A senior White House official tells @NYMag, “there is no tanning bed in there,” in response to Omarosa claiming that Trump installed a tanning bed in the residence. The official added that there’s “never been any request” to install a tanning bed either.
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) August 10, 2018
If there *is* a tanning bed — I’m agnostic on the topic — my bet would be it was a bargaining chip for Melania: I can’t possibly leave New York for exile in D.C. until… It’s the sort of just-this-side-of-reasonable demand common to any diplomatic negotiation between the corteges of a medieval baron and his third royal princess, a delaying tactic to test the sympathies of the new court. (And to make an aging monarch look slightly ridiculous, whether or not he complied.) Wasn’t there a media kerfuffle, right after the inauguration, about “Melania’s people” wanting to install an expensive professional-media-quality hair salon / makeup room in the West Wing?
Given my Casper like appearance I don’t know much about tanning beds: don’t you have to sit still for a while to use them? And isn’t it a pretty enclosed space? Both of those things seem like things Trump wouldn’t like but then again the man is full of surprises
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) August 10, 2018
Which is why he has to go to one of his golf course properties. Touchups. And it’s a spray booth, not a UV tanning bed.
— David Helms (@davidhelms) August 10, 2018
It was Hope Hicks. Now it’s Bolton’s mustache.
— Carmine Fields (@CarmineFields5) August 10, 2018
Like kneeling football players?
— Carmine Fields (@CarmineFields5) August 10, 2018
I believe that. I always thought he just rolled around in a bathtub filled with Cheetos.
????CHEESUS ????— Gerard (@flowboard61) August 10, 2018
It's interesting that @realDonaldTrump cleary takes precautions in the tanning bed by using those plastic eye thingies but will still look directly into an eclipse.
— Mikey U. #resist (@metrecht) August 9, 2018
The irony of a tanning bed in *this* White House is like (something comically very unexpected).
I’m sooo tired.— Tim O'Donnell (@TimODee16) August 11, 2018
Just hope the tanning bed doesn't fall into the pool with Trump in it.
— Mike Schwab (@maschwab63) August 11, 2018
Semi-related:
This almost makes paying attention to Omarosa worth it https://t.co/AcQY7uoPc3
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) August 11, 2018
Ruckus
That M. Cohen tweet says it all.
Ann C gets shown the door and told not to let it hit her on the ass on the way out, they have a newer crazy lady to discuss nothing with.
Major Major Major Major
Ha! The last one made me laugh out loud.
I had a crap weekend. Just chores and bad news. It ended mostly on a high note hanging out with one of my best friends I guess. We talked about the little computer game I’m starting, he’s gonna help, that was fun. But otherwise! Almost glad I get to go worry about work in the morning.
Mnemosyne
Trump is a spray tan guy. You don’t get that sickly orange glow from a tanning bed. Also explains the raccoon circles around his eyes from the protective goggles.
If my pasty ass had ever considered a spray tan, Trump has definitely ruined the very idea forevermore.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
You mean the tanning bed or the M. Cohen tweet?
Cause shitgibbon don’t use no tanning bed, he buys his OrangeTan at the same Dollar Store that he buys the gold spray paint he uses to make every thing sparkle like gold.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I’d rather be any shade of pasty than look anything like the shitgibbon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Aretha Franklin (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman – Kennedy Center Honors 2015.
Major Major Major Major
Also Samwise keeps forgetting he has food. Not like, pretending to trick me into thinking I didn’t feed him. He makes me follow him all the way to the bowl and then he’s like, well shit, how’d that get there?
@Ruckus: the tweet.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Wonder if Samwise has the same problem I do, the smeller don’t work no more. We think we taste all our food but most is from the smell. Take that away and a lot changes in one’s world.
jl
I never thought much about how tanning spray works. But this blog makes me want to learn new things! I think a tanning spray booth is too complicated and tedious for Trump to use. So, it must be a tanning booth, since you just have to lie there under the lamps, and turn over once in a while. And looks like you don’t need googles for tanning spay, you just close your eyes. This is probably as close to serious policy analysis as it gets with the Trump WH.
