From all the tears and feeling sorry for myself last night my eyes are puffy and killing me. At some point I'll put a cool eye mask on and relax and rehydrate. Big stupid tears of self-pity.
But as always, my dumb natural optimism meant that I woke up and was happy about another day.
A cool eye mask (or cucumber slices) sounds like a great idea. All the hugs, Babe; you wuz robbed. I have a feeling the voters are going to regret their decision.
Ohhhh, honey. I'm really sorry, and sending you all the hugs. You've got all the bad stuff out now, so just focus on replenishing your soul. You got this!
Katie starts huffing and yowling every morning about 45 minutes before dawn to pry me out of bed and take her for her morning walk. Now that we're back and I'm about ready to head off to the salt mines, she's curled up in her bed again and snoozing. When I die, I hope I come back as a dog.
I watched a raven mock a turkey one rainy new years eve. The turkey was chasing the raven in circles and the raven was hopping just out of reach and I swear it was laughing. Ravens are one of the subjects I love to paint and draw.
Dogs, if you ask me, are nothing but stimulus-response-reinforcement machines. Load them up with treats and pets when they do the right thing and you can condition anything out of them.
She sounds quite a bit like Cat the Ripper. That fierce feline menace went charging through the house like a maniac in the wee hours of the morning. There are cat toys scattered across the front room and a disturbing damp spot on the dining room carpet, the orgins of which I am uncertain.
Do other cities have a daily December program where Santa and an elf talk about xmas stuff and reindeer and how many day left until xmas etc? I want to find older episodes and change the vocal track to make it not safe for children.
I need to lobby for a new city ordinance - Leaf blowers and lawn mowers are strictly forbidden on Saturday & Sunday mornings before 9am. The lawn service a majority of my neighbors hired has the loudest and most obnoxious leaf blower I've ever endured. He used to come on Thursday mornings, which was not a big deal because I was up early for work and had headset on for morning calls. He recently switched to Saturday mornings (oh, but not until AFTER Thanksgiving - yes, the jerk was here making noise on Thanksgiving morning at 7am!!!). And speaking of leaf blowers (I HATE THOSE THINGS!), how effective is it to try to blow WET leaves around when it's drizzling/raining?!
I had 2/3rds of an acre, mostly maples and a big linden for 20 years. I wielded a leafblower like a pro. It turned several weekends of raking into one afternoon. And it was really the only way to keep the driveway clear.
They are obnoxious and loud, but I don't think it's necessarily fair to workers to make them do back breaking work because noise is annoying though - they do save a ton of work. Electric ones are getting good enough for contractor work though, so maybe the whole conflict will be resolved by technology.
To clarify, I'm not against anyone's right to earn a living, or their choice of tools with which to do so. My annoyance is more pointed to my neighbors who should have some say in the scheduling.
We must never forget that leaf blowers can also be tools of resistance!
Specifically tools used to resist tear gas!
The suburban dads actually pissed donnie off by showing up at the George Floyd protests and using leaf blowers to protect their wives and children from state terrorism.
I hate leaf blowers and don't understand their purpose really. Especially because I'll see stuff like road crews blowing them off the street and onto the sidewalks and brush. For what? Somehow we all managed Back in My Day! And now I'm off to find an onion for my belt.
Don't even get me started with those damn leaf blowers. The wind can be blowing at 30 or 40 mph, and those fkrs are still out there trying to move leaves around. The absurdity of it would be laughable, if it were not so annoying.
This reminds me of something the French existentialist philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, once wrote back in the 1950s. I'll go ahead and translate it here: "The Americans! So STUPID! They have cheese product in a can and they squirt it into their mouths. They call it 'cheese whiz'! What other absurdities will they come up with? Will they wander around in nature with large gas powered wind generators on their backs trying to tidy up their plot of earth? Will they think they can avoid death by doing so? Do they not see the beauty in the changing seasons and the wild overgrown places where chaos continually rearranges everything to create new wonders? I could go on and on. But to what point? They squirt cheese into their stomachs; they drop atomic bombs on civilians in war; they lynch black men just for looking at white women; they sit in churches and pray to an idol that never answers them. But not one thing they do ever changes one immutable condition in their lives: they are afraid because they know death is inevitable."
