Here’s a pair of lazy-ass boxers basking in the sun next to the potting shed:
They’re tuckered out from chasing a feral cat through the yard. Luckily, it was able to exit the property by scaling a six-foot wooden fence. I saw what was happening through the window in time to call the dogs off, but the cat would have likely escaped anyway, and I’m not sure what the dogs would have done if they’d caught it. Probably get clawed and run away.
I’ve mentioned before that we have an irresponsible ass of a neighbor who feeds feral cats. I’m sympathetic to people who feed feral cats (although I wouldn’t want to live near them) IF they take responsibility for the cats they attract by trapping them and taking them to the vet to be spayed/neutered and checked for disease before releasing them back into the neighborhood.
The aforementioned irresponsible ass doesn’t do that, so the neighborhood is overrun with an ever-increasing population of feral cats who are regularly run over by cars when they’re not pissing in people’s carports, killing songbirds and spraying their stink all over the place. My dogs are too old, fat and tame to menace the cats, but I’m betting that’s not the case with other neighborhood dogs.
Anyhoo, it makes me sad and angry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
Here’s something for the weird coincidences file: Today is Wednesday, aka, “Make Your Own Goddamn Dinner Night.” The mister and I were discussing delivery options, which are severely limited in our little town.
I remembered that some time ago, we’d ordered a pizza from a local chain that frequently disappointed us, and after I called to complain about receiving a burnt pizza that arrived an hour late the last time we ordered, they extended a store credit.
But the mister observed that it had been so long, the store management had probably changed, and the new manager would be unlikely to honor the credit. I said I had a picture on the phone that I’d taken to display to the manager who sent us the burnt pie:
I could maybe use it as (not wholly convincing) evidence to bolster my claim to a free pizza, but the weird coincidence was the date stamp on the photo: December 14, 2014. What are the chances?
Also, the grease stain somewhat resembles Elmer Fudd, with Donald Trump’s hair. Reaching out to grab something — maybe a pussy.
Anyhoo. Open thread!
rikyrah
OK.
Just bought “My President is Black.” from Atlantic Monthly.
Ebony also has an Obama retrospective out called ‘Hail to the Chief’
No, it is not in hardcover. Dammit, Black publications- spend the extra few dollars to hardcover these!???
Baud
I like how you started with feral cats and ended with this. You got talent, kid.
SteveinSC
I’m up for a national boycott of Drump’s Inauguration nightmare TV etc. Kill his ratings. I saw this on HuffPo and think it’s the least I could do. (Just got back from Cocoa/Cocoa Beach the former sucks and the latter is close behind.)
Corner Stone
Anytime I see Samantha Power asking if some other entity has no shame, at last have you no shame, I want to scream in her fucking face.
Mnemosyne
I just texted my nieces’ mother to get her final approval to take them to Disneyworld.
Now we wait.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: world or land?
barbequebob
feral cats, and cats in general that are allowed to run loose in kill so much of our native wildlife.
It is hard enough for our native wildlife to survive with the loss of so much habitat and road kill, do people really need to turn cats loose?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/feral-cats-kill-billions-of-small-critters-each-year-7814590/
http://www.ecology.com/2013/08/27/global-impact-feral-cats/
Please keep your cats inside so native wildlife can interact with each other the way nature intended it.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
World. I’m not allowed to take them to Land because then they would be in the same state as my brother that she hates.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Somebody gets me! ?
JPL
@Baud: Next campaign announce ahead of time, that Betty would be your press secretary. After Trump, anything goes.
JPL
@SteveinSC: I have no choice, because I value my mental health.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: So you’re flying to FL? you are a good aunt.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Consider me one of your groupies!
Baud
@JPL: I feel like we aren’t taking our moral superiority seriously enough. Need more sneering.
rikyrah
DC Area Marching Bands Opt to Sit Out Trump’s Inaugural Parade
NO local DC High Schools applied to be part of Trump’s Inaugural Parade.
Neither did any local HBCU Marching Bands.
