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An Open Thread for Personal Stuff. I’m going to try to put these up more often. As usual: No trolls, no MRAs, etc, allowed.
Halp! My cat Pepper has discovered the wonder that is 16-bit pixelated things running across the screen (thanks to Ryeash for the Stardew Valley recommendation!) and now she’s either batting at my character and/or cursor while I play or she’s so into it she starts rubbing on the monitor and turns it off. 🙁 >^. .^<
Ohey guys.
I was out of town for a week because my mom had to have emergency gall bladder surgery and my dad (who is still recovering from radiation and chemo) needed someone to help him out while she was recovering.
Things are more or less okay now– actually, Mom bounced back from surgery with amazing speed– but I’m wiped.
I’m visiting family in NYC, and my soon-to-be SIL is having a rough time… her older son took his own life last month. So if anyone can spare a few good thoughts for her, it would be appreciated.
On a happier note, my Significant Otter’s family is much more high-energy than I am, but they seem ok with me chilling in the basement.
I’ve been in my new place barely a month now after splitting with my husband. It’s really starting to feel homey, and I spent today finishing the refinishing of my kitchen chairs (they look awesome, btw). I have a backyard that is pretty big, and a landlord that is happy to have a tenant that wants to do something with it. Kind of late to plant anything now, but I’d love to put in a lean-to greenhouse against the house wall, both for growing stuff when it gets cooler, and passive heating this winter.
I have chronic issues with my arm, but now that I’m not with my (soon to be ex) husband, I’m able to get state medical benefits for me and the kids. He wasn’t one to pay for stuff like that, so I can finally get the kids’ dental issues and my arm issues at least looked at. Things are good. I may even be open to dating soon, although I’m thinking that being poly in a rural location is not going to make for many second dates.
I have bittersweet warm fuzzies for all you people who have new (or potentially new) pets. I can’t have any, though there are plenty of gophers -and at least one skunk- that like to hang out in the yard.
I miss my cat Misty.
I’ve felt for a while now that my team at work doesn’t hold my technical skills in high regard, but today my lead actually said to a new recruit that I don’t have a technical background, unlike the other devs. I have the same degree from the same college as one of the other devs. I’m thinking about applying elsewhere.
I mentioned we got a new kitten. There were two others from the litter and they were doing well outside – we fed them every day, the mother took pretty good care of them, considering it’s her first litter. A few days ago one of the remaining kittens vanished and for what it’s worth, I think two girls took him in. This morning I was coming home and I saw the remaining kitten – some dogs had gotten to him during the night 🙁 He didn’t look too bad, but he was in his favourite sleeping place and I can’t stop thinking how he must have been caught off guard and didn’t manage to run away. It’s been a shitty morning and afternoon, so I’m gonna crack open a beer :/
Aw, that’s so sad, Argle. Poor kitten. 🙁 Hugs if you want them.
@ Her Grace Phryne: I’m necroing this open thread so I can answer any questions you might have. I’m always willing to talk about myself, but I’ll try to answer your questions as honestly as possible, and this way, I don’t push out other conversations with massive walls of text.
Also, for anyone else in the healthcare field, what would you like to see the male physicians you work with do to make your own lives easier? It’s something I’ve had long conversations with my wife (also a physician) about, but I’m always open to constructive feedback.
Hi valiant Mammothteers, this is the first time I’ve posted to one of these open threads. Here at Pavlov’s House we usually only post about the stuff that interests us because a military connection, and, indeed what I have on my mind does kind of have a military connection, but really it’s more something I’ve been reflecting on. Do you all recall how sometimes some people like Roosh and other Return of Kings posters make this big deal about how Eastern European women are more feminine and so forth? It’s pretty common in the manosphere to purport that I guess. Thinking about that in combination with Heartiste’s claim that feminist women are always “ugly” prompted something. Both Ms. Pavlov’s House and I are both hetero and very cis in our gender identities and how we construct and present our own gender. It’s just who we are and what we like to be. Obviously we accept others who are different (I wouldn’t be interested in a blog like this if I thought cis-hetero was the only way to be!) but we are who we are and we like and and we love each other. Ms. Pavlov’s House is Russian (a naturalized American citizen now) and I’m a Russophile. Ms. Pavlov’s House is proud of her Russian heritage and is a very assertive woman. She’s often shared with me her perception of the way many Russian women construct their feminity – they come across as cis-het as the best of ’em but to hell with being a submissive doormat. That really goes against the Heartiste and RooshV sense of what women are and can be. What got me thinking about that is some of the Russian heroines of the the VVS — Lilya Litvyak, according to some historians loved being both feminine and being a fighter pilot, blasting fascists out of the sky *while having great hair* and did both quite fine. Oh, and that Anna Yegorova! Flyin’ a freaking IL-2!! And then happily married and a housewife. Why not, if that’s what makes you happy. Not that I’m saying being a housewife in the late 1940s Soviet Union was easy! Hey, though we at Pavlov’s House my have a little of the Soviet Nostalgia going (ya think?!?!) we are NOT under any illusions that the USSR was a happy place to live and that Stalin wasn’t a monster (we just are anti-fascist and respect the patriotism of the Red Army, the VVS and the Red Navy.) The point is that a lot of Russian women defy misogynist categories and I love that. I love my Russian woman. And, lest you think “my” sounds possessive, it’s not that type of “my”. I’m hers as much as she’s mine and we like it that way 🙂 Ms. Pavlov’s House just by being who she is reminds me every day that feminism is about women’s choices and their power to make the choices they want. Gender is complicated and it’s constructed and part of feminism is that women get to construct it however they want. I know…I KNOW in my heart that Ms. Pavlov’s House would be just like a Yegorova or a Litvyak and one of the things I love about her the most is that she’s so strong, so Russian, so American, so feminine, so beautiful, so outspoken all at once. That’s why it astonishes me that people like Return of Kings bloggers think that just because a Slavic woman is *FEMININE* according to the cis-het standard, that she’ll be submissive. Nope. Nope. Nope. As I laugh at that I see a Yak-1’s 20mm cannon blazing blasting some Luftwaffe Me-109 out of the sky and some cute blonde girl smiling from the cockpit…could just as easily be Ms. Pavlov’s House as Litvyak and I love her lots and lots and lots and lots. Thank you for letting me express this. It’s really more a love paean to Ms. Pavlov’s House and to the greatness of the VVS in the Great Patriotic War but what the hell.