Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Let me file that under fuck it.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Everybody saw this coming.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thurston Update

Thurston Update

by | 72 Comments

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postsurgery

Thurston is by my feet on the doggie pillow resting comfortably after his surgery. He was a little groggy when I picked him up, but he recovered quickly and played with Rosie for hours and acted like nothing had ever happened. He is so spoiled by the vet staff. When I sat there waiting, I watched several dogs be brought out, reunited with their owner, and leave. Then Thurston comes out and several of them are cooing and oohing and ahhing about how good he was and he is so cute and blah blah blah and all I could think about was “you’ve never stepped in his shit at 4 am in the morning while tripping over the slipper he chewed.” At any rate, all the piglets are home, healthy, heartwormed, and accounted for, so it is a good day.

Speaking of spoiled, if you are wondering, the “doggie” pillow is actually a pillow from my bed. Every week when I change the sheets, I just bring one of the four pillows in to the study and throw it on the ground for the dogs, since one of them is going to drag one in here anyway. I just gave up taking them back into the bedroom and instead am proactive now. This way, one is on the “doggie” pillow, one is on the couch, and one is on the actual dog bed while I am in the office, so they all have their spaces.

I decided to change my name back to John Cole. No point to the +0 tag anymore since it has been almost ay ear since I gave up the bottle and don’t even miss it or think about it, so now I am just John Cole again. I’m off to go give Sense8 a whirl on the tv thingamabob.

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    sharl

    Welcome John Cole, He of the Zero 0s!

    And thanks for the pupdate with cute photo. Now looking forward to seeing the photos of Lovey from geg6 (she was gonna send them to A.L., IIRC).

  2. 2.

    David Hunt

    Good that you feel that you can give up the +0 sign. Glad things are going well. I enjoyed Sense8. My impression of things that you’ve said you like tells me you probably will as well. I binge-watched the whole thing on Saturday.

    As to Thurston, I’d say something complimentary, but words cannot express how cute that picture is. At least not my words.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Spent a little time today dredging up long ago memories of seeing Ron Moody as Fagin on stage. Think Jim Carrey crossed with Boris Karloff, with a heaping side order of Hugh Griffith.

    His take on the character was tamped down and softened considerably for the movie.

  11. 11.

    Phoenix_Rising

    @Omnes Omnibus: jesus gos please tell me that site is a prank.

    Ear foam for post-crop bends? That should be illegal. Truck-Nutz for your dog are just in poor taste…

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    @Valdivia: Oh yes. For the insecure pet owner. I am wondering what percentage of their customers are men. I can’t imagine a woman buying that stupid shit.

    Congrats on the year of sobriety, Cole. WTG.

    I have found the best dog beds at Costco. We got a big memory foam one with striped bolsters on two sides for Luna, and she loves it. Then I bought a little hooded one for Chica. I call it her tuffet hut.

  14. 14.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I see that there is now an option to have the microchip put into the dog’s fake ball. Like, WTF? Who’s going to think to scan the dog’s nutsack if he gets lost? FFS.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    Wouldn’t be at all taken aback to find out Glenn Beck had advocated melting down the gold he shills for into the appropriate size and shape and storing it chez le chien for safekeeping.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    Hey John Cole, no +0. Glad it’s not a struggle for you to not drink.

    What a sweet boy! I am still trying to get a handle on how big Thurston is. How much does he weigh?

    Cole, I saw “doggie pillow” in the first line and I thought, “that sure looks like a pillowcase that matches Cole’s sheets”. So cute that you have been trained to carry the pillow in for them! One of my pillows has been assigned as the dog pillow as well, though they have to get up on the bed to us it.

    What the heck is Sense8? I googled and found: “I watched Netflix’s Sense8 and don’t know if it’s a travesty or a whacked-out masterpiece” AND some snooty “lack of structure” article at Forbes.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    @Water Girl

    “that sure looks like a pillowcase that matches Cole’s sheets”

    Looks suspiciously like 800 thread count Egyptian cotton.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  19. 19.

    ms_canadada

    I’m so happy for you, John. Although I’ve never met you, I think you are a good man.

  22. 22.

    TaMara (BHF)

    I’m so glad you found your way, John Cole. You happy and healthy.

    Did they ask you if you wanted Thurson’s balls back (in a jar I’m assuming) because they asked me. I thought they were kidding. But the vet said, no, some people want them (freaks).

    I wish Bixby was having as easy of time as Thurston, but big dog, big, um…well, you know. 10 days in and he still has stitches and has to take it easy a bit more. Which, can I tell you is a pain in the ass trying to contain a 135 lb puppy.

