I hope you’ve started scanning the dark periphery like we do. Not because you deserved anything that happened to you! And I’m not assuming you weren’t already. But because I can’t do anything to protect you from over here on the Internet and I don’t want that to happen to you anymore. It’s when we’re near home that we tend to let our guard down.

As a woman, imagining situations like those: I can see the brightly lit center is empty, that’s all I need to know about it. The stairs require several glances especially if I’m in heels or other unstable shoes. But those dark corners need checking and rechecking the whole time I’m walking, to be sure no tiny changes betray a lurker. Who is probably going to wait until they’re at my back to make a move.

My mental image of the guys scanning the same image: “Yeah that’s where I’m going, that’s obviously where I’m looking.” Sure, they could get mugged but it’s less likely, and physical threat isn’t on their mind.

Ingestion of lead ammunition is the primary reason California Condors (obligate carrion eaters) almost became extinct, are still endangered, and aren’t having the greatest success with being reintroduced.

As for bald eagles, they’re lazy smart, if they see takeout just sitting there, they’re not gonna make dinner from scratch.

I think next time I’m going to tell them all about bees! And I could throw in a few facts about chambered nautiluses, too although I don’t know enough to center the call about them.

From the cat’s point of view there’s no downside!

So entertaining!

There was a man who really told us who he was. I’d be reading along in my dad’s Analog Magazine, not really noticing authors, and suddenly find myself chest-deep in evil. What a dick.

I’d be shitting myself laughing.

Unless your partner is an asshole, tell them briefly about the incident and ask them to wait at the vehicle rather than put you in that position again. You’re partners for a reason, to have each other’s six.

It takes a village to survive. Some to remember the exact differences between safe, fun, and deadly mushrooms and others to turn predators into prey.

Ancient people had to remember/memorize a lot more things just to get through their days, before writing existed.

They don’t, not enough sodium in coconut juice for one thing.

I guess you first use the clean juice to make the wounded stop dying long enough so you can stitch what’s left of them together, and if they wake up you could tuck a salt pill under their tongue.

A lot of WWII was fought on Pacific islands.

You could pull them off without staining them if you drape them neatly over a clean chair. But then you’d be standing there trouserless (pants means undies over there) with Margot and Charlie…

I’d say Elizabeth Swaney is as close as you’ll come for winter Olympics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Swaney

Maybe more like, sat up and stuck its head down into the vase, which tipped, startling the cat, who pulled back, lifting the vase, and either thrashed its head or jumped down, either way the body of the vase broke away. It looks like it got lucky and there’s a relatively straight break line, but you wouldn’t want to pull in case you thrust a jagged shard into a jugular or something. They seem to be at the vet where they’ll administer enough anesthetic to either ease it off or break it away, then clean/stitch any cuts and dose it with antibiotics. If you couldn’t get to a vet, a couple people could probably wrap it in a towel and hold it still enough to break the vase away but it’s risky.

“Life is pain. Ovary up.”

High King Margo, The Magicians

Large animal veterinarian. I think my arms are too short.

SNIKT

That’s a legitimate use of “scratch” and since OP was being too cool to use the whole phrase “from scratch,” it could be re-interpreted to mean “I decided to throw out the whole meal and just eat a spoonful of peanut butter. What a waste of all my hard work!”

Like if they’d just opened their mail and in it was a notice: WARNING: MAJOR ARSENIC CONTAMINATION IN YOUR AREA! Injesting anything grown in your soil may cause severe illness and harm to vital organs!

This reminds us to be careful with phrasing.

From scratch is an idiom meaning “from the start” (as in a starting line scratched in the dirt for a footrace)

And in the context of food it means “cooked by myself from basic ingredients.” I don’t think OP means they grew the wheat, maybe not the jam berries, but they made the English muffin from dough using flour and yeast etc, not a mix and not store bought. They boiled up the jam from fresh fruit, and made the pectin to thicken it rather than buying pectin powder. They didn’t do all that tonight, in fact the elderberry mead started 6 years ago. And I bet it’s damn good!