Instruction: How to use automated SPRAY TAN BOOTH VersaSpa at Vacu Slim Studio Birmingham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn0mlr3tFNQ
SFAW
The Carmine Fields tweet elicited a major “Eewwwwwwwwwwww!” from me.
Chetan Murthy
@jl: He -sure- doesn’t look like he tans using UV or natural light. I mean, he’s -orange-, and his color changes from week-to-week in a way that no natural tanned person does. And he’s been that way a long time, yet his skin isn’t shoe leather. All of these data-points imply spray-tanning.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Trump doesn’t use an automated spray tan booth. Two vastly underpaid spa workers (who are probably here on temporary work visas) do it by hand, poor things.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
Ruckus is right about it being a ‘smell’ thing. Cats have extremely sensitive noses, in some ways even more sensitive than dogs, and they don’t like to eat what doesn’t smell “fresh” to them. (A wise evolutionary twist for obligate carnivores that evolved in warm climates, of course. Dogs evolved to survive on human garbage, which is why they are so much less picky about the division between ‘eatable’ and ‘food’.)
Established cat-owner tradition: Pick up the bowl and shake the kibble to release that just-topped-up aroma. Or, if you’re feeling indulgent, pour the old boring kibble back in the tub & re-fill the dish. You don’t have to be surreptitious about it — Samwise doesn’t care, he just wants you to make it smell “correct” again.
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: I’ve read about that and noticed him doing that before… maybe it’s just that and I’m misreading it. Lord knows I’ve been misreading *humans* all day.
Aleta
Well… ‘“never been any request to install” a bed<, sure. Aren't there portable ones? He's face and neck. Not a swimsuity chest and legs kind of guy I betcha. One that fits on a table.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major: Samwise may just be checking in with you: You *sure* this stuff is still okay to eat? Well, if you say so…
Think of it as a form of cross-species bonding. He wants to let you know how much he trusts you — possibly because he knows you’re feeling a little discouraged right now.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I think AL is currect about the smell thing. Also, two of our three cats like to be petter while they eat, so sometimes they make us walk over to the bowl with them so they can get food and attention all at the same time.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
My last dog, Bud, had no division at all between what fit in his mouth and food. That may have just been him or the fact that he had lived on the street for who knows how long before animal control found him. He was over weight though so it’s not like he wasn’t eating something. Or everything.
piratedan
well at this rate, DJT is apparently turning into Baron Harkonnen, perhaps that the model that they’re shooting for, would certainly be in favor of HRC applying the final gom jabbar, because it’ll simply take too long for a worm to evolve on this planet despite their efforts to completely dismember the EPA.
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: “Samwise may just be checking in with you: You *sure* this stuff is still okay to eat? Well, if you say so…”
Okay that could definitely be it. Sometimes, and it’s always with this one kibble and later at night, he’ll lead you there and only eat it if you hang out.
Aleta
Aretha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY66elCQkYk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diwF1-xJwZM&frags=pl%2Cwn
sukabi
@Major Major Major Major: it’s no fun to eat alone all the time….he could be offering to split a mouse with you. ☺
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Sounds like it’s a bonding thing with you. Kind of sweet if you think about it. He wants to eat dinner with you.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
I’ve lived with a couple of cats and hadn’t ever thought about it before but the cat owners/servants did the food thing different. The first one would take the dish away and mix up the food, let it sit for a minute or two on the counter (that the cat wouldn’t jump up upon) and then set it down and the cat would eat it. The second owner would just throw away the food and put out something else. I think she spent more money on cat food than feeding her adult self.
Mary G
My Shiloh is addicted to bonito flakes, and the last time Amazon was out of the usual ones, so I got a different brand that smelled exactly the same to me, but drier and crunchier texture and he just yelled at me every day and reluctantly ate a few of them until they ran out and I got the old kind, which he scarfs up and licks the bowl and cries for more.
