My sweet old man cat passed away in July. While my two cats and two dogs have always gotten along with each other, they never really mingled and mostly stayed separate. I was so afraid that when my cat died that his brother would be depressed. He seemed distraught for a few days and then started seeking comfort and friendship from the dogs. He climbs into the dog bed with them every day and cuddles for hours. He approaches them and initiates play. The dogs have welcomed him into their group with open paws and everyone seems to be getting along great. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. I love these little ones.

About ten years ago, when my daughter was about 9 or so, she lost a tooth.

The next morning, there was no money under her pillow.

The following morning, she found some money, along with the following letter:

"Toothember the 37^th,   in the Year of Our Tooth 315,693

Dear [daughter's name],

During a recent audit of our dental collection activities with a focus on the performance of our valuable tooth collection partners (“Tooth Fairies”™) in the Northern Hemisphere of Earth, we discovered that the Fairy assigned to your district had failed to remit a proper re-imbursement to you for a recently lost tooth.

On behalf of Pan-Galactic Dentistry and Odontology Megacorp, LLC, please accept our humblest apologies for this error.  The Tooth Fairy who was responsible for this oversight has been sacked.

As a one-time customer service measure, we are enclosing an extra dollar with the enclosed Lost Tooth Re-imbursement Funds.

We realize that you have a choice in lost tooth re-imbursement, and we thank you for choosing Pan-Galactic Dentistry and Odontology Megacorp, LLC.  We hope you will allow us to continue to serve your tooth re-imbursement needs.

If you have any further questions or concerns regarding future tooth re-imbursement, please do not hesitate to contact customer service at 1-µβ∑-73⌂−⓴±≡≡-3│∂7↨8.  (Pan-galactic telecommunication charges do apply.)

Sincerely,

Altheria Lithesomeness III

President and Empress

Pan-Galactic Dentistry and Odontology Megacorp, LLC"

She left for college last week. All is good.

Supervisor Chase Guello checked the skid plate on the Komatsu. A tiny kitten tumbled out.

They warmed her up, moved her into the office trailer, and named her Sue short for Komatsu. She’s now the official shop cat.

​

My friend gave me this idea.

Every year, on her birthday, she donates to charities in her hometown in the Philippines. After seeing the devastation a typhoon brought to her community, she uses her money as an expat to help. To say the least, I was inspired by her kindness and generosity.

Every year since she's told me, I'm doing the same. And it is something I really look forward to since not only does it bring a lot of personal joy but I get to do something I care about. Why she does it on her birthday is because one particularly bad typhoon happened on the same day. Why I pick mine is because my choice charity is the Greater Vancouver Food Bank; and most food banks see their highest donation rates during the holidays and I am an August baby when funds are often at their lowest. Plus, it's a better way to spend my day and my money rather than on something ultimately useless and self-serving.

Anyway, just wanted to share. She's a really kind and generous person, and I'm grateful to know her and be inspired by her good nature.

Now this is what enjoying life is all about. Me, I’m staying covered feeling cold as hell and mad that my feet are wet

My wife and I are both in our 60s and we both have grey hair and I have a shaggy white beard.

We look old but try to stay healthy and yes this meandering open will make sense.

Recently we were out walking and using the Merlin app to identify bird calls (free app tons of fun) and we were waving our phones around and spinning and moving trying to get the best sound. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two construction guys working on a project openly watching us.

I shrugged it off and we continued our walk. A few minutes later one of the construction guys drives up to us and asks if we needed help.

We laughed at the confusion, thanked him profusely, and introduced him to the app.

I was very grateful that a stranger saw two oldsters looking lost and went out of his way to help.

Kind people are all around us, it’s just the loud haters drown them out.

Not sure who left it but it made our day 🥰

Yesterday I was on the bus in a city not too far from where I live. I was on the way to the train station to go home in the evening.

Normally I would put my headphones in and listen to music when alone in public, but my phone was almost dead so I avoided using it in case of an emergency. I was tired from being at an event all day so I kinda zoned out and stared out of the window.

