Help Us Lay Cranberry to Rest

Hello Tumblr! As the link says, this is Cranberry.

Just a few days ago, my family and I had to euthanize her after 9 incredible years in her company. We fought it for about a month and exhausted every option we could, but the cancer that took her was just too much.

Over that month, I accumulated a fair amount of cat-medical debt. I don't regret it in the slightest, but the fact is that I alone am the only one paying the bill. The fundraiser page goes into more detail, but TLDR:

I could really use some help.

Any donations at all would be greatly appreciated! And if you can't donate (or even if you can), please reblog, share—whatever you can do to BOOST this post would help more than you could know.

Thank you Cranberry, for letting me love you for so long. And thank you Tumblr, for any support you can give <3

I've discovered you can't blaze fundraiser posts! So we're rbing to boost!! Any support, be it donations or sharing, is very appreciated!!!

i taught a baking class for 12 year olds today and we made your garden variety chocolate chip cookies, but i’m a big believer in Questioning Everything and the who/what/where/why/when/how behind things, so the first part of the class was purposely letting the kids do things the wrong way, to show and explain why we do things the way we do.

“why do we bake cookies at 180 for 9 minutes when we could do 400 for 2 minutes?” -enter the godawful lump of coal with a still gross wet and uncooked inside

“why do we have to scoop out little cookies instead of doing the whole tray?” -ok well that one you can technically do if the spread is even. you just end up with one giant, structurally unsound cookie. “PLEASE CAN WE MAKE GIANT COOKIES” (we did make 1 giant tray cookie)

we talked a lot about why consistency is important, but i don’t think it really hammered home until i said “okay everyone gets ONE cookie, that’s fair, right?” and then handed out cookies of hugely varying sizes. + baked one fat lump of a cookie that still wasn’t done at the 9 minutes, vs the regular one i put in that came out charred by the time the first was actually done.

we also made a row of cookies where each one had one single differing ingredient omitted, like a cookie with no flour, or a cookie with no butter, and laid them all out on a single tray to bake together to see how each ingredient affects the outcome.

two of the little girls added cocoa to their cookie doughs until it matched the colour of each others skin to make best friend cookies, and that almost made me tear up a bit 🥺

got briefly distracted (…for over half an hour…) talking about how eggs form when someone cracked an egg and it had 2 yolks

expertly tolerated being asked how old i am (just turned 31 the other day) which was immediately followed by asking if i watched the moon landing live on tv

was so focused on keeping track of all the kids that in the end i forgot to make a cookie for myself, but it’s ok because one of the girls gave me this

tiny……….

the class went well and they asked if i wanted to do another one in a couple weeks and i said yeah, and they’re taking uh… fuck, what’s the word for inventory when it’s people?? attendance?? whatever, they’re trying to see who’s interested to get a feel of if it’d be 1 three hour class again or if there’s too many kids so we’d do a couple classes. anyways, i love the emails from Concerned Parents.

“will there be knives involved?” we are baking cookies.

“what temperatures does the oven get to/will it be hot enough to burn?” we are baking cookies.

“will there be [insert ingredient used in cookies]?” we are baking cookies.

“are you using fahrenheit or celsius?” ??????? d-does it matter?? it’s going to get Hot. (also celsius; this is ontario)

“are the ovens childproof?” no?? i’m assuming you’re asking if i’m going to let your kids reach into the ovens while i’m staring out a window in another room. i will not be allowing your children to use the ovens. they will not be left unattended. 

“why is the library baking class taking place at the high school?” the library does not have 10 ovens. the library does not even have 1 oven. the high school has many ovens.

“what if i don’t want my child to have cookies? can you let her make muffins instead?” this is a baking class for cookies. we are baking cookies.

“cookies aren’t healthy. why don’t you make [insert whatever]” do you know how many cookies i can make with a $40 budget and a trip to the bulk store? we are making cookies.

