[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

When I picked up my new glasses a few weeks ago, I left my current glasses there to get new lenses in them. And I’m still waiting to get those back!

I know it will take a bit longer because they have to send those frames in to wherever they do the lenses, versus them having an inventory of all the frames they sell in the place where the lenses are done.

But it’s been three weeks! I suppose if the frames didn’t get sent out until the end of the week when I dropped them off on a Tuesday that can account for it.

But I’m kind of expecting to hear that the frames were lost in the shuffle.

I called just now and they only said that they aren’t in yet. If I don’t hear anything, I’ll call again on Friday.

I’m sure if the frames were lost they’ll (hopefully!) just give me a new pair of frames at no cost, because they were expensive frames and still in great shape!

[tearsofrefugees]

Clerks smile and 'flip off' security camera while 'sneaking' immigrants out of courthouse: DOJ

Two Utah court clerks have been dubbed "anti-ICE vigilantes" after they were allegedly caught "sneaking" immigrants out the back door of the

[antifainternational]

That's how you show real solidarity!

"After they overheard that ICE was at the courthouse to arrest someone, they improperly accessed court databases to determine who was not born in the United States," a DOJ detention filing says. "They then snuck every suspected illegal alien who was at the courthouse out a back door, where ICE, who was waiting in the parking lot for their target to leave the building, could not see them."

Think about what you can do at your job or in your daily life to resist fascism when the opportunity presents itself!

[knxfesck]

Donate to Support Legal Fees for Logan City Ex-Court Clerks, organized by William Joma

A few months back, you might have read about two Logan City, UT court c… William Joma needs your support for Support Legal Fees for Logan Ci

Here is the link to contribute to their legal fund. They are facing multiple felony charges and I have no info on whether they have any community support at this time. If their actions are something you support, consider helping them out through the aftermath and investigation by the "justice" system

[sharting-meself]

Getting close! Currently raised $19,186 of $20,000 as of July 7, 2026.

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

I’m watching “Silo” on Apple TV and really enjoying it and Rebecca Ferguson is incredible, but her American accent slips quite a bit, especially with intense emotion. That surprises me because she’s such a great actress!

[fidget-sinner]

En Anglais, on ne dit pas “quatre vingt dix neuf”, on dit “ninety nine” qu'on pourrait traduire comme “Hurr durr, regardez mois, j'ai un système de numérotation fonctionnel” et je crois que c'est magnifique.

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

I’ve noticed a new person walking by with a dog recently that I haven’t seen before. I am familiar with many of the neighbors who walk their dogs because I have to go to the gate to shush my dogs from barking!

Anyway this new person is a gal who looks to be in her 20s probably with a lovely golden retriever and the three times I’ve seen her so far (including this morning when I was watering the roses out front) she was reading a paperback book while walking!

How delightful!

She seems like she would maybe be on tumblr. I should use the shoelaces code next time I see her.

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

We needed to buy a new bag of diatomaceous earth for the garden and I just started reading the reviews of the one we bought out of curiosity.

There was one review that talked about how effective it was for getting rid of bugs, but then went into multiple paragraphs about using it as a health supplement!

And that it was good for all sorts of things, like digestion and hair and nail health. They claimed it got rid of their back pain entirely!

But then said that after taking it, expect to feel sick to your stomach for about a day and that they also had headaches the whole time. But once all that went away, they felt incredible!

And they also included that they read an account of a boy with “behavioral issues” who was given a it as a supplement and he just “started behaving all on his own.”

It was wild.

I looked it up to see if there had been any actual scientific research done on it as a supplement and it’s all just anecdotal evidence. I can’t imagine ingesting something that is advertised as requiring careful handling and recommendations to wear eye protection and a mask.

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

I did a bunch of yard work on Friday which was mostly trimming back an evergreen bush that grows out over the sidewalk. So it was a lot of using my hand clippers and today my hands and arms are so sore from it.

Definitely a sign that I am too out of shape and need to use my muscles more! I just took some aleve so I can sleep without being sore!

[importantcatpics]

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

Having a 100-gallon turtle habitat in your home is a pain in the ass. In case anyone was wondering.

The last two times Dude has filled the horse-trough-turned-turtle-pond, there has been a water accident, necessitating a big clean up using many towels. First was an accidental overflow because he got distracted while filling, and this time the hose shot up out of the tank and sprayed water everywhere.

I was outside the first time and also this morning when it happened, so he handled it all himself, but when I came in I noticed there was a small puddle of water at the edge of the habitat fence, so I pulled it off and there was some water accumulated under there.

I checked the crawl space and it wasn’t leaking down in there, so that’s a good sign it was just run off.

But omg, Dude is so frustrated and annoyed with it all.

Being so hot, the water is evaporating faster than in the winter, so it requires more frequent refilling.

I always have issues with this chore so I refused to do it anymore, because I’ve also both overfilled and sprayed water everywhere.

If I was rich I would hire someone to come in and maintain this thing.

Kind of want Dude to build a small outdoor shed where we can relocate his habitat to. But then Mortimer Shellington would be all alone out there and we’d have to make special trips to go talk to him! Ugh, stupid jerk turtle.

