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You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Mid Day Open Thread

Mid Day Open Thread

by John Cole|  December 17, 20162:40 pm| 114 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging

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Everyone say hi to Xubi!

xubi

Xubi, which is short for her full name Exuberance, is my carpenter/handyman’s border collie, and she’s such an awesome dog I just thought I would write about her a bit. Every day when I go over to the new house, Xubi is there to greet me. She’s another rescue- Dean found her half starved, and she adopted him, and they get along likes peas and carrots.

She’s a bit of a mystery girl. She was trained, because Dean (her dad and BFF) is always finding new things she can do. She can sit, lie down, I discovered she will give you her paw, and if you stick your arm out with your elbow to your side, she will stand up and put her paws on your arm instead of jumping on you.

She likes balls, frisbees, treats, chew toys, long car rides, barking at cows, horses, and deer, and is generally a sweet girl. She’s also a real trooper when it comes to home renovation, and will stay there all day long without complaint. Last week she went on a long ride with me and then I took her home and gave her a good bath, because a lady needs a good day at the spa after several weeks of rolling around in sawdust. She was very well behaved and likes having in between her toes cleaned.

She’s a very good doggie, and I am sure would love you very much. In fact, let’s call today Xubi appreciation day, because she deserves it!

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Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    NR

    December 17, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    Very nice!

  2. 2.

    Это курам на смех

    December 17, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    Thanks, Obama.

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    December 17, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    She is lovely ????

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 17, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    Xubi sounds like one heck of a dog!

  5. 5.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 17, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    Wow, this thread died early.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    December 17, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    Xubi

    Godless liberals are taking the Christ out of Christubi

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    December 17, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    I took Keaton and Charlotte to the Cat House the morning to get their nails trimmed while the cleaning people did their thing. Today’s groomer wrapped Keaton up in a blanket burrito-style, which Keaton seems to feel injured his Dignity. Because cats are all about their Dignity, especially if you catch then looking foolish.

  8. 8.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    December 17, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    Is there any local media response (editorials) in North Carolina to the latest Republican assholery? I’m in CA and don’t have TV, and I haven’t encountered much online. Is the media recognizing the utter lack of honor among those vile people (most of whom, I’m guessing, are aged white church-goin’ males)?

  9. 9.

    Botsplainer

    December 17, 2016 at 2:55 pm

    Was it mean of me to want to heckle the carolers singing in the sporting apparel store? It wasn’t that they were bad, it was they were dragging Jesus shit into it.

  10. 10.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 17, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    @Baud: Obama’s Christubi card just had pictures of lots of different happy dogs on it!

  11. 11.

    Humdog

    December 17, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    Likes to be washed between the toes?
    My Peanut likes to lay down flat when I bathe her. I suppose she gets a good soak but it makes it hard to scrub her belly and legs. Silly Nut!

  12. 12.

    MomSense

    December 17, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    Aww Xubi is a gorgeous girl.

  13. 13.

    MomSense

    December 17, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    I have nothing against Jesus. It’s the people who ignore every one of his teachings in his name who I find deplorable.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    December 17, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: That would be the best card ever.

  15. 15.

    Yoda Dog

    December 17, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): Im here in Raleigh.

    Short answer: NOPE!

    Longer form: It is being covered extensively but the necessary outrage is conspicuously and consistently missing in action, IMO.

  16. 16.

    Yoda Dog

    December 17, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    Xubi looks cool as shit. What a great name for a dog.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    December 17, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    @Yoda Dog:

    “Just win, baby,” has been the Republican motto since at least 2000. At this point, I suspect that the thrill of getting away with openly cheating is half the reason they do it. They’re like teenagers trying to figure out where Mom and Dad’s boundaries are, only to discover that there are no boundaries and they can get away with anything.

  18. 18.

    Gravenstone

    December 17, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    First thought on seeing the post and initial sentence – Cole adopted another one! Thanks for sharing Xubi.

  19. 19.

    Botsplainer

    December 17, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    They came into the big assed “Warehouse of Wine and Everything That Can Be Guzzled in Order to Make Christmas Tolerable” and got run out.

