There is just something magical about this time of spring in West Virginia when everything is lush and green and the skies are blue and there is a cool breeze and the humidity and unfavorably high temps have not set in quite yet. Just my favorite time of the year because you get to plant things and the birds are back and you realize that you and your sun lamp made it through another winter.
At any rate, I made some crab cakes and a garden salad and some yam fries, and we are watching hockey and brushing the critters, who are all shedding like mad. I honestly think I am to the point where I can say I like the NHL more than football. It’s just a better game and far more exciting to watch.
Heading to the greenhouse tomorrow to get the rest of the plants for the garden. What are you all up to?
Linnaeus
And you didn’t even have to use your AK.
Mnemosyne
I know I’m spamming the thread with this, but Fred Clark wrote a beautiful piece about mourning today that I’m still weepy from. I think the pull quote he chose for the front page gives sufficient content warning for those who might need it:
(And if you make a jackass joke about “trigger warnings” before you read the whole piece, you are going to feel like the world’s biggest asshole once you get to the end and figure out what they’re mourning and why I think some people would appreciate a hint about the content. Fair warning.)
JasonF
The Hawks won, and they get to play game 7 at home! So that’s good news.
My weekend plans include packing the house for a move, more packing, and, in addition, packing.
dedc79
Having flipped back and forth over the past week between the NHL and NBA conference finals, there is simply no comparison. The NBA games proceed in spurts of 5-10 seconds between whistles, fouls, timeouts, commercials, free throws. The last two minutes of a close basketball game, which should be incredibly exciting, lasts a half hour and is sapped of all intensity. The NHL games have minute after minute of uninterrupted, fast-paced, back-and-forth action. The last two minutes often play out without a single stoppage, everyone is on the edge of their seat.
It will forever be a mystery to me why hockey isn’t more popular than it is. But I’m glad it isn’t because I’m sure popularity would ruin it.
Omnes Omnibus
Did 22 miles on the bike today; I was slow, but I felt good.
Fred J
Cole. Are you in the panhandle? I guide and read your blog. I’d love to take you and a few rafting.
Omnes Omnibus
This is truly sad.
Steeplejack
Apropos of nothing, just happened to watch an episode of Bosom Buddies, which has entered the rotation of one of the third-tier cable networks (MeTV). It doesn’t hold up very well, sadly, but you can see there is talent there. Anyway, the thing that hit me is that the Billy Joel song that ran over the credits has been replaced with a cheesy, no-name song. WTF?! I know “music rights” are an arcane, cutthroat area, but seriously? It’s that expensive/finicky that you strip out a song from a 33-year-old show?
aimai
@Mnemosyne: It was very beautiful, Mnemo. I cried when I read it this morning too.
As for John himself and this actual post. I just wanted to add that although I love crazy old john who was always falling off things and getting into a temper I’m so happy with new John who seems so centered and happy. Sometimes these happy-with-my-buds-and-my-pets posts just seem like they are beamed from some happy (enormous) hobbit shire and they just make me smile.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I simply cannot see the point of not rooting for an Original 6 team (except the Red Wings; those fuckers are evil).
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
i wasn’t surprised. she’s always been crazy-ape bonkers.
lamh36
Been watching the Designing Women marathon on LOGO since about 6:30pm. LOGO just got the rights to Designing Women last month I think. So they have been showing back to back episodes every weekend for a period of time at night.
Designing Women marathon on LOGO all weekend…Yess please!!!
Love Dixie Carter as Julia Sugarbaker.
Julia Sugarbaker – The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia
“Doesn’t it strike any of you all as odd that people will foam at the mouth at the mere suggestion of a tax increase, but they will crawl buck-naked and blindfolded across a minefield for a chance to throw their money down a government sanctioned rathole” –Julia Sugarbaker
Love,love,love Delta Burke as Suzanne Sugarbaker. That character coulda been played very obnoxious and bigoted and like the much parodied Southern Belle, but Delta played her with such sweetness and genuine heart, that no matter what bigoted thing Suzanne said, it wasn’t from a bad hearted place…lol. I loved the relationship between Suzanne and Anthony.
I also loved Annie Potts as Mary Jo and Jean Smart’s Charlene was so lovably naive, and her relationship with her husband Bill was soo cute.
Anyway, I’m right now thinking I need to just go on ahead and buy DW season on DVD.
Punchy
@JasonF: Hawks going to actually win this series as long as Kane skates and Crawford doesnt completely implode again. God damn this team is amazing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Linnaeus: Let’s see when the Goodyear blimp says “John G. Cole’s a pimp.”