Howard said they could not do it because of “budgetary reasons”.
another said that they wanted other marching bands to have the “opportunity”, and another gave no reason.
LOL
Vernon Bush
I have no, none not a lick of sympathy for feral cats. they are a wild animal. We had a similar situation with a neighbor. They were everywhere having litters all spring/summer. Several times I saw hawks swooping down and picking off kittens. Saw cats walking around with dieases, mange and open festering wounds from fighting. To boot they stunk up the place badly. No amount of discussion with neighbor would work, not even pointing out how cruel it was to allow litter after litter of kittens to be born when maybe half of them would live.
I finally got a trap and started trapping them. That’s when it was discovered that no one would take them, No vet, not even the animal shelter and there are no rescue organizations around (small town). I finally took them out into the woods for the coyotes to take care of. I told the neighbor what I was doing and that finally got to them. They kept a few cats but they are all in their yard now and domesticated and the feral cat problem is solved
raven
@Vernon Bush: The influx of coyotes has knocked dow the feral cats and groundhogs around here.
pluky
Life is too short for bad pizza, even if it’s free.
lamh36
Tom Perez is in!!!
Pogonip
Betty & Vernon, I feel your pain. We also had a feral-feeding neighbor. The landlord trapped 32 adults and 8 kittens; all but 8 of the adults and all the kittens were caught on our street. I tried to file an animal-cruelty complaint when I found a kitten whose eyes were so badly infected they were dissolving. No go. They’d have to prove the cats belonged to the neighbor and even if they confiscated them all the shelters were full. I couldn’t even shoot the suffering ones like the kitten because you can’t fire off guns in town. In that town, at least, there is no legal way to stop cruelty to cats by the mentally ill.
NotMax
Another minute and a half in the oven and it would have been perfect.
;)
Pogonip
@raven: I used to pray for coyotes to find our neighborhood.
jharp
So what’s worse?
Feral cats or chipmunks?
We get overrun with chipmunks. I think I’d rather have the cats. At least the cats don’t move into your home.
Pogonip
@pluky: We’re sorry our pizza is inedible; here’s a coupon to get some more, free!
Ian
I hope efgoldman shows up to this thread. I once got to witness one of the greatest thread wars ever involving him and a troll and feral cats.
jharp
@Pogonip:
Big fan of the coyote and we have lots of them in Greater Indianapolis. I see them during the day in nice parts of town.
lamh36
Because of course she is…smh
@CNN
Source: Ivanka Trump to have East Wing office
Pogonip
@jharp: I’ve never been overrun with chipmunks, but I’m willing to grant they’re at least as bad as cats.
NotMax
Open thread fun:
Who knew there was such a thing as a slide saxophone? The others in the video are pretty nifty as well.
Yarrow
@SteveinSC: @rikyrah: I love that the DC marching bands aren’t going. And I’m definitely up for any kind of a boycott. I’ve been hiding magazine’s with his face on them. Put them at the bottom of the pile or turn them around. Every little bit helps.
I posted earlier today about how his people have reached out to big name entertainers’ managers and bookers and offering them tons of cash, appointments in the administration and even ambassadorships if they can get their client to perform at the inauguration. So far it sounds like no one is biting.
Heh. Loser Donny. No one likes him. Keep it up.
Pogonip
@Ian: Who was on which side?
Yarrow
@lamh36: She’s going to be his de facto First Lady. I hope people shun her. She deserves no respect. She wasn’t elected to a damn thing.
Pogonip
@jharp: Can I have a few, just in case it ever happens again?
Josie
I used to live next door to a family (the dad was a state representative, no less) that neglected to feed and/or spay their cats. The cats, not being stupid, came over to my house to eat my cats’ food on my covered back porch. So I started taking them, one at a time, to the vet to be fixed. The neighbors never said a word about their cats coming home with shaved tummies and stitches. I always wondered if they even noticed.
NotMax
@Pogonip
Will take chipmunks over skunks any day of the week. Everyone who has ever lived out in the woods has at least one skunk story.
