Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

Let there be snark.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

This fight is for everything.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

In my day, never was longer.

Everybody saw this coming.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

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

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tis the Season

Tis the Season

by | 118 Comments

This post is in: 

Had the parents over for dinner since they are leaving in a couple days for their annual winter migration to the beach, then hit the world famous Oglebay Park Festival of Lights. You’ll have to go to the link because FYWP isn’t allowing me to upload pictures.

Speaking of the holidays, here’s a request from a BJ reader:

HI everybody, longtime lurker and rare commenter LibraryGuy here. John’s given me the chance to ask for some help from the community, so here I go:

My name is Tom Riker, and my wife Rhea co-owns and manages a tiny gift shop in Woodstock, NY called Woodstock Reveries. The store is filled with jewelry, tote bags, purses, mugs, and crystals, most of which are made by small artists she has reached out to around the country. Working almost every day for the last 3 years, she has grown the store’s sales every month since 2014. She’s even managed to put most of the gifts into our online store. Being an animal lover, Rhea also donates a portion of many of our products to animal rescue groups, including Animal Lovers League, New York Bully Crew, and Catskill Animal Sanctuary.

Unfortunately, our new landlord just announced last week that he will not continue our month-to-month rental past the end of the year, so now we are scrambling to find a new home while we handle what we hope is a good holiday season (and get ready for a mandatory move!). This has wrecked our budget and leaves us trying desperately to set aside money for a higher rent, a deposit, and moving costs. This was not on our list for Hanukkah!

I’m here today to appeal to my fellow Balloon Juicers that, if you have any remaining holiday
shopping, or shopping after the New Year, you can check out our online store and see if there’s anything you like. I handle all the shipping and most orders go out USPS Priority Mail (with tracking) within 24 hours. Anything will help, and we can even ship items internationally (just contact us directly).

Our store website is here: http://woodstockreveries.com/ and if you want to know more about us or our pups, you can click here: http://woodstockreveries.com/about/
Thanks for listening!

What else is going on?

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    jharp

    I was at Oglebay Park Festival of Lights in late December 1988 on my honeymoon.

    That has been awhile ago.

  4. 4.

    Ohio Mom

    Ohio Dad’s heart started fluttering and fibrillating and he felt awful (this a somewhat common side effect of open heart surgery). So today the docs “paddled” him, which is, they gave his heart an electric shock, and everything went back to normal just like that.

    What a relief. Now he just has to finish losing what’s left of the 17(!) pounds of water weight gained as a result of the surgery, and poop (was that TMI?) and he can come home.

    I am discovering that having someone in the hospital is like a very long car ride. You sit and sit, and get tired of sitting, it’s mostly boring, the available food is mediocre, and you can’t wait until it’s over.

  5. 5.

    joel hanes

    @Ruckus:

    The site seems to not be working.

    It’s just very very slow; I suspect it was never engineered to handle the full attention of the BJ commentariat.

    Buying a crystal heart that I don’t really want seems a very ineffective way to help.
    I’d rather hit a gofundme for Tom and Rhea if one were to be set up.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ohio Mom: (was that TMI?)
    pretty standard, I think, to any of us who experience with in-patient surgery

    Glad things are working out

  8. 8.

    Yarrow

    @Ohio Mom: Wow, what a day. So glad they got his heart back to normal rhythm and things seem to be going okay. How long do they think he’ll be there? And what does he do once he’s home? Is he on limited activity or do they want him up and moving pretty quickly.

    Hospitals are so draining. Be sure to take breaks and take care of yourself. The harder part for you may be when he comes home.

  9. 9.

    lamh36

    Who among us would hesitate to share the story about that time you and ur good friend (who’s been accused of lusting after young girls and allegedly assaulting one of those young girls) were tricked into mistakenly going into a brothel with child prostitutes (“they were certainly pretty girls. And they were girls. They were very young. Some were very young), in an attempt to defend said friend from the aforementioned accusations…

    2. Election day is tomorrow and Moore has been plagued by allegations of child sex abuse. He finds an old buddy from Vietnam to introduce him.