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Strictly guesswork, but likely done when the series was packaged for DVD. Common, if unfortunate, practice.
Those may be either the best extant copies or else there may be a contractual obligation from the series’ owner(s) requiring the use of the alternate music.
Liked Wendie Jo Sperber as a comedic supporting actress, and was saddened when she died young.
James E. Powell
@dedc79:
It will forever be a mystery to me why hockey isn’t more popular than it is.
This has been the question for the NHL since the 70s. There are many theories including the need for a fan base that is familiar with the game beginning from childhood (cf. soccer in the USA), the fact that the puck is too small and moves too fast for most people to follow it on TV, the lack of charismatic stars that connect with American audiences, particularly young male audiences, and I’m sure there are more, but I forget them.
NotMax
@lamh36
Should you ever happen on any episodes of Filthy Rich, it starred Carter and Burke pre-DW, and was amusing at the time.
dedc79
@James E. Powell: Going to a few games can definitely make a big difference. I can’t even count the number of times i’ve heard people say “I had no idea how great hockey was until i went to a game”
NotMax
@James E. Powell
The on-rink fights are a major turn-off to many.
Joel
@James E. Powell: the NHL, which is still very white, is also swimming against a demographic tide.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: But I don’t want this person to be horrible. Someone who could sing “You” should end up sad and pathetic. It’s at 2:55 at the link and followed by 4th Of July which is simply stunning. I don’t want people like that to become people I despise.
Betty Cracker
Binge-watching Madmen and drinking old fashioneds. (Purely coincidental — I liked old fashioneds before I ever heard of Madmen.)
I should go to bed. Tomorrow (well, today, actually) is our wedding anniversary and I’ve got much to prepare. But I’m just not tired.
Jordan Rules
Reading Rainbow Kickstarter is almost at 3 milli in 3 days!
I can go thrice as high! So heartening to watch the ticker and read all the comments.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: FWIW, both Old Fashioneds and Manhattans in Wisconsin are available as brandy drinks.
Violet
Managing elder care for my parents. Every way you can imagine a facility can fuck up, they have. I couldn’t invent how incompetent they have been. It’s jaw-dropping. And yes, my mom’s health and life have been in jeopardy from what they’ve done. I’m not only the caregiver for both my parents, I’m managing all their doctors, managing the facility where my mother is at the moment, and playing the role of doctor for her because the doctor/nurses at the facility don’t seem capable of doing what they are supposed to do.
Exhausted doesn’t begin to describe what I am at the moment. I am running on pure adrenaline.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Is there another, better facility available? If not, just remember to take care of yourself while taking care of them.
muddy
@Violet: Beware. I was in a similar situation and it took a major toll on my health. Try to think of it with the airplane oxygen mask directions: get your own mask on first.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
I know it’s a thing in new(er) shows—people are always complaining about the original music being replaced in beloved series like Buffy, Veronica Mars, etc.—but I was a little taken aback that the tentacles reached that deep. Next I’ll find that “Welcome Back” is gone from Welcome Back, Kotter.
Wendie Jo Sperber is missed. She was great in 1941. I always thought Donna Dixon had great potential, but she faded away after she married Dan Aykroyd. (Not saying it was his fault.) Sort of the Paula Prentiss syndrome.
Bob Saget was on this episode, basically playing himself—a bad standup comedian. Ugh.
The one thing that really made me laugh was the high-pitched “Who is it?” from Hanks and Scolari whenever anyone knocked at their women-only apartment. Realized that has been a running joke between my brother and me all these years.
Steeplejack
@Omnes:
Still a name problem?
ETA: Sadly, yes. Bummer.
Villago Delenda Est
Sorry, John, but today was not a good day. GEN Shinseki was scapegoated out of office by the Rethuglican curs. Bad day for veterans. At least the ones with brains.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Don’t know how much (if any) federal money is funneled to D.C. and thence to its sports franchises but regardless, Congress has a strong say in how Washington operates and what it chooses to represent the district.
Also too, FedEx pays a pretty penny for the naming rights to the stadium, and have heard nary a peep from them (but I don’t follow sports, so FedEx may have taken a side on the issue of the name of the team whom they are supporting and I never saw mention of it).
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Steeplejack: Okay, let me try the alternative name for a while. Does it work?
max
What the fuck was Crawford going after Quick for? Did he throw the puck or something?
Good game.
when everything is lush and green and the skies are blue and there is a cool breeze and the humidity and unfavorably high temps have not set in quite yet.
Too much goddamn Appalachian rain. July is best. Actually August and September are best.
