Grass to cut, have to edge the sidewalks, clean the house, pot the begonias, and there is a town yard sale. Don’t expect to see much of me today.
Open Thread
by John Cole| 51 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
by John Cole| 51 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Grass to cut, have to edge the sidewalks, clean the house, pot the begonias, and there is a town yard sale. Don’t expect to see much of me today.
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Rosalita
Enjoy the day John (and all!). Sunny and 83 in CT today, I’ll be outside too. Need to forget about all the crap that’s going on in the world for a few hours.
asiangrrlMN
Morning all. Hope everyone’s day is good. Here, it’s 48 degrees with a high of 63. Very nice weather, indeed.
RedKitten
So there will be 7 posts before noon, then?
Oh, and thank you to those of you who gave me the heads-up about the Motrin/Tylenol recall. That’s incredibly sweet and thoughtful that you were looking out for SamKitten. He’s a lucky boy to have so many people out there who care for him.
New photo, by the way, of him enjoying a day at the park in Halifax.
Oh, and he’s crawling for reals now.
SGEW
@RedKitten: Crikey, that’s one charming baby. What a smile!
asiangrrlMN
@RedKitten: I was just coming back to post that about Cole. Damn, but your SamKitten is a charmer!
Rosalita
@RedKitten:
what an adorable little guy!
Cat Lady
My heart is broken about losing the Gulf. How can this just happen? Why are we as a species just so stupid all the time about everything? I can’t shake this sense of things ending. We actually are all Mayans now.
/gloomy gus
Rosalita
You know what John? I was touring a beautiful old house yesterday and saw dandelions in the lawn… thought of YOU! LOL
Punchy
Leavin for Haw’aii today. Hot damn. Drinks n sand n a fake Obama birthplace!
Lisa K.
As long as we are doing adorable baby posts…
Here ya go. Try not to die from all the cuteness.
Lisa K.
“I can’t shake this sense of things ending.”
Well, the sun is going to burn out in about two billion years, so you are not wrong on that count.
gnomedad
You’ll be wearing clothes for these chores, then?
madmommy
What is it about May 1 and yard sales? Every neighborhood around me has got signs up announcing such. Unfortunately, it’s gray and gloomy today. And it’s the last weekend of Jazz Fest. Maybe all the yard sales are something to occupy the wimpy sorts who don’t wanna get their feets muddy at the Fest.
@RedKitten:
He just keeps getting cuter-how is this even possible?
@Lisa K.:
Awww! We do love indoctrinating our offspring into our sporting cults at a very young age. I’ve got pictures of my boys wearing various team insignia practically from birth!
RedKitten
@Punchy: Punchy is going to Hawaii. That seems appropriate.
Cat Lady
@Lisa K.:
I’ve been spending some time with my nephew’s newborn, and the world these beautiful babies are being handed – it’s not the world I want for them. No Gulf for them. I haz a big sad.
MikeJ
Going to the shorebird festival down at Grays Harbor this afternoon. Hope to see clouds of birds that will block out the sun.
jeffreyw
Thunderstorms last night, poor Jack was freaking out. Mrs J gave him a chill pill that didn’t work. He was standing on me most of the night, trembling. More storms slated for today.
Here’s a new momma and her kids, since that seems to be a theme this thread.
Linda Featheringill
Redkitten and LisaK:
VERY good looking boys! What a pleasant way to start my day!
Oil spill: I can recommend the web page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, to be found at http://www.nola.com
The comments are interesting, too, with a tug-of-war going on. On one side, we have be-a-man-and-quit-whining-and-stay-off-the-government-tit. On the other side, there is omfg-this-is-huge-and-if-we-don’t-get-help-we-are-doomed.
And yes, I stayed out of the fracas. They will have enough problems without having to cope with me and my big mouth.
But some of those people ARE idiots.
Maude
Townwide sales are fun. Maybe one of the neighbors has pictures of John on the roof. Could sell them for $5 a pop.
South of I-10
@RedKitten: I’m so glad he is feeling better!
@madmommy: Did you make it out to Jazz Fest? A friend from Florida was here for Festival International last Thurs. and Fri. He left for Jazz Fest on Saturday and was sending us pics of the mud. Y’all got 4 inches of rain and we get nothing!
asiangrrlMN
@Lisa K.: Aw aw aw! Soooo cute! Don’t hate me for this (well, ok, hate me. I would), but the grownup in the pic looks a tad like Tucker Carlson.
/flees the room.
@Cat Lady: I know. It’s incredibly heartbreaking to watch and to listen to the stupidity that still rages around us. What is the breaking point for people (en masse) finally realizing this shit has got to stop?
