Little under a year ago, I wrote the following:
I just got back from Kitty Prison. Was not as impressed with Shayla this time around.
I did, however, find a dog who I am going back to check out tomorrow. 4 year old terrier/chihuaha mix named Missy, who was rescued from a crazy cat lady who had 22 cats and 4 dogs. Missy is a touch neurotic and afraid of everything, but very sweet. I’m going to visit her this next week and see how things work out. It took an hour, but I got her to stop shaking and to lie down while I pet her, but she is going to need a lot of work.
I wasn’t even going to look at dogs today, but as I was leaving, I saw her through the glass looking at me and she was just so sad and scared.
I wonder how that worked out…
*** Update ***
“Missy” still looks neurotic, as you can plainly see:
Spoiled rotten, as they all should be.
Also- just caught a very slimming picture of Tunch:
Go with whatever works, Tunch.
Mark S.
Lily!
Gretchen D
Well, did you adopt Missy?
plaindave
Big … Saturday… Lily came home?
Jay in Oregon
I’m so happy for the two of you.
What God has joined, let no Tunch put asunder…
SIA
From Dog’s lips to your ears. I remember that very well. So happy you and Lily found each other. Makes me happy every time I think of it. I hope Shayla got a good home too.
jeffreyw
Damn, time flies. Congrats to the three of ya!
lawnorder
Awww.. reading that and seeing Lili guarding your yard with stern barks nowadays, all happy and pampered is such a pleasure.
Bless your heart John, you made a dog happy, and she gave you happiness in return :)
kindness
It was a good thing. Boosted both your souls. (yours & hers, not just you. you may be schitzo but I haven’t seen evidence of it here)
James in WA
Thanks for posting this, John. I was looking for the original Lily posts to show my girlfriend, because it was so awesome how she came alive and grew into herself…
Ellid
Bringing that dog back to life is one of the best things you’ll ever do.
Davebo
3 Months into my latest Lab rescue. So far only one ottoman destroyed and several puncture wounds on my forearms. Well, and a lot of “presents” left around until I finally got him kenneled.
A small price to date. And this one will easily end up over 85 lbs.
God makes them so cute so you won’t kill them.
The Truffle
I LOVE this picture, John. What’s the story with how you got the Tunchster?
Cathie from Canada
Off topic, but by the way, did you change something about your website settings a few days ago?
Your text isn’t showing in columns anymore, but instead is running across the screen to be about three times as long as the usual line length. Sometimes I can clean this up when I can convince your website not to open in “compatability view” in Internet Explorer. But most of the time it opens this way automatically and now I can’t get the columns to display properly.
So anything you can do to change the settings back to what they were a week ago would be appreciated.
And also by the way, I love your site.
Congrats on the Lily anniversary — she is a beautiful dog.
The Dangerman
OT, but this video may show how that 27th out was blown show badly tonight:
Linky
Warning, NSF language from the Tigers fan recording it.
Forward to 4:29 and watch the pitcher snow cone the throw from the 1st Baseman; since the umpire is working off the sound of ball in mitt vs. foot on bag, that may have been enough to throw him off.
Still, shitty call. Not the worst call I’ve ever seen (Twins at Yankees last year, playoff game, fair or foul call – that was obscene).
Mary G
Just a year, but what a change in Lily! She alwaus kept her tail between her legs, no idea how to play & had to be dragged out from under your desk for walks…in an awful week this & the Tunch photo givez me a happy. Good on you. John and Lily Cole._
Pavlov's Dog
Good job JC…sitting here looking at my canine rescue from about a year ago. He pretty much runs the house now. Our other elderly Akita lost nine pounds since we adopted him, having to kick his ass every day with him loving every minute off it.
RSR
This has been happening off and on for a couple days with my Opera browser at work, FYI…
TR
OT, but Jon Stewart just gave Krauthammer a beautiful slapdown.
MikeJ
@Mary G:
After she crippled Cole and sent him in for surgery she got cocky.
John Cole
Would someone please send me screenshots, OS, and browser type so I can try to deal with this?
Violet
Awww….. Happy Anniversary, John and Lily! You did a great thing, John. She’s such a gorgeous, happy dog. It’s hard to recognize her as the Missy you describe. Congrats to the two of you. And to Best Man Tunch, too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huh. So I’ve been reading this blog for a year? Time flies. I think you had just brought Lily home the first time I commented, she had a skin condition and wouldn’t let you touch her. I must’ve missed the chihuahua mix part, ’cause the first time you post a pic with perspective I was shocked at how small she was. I think it was a picture of her and Tunch doing bookends on the couch.