Baud
@lamh36: Remember when the wing nuts were mad that Michele’s mom was staying with them in the White House? Fun times.
raven
@NotMax:
If I had saxophones
Yeah, big baritone cleanin’ up the muddy breaks
If I had saxophones
I could get some recognition from that Mobile, Alabama D.J.
Ian
@Pogonip:
The troll was arguing against a plan to reduce Hawaii’s feral cat problem. Said the people responsible for the feral cats should be shot first. It got pretty epic.
Baud
@Ian: Sounds more interesting than our usual troll fare.
EBT
My dipshit oldest sister was a feral feeder. She and her husband had 25 or so that lived under their house that she named and maybe another hundred that between her and the neighbors that also fed them sort of roamed the incredibly depressed rural suburb (picture that in your head) she lived on.
jharp
@Pogonip:
We also have squirrels. Fox squirrels.
I live in the suburbs but somewhat woodsy.
In one year, with the neighbor boys pellet gun I shot 64 squirrels.
And it really didn’t help. There are more than ever now.
NotMax
@Yarrow
I do not disagree with you in principle, however First Lady is not a position anyone is elected to.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
I love it, the only thing better would be if Howard and the DC high schools had cited travel expenses as the reasons for not applying. The idiot probably would have taken that at face value.
WereBear
Feral colonies are supposed to be maintained to extinction: I know several people who have successfully done so. We need better laws about animal cruelty, but if there is nowhere to put them, even motivated officers are unable to take action.
And I continue to be skeptical about blaming cats hunting for bird depopulation: without cats, rats proliferate and eat the bird eggs and kill far far more, as they discovered on an island where the skua gulls are now threatened because after a “cat cull,” the rat population exploded.
And it’s only the been the last few decades that cats are mostly kept indoors. How is it that, in time past, when every barn was swarming with feral cats and few kept their cats indoors, there was no bird crisis? I can’t figure that one out.
jharp
@NotMax:
Yup. Skunks are the worst.
I remember folks putting out antifreeze to fix the problem. Never did it nor advocating it. Just sharing.
Josie
@jharp: You need my corgi. Duncan is a passionate squirrel hater and would be killer. And he is fast. I have to bang on the sliding glass door before I open it to give the squirrels a running start to the trees before I let him out.
SteveinSC
For a few (no, several) days after the disaster, I was nauseated by the thought of Drumpf in the White House. It still looks like we may see the end of the Republic. I’m in with Michael Moore that there may be violence before the orange-haired orangutan asshole is hanged from a lamp post.
raven
In “A Feast Made for Laughter” Craig Claiborne wrote about the Tamale Man in Indianola who made great tamales until they found hundreds of cat skeletons under his house!
Fester Addams
@rikyrah:
Howard’s should go and then play nothing but Russian music.
Iowa Old Lady
Wind chill of 30 below tonight.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Vernon Bush: The cat lady on my block traps them, has them netured and sets them lose again. That way the fixed cats keep other strays out and thus sustainable kitty population was achieved.
hovercraft
@lamh36:
Because of course she needs to. The Shitgibbon needs her nearby in case it gets the urge:
Pogonip
@NotMax: We had a skunk and we DON’T live in or near the woods! Was just getting ready to call a trapper when it moved on.
Pogonip
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yes, I guess that’s the preferred technique.
Pogonip
@Josie: I’m also a passionate squirrel hater. Give Duncan a goodie for me.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@NotMax:
The fact that the Vietnamese consider skunk meat a deliciously is the only thing keeping suburban California overrun with the things. You don’t have to live in woods to have a skunk story. One of my friends was driven out of their house because of skunks constantly being trapped and dieing under his house.
Josie
@Pogonip: Will do. He will be happy, as he loves food just as passionately as he hates squirrels
Yarrow
@NotMax: This is true, but it is also customary for the president’s spouse to assume the role of First Lady unless she is somehow unable to. Daughters or other female family members have filled in in the past, so it’s not unprecedented. But he’s got a spouse – she’s just refusing to move herself and their son to Washignton, D.C. Every other First Lady has moved and lived in the White House. What’s Melania’s problem? Why can’t she do whatever is required of the First Lady? Why should Ivanka even get office space in the White House? She should have no role in the administration whatsoever, let alone an office in the White House.