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Impossible to forget that one.
West of the Rockies
First off, the Coulterwocky has yes another book out? How many times can you write (or read about) the boiling rage you have in your gut and wee little mind for people who have different values from you?
Secondly, all of Omorosa’s claims are gossipy, piggy-shit things. I will not be one iota surprised if in the coming days–FSM help us–she declares she is a Democrat. Please do NOT join our team.
Major Major Major Major
@sukabi: @Yarrow: ?
West of the Rockies
@Ruckus:
Yeah, I enjoy my cats, but I’m not throwing away food. She’ll eat it when she gets hungry enough. Next time I will get something different, but I’m not putting up with fussy eater crap.
Fair Economist
@piratedan: That’s hilarious! Except I’m not sure Baron Harkonnen is as evil as Trump.
Mary G
@Aleta: Praying for her – evidently she’s in the hospital in Detroit and described as gravely ill. Link BET.
Anne Laurie
@Ruckus:
Yeah, some dogs are considerably less picky than others, and rescue dogs are notorious for being obsessive about not passing up anything that *might* be edible. Although some dogs are just temperamentally “unchoosy”… they’re the ones who are frequent flyers at the local veterinary clinic because, who knows, THIS time the rock / corncob / life-sized plush squirrel just MIGHT be digestible!
Our “aggressively resource guarding” rescue Gloria was picked up by the police in a run-down working-class city for neglect. When we got her, she’d work for 20 minutes to steal used tea leaves out of the kitchen trash… and she’d bite anyone who tried to take them away, too. At the advice of my dog guru, I hand-fed her her dinner kibble every night for several months; I could actually see her relaxing as she decided You’re going to keep giving me what I need to survive, and you’ll do it by choice, and I can count on getting an actual meal every single day.
It’s been nine years, come September. She’s still an incorrigible thief — not only do we have to remember to keep all groceries & trash out of her reach, we can’t leave stuff like the plates we’ve just eaten from where she can climb on the furniture to knock them down & carry them off to her crate. But she’s improved to the point where she no longer obsesses over trying to break through a safety gate to capture one dropped cat kibble. And if she manages to snatch something potentially dangerous — like the seriously misguided field mouse who somehow got into our kitchen & got killed by one of the cats — now we can trade the forbidden item for a high-enough-value treat. (I could actually see the wheels turning in her head, while the Spousal Unit and the other dugs wrung their hands in the background: Okay, it’s a novelty, but I’m not having any luck peeling this damned thing — and on the other paw: CHEESE!) No, she didn’t actually “surrender” the corpse… an alpha bitch has her pride! — but she dropped it & grabbed the cheese, then turned away so she ‘couldn’t see me’ take away her stolen booty…
Doug R
Stephen Colbert shows how trump does it.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
I’ve had other dogs but Bud is the only one I had to child proof everything below about 3 ft for his and my sanity. When I walked him I had to watch him like a hawk and make sure he didn’t pick up anything. He got away with it once and it cost me $400 I really didn’t have for the vet. Still I really miss that ornery bastard. He was a great companion. Best and worst dog I’ve ever had.
Ruckus
@Doug R:
What I’m talking about is cheaper from the Dollar Store. That stuff that Steve used had to cost at least $10. I’m talking one fucking dollar for the real deal. Steve of course has better sense than to put this crap on his skin, but the shitgibbon is too cheap to spend the extra $9.
James E Powell
@Mary G:
Oh man, that’s not good. Just last week I went on an Aretha-based “You hear that, now that’s singing” rant with some millennial acquaintances.
Mnemosyne
@West of the Rockies:
Not to freak you out, but if the cat suddenly starts refusing a food that they were happily eating before, check with your vet. In retrospect, our cats realized there was something wrong with the “new and improved” Nature’s Balance dry food that was laced with melamine, and we lost our older cat to kidney failure because of it. ?
