Here’s Lucy

Ironically, as soon as she was big enough to make her own choices, this cat utterly rejected me and attached herself to my daughter, then six. So at least I was rewarded for my efforts. She doesn’t prefer my daughter; she loves her and hates me.

I used to carry her in my clothes to keep her warm. First time she peed on her own was during Sunday school, and every kid remembers that lesson best. They didn’t know she was there until I exclaimed, “This cat is peeing on me!” I am a successful teacher of religious dogma.

In fact, she’s not bitey at all, despite my teeth not being sharp enough to bite her.

Here she is now, 16 in two weeks:

He continued, “Because your teeth aren’t sharp enough.”

One of my cats was an orphan I raised from 1 week old. Vet warned me that orphans are often biters, because normally, they bite mom and mom teaches them not to by biting back. “But you can’t bite back,” he said. I thought, yeah, because that would be morally wrong. 1/2

We have soooo many failed searches and faculty vacancies at TTU this year. Ah, well. So it goes.

Here’s a NYT article portraying TTU professors like me who think subject-matter experts, not ideologues, should write the syllabi for our classes as whiny babies. Way to go, NYT! When we’re gone, AI will teach our students.

It was so fun, and so hard to let kittens and mama go to other homes. But I had four cats of my own then, and one was very elderly and suffering from kidney failure, so I was rational for a change.

Here is a mom I fostered, along with her three kittens. The person who adopted her must be very happy — she was the sweetest cat.

Well, they probably came with William the Conqueror and got their fortune started that way. (D’Arcy). But yes, as Edward Said pointed out, empire and slavery are always connected

Yes, so pregnant women would be able to go about their lives for a longer time. And the corset issue was undoubtedly better for the baby!

My costume history professor many years ago introduced Regency as universally the most flattering silhouette for women. But I think the main thing is that those dresses don’t require reshaping the body through tight corseting and thus allow women’s bodies to function as intended

There are class issues she’s picking up on that are maybe too subtle for contemporary audiences. Bingley is rich, from “the north,” doesn’t own an estate = new money from manufacturing. He needs a gentleman’s daughter as wife to complete his family’s class transformation.

Yes, that’s right. When you think about it just from women’s fashion standpoint, Regency dresses were designed for an active life — walking in Derbyshire and your own neighborhood. The corsets of Elizabeth Bennet’s time provided back support but didn’t constrain the figure like earlier/later ones

I think that’s correct. Austen dies ~20 years before Victorian era. Austen’s time allowed more physical (see loose-fitting, soft corseted Regency dress) and expressive freedom for women.

Speculation from the Lucases, based on nothing at all, but useful in getting Lady Catherine involved in other people's business.