Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Everybody saw this coming.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Not all heroes wear capes.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

The words do not have to be perfect.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

We are aware of all internet traditions.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You can’t love your country only when you win.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Survivor

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Survivor

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danielx eric jan 16

From commentor DanielX:

Thought it would be good to update with a couple of shots of our boy Eric, who is currently celebrating his 19th – yes, 19th! – year. He’s shown in his favorite location (his kitty bed beside the fireplace) and at his favorite occupation these days (sleeping), one with more or less full facial and one with nose carefully tucked into tail for warmth.

He came back successfully from his hostile encounter with the pit bull summer before last, though it took a major toll on him. He’s a mite decrepit these days, what with arthritis and so forth, but still enjoys eating (several times a day in small meals), enjoys his catnip, and wants a great deal of attention – when he wants it, that is. He moves pretty slowly unless there’s a stranger around, and watching him turn around between the couch and coffee table is like watching an aircraft carrier backing and filling. We’re just letting him enjoy life as much as he can and giving him everything we can give him. I got a reminder email of a six month checkup at the vet a month or so back. I thought about it and said nah, his shots are current and he doesn’t seem to be in pain, no point subjecting him to any stress he doesn’t need, since odds are these are his last holidays. Our best boy….

***********
Speaking of survivors — this morning our 14-year-old rescue dog Zevon and 8-year-old Sydney are scheduled for dental work, which especially in Zeev’s case is liable to be a prolonged bout of extractions. Surgery is in the hands of the top canine dental specialist at Angel Memorial (the Spousal Unit insisted), so odds are good they’ll be home by evening, but I’d appreciate any positive thoughts y’all have to spare.

It’s been a while since I did any purely-for-love pet story posts… if any of you have photos / stories about your animal companions to share, email them to me (click on my name in the right column, or annelaurie [at] verizon [dot] net) and let’s have some day-starters that aren’t depressing, yes?

danielx eric jan 16 ii

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    if any of you have photos / stories about your animal companions to share,

    I’ll see what I can do. My computer is on the fritz so now I have to go thru the back up files and for that I need help.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    There’s no sight more soothing than a sleeping cat. Peace and comfort to Eric in his old age.

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    @Baud:
    I wonder why Playboy wants so much for the house, like Hef himself a symbol of a bygone cultural era, when the land is more valuable.

  7. 7.

    Schlemazel

    @Amir Khalid:
    I’m checking my couch cushions to see what I can scrape together. So far I am a couple hundred million short so maybe a lotto ticket . . .

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Big news:

    Campbell says adding a few words to its labels needn’t be costly. And, while it stands by the safety of genetically modified ingredients, it says that “consumers have the right to know what’s in their food.”

    That’s Campbell Foods, the big corporation. Quite a defection from the hard line the Grocery Manufacturers Association has been holding that all labeling should be voluntary.

  11. 11.

    David Koch

    Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday that the issue of whether U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is legally eligible to run for the presidency because he was born in Canada is “fair game” on the Republican campaign trail.

    “When you run for president of the United States, any question is fair game. So let the people decide,” Branstad told reporters at his weekly press briefing at the Iowa Capitol.

    Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, to an American-born mother.

    Bwhhahhhahhhahahahahahha

  12. 12.

    bystander

    Our 10 year old French bulldog has arthritis. He gets a chondroitin cookie every other day and a glucosamine gel cap daily (both formulated for animals). He moves much better than he was before we took him in to see the vet. With frenchies, there’s a million weaknesses – knees, hips, skin, ears – that we have managed to avoid (knock on wood). We are also lucky to have a great vet with a real knack for flat-faced dogs like bulldogs and frenchies.

  14. 14.

    Satby

    Winter storm here. Yesterday the car doors were frozen shut so the girls had an unofficial”snow day”, today they get an official one. The picture up top is adorable, a senior pet well loved enjoying his comforts. I’m surrounded by snoring dogs, snoring cats downstairs. My oldest dog Rosie, the one with epilepsy, has been having more seizures and bouncing back a bit less each time. I’m realizing this is probably her last year, which is poignant.

  18. 18.

    Mustang Bobby

    Here’s Sam, my friend for thirteen years (1989-2002). Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him and miss him. There’s still that worn spot on the bedspread where he slept, and I still make room for him on the bed.

  24. 24.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    I just got done watching parts two and three of the Swedish version of the Millenium trilogy. Very well done, very powerful, and very disturbing.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly: If a Republican wins the presidency, I can see the Feds suing Campbell to take that off its label. I can half see it in a Democratic administration. Food labeling laws are borked, from what I can tell.

  30. 30.

    Schlemazel

    @Mustang Bobby:
    I wish he would hold up a coy of his Kenyan birth certificate! Other things that I wish would happen but won’t. He points to that asshole Alito and points how how wrong he was on Citizens United. I calls out the assholes who said he was lying about the ACA.