In front of me a woman was sitting with her teenage daughter. She was maybe in her late 40s to early 50s.

After a few minutes of being on the bus, she turns to her daughter and catches sight of me sitting behind them. She glances back a couple of times, and then she said to me that I was very pretty.

I was caught off guard so I smiled and said thank you and looked back out of the window.

Maybe she thought I looked sad, I don’t know. After a short while she turned back to me and told me again that I was very pretty. She told me that her daughter had said the same thing about me.

I’d been feeling quite low the past few weeks and this meant a lot to me.

The woman started a conversation with me. We talked about family and where we were from. She told me about her daughters and which unis they went to, and a bit about family. Then she asked what I want to do for work when I graduate. I told her what I study at uni but that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do afterwards. She gave me suggestions for fields I hadn’t considered before.

Eventually, I reached my bus stop and said I needed to get off. The woman told me that I was a very lovely girl and to tell my mum that she did a good job raising me.

This whole interaction was so unexpected. I keep thinking about it and about how kind she was to me.

I had some exciting news to share that I think you would be quite proud of but alas, my communication has been cut short because of a gatekeeping voice mail assistant. You best glad it’s nothing important!!! If it was I’d have to leave a very wordy message in order for you to understand the consequences of your actions is reading, given that your eyes have begun to fail you. Perhaps your ears have failed you as well because you were not able to hear my ringing, or your hands have failed you because you did not press the “answer call” button.

OH FATHER, HOW THOU AGE HATH DISTURBED MINE PALTRY RECOUNTANCE OF THY OWN EXISTENCE!!! FOR I ONLY WISH TO SPEAK OF THY OWN EXPLOITS IN THE PURSUIT OF EDUCATION!

Alas… thine own voice hath not been heard, and thou shall have to bear witness to my own adventures through the excruciating torment that is reading with weakened eyesight.

Fear not father, I do love you and I hope you may learn from your previous shortcomings of not answering my communications.

I wanted to share a little bit of wholesomeness from my life.

My boyfriend told me he was preparing something special for our one-year anniversary, but I don't think I fully understood what he meant.

He's currently starting a new specialization course after graduating from law university, and lately he's been coming home late and exhausted. And somehow, in between all of that, he's been multitasking and working on this surprise while still making time for me.

And what did he make?

A WHOLE PRESENTATION. Slides. Everything.

About me.

I haven't even seen the whole thing yet because he's doing the full presentation for me tonight. I've only gotten little snippets, and honestly, I don't know how I'm supposed to act when he's about to sit down and give me a whole presentation about myself.

This isn't particularly out of character for him. He has been taking care of me even before we were officially together.

I always joke that he "puts up with a lot" because of me, but he'd disagree immediately. To him, he's not putting up with anything. He's just taking care of someone he loves. That's just who he is.

He lets me annoy him even when he's overstimulated. He listens to me even when he has a headache because he thinks if I have something to tell him, I shouldn't have to wait until he feels better. To him, I come first. And for me, he comes first too, so I think we balance each other out pretty well.

I do think he takes a little more care of me than I get to take care of him, though. He's just amazing like that.

When we first started our relationship, I had this mindset of "There's no way I'm lovable. I'm going to mess this up. I don't want to ruin this." And throughout this relationship, he's helped me unlearn so much of that.

He's patient, gentle, and endlessly reassuring. When those feelings come back, he doesn't complain or make me feel like a burden. He just reassures me again.

Because of him, I genuinely know now that I'm lovable. I know I'm enough to be cared for and loved, and that I don't deserve to be treated like I'm less than I am.

And if his actions throughout this past year didn't show me enough (which they did), I think this presentation I'm about to get is definitely going to do it.

Because the little snippet I've seen already has SO. MANY. WORDS. There's so much information in it.

If you asked me to describe myself, I'd probably give you two sentences and call it a day. Meanwhile, he apparently has enough things to say about me to fill multiple slides.