    The other night he started running in circles around the house as only a Great Dane can do and I said ‘fuck it’ and let him, figuring I’d pay the vet bill if he did some damage. The poor thing was just going stir crazy.

    I gave him his year, as recommended (so his muscles and bones could develop enough to avoid joint issues in the future) – and he’s already lost that crazed look in his eyes that meant he was hearing nothing I said. So it’s getting better.

  25. 25.

    Karen in GA

    Glad you’re doing well, John. Give the piglets a bunch of ear scritches.

    Amazing how Thurston doesn’t look like like he has any poodle in him at all.

  28. 28.

    Suzanne

    @Steeplejack: Luna is my pit bull/Lab mix. She’s a shelter dog, so we don’t really know much, but I think she’s roughly 50% Lab, 50% one of the pit breeds (Staffordshire or whatever). Chica is my mom’s Chihuahua mix, also from the shelter. She’s a little bit bigger than a pure Chihuahua, and the vet thinks she has some terrier in her. Suggested maybe some Jack Russell.

    Chica kicks Luna’s ass and always has.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @trollhattan: I was thinking about going to bed, you bastard. Yeah, I could save the link or shit like that, but I can’t, I really can’t. But I will try – ever so hard.

    ETA: Bookmarked.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    @TaMara (BHF): I call Chica “Goddamnit” most of the time. She is definitely a one-person dog—totally into my mom, merely tolerates the rest of us.

  36. 36.

    Tommy

    Interested to see what you think of Sense8. I binge watched it a few weeks ago. My take is it starts kind of slow, but don’t give up on it, because it goes to some pretty cool places.

  37. 37.

    jl

    Thanks for handsome well composed pet pic.

    I have had an aversion to pets interacting with human pillows every since a family cat of some years ago decided to leave dumps on them. The cat seemed really proud, like it was doing us a great favor. Not sure how it got that in its head, at least from the reaction it got from me when I cam home tired and flopped down, missing one of its presents by an inch or two.

  39. 39.

    jl

    In honor of Ornette Coleman, another collaboration with Jerry Garcia.
    Most of the understated and oddly quiet Garcia guitar boogie noodling is in the middle third.

    Ornette Coleman-Bourgeois Boogie
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tXrChnAzTw

    I like the Desert Players collaboration better, but already posted that in the Coleman memorial post earlier today.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    @Lurker:

    She was not a good fit chez Cole, as I remember—some behavior issues and conflicts with the other pets—so she was adopted out to a good home. More than that I do not know.

    ETA: Okay, Ginger was fostered out. Here’s the original post from April.

  45. 45.

    Tommy

    @jl: Jerry is the man. I like this song he did with David Grisman, Shady Grove.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayk_qQw0XZg

    Jerry is playing the guitar and Grisman the fiddle.

    A few weeks ago I was visiting my niece. My brother has this thing with Dave Matthews I don’t really understand. She is dancing to him and I am like come here little girl. You are maybe six, but let me introduce you to this band called the Grateful Dead.

    Pulled up a song, synced with their Bluetooth speaker and we danced. I danced with her like nobody was looking. Mom stuck her head into the room and joined us.

    I like to think Jerry was looking down from heaven and smiling.

    Katie told me she liked the music. I was like honey then we are going to get along even better than I thought as you get older.

  46. 46.

    Tommy

    The Internet is so freaking cool. I often tell people I know anytime I can’t figure out how to do something, often simple stuff, I just head to YouTube and do a search and there are dozens of people that show me how to do this or that. They say I would not have thought of that and I am like why? A resource right at your fingertips …… and free!

    The Basil in my garden is growing by leaps and bounds. Clearly more than I need for a single meal. So I head to YouTube. I find you can make, and as is often the case hindsight is 20/20, I can make Basil butter.

    Thank you Internet I will do just that!

  48. 48.

    wasabi gasp

    So, how’s that Herman Miller bicycle seat working out for you?

    No Pain, Re Frain

  50. 50.

    Tommy

    @Aleta: It is August of ’76 and I am currently at Roosevelt Stadium (Jersey City, NJ) listening to a Dead set. Right now Help On The Way / Franklin’s Tower / Dancing In The Street / The Wheel.

    I am no historian on the Dead, but if this isn’t the tour where they had their shit together more than any other I’ve not seen it. It is studio quality live music that you could take direct to CD.

  51. 51.

    Tommy

    @Aleta: It is August of ’76 and I am currently at Roosevelt Stadium (Jersey City, NJ) listening to a Dead set. Right now Help On The Way / Franklin’s Tower / Dancing In The Street / The Wheel.

    I am no historian on the Dead, but if this isn’t the tour where they had their shit together more than any other I’ve not seen it. It is studio quality live music that you could take direct to CD.

  53. 53.