  20. 20.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 17, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    I was just concerned about the possibility of John using that staple gun.

  21. 21.

    Yoda Dog

    December 17, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    @Mnemosyne: It is fucking chilling to watch them pull this shit up close. And they’re getting away with it.

  22. 22.

    HeleninEire

    December 17, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    @MomSense: Answered you last thread. Sorry for the delay. Was walking home. You can go back as far as your grandparents, but your parents (born in the USA) had to have done it. So, your parent becomes a citizen via their parents, and then you become a citizen via your parents.

    That said, there is a thing called “registering your foreign birth in Ireland” that allows you to skip the requirement that your parents did it. I don’t know much about that but I think it is a way around the rule that your parents had to do it.

  23. 23.

    Jack the Cold Warrior

    December 17, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): oh my yes, the decent progressive newspapers are all over this unholy crap the R legislature is pulling. NC is NOT a crazy Deep South state like AL or MS. We have many islands of Deep Blue, Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill, the research Triangle, Charlotte, Asheville, even my small college town of Salisbury.

    But the loss of so many manufacturing jobs/factories in the late 90’s and 00’s have hurt wide swaths of the semi-rural parts of the state, that, plus radical gerrymandering has tilted the Legislature intensely R. And these guys are bastards.

    Here’s a good example of the editorializing:

    http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article121213498.html

  24. 24.

    Emma

    December 17, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    What a gorgeous girl!

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    @Gravenstone:

    First thought on seeing the post and initial sentence – Cole adopted another one!

    Me too! And I’m sure we weren’t the only ones!

  26. 26.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 3:28 pm

    Arf!

  27. 27.

    Botsplainer

    December 17, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @MomSense:

    I’m done with Jesus. As a deity, It is a fucking asshole; as a philosopher, clearly his discipline isn’t, given the bastardization.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I was just concerned about the possibility of John using that staple gun.

    My mother once managed to staple her nipple to a door while she was installing a new screen. One can only imagine what Johnbits might get in the way.

  29. 29.

    HeleninEire

    December 17, 2016 at 3:32 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: No. Way. Oh. My. God.

  30. 30.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @HeleninEire: I guess I’m too far gone?

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 17, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: A story you didn’t absolutely need to share with us.

  32. 32.

    HRA

    December 17, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    Xubi is an amazing name for an amazing dog.

    I have an amazing Tiki a mixed Shih-Tzu. He is not my 1st dog ever. He is very different in that once in a very great while he garbles as if he is trying to speak and you can tell he is complaining. Also I do talk to him and he listens intently. Anyone ever have a like experience with their pet?

  33. 33.

    Mike in NC

    December 17, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @Jack the Cold Warrior: This latest round of NCGOP assholery will definitely be fought in the courts by Governor Cooper and Atty Gen Stein (who was attacked during the election as basically being the liberal son of a rich Jew).

  34. 34.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 17, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    My mother once managed to staple her nipple to a door while she was installing a new screen.

    Ouch! I kind of know how that feels.

  35. 35.

    HeleninEire

    December 17, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    @raven: Prolly. Besides, you love where you are. Especially since the MuthaFking house extension is finally done. You’re gonna leave that? I don’t think so!

  36. 36.

    lamh36

    December 17, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    Open thread…okay then..


    “A MAN WITH A GUN TRIED TO ROB A SEX TOY SHOP AND THE EMPLOYEES THREW DILDOS AT HIM AND THERE’S VIDEO MERRY CHRISTMAS”

    Oh my…??

  37. 37.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    @HeleninEire: Especially with the reverse mortgage we took! It’s basically a “we’re a stayin”! My bride and her friend are decorating so I’m watching football in the addition and watching the varmints jump from tree-to-tree. Our windows look right into the tops of some tall pines so it’s a fun view.

  38. 38.

    lamh36

    December 17, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    My uncle turned my aunt’s “family room” into his own man cave…complete with 2 pics of the Obama family of course!??????

