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||||||||| He/Him ||||||| 40 |||||||| European |||||||| I was moderating forums before the term "Troll" was coined || No Nazis, no TERFs, no Incels || I don't always discuss my opinions || My real name is on IMdB || Old blog: ramfamrambs.tumblr.com
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Okay, buckle up buckaroos, because today I met an honest-to-goodness cryptid.
I was out running errands and I made a stop at Intimate Books (…for a friend), and on my way out I realized that the bookshop next door was open.
This bookshop has existed for more than a hundred years, and in all my life it has NEVER BEEN OPEN. I mean, I assume it has to be open sometimes, but never at any normal, reasonable hour. Everyone says it’s a front for the mob or something.
So what do you do when the weird mafia bookshop is open? You go the fuck inside.
The first thing I noticed was the smell. You know that smell when you accidentally leave your towel on the bathroom floor all day and you come back to that mildew funk? The shop smelled like that times a thousand. I expected to see stuff growing on the walls, but the books were pristine. We’re talking first editions, rare editions, weird Bibles and books inscribed to really famous dead people. Librarians would weep for the chance to accession this place. In the first two minutes I found a signed copy of The Crucible and what I think was a first edition of Blake’s Book of Thel.
Then a clerk showed up out of nowhere—honestly nowhere. He looked EXACTLY like a bookseller should look, kind of fluffy and bewildered and really, really gay.
“Are you lost?” was the first thing he said to me.
“Nope. Just browsing, thanks.”
“Browsing, I see. Erm. How do you feel about snakes?” he asked. And without waiting for me to answer, he just walked away and vanished around a shelf.
I figured it was a metaphor, or a code phrase for the mafia. Until I turned a corner like ten minutes later and found a little reading nook. It was really pretty, although I feel like that particular window should have been on an interior wall? Anyway, curled up in an armchair in a patch of sunlight was the biggest fuck-off black snake I have ever seen.
Like, I don’t mind snakes in general. But in their normal context, right? Outside. On the ground. Not six feet long and sitting on a threadbare velvet armchair like it owns the place.
I was about to turn around and leave, but I saw a gorgeous first-edition copy of Leaves of Grass on a shelf, a little too close to the snake for comfort. But I had never needed anything so badly in my life.
So I went back to the counter to buy it, but the clerk was nowhere to be found.
While I was waiting, I noticed a collection of pictures hanging on the wall behind the counter, dating back to the very dawn of photography. A couple were of this rock-star looking guy from the 70s that I should probably have recognized, but there were authors and landscapes and stuff, too. There was even an old tintype portrait of Oscar freaking Wilde, sitting in this very shop with a guy that I would ACTUALLY SWEAR was the clerk from before. Like, I know my family all has the same nose, but this guy had the same everything.
After approximately one year of waiting, the clerk came back out to the desk. By now I’ve realized that he’s too bad at his job to be anything but the owner of the shop.
“I saw your snake,” I told him.
“Did you? Was he behaving himself?”
“He was sleeping.”
“Yes, he enjoys that.”
“Does he just stay out in the open like that? What if he gets out?”
He shrugged and smiled. “He always comes home again, the dear boy.”
Right, a homing snake. That’s totally normal.
Then he cleared his throat and asked, in a weirdly reluctant voice, if I was going to buy the Whitman.
“Yes, please,” I told him. “I saw it on a shelf by the snake, and it was just too tempting.”
He sighed. “Oh, yes, I expect it was.”
When I started to hand him my card, he went all fluttery and said that they didn’t take cards.
All right, fine. I had some cash on me, but I told him that he’d sell a lot more books if he got a Square or something.
He got this scandalized look on his face and went, “Why would I want to do that?”
Oookay. I handed over the cash and he popped open the ancient till and started making change.
In shillings. Shillings! I swear to god I saw Queen Anne’s face on one of them. The silver value of the coins was probably as much as I paid for the book.
But I had to have proof that this happened—at that point, all I had was a book in a plain brown wrapper, not appreciably different from what I bought next door. So I asked him for a receipt.
He looked delighted and wrote one up for me.
By hand.
With a fountain pen.
And that’s the story of how I met a bookseller cryptid and his pet snake.
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Did you pick up on the subtle hints that Fabian may not be ready for a new sibling?
Watch the full episode on Dropout
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We're 3 minutes into the murder party. One guy has already lost his shoes.
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...So that was lunch. Lamb shank (that best of cheap meat cuts, except maybe for shin) braised low & slow, using this recipe from Fifteen Spatulas, for a couple of hours in the oven and then finished in the "hay box" overnight. Merely prodding it gently causes the meat to fall off the bone.