  34. 34.

    JPL

    Daniel, Thank you for the sweet pictures and it is a nice diversion.

    I woke up this morning and found out that Bama won again. I went to bed at the start of fourth qtr.

  36. 36.

    Mustang Bobby

    A friend reminded me via Twitter that on this date in 1971, “All In The Family” premiered on CBS. I loved it, but my mom hated it; she thought Archie Bunker sounded too much like her father.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I bet someone will yell out something stupid or cheer wildly when the president mentions this is his last SOTU.

  41. 41.

    Germy

    @Satby: The article says between them they have ten children. I remember the old Lucille Ball movie “Yours, Mine & Ours”

    @debbie:

    I bet someone will yell out something stupid or cheer wildly when the president mentions this is his last SOTU.

    I would bet money on it.

    @Mustang Bobby:

    And I’ll bet the attorney that wrote the pre-nup made enough to add a wing to his villa in Antigua.

    It’s more like the merging of two corporations than an engagement. I find them all repulsive. And that includes his minion Reba, or whatever her name is. The one who was indicted for the wiretapping thing, but then walked away.

  44. 44.

    greennotGreen

    Back to pets. As I have mentioned more than once, I’m moving. Tomorrow is the big day, but the first two pets, the cockatoos, went over yesterday. I was going to move the remaining four birds today, but I got stuck in the mud yesterday and had to abandon my trailer near the bottom of the hill. So the birds will go when the trailer is free and I can move their cages. Cats today, dogs tomorrow, and birds Thursday. Beer Thursday night!

  46. 46.

    Baud

    Matt Yglesius says Bernie supporters blame Obama.

    The bad news for the White House is that they are swimming against a brisk current as they try to sell this message. A president who got elected promising to transcend polarization and clean up Washington has accomplished neither, and he leaves in his wake a public that is profoundly disillusioned with the political process and instinctively suspicious of the idea that anything good comes out of it.

    Republicans are unrelentingly hostile to Obama, as they have been from the beginning, while a significant faction of Democrats are lining up behind Bernie Sanders to clamor for more and further-reaching change than Obama’s been able to deliver — and blaming a corrupt political process rather than Republican obstructionism for his shortcomings.

    In before srv.

  47. 47.

    oldster

    A lot of you probably know this poem, but maybe some of you old-cat lovers (and old cat-lovers) will not have read it before:

    A 14-year old convalescent cat

    Gavin Ewart (b: 1916)

    I want him to have another living summer
    to lie in the sun and enjoy the douceur de vivre –
    because the sun, like golden rum in a rummer,
    is what makes an idle cat un tout petit peu ivre –

    I want him to lie stretched out, contented,
    revelling in the heat, his fur all dry and warm,
    an Old Age Pensioner, retired, resented
    by no one, and happinesses in a beelike swarm

    to settle on him, postponed for another season
    that last fated hateful journey to the vet
    from which there is no return (and age the reason),
    which must soon come – as I cannot forget.

  48. 48.

    WereBear

    @Baud: Mr WereBear got the boxed set for Christmas. He loves the show; me less so.

    At its inception, All in the Family worked as intended. It was the force of years which turned Archie beloved. And you can’t watch the first season and sustain that. He was every bit the bigoted petty tyrant so many fathers were.

  49. 49.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Baud: What makes them think that the Republicans will be any less hostile to Sanders than they have been to Obama? Or anyone else, for that matter? The Republicans have been vitriolic against Democrats since FDR, seeing them as traitors or unworthy of the office that is, in their view, theirs by divine right. Kennedy was a spoiled kid and a philanderer, Johnson was a crook, Carter was a bumpkin, Clinton was a sleaze, and Obama was a Ni-Clang. Sanders is both a socialist and Jewish. What was barely-masked racism will be replaced by polite anti-Semitism.

  53. 53.

    Baud

    @Mustang Bobby: Who’s them? I don’t think Yglesius accurately describes most Bernie supporters, only maybe a small sliver. But my sample size is concededly limited.

  54. 54.

    Germy

    @Baud: Yes, the scene with Meathead when Archie talked about his father’s abuse, but not seeing it as abuse. But he was originally presented as someone to laugh at.

    If such a show were to appear nowadays, I wonder how much of the viewing audience would be goopers yelling “hell, yeah!” after every bigoted utterance?

  55. 55.

    Satby

    Ugh. Finishing my coffee and getting ready to head out into the blowing, drifting snow to my first day as a home health aide (which is a worthwhile and very needed job…for someone else). The one bright spot in the looming changes I face is that this is the last few months I will have to head out into a near blizzard for the foreseeable future.