Ruckus
@Mary G:
If that BET article is true and she’s had pancreatic cancer for 7 yrs, that is amazing. Usually when they find pancreatic cancer you are really too far gone and go very quickly. 7 years would be amazing from what I understand. But she has been sick off and on since then so it’s anyone’s guess.
Best of luck to her.
opiejeanne
@SFAW: I was thinking EWWWWWW!!!! too, while I giggled like a maniac.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: Oh no! My favorite uncle had pancreatic cancer and it’s a painful illness. I think he was told he had 4 months but he lasted nearly two years.
I don’t really like to think about a world without her in it.
Anne Laurie
@Mary G: Yeah, it’s not exactly a “surprise” — Queen Aretha’s outlasted a lot of peoples’ expectations — but it’s gonna hit me hard when she leaves us. One of the worst things about getting old, for me, is losing one role model after another to death.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
I think they always tell you 4 months.
It’s been 22 months since my cancer treatment was finished and they still want to check my numbers, now every 6 months and have not even used the word remission. Last checkup doc told me things are looking OK. He’s either the biggest pessimist or is waiting for the cancer fairy to explode like Mr Creosote.
sukabi
This is pretty funny… apparently the unite the right folks hired a black mc to run their rally…has the daily stormer all confused on what happened.
cynthia ackerman
@Anne Laurie:
Current pooch went through an omnivorous problem phase when she was a pup.
The highlight was her picking up a pacifier on a morning walk and calmly parading for the next twenty minutes with the damn thing planted Maggie Simpson style.
One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
opiejeanne
@sukabi: That’s odd. I had a guy on Twitter come all unglued because I identified the Unite the Right group with Proud Boys, who had apparently denounced the UTR and were subsequently banned from Twitter. I was annoyed already and I told him it didn’t matter what flavor of idiots they were, Nazi, KKK, UTR, they were all the same, told him to fuck off and blocked him. I am done.
I totally forgot the stick-BASED nonsense.
They wouldn’t let Kessler have his sticks and his whiney phone conversation about exceptions just made me grimace.
THESE FUCKING PEOPLE!
opiejeanne
@sukabi: That “based” bs originated with someone using that term to describe himself as armed with a big stick. I’m not sure if the guy who first used that term was at the event below but I saw his “based” comments right after this took place:
There was a rally-turned-riot at a little park a couple of blocks from my pervious house in Anaheim in Feb 2016. I was shocked when I saw the footage.The neighborhood was heavily Hispanic, the rally people were from out of the area, and most of the counter-protesters were white.
Neo-Nazis, KKK, and some other white supremacist group(s), confronted by counter-protesters. One group had flags on poles and they used the poles as spears and clubs. The one most injured was a counter-protester who got speared.
Central Planning
This place is quiet. Too quiet…
SWMBO
@Anne Laurie: My sister rescued a dachshund mix years ago and we wound up with her. Dixie was just under 10 pounds when my sister got her. You could put your thumb between her ribs, drape a cloth over and not see your thumb. She was picked up off the streets and nearly starved to death. We got her at about 14 pounds. She died weighing 22 pounds (she was a little overweight but happy). At the time I was making chicken and rice for the dogs to eat once a day. Free feeding kibble the rest of the time. We had to use 2 feeders and water dishes because she was territorial over all of it. Separate rooms for each dispenser (water dishes in kitchen and bathroom, food dishes in family room and living room). She would run frantically from one dish to the other trying to guard it all from the other dogs. We put her on elavil (pain management and to calm her down. It worked a miracle on her). About every 3 or 4 months or so, I would take a fresh pan of maggot stew (chicken and rice) outside and keep refilling her dish. She would eat until you would think she would explode (Mr. Creosote). It would take 30 minutes and about 5 bowls of food and she would finally get FULL. All her sensors said she was full and would be for days. She would finally walk off, leaving a few licks in the bowl. She would be really calm for weeks after and not be as aggressive in guarding the food/water. She would get a little too hungry and she would ramp back up and lose it. Feed her until she was sated and she calmed back down. The elavil helped with this a lot too. Some of them never really get over starving and she was pitiful in a way, trying to keep anyone else from getting anything because it WAS a zero sum game to her. Once she KNEW she was going to get fed and not starve, she could act like any of the others. But if she couldn’t get something to eat and she got hungry, you were back to square one on rebuilding trust in that you would always make sure things were going to be ok.
