No idea to be honest, I'm sure I told her (and I even have flashbulb memories about it, damn you C. A. (fellow elementary school student)!) but I don't remember what she said, it was so long ago.

Yeah, WTAF indeed. And these were students who I know went to a "we care about living things" church...

I wish my school had had a Room 8! Though he might have been tormented by the terrible bullies who pulled legs off of harvestmen just to torment me because I couldn't stand animal cruelty. So maybe I don't wish that.

"Each year teachers, like Edith Vizari and Isabel Lee, who currently teaches first and second graders in room 8, read the book to their students. "I teach at the that school'," said second and third grade teacher Sheryl Gallo, "Room 8 taught us kindness to all beings and respect for life.""

"He was portly, gray even at a young age, and liked to drink from faucets. He slept on desks, under desks and on rugs. He roamed halls and entered classrooms with impunity. He was Room 8, the most famous cat in Los Angeles. He was my friend and schoolmate."

I need to read the whole thing, but this might explain all these issues! There are so many times I've checked the "do you feel breathless" on the NHS 111 website but it always feels weird with normal O2sats and no wheeze/stridor to say that. Now I know why. Wow.

Alice's death made it to the front page of the Seattle Times, my previous local paper:

www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...

Truly, she touched so many lives, disabled and not, in her fellow travels here on planet Earth.

Damn straight, we were lucky! I love how you wrote that, it's so poetic and lovely.

Thanks :-)

(just to be clear - I am not looking right now for tips on how to self-advocate - I already do a lot of this and am pretty decent at it when I'm not being stonewalled or treated like a child. But it's also very hard to self-advocate at all when you're bent double and moaning in pain, or can't speak)

(... or when the medical system insists that I am experiencing symptoms of an existing condition and refuses to probe for more urgent causes when I say this isn't at all typical of said condition, or treats me like a child, or refuses to let me make my own decisions when I'm competent to do so, etc)

(to put it quite simply - I cannot both be a sick, disabled, exhausted patient and also be the only person advocating for appropriate care for myself. Statutory advocacy exists but I don't qualify for it. I need someone to support my right to appropriate care when I can't do it myself...)

(I know such people exist in some parts of the USA, but have had a devil of a time finding ANYONE - charity or private business - who I can turn to for professional advocacy support with navigating the NHS and getting appropriate medical care. I know the NHS is struggling, but so am I !!!)

2/2 Along with Mia Cerfonteyn and @turchil.bsky.social, you can find our JIC colleagues Shannon Woodhouse, @plantpollinator.bsky.social and TSL SAB member Steven Spoel (@spoel-lab.bsky.social) in this fantastic Plant Bio Ed collaboration 🌿

Thanks very much! Good to know both a tentative potential ID as well as other alternative ones and the degree of uncertainty here, much appreciated.

Love it!!! That kind of soul restoring stuff is so key

Surprisingly even some bumblebees have restricted dietary breadths, e.g. Bombus gerstaeckeri is oligolectic on Aconitum (monkshood) species, though occasionally it will forage from something else!

Also that course sounds really neat and I want to take it :-)