    Edited to add: just looked outside. Change near blizzard to actual blizzard. Double ugh.

  57. 57.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Germy: There was an episode where Archie did an editorial reply to a newscast that called for gun control. He stated in his own way that the best way to take care of the bad guys was to give everyone a gun so the crooks wouldn’t try nuthin’. We all thought it was hilariously outrageous 45 years ago. Today it’s a serious consideration by serious politicians, and my irony meter is inoperative.

  58. 58.

    WereBear

    Best wishes to the doggies dealing with dental issues. Anesthesia is always a back of the head worry in such situations.

    My Smokepuff went into a routine cleaning with a phone call that he had infections and it almost reach his brain. I had to okay emergency surgery. But he pulled through. His incisors were malformed below the gum line and suddenly went nuts.

    But when we brought him home all crazy eyed and drooling, James Bond looked at us askance for a few days. “You said it was nothing!”

    But then, the vet is never to be trusted by cats :)

  60. 60.

    Satby

    @Baud: Things are closed all over. -3 windchill. All that wouldn’t be so bad, but I live too close to the financial bone to deal with sliding off the road and needing a tow or car repairs. Last year’s slide on ice cost me $1200.00 for front end suspension work. The car I drive isn’t even worth that much anymore. But I can’t not have a car.
    Edit: I’m really just spoiled by being able to work out of my home for so many years. Driving in really bad weather stresses me out too much now.

  62. 62.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    A little more Refuge news. OPB:

    The FBI is the lead agency for the incident, although state and sheriff’s deputies from around the state have also come to Burns, Oregon, since a group of militants led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy took over the refuge Jan. 2.

    Officials said Monday they’re monitoring the situation at the refuge but won’t provide any details about law enforcement activity. The militants at the refuge and their supporters have freely been bringing in supplies and using the federally-owned vehicles and equipment at the complex.

    Authorities have established a law enforcement command post in the center of Burns at county and school district buildings. The buildings are fenced off and secured by deputies around the clock.

    The FBI has also stationed at the small Burns airport, which is now blocked by armed agents.

    Officials say they can’t answer questions about why the militants are able to come and go, or why electricity and Internet connectivity remains intact. Officials say they can’t comment because the situation is a part of active investigation.

    (Emphasis added.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Satby: When you get a chance, take pictures. They’ll be good reminders when you’re down in FL. :-)

    Best of luck! Drive carefully, don’t overdo it (a home health aid can be backbreaking work), and keep warm.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    Gimlet

    Any resolution today of the independent republic of Wingnuttia in eastern Oregon or the independent state of Alabama where the Chief Justice has protected the residents from the religiously oppressive US SC?

  68. 68.

    Satby

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: @WereBear: thanks Scott. And you have no idea how much I miss plows, WereBear!

    And for those wondering how I can be commenting? I’m home; I got to the address after a miserable drive and it was a 100 unit apartment complex. I didn’t have an apartment number. The complex office helpfully suggested when I asked where the X family lived that they could tell me if I had the apartment number. By then I just said fuck it, came home, and called that stupid company and gave notice. Since 12/16 I’ve had a total of barely 29 hours of work. It’s just not worth it.

  69. 69.

    J R in WV

    @ Mustang Bobby:

    Quite a fine looking companion. I can see why he was your best friend, and why you won’t forget him.

    @raven:

    Your dogs look nice too. I’ve seen that beach photo before.

    We currently have two dogs that we love very much, an older brown lab mix named Happy and a younger white lab mix named Alice. We rescued Happy from our Vet clinic, where she was brought from a chain in a backyard, where she had little shelter and less love, and was totally infected with heartworm. Our vet clinic does an underground rescue service, and kept Happy for 9 months to get her healthy. Then we brought her to our wooded farm where she learned from the other dogs how to run in the woods.

    Alice, a bigger dog, was 9 months old when I brought her home from the Humane society shelter in town. She wasn’t there very long, and the card on her kennel door said she was 9 months old and good with cats and kids. She had never been on grass before I took her for a walk on leash outside the shelter, which is a good one, built into a hill where people can walk the dogs. I believe she was acquired for a little girl, and was in an apartment and crated all the time, as she had a collar with pink rhinestones that wasn’t really quite big enough.

    She didn’t know how to run or jump or chase chipmunks when we first brought her home, but we have fixed all that long ago.

    We also have what we call the day care dogs, when our next door neighbors leave for work in the mornings, some of their dogs come down to spent the day with us. Too long a story for the details, but it’s boring without your people at home, and warm and dry in our house. So anywhere from 2-5 dogs in the daytime.

    Anne Laurie, I’ll send a bunch of photos later on, errands and such today, will need some time to load/process photos from the camera, and search out older pictures of dogs and cats gone on.

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