    Tommy

    @wasabi gasp: Here is something for you all. Mickey Hart was the drummer for the Dead. He had an album called Planet Drum. It was like 1991 or so when it was released and it still blows my mind.

    But he did more. It would seem drums are something every society has and uses. Back thousands of years. So he wanted to go out and play global drums and this happened.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-HbNHFrrMU

    Enjoy ……

  54. 54.

    fuckwit

    @Suzanne:

    have the microchip put into the dog’s fake ball

    That sentence fragment, out of context, is amazing by itself. Just, if that was in a tweet, or you’d overheard it in a conversation, imagine the process of trying to unpack that.

  55. 55.

    jl

    @wasabi gasp: Thanks. I really like that album. I think Coleman must have loved the way Izezson played bass, since I hear his type of stuff on later albums, but from different bass players.

    I need to see if I can find some Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry now.

  58. 58.

    Tommy

    I was about to post some music I enjoy and went to Wikipedia to see what they say about the band. In the intro they quote from a music journalist that says:

    Constructed soundscapes of mesmerising grandeur and solemn beauty; African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chant, Middle Eastern mantras and art rock.

    Well I guess that is Dead Can Dance.

    I got hooked on them by a good friend of mine from the Netherlands. He lived on this huge former horse farm in Middleburg, VA. Middleburg is where the richest of the rich live in the DC metro area.

    We were not rich, nor was my friend, but maybe once a month my friends and I would trek from our lives within the Beltway to his place. Eat, drink, and just be happy. Maybe sometimes run around nude and do stupid shit because we could.

    Dead Can Dance was the soundtrack of the place.

  59. 59.

    seaboogie

    @Suzanne: For the dog it might be fun…”oh where, oh where did my doggy balls go, oh where – oh where can they be…with my ears cut short and my balls disappeared, oh where is the humanity..?” Seriously, we do not deserve our dogs. We probably do deserve out cats.

  61. 61.

    satby

    Congratulations on you first of many years of sobriety John. Well done you!
    And I think Thurston has some Rottweiler in him, he looks like a tiny rottie mix. I have one rescue that was considered unadoptable because he seemed to growl at everyone even though his body language wasn’t at all aggressive, it turned out he was part Rottweiler and “purring”. My mix is a small medium size, so no one had suspected until he was older, his mother was a border collie.

  62. 62.

    Daffodil's Mom

    John,

    Are you/your sister’s group sure those were really Rosie’s pups? Not only were they so large it’s almost impossible to imagine how she delivered them, but also, having had many poodles in my life, there’s just nothing poodle-y about him, like anywhere. Usually in a cross-bred dog, there’s something. Maybe Rosie’s pups were still-born (quite possible given her age) and the lovely breeder just gave her a couple of others, for whatever reason?

    Also, too, serious congrats on the sobriety. It takes a special kind of person to accomplish that.

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    This thread made for a happy Friday morning. Thurston looks great, JCole succeeded, and music links.

    @Daffodil’s Mom: Interesting. Have been looking for the poodle in Thurston and Lovey and not seeing it, either.

  66. 66.

    Barbara

    Your dog has a beautiful coat. You must be feeding him some seriously high end doggy bits. Or giving him treats of bacon grease and chicken skin. He has the same coloring as my min pin/dachsund mix but no matter how hard I try, her coat is never glossy like that.

  67. 67.

    shell

    Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

    Definitely dog pillows. Had to do the summer swap out. My Kate’s dog bed is like a huge furry bagel. But once the temps get up in the 80’s, it’s just too warm. I’ll wake up at 3am to her panting and she’s too stubborn to stretch out on the floor. So some folded towels and one of my pillows is her summer bed.

  68. 68.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @jl:

    Shelly Manne–he did a lot of the incidental music for Peter Gunn and other TV shows.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Barbara:

    Our vet always compliments us on how beautifully groomed our oldest cat is, but we always have to deny the credit, because the cat does it all himself. He refuses to let us brush or comb him. Leads to a lot of hairballs, unfortunately.

  70. 70.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Okay, I’ll be the guy who didn’t even know such a ridiculously simple thing: “+0”?

    I’d seen it, I just never comprehended that it meant anything.

    Congratulations on dropping it because it most emphatically is a good thing that you’ve reached this state.

  71. 71.

    Jebediah, RBG

    That is a dog that is really happy to be where he is…. just looking at that pic makes me happy. And congratulations on dropping the +0!

  72. 72.

    mclaren

    Sense8 is effing awesome. At least in my opinion. Loved it. The Wachowskis and Mike Straczynski are firing on all cylinders.

    Really hope the series gets picked up for a second season. All the characters were interesting and empathetic, and the locations were dazzling — particularly Iceland.

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