    Man Cave

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    December 17, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    Sitting here washing clothes at my auntie house and bout to tear into these white beans she made??
    #SoulFood

  40. 40.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    Ooops, too big! Maybe this is better

    https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/521/30864906624_15e9354981_c.jpg

    Damn, showing up huge on my machine, so much that you have to push it to the right to see all the windows!

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    December 17, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    I saw the staple gun box and said, wow the floors are going in already! Xubi looks like a very good girl and it cracks me up that John gave her a bath. He is such a carer under that grumpy exterior.

  42. 42.

    rikyrah

    December 17, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    @lamh36:
    delicious ??

  43. 43.

    HeleninEire

    December 17, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    @raven: Woulda been better without the foot; but AWESOME.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I’ve actually shared it before and never got a reaction to the best of my recollection.

    @HeleninEire:

    She must have been in fairly severe pain, but when she called the doctor she was laughing so hard she could hardly describe what was wrong. She did get the absurdity of it!

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    December 17, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @lamh36: Needs more Saints stuff.

    ;-D

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @HeleninEire: Smaller?

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Ouch! I kind of know how that feels.

    Do tell.

  48. 48.

    Yoda Dog

    December 17, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @lamh36: Nice! WHO DAT!?? OBAMA!!! Love it.

  49. 49.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    @efgoldman: The make nice yuppy condos now.

    FULTON COTTON MILL LOFTS

    There is actually a project in the work to made loft out of a mill about 3 blocks away from us. I’m glad it’s separated by the RR Tracks with no crossover at our street.

  50. 50.

    jeffreyw

    December 17, 2016 at 3:59 pm

    I was at Kroger the other day and walked by a group of employees getting some kind of a pep talk from a lady I’ve not seen in there before. Must be from corporate human resources. A few minutes later I pushed a cart by there again as she was winding down and she turned and greeted me with a big smile and asked was I stocking up for the Christmas celebrations. I told her we didn’t celebrate Christmas, in fact, I told her, I burned down a decorated tree that I thought was tacky. I said it was very satisfying but that the apartment management didn’t renew my lease so I was kinda of needing a place to stay and asked if she live around here?

  51. 51.

    EBT

    December 17, 2016 at 3:59 pm

    @lamh36: Now you see why Texas banned sex toys. Us kinky liberals would be too well armed for them to ever fend off otherwise.

  52. 52.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 17, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: I have some piercings.

  53. 53.

    HeleninEire

    December 17, 2016 at 4:01 pm

    @lamh36: There’s a sex shop right down the street from me. The advertise proudly “A shop for women run by women.” That shit used to be mega illegal here only 25 years ago. Amazing what the 1993 re-writing of the constitution did.

  54. 54.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @jeffreyw: Damn Bubba!

  55. 55.

    gogol's wife

    December 17, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    So sweet. I love it when workmen bring their doggehs. When they were building our garage, this one carpenter got stuck in the breezeway leafing through the Balloon Juice calendar for half an hour.

  56. 56.

    JaneE

    December 17, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    a lady needs a good day at the spa after several weeks of rolling around in sawdust

    So how long after the bath did she roll in sawdust again?

  57. 57.

    Shell

    December 17, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    Cole, you unrepentant old softie, you!

  58. 58.

    Another Scott

    December 17, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @jeffreyw: rofl. :-) Your Santa beard may have confused her.

    :-D

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    gogol's wife

    December 17, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    @lamh36:

    I’m coming over! That looks like a fun place to be.

  60. 60.

    gogol's wife

    December 17, 2016 at 4:06 pm

    @raven:

    That also looks like a fun place to be!

  61. 61.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    You know, I never made the connection before, but it’s possible that my having witnessed my mother’s experience was a major subconscious factor in my needlephobia (which includes no piercings, not even for earrings).

  62. 62.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:10 pm

    @gogol’s wife: Except it is 4pm and Lil Bit is trying to leap off the bed and go to the dog food bow. The bed is too high and I don’t want the stinker to get hurt so we’s a rasslin right now!

  63. 63.

