The best part of putting these posts together is I spend an hour or more looking through “good news” stories to share. Some get bookmarked, some I include, but all make me happy and start the day off on a good note. Here are a few I chose for today:
Someone in Melbourne put googly eyes on Birds-of-Paradise
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I feel like I shared this one already, but still fun. This is Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary in Tasmania, and the phone was successfully recovered. Albeit with a few bite marks.
If you need to brighten your day, just search Tasmanian Devils on Youtube and oh, boy, cuteness overload.
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Steeplejack sent me this (ages ago, but still special)
Misha, a non-verbal teen with Down’s Syndrome, didn’t understand why his family had to flee Mariupol this year.
To placate him, his mother told him they were travelling to meet John Cena.
Cena heard… and went to Amsterdam to oblige.
Just brilliant. pic.twitter.com/vix2OhkXZs
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) June 11, 2022
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In a world where you can be anything, always be a number 50! pic.twitter.com/PWEPXZPDp7
— B&S (@_B___S) June 4, 2023
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A couple of special graduation videos:
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Looking for some good news stories this a.m. I fell down the Steve Hartman hole and am glad I did. Y’all get two:
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A little bit of a tearjerker with a happy ending…
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As someone who worked hard with local tree experts this summer to save my plum tree, I felt this one. Sometimes, they can’t be saved, but something wonderful can come from it:
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Adam sent me an entire article filled with these, so be prepared for the Vet Sign version of Dad Jokes to be shared liberally:
If you can’t wait, here they all are (Funcatz)
I apologize for any repeat videos. Sometimes I cannot remember if I posted or not, but today I did remember to delete the bookmarks, so they won’t be repeated, hopefully, anytime soon.
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For those keeping track, my backyard spigot was fixed and in the process found a fantastic plumber, he and his wife came out because…wait for it…they wanted to meet the dogs. They named their business after their dog, an 85 lb Lab rescue mix (I bet you can imagine why I chose them). Sweet young couple, just starting out with their business.
Now the ducks can have fresh pool water while I’m out of town and my petsitter won’t have to jump through hoops to get the pups fresh water. Which brings me to the next thing – my dad is coming out next week, and then we are going to Boston for his 68th class reunion and to see family. So no kindness for a while, I’m sure. And pray for me, because traveling with my dad…I’ve already threatened to leave him in Boston if he doesn’t behave.
Here’s a little (ha! 16.5 lbs!) Sully, my familiar, ummm, blackest of black cats.
This is a respite thread. Share your good news or if you’re struggling and need folks to point you to some good news, we could all use a little lift. Trust me, been difficult for me to focus on good stuff lately. But we all need a mental break.
Alison Rose
Definitely needed this today. It’s been a difficult week in many ways for me.
This was lovely to see: (FB link with great photos)
Nice to be reminded that there are good people in the world.
jonas
Those Tasmanian devils are cute little guys. Tragically, their population has been devastated in recent years by a highly virulent form of facial cancer.
TaMara
@Alison Rose: That was lovely!
TaMara
@jonas: The good news on that is they have an immuno-therapy that has worked well in trials that may be the solution after all this time.
misswhatsis
I did need a giggle. I work as an urban planner in a bunch of tiny little towns where I spend my time trying to convince people that a) their current land use policies are contributing to the housing crisis and b) the world will not end if someone builds a four-plex next door and c) no, I was not send by UN to force you to live in a 15-minute neighborhood. Although 63% of Americans would like to live in a 15 minute neighborhood but can’t because of your previously mentioned terrible land use policies.
I’m a little tired of being shouted at.
Alison Rose
The Dodo is a wealth of heartwarming animal stories. This poor abandoned pupper had nearly 3 pounds of matted fur weighing him down, he was blind, could barely move. But a wonderful passerby spotted him and brought him to the vet who then transferred him to the RSPCA. They shaved off all the fur and helped him heal up, and now he’s healthy and happy and in his forever home.
bbleh
Was chatting with a nice old shelf-stocker at Wal-Mart about canned tuna & chicken for my mom’s ancient cat, and he said oh there’s the greatest vitamin-stuff-in-a-tube they sell at hardware store X right over there, made my old cat get all frisky. So yay for unsolicited advice to perk up a cat on her last legs.
