Supposed to be packing, but I couldn’t resist sharing this picture, taken just before our last trip to Japan:
NOT posed. (He would never pose, the little stinker.)
When I show this pic to Japanese ladies they all declare Billy “kawaii,” which is the supremest compliment any small dog can get.
Billy sends his best wishes for a speedy recovery to poor Daisy, and I say good bye to my Juicer friends for a couple of weeks.
tinare
“Take me with you!”
He’s too cute. Have a good trip!
rikyrah
Billy is too cute.
Have a safe and good trip.
Punchy
Holy shit, a completely Trump-free post.
/shakes blog….shakes it again…..are you OK? Googles Blog CPR…
Hillary Rettig
@Punchy: honestly, what more is there to say about him? (at least until he effs up royally again – prob in an hour or two)
sukabi
@Punchy: aaaannnnd you spoil it in 3. ;-)
Cute puppy, Hillary. Safe trip.
O. Felix Culpa
Squee! Cute doggie is cute!
Villago Delenda Est
Have a great trip, Hillary!
Betty Cracker
Awww, so cute! Either he’s trying to be a stowaway or attempting to prevent your departure. Have a safe trip!
Libby's Person
Very cute! Have a great trip, Hillary Rettig! I’m very distracted by dog thoughts right now. Libby’s getting older and gimpier, so I’ve decided to get a 2nd dog while she’s still healthy enough to adjust to a new sibling. My husband, who grew up without pets, was slow to agree, but he’s on board as long as I look for something small-ish and relatively non-pesky. (I don’t do puppies, which helps.) I’m a little surprised by how excited I am! I’ve got some expert and objective friends who are helping me find a good match from local shelters and rescue groups. My productivity is really suffering between dog daydreaming, voter registration volunteering, and being glued to BJ and other news about the GOP train wreck!
Tenar Darell
Awww. Now I want to “borrow” your dog.
Face
@Punchy: Who knew a mouth was needed to resuscitate a blog known as “BJ”?
What’s the weather like in Japan? 25C? 28C?
OzarkHillbilly
Safe travels.
Hillary Rettig
@Betty Cracker: amazing what they manage to convey isn’t it? smooches to Daisy on her recovery.
Tenar Darell
Well that’s weird, my edit bounced.
Anyway, I was trying to say this: Have a wonderful trip!
Hillary Rettig
@Tenar Darell: get in line! ;-)
schrodinger's cat
Bosscat does that whenever we get the suitcases out to pack before a trip.
Mary G
Have a good trip. My cats all hated to see the suitcase come out.
Keith P.
@Hillary Rettig: This week kind of reminds me of that scene in “Airplane!” where there’s this hysterical passenger (Trump) with a line of other passengers/crew (the media) in line to slap and/or shake some sense into her (him). He has almost no friends left, and none of them are considered “serious”, so everyone’s getting their shots in this week. It’s pretty incredible to watch. I don’t recall a campaign having *this* much go wrong this early.
JPL
Have a wonderful time!
Libby's Person
@Keith P.: Maybe just wishful thinking, but it’s starting to remind me of the end of “Trading Places” – “Turn those machines back on!”
Trollhattan
@Punchy:
Until #3 anyway…:-P
Hillary Rettig
@schrodinger’s cat: as I said to Betty, it’s amazing how well and emphatically they can communicate their needs
Hillary Rettig
@Keith P.: yeah this campaign is pretty singular, and Airplane is always fun to cite!
Hillary Rettig
@Libby’s Person: aw so glad you’re “expecting” a 2d. please keep us posted and send pics. also let us know how Libby adjusts.
hedgehog mobile
Have fun! Sweet puppeh.
Hillary Rettig
@Face: we’re going to Tohohu, north of Tokyo and mountainous – mostly in the 80s I’m told.
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: Have a great trip and a safe flight!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Libby’s Person:
Good for you! Can you bring Libby with you to “audition” the other doggies?
Elmo
So after a long drought of new dogs during which two of ours died and one was adopted by a friend of mine with a special needs daughter, my wife prevailed on me to foster two schnauzer mix pups. Of course we failed at fostering and are now adopting one.