Handing out offices and administration roles to your kids is what dictators do. Maybe we should start an ongoing Dictator Watch series. Bringing his kids into his administration should be near the top.
jharp
@Josie:
Really? Corgis can catch and kill squirrels?
So a fence and 2 Corgis and I’m good?
hovercraft
@Pogonip:
I live in Perth Amboy NJ, definitely no where near the woods, but we have all sorts of wild life, deer, skunks, groundhogs, and opossums. Who knew that suburban Jersey had this much wildlife.
WereBear
@Yarrow: The next person who mentions our prospective First Lady will get a faux-enthused, “How about that, the first nude model First Lady!”
Iowa Old Lady
Doesn’t Ivanka have a job of her own? This moving into the First Lady’s office suggests the answer to that is “not really.”
CaseyL
@Yarrow: I really hate to defend anyone anywhere near Trump, but there is precedence for this: Alice Roosevelt served as hostess and de facto First Lady for Teddy Roosevelt, who famously said about her: “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.”
Betty Cracker
@Iowa Old Lady: God. That’s inhuman!
HinTN
@raven: Now that you mention it, I am noticing not too many groundhogs. We are, however, overrun with deer.
Yarrow
@Fester Addams: I want to know if enterprising people are planning to be in the crowd waving Russian flags. Maybe a whole bunch of people with those individual cardboard or plastic sheets that when they’re all held up together form an image – like they do in stadiums at the Olympics or other events. Maybe 100 people could show up and position themselves a certain way and then all hold up their color pieces and it would make the hammer and sickle, the old Soviet flag maybe.
Mary G
@Iowa Old Lady: Brr! Stay warm!
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: Cold enough to kill you.
Major Major Major Major
@Fester Addams: the marching bands should go and wear mourning clothes and not play anything and just shuffle slowly instead of marching.
ETA: @Mary G: @Iowa Old Lady: isn’t wind chill kind of bullshit though?
Yarrow
@CaseyL: See my follow up.
Josie
@jharp: Yup. I have never confessed this to my kids, but he actually did kill one. It was on the other side of the tree and i didn’t see it until it was too late. That’s why I now bang on the door before I open it.
NotMax
@hovercraft
The “Golf Capitol of the U.S.” – despite having no golf courses.
danielx
@Betty Cracker:
In addition to everything else troubling me at the moment…that particular image is going to keep me awake tonight unless I take therapeutic measures.
HinTN
@raven: Now that you mention it, I am noticing not too many groundhogs. We are, however, overrun with deer. @WereBear: We have two “house” cats. They hunt and occasionally get birds. We feed birds. There is no shortage.
debit
Wow, so I guess this is not the place to announce that I bought a heated cat shelter for any feral cats hanging out by my house because I don’t want to think about any animal freezing to death. And a heated water dish so they can have fresh water. Jesus, you guys.
The Pale Scot
@Yarrow:
Nobody, but Nobody who has a great midtown apt and the money to enjoy it willingly moves to DC.
Unless they’re venal power hungry smucks, that is
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Five ferals were born on my property, and I trapped them all, one by one, including a skunk which loved the trap and wouldn’t leave it, LOL. One of the ferals became my beloved Woody, the smartest, sweetest, handsomest cat in the world who just simply wasn’t cut out to live the feral life. The others were too wild, so I made a home for them in my back barn, and fed them for almost 7 years, shoveling out a path for them after every snow storm, and had a heated water bowl which I maintained through some brutal winter weather. One by one they were picked off by whatever – probably coyotes or the fisher cat {shudder} that I saw one night. I still have Woody though and can’t imagine my life without him.