    What story does he tell. THE STORY ABOUT THE TIME HE WENT WITH MOORE TO A BROTHEL WITH CHILD PROSTITUTES
    3. This guy seems to think it’s a redeeming story because he went there by accident. Even if the story we’ve been told is true — and I have my doubts — this is not at all redeeming

    @JuddLegum
    9m9 minutes ago
    More
    4. According to Sailing’s version of this story, he and Moore left a third man who traveled with them at the brothel all night to rape child sex trafficking victims

    5. This guy seems to think that, because he says Moore didn’t personally rape any of the girls, this is a story that shows his character. Oh man.

    https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/940419839633616896

    Ugh….and I still think there’s a good chance this disgusting mofo wins tomorrow

  11. 11.

    Marcopolo

    Today was the filing deadline in TX for 2018 races. Apparently the Democrats did a good job of recruiting: .@TexasDemocrats say they’re contesting all 36 U.S. House seats in 2018, 133 out of 150 state House seats and 14 out of 15 state Senate seats. #txlege

    Link: https://mobile.twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/940406836242583552

    I can only hope we do this well in MO. Last cycle 67 of the 163 state House seats were uncontested by the Dems.

  12. 12.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    For some reason, I’m watching the cheesy awfulness of several episodes of Voyager. Don’t judge me!

  13. 13.

    Juju

    I had trouble with the site loading as well. I’ll check again later. I made pfeffernusse, my first holiday cookies today. They smelled good and I can’t wait until they have aged enough to eat. It takes at least four days. I think I can make it that long. Next comes linzer torte.

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    @lamh36: Via TPM, ‘Roy Moore’s Wife Says They Aren’t Anti-Semites: ‘One Of Our Attorneys Is A Jew’ ‘.

    And I’m sure they have a black friend as well.

  19. 19.

    lamh36

    @JillFilipovic
    Follow Follow @JillFilipovic
    More
    “What story can I tell that will best illustrate Roy Moore’s integrity?” “How about the one where the two of you left a third buddy to rape children in a Vietnamese brothel?”

  20. 20.

    Barbara

    @lamh36: But what matters isn’t the children they left behind to be raped by others, but that Roy Moore was not himself one of the rapists. It’s all about personal virtue and overcoming temptation.

  21. 21.

    Libraryguy

    @Omnes Omnibus: I just tried and it is coming up more quickly now – I contacted our host and checked that the server was running cleanly, and it seems to be. I’m on a desktop – what browser/device were you using to get to the site, if I may ask?

  27. 27.

    Yarrow

    I’m so confused by this brothel story. Doesn’t going to a brothel AT ALL mean you’re not a good Christian? What about leaving the other guy there to rape the children? Do good Christians do that? The white lady who’s voting for Moore told the interviewer on TV that Roy Moore is a good Christian and that’s why she’s voting for him.

  31. 31.

    B.B.A.

    Hanukkah starts tomorrow night, so on behalf of all Jews everywhere, I’d like to say: Happy Holidays.

  34. 34.

    Libraryguy

    @Lymie: Hi everybody, I’m working with the host, I’m thinking the site wasn’t ready for all the traffic, I’m working on it right now! Thanks

  35. 35.

    Percysowner

    I can get to the main site, but when I tried to look at the handbags I get [an error occurred while processing this directive] Macbook Air laptop running OSX 10.13.2 using Firefox

  38. 38.

    opiejeanne

    @B.B.A.: I’m slapping a blue bow with little Stars of David on a box of cookies and taking it next door; she’s Jewish, he’s atheist but likes Christmas. (Haven’t done my Xmas baking yet)
    Later they’ll get a plate of “melted snowmen” and maybe some Russian teacakes.

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    @JillFilipovic
    36m36 minutes ago
    More
    “Roy Moore is a man of such integrity I once personally witnessed him refusing to pay for sex with children” is actually where we are at now.

    Oh…and they love “da jews” and “da Blacks”…smh..

    FUQ this shittt

  40. 40.

    Ruckus

    @Barbara:
    Me.

    ETA OK just for you perverts, I didn’t end up at one on purpose either. I did end up in a whorehouse in Naples with 5 other guys off the ship because we thought it was just a bar. Nothing looked suspicious until we sat down at a table and girls came over and wanted us to purchase $100 bottles of champagne. And them. We left rapidly.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @lamh36:

    My local rep, Pat Tiberi, was one of GWB’s premier lapdogs. He’s retiring after this term. In an interview earlier today, he said that it would be a sad day if Roy Moore was elected to the Senate. Now he speaks up.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    @opiejeanne

    and maybe some Russian teacakes

    Adam was right, penetration at all levels.

