My beautiful commission from @rainbowratsstuff!!!!
She created this gorgeous picture of Jellyorum and I am in love. Look at her beautiful colors and shading and stripes and her lovely eyes! Also soft chest floof! I can't get over how lovely the autumn colors are, and how beautifully they pair with her coloring! The golds and reds and oranges with the lovely teal green in the middle (and the little falling leaves). Rainbow came up with the background and I adore that it looks like she's standing on the deck of a cabin up in the treetops of a forest.
since we're on the bad faith interpretations and doomerism website let me preface this by saying i myself have also been a victim of the usamerican healthcare system and understand how crazy awful and expensive it is to get good care, or any sort of treatment at all
but there is a sort of medical doomerism that exists because of these difficulties that i think actively dissuades people from getting the care they deserve, and this issue compounds on the other issues and really needs to be addressed. despite how doctors may act to you, you are the expert on your symptoms. not necessarily what is wrong with you, but what you are experiencing, and you are allowed to say no to your doctor. you are allowed to get a second/third/fourth opinion and shop around until you find a doctor who believes you. in fact in my shopping around i have found a lot of doctors love it when you throw other doctors under the bus, if worded strategically. it's very similar to that strategy of "well my friend thinks it's this," it puts you and the doctor on the same side of trying to rule out or confirm an issue against an unrelated third party.
again, i understand the barriers. it is expensive and time consuming. not everyone can do it. yes. i understand. but it is possible to get a doctor who believes you and actually get treatment for your problems, and that is something you deserve, and it also something you need to believe going in or you're going to give up before you get the chance. it is exhausting and demoralizing to wade through the bullshit, yes, but there are good doctors trapped on the other side of this system who can get to you if you keep trying as best you can. it's not easy. it's not accessible for everyone, which is a huge part of the problem. but it is possible.
more people really need to be taught about how to feel a sense of agency as a patient. the fact no one teaches or explains this to us is a huge issue. but one of the first things I learned after my hEDS diagnosis (that other people! including doctors!) told me was I am the captain of my own care. Every doctor I see is part of a team of people I consult with regarding my symptoms and care. If they're not a good teammate, you can get another one. Shifting this worldview has dramatically changed my relationship with healthcare and the efficiency of my own doctors' appointments, which radically improved my care.
i dont know. like, guys. i have a complicated relationship with this. on top of hEDS, i was born with a rare condition that's about 1 in 10,000 births that would have left me blind had doctors not intervened quick and early before I was even a toddler. I grew up seeing a doctor every four months who meticulously tracked my extremely rare and specific issue that could take a nosedive at any time. i saw him every six months up until is 30-year retirement. at the same time wading through all the bullshit that was the rest of the system. i have a hesitancy to write off doctors and the healthcare system as a whole because the work of doctors shaped my entire life and quite literally how i see.
it is possible, and you do deserve the care, and you cannot let the hopelessness talk you down from getting something you deserve, or even imagining that you can.
what will piss me off until the day I die is the fact that if trump can change this much of America entirely for the worse, then there was never anything stopping any other president from changing it that much for the better, they just never actually wanted to.
[Sighs in "the president only signs legislation into law and issues EOs, what you want is a progressive and competent CONGRESS paired with a progressive president"] [sighs even louder in "the Biden admin's legislation would have had a monumental impact on millions of people had Trump not immediately canceled everything"]
I know I've said it before but it's insane how entitled people feel to the Holocaust and how smug they get when they condescend to people about it, as if the dastardly and selfish Jews are hogging their own genocide
WHEN social media influencer Chris Caresnone made his first trip to Israel just over a year ago, he knew very little about the country — including nothing about the events of October 7.
But he is a fast learner and has embraced all aspects of Israeli society, including Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze, on his quest for good food.