Congrats on bringing her along so nicely.
Bailey
Indeed, spoiled as they should be.
If only dogs life lines were as large as their hearts. Dogs are so perfect, they’re just not around long enough.
Not to bring you down. Just missing my own beautiful four legged girl right about now.
Nicole
Happy 1st anniversary, John and Lily!
Also off topic, but I have to share- I posted a few weeks back asking for information about flood insurance, as my brother, a Nashville resident, lost the first floor of his house. It’s still a long way to go, but insurance gave some $$, and FEMA came through with a grant for almost half the estimated damage. It’s still a fair amount of money my brother will have to come up with for the rest of repairs, but things are much less bleak than they were. My brother said he’ll never resent paying taxes for the rest of his life. Not that he did before, but he’s extra grateful for the safety net.
mr. whipple
It’s been happening regularly for me using IE and Opera on both XP and Windows 7. Off and on. You can try to refresh and it might present properly. My guess is some ad is screwing it up.
Sending you a screenshot, John.
robertdsc
What a great picture of the always-lovely Lily!
Punchy
Today was one of my dog’s birthday. So we went to get ice cream…..since when did McDonalds chuck their fresh soft-serve and instead freeze it, so that when eaten, takes like white icey horseshit?
John Cole
@mr. whipple: I’m updating plugins, so hopefully it was that.
John Cole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She had an open sore about two inches wide running from the middle of her back to her tail, and I could not bathe her forever because of it. She also came smelling of cat piss, which made the bathing issue problematic.
voncey
Not coincidentally, I’ve been reading your blog regularly for about a year. I came for the dog, stayed for the snark. Happy Anniversary!
jl
Beautiful pic of Lily, who looks as contented as a critter could be. Another pic for me to save, for inspiration.
The pic of Tunch is amazing. Somehow the the TGLE (Tunch Gravitational Lensing Effect, which makes Tunch appear smaller than everything else in the picture, combined) has been eliminated and we can see his true mass extending beyond the picture frame, almost as if it were an infinite wall of white Tunchness. How did Cole manage that?
thanks for both amazing pictures.
jl
Forgot: regarding formatting problems, I have had the same problem sporadically. The browser only recognizes hard returns, or whatever is used to end paragraphs, so the most of the text is on a very long individual line that goes outside the browser frame.
I have only seen it happen on MS Internet Explorer, if that helps. Never on other browsers. Why I forget good judgment and ever use MS IE, I cannot say, however.
sfinny
The transformation of Lily has been wonderful to watch. I have my own rescue pet, a cat that was part of a trap, neuter, rescue event that was judged to be not entirely feral. He has been a challenge and an absolute joy for the past few years.
The change in Lily has been amazing and is evidence of your own attachment and commitment to her. Great job!
Annie
I just love the story. Can’t believe it already is a year. John, Lily, and my favorite Tunch. What an awesome family. Thanks for sharing…Maybe that is why Tunch was glaring. He is waiting for the celebration cake (tuna, of course).
Dork
You live by yourself (I’m assuming) in your own house and yet you need a nightlight? Hahahahahaha!
Annie
LOL….My above comment has to be the longest straight line I have ever seen.
fourlegsgood
Awww, what’s better than rescuing a sad animal and gaining a faithful friend for life?
You are a good man.
jl
The purported ‘nightlight’ is an artifact of the TGLE. That should be obvious to any schoolchild.
Keith G
Thank you John, for this and the earlier post. I am so tired of horrid news and since live near the Gulf, I get some of it amplified…many times over.
If you can do a Tunch/Lily and maybe a rescue story at least once a day, I may stay off the clock tower.
Yay Lily!
fourlegsgood
Hey, I have a nightlight too. It keeps me from tripping over Maddie in the dark and killing myself.
SIA
@lawnorder:
Very nice.
Keith G
After a closer look, I see Lily’s head is resting softly on a pillow. How cute!!
Anne Laurie
Congratulations, Mr. Cole (and, of course, Lily!). I’m so glad that the two of you found each other…
(And, heck, your shoulder would’ve needed replacing eventually anyways.)