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

I’m not really in the Swiftie world at all, I got really into the Midnights album, but other than that am a casual listener, so like, I Don’t Go Here.

But, I am disappointed that Brad Pitt was invited to her wedding.

I don’t claim any kind of parasocial understanding of anything, or really care too much. And her wedding seems like it was about getting as many A-Listers as possible.

But can’t that guy face ANY consequences for beating up his wife in an airplane in front of their young children?

I mean. I guess all his kids are removing his last name from their legal names, so that’s something.

But his career and standing hasn’t suffered at all.

But that’s what happens when famous and rich men abuse women. Nothing at all.

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

I’m now reading Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick.

I searched for books on Soviet history and a Reddit thread from 11 years ago popped up and this was the top comment recommendation, from the actual Tom Hanks, of all people!

It seems he was briefly active on Reddit after doing an AMA and made a bunch of recommendations on various AskReddit threads. What a delight!

The book was published in 1993 and I have to keep my phone handy to look stuff up because I just don’t know much about the current events around that time and there is a certain amount of knowledge or understanding of the Soviet Union during that era assumed by the author.

He mostly explains everything exceptionally well (the book won a Pulitzer, after all), but I’m finding myself needing a bit more context on some things than is immediately given.

There are also so many Russian/Soviet dissident authors/writers/poets mentioned that I have started a list of all the people and works to look up and read at some point!

[mariacallous]

The big midtown auditorium at CUNY was almost filled. I was to give a paper on the same subject: women in Eastern Europe. But before I started my speech, I took out one sanitary napkin and one Tampax and, holding them high in the air, I showed them to the audience. ‘I have just come from Bulgaria,’ I said, ‘and believe me, women there don’t have either napkins or Tampaxes - they never had them, in fact. Nor do women in Poland, or Czechoslovakia, much less in the Soviet Union or Romania. This I hold as one of the proofs of why communism failed because in the seventy years of its existence it couldn’t fulfil the basic needs of half the population.’

The audience were startled at first; they hadn’t expected this, not at a scholarly conference where one could expect theories, analyses, conclusions - words, words, words. Then people started applauding. For me, the sight of a sanitary napkin and a Tampax was a necessary precondition for understanding what we are talking about: not the generally known fact that women wait in long lines for food or that they don’t have washing machines - one could read about that in Time or Newsweek - but that besides all the hardship of living in Eastern Europe, if they can’t find gauze or absorbent cotton, they have to wash bloody cloth pads every month, again and again, as their mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers did hundreds of years ago. For them, communism has changed nothing in that regard.

From “A Letter From The United States” in How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulić

[gleafer]

“He got bit by an animal and became that animal.” -Ruth, Widows Bay

Don’t sleep on this one! It’s on AppleTv ❤️

[edithsweetithh]

in honor of america's 250th birthday approaching, here's your friendly reminder that this poem by emma lazarus (a jewish-american woman) is on a plaque attached to the statue of liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

A view of the original granary from when this was a 10-acre farm, built in 1889, with the addition of Dude’s (unfinished) wood shop that he built with a buddy when we bought the house. Walter is on the back steps of the house on the right.

The big stump that’s behind the chair is all that’s left of our glorious boxelder tree, which was the heart and soul of this place and made it magical back here. It hasn’t been the same since Barry the Boxelder came down in 2021, and turned the backyard from a shaded paradise to a sunny lot with overwhelming weeds.

But at least we can grow a vegetable garden back here now that it’s sunny all day long. Silver lining.

We daydream about knocking down the granary/shop and building a new house at the back of the lot, and then knocking down the existing house and building a big garage/workshop at the front of the property.

Maybe someday.

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

My favorite thing to do is to sit outside and read a book.

A lot of things in my life currently feel imperfect or unsatisfactory, but I have a big outdoor space to sit and read.

It may be kind of ugly and not have much shade and be overgrown with Virginia creeper vines that are so extensive it’s too overwhelming to think about tackling that clear-out project (and also have the occasional rodents that at least are no longer in the house), but there are birds chirping and my dogs are milling around and I’m grateful to have a home, with a reasonable mortgage, that provides this luxury, despite the numerous repairs it desperately needs.

I may bring my typewriter (which is a vintage portable Olivetti model) out here later before it gets too hot and do some writing and/or journaling.

Dude went disc golfing early this morning so I was in charge of watering the vegetable garden (which I think is going to actually yield us some tomatoes and squash!) and now I’m finishing up The Spy and The Traitor.

I need another book on the Soviet Union and/or the KGB next!

[areweperfectlywhelmedyet]

I just remembered when I left my first job here in Utah at a tiny local company for a new job, the director of my dept asked me if I’d like to do some freelance copywriting for them and offered me an hourly rate that would have been equivalent to my hourly rate at the job.

I responded and said that I’d require a higher hourly rate, due to the benefits, etc. that are built in to what a salary breaks down to hourly.

He got all huffy and said that look, he was just trying to help ME out, by offering me some extra work, despite the fact that he should have assume I was leaving the job for a higher salary.

It was just such typical man nonsense, of being offended at my demanding adequate compensation for doing HIM a favor, and trying to turn it around.

I was like, well okay, not interested then!

So dumb.