    :)

    No Russky connection, recently came across these, which sound yummy and look elegantly holiday-ish.

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    @lamh36:

    I once personally witnessed him refusing to pay for sex with children”

    Stiffing them makes him even more like Trump. Are they twins separated at birth?

  51. 51.

    lamh36

    So Roy Moore camp’s final pitch is to his & his wife’s love of “da Jews”, esp their “Jew” lawyer and the lovely tale of that time in Vietnam w/they got tricked into going to a brothel w/child prostitutes where they “didn’t partake”, but they left a good buddy to enjoy w/o them.

    Only one GIF can do this justice…

    https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FantasticWetFossa-max-1mb.gif

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    I volunteered to watch over my old grandma overnight so my aunt and uncle can get some sleep. (Gran is hospitalized with pneumonia. She’s 99 years old!) She was happy to see me.

    We talked about old times. She said she knows she is dying. I asked her if she is afraid, and she said, “A little. But nobody lives forever.”

    She’s sleeping now. I’m in the most hideously uncomfortable chair! God, I hate hospitals.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    @lamh36

    Harks back to the All in the Family episode wherein Archie has to find a lawyer. Asks Mike to randomly read out names from the Yellow Pages listing of law firms.

    (paraphrasing, except for the final firm name)

    MIKE: Brown & Jones.

    ARCHIE: Nope.

    MIKE: Fogerty, O’Malley and Smith.

    ARCHIE: Keep going, keep going.

    MIKE: Payne, Payne, Payne & Stein

    ARCHIE: Hmm. (pause) Move on.

    MIKE: Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz.

    ARCHIE: That’s the one! Gimme that phone book.

  59. 59.

    ruemara

    @Betty Cracker: Sending warm hugs and peaceful passage.

    I am back home. I was stuck at SeaTac from 9 am to 3:30pm so it’s been a very long day. And tonight, I hope to sleep a glorious 5 -6 hours because 2 hours is the suckiest amount.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:
    Tell your friend the original one in the old country.
    And less than a minute after we left 2 guys pulled switchblades on us and tried to rob us. We told them to fuck off, there’s 6 of us and 2 of you. “We have knives!” Would you be interested in us using them to see if you bleed? They put them away and left. Were we happy about that! So two attempted robberies in the space of a couple of minutes. I enjoyed Naples.

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @Ohio Mom: I went through all of this with my dad in the early 90s. Valve replacement with pig valve, sitting in the waiting room waiting for that phone call, even having to zap his heart (that’s what we called it), and the good result afterwards when his heart went back into the sinus rhythm.

    I recall sitting there, terribly worried, waiting for them to shock his heart and see if the shock to the heart did its thing. Waiting with my aunt who decided that would be the PERFECT time to talk about when my mom died! Kind of funny now, not so funny then.

  68. 68.

    tobie

    @Betty Cracker: Sending warm wishes to you and your grandmother. She sounds from your brief description like a brave old bird. Good that you have her and good that she has you. Hope you’re able to sleep a bit tonight in the hospital chair.

  69. 69.

    Libraryguy

    Hi everybody, thanks for your patience – my host says that people should be able to access the site going forward. We really appreciate the people who have managed to weather the delays and put orders in – it means the world to us. I’ll try to stay on top of it if there are any more errors or bandwidth problems.

  73. 73.

    burnspbesq

    White fudge Oreos. Pure pleasure. Someone please come to my house immediately and remove them before I scarf down the entire box.

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    Thanks for the kind words, friends. Gran is sleeping like a baby, so that’s good. I’m watching a program on Food Network that is emceed by Jesse Palmer, of all people. He turns up everywhere!

  75. 75.

    Gin & Tonic

    Quick wave to HelenInEire, who is, likely, sensibly asleep, as I transit through Dublin. Not an awful airport.

  77. 77.

    Davebo

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ll be doing the hospital chair on Wednesday with my Mom for a simple procedure that requires an overnight.

    Greatest medical center in the world but you can’t get a glass of sparkling wine delivered to the room. What’s up with that? Would a Cava or Prosecco kill them?