SIA
@Cathie from Canada: I’ve been having this problem for several days, and from what I’ve read others are too. I use IE v.8, have tried Firefox as a browser but always have problems with it.
John Cole
@fourlegsgood: I have nightlights in every room of the house. I learned a solid lesson about the dangers of falling a few months ago.
John Cole
Alright- I have updated all the plugins- are the problems still happening?
John Cole
@Anne Laurie: And the best thing is that I may have to have another surgery, because I have learned my left shoulder is as shredded as my right was, but this time from contact sports and old shoulder injuries that didn’t hurt or cause problems then, but do now.
fourlegsgood
@John Cole: I only fall when I trip over Maddie. A gigantic black and brown maine coon and a dark hallway are a deadly mix. Though the worst part is her hurt feelings. “why did U stepz on me? WHY???”
Violet
What are you giving Lily for your first anniversary? The traditional gift is “paper” and the modern gift is “clocks.” Who comes up with this stuff? Somehow I don’t think Lily would appreciate her own alarm clock, but I could be wrong.
fourlegsgood
@John Cole: Everyone should just get a mac and all problems will be solved.
[runs away from Mr. Whipple]
Tattoosydney
@John Cole:
Still happening in IE7.
Dr. Morpheus
Never had any problems. Firefox 3.6.3 on both Windows XP sp3 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
The real solution is to dump those other cruddy browsers and use the one true browser.
fourlegsgood
Seriously though, all you silly windoze people should try Chrome – I’m hearing it’s quite stable on the PC platform.
Forget IE. That way lies madness. kaithxbai.
J. A. Baker
We took my brother’s cat to the V-E-T today for her annual checkup. She’s fit as a fiddle (for the most part), but at risk of turning out like Tunch. The V-E-T said that her anal glands were fairly full, and recommended we cut back on her food a little; maybe even change the brand of food we’re feeding her. She’s resting comfortably on my bed right now.
Dr. Morpheus
Chrome, ha! It is to laff.
Corner Stone
@John Cole:
Sure thing. Blame it on “fear of falling”.
Tattoosydney
@Dr. Morpheus:
Unfortunately, while that is practical at home (and indeed what I have done at home), some of us go to this place called “work” where they have their own computers and their own policies on which internet browsers can be installed.
mr. whipple
@John Cole:
Yes. Sending screenshot.
Dr. Morpheus
Well obviously a new job is in order, toot sweet!
Dr. Morpheus
Yes, I am +2, my “fun” phase.
Weepy phase to follow…
asiangrrlMN
Be still my beating heart! TWO pictures of Tunch in ONE night? I faint from the pleasure. As for Miss Lily, I’m a bit misty-eyed thinking of how you described her back then and the pics you took. She’s come such a long way since then, and now she’s the beautiful, confident, spoiled princess she deserves to be. You’re a good man, John Cole. Oh, and sorry to hear about the possibility of surgery on the OTHER shoulder!
@fourlegsgood: I know that so well! My boys are both black, and they love to walk between my legs. I don’t turn on the lights much, so walking around the house is always an adventure. And, yes, the worst part is the yowl/screech that reaches my ear as I step into/onto a furry body/tail.
P.S. I haven’t had any problems on Google Chrome.
@J. A. Baker: Gorgeous kitteh!
@Tattoosydney: Good to see ya, hon. How you be?
mr. whipple
@fourlegsgood:
Grrrrrrrrrr.
pianoguy
What Voncey @ #30 said. Lily is what made me a regular rather than occasional visitor.
mcd410x
People still use Internet Explorer? Really?
John Cole
Alright, I will contact the webmistress and get this fixed.
EnfantTerrible
The Lily story resonates with me. My darling wife and I adopted a chihuahua/terrier mix from a shelter four years ago. We named her Arbella and she has grown from a somewhat wacky space cadet into the most loving, attentive dog you could imagine. She’s snuggling with my darling wife even as I speak, er, type. Such bliss!
Violet
@John Cole:
Thank you, John. For the record, I’m using Firefox 3.6.3 and I had the weird thing where the text from a comment just keeps scrolling to the right, instead of wrapping, happen one time in the last several days. I don’t know what had happened on the page (like a stray dash or something) that might have caused it. I did something else for awhile, refreshed the page later, and it was fine. Hasn’t come back since.