@debit:
co sign
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
Like Uday and Qusay, she is an “executive” at her fathers company. a SVP if I remember correctly. Considering that the family are supposedly “hands on” in the day to day running of the place, and they’ve all been pretty much focused on this latest and biggest scam, running the company seems to not be a real job, either that or they lied and don’t actually do a thing. Maybe because it’s main function is selling the family name, running for office is the same thing? These people didn’t have real jobs, and now their new jobs will be to loot the treasury, and capitalize on their fathers new position.
Oh and we will be a balmy 24 with a real feel of 9, fun times.
Kay
Everyone may have read this already except me, if so I apologize.
Wherein Obama neatly bridges the 2 camps in the Democratic Party:
See that? Easy. Tied it all up with a bow. :)
I’m going to miss having a smart, admirable President. I don’t aspire to Trumpism. I literally think I’m better than Donald Trump. Not his voters so much. Him. I’m better than he is. So are you.
BillinGlendaleCA
@CaseyL: Nope, Edith Roosevelt was the first First Lady to hire a social secretary and maintain an office. She was highly engaged to the position including personally supervising the White House staff. Alice was in her late teens when TR became President and presented “challenges”, hence his quote.
HinTN
@HinTN: Now that is one strange artifact. NOT how the comment(s) went down. Plus, I had to delete this from the start of this one: @debit: Go figure
The Pale Scot
Per dogs and kats.
Any terrier will do. The one I grew up with would lie down and feign sleep in the back of yard. It would take a while but eventually the squirrels would lose track and come down and forage. She’d stay dead like until one came within a foot or two. And the chase was on.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Saw that on Twitter. Nicely said, PBO. And yeah, we are all better than Trump. Even down to the meanest, most boring and contemptible troll. :)
jame
Betty, you could contact Alley Cat Allies. I don’t know if this is anywhere near you.
http://www.alleycat.org/making-change-in-lake-county-florida/
SWMBO
@Josie: When we moved here almost 40 years ago, there were empty lots in the neighborhood that have dice had houses built. We had loads of squirrels, rabbits, foxes and other wildlife. We also live near a municipal airport and down the street from a large park and ball fields. Every time they “upgraded” or built, we had critters fleeing destruction of their habitat. When the poodle figured out how to climb the tree, the number of squirrels dropped precipitously. The dachshunds that followed ran off the rest of them. Dachshunds also hunt mice/rats in the house. They have killed parrots in the yard. The birds land on the grass and hunt for bugs. Next thing you know the dogs come around the corner with green feathers. Dachshunds and corgis have an exaggerated view of their place in the world.
Iowa Old Lady
@Major Major Major Major:
Come and visit and test for yourself!
BillinGlendaleCA
@The Pale Scot: This is why they’re call terrorists. I have a YorkiPom, and she tries(through the fence) the 70 pound dog next door.
debbie
@rikyrah:
The mental image of Ted Nugent playing an Inaugural Ball has me in stitches.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
I am kind of reluctant to mention this, and I’ll dance carefully around it anyhow, but there has been speculation (some compassionate and informed, some just mean-spirited) that there are good reasons not to disrupt young Barron’s routine right now. To the extent there are “sides” to be taken, I am fairly sympathetic to Melania. I hope she can protect her son from most of the ugliness, and if that entails staying in NYC for the time being, I won’t criticize her.
rikyrah
I hope those that tweet push back at POLITICO trying to sell the bullshyt that Twitter wasn’t at Ferret Head’s meeting with tech people over emojis.
It is because TWITTER WOULD NOT GO ALONG WITH THE MUSLIM REGISTRY!!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: I’m waiting for the ShitGibbon to release his college transcripts, it seemed that it was so important for the President to do so(Oh and his taxes). The ShitGibbon keeps on telling us how well he did at Penn, he didn’t graduate with honors; so how about it Donnie?
The Pale Scot
After reading Washington monthly’s piece about Trump and the energy dept. I’ve come to the conclusion that the twit is re-enacting The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. We’re all employees and/or customers of Grot. But I’m doubtful that the homeless alcoholic hired to be CFO is going to have a previously unknown talent for numbers.