It took a snooty French existentialist philosopher to give some American the bright idea of creating leaf blowers.
I'm glad DomPartner didn't read this - He just came unglued at that noise because he was doing his usual morning 'garage band' music mix hobby, with John Williams music. You can imagine the clash of John Williams & a leafblower!
I posted a snarky comment on our neighborhood website a few minutes ago. We have the best neighbors on our block, but they need to know. Those involved know who they are.
You might download a phone app decibel meter, and see objectively how loud it is, at what distance.
Then bug your city councilperson, with specifics.
You're not the only one annoyed by those unecessary nuisances. But if you say, "85 db, from 50 feet away, at 7:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day," that's something they can work with. City engineers they might ask would say, "Yeah, that's unreasonable."
Thanks for the suggestion. But highly unlikely any action would result from it in this city. Anything that doesn't involve paying homage to the local sports teams and shoving more money up their owner's bung holes tends to fall on deaf ears.
Speaking as someone who volunteers to maintain a church property (the congregation is aging and needs some help) I couldn't do it without a leaf blower. I also use brooms and rakes. The leaves in the parking lot are concentrated with the (electric) blower so they can be disposed in the dumpster.
I also use it to clean dust from outside concrete areas and children play equipment (for the few children it serves). It is actually against city code here to use hose water for such a task.
But I do not blow the church's leaves onto nearby areas.
Our city has trucks that come by and suck up all the leaves so yes, they blow them into piles on the curb. I’m always tempted to jump in them but ew, street leaves.
Amen to that! I'm the only old fool on the block who's out there with a damn broom sweeping up post-mowing debris and leaves out of the curb/gutter in front of my house. I know they all must laugh at me when they drive by, and I take great pride in that!
I just read the FBI informant who was the source of the alleged $5 million bribes paid to Joe and Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to lying about it. These bribes were constantly parroted by GOP leaders in the House during their Trumped up impeachment hearings, but evidence showed the informant, Alexander Smirnov, never met with Ukrainian officials while Biden was VP, and later brief contacts had nothing to do with the Bidens.
This was in an AP news brief but I doubt you will read much about it anywhere else. And you will continue to hear Republicans citing those fake allegations as an example of the Biden crime family. But as I have said for years, Biden working on orders from Obama and support from the EU and IMF, put Hunter at more risk, not less, by orchestrating the removal of a corrupt prosecutor who refused to investigate Barisma or any other company alleged to engage in government corruption.
If an aggressive prosecutor was seated and Hunter was involved in corruption he would have faced legal.action the corrupt prosecutor refused to even investigate. Which made the whole GOP scheme fall apart in my opinion, but no news organization reported it as such. What Biden did would be similar to Trump demanding judge Aileen Cannon be removed from his classified documents case and replaced by an honest judge. Obviously not an act intended to protect a defendant.
Meanwhile the truly corrupt Trump family left office in 2021 and accumulated billions of dollars in graft. Just a drop in the bucket of what they hope to get over the next four years.
I'm sure the Republicans using those lies as a basis of their impeachment efforts will now claim Smirnoff is lying about lying. Probably under death threats by the Biden crime mob.
Will try to post pics, had to make a worktable to mount the miter saw, to angel cut the trim pieces, to finish the windows...
Has anyone here been following the implosion over at The Young Turks?
no, what's going on?
Not closely, but it's been barreling down the tracks for a while.
Fuck Kristie Noem. Fuck people who kill puppies. And fuck people who are okay with that.
Waterboys frontman Mike Scott is 66 today. Here's the band playing "The Whole of the Moon":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBW8Vnp8BzU
Wonderful song,. Here’s a performance by The Killers and a couple of thousand other people that also appear to love the piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-cf_Oxo_U8
Alright, in honor of Ziggy's post I will fill my Zabar's coffee mug with fresh coffee.