Just wanted to mention it because, although most of the problems seem to be with other browsers, I did have it happen on FF.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
working. Ugh.
Violet
Oh, great. Sestak, part 2.
More calls for impeachment, or at least a special prosecutor, no doubt. Sigh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Violet:
Well, we’ve already been through this and pretty much established there’s nothing illegal here. “Unseemly”? Who’s going to be the special prosecutor? Father Mulcahy?
Francis
Took Zoey, my white 11-mo old 50-ish lbs. husky/samoyed (?) mix to the grassy dog park in Seal Beach, California today. Learned that when Samoyeds have grass under their paws (as opposed to the sand found at her usual dog park in Long Beach), they can really run. As in, RUN! She is a huge hit among dog people because she will play with any dog, no matter the size, and play well. (start with a play bow, then you chase me, i chase you, i end up on the bottom of the pile, then we switch.) I think she completely exhausted four different dogs before she was wiped out herself.
Since she splashes water out of the park water bowl onto her tummy to cool herself off, grass parks also have the advantage over sand parks of her not coming home completely filthy. (Water plus sand plus rolling plus white dog plus husky/samoyed long-hair coat equals a very visibly muddy dog.)
Will post pictures as soon as I can figure out how.
Anne Laurie
@John Cole: Bingo. Welcome to middle age. There’s an old motto:
After 40, it’s patch – patch – patch!
fourlegsgood
@mr. whipple: Bwaahahahahahahhahahah
/evil laff
frosty
@Anne Laurie:
Maybe you’re not there yet, but my motto (and I think it’s from Red Green) is:
TuiMel
@John Cole:
The problem occurs for me if I hit the page refresh – in IE 8 with both XP and Vista. Also have had the problem w/Safari on my IPad.
I am another Lily traffic person. I came for the Steve Benen link and stayed to find out what would happen to “Missy.” What would her name be? Would she warm up to Cole? How was Tunch going to react? All good questions that were satisfactorily resolve only to be replaced with others.
I live alone, in my own house, and I dig nightlights.
J. A. Baker
@asiangrrlMN: You’re not the first to say that about her, but it’s nice to have it reinforced. :-)
LiberalTarian
Indeed. Love is typically unexpectedly wonderful. Pups or otherwise. :)
Platonicspoof
When The Problem happens, text in your post and commenters’ text begins in the middle column where it should, but then runs all the way to the right superimposed across the right column (the blogroll, etc.).
I think it has been happening frequently for at least one week, maybe two.
It rarely happened in previous months/years.
When I and others have mentioned The Problem, usually it happens to IE users, but to users with other browsers, the blog appears normal.
Mr. Whipple at #25 is the first browser exception (Opera) I’ve happened to see.
My rusty old computer uses IE 8, XP SP2, and by default, I don’t allow active X controls to load.
A given post’s page can appear normal when first loaded, then reload and have the runaway text. I haven’t seen a pattern to it, so the rest of this
excruciating detailis just lots of dots to me.This post didn’t have The Problem through about comment 60 and through half a dozen refreshes. I checked the next post (soccer), no Problem.
The previous two posts do have The Problem.
I came back to this post, now up to comment 68, and it now has The Problem.
Anne Laurie and others have discussed commenters using at(space)-(space)large hyphens, asterisks, etc., and altering the blog’s appearance. Since The Problem changes frequently, and my settings and (I assume) your WordPress set-up do not, and comments (and ads?) do change frequently, it seems they might correlate better to The Problem. I barely know how to spell ‘computer’, but one suggestion (MikeJ?) was that some feature of your WordPress set-up is enabling commenters to accidently alter the appearance of the blog with punctuation marks or something.
If that’s so, I hope all this might help while it is still happening just accidentally.
Platonicspoof
Just refreshed this page and now all the text is where it should be.
As an irresponsible speculator, I am unable to see why this page was normal for six refreshes, seventh time the page had runaway text, and then returned to normal the eighth time.
Arclite
Wow, I remember those posts. Have I been reading this blog daily for that long?
Platonicspoof
And now the text in the middle column on this page runs across the right side column.
Maybe I should add that I allow active x controls (“and other plug-ins”, the IE message) when I submit a comment. This wouldn’t explain The Problem at refresh number seven.
I might try checking permitting “active x and other plugins”, and not permitting.
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: Bleah. Just did that. And it was atrocious for me. You kick your bug yet?