PS love the Soviet flag idea. Hope to work some elements of the Russian 42nd International Clambake into it
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: right, which is why you wear clothes. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/recycled/2010/01/wind_chill_blows.html
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
I’m trying to be, but their crazy mother makes it difficult. At least I get a really good discount, which is why I can afford to fly.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
Not to be depressing, but I think those were the pre-spaying days when people would drown newborn kittens to keep the cat population down.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
That’s what we should say at our protests and whatnot It’s not your voters, Mr. Trump. It’s you! Nearly anyone is superior! That guy over there. He looks like he’s nice, at least!
When we said anyone could grow up and be President, we didn’t mean that literally. A few CANNOT. You, for example.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
Trying going outside someplace where it is 10 degrees and still. Then go outside someplace where it is 10 degrees with a 30 mph wind. Get back to us with your results.
Poopyman
Guess this is the post for this.
Poopyman is dead.
The cat I picked up from the bottom of a hill below a feral colony at work when he was two days old in 9/2002 died Saturday from a fast-acting cancer. Since he was only two days old, I of course had to bottle feed the little guy. Turns out that dry-mix formula causes intense constipation in a lot of kittens, and I had to make a stop at the vet’s every 4 or 5 days to unplug him. And so the legend of Poopyman was born.
This is my last post under this nym. I was thinking of switching to Mr. Schitzengiggles (my real name), or maybe Hugh Jassol (my other real name), but it dawned on me that maybe I’m a little too enamored of butt-related names. Maybe I’d better go with something else. Anyway, whatever it is will have an “ex P-man” suffix for a while so y’all know.
I really miss the little guy.
ETA – And of course Cole kills the thread.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I bought the issue today, Kay.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I grew up in Colorado. Wind chill numbers are bullshit. I’ve been in “feels like zero degrees with wind chill” and “actually zero degrees” and the latter is much colder.
rikyrah
@Poopyman:
Sorry for your loss???
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: some still do.
debbie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Wow, you bought yourself some good karma with those cats.
debit
@Poopyman: I am so sorry. I don’t know what else to say, but I am sorry and crying for the loss of your cat.
Mnemosyne
@debit:
Yes, but you’re also the kind of person who will try to trap them so they can be spayed, so you’re probably good except for the extreme cat haters.
I think it was here that somebody said that some vets have been doing kitty vasectomies on male ferals. That way, they keep their instinct to prevent other males from impregnating “their” females but can’t make any new kittens.
Iowa Old Lady
@Poopyman: I’m sorry about the kitty.
debit
@Major Major Major Major: Come to Minnesota. Or better yet, visit Minot North Dakota where there are no trees or hills to cut the wind. Do this in January and then tell me wind chill is bullshit.
debbie
@Kay:
Nice!
Major Major Major Major
@debit: I’m not saying it doesn’t make it colder, I’m saying the numbers are bullshit, especially if you’re, you know. Dressed. “Minus 30 with wind chill” doesn’t equal minus 30, is all I meant.
ETA: unless you’re a bottle of water. It’s like life expectancy, one of those surprisingly useless statistics.
Omnes Omnibus
@Poopyman: Sorry, man.
Iowa Old Lady
@Major Major Major Major: I think there was a report not long ago saying the numbers weren’t accurate. At the temps they’re talking about for tonight, accuracy kind of doesn’t matter. The wind will rip your face off.
debbie
@debit:
A couple of years ago, during the first polar vortex, I had to walk across a very large, flat parking lot at night with wind gusts up to 40 mph and wind chill near 35 below. Wind chill is not a hoax.
Kay
@rikyrah:
The adult children were at that meeting. They’re still ‘doing deals” according to Big Daddy.
I’m telling you it’s gonna take more than “norms” to rein these people in. No boundaries. Rules don’t apply.
No one is the boss of the Trumps. They’ll have to be arrested before they comply with anything. The court better get an army.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
Here they say wind chill is an indication of what “it feels like outside” so I’m sure it’s less than an objective measure.
debit
@Mnemosyne: Well, I’m a sucker. I have a bird feeder for the birds and a squirrel feeder for the squirrels too stupid (or fat) to to get to the bird feeder. I just figure, life is hard enough for every single living thing. They’re just trying to get by and survive. That’s what all of us are trying to do.