(My actual favorite time of the year is March in Texas, when it just warms up enough that there’s no chance of a freeze and the thunderstorms (aka goddamn real weather) start rolling in one after another, but still cool enough to wear a jacket out, late, to Denny’s.)
So the liftgate wasn’t working. The remote unlock motor wasn’t unlocking. This is bad because the Escape doesn’t have a interior lever or an outside key cylinder, so the only way to make the door open was to remote unlock it first. The motor worked when it got down below sixty though. So I was out there at 10 pm in the dark unscrewing the four screws holding the liftgate trim to the liftgate. Once I got the trim off, I could cycle the mechanism by hand. This would not do long-term though. So much paging though Google later, turns out the unlock servo motor tends to die quick… and the company that produced that motor ceased production.
So a 18$ dollar generic servo door lock motor from Amazon had to do. It looked good will the door latch mechanism was still mounted, but pulling it off to unmount the old motor also produced the discovery that the new generic servo wasn’t quite right. The screw holes were in the right place, but putting the motor there didn’t quite work as well. So I pulled the plastic arm off the old motor and got it onto the new motor, after a bit of filing and shaving. Fine, except now, for the armature travel on the new motor to work right, the motor had to be moved away from the mount point on the latch mechanism. Guh. So there was drilling and cutting, and I managed to manufacture a mount for the new motor, and then I had to tweak it after I got it mounted because the motor was binding due to the mounting being a bit too tight. a couple of hours and some plumbing washer later, I got it just so, and solid.
‘I thought you said it was easy?’ ‘It *is* easy!’ Ten minutes to reinstall the latch mechanism with the new motor installed on it and good to go. One test with the wiring (had them two leads reversed, which is always the way it goes) and reverse and viola. Slap the trim back on and just like new. Ish. Ford wanted 200$ for an entire latch mechanism plus the motor, and uh uh, not even, and no way, buddy. 20$ total (including the entire package of plumbing washers).
max
[‘Yay me.’]
Steeplejack
@Omnes:
I have a half-baked idea—not ready to call it a theory yet—that perhaps (some) people who come up in “rebellious,” outsider genres start to chafe as they get older and (if they’re any good) they inevitably become more mainstream. So they are driven to find ways to stay outsidery.
Also, too: statistically, 27% of punk rockers are likely to be batshit crazy.
Steeplejack
@Violet:
So sorry to hear what you are going through. Sending you good thoughts.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Test reply: Hey, it works!
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Checking . . .
ETA: That works for me. Still a bummer.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Steeplejack: It may be logical; it may have rational underpinnings. It still makes me sad. So does the fact she looks like she is 20 years older than she actually is.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
It’s a major stumbling block on older series, and the cause of many a delay in putting out the product. The original rights did neither included nor anticipated such things as DVD release, so those use rights must be negotiated from scratch.
Certain DVD packaging companies are known to be especially penurious and more often than not go the cheaper route of paying for new tunes. Others are more dedicated to presenting the shows as close to first-aired as possible, up to and including such things as significantly pushing back the release if a better quality copy of the original surfaces.
Don’t recall the specific title, but do remember that in the case of one old series, the entities packaging the series for DVD were unable to track down and confirm who owned the music rights at all, gave up, and commissioned new music.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
I read it two hours ago and I still tear up every few minutes. I think it kicked a general “mourning” switch for me with my dad and my father-in-law dying within 6 months of each other.
Also, I guess now we know why the Slacktivixen had that emergency hospitalization about … three years ago.
Gozer
Work tomorrow (gawd I hate my job) and I’m now redoing my home network for a little more oomph. Swapped out a D-Link Dir-655 for an Airport Extreme that I bought last year and never got around to using. I still have an old Linksys WRT54G from 13 years ago handling routing duties.
That thing is a workhorse. I’ve never had it freeze or needed to power cycle it. In 13 years the only downtime it’s had is when I’ve upgraded firmware, we’ve had a power outage, or when we moved.
EDIT: The Linksys came out in 02 so I’m going on 12 years not 13.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): OTOH this particular YouTube rabbit hole has put me on to the Modern Lovers again. So no real complaints.
Violet
@Omnes O: There may be, but this is supposed to be one of the best. And for other reasons it would be extremely stressful and detrimental to move her.
Violet
@muddy: I am making every effort to do that. I made a plan to take a day off from caregiving this week and ended up spending from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on phones. I didn’t even eat “breakfast” until noon. Tonight I’ve dealt with something like eight calls from various doctors, nurses, etc. since 7 p.m. I cannot get away from it, even when I make plans to or it’s Friday night.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): That’s sad. However, I know she’s been ill in recent years and perhaps that has contributed to some personality changes.
