top, but at the time, it was nothing more than sweet corn and and different kinds of beans, sometimes baked in a casserole-type dish under a pie crust to make a sort of pot pie.

In fact, Succotash (from the Narragansett word sohquttahhash) means “broken corn kernels”, and at the very very beginning that’s pretty much all it was. Other ingredients may have been added later as well, including tomatoes and green or sweet red peppers. To celebrate Forefathers’ Day properly, you could try preparing and eating the hallowed Forefather’s traditional succotash, just to get a tiny taste of all the hardships and discomforts that they had to go through to help make America what it is today.

Succotash is in no way bad-tasting, mind you; it just doesn’t have much to offer in the way of nutrition when you think about all of the hard, physical work that had to be done at that time.

You can spend this day finding out more about the history of the different pilgrim clubs and their traditions. There is a lot to learn and it makes interesting reading.

Source

[floralsapphics]

I need a spinoff of Agatha being the world’s most annoying spirit guide

[syppys-den]

does it count if said friend is her sister and her wife?

does your mom have a gay friend?

[ptsinkbaby]

collecting joans of arc like they are my little pokemon team

[sexygaywizard]

How the hell is my family so fucking big and I'm the only gay person. Some of y'all are lyingggg

[stealingpotatoes]

i think about ahsoka's "she was my friend" line too many times a day

(commission info // tip jar!)

[ruushes]

sleeping arrangements (not sure tara would ever actually deign to sleep in the same 20ft radius as shovel but who can resist those big shiny insectoid black eyes 🥺)

plus:

[cornflowersandspoons]

Detective boyfriends with their racoon son. 🦝💕

[strayyuuu]

stress

[fandomsandfeminism]

Grief is so fucking wild. It sinks into your muscles, forces itself to be felt. It steals your appetite, floods your brain with cortisol. It makes you so, so tired.

If someone you know is grieving, telling them "just let me know what I can do" means nothing. They can't. They don't know. And the small things are too embarrassing to ask for.

Bring them a cheese platter. Pre-Cut fruit. Peanut butter pretzels. Protein shakes (like slimfast) Food that requires no prep and does not create dishes.

Do the dishes. Take out the trash. Sweep the floor. Vacuum the carpet. They won't ask you to do this, but it will help.

A bottle of acetaminophen honestly might help more than flowers. Grief really can cause muscle aches.

[muffinlance]

Hi ! prompt idea : What if Zuko was armed during the first episode and was stranded with the water tribe while the avatar left with Katara and Sokka, Iroh on his trail for white lotus reasons.

Oh we are going to have us some FUN with "stranded with the water tribe", say no more.

---

Zuko was dripping, and steaming, and staring down two dozen women and their gaggle of small children, plus that old not-the-Avatar crone from earlier. They were all cowering away from him. Which was--

Good. It was good. If they were cowering, then they hadn’t noticed how steam was not flames. He wasn’t sure he could make flames, not after the arctic water he’d landed in, with that last sight of the Avatar glowing; not after surfacing under the ice pack, after swimming, after kicking slamming breaking through and his ship was gone and there was only ocean all around and

and he’d made it back to this pathetic little camp of the Southern Water Tribe, because that was the only place he knew for sure would have shelter, and he wasn’t going to die just because they were all staring at him, even if felt like he would.

Even if the old not-the-Avatar woman could probably take him, right now. But she didn’t know that.

Zuko pulled himself up, taller than her by at least a few inches, and blew steam from his nose.

“I am commandeering one of your huts,” he said. And added, because Uncle said even a prince should be gracious: “You may choose which one.”

---

She choose her own.

...The only one without children that flames might scar, or younger women to catch a soldier’s interests.

Zuko sat by her fire and determinedly started struggling out of his wet clothes and she was still in here with him--

Zuko pulled one of her animal pelts over himself, and finished fighting off his clothes. When he stuck his head back out, cheeks still reddened from what was obviously the cold, she dropped a parka on his head.

“Dry clothes, Your Highness,” she said.

The parka was much bigger than he was. He fell asleep hoping that the camp’s men were on a long, long hunting trip.

---

He woke up again. Kanna tucked her favorite ulu knife away, newly sharpened, and stopped contemplating the alternative.

---

“I am commandeering a ship,” he said.

The crone led him across the village, all twenty paces of it, to a row of canoes.

“Take whichever one you want,” she said. “Will you need help getting it to the water?”

Zuko looked at the canoes. Looked at the ocean. Watched a leopard seal, easily the size of the largest canoe, dozing just past the ice his own ship had broken through the day before. It was frozen again, a great icy arrow pointing from the waves to the village, snow already starting to cover it over.

Beyond was blue sky and gray ocean and white ice, floating in blocks like stepping stones, like boulders, like cliffsides.

There wasn’t even a hint of gray steel, or smoke. Or any land, besides what they were standing on.