“who needs a class to bake a cookie, why not teach something more valuable?” IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE COOKIES, KAREN, IT’S ABOUT FAMILIARIZING CHILDREN WITH THE ART AND SCIENCE OF BAKING/COOKING/FOOD, ABOUT TRYING NEW THINGS, MAKING MISTAKES AND REALIZING THAT THE MISTAKES ARE NOT ONLY OKAY TO MAKE BUT VALUABLE IN AND OF THEMSELVES, FAMILIARIZING THEM WITH INDEPENDENCE, THE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THINGS CAN COME TOGETHER TO FORM A NEW AND BETTER WHOLE, ALL WHILE HAVING TRYING TO INJECT A MODICUM OF JOY INTO THEIR LITTLE LIVES. SORRY THAT THERE ARE CONCEPTS AT PLAY YOU CAN’T SEEN TO UNDERSTAND HERE. MAYBE YOU SHOULD COME JOIN AND I’LL LET YOU MAKE A FUCKING COOKIE.

Like a half hour after taking pain relief meds: oh actually it doesnt hurt anymore i probably didnt even need to take those

*grabs your hands and speaks to you in a tone that is so gentle* they/them pronouns stop being universal once you learn a person's pronouns. Sometimes that person's pronouns will include they/them and in that specific case you are allowed to keep using those pronouns for that person. In any case where you learn a persons pronouns and that person doesn't use they/them, you should no longer use those pronouns for that person. If you continue to use they/them pronouns knowing that person doesn't use them, you are now misgendering that person. Kindly stop doing that please. Thank you, I love you.

back from trip

the nerd i reblogged this from has a quality blog & i recommend you all follow them.

🐌✨ get snailed! 🐌✨

the snail i sneebsnogged snis from snas a snaility snog & i sneccomend you snaill snollow snem.

just a topical audio edit for your fine whatever part of the day it is when you've happened upon this.

Transcript:

I know by its nature Drawtectives is pretty niche but goddd I wish it was slightly more popular so I could see people reference “computer: how to introduce two crows? computer: two crows one home introduce. one home, two crows- new crow doesn’t like old crow! how to introduce two crows. image search: two crow friends- who are frien- two crows that like to hang out how to make that happen computer. thank you. please.” like I need this to be a copypasta or something but it simply will not be

coworker asks if i like harry potter and i have to make a disco elysium skill check to come up with a response

CIS COWORKER — Hey you seem really into wizards and stuff, I bet you love Harry Potter :)

EMPATHY — He’s just trying to be polite and make conversation. He doesn’t know about JK Rowling’s opinions on trans people. Let’s politely change the subject.

COMPOSURE [Trivial: Failure] — “Kill yourself.”

*feels both “I am so bored & understimulated I want to do EVERYTHING!” and “I am so exhausted & overwhelmed I can’t do ANYTHING” at the same time*

"came back wrong" what about Came Back Afraid. You used to be brave. Too brave maybe, defying the odds at every turn, a fighter, cocky, playing with fire, first to throw yourself at the enemy. Until one day it all caught up to you. You came back, somehow, but now you know all too intimately how it feels to lose, to die, to be destroyed. Now you flinch and freeze and cower at the slightest provocation. Who even are you now if you can't be brave? The grave may have let you go, but the mortal fear still grips you tighter than ever.

“I LOVE that game!” (watched a letsplay and commentary about it)

this counts and i’ll hear nothing against it

if watching sports counts as enjoying the sport, then watching video games counts as enjoying video games.

And literally a huge part of gaming has ALWAYS been the experience of sitting around together, watching one person in the group play while everyone else cheers, heckles, shrieks, and generally has a good time.

The other day I realized I watch Castlevania speedruns like my dad watches golf.

early campaign feral cat energy

Endlessly infuriating to me that cishet men can do this and still have the ability to show their faces in public, but if a queer person wears leather or drag makeup within one mile of any potential child they have "PEDO" branded on their forehead for the rest of time.

men b like wow I’ve never met a girl who liked music before..

You obviously know nothing about men if this is what you think they say

Men will see a mouse and eat it

No they won’t because why would anyone eat a mouse that’s stupid not all men are bad and not all men are stupid you may have had a bad experience with a man but not all men are bad granted there bad men but instantly accusing all men as bad is immature I’m dating a man and he is nowhere near stupid and I know for a fact that he won’t eat a mouse and in pretty sure I could name at least five other men that won’t do something as immature as that and saying that a man will see a mouse and eat it won’t get you a anywhere with a man if anything it will drive them away.

A man will see a mouse and be like is anyone else gonna eat this and not wait for an answer