Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

We still have time to mess this up!

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The willow is too close to the house.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

In my day, never was longer.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Bark louder, little dog.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: It’s Been A Weird Day

Open Thread: It’s Been A Weird Day

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Miss Moose, from a quieter moment this past weekend.

It has been one of the weirder days in my life…and that’s saying something. I found out some information that really shook me up for a while today. But as the day has worn on and friends/family have weighed in and after a long walk with the dogs on a beautiful, cool night, my head was back on straight.

I was wrapping my night up, thinking, hey a hot bath would be great, when the dogs started to go crazy. I look out and there is a car parked up on my sidewalk and a cop car, lights flashing behind it (none of which I heard, btw) …long story short, I spoke with the officer, who wanted to know if  I recognized the car (nope) and told me it had been in a high speed chase, rammed a cop car and ended up here.

And by here, I mean in the least likely place ever – no one drives down my street unless they live here…hell, I’d been house  hunting for a year and a half and didn’t even know this neighborhood existed until I looked at this house.

So…like I said…weird.

The driver is now roaming the ‘hood. They are here with the K9 officers, which of course is making my K9 team crazy. It’s gonna be a long night.

You know when I wish for excitement in my life, I’m thinking jet plane to Paris, dinner and an evening walk along the beach in Santa Monica, maybe the occasional bear or mountain lion sighting. You know, fun stuff.

How is your night progressing?

Reader Interactions

70Comments

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    @MobiusKlein:
    It’s probably not just teenage defiance. Their body clocks are not wired like an adult’s. They tend to get sleepy later than adults do, and to rise later in the morning.

  14. 14.

    seaboogie

    @jl: Joyful inter-species animal play is a real balm for my soul – and I’ve been indulging in it mightily of late. Also goats – they are so wonderfully goat-y.

    Sorry about your drama, TaMara – hope it all gets resolved soon. My current neighborhood is quieter now since I moved away from what my landlady called “the murder house” across the road. I think she was a bit over-dramatic: Elderly wife attacked her bedridden super-fat husband in bed with a knife, and he shot her dead. Next time there was a drama there, it was because a mountain lion was under their house. Heh.

    ETA: And yet, and still – I do not lock my door at night. Never have since I’ve been here, and will not start anytime soon.

  15. 15.

    seaboogie

    @Major Major Major Major: Stanley Park. Granville Island is fun and sort of quaint. Kitsilano is a great neighborhood. But get on a ferry to Saltspring Island – or do the the Vancouver Island thing. Used to live there – loved the Vancouver Island ferry to Victoria, and then drove to Tofino (a full day’s trip).

    Last time I did that was with my late great Seamus (of nym fame) with my late husband’s ashes, to disperse them on Longbeach in Tofino. It’s busy this time of year with whale watching and all. Winter is best, assuming you are waterproof. Wickanninish Inn provides rain gear and flashlights, along with awesome chow.

  17. 17.

    seaboogie

    @seaboogie: Oh dear. My last comment is “awaiting moderation”. No links. No penis casino. WP – has it been this long since you’ve been laid?

  21. 21.

    Mel

    @Major Major Major Major: If you are feeling outdoorsy, checking out the gorgeous views from Lighthouse Park would be worth it. Point Atkinson Lighthouse is within hiking distance.

    Brockton Point Lighthouse in Stanley Park is really cool. It was designed by the same architect (Thomas Mawson) who did the Peace Palace Gardens at The Hague.

    Horne Lake Caves on Vancouver Island are worth a look, as well. There are guided tours available.

    Vancouver Art Gallery is a good place to spend a quiet afternoon. One of my former students saw the Monet exhibition that is there through this Fall, and said it was breathtaking.

  22. 22.

    Origuy

    @Major Major Major Major: That’s Stanley Park by the Lions Gate Bridge, right? I was staying on the other side a few years ago and wanted to see how long it was to walk to the park across the bridge. I brought up Google Maps, but it kept sending me across on a ferry. I realized that Google didn’t have the bridge as being walkable. I emailed them and they replied that they’d check it out. A few months later I got an email saying that they’d corrected it.

    Check out the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Colombia. They have a great collection of First Nations art, including one of my favorite sculptures anywhere, Bill Reid’s The Raven and the First Men. There’s apparently a Bill Reid Gallery, but I haven’t made it there.

  23. 23.

    seaboogie

    New news: Mnuchin and spouse viewed the eclipse from the roof of Ft. Knox. Without further comment. But have away at it.

  24. 24.

    jl

    @seaboogie: I posted that video as a warning. What next an owl and a pussy-cat!?

    Distraction: Cat and owl become friends
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK9KfeleYkA

    The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
    BY EDWARD LEAR
    I
    The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
    In a beautiful pea-green boat,
    They took some honey, and plenty of money,
    Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
    The Owl looked up to the stars above,
    And sang to a small guitar,
    “O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
    What a beautiful Pussy you are,
    You are,
    You are!
    What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

    II
    Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
    How charmingly sweet you sing!
    O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
    But what shall we do for a ring?”

  25. 25.

    jl

    Oh for God’s sake. in moderation. I wonder why? Let’s see.
    @seaboogie:
    I posted that video as a warning. What next an owl and a p***y-cat!?

    Distraction: Cat and owl become friends
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK9KfeleYkA

    The Owl and the P _ s s y-Cat
    BY EDWARD LEAR
    I
    The Owl and the P****-cat went to sea
    In a beautiful pea-green boat,
    They took some honey, and plenty of money,
    Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
    The Owl looked up to the stars above,
    And sang to a small guitar,
    “O lovely P___y! O P___y, my love,
    What a beautiful P???y you are,
    You are,
    You are!
    What a beautiful P s s y you are!”