I ran into her on the street in Tucson once. Pretty cool.
chopper
@Steeplejack:
one other thing; some people are kinda nuts. and when they’re young it seems brilliant and edgy and they make some really fantastic stuff (art, music, what have you). then they get older and you realize ‘oh shit, this person is actually nuts‘. it sucks but it happens a lot if you look for it.
Eric Lindholm
Today was a good day. The Commander-in-Chief, the “Buck Stops Here” guy actually said this: “In terms of responsibility, as I’ve said before, this is my administration; I always take responsibility for whatever happens, and this is an area that I have a particular concern with. This predates my presidency.”
In other words: six years into my presidency, I’m in charge, but Booooooooosh!
aangus
@Eric Lindholm:
Yeah! So what!
Take this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3dW5F6GKTs
Mnemosyne
@Eric Lindholm:
Oh. Dude. I hate to break it to you, because you seem to have missed it, but we were fighting two wars for almost 10 years (and we will still be fighting one until the end of this year — yes, it’s true, the US is currently involved in a war. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news since you seem not to have heard about it yet.) They were in these faraway places you probably haven’t heard of called “Afghanistan” and “Iraq,” and thousands of soldiers have been seriously injured and require lifelong medical care through the VA system.
You might want to read up on these wars to familiarize yourself with them so you understand why the current president might talk about the injuries of the veterans of those wars who are currently using the VA system as “predat(ing)” his presidency.
Here are a few dates for you to look up since you’re unfamiliar with recent history:
January 20, 2001
October 7, 2001
March 19, 2003
January 20, 2005
January 20, 2009
You are aware that 2001 and 2003 “predate” 2009, right? That means that 2001 and 2003 happened before 2009. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page and you understand the big words being used.
Yutsano
@Eric Lindholm: You per thang. THAT ONE still got re-elected and you can’t get him out of office before his term expires. And your great white hope is JEB! Vaya con Dios asshole.
aangus
@Mnemosyne:
Beat him harder, please!!
:)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Oh, Mnemo, don’t ya know that history started January 20, 2009? Before then there were no deficits, no wars and no veterans.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: I haven’t read Slacktivist regularly in long time but I used the linked to read the story. It was sad. I hope Fred and his Slacktivixen are doing better now. (And I should start reading him again.)
aangus
@Eric Lindholm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvr72uTd7kc
Mnemosyne
@aangus:
What? I’m just trying to catch the poor dear up on some events he seems to have missed, perhaps through living in a cave or having been in a coma from 2000 until 2009. I don’t judge.
handy
@Eric Lindholm:
On the one hand, you make a good point, Bush isn’t the only one responsible here. The GOP has refused to increase funding for services for vets for years.
That was your point, right?
aangus
@Mnemosyne:
:))
DaveInOz
Watching the footy at the moment. Melbourne are being surprisingly competitive against Port Adelaide in Alice Springs.
Then we’re off to see My Friend The Chocolate Cake at the Substation. I hadn’t heard of them until 10 days ago.
The weather here, with winter starting tomorrow is still amazingly warm – shirt sleeve weather. From the reports, winter is still at least three weeks away from ariving (if you can call daytime temperatures of 12-14 degrees C winter).
Mnemosyne
@PurpleGirl:
For me, it was a really powerful story about how grief can surprise you, even years after the fact.
One poor soul in the comments didn’t entirely realize that it was a thinly disguised true-life story and did some literary criticism. He was very embarrassed when he realized what he’d done and struck through all of his comments.
handy
It amazes me every time Grumpy McCain shakes his fist at Obama how the media just accepts it. Like, hello asshole this thing was happening in your own state! All the while your own caucus in congress either killed or voted against bills that would go along way to fix the systemic problems that are at the heart of this. What, you didn’t know it was so bad? Again, in your own state? So no vets or their families wrote, emailed, questioned you at town halls about this?
handy
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah and some other guy tried to steer the conversation into abortion. I consider myself pro-life* and that was just plain tacky.
* Read: I applaud any and all efforts that effectively decrease the rates of abortion across the board
Villago Delenda Est
@handy: If fact, the Bachmann harridan called for cuts in the VA’s budget. Cutting taxes for the parasite overclass is far more important than caring for those broken in the deserting coward’s wars.
Steeplejack
@chopper:
Yeah, this is true too.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: I realized almost right away what he was writing about. I guess I’ve closed down a lot in the last few years; I start feeling overwhelmed by emotions.