    Van Buren

    December 17, 2016 at 4:11 pm

    My dogs never look that alert unless I am holding meat just off the grill.

  64. 64.

    gogol's wife

    December 17, 2016 at 4:11 pm

    @raven:

    I finally had to barricade my cat out of the bedroom last night. It broke my heart, but he’s gotten so antsy at night that we can’t get any sleep.

  65. 65.

    debbie

    December 17, 2016 at 4:13 pm

    @Yoda Dog:

    No talk of a lawsuit?

  66. 66.

    Miss Bianca

    December 17, 2016 at 4:14 pm

    @jeffreyw: What happened to the lady’s big smile as you embarked on this saga?

    “You’re a mean one…Mr. Grinch…”

  67. 67.

    hovercraft

    December 17, 2016 at 4:14 pm

    What an adorable dog, she looks very lively.

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    My mother once managed to staple her nipple to a door while she was installing a new screen. One can only imagine what Johnbits might get in the way.

    Was she drunk? I can’t imagine the pain, the embarrassment. As for our blog master, the possibilities are endless, toes stapled to the floor, fingers attached to banisters, it would be outlandish and an only John Cole could manage to do this story. That is why we love him, he brightens our days with his stories, and we can all say to ourselves thank god it was him and not me. Sorry John.

  68. 68.

    hovercraft

    December 17, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Ouch! I kind of know how that feels.

    Do tell, you can’t just leave that hanging out there, must have details.
    @Gin & Tonic:
    Obviously I disagree.

  69. 69.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    @gogol’s wife: For a year Lil Bit would wait until we fell asleep and then scratch like mad so I’d give her her cookie(s) and then put her on the floor and she’d go to her doggie bed. All of the sudden she stopped scratching so she gets to stay. It’s really good except that she hurls abut once a week!

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    December 17, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    @Yoda Dog:

    It is fucking chilling to watch them pull this shit up close. And they’re getting away with it.

    Will there be lawsuits?

    I’ve said that nationally, the GOP acts as though they are the sole legitimate government of the United States. They seem to be pulling this same stunt in NC, the people be damned.

    How close was the gubernatorial election? Has the reaction of average citizens been covered?

  71. 71.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:23 pm

    @efgoldman: Bass Lofts in Little 5 in the ATL is the one I like. They converted an old school and left the markings and hoops from the gym in some of the units!

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    @hovercraft:

    Was she drunk?

    No, not at all. She was a heavy woman and had large, pendulous breasts. For reasons I don’t know, she wasn’t wearing a bra that day. Somehow her left breast got loose from her sundress while she was doing some kind of manoeuvre with her body and left arm to keep the screening taut against the door as she stapled with her right hand.

    (In those days nobody in my family drank at home, except for a small sip of Cherry Heering or Kahlua on Christmas.)

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    December 17, 2016 at 4:26 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Oh my!

  74. 74.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: OOO, “manoeuvre”!

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    December 17, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @EBT:

    Now you see why Texas banned sex toys

    There’s no right to bare arm restraints in Texas?

  76. 76.

    Central Planning

    December 17, 2016 at 4:29 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: her nipple or stapling one to a door?

  77. 77.

    EBT

    December 17, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    @hovercraft: It’s a gloriously intense half second followed by an endorphin rush you can swim in for a while. They stay sore for a few hours after.
    @Brachiator: Well if you hunt, maybe you can have bear arm restraints.

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    @raven:

    My keyboard is set to UK/Canadian spelling. Sometimes I manually override it, sometimes I just go with the pomposity!

  79. 79.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: I think it’s swell!

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 4:34 pm

    @raven:

    ?

  81. 81.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    In more weather weirdness the temperature has been rising all day and will continue to do so throughout the night!

  82. 82.

    Iowa Old Lady

    December 17, 2016 at 4:39 pm

    I am holding my hand up to cover my screen over any post that includes both “nipple” and “staple.”

  83. 83.

    liberal

    December 17, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    Trump has picked a far right nutjob budget hawk to be his head of OMB.

    Awesome. The resulting fiscal contraction will hasten the recession we’re overdue for.