SiubhanDuinne
@debit:
Heh. My ex sister-in-law and her husband (both Floridians born and raised) were posted to the Philippines when Gene was in the AF. They loved it, loved the climate, loved the people.
On their next tour, they were sent to Minot AFB for a year or two. It’s been 55 years almost, and I don’t think Elsa has recovered yet.
EBT
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146
SFBayAreaGal
@Poopyman: I am sorry for the loss of your beloved cat.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@debbie:
I would listen to the wind howl some nights and lay in bed worrying about them, and what else I could do for them. They wouldn’t come in, which was my first choice, and my second choice was heating the barn, which wasn’t possible. Then I’d tell myself I didn’t think twice about the squirrels, raccoons, skunks and chipmunks, and try to convince myself that the ferals were just like them.
J R in WV
Regarding feral cats, there may be a group doing capture, spay vaccinate, release in your area on feral cats. All you need is a connection to get the Vet work done and some live traps. Feral cats are usually hungry enough to catch easily.
We don’t have a feral cat problem out here in the deep woods, but friends in cities do, and participate in such a catch and release program. Eventually the volume of cats begins to drop as the number of fertile female cats drops.
Or maybe you’re too far out into the woods, we don’t have a feral cat program in our county… too poor and backward. We’re lucky to have cops busting the child molesters and meth cookers.
debit
@Major Major Major Major: Totally get what you’re saying. I don’t totally agree. When I was biking to work in the winter, I bought a pair of boots rated to -20 F. I wore them over two layers of heavy wool socks (boots were a couple sizes too big for this very purpose) and still had frozen feet after 12 miles. When I bitched at the local bike shop, they said it was windchill. Cold, plus windchill, plus even more windchill from my speed. Same boots and sock combination kept my feet warm and toasty if I walked the same amount of time as my usual commute.
So yeah, the numbers might be off, but even dressing for the weather is not always going to defeat the wind.
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh my god, I had to go there on a tech site visit years ago in January and vowed never again. I don’t know how people live there.
J R in WV
@Poopyman:
Sorry for your loss. These fuzzy little guys can take such a big place in your heart. Glad you have another cat to help you with your loss.
We have a strategy to have two or three cats so that we aren’t alone when we lose one. Plus they are amusing in their competition to be top cat.
Betty Cracker
@Poopyman: Aw, man. That sucks. RIP, Poopyman. ☹️️
Omnes Omnibus
@debit:
Hockey and antifreeze.
Aleta
@Poopyman: Sounds like he was quite a force of nature. Deeply sorry.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
I recommend you visit pretty much anywhere along the northern border in February and try spending 20 minutes shoveling your car out of a snow drift with a nice arctic wind swirling the snow back into your face. Then tell me whether or not it’s bullshit. I disregard the temperature the weather person says it’s going to be, I just want to know what the winds doing, because that makes all the difference.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Poopyman: Sorry to hear, condolences.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
Wind off the ocean is damp and somehow feels colder. It makes your bones feel cold.
hovercraft
@NotMax:
Who knew, I didn’t even though I’ve lived here 13 years.
Miss Bianca
@Poopyman: Ah, sorry to hear about your little bud.
SiubhanDuinne
@Poopyman:
I’m so sorry, Poopyman. I know you’ve been expecting it for a few days, but it’s still an unpleasant and unwelcome shock when the moment comes. You did right by the furry version of your nym, and I hope his passage was a peaceable transition for him.
Again, in the immediate absence of raven, I’ll step forward to share Irving Townsend’s lovely words:
hovercraft
@Kay:
So maybe allowing pictures of their new digs was a mistake, at this rate there will be people lining the sidewalks begging him to come back and make it stop.
I’m so going to miss him, I guess he’s served his time, and earned his life back, but seriously, to go from this man to the Shitgibbon, it’s just too much.