“About a year ago, I was invited by a group called Reality to go to Israel,” the Chicago-based food blogger told me. “A lady named Debra Feinberg reached out and was like, ‘Chris, I’ve been following you for a while, and I think you’d be great for this organisation that gets people to Israel’, because my Jewish audience was starting to grow.
“I was thinking that I need to get to Israel because it would be good for the energy, ethos, brand, and content.”
Chris, who has hundreds of thousands of followers across social media, continued: “I’ll be honest, I had heard stuff about Israel and Palestine, but I was ignorant. I didn’t know much about anything until I was in Israel. I was wet behind the ears. I didn’t know about the bombs or October 7. All I knew was, I’ve got to get to Israel.”
Chris, whose real surname is Campbell, said the first thing that struck him about Israel was that it wasn’t all Ashkenazim.
“We ignorantly think that all the Jewish people on Earth are eastern European,” he told me.
“It’s not from a place of hate, just that we don’t know. But then when I went to Israel, I’m like, man, there’s people my colour who are Jewish and Israeli.
“As far as food, I would say excellent. It all felt fresh, even the fried food.”
Chris, who is known as the Babka King, was a little surprised about the lack of babka in Israel.
“There’s some, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not really Sephardic, Mizrahi,” he said.
There was another aspect of Israeli life which surprised him — the driving.
“It’s a little hectic,” he laughed. “I don’t know if I want to drive over there. I personally thought the vibe of Israel was super cool, and I plan on going back as often as I can.”
Despite being a six-foot two-inch black man with a beard, Chris said he has never encountered any problems getting into Israel, apart from being stopped constantly by people who recognise him.
“The reach is getting so big now, so many people notice me in the airport, and it’s not even just Israel, it’s back home too, New York, Chicago,” he smiled.
“I have to stop and take pictures every few minutes, so that’s not really a problem, but it’s something that’s a slight disruption.”
Although it was never his original intention, Chris’ social media feed is now heavily Jewish, leading to many Jewish dinner invitations, including from rabbis for Friday night dinner.
“I’m kind of Jewish now,” he joked, “I’m embedded and I see what’s going on, but my first time in Israel? I heard that this is apartheid, but I see all kinds of people there walking freely. I’m a black America dude, clearly not Israeli, clearly not Jewish and not only do I walk perfectly fine, people come up to me and show me love.”
Chris, who says he grew up Christian but is not very religious, had his babka obsession started by a Muslim.
“And that turned into this movement, so to speak, of humanity, which I think is the most beautiful thing ever,” he explained.
“I started making culture content, showing love to different cultures. I did like 50 cultures. I didn’t even make any Jewish or Israeli content for seven or eight months.
“I feel like I get so much love within the community, and I’m just treating y’all normal like how I treat everyone else.
“I was told the way you have to look at it is, imagine if someone gives you a glass of water every single day.
“Eventually, it’s just another glass of water. But imagine you’re walking through the desert for four months, and then someone gives you a glass of water, it’s a bigger deal. And it’s not because the glass of water is any different, it’s because the context of the situation.
“It’s so big and powerful, yet it’s a matter of just being human and showing humanity.
“And the whole food, the babka was really just life’s way of Hashem, the universe, God, whatever we wanna call it, it was the Trojan horse to get my energy amplified.
“It’s more than food. I don’t feel like a food guy at all. I feel more like a bridge builder.”
During his trips to Israel, he has also spent time with Ethiopian and Druze communities.
He described Ethiopian food as “ridiculously good”, adding: “I have tried other cultures that are mixed within Israel. That’s what makes Israel’s food scene so unique. It’s almost like the opposite of what people are trying to say.”
The 42-year-old was raised around the North Shore of Chicago, which, he said, has one of the largest Jewish populations in America.
“I didn’t really have a lot of Jewish cuisine outside of matzo ball soup,” he explained. “When I got a little older, I started working in restaurants in different areas, and sometimes affluent areas.
“I started trying things that I probably would not have tried had I not worked in a restaurant. So my horizons got expanded because of that.”