  78. 78.

    burnspbesq

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Dublin is (or used to be) one of the best airports from which to fly back to the USA. You clear U.S. immigration and customs there, and the folks there are the nicest I’ve ever encountered. Not at all like the jackasses in Toronto.

  80. 80.

    Mary G

    @Betty Cracker: Suzanne would have picked a comfortable chair. The amount of terrible design in hospitals and medical offices is inexcusable. I imagine they farm it out to wives and mistresses. Sending light to you and granny.

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @Davebo:
    When my mom woke up from surgery for breast cancer her best friend was there to see her. She didn’t come alone.
    She brought a shaker of martinis and 2 glasses. It was hilarious to see mom in her robe and slippers waking down the hallway with a full martini glass in her hand.

  87. 87.

    Betty Cracker

    This is the tiniest little rural hospital in the middle of nowhere! To give an idea of the scale, I was able to park my car within 10 yards of the main entrance. When Gran was here a few years ago, there was no WiFi, but I’m happy to report there is now!

  88. 88.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Libraryguy: It’s been working for me for the past few minutes. Some nice stuff on there, though most of it isn’t my style. I quite like the Tree of Life tapestry, actually.

    I might also recommend putting up a GoFundMe, though. Many of the commenters here would love to help out a fellow BJ’er but might not find anything they really want from your store.

  91. 91.

    grandpa john

    @Ruckus: O DO THEY still have the service club in the middle of town that is for service people only? I was there in 62-63 , two different Med cruises

  94. 94.

    MisterForkbeard

    @WaterGirl: I found a couple things my daughter and wife might like, but while the shop is pretty neat it also caters to a particular type of person.

    Not everyone at BJ is that type of person, but I’m sure at least some of us would like to assist otherwise. Hence: GoFundMe or something similar. Good luck to Mr. and Mrs. LibraryGuy :)

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: They probably call folks by name rather than number! I’ve been here for several hours and haven’t seen a soul in the ER (right around the corner from the patient rooms) or seen an ambulance. I’m already on a first name basis with the staff.

  98. 98.

    efgoldman

    @WaterGirl:

    I went through all of this with my dad in the early 90s. Valve replacement with pig valve, sitting in the waiting room waiting for that phone call, even having to zap his heart (that’s what we called it), and the good result afterwards when his heart went back into the sinus rhythm.

    My dad had open heart quadruple bypass surgery at the end of ’85. He literally died on the operating table; they brought him back and he lived another 19 years, to age ’89, until the second bout of non -Hodgkins got him – his repaired heart pumping away.

  100. 100.

    joel hanes

    @Juju:

    pfeffernusse

    Ooooohhh. Can we be friends ?

    My Mom used to go to a 12-way cookie exchange — each attendee took, I think, four dozen, and came home with four each of 12 different kinds of cookies. One of the ladies was Greek, and brought these huge fragile, flaky loosely-coiled conch-shapes of fried phyllo, drizzled with honey and dusted with powdered sugar. Heavy dark rum balls, pfeffernusse, spice cookies, spritzers, cookie-cutter cookies with flavored frosting, Russian teacakes, kringla from the Norski family, apricot/coconut balls, chocolate/coconut/walnut dogpiles …

  101. 101.

    sharl

    I’ve been following stuff on Twitter about Nathan Mathis – the Alabama man who stood in protest outside of a Roy Moore campaign event with a sign and photo of his late daughter Patti Sue, who likely committed suicide over the fact that she was gay in a community where that is “an abomination”, according to Moore and his ilk.

    No matter what happens with this election, I’ll be grateful for learning about this quietly impressive and moral person. If there is ever a manual on how to persevere in the face of tragedy, this guy should write at least a chapter: he not only lost a daughter (1995), but also his son Joey (2004). Yet he remained active in and committed to his community.

    YouTube (4:35) about plans to develop Lake Patti Sue as a local recreational site, named for his late daughter but created in the memory of both deceased children.

    YouTube (2:42) announcing the Grand Opening of Lake Patti Sue.