    It’s great to see him fucking himself so hard.

    Main thing is we need to make the Republican scum own it so we can smash as many at the ballot box as possible.

  84. 84.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:46 pm

    “The irony of it all, losing the Celebration Bowl because of an excessive celebration.”

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 4:47 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    You must hate the word “stipple.”

  86. 86.

    Baud

    December 17, 2016 at 4:49 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Too afraid to google.

  87. 87.

    Chris T.

    December 17, 2016 at 4:49 pm

    @Baud: No, no, no, you’ve got it wrong. It’s Godless conservatives taking the Christ out of ChristmaChrist!

  88. 88.

    hovercraft

    December 17, 2016 at 4:50 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    That is so funny, note to self, do not staple sans bra, the explanation to the ER or doctor will be hysterical.

  89. 89.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:51 pm

    @efgoldman: If they don’t play hard they have no business out there.

  90. 90.

    raven

    December 17, 2016 at 4:51 pm

    @hovercraft: A bra ain’t stopping no staple.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    December 17, 2016 at 4:52 pm

    @Chris T.:

    Jingle Christ, Jingle Christ, Jingle all the way.

  92. 92.

    bjacques

    December 17, 2016 at 4:54 pm

    Xubi doo! Or, in her (doggo) language, Rubi roo!

  93. 93.

    Patricia Kayden

    December 17, 2016 at 4:59 pm

    Xubi is a sweetie pie. Too cute.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    December 17, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    What a sweet doggy tale. Every border collie I’ve been around has been smart as a whip, but flighty and nippy. Xubi has the best of their traits without those other things–nice!

  95. 95.

    Aleta

    December 17, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    @HeleninEire: I hope Ireland is magical for you right now. And thanks very much for the reference earlier. Very kind of you.

  96. 96.

    lamh36

    December 17, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    @Another Scott: lol..my uncle loves his Saints and Lakers since as long as I’ve been alive his been a Lakers fan.

    Along with the Steelers and the Yankees

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 17, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    For all those too freaked out over a little stapled nipple, I give you Scrotum Self Repair:

    One morning I was called to the emergency room by the head ER nurse. She directed me to a patient who had refused to describe his problem other than to say that he “needed a doctor who took care of men’s troubles.” The patient, about 40, was pale, febrile, and obviously uncomfortable, and had little to say as he gingerly opened his trousers to expose a bit of angry red and black-and-blue scrotal skin.

    After I asked the nurse to leave us, the patient permitted me to remove his trousers, shorts, and two or three yards of foul-smelling stained gauze wrapped about his scrotum, which was swollen to twice the size of a grapefruit and extremely tender. A jagged zig-zag laceration, oozing pus and blood, extended down the left scrotum.

    Amid the matted hair, edematous skin, and various exudates, I saw some half-buried dark linear objects and asked the patient what they were. Several days earlier, he replied, he had injured himself in the machine shop where he worked, and had closed the laceration himself with a heavy-duty stapling gun. The dark objects were one-inch staple of the type used in putting up wallboard.

    We x-rayed the patient’s scrotum to locate the staples; admitted him to the hospital; and gave him tetanus antitoxin, broad-spectrum antibacterial therapy, and hexachlorophene sitz baths prior to surgery the next morning. The procedure consisted of exploration and debridement of the left side of the scrotal pouch. Eight rusty staples were retrieved, and the skin edges were trimmed and freshened. The left testis had been avulsed and was missing. The stump of the spermatic cord was recovered at the inguinal canal, debrided, and the vessels ligated properly, though not much of a hematoma was present. Through-and-through Penrose drains were sutured loosely in site, and the skin was loosely closed.

    Convalescence was uneventful, and before his release from the hospital less than a week later, the patient confided the rest of his story to me. An unmarried loner, he usually didn’t leave the machine shop at lunchtime with his co-workers. Finding himself alone, he had begun the regular practice of masturbating by holding his penis against the canvas drive-belt of a large floor-based piece of running machinery. One day, as he approached orgasm, he lost his concentration and leaned too close to the belt. When his scrotum suddenly became caught between the pulley-wheel and the drive-belt, he was thrown into the air and landed a few feet away. Unaware that he had lost his left testis, and perhaps too stunned to feel much pain, he stapled the wound closed and resumed work. I can only assume he abandoned this method of self-gratification.