@asiangrrlMN: My orange furball is also quite suicidal/homicidal in the dark. But only when it’s dark. Oh and my crush on Joe Mauer is not subsiding, though that could be because he’s in my state as we speak.
freelancer (itouch)
@John Cole:
You’re still a good man, Charlie Brown. [sniffle]
You can
be my wingmantell me to go to hell anytime./ghey
freelancer +5
Platonicspoof
Test one.
(Text is back to normal position).
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: There you are! Should we bet on the Twins/Mariners series, too? Heh. My kittehs aren’t trying to kill me! They just need to go everywhere I do!
Platonicspoof
2nd test (don’t stare at the old guy muttering to himself), active x’s not permitted.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: You’re already down 2-1, so it either goes even and we push or the Mariners get 3. And I would love just having Mauer as our catcher cause our up and coming young gun is out injured bad and our vet pretty much bites. At least Griffey decided to walk away before things got too downhill.
asiangrrlMN
@Platonicspoof: By any chance, do you have a slight case of OCD?
@Yutsano: OK, never mind then. Joe Mauer is teh awesomes. There’s talk that the Twins may want to convert him to an infielder or something because being a catcher is incredibly hard on the body.
Platonicspoof
[mutter, mutter, no active x’s six times-no Problem, mutter, no x’s seventh time-Problem, mutter, mumble, eighth time (comment), x’s yes-ok, mutter, ninth, x’s yes-Problem, mutter, ramble, tenth and eleventh (comments submitted), no x’s, no Problem, and no edit function, nodding off . . . .]
asiangrrlMN
@Platonicspoof: I will take that as a yes.
Gatsby
Happy anniversary, John and Lily! And hattip to Tunch for looking so handsome!
Yutsano
@Platonicspoof: You forgot to carry the two.
@asiangrrlMN: See what I did just there?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You are really cruel sometimes!
RedKitten
Happy anniversary, John and Lily! It’s amazing to see how much she has blossomed, when we think of what a wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie she was only a year ago. Seeing those videos where she’s tear-arsing around the yard with G & G, it’s easy to forget that she actually used to not know how to play.
Love can really work miracles sometimes, can’t it? Lucky Lily, and lucky John too.
Ash Can
Happy anniversary to the happy little family! I can’t believe it’s been a year already.
Persia
Aww, Lily.
That angle is very slimming.
lawnorder
@SIA: ty :)
John, the site looks fine on Firefox
Kristine
Waay late to the party. I remember those first Lily posts, and how frightened she was during those first few walks. Now she has taken over all comfy places, which is as it should be.
Happy Lilyversary!
Kristine
FYI–using IE (pre-Cambrian) at the day job, and had the problem yesterday with the text blocks that would not wrap. No issues later in the day with up to date Safari.
And I am clicking on the link in the Lily post, and am being taken to a page that says I do not have permission to read draft posts.
Dog is My Copilot
Congratulations on your 1-year anniversary with Lily! I remember a year ago reading your entries about meeting her for the first time. It’s so heartwarming you’ve been able to help her out and that she has found a loving home. We adopted a Chihuahua/rat terrier mix about 2-1/2 months ago. He looks like Lily, but she seems a bit bigger. He’s a little character – very intelligent and loving (he loves to snuggle next to either one of us and always seems to want to be on our laps). He’s full of energy though and I need to get him enrolled in obedience classes, and I want to see if he’ll take to agility training.
PTirebiter
Only a year? I thought I’d been following BJ a lot longer than that. No matter, it’s a great and heartwarming story. Every time I think I’m finally out of the human race, somebody does something that pulls me back in. Congrats and good on you Mr. Cole.
slag
A sweet adoption success story. Great work, John Cole! And you too, Lily! Tunch, on the other hand…
licensed to kill time
Happy anniversary you two
Cole rescued Lily woo hoo!
Tunch was dubious initially
now so happy all three
Whee!
You’re a good man, John Cole. Congrats.
J. A. Baker
Notice that they’ve called it “the latest piece of evidence,” rather than “the latest allegation of.” The “librul” media has already decided that Obama’s guilty (of what, they neither know nor care), and are now doing everything they can to confirm their bias.
Ann Marie
Happy anniversary! I’m so glad it worked out for both of you (and that Tunch is okay with the additional resident in “his” home).