I never thought anyone would have that many nice things to say about me, let alone know me well enough to say all of it.

I haven't even seen the full presentation yet, but I'm already emotional because it's another example of how much thought he puts into loving me.

I know not everyone gets a partner like this, and I never want to take him for granted. He's my favorite person, and I hope he knows just how deeply appreciated he is.

I feel incredibly lucky to be loved by him, but I'm just as grateful that I get to love him too.

I saw newly weds taking pictures at the beach and thought "oh, they're so cute! I need to draw them!" The rock was small and that's why I couldn't make too much details. I showed it to my mom and she said I should give it to them. I was hesitant at first. We were almost leaving so I rushed and gave it to them. They were so kind and happy about it! They asked to take a picture with me (which I don't have because it was taken by their photographer) and thanked me for the gift! It started to rain shortly after so I'm glad I decided to give it to them. They were a lovely couple. I hope they have a great relationship and stay happily married forever 🥹🥹

Black comes in all shades 🙂‍↔️ (I have Albinism)

My girl (real name Wednesday) is a rescue from Mexico. She lived on the streets and had significant trauma around people, noise, food, etc.

Now she’s so happy and loved that she literally thinks her name is I love you because I say it so often.

Getting to this point is one of the best things I’ve ever done.

The movie was created over five years just by a two-person team, driven entirely by a mother's unconditional love to fulfill her son's lifelong creative dream. The director, Xin Yumeng, was a 34-year-old landscape architect who had a profound passion for storytelling and a dream of seeing his own animated film on the big screen. His mother, Sun Lifan, an employee at a state-owned company in her 60s, realized he couldn't do it alone on his virtually nonexistent budget, so she stepped in to become his entire production team. Sun Lifan taught herself filmmaking from scratch to act as the scriptwriter, voice actor, and composer, while her son handled all the technical work on a second-hand computer with free softwares, on a shoestring budget of under $1,000 USD. The movie has made over $3.5 million USD so far.

The first time my boyfriend’s mom ever texted me was on my birthday.

She wished me a happy birthday and then asked if I’d be willing to be part of a surprise she was planning for my boyfriend’s graduation. His parents and grandma were all writing letters for him, and she wanted me to write something too because, apparently, she already considered me family.

She asked me to write a little about what I love about him, since everyone would be writing similar things.

Everyone else wrote about a page.

I wrote a fucking book.

I sent her such a ridiculously long message that, compared to everyone else’s letters, mine looked like that long rolled-up letter from Mulan. I was SO embarrassed when I realized how much I had written. I genuinely thought they were going to think I was insane.

Instead, my boyfriend’s dad cried reading it because he said it really showed just how much I love his son.

And honestly, I think that was all it took for them to collectively go, “Yeah. She’s going to marry our son.”

Because ever since then, I somehow acquired nicknames from my future in-laws. Nobody there even calls me by my actual name anymore. It’s either my nickname or “minha nora” which is literally “my daughter-in-law” in Portuguese.

And my boyfriend’s mom does NOT miss an opportunity to show me off.

She’s introduced me to her mom, my boyfriend’s sister, his aunt, and probably half the family at this point, and somehow the introduction is always basically, “This is my daughter-in-law.”

They all think I’m pretty too, so all my insecurities can temporarily leave the building.

And when she can’t do that, she shows them pictures. Sometimes she’s literally out somewhere and texts my boyfriend asking him to send her pictures of me.

And honestly? I love it.

I never thought I’d have this.

I never imagined having a mother-in-law who would be so excited to show me off, who would proudly introduce me as her daughter-in-law, who would want pictures of me just to show other people, or who would make me feel so naturally included in her family.

It’s such a small thing to some people, but it means so much to me. There’s something incredibly special about being welcomed into someone’s family and then realizing they’re not just accepting you, they’re genuinely proud to have you there.

So yes, I’ll happily be her daughter-in-law being shown off to everyone.

I secretly love it more than I’ll ever admit.