He looked down at the canoes again. Somehow, they seemed even smaller.

“I, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat. “I’ll require supplies. Before I go.”

---

They... did not have supplies. Not extra ones. This didn’t stop them from trying to give him supplies, food and blankets and anything else he could think to ask for. But each blanket was a pelt hunted by someone’s grandfather, had been inked with images and stories by someone’s mother, was the favorite of someone’s husband or brother or uncle or cousin--

They couldn’t go to the nearest market to replace things, here.

And when they talked about food, about what they could spare, they kept sneaking glances to their children, who were sneaking glances at Zuko from the huts, sticking their heads just over the snowy ledges like their fur-trimmed hoods would hide them. Their mothers and aunts shooed them away, and they crept back, like barnacle-crabs. Zuko glared, and they disappeared.

“When are your men coming back?” he asked. “They’re hunting, aren’t they?”

Oh. So that was what they looked like, when they weren’t trying to hide their hate.

---

Zuko wrapped himself up in the same blanket that night. It was printed inside with fine lines and images, telling a story he didn’t know. He wondered whose favorite it was.

---

Kanna wondered how quickly he’d wake—if he’d wake—if she built the fire up with wet driftwood and tundra grass, if she had one of the younger girls boost up a child to plug the air hole, if she let the smoke draw its own blanket down over this fire child.

---

It was hard to know when to wake up, because the sun never set. So everyone was up before him, and they all had spears and clubs and—and nets, and trap lines, and snow googles with their single slat to protect the eyes from snow blindness. Zuko had seen those once, at the Ember Island Museum of Ethnography, where they’d gone when it was too rainy for anything more exciting.

Oh. They were going hunting.

“Give me that,” Zuko said, and took a spear.

The women looked at him. One of them adjusted her googles.

“I can hunt,” he scowled.

He did not, in fact, know how to hunt.

---

“Give me that,” the Fire Prince said, and Kanna almost, almost gave him her ulu. Humans, like most animals, had an artery in their legs that would bleed them quick enough.

She kept skinning the rabbit-mink one of the women had snared.

“I can help,” he said, with less grace than most of their toddlers. Likely with the skinning skills of a toddler, too. She wasn’t going to let their unwanted visitor ruin a perfectly good pelt.

“Chop the meat,” she said, and gave him a different knife. “It’s dinner.”

“...This is really sharp,” he said a moment later, looking at the knife with some surprise.

“Is it,” said Kanna.

---

Things the Fire Prince was convinced he could do: hunt (until he realized he couldn’t tell the tracks of a rabbit-mink from a leopard-rabbit apart); spear fish (at least he could dry himself); pack snow for an igloo (frustrated princes ran hot); ice fish (the prince was a problem that kept coming close to solving itself).

Things the Fire Prince could actually do: mince meat, increasingly finely; gather berries and herbs, once he stopped trying to crush them; dig roots, under toddler supervision; mend nets, after the intermediary step of learning to braid hair loopies.

“Can’t I take him ice fishing again?” asked one of the women, as she watched Prince Zuko put as much apparent concentration into braiding her daughter’s hair as his people had into exterminating hers.

“Wait,” said another woman, sitting up straight. “Wait wait wait. I just had an idea.”

---

Three words: Infinite. Hot. Water.

---

Summer was coming to an end. The sun actually set, now, and the night was getting longer, and colder. The salmon-otter nets were mended and ready. The smoking racks were still full of cod-lemmings. The children were all a little older, the women all a little more used to doing both halves of their tribes’ chores; a little more used to not watching the horizon, waiting for help to come.

The Fire Prince was staring at the canoes again.

“Are you actually going to try leaving in one of those?” Kanna asked.

“...No.”

“Come on, then; someone needs to watch the kids while the women are hunting.”

She didn’t leave him alone with them, of course. But she could have.

---

Elsewhere, the war continued.

The moon turned red, for a moment none could sleep through; they did not learn why.

The comet came and went, leaving their castaway prince laying on the beach, his breath fogging up into the night sky above him, as the energy crashed from his system as quickly as it had come. Above, lights began to dance in the sky; Zuko pulled his hood up, so none of those spirits—children, dead too soon—got any ideas about kicking his head off to be their ball.

The war had ended. The world didn’t feel any different; no one in the south would know until spring came again.

---

Suffice it to say, Sokka and Katara were not prepared for this particular homecoming.

[adventures-in-poor-planning]

On Saturday I hung out with my 84-year-old ecologist great uncle and he stopped in mid-conversation (abt the return of the whooping crane) and very seriously told me that "you can go one of two ways, as a naturalist"; either you keep sight of the hopeful possibilities, or you don't. I'm one of nature's wretched little pessimists but when an old ecologist literally holds your hands in his and tells you, "don't despair," you have to try, I feel.