He said what he realised about kosher food was that the food was still good despite the restrictions (apart from gefilte fish, which he has never been fond of).
As expected, his videos from Israel, while garnering mainly positive comments, do receive a number of hateful comments.
He had changed his name to Caresnone to reflect the fact that he wasn’t letting hate get to him, but it is a situation that has provoked a lot of thought.
“Here’s something I’ve been asking myself a lot recently,” he said. “Am I trying to be right or am I trying to solve the problem? I have learned that a lot of times I was trying to be right, not trying to generally solve the problem.
“On my birthday, February 2, I went out with some people and I had a buddy bring a girl he had met like once or twice.
“He should not have invited some girl he had just met to my intimate personal birthday dinner, but it is what it is. So we’re all sitting there at this restaurant and it’s a good 10 of us. We were talking about food and I’m like one of my new favourite cuisines is Israeli food. I’ve been going to a lot of Israeli restaurants.
“And this girl who’s sitting next to me, she goes, ‘oh, excuse me, what did you say?’
And I’m like, ‘I like Israeli cuisine, it’s fire, I love it’. And she says, ‘there’s no such thing as Israeli cuisine, it’s all stolen, they steal everything’.
“She invited this new energy when we were just talking about food.
“I’m with my buddy Kareem KWOE Wells, who’s considered King of the Mitzvahs, a black Christian in Chicago who’s known for doing the most epic and powerful mitzvahs in the country. Me and Kareem went at her. We weren’t rude or ignorant, but I was starting to feel myself losing composure, because I’m part of the humanity tribe, but I’m also very entrenched in the Jewish community and Israel.
“Then she made a comment along the lines of ‘I should be able to say whatever I want to say’ and then I matched her with that.
“I’m a pretty intimidating figure. And I looked at her, and I’m like, ‘well, I can say what I want to say, too’. I was giving her energy that wasn’t welcoming. I didn’t cuss her out or anything. And everyone else at the table thought I handled it well.
“But I was trying to be right. I wasn’t trying to solve the problem. So much so that she said, ‘maybe I should get out of here’. And I looked at her and go, ‘yeah, maybe you should’.”
He continued: “Fast forward. I’m on the way to Israel, on a 10-hour flight. I get a DM: ‘F*** Israel, f*** you, you black monkey’.
“I was immediately reminded of my birthday. I thought about that moment and I asked myself, do I want to be right or do I want to solve the problem?
“Being right would be to either call that person a racist or antisemite, or to ignore the person, or to call them an idiot, that you’re wrong, you don’t know anything about nothing. Or am I trying to solve the problem genuinely?
“So I typed to that person ‘I love you, brother’. Then we’re going back and forth, but I’m always bringing it back to humanity. I’m trying to solve the problem.
“And instead of looking at this person as a racist and antisemite, which he’s showing himself to be, I saw him as this person who’s hurt, who believes a narrative, who thinks he understands something, he obviously doesn’t know me, and that’s what I saw now.
“So I was able to not take it personally because I want to solve the problem. I don’t care about being right. I don’t care that he thinks I’m this. I’m trying to solve this.”
He added: “That guy who called me a black monkey. He equated me being aligned with Israel as equal to hating Muslims.
“I know Jewish people for a fact do not hate Muslims. But this person believed that all Jews and all Israel, or anyone who stands for that, hates Muslims. I’m like, brother, a Muslim sent me my first babka.
“A Muslim has created a lot of this, you know what I’m saying? He was the one who sent me the babka.”
The guy eventually apologised for his ‘black monkey’ comment.
Chris has also received death threats because of his Israel content.
He joked: “How you gonna hate me because I’m eating the babka? I’ve never once come out and said I’m pro-Israel or pro-Jewish. I said I’m pro-humanity, which includes Israel.
“I don’t think that’s controversial. I’m looking at a Jewish person, you got arms, you got a head, you got feet, you’re one of us. If the aliens come down, I don’t care if you’re Jewish, Muslim, green, yellow, it’s us versus the aliens?