Well, since that worked and the giant Anatolian seemed to enjoy having a pup around, we are of course now doing an emergency short term foster of a 9-week Mastiff cross.
I *liked* having only four dogs!
ingrediorum
You needn’t say goodbye, they have “interwebs” in Japan.
? Martin
Here’s why I have said that Bay Area liberals are atypical.
Progressives in other cities don’t behave this way. Underlying all of this is a desire to preserve architecture, community feel, etc. Those things are fine up until the point that you need to earn $21/hr just to pay for a 1br apartment (leaving not a penny behind for food, etc.). This is a region with a shit-ton of jobs, more than they have people to fill, rising wages, and it’s all at risk of leaving because the progressive base can’t tolerate losing their ocean view, dealing with more buses, and so on.
What we consider to be Democrats are actually moderate to right of center for the area. This group is some other animal entirely, that in some ways have looped back around to a weird sort of conservatism where they reject everything on environmental and social justice concerns while paying zero actual attention to whether they are helping or hurting those efforts. They are currently trying to block a new housing project for being too close to BART, accusing the developer of being in bed to help BART make more money. So it’s a form of anti-capitalism that also rejects socialism. I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it’s likely the same source as that pro-Sanders commotion at the DNC.
Starfish
@Tenar Darell: To play Pokemon Go.
Mike J
@? Martin: IGMFY from the left.
Miss Bianca
@? Martin:
This is what I’m talking about…the “white wing”. White progressives who are so fixated on their pet issue – be it drones, be it environmentalism, be it economic inequality – that they, just like right-wingers, cannot admit that there’s a broader commonwealth of folks whose needs and priorities may be different from theirs. No compromise is possible – compromise is a dirty word. They may not intend to discriminate, they may not intend to be racist or sexist, but neither can they conceive of how their ideological purity is damaging to POC, or anyone else outside their bubble.
Trollhattan
@? Martin:
Folks get hung up on thinking San Francisco=Bay Area. It does not. SF will not, cannot me made “affordable” in any meaningful sense because of its geography and over-the-top desirability to certain cohorts. But never mind that, it’s not a “large” city in population or area. IMHO the key stat is SF’s population density is TEN times that of its MSA, meaning housing affordability is most effectively addressed in the rest of the Bay Area. Ain’t nobody building 70-story housing for middle-class and below in SF. Your North Beach barista either shares a flat with seven others or takes BART in from Vallejo.
Libby's Person
@Elmo: I’m glad you have new pups to love! The hole left by a loved dog can never quite be filled, but sharing your life with another dog really helps.
Gin & Tonic
@Trollhattan:
And yet, at that, SF’s population density if one-fourth that of Manhattan.
Major Major Major Major
d’awwwwwww.
Say hi to Japan for me.
? Martin
@Trollhattan: Geography has fuck-all to do with it. Manhattan is smaller and 10x as populated, and is more than twice as cheap. Yeah, it has problems, but this is all a matter of political will.
If the city ever wanted to fix this problem, they’re never had as much access to capital as they do right now. There is money there to do it, it’s cheap, the demand is there. When majors cities fail to jump at these opportunities, they always regret it later.
satby
Billy is a cutie! Safe trip and enjoy Japan Hillary!
Libby's Person
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Libby will definitely have a say in this decision! We won’t adopt any dog that she isn’t able to interact with enough for us to tell if she’s comfortable with him/her. (Of course, it’s likely to be harder to find a dog that my husband is comfortable with – Libby is abnormally well-behaved, and so has him very spoiled!) Many of my dog friends have purebred performance dogs from breeders, but it’s important to me to get a rescue and save a life even if this makes the search more difficult.
Trollhattan
New exclusive pic of Trump rally.
Trollhattan
@? Martin:
Wrong, utterly wrong but please proceed, governor.
satby
Since this is an animal focused open thread, I want to let Chicago area folks know about my niece the rescuer’s Raw Artists show.
Proceeds go to a cat rescue she volunteers at, as do the proceeds from sales at her Etsy store.