    Not that it is the most important thing about him, but Mr. Mathis has been a Democrat since at least the aughts, and served four terms as a representative in the AL statehouse. He was still active in politics as of last year

    This man, Nathan Mathis, ran for Congress in 2016 as a Democrat against Martha Roby. He lost by 8. Trump carried the district by 32 points. https://t.co/eMWo3mnKRJ https://t.co/MHFYsTo94k— Eve Zhurbinskiy (@ezhurb) December 12, 2017

  102. 102.

    tobie

    @sharl: Martha Roby…that’s a name from the past. If I recall correctly during the 10th of Hillary’s 11-hour testimony at the House Benghazi hearings, Roby asked her whether she was “alone at home” all night during the Benghazi attack, and HRC’s answer to the question was a belly laugh, which humorless Roby could not comprehend. If Mathis came within 8 points of her in 2016, he should definitely run against her in 2018. He will win. He’s already got a fan base here on BJ.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @grandpa john:
    I haven’t a clue. I didn’t even know about them when I was there. And haven’t had any reason or desire to go back. Other places in Italy I’d love to go see. Naples isn’t one of them. Thinking about a Euro train vacation at some point in the future. See a lot of places on the fairly cheap. And fun. Like to go back especially to far northern Europe. Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Finland, see the UK where I have friends.

  104. 104.

    Libraryguy

    @MisterForkbeard: Thank you! Rhea has done all the hard work – finding the artists, making the shop beautiful, getting everything online – as well as working almost every single day. She’s amazing! All I did was let you all know about this place she’s created. I’m the lucky one.

  105. 105.

    Ruckus

    @Libraryguy:
    Have a friend who made jewelry and tee shirts that I sold in my bike shop and she would go to events like marathons, triathlons, bike races and sell as an exhibitor. We frequently would go together and when her husband broke his hip and couldn’t go we traveled together. She had some stuff that looked like what I saw on the site but mostly bike/triathlon related. I’d bet that a lot of your items would sell up in northern calif. I’ve gotten out of touch with how to market a site any more but I’d bet if you could figure out how to do that you could sell quite a bit of stuff. I know that the normal social media sites have business sites that are either free or very low cost that might help a lot. BTW the site works fine now that it loads reasonably.

  107. 107.

    sharl

    @tobie: Your memory is better than mine. I have the dimmest recollection of Martha Roby’s name, but remember nothing about her. And I recall that weird question during that weird hearing, but had long forgotten who among that Kangaroo Court asked it.

    From a distance it looks like AL-2 could do far worse than having Nathan Mathis represent the district. I haven’t looked into his actual political views, but based on the nonpolitical stuff I’ve learned about him, he seems like quite the honorable fellow. And he’s a Democrat, which works for me!

  108. 108.

    grandpa john

    @Ruckus: In early 60’s ,Naples was where destroyers went for tender availability, so during a 6 month med cruise we were usually in Naples 2 0r 3 times at least.
    went into Malta one time for dry docking to fix cracked rudder. that is one of the places would love to see again. yeah other parts of Italy were nicer , also Athens Greece was nice place to visit ,Istanbul was certainly different place to go

  109. 109.

    sharl

    @lamh36: Thanks. While watching the video, I kept hoping they’d pan down for a couple seconds so I could read the sign (I KNEW the sign was down there from the texts that mentioned it). Fortunately others got decent still photos of it.

  110. 110.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: I love that your grandma recognized you, and knows you are there.

    If it’s her time to go, she’s ready. But maybe she’s still got some time at the ball left. Whatever happens, eventually your mom is there, waiting for her.

  111. 111.

    sharl

    The Washington Post has a piece up about Nathan Mathis and his subdued but pointed protest.

    Mathis wrote about his daughter in a letter to the Dothan Eagle, a small Alabama newspaper, in 2012.

    Born in 1972, she was “a wonderful child” who was “very athletic, tomboyish (I always had to pitch batting practice to her after Dixie Youth practice), very beautiful and smart,” he wrote. But after he learned that she was gay from a friend while she was in high school, he confronted her and “said some things to her that still eat on me to this day,” he wrote, though he later apologized.

    A few years later, she killed herself. Mathis wrote that he found her; she was 23.

    “She was tired of being ridiculed and made fun of,” Mathis wrote. “She was tired of seeing how a lot of people treat gay people.”

    He described another moment of regret after his daughter’s death, after sitting in a church while a preacher bashed gays.