    Snopes says TRUE.

  98. 98.

    J.

    December 17, 2016 at 5:11 pm

    You should write personal ads for dogs, John Cole. Better yet, start a doggy matchmaking site. Now if we could only find a good name for it…. Suggestions, Balloon Juicers?

  99. 99.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    December 17, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    @raven: That’s for sure but, ideally, it might corral the potential target out of the staple’s way.

    How is the wrist of the Princess? She is not overdoing the decorating, I hope. An assistant sounds like a good plan is in operation.

    Thanks for the news about Colburn. I’d forgotten how young they were. I’ll have to read The Things They Carried again. I was struck by how solemn Tim O’Brien is in person; he was a guest at our college fiction festival a few years after Going After Cacciato. Don DeLillo was also there, and he was quiet – but soft spoken as opposed to solemn. I don’t remember much about Donald Barthelme except I think he was the most personable of the bunch and kinda comical. We were so naive – we thought these were just “authors who’d come talk to a bunch of English majors and grad students.”

  100. 100.

    hovercraft

    December 17, 2016 at 5:18 pm

    @raven:

    A bra ain’t stopping no staple.

    True, but it will keep those pesky pendulous breasts where they belong, out of the way of staples.

    ETA
    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
    Great minds think alike.

  101. 101.

    liberal

    December 17, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    @efgoldman: no. But among the spectrum of right-wing douchebags it wasn’t exactly clear.

    Watching him put the noose around his own neck is teh fucking awesome.

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    December 17, 2016 at 5:31 pm

    @Chris T.: Truth. :-)

    The word Christ is too much like fnord to too many “Christians” these days. He and his name are invisible to them – so they have to keep screaming that he’s been “pushed out of America”, or something.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 5:42 pm

    @raven:

    A bra ain’t stopping no staple.

    True enough, but it would have kept her boob inside her dress instead of allowing it to cut loose from its moorings.

    ETA: As Bella Q and hovercraft both noted.

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 17, 2016 at 5:49 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Okay, that made my knees clench and I don’t have a scrotum.

  105. 105.

    Skepticat

    December 17, 2016 at 5:57 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’d be surprised if any of us had a different first thought–besides “Awwwww,” that is.

  106. 106.

    jeffreyw

    December 17, 2016 at 6:00 pm

    @Miss Bianca: She faded out like the Cheshire Cat, there one second and then… gone.

  107. 107.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    December 17, 2016 at 6:18 pm

    @Baud:

    Perfectly cromulent painting technique.

  108. 108.

    stinger

    December 17, 2016 at 6:26 pm

    Hi, Xubi!

  109. 109.

    Frank Wilhoit

    December 17, 2016 at 7:24 pm

    Every dog should be photographed next to a nail gun.

  110. 110.

    laura

    December 17, 2016 at 7:28 pm

    Xubi Doobie Doo!

  111. 111.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    December 17, 2016 at 8:20 pm

    Is Steve okay? Last I heard he disappeared into the night to hunt vampires or some such.

  112. 112.

    Gvg

    December 17, 2016 at 8:30 pm

    @PaulWartenberg2016: turns out Steve was never missing. He just hadn’t felt like coming when called. He was in the house.

  113. 113.

    StringOnAStick

    December 17, 2016 at 10:16 pm

    Border Collies tend to be self cleaning; I went on a river trip with one on an extremely muddy river and after she dried off, she was brilliant white. The rest of us were silty and smelly.

  114. 114.

    Jack the Cold Warrior

    December 18, 2016 at 3:16 am

    @Mike in NC: Good! Glad to have Gov Cooper and AG Stein fighting the good fight. Well and our neighbors need to complain to the legislators about this unholy mess. And write letters to the editors of our newspapers.

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