And yes, she’s another redhead.
Miss Bianca
@Libby’s Person: if you have specific breed in mind, however, a breed rescue society might be the way to go. Like one of my favorites, Colorado Pekes and Poms. Sometimes I cruise the site just for squee! factor.
MomSense
Cute puppy is cute! I’m about to take my dog out for a walk but she is hiding from me because I took the gentle leader out. There is a yuuge patch of wild blueberries on our walk so she will forgive me as long as I pick them and feed them to her quickly. If I don’t she howls at me.
My best friends are in crisis right now. Congestive heart failure, major depression that is unresponsive to medication, stage 4 cancer. I’ve driven to so many appointments lately I can’t even count them. We’ve all done everything you are supposed to do – regular exercise, healthy eating, moderate intake or no alcohol, and all the wellness and health screenings. It’s very strange. I guess it’s just life but it’s really heartbreaking. We try to find the humor in all of this. Today I promised my friend I would make sure to do all the necessary plucking and hair removal so her kids don’t come in to say goodbye to her on her death bed and find her with a unibrow and a mustache.
I hope everyone does something pleasing today. Have some fun. Life is literally too short not to.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MomSense:
So sorry and sad! LOL at the hair removal thing though – I had the exact same discussion with my sister a couple of weeks ago – she made me promise not to let them use a razor on her upper lip if she’s in a home – it’s the one thing she was adamant about!
satby
@MomSense: I’m so sorry MomSense! It just doesn’t seem fair that often the good people go early and the evil ones live forever. All our destinations are different, we’re each on our own journey, but it’s heartbreaking to face the end of a dear one’s ride.
Best to you and her, you’re a good friend to be there for her.
MomSense
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Thank dog for gallows humor. We had a good laugh about the whole situation.
@satby:
Thanks, Satby. I guess we’ve always known there are no guarantees in life but we keep hoping that we have more control over our journeys than we really do.
singfoom
@Trollhattan: @? Martin: As someone who moved to the SF bay and then moved away due to costs, I have to disagree with Trollhattan. The entire Bay Area is suffering from the same housing problems as SF.
Yes, in SF itself it is even worse, but across the bay in Oakland, in Berkeley and all the communities before the ridge, rents are astronomical and continue to rise. Apartments that usually college students would live in in Berkeley are snapped up by families because the families can’t even possibly think of buying a house in the area. Before I moved, the house 2 doors down from our apartment in Berkeley went up for sale for 750K. It was a relatively small house, not that nice looking from the outside, a detached garage. It went for something like 860K cash.
What needs to happen is high density housing across ALL income groups needs to be built in SF, in Oakland, in Vallejo, in Berkeley, El Cerrito, etc, etc, etc…
But the old hippies who made their money by buying their houses at the right time in Berkeley (in my experience) won’t let that shit happen, ever. Because it’ll ruin the feel of the place. TL;DR – IMGFY + NIMBY from the left. It’s really sad because it’s a great place, but unless the housing stock catches up with the population (it’s getting more behind every single day), it’s not worth living there even if you make good money. Of course, I’m just some guy on the internet, so all of this could be wrong.
Cheers
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: {{{ }}} Is this your friend, that likes Hindi movies? Did you guys end up seeing Queen, like you had planned to?
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I’m so sorry. Eating right and exercising can help stave things off, but if you have a genetic susceptibility or just bad luck, shit can happen. Try to cherish as much time with them as you can and help them get as many of their affairs in order as possible, just in case. My brother didn’t want to admit that his lung cancer (found in stage III-B) might kill him, so he left things a mess, like by not quite completing his divorce, not having a will, etc.
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, the same friend. She really liked Queen.
@Mnemosyne:
The family situation has been intense. All the unresolved issues and dynamics have flared up as the reality of her death sinks in.
SiubhanDuinne
Have a wonderful, exciting, peaceful, adventurous, serene, surprising, and safe trip! Take good notes and pictures that you can share with us on your return.
Denali
@MomSense,
So sorry to hear about your friend. We forget too often how short and precious life is.