    “I was ashamed of myself for sitting there and not defending Patti,” he wrote. “May God have mercy on us all. I only know I miss my daughter Patti very much and I am grateful for having her as my daughter.”

    Mathis’ exact views on gay people were not entirely clear. In the 2012 letter, he writes of taking his daughter to doctors and psychiatrists in the hope of resolving her sexuality at her request. He has run for office as both a Democrat and a Republican.

    On Monday, a reporter asked him what he was hoping to accomplish with his protest.

    “I had mixed emotions about coming, but somebody needs to speak up,” he said. “And if it’s all to no avail, so be it. It won’t be the first time I’ve done something to no avail.”

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    @grandpa john:
    We spent 3 weeks in Greece, something wrong with the ship that had to be repaired in a shipyard. Every day that I had liberty I’d walk into downtown and sit at a sidewalk cafe in front of a hotel and have pastry and tea. Sitting there and looking at ruins that were several hundred yrs older than our country.
    As far as I know the destroyer tenders were long gone by the end of the 60s. I didn’t see one anywhere, all around the Atlantic or the Med. Maybe they were all in the Pacific.
    Only did one Med cruise and only half of that one. We did do 3 NATO cruises, the first one being the last 3 months of what was supposed to be that 6 month Med cruise. Every port we went to was better than the Med, even the places I liked, like Athens, Majorca or Corfu. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Helder – Holland, Plymouth – England, Antwerp. An old guy came to the ship in Antwerp and offered to give us a walking tour of the town. We stopped at the painter Rubens house, which is a museum. Maybe best day of walking ever.

  113. 113.

    No One You Know

    SEASON’S GREETINGS, A STORY

    I was attempting to compile a gift list to help my husband, who finds shopping difficult. I found myself feeling smaller and smaller as I wrote.

    Did I really need that sweater? What did it prove that I asked for it?

    So I abandoned the whole self-absorbed effort. Distracting myself from my own job/money issues and the online and IRL political miseries with more stuff isn’t making me feel any better.

    I bought somebody a goat from HEIFER International.

    Goats are simple. Milk, and more goats. Hair for spinning, I think.

    Hardy. Eat anything. Unfussy.

    I’ve done this before, when I belonged to a church, but now that I can’t find God in the Sunday Box, I’m venturing further out.

    I could have bought chicks. Or ducks. They’re cheaper.

    The Knitter’s Special appealed to me.

    This seems to be a very good year to send a girl to school for less than a dollar a day. Or send a woman into a small business for a dollar a day for one year.

    I bet lots of people offer animals. Maybe I should do the less popular thing and donate a “share” of the cost to train and equip a community animal care specialist.

    I thought more about it.

    I realized that one of the ways pride can hurt me, in fact usually hurts me, s by doing too much. It looks like virtue signaling, but it’s really adding effort to bribe my inner critic: “Yes, I am good enough. I can do good.”

    What is the least good I can do, that satisfies me, and it’s the most good that I can offer?

    Hoping 11 other people make a donation didn’t cut it.

    So I gave a goat, because my kid is all grown up and moving out, and is Capricorn the Goat, not Aries the Ram, and someone out there needs a kid, so that she, too, can move into the future.

    And now I am at peace.

  117. 117.

    jonas

    @lamh36: I’ve been tearing my hair out the last couple of days listening to these journalists down in Alabama talk to Moore supporters (who, of course, are simply batshit insane and give the reporter a rambling word salad of quotes from Revelation and Trump talking points about fake news), but then turn to a registered Democrat, who inevitably says something like “Well, sure, I don’t know about that Moore fella, what with these girls coming forward, but you know, we haven’t seen a lot of Doug Jones around here, and I hear when he did stop in at Nora’s Cafe a few weeks ago over in Weevilville, he ordered the hocks and blackeyed peas, and everyone in this county knows you order the trotters and collards after 12pm. So I don’t know…”

    And then I want scream “You goddamn MORON!!” and go stick my head in a hay baler. So because Doug Jones is new to politics and apparently slightly less than great at retail politics, you’re going to sit back and let the troglodytes in your state elect a pedophile fascist theocratic fundamentalist senator. I’m sure there are a lot great Democrats working their asses off in Alabama, but damn, if these interviews are anything to go by, they’ve got an uphill battle. Against their own voters.

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