From all the tears and feeling sorry for myself last night my eyes are puffy and killing me. At some point I'll put a cool eye mask on and relax and rehydrate. Big stupid tears of self-pity.
But as always, my dumb natural optimism meant that I woke up and was happy about another day.
A cool eye mask (or cucumber slices) sounds like a great idea. All the hugs, Babe; you wuz robbed. I have a feeling the voters are going to regret their decision.
Ohhhh, honey. I'm really sorry, and sending you all the hugs. You've got all the bad stuff out now, so just focus on replenishing your soul. You got this!
I know, thank you, honey! I hope you have a wonderful day.
All my hugs.
You too, my friend! We're going to be okay!
We will.
I’m really really trying to like the Suxstack app on my iPhone. Now it’s not letting me like noncomments
I guess it’s chore time. Boo!
Now it’s working again. Yay. I can put off chores for half an hour 👏
I hate the app.
Katie starts huffing and yowling every morning about 45 minutes before dawn to pry me out of bed and take her for her morning walk. Now that we're back and I'm about ready to head off to the salt mines, she's curled up in her bed again and snoozing. When I die, I hope I come back as a dog.
Hey, stranger!
What kind of dog would you come back as? I would be a little lap dog. Probably my own dog, Termite, a chiweenie.
I'd probably come back as Katie. She' is the happiest, most confident dog I've ever met.
I miss my sweet Thor. A chihuahua dachsund yorkie mix. He was my heart dog.
But I do now have Freddie. Milburn's moms dog. He is white, curly, and very sweet. He's a good boy.
I would like to be a raven. get fucked up on fermented holly berries and loudly make fun of housecats and joggers. that'd be the life!
Ravens are the cool cousins of crows and I just LOVE them to bits.
the punks of the avian world: smart, twisted sense of humor, usually up to no good
I was thinking crow, but a raven would be fine.
I watched a raven mock a turkey one rainy new years eve. The turkey was chasing the raven in circles and the raven was hopping just out of reach and I swear it was laughing. Ravens are one of the subjects I love to paint and draw.
Raven being a dick. Checks.
And remember what Les Nessman said about turkeys!
Sea lion for me, female. Just sit on the beach all day and snuggle until I hop in the water where food is abundant.
I want to be a sea lion or a cow.
Curious what you think of Jean Donaldson's methods because her book helped me with practically every dog I owned.
Dogs, if you ask me, are nothing but stimulus-response-reinforcement machines. Load them up with treats and pets when they do the right thing and you can condition anything out of them.
Robyn is going to tell you what day it is, but you can find out sooner by visiting my ᶜaᵗ & ᶜaˡₑⁿdᵃᵣ ₗᵃdʸ substack: https://catandcalendarlady.substack.com/p/today-is-12142024-saturday
I bet she highlights Bouillabaisse Day! It's free to subscribe to me!
https://clip.cafe/share/throughout-the-world-in-the-preparation-of-bouillabaisse
Saxophonist and actor John Lurie is 72 today. Here's an episode of Fishing With John featuring Tom Waits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF4OkZ0B-q8
I've read that Tom was not at all happy about that little excursion. He got really seasick and had a miserable time.
I used to watch his show "painting with John". It was weird and surreal and so much fun.
Happy Caturday and Laundry Day, Wonketariat!
https://substack.com/@jasonprovencio/note/c-81432062?r=el7a&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Jason’s tree is Princely🤣💜
No Rasberry Beret??????
Funny! 😆 👏you can reply to him. Ha!
OK, one more cat. Rose loves the sound of her galloping paws on the kitchen (glorified closet with kitchen appliances in it) floor and loves beating up that rug. https://substack.com/profile/670009-tootsstansbury/note/c-81487195
Rug yoga!
What a pretty girl--I love how expressive she is in that picture, and yellow is her color!
Rose is such a sleek little beauty.