TaMara
@bbleh: We had luck with baby food (meat flavors) and of all the weird things – Vienna sausages in a can.
Butch
I have two white goldens. Ranger is pretty much content to just be in your company but Scout is a troublemaker who loves to play, and he especially loves it if you play chase with him while he’s holding one of his “sticksies” (term for any toy or anything that can be retrieved). Just watching him playing today I realized that I was watching pure joy and it kinda brought a tear to my eye.
Wileybud
Speaking of kindness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obm8u9F4Iu8
HeartlandLiberal
I watched the John Cena video. Then I went to cut onions.
Josie
Thanks for this, TaMara. I realized as I was reading that I had a big smile on my face. I needed it and it is still there.
Alison Rose
@HeartlandLiberal: He seems like such a good man.
bbleh
@TaMara: excellent idea thank you. I wonder about Spam.
I was surprised at how much cheaper canned chicken is than canned cat food. And she likes it. Sorta.
jonas
@TaMara: That’s great news! I haven’t been following too closely what I’m sure has been a heroic effort by Australian veterinary scientists to find a solution.
Redshift
John Cena holds the record for the most Make-a-Wish wishes granted. Good people are good.
jonas
@Alison Rose: I’m not a pro wrestling fan or anything and don’t know much about him or his career, but from what I’ve seen in various media, Cena seems like a really down-to-earth, great guy. He also apparently speaks fluent Mandarin.
Ken
@bbleh: Spam is pretty dense, you might have to cut it up if the cat has trouble chewing. Armour potted meat is soft, and rumored to contain chicken and/or pork.
Villago Delenda Est
John Cena is such a mensch.
eclare
@HeartlandLiberal:
Same here, yet strangely I don’t have any actual onions.
eclare
@Redshift:
Wow! That is impressive. Good to hear about John.
Alison Rose
@jonas: He does! He also had a very amusing cameo at the end of this Last Week Tonight episode from a few years ago about conspiracy theories. The decision to start stripping down on camera was apparently his, and it’s hilarious.
rikyrah
If you are on TikTok and want some smiles, just put in the search engine
Cat Distribution System
Lobster fisherman from Maine
Dimonte and Purpose
Leo the cat
Nyla B
Londyn and croissant
Yarrow
I shared the mailbox dollhouse article from a few weeks ago with an artist friend who is making a dollhouse for a client. She loved it! Thank you for posting it.
Redshift
@misswhatsis: I only do it on an amateur basis, and it’s tough to convince even people who care about affordable housing and walkable neighborhoods. I intellectually know all of the inherent problems with our current suburbs, but at the same time I grew up in a single-family home in the suburbs and that’s what I’m comfortable with too. Change of any kind can be a tough nut to crack.
Alison Rose
@rikyrah: I’ll put in a plug for a specific TikToker, Mychal, who is a librarian in a county very close to mine. He is the sweetest most beautiful soul ever. Makes videos about books and reading and book bans and also just…love and kindness and acceptance. He’s a doll.
rikyrah
@Alison Rose:
YESS…
He is the modern day version of Mr. Rogers to me.
eclare
@Alison Rose:
That is awesome! I watch his show every week but had forgotten that bit.
Alison Rose
@rikyrah: Yes!! There was a video of his recently where someone commented something like “I feel like Mister Rogers would want to be your neighbor” and I was like…exactly this.
NotMax
Dunno if mentioned this previously.
Wedding I attended while in NY in August was for stepsister’s son. Her husband is the one diagnosed with ALS three years ago. He’s for all intents and purposes immobile now (won’t go into further detail regarding details). Wheelchair-bound, he did attend accompanied by his at-home caregiver. Has an electronic screen attached to the wheelchair which responds to his eye movements which he can use for some tasks; among other uses it replicates speech in real time. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that feature uses generative AI to speak in his own voice, which was sampled before he lost the use of vocal cords. It is not robotic sounding.