@jeffreyw: Awwwww! Little black bebes!
madmommy
@South of I-10:
Sadly, no. I haven’t been in years, though it used to be a ritual for me. Sunday mornings in the Gospel tent with bignets and coffee-good times! The kids are still too young for me to feel comfortable keeping up with them in the crowds, and madhubby hates crowds of all sorts :( In a few years when the kids are older I plan to introduce them to the Fest-being boys I’m sure the inevitable mudpit will pose no problems to their enjoyment.
@Linda Featheringill:
This is just so sad. We had seafood last night for dinner, who knows how long it will be before that industry recovers from this disaster. Oyster season was to open today, and the Picayune is reporting this morning that fishing has been shut down east of the Mississippi River. The economic devastation to those who make their livlihood from the Gulf waters will be immeasurable.
And now the chores are calling me. I’m not nearly as ambitious as John, but there’s still laundry and groceries and such to be dealt with!
Svensker
Lisa K. — Very cute! The little guy is pretty adorable, too. :)
RedKitten — Young Sam is surely holding on to that swing tiiiight, but having a great time. P.S. The crawling stage is when the terror really starts…
Johio
I bought that weeder John recommended a week ago. It works like a charm, even gets out some weed I have that has a bulb 6 inches deep in the ground. Highly recommended.
Lisa K.
@asiangrrlMN:
Haaa, Tucker may be an asshat, but he’s not a bad-looking guy.
PurpleGirl
It’s sunny and bright in NYC, expected to be in the high 80s. I’m going to a crafts fair on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan — not going to clean the house or other chores before I go. I’ll do them later when it isn’t so daylight.
Phyllis
Just got back from netting $60 from our annual town yard sale. I think we benefited from having a table next to friends who basically set up a Target store. iPods, Nintendos, kid’s clothes, wicker furniture. We sold to the spillover waiting to paw through their goodies.
Backyard reading, copious amounts of liquor, along with grilled ribeyes for supper is on tap for the rest of the day.
And the Braves won. Fingers are crossed for a turnaround.
LuciaMia
Yard sale? Try not to buy any more birdfeeders, John.
Joey Maloney
Too stupid to live, too lucky to die – tourist video of Guatemalan volcano eruption taken from MUCH TOO FUCKING CLOSE.
YellowJournalism
So once you’re done with your lawn, John, are we supposed to get off it?
@RedKitten: Yay for crawling! That’s pretty exciting.
And I want to thank people, too, for pointing out the recalls. Both the boys are sick and have been taking Tylenol all week off and on, but I’m relieved to see it’s the cough and cold, which we don’t use.
Nicole
If John isn’t going to be around, could Tim or Doug or Anne Laurie put up a Kentucky Derby Thread later? I realize it will probably be me and JenJen mostly posting, but please? Two most exciting minutes in sports…
Going to be a weird race, with rain all day at Louisville. For what it’s worth, Calvin Borel’s Derby mount (Super Saver) is the current betting favorite and Calvin just won the first race of the day. May have to look again at Super Saver…
Steeplejack
Anybody got a recommendation on which current editions of Shakespeare are good? Thinking about rereading at least some of the plays in conjunction with James Shapiro’s Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (Interesting New York Times Book Review piece here.)
I’m not averse to a complete one-volume edition, but I am thinking about one of the paperback series because the individual books would be more convenient to carry around (and therefore more likely to get read).
I am leaning toward Folger, but I have read good things about Arden.
IndyLib
@RedKitten: @Lisa K.:
Such cute boys!
The adults in my house (except me, I don’t drink any more) are recovering from a very loud “wetting down” celebrating my husband’s Navy promotion. There is a lot of black coffee and aspirin involved and I believe my boys are being extra loud to help my husband and sister-in-law finish up the celebration.
Steeplejack
For no good reason I ended up watching both First Blood and Rambo on TV last night. As I sort of vaguely remembered, First Blood actually holds up really well as a tight little movie. Rambo also holds up–as a bloated piece of crap. I did a mild spit-take–just a wet cough, really–when I saw that the latter was cowritten by Sylvester Stallone and master filmmaker of the universe James Cameron. Didn’t remember that.
Steeplejack
@Joey Maloney:
I especially love the self-congratulation for the pure dumb luck of not being blown up. Yeah, you da man, all right.
SIA
@ Cat Lady
I’ve had similar feelings lately esp since the gulf oil disaster. Sometimes I feel like it’s all just too far gone to turn around. Have to keep the faith though.