She is bonkers! 🤣😂
She sounds quite a bit like Cat the Ripper. That fierce feline menace went charging through the house like a maniac in the wee hours of the morning. There are cat toys scattered across the front room and a disturbing damp spot on the dining room carpet, the orgins of which I am uncertain.
Cats are masters of variable gravity.
Do other cities have a daily December program where Santa and an elf talk about xmas stuff and reindeer and how many day left until xmas etc? I want to find older episodes and change the vocal track to make it not safe for children.
Wichita's version - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdqMbPYzXKI
Now do "Major Astro"!
i like the way you think!
The cool part is, you can't see Santa and Toyboy's lips move so it'd be easy to do.
"Say Timmy, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"
Toronto used to, back when I was a colt. I recall it being rather fun.
I need to lobby for a new city ordinance - Leaf blowers and lawn mowers are strictly forbidden on Saturday & Sunday mornings before 9am. The lawn service a majority of my neighbors hired has the loudest and most obnoxious leaf blower I've ever endured. He used to come on Thursday mornings, which was not a big deal because I was up early for work and had headset on for morning calls. He recently switched to Saturday mornings (oh, but not until AFTER Thanksgiving - yes, the jerk was here making noise on Thanksgiving morning at 7am!!!). And speaking of leaf blowers (I HATE THOSE THINGS!), how effective is it to try to blow WET leaves around when it's drizzling/raining?!
<rant over>
I had 2/3rds of an acre, mostly maples and a big linden for 20 years. I wielded a leafblower like a pro. It turned several weekends of raking into one afternoon. And it was really the only way to keep the driveway clear.
They are obnoxious and loud, but I don't think it's necessarily fair to workers to make them do back breaking work because noise is annoying though - they do save a ton of work. Electric ones are getting good enough for contractor work though, so maybe the whole conflict will be resolved by technology.
To clarify, I'm not against anyone's right to earn a living, or their choice of tools with which to do so. My annoyance is more pointed to my neighbors who should have some say in the scheduling.
I love my leafblower because I despise my neighbors.
/jk
We must never forget that leaf blowers can also be tools of resistance!
Specifically tools used to resist tear gas!
The suburban dads actually pissed donnie off by showing up at the George Floyd protests and using leaf blowers to protect their wives and children from state terrorism.
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/22/894197681/in-portland-a-wall-of-moms-and-leaf-blowers-against-tear-gas
We must never forget that every sword has two edges and learn to use them wisely.
Evidently, it's only one true purpose.
And lose your hearing in the process
I hate leaf blowers and don't understand their purpose really. Especially because I'll see stuff like road crews blowing them off the street and onto the sidewalks and brush. For what? Somehow we all managed Back in My Day! And now I'm off to find an onion for my belt.
In my world they are for blowing all the dust & chaff off of the combine, which is a big job and important to avoid a fire.
It was a sad day when they made an ordinance so you couldn't burn leaves in the street in front of your house. The march of civilization I suppose.
Even in small town KS, we were civilized enough to burn our leaves in the BACKyard (next to the barrel where we burned our trash).
Don't even get me started with those damn leaf blowers. The wind can be blowing at 30 or 40 mph, and those fkrs are still out there trying to move leaves around. The absurdity of it would be laughable, if it were not so annoying.
This reminds me of something the French existentialist philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, once wrote back in the 1950s. I'll go ahead and translate it here: "The Americans! So STUPID! They have cheese product in a can and they squirt it into their mouths. They call it 'cheese whiz'! What other absurdities will they come up with? Will they wander around in nature with large gas powered wind generators on their backs trying to tidy up their plot of earth? Will they think they can avoid death by doing so? Do they not see the beauty in the changing seasons and the wild overgrown places where chaos continually rearranges everything to create new wonders? I could go on and on. But to what point? They squirt cheese into their stomachs; they drop atomic bombs on civilians in war; they lynch black men just for looking at white women; they sit in churches and pray to an idol that never answers them. But not one thing they do ever changes one immutable condition in their lives: they are afraid because they know death is inevitable."