When it came time for speeches by the relatives of the bride and the groom at the wedding reception, a recording of an entire speech was played, previously created by that generative AI in his voice. The sparkle in his eyes when the recording was played could have lit up an entire city.
eclare
@NotMax:
What a sweet thing in the middle of a horrible disease.
sab
We stole a black cat from some really nice neighbors. Reasons: outside cat at all hours. Our neighborhood crawls with coyotes at dusk and dawn. Neighbors up the street fly to work at 50 miles per hour on a one block street. Outside life expectancy for a cat is 2 to 5 years. In my personal experience the oldest made it to 7. Inside cats 12 is the youngest. Everyone else still alive.
bbleh
@Ken: lol Armour Meat-Like Food-Type Product. Thanks for the suggestion.
sab
@sab: Nice people taking care of a nice cat poorly. Fabulous cat.
trollhattan
Small but positive step towards countering a seemingly endless problem.
Have noted our vastly overbuilt office and retail segments while housing scrambles to catch up. Even if not permanent, such temporary reuse as a housing site is vastly better than an empty attractive nuisance cluttering up a hardscrabble part of town.
There’s a never-occupied new shell of an Amazon grocery near my office, and people have pried open bike lockers and moved in their crap collections. I’d think Amazon is liable for the instant suburban decay, but what do I know? Why they build and cancel before opening is a whole other topic.
trollhattan
@bbleh:
Judges would also accept meat-adjacent.
eclare
@sab:
Kitty is very lucky you found them!
sab
@eclare: My staffie/ pitbull dog is asleep on my bed.
Blackcat is asleep on laundry basket at foot of my bed. Other cats are elsewhere all over the house.
cain
man, I had the biggest waterworks for the non-verbal autistic kid whose kindergarten teacher helped him finally express himself to the point that he’s giving a graduation speech. Epic.
I think it affects me more because my wife is a assist. principal in a dysfunctional school – and what these teachers endure but still come to work day after day. Teachers – pay them what their worth. They change lives.
indycat32
My sweet tiny Chloe that I brought inside 2 years ago is now a whopping 15 pounds and is on a diet.
Yutsano
So can we share personal good news?
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Because their other stores have been doing terribly, and they decided to stop throwing good money after bad. No matter how far they’ve gotten in construction, if the store would ultimately be a money loser, they’re better off abandoning it rather than completing it.
There’s one in my area, and I tried shopping there. Once. As far as I can tell, their selection is more or less the same as other supermarkets. Their only compelling idea is that they’ll track items as they go into your cart so you don’t have to go through checkout. Some people might think that’s cool and convenient, but I found it creepy. I suspect the world agrees with me enough that they don’t get a lot of return customers.
Almost Retired
Thank you for these wonderful stories, which cheered me up immeasurably on yet another depressing international news day. I am working under deadline today, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have time to go to the party supply store to get googly eyes for the Bird-of-Paradise in my front planter.
zhena gogolia
@Yutsano: Sure!
JPL
@Yutsano: This is Balloon Juice isn’t it?
sab
@Yutsano: please do. ( hours late to the thread.)
eclare
@Yutsano:
Please!
Baud
@Yutsano:
I vote nay. No need to rub your good news in other people’s faces.
cain
@Baud: for once I want to have good news rubbed into my face.. with extreme prejudice! GIVE IT TO ME BABY!
CaseyL
Oh, TaMara. Those are all so uplifting. Thank you incredibly much for finding them to share with us.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: You mean you don’t want to hear about how his daughter got into Yale, Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Columbia with full scholarships to all? 😂😂😂
(I don’t think Yutsano has a daughter.)
like a metaphor
@bbleh: would you mind telling what the vitamin-stuff-in-a-tube is called? The citizens of my ancient cat farm would be most grateful.
Alison Rose
@trollhattan: I love these projects, and loathe when people want to be contrarian and comment things like “this is useless, no one can live in things like that long term” and it’s like…yeah, they’re not MEANT to. It’s transitional, to give people a warm and safe place while they’re getting whatever help they need to be able to one day move into a more permanent home.
TaMara
@like a metaphor: It’s probably Nutri-Cal or other high-calorie appetite stimulants in a tube. There’s enough variety in brands that you should find one that appeals to the finickiest of kittehs.