Mnemosyne
@handy:
Yeah, he seemed totally incapable of understanding the difference between unwillingly losing a wanted pregnancy and choosing to abort an unwanted one. I’m guessing that, if pushed hard enough, he would eventually say that she only had a miscarriage because she didn’t want the baby enough, because a lot of forced birthers really think that a pregnancy only goes wrong because the woman did something to end it. Which, of course, makes them inflamed assholes.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Eric Lindholm:
This is not the place for an amateur troll to attempt to break in his act. Run on over to HuffPo and dazzle ’em there.
Mnemosyne
@PurpleGirl:
I realized it from the pull quote he used, but it still made me cry like hell. Though, like I said above, I thought, Oh, this is what that major medical crisis was a few years ago where she almost died.
fedupwithhypocrisy
How do you make your crab cakes, John?
Higgs Boson's Mate
Indian court asked to rule on whether Hindu guru dead or meditating
J R in WV
@fedupwithhypocrisy:
First, be awake!
fedupwithhypocrisy
ha, true
raven
WTF-K?
HeartlandLiberal
Here in South Central Indiana, we are already into steady daily high temps in the mid-80’s. Spring zipped by with mild temps in about three weeks, I think.
What concerns me most is that it is starting to look like we are moving away from a cold winter with lots of snow, a late winter and spring with lots of rain, so much they closed the beach on Lake Monroe and did not allow swimming on Memorial Day, into an early summer climate with what has been the pattern for years now: the rain stops falling.
This has been the pattern. Last year we made it deep into June before the regular lines of showers and storms dried up. Right now, for the past week, showers have been predicted, but then they never materialize.
I hope I am just being over-pessimistic, but with the surge of hot water in the Pacific threatening a massive El Nino event, I am not sure over-pessimistic is even possible even more.
FWIW, this is third year since retirement, and first spring I was not recovering from broken ankle or knee surgeries. So I have been working on the vegetable garden and landscaping the yard and shrubs and flowers for a couple of hours or more every day. And the garden right now looks the best it has ever looked.
I planted everything last week of April, three weeks before average historical last frost, and seem to have gotten away with it except for the okra, which is maybe recovering from a 35 degree morning nip that hurt nothing else.
We have been eating romaine lettuce for weeks, and yesterday I cut a bag of collard greens. I am going to try cutting them into thin strips, blanching them in boiling water briefly, then stir frying them, using a recipe I found from a Chinese family living in Mississippi since the late 1800’s. Only I plan to add a little bacon to the recipe.
Yesterday I planted two apple trees, one semi-dwarf to replace a three year old that did not survive the past winter, and full size Macintosh. Most of the trees I have planted in past few years should start bearing in next couple years. At least, I sure hope they do.
This weekend I will be putting up the water scarecrows around the garden to try and keep the deer out.
Meanwhile, the city council here in Bloomington had to override the stupid veto by our mayor of plan to hire a sharpshooting firm to cull the deer population in a major wooded area north east of town. They are destroying the undergrowth and ecology completely. And yet still we get letters to the editor of the local paper written by whining idiots who simply are disconnected with the reality that with no predators, the deer are overpopulated, sickly, and absolutely destroying hundreds of species of plants, upsetting the whole ecology of the large wooded areas. Not to mention overrunning heavily populated parts of the city, playing in traffic and threatening and causing wrecks.
Not to mention my tomatoes.
Ferdzy
@Violet:
I hope you are in bed now, getting some good sleep, but as someone else dealing with a parent recently gone into a nursing home, I have to say I feel for you. Good luck!
@HeartlandLiberal:
Extra-large rats, that’s all they are (says a fellow-gardener).
AxelFoley
@Linnaeus:
HAHAHAHA beat me to it. Cole quoting that Ice Cube…I’ve heard it all now.
AxelFoley
@Eric Lindholm:
Who’s the new troll?
burnspbesq
Saturday morning is a hole where the Premier League and college lacrosse used to be. Guess I’ll have to get caught up on filing, or something like that.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, I’m going through Premier League withdrawal myself. The season is so long that it’s just a normal part of my weekend mornings to flip on one of the games and have it in the background even if I don’t avidly watch it. The summer feels empty without it. Golf is a pale substitute.
Goblue72
Brushing the cats together, going to the garden shop, eating SALAD! Folks are gonna talk yo.
jayjaybear
We went to the jewelry store to order and pay for our wedding bands. The ceremony was last week, but because we both have fat man-fingers, we had to special order the rings.