    II
    P * * * y said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
    How charmingly sweet you sing!
    O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
    But what shall we do for a ring?”

  26. 26.

    Gin & Tonic

    @seaboogie: I was flying home from Europe yesterday (which explains why I’m up at this ungodly hour) and watched two movies during the flight. My enjoyment of them, such as it was, was tempered by seeing that both listed a Steven Mnuchin as executive producer.

  27. 27.

    Gin & Tonic

    @jl: Yes, the alternate word for a house cat does indeed trip the spam filter. I’ve found it challenging when referring to the female punk/activist group from Moscow, as their name sometimes is in the URL of a link discussing them, and you can’t even use the word in a URL (where editing it renders it useless.)

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Amir Khalid: This was not high-brow cinema. Ben Affleck’s The Accountant, formulaic, and telegraphed its denoument in 6-foot-high letters for most of its duration, and (pace long-missing commenter redshirt, who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it for what seemed like months) Mad Max: Fury Road, which is, IMO, not a masterpiece of 21st Century American cinema. I was this close to shutting the damn thing off, but on an 8-hour flight you need mindless entertainment, and it certainly did not require the engagement of more than one synapse.

  32. 32.

    seaboogie

    @jl: Ruv. I wrote a really nifty poem about a sn*ke that is rather *wl and p**ssy cat-ish. M*ght post it somet*me.

  36. 36.

    seaboogie

    @Gin & Tonic: Eww. His first problem is that his name is Steve Mnuchin. And then – to add insult to injury – he looks like a guy who would be named Steve Mnuchin. Finally, he is exactly who you’d think a guy named Steve Mnuchin would be. It’s an unsurmountable handicap.

  37. 37.

    Mel

    @Quinerly: Crud!! Links are just not functioning for me! Check out Susan Tedeschi’s cover of “Angel From Montgomery”. It wows me every time I hear it.

  40. 40.

    BruceFromOhio

    @MobiusKlein: Holy smokes, I got it too, and my teen years are long gone.

    Went to bed at 11:30, and laid there for two hours trying not to wake MrsFromOhio, who starts class at the high school at 7:15am. Still wide awake at 3am after a full day, and have to be at work at 8:30. WTF? It’s like an all-nighter from the bad old college days, without the caffeine overdose or paper due in the morning.

    Glad its Friday, and very glad TaMara did not get introduced to the driver of mystery car…

  51. 51.

    seaboogie

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Depending on who she is and how she is, checking out the Empress Hotel is not the worst thing she could do. Venerable old CP hotel (now all Fairmonts). I had my honeymoon there. If she’s of age, counsel her to have a G & T in the Bengal Bar Veddy British colonial – applied to a different colony sort of thing.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Fury Road was actually pretty good despite redshirt’s obsession with it. For instance, it was refreshing to see a movie in that genre where the women were driving the story, instead of just being walking decorations with volleyball-sized tits. But I’m not sure I’d call it an example of American cinema. It was shot in Africa with a mostly non-American cast. Writer/director George Miller is an Aussie, Tom Hardy a Briton, and Charlize Theron a South African.

  58. 58.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @MobiusKlein: Teenagers are biologically wired to stay up late and sleep late, it’s well proven, and is possibly an evolutionary artifact of having a hunter-gatherer tribe have SOMEBODY awake (almost) all of the night. In a sane world, High school should start at 10AM at the earliest.

    Link for a modern NYT article on this

  61. 61.

    Barbara

    @Major Major Major Major: The museum of anthropology is a little out of the main city area but it is supposed to be amazing. Stanley Park is the big park. We went to the art museum and then an amazing coffee place called Artisan Cafe or something like that. Sadly, we had very little actual time but the city is so beautiful that walking around is itself a treat.

  62. 62.

    Barbara

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I spent one perfect day in Victoria more than 25 years ago, before it was “discovered.” I went back in 2007, and it was a lot more congested (it was summer, not autumn, when I went previously) and much more commercialized. There are two amazing gardens to tour — Abkenazi, in the city limits, which is a Japanese garden with a tea house, and Butchert, which was built into a quarry and is huge, with a very large daily attendance. But still a wondrous place. There is wine tasting and all manner of little commercial museums, as well as the museum of Victoria, and, of course, the government house that they light up at night.

  64. 64.

    seaboogie

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I guess the better question to ask is – what are her tastes and desires of experience? Much of what we (I) could rec would be kind of touristy or old-hat for her (and Victoria is replete with old hat – at least back in my day – kind of their speciality). Going over-Island or exploring the others might be more interesting. My best rec would be a drive to Tofino and Uclulet on the west coast – but still tourist season there. It’s awesome in off-season.

  66. 66.

    TriassicSands

    From the NYTimes Editorial Board:

    What’s remarkable here is that Mr. Trump is weighing mercy for a public official who did not just violate the law, but who remains proud of doing so. The law-and-order president is cheering on an unrepentant lawbreaker. Perhaps that’s because Mr. Arpaio has always represented what Mr. Trump aspires to be: a thuggish autocrat who enforces the law as he pleases, without accountability or personal consequence.

    Baud and others may hate the Times, but it’s important for all our major publications to call Trump what he is — a thug with no respect for the law.

  67. 67.

    Just one more canuck

    As a native of Victoria, I say those are all good suggestions. The empress is very expensive and probably not worth it as a hotel, but high tea there is good (probably need reservations) and the Bengal Lounge is good too. A pretty neat place to stay is the Old England Inn – it’s a short drive from downtown

  68. 68.

    J R in WV

    @frosty:

    How odd, my sleep cycle appears to have settled in at about that time of day. Maybe 1:30 til 10:30 some nights. Since being retired, I read til I fall asleep, and get up when I’m done sleeping, mostly. Make Dr appointments etc for the afternoons.

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