TaMara
@Yutsano: We’re waiting. 😉😁
Dan B
@TaMara: Probably at work. Pacific Daylight time zone.
Chetan Murthy
@Yutsano: It’s too late now: you’ve teased us all, so OUT WITH IT!
bbleh
@like a metaphor: Tri-Vet brand “Multi-Vite Paw-Gel for Cats,” vitamin and mineral support, distributed by Nutri-Vet Wellness LLC. Comes in something like a hair-gel tube. All I could get was salmon flavor, and of course the old cat doesn’t LIKE salmon …
Hoppie
@bbleh: Problem is that cats are obligate carnivores, there are nutrients they only get by ingesting prey (amino acids I think). Commercial cat foods contain these nutrients, people foods do not. I won’t torture you with links to stories about the idiots who try to feed their poor moggies effing macrobiotic diets. The occasional human diet treat, of course, does not harm them, so long as it doesn’t involve chicken bones.
karen marie
I’m not happy with this thread. You people made me finally download tiktok. I’ve spent the last two hours looking at Kitten Distribution System videos. *shaking my fist in your general direction*
It is true though. All three of my cats have come through the distribution system.
My first cat, Alice Springs – I was walking down Beacon Hill to have lunch after moving into my new apartment, and a woman was standing there with Baby Alice just waiting for me to walk by. Her cat had a litter that she brought into town one at a time to distribute to passersby.
My second cat, Our Gracie, came to me via a convenience store out in the middle of nowhere. I stopped to get directions to a community plant sale, and the tiny black speck with a tiny pearl necklace was waiting for me on the counter.
My third and current cat, Baby Cat, was dropped in my lap by a neighbor who’d found her in the street near her work. The vet estimated she was between four and five weeks old.
In between Alice and Gracie, I had tried to defy the distribution system by going to a shelter and bringing home an 18-month-old cat. My dogs at the time weren’t having it. After two weeks I had to return the cat because they would not allow her out of the basement. I wasn’t afraid they’d hurt her but I couldn’t see the point of having a cat I could only interact with after midnight, when the dogs were asleep so she could come up for a scritch or two.
Baby Gracie was no threat to their supremacy, so they allowed her to sleep with them on their cushion as long as she didn’t actually touch them. Our Patty was especially unamused by Gracie and would get up and leave if touched.
When Gracie got older, she teased the shit out of those dogs. She wanted to share their food but they wouldn’t. The little genius figured out that if she got right up behind James, he’d whirl around to bark at her, spraying food all around which she then happily ate.
She was a wonderful cat.
Current cat is a terror. Current dog, raised by Our Gracie after the previous dogs passed, is a bit scared of Baby Cat because of all the biting. When Baby Cat was very little, she’d try to nurse on Lucy but get frustrated and then bite the shit out of her.
So, yeah, you people are terrible.
Argiope
I wait with bated breath for the Yutsano good news, but meanwhile here’s mine: I got notified today that a manuscript that was 18 months in the making was accepted and will see print. It’s a big deal because it’s a big dataset: outcomes from 173,000 birth center pregnancies from all over the U.S., encompassing 20 years of births. Also a big deal for me because 7 researchers worked on it and it’s the first team project I’ve led. Mostly I just feel like I had an elephant-length gestation with this thing and I can finally take it off my list of things to keep track of or fix. Also, some of the birth registry cases are ones I personally entered a long time ago when I was a clinician, and I never had any idea back then that someday I’d be working on that dataset as a researcher. Weird how life goes.
eclare
@Argiope:
Congratulations!
kalakal
@Argiope: congratulations! Well done!
zhena gogolia
@Argiope: congratulations!
Argiope
@kalakal:
@eclare: Thanks! I hope it makes a difference. It’s one more bit of evidence that freestanding birth centers have great outcomes, including for BILPOC families. We rarely see anything approaching perinatal health equity in most settings and studies, but this dataset had some good news.
ETA thanks, too, Zhena G :)
TaMara
@Argiope: That’s amazing! Congratulations!
eclare
@Argiope:
Good news is always welcome!
mrmoshpotato
That was a great vet sign list! Thanks again!
like a metaphor
@bbleh: thank you! I will try it on them.
also, thanks @TaMara !