I think I’m better than his voters, sorry it’s true, I am not a fool, I used my eyes, ears and brain, and they led me not to vote for the Shitgibbon, that makes me better than them.
Aleta
@MomSense: Somehow it cuts all the way through any jacket, right off the bat. Other winter winds take skill to survive. Winter wind off the Atlantic feels like surviving is luck.
hovercraft
@Poopyman:
Sorry for your loss.
Kryptik
I dunno who might have been keeping track, but the North Carolina GOP called a “special session” and are essentially trying to take a legislative coup in order to render any power incoming Gov. Cooper might have utterly null and void.
Read here, then follow the various twitter links for the full list. One of them will ‘alternate’ control of the election board, with essentially the GOP chairing the board on all even years, a.k.a. all congressional/presidential election years.
Aleta
hovercraft
@Kay:
THIS.
These people have no respect for norms or precedent. The new emperor will do as he pleases, he is now the ruler of the world. Since no one is his boss, fuck anyone who questions him, just shut up.
gogol's wife
@Poopyman:
I’m so sorry about your cat. It is very painful to lose a friend like that.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
There’s a reason I moved from Chicago to California as soon as I graduated from high school, and it wasn’t the city. It was the fucking winters. It doesn’t get nearly as cold in CO as it does in IL or MN.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I like winter.
Mnemosyne
@Poopyman:
I’m so sorry. We lost our cat Natasha to cancer and it really, really sucked.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
My family has banned me from visiting them in IL during the winter. I take cold weather very personally.
Yarrow
@hovercraft: This is how dictators behave. No one is the boss of them. So just in this thread alone:
Trump as Dictator Watch:
1. Children get jobs or roles in government
2. Won’t follow norms or precedent
Yarrow
@Poopyman: So sorry for your loss.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: My dad ice fishes and rings the Salvation Army bell. We’re a bit nuts.
@Mnemosyne:
One has noticed.
Mnemosyne
@EBT:
In a way, I almost can’t be mad at Putin. He doesn’t have any responsibility to us. There’s no reason for him to prop up American democracy.
I’m pissed at all of the Americans who helped him do this, wittingly or unwittingly, and all of the American politicians that are saying, Hey, as long as I get to kill Social Security, I don’t care who runs the country! and the MSM that only cares about ratings and, gosh, having Putin’s puppet running the country is going to be great for ratings.
bmoak
@hovercraft:
For “these people” not respecting any rules or norms, read: Republicans, as per the shenanigans in North Carolina.
Yarrow
@efgoldman: That rumor went away for a bit and then popped up again a day or two ago. I think Trump mentioned it – that they’re trying to find ways to get them clearances. Or some jobs in the government. I thought that was illegal. Something about a law was passed after JFK hired RFK or something? Can’t hire family members.
They are crossing all sorts of lines. The kids should be out of all the talks. They should be off running whatever the businesses are and leave daddy to do the presidenting.
Kay
@hovercraft:
But Trump relies on other people respecting norms and rules. That’s his edge. You do, he doesn’t. Advantage: him.
The contractors he stiffed held up their end- they painted the hotel rooms or put in the sinks. He can rely on that- most people will do the work they agreed to do and you don’t have to sue them to get them to do it. Then when it comes time to pay them Trump doesn’t follow the rules. Advantage: Trump.
The only way to deal with a person like that is to get as far away from them as you can, but we can’t do that- we’re stuck with him. That calls for doing some norm-flouting ourselves. Otherwise he’s enjoying the benefits and protection of norms he doesn’t recognize or adhere to.
SWMBO
@Poopyman: Heartfelt condolences. Still, for a 2 day old rescue, he had a good run. And we can tell he brought you joy. Peace and comfort to you.
SWMBO
@Omnes Omnibus: Are you whacked out on pain meds? j/k. I’ve lived in the subtropics for over 38 years. It thins the blood and winter is a lot harsher when you get old enough to cast out on an ice floe.
catbirdman
I’m sure you know the astounding toll feral cats take on our feathered friends.