On the side: rice, chunky potatoes & carrots that were cooked in with the lamb, with some hot/sweet pepper jelly and hot and sweet pickled oranges on the side.
And now back to work. ...But wow, I love these dishes that can just be thrown together and then left to themselves to get on with things.
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The knowledge of some common plants
Since many people don't know most of the plants around them, this is information on some plants that are commonly seen in many places throughout the world
This is Lamium purpureum, also called Purple Deadnettle.
It's called deadnettle because it looks like a nettle but it doesn't sting you
This plant is a winter annual—it grows its leaves in the fall, lasts through the winter, and blooms and dies in the spring
Its pollen is reddish orange. If you see bees with their heads stained reddish orange, it is likely because they have visited Purple Deadnettle
This is Trifolium repens, white clover
It is a legume (belongs to the bean family) and fixes nitrogen using symbiosis with bacteria that live in little nodules on its roots, fertilizing the soil
It is a good companion plant for the other members of a lawn or garden since it is tough, adaptable, and improves soil quality. According to my professor it used to be in lawn mixes, until chemical companies wanted to sell a new herbicide that would kill broadleaved plants and spare grass, and it was slandered as a weed :(
It is native only to Europe and Central Asia, but in the lawns they are doing more good than harm most places
Honeybees love to visit clover
Four-leaf clovers are said to be lucky
This is Achillea millefolium, Common Yarrow
It has had a relationship with humans since Neanderthals were around, at least 60,000 years, since Neanderthals have been found buried with Yarrow
Its leaves have been used to stop bleeding throughout history, and its scientific name comes from how Achilles was said to have used Yarrow to stop the blood from the wounds of his soldiers. A leaf rolled into a ball has been used to stop nosebleeds
It is a native species all throughout Eurasia and North America
This is Cichorium intybus, known as Chicory
The leaves look a lot like dandelion leaves, until in mid-spring when it begins growing a woody green stem straight up into the air
Like many other weeds, it has a symbiotic relationship with humans, existing in a mix of domesticated or partially domesticated and wild populations
It is native to Eurasia, but widespread in North America on roadsides and disturbed places, where it descended from cultivated plants
Its root contains large amounts of inulin, which is used as a sweetener and fiber supplement (if you look at the ingredients on the granola bars that have extra fiber, they usually are partly made of chicory root) and has also been used as a coffee substitute
A large variety of bees like to feed upon it
This is Phytolacca americana, known as Pokeweed
It is easily identified by its huge leaves and its waxy, bright magenta stem
It can grow more than nine feet tall from a sprout in a single summer!
If you squish the berries, the juice inside is a shocking magenta that is so bright it almost burns your eyes. For this reason many Native American people used it for pink and purple dye.
It is a heavy metal hyperaccumulator, particularly good for removing cadmium from the soil
All parts of the plant are poisonous and will make you very sick if you eat them, however if the leaves are picked when very young and boiled 3 times, changing out the water each time, they can be eaten, and this is a traditional food in the rural American Southeast, but I don't want to chance it
British people have introduced it as a pretty, exotic ornamental plant. I think that is very funny considering that here it is a weed associated with places where poor people live, but maybe they're right and I need to look closer to see the beauty.
If you see magenta stains in bird poop it is because they ate pokeweed berries- birds can safely eat the berries whereas humans cannot
This is Plantago lanceolata, Ribwort Plantain
It grows in heavily disturbed soils, in fact it is considered an indicator of agricultural activity. It is successful in the poorest, heaviest and most compacted soil.
The leaves, seeds, and flower heads are said to be edible but the leaves are really stringy unless they are very young. Of course, it is important to be careful when eating wild plants, and make sure you have identified the plant correctly and the soil is not contaminated
I have also heard the strings in the leaves can be extracted and used for textile purposes
and that's some common plants you might often see throughout the world
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My cheeky friend Hans:
"I'm down for Capybara Day, Mongoose Day, Honey Badger Day, and the rare but magical Coelacanth Day."
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Star Trek side of Tumblr:
How do they get the com badges to stick to their shirts in The Next Generation???
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Pride month vest project, a patch a day #29: Wheat But Not Bread, Fruit But Not Wine
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The Fallout TV show is incredibly unfaithful to the games. It should have started with a 20 minute sequence where Lucy's facial features morph and her hairstyle changes, followed by a tutorial section where she learns how to crouch.
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