Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving up is unforgivable.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

We will not go back.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Books are my comfort food!

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

Mid Day Open Thread

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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!

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    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)

    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

    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.

  11. 11.

    Humdog

    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!

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    @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

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

  19. 19.

    Botsplainer

    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.

  22. 22.

    HeleninEire

    @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

    @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

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @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!

  27. 27.

    Botsplainer

    @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

    @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.

  32. 32.

    HRA

    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

    @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).

  35. 35.

    HeleninEire

    @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!

  37. 37.

    raven

    @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.

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    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.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @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!

  50. 50.

    jeffreyw

    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?

  53. 53.

    HeleninEire

    @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.

  55. 55.

    gogol's wife

    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

    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?

  61. 61.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @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

    @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!

  64. 64.

    gogol's wife

    @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.

  67. 67.

    hovercraft

    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.

  69. 69.

    raven

    @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

    @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?

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @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.)

  77. 77.

    EBT

    @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

    @raven:

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

  81. 81.

    raven

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

  83. 83.

    liberal

    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.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    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!

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    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.

    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)

    @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

    @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

    @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

    @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

    @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.

  113. 113.

    StringOnAStick

    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

    @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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