opiejeanne
@SWMBO: That’s so sad. Poor little creature. Good that you figured it out, but terrible if you just missed that mark by this || much.
opiejeanne
On a different note, in the San Bernardino Mountains it’s the ants that will take your cabin apart in large chunks, and not so much the termites.
A friend borrowed our cabin for the weekend and discovered piles of what looked like sawdust in the stairwell. Big piles. We were there in April and saw nothing, so that’s pretty fast work.
Calling an exterminator tomorrow morning and wondering if they can also do something about the spiders that always seem to be there. They always come out after we think we’ve swept the place for them and I’m sick of them landing on the bed next to me with a loud plop when I’m reading before falling asleep. That tends to make one not sleepy.
Anne Laurie
@SWMBO: Yeah, one blessing (sorta) is that Gloria is really smart, probably the smartest dog I’ll ever own — she came to us as a “Papillon cross”, but from her behavior & looks, I strongly suspect her other parent was a Border Collie. (Yes, it happens, on purpose, because people are idiots.) Gloria, as far as we can tell, was never starved as badly as your poor girl, and there have been so many moments in our time together when I, and the Spousal Unit, could see her thinking out her food issues. Do I really want to snatch that morsel? Is it liable to be worth the effort? Can I get the same or better results by letting the humans see how consciously I am *not* snatching that morsel?… Of course we try to make sure that the preponderance of evidence for her is “YES we would rather give you a treat — ALL THE TREATS! — than have you mug the other dog / pick up street trash / try and grab people food away from that inattentive human”!
(Also, much as I love them, let’s admit doxies are notoriously liable to food-obsessive gluttony. The Spousal Unit in particular adores long-haired dachshunds, but the doxie owners we knew universally warned us that they’re not a good fit for lazy people like us who tend to let our dogs get fat. A fat — somewhat overweight — papillon gets winded climbing the stairs; a fat doxie is heartbreakingly prone to end up paraplegic from falling down those stairs… )
Kay
Manu Raju
Verified account
Big, strong, loudmouth bidnessman is too scared to fire anyone. Guffaw.
Also “they” run a big operation. He’s not really a President. It’s complete chaos in there. God knows what “they” are up to.
Platonailedit
@Kay: He is just a corrupt coward.
SWMBO
@Anne Laurie: Out of 14 dachshunds over 22 years, we have had one blow out her back. She didn’t make it 30 days after doing that. She blew out her back on April 16 and died May 10. She had three major surgeries during that time trying to save her. Yes it is heartbreaking.
Uncle Cosmo
@Anne Laurie: I have taken to calling my nephew’s golden retriever “Hoover” – anything that falls on the floor that she can fit into her mouth gets sucked “downy hatch, hon.” We maintain extreme vigilance at fambly gatherings, which inevitably involve massive amounts of food – especially stumblebums like yerstruly.
This weekend “Hoover’s Dad” decamps for Philtydelphia to start Vet School at UPenn. Wish him luck. He is bright, focused & determined, but a little luck wouldn’t hurt.
Speaking of nephews…Wednesday will mark 2 years since his brilliant architect/designer older brother, Uncle Cosmo’s godson Skyler, departed this mortal coil :^(. (And Thursday 3 years for Mom.)
Jacel
Only Aretha Franklin could transform “Eleanor Rigby” by singing in first person and bringing a fiercely defiant tone to the song.
You’ll never hear this Beatles song the same way again.
WaterGirl
So sad to hear about Aretha Franklin. She’s one of those people that is such a force of nature that it seems she has to live forever.