“Like I said, people coming at me crazy for eating the food, which is interesting, because whoever’s throwing out that slur or that energy, I’ve probably done their culture too.”
Chris describes his job as to move “in a light, which is very Jewish! Very tikkun olam, from what I’ve been learning. And I feel like before I even knew what tikkun olam was, and before I even knew what being chosen people was, and before I knew any of the core premises of Judaism, I align with a lot of this stuff.”
Chris is hoping to spread his wings more. He is keen to “get my butt out to Europe, I know there’s a lot of people telling me I need to go to Australia and Mexico City, where there’s a big Jewish population.”
One of his favourite restaurants in Israel is called Pitmaster.
“I have learned that the Israeli community loves to dance,” he said. “Pitmaster is an experience. Everyone’s dancing. They stop between the meals and they dance and it’s like a vibe. They are gonna bring two more to the United States. And in America, you’re gonna have to make alcohol more of a thing, because these people weren’t dancing because they were drunk, they were dancing because they were joyful. In the States, you’ve got to get people drinking.”
He added: “So when you ask me, am I aware of how what I do affects the Jewish community and the people of Israel specifically. I want to be clear and say I’m not a Jewish content creator. I am not an Israeli content creator.
“I’m a humanitarian creator who happens to also include Jewish and Israel on the humanitarianism, and also, I just happen to be really cool with them like anyone else.”
In one of his newer videos, Chris talks about volunteering in Jerusalem with Colel Chabad.
“It reminded me that sometimes the best part of travelling isn’t just what you experience. It’s what you can give back. If you’re visiting Israel, I genuinely recommend adding this to your itinerary.”
You can follow Chris on all social media platforms @chriscaresnone
We reopened our Etsy a little earlier than anticipated as one of our cats Oscar needs to see a Cardiologist. :( Although we have cat insurance, that will be approximately $3000 out-of-pocket. We don't know when we'll be reimbursed, we just need to get the initial appointment to make sure he's safe.
We will be posting several costumes that are ready to be retired from our rental set. Pink Sillabub is the first one. She has been through five productions (Interlakes, Witchita, Algonquin, The Fulton, and CM Productions). Wig is in great shape considering the usage, unitard is very faded but nice/durable, warmers unfortunately are very holey. We are asking $125 for the whole costume plus shipping.
Bust 33-35", Waist 24-27", Hip 35-38", with stretch to definitely go larger or smaller (we always do conservative sizing estimates but we use a very high-quality performance lycra). If one's not performing, there's more leeway on sizing.
For an additional fee, we'd be willing to add pink dye to her unitard but there's a chance it might be splotchy in the steamer as she's already sewn together and not flat. I could use dye-na-flow paint for an additional fee, but I'm not sure that's worth it.
Other costumes will be listed.
For custom commissions, we're open and unfortunately did have to raise prices due to tariffs. The acid dye process takes a long time with many layers of steaming and washing and materials, and we're doing fluffies another way now. For wigs, we bought as much as we could in 2024 from IKickShins before she shut down due to her cancer-treatment, and now to get hair that caliber, we have to order either overseas or do a 5-hr RT drive.
You are given a short-lived curse in which you have a song stuck in your head for a week. On the bright side, you get to pick the song. Which do you choose?
as you guys know, i have been researching the history of antisemitism. i am reading jewish newspapers from 1934. my heart is breaking. in between normal articles about how a jewish boxer is competing later and what yiddish plays are coming up soon theres small sections about jewish businesses in germany being shut down and the owners arrested. about controversy over whether a nazi should be invited to an event in america or not.
1934. indianapolis. i dont know what to say about this. other than that i am emotional
Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.
Kids books is probably not the best way to word it, you can enjoy them at every age, including your childhood, as you get older you may find new truths in them, but they're still good for any age.