It took a snooty French existentialist philosopher to give some American the bright idea of creating leaf blowers.
I had a backyard wedding and it was quiet until exactly noon when the ceremony started when a mower next door began.
"It's a sign!"
I would've gone absolutely ballistic, grabbed the hose and dialed up the pressure nozzle to "flay" before taking careful aim...
I'm glad DomPartner didn't read this - He just came unglued at that noise because he was doing his usual morning 'garage band' music mix hobby, with John Williams music. You can imagine the clash of John Williams & a leafblower!
That is a declaration of WAR.
I posted a snarky comment on our neighborhood website a few minutes ago. We have the best neighbors on our block, but they need to know. Those involved know who they are.
You might download a phone app decibel meter, and see objectively how loud it is, at what distance.
Then bug your city councilperson, with specifics.
You're not the only one annoyed by those unecessary nuisances. But if you say, "85 db, from 50 feet away, at 7:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day," that's something they can work with. City engineers they might ask would say, "Yeah, that's unreasonable."
Thanks for the suggestion. But highly unlikely any action would result from it in this city. Anything that doesn't involve paying homage to the local sports teams and shoving more money up their owner's bung holes tends to fall on deaf ears.
I HATE leaf blowers. I far prefer the quite contemplation of raking, blisters not withstanding.
Leaf blowers are the RUDEST lawn tool. "Here, let me blow waste from my yard into the street instead of bagging it up properly."
Speaking as someone who volunteers to maintain a church property (the congregation is aging and needs some help) I couldn't do it without a leaf blower. I also use brooms and rakes. The leaves in the parking lot are concentrated with the (electric) blower so they can be disposed in the dumpster.
I also use it to clean dust from outside concrete areas and children play equipment (for the few children it serves). It is actually against city code here to use hose water for such a task.
But I do not blow the church's leaves onto nearby areas.
Our city has trucks that come by and suck up all the leaves so yes, they blow them into piles on the curb. I’m always tempted to jump in them but ew, street leaves.
Amen to that! I'm the only old fool on the block who's out there with a damn broom sweeping up post-mowing debris and leaves out of the curb/gutter in front of my house. I know they all must laugh at me when they drive by, and I take great pride in that!
SO MUCH THIS!!! (we sweep and put it into the green waste.)
I just read the FBI informant who was the source of the alleged $5 million bribes paid to Joe and Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to lying about it. These bribes were constantly parroted by GOP leaders in the House during their Trumped up impeachment hearings, but evidence showed the informant, Alexander Smirnov, never met with Ukrainian officials while Biden was VP, and later brief contacts had nothing to do with the Bidens.
This was in an AP news brief but I doubt you will read much about it anywhere else. And you will continue to hear Republicans citing those fake allegations as an example of the Biden crime family. But as I have said for years, Biden working on orders from Obama and support from the EU and IMF, put Hunter at more risk, not less, by orchestrating the removal of a corrupt prosecutor who refused to investigate Barisma or any other company alleged to engage in government corruption.
If an aggressive prosecutor was seated and Hunter was involved in corruption he would have faced legal.action the corrupt prosecutor refused to even investigate. Which made the whole GOP scheme fall apart in my opinion, but no news organization reported it as such. What Biden did would be similar to Trump demanding judge Aileen Cannon be removed from his classified documents case and replaced by an honest judge. Obviously not an act intended to protect a defendant.
Meanwhile the truly corrupt Trump family left office in 2021 and accumulated billions of dollars in graft. Just a drop in the bucket of what they hope to get over the next four years.
GUARDIAN has the guilty plea story:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/13/alexander-smirnov-plea-deal-joe-hunter-biden
NYTIMES too, though not all the ramifications:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/us/politics/smirnov-bidens-russia.html?searchResultPosition=1
I'm sure the Republicans using those lies as a basis of their impeachment efforts will now claim Smirnoff is lying about lying. Probably under death threats by the Biden crime mob.