Nicole
@Steeplejack: Arden and Folger are both fine. Honestly, most of them are fine; it just depends on how much explanation you feel you need of some of the more archaic lines. My personal feeling on reading Shakespeare is that if you worry too much about understanding every single unusual word you lose the flow of the entire play. Get an edition that makes it easy to read the play without interruption, maybe with explanations on the opposite page if you want them. And keep in mind, if Shakespeare didn’t have an appropriate word for something, he’d just make something up.
I owe an awful lot to my 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Church, whose assignment for Macbeth was to memorize 50 lines of soliloquies and then recite them to her. There is no better way to understand Shakespeare than to speak it. I can still remember the moment, doing the darn assignment at home, when the light clicked on and suddenly I understood every single word I was saying. Mrs. Church, I am forever grateful to you.
In general, I think the tragedies are more entertaining reading than the comedies (because so much of the comedy comes out in performance). The three parts of Henry IV are interesting because you really can see Shakespeare improve as a writer through them.
SIA
@ Nicole, can’t remember her name at the moment, but I had a little old lady teacher in HS that influenced me greatly. She taught semantics which created an interest in words. Also literature, and we read among other things, On The Beach, Cry The Beloved Country, Dantes inferno, Fitzgerald, Borges and others I probably would never have read on my own.
Same getting my BFA, there was a little old lady who taught art history and who would be so immersed in her subject she would just trail off and stare at the screen with rapt admiration.
I have a soft spot for little old lady teachers.
Steeplejack
@Nicole:
Thanks for the input.
This is pretty much what I’m looking for. I hate reading stuff where all the extra “apparatus” makes it hard to follow the work itself. I’m not a student. I’m middle-aged and literate, if not literary. I read the “big” plays way back when and am coming back to them and hoping to delve into the lesser ones as well.
I guess I want to find an edition that incorporates the current state of Shakespeare scholarship and isn’t just a reprint of something the publisher has been flogging for years, if not decades.
chopper
john, would you say your getting stranded on your roof earlier was your Katrina?
Ming
I think many Juicers might appreciate this as much as I did: President Obama addressing libertarian views, partisan politics, and the need for civic engagement at Michigan commencement.
cool question, Steep. and SamKitten is outrageously cute! Thanks for sharing, RedK!
Nicole
@Steeplejack: Anytime. I love Shakespeare (again, thanks Mrs. Church!). In the end, they’re 450-year-old-plays, I admit I’ve never focused as much on the scholarship as much as on enjoying them for themselves as entertaining reading and theater pieces (though nothing is as torturous to sit through as a bad Shakespeare production). It’s not as though they get retranslated regularly. At least, not in their original language. :)
If you find an edition you really like, please post it!
Nicole
Okay, off to place my enormous $2.00 wagers on the Derby. I have a variety for the exactas, but my win bets are going on Stately Victor, the filly, and American Lion, unless I am fortunate enough to meet some toothless homeless man at the OTB who has the good sense to talk me out of American Lion.
licensed to kill time
@Steeplejack:
I know this isn’t what you asked for, but The Complete Shakespeare Reader is a neat little program you can download to your computer and have all the plays ‘at your fingertips’ as they say in the blurb. It’s searchable if you’re trying to locate a quote, you can take notes etc, and it can be used offline. I like it, anyway!
(I have no connection to the program, just came across it one day and find it useful).
Steeplejack
@licensed to kill time:
Thanks for the tip. I will probably download that. Always good to have the search capability handy.
licensed to kill time
@Steeplejack:
You are welcome :)
I should also mention that it’s small (5MB) and it’s free and it’s for Windows.
Linda Featheringill
Article on Nola dot com states that lawyers are flocking to the Gulf Coast to find plaintiffs to sue over damages caused by the oil.
I don’t usually hate lawers but this is a bit upsetting.
LET US STOP THAT RIVER OF OIL before we start filing law suits and such.
Stand at the state line and give each incoming lawyer a sponge and a roll of paper towels and put them to work helping with the cleanup.
Josie
@Nicole: I was interested in what you said about Shakespeare’s comedies coming out in performance. I experienced that when my son was majoring in theatre. He directed a few of the comedies during those years and presented them almost as slapstick with very broad physical comedy to back up the lines. It was the first time I had really gotten a lot of the jokes and thoroughly enjoyed the shows. He had studied quite a bit about the background of the pieces and believed that was the way they were originally presented since there were no microphones and large crowds to entertain. They just don’t come across the same on the written page. In performance they were laugh out loud funny.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack: Murdock…I’m coming..for you
KRK
@Punchy:
That’s Hawai’i. Have a great time.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Yeah. Amazing how 25 years turns that into a laugh line.