Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

This blog will pay for itself.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

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

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The words do not have to be perfect.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

In my day, never was longer.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Bark louder, little dog.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Stealth Meetup At Cafe Fina – No-Politics Open Thread

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  6. 6.

    James E Powell

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    If it’s to be non-political, better put it in the headline. Even that might not work.

    What am i saying? Even that won’t work, but hey why not try anyhow?

  7. 7.

    O. Felix Culpa

    I’m on the right (not in a political sense). A wonderful meet-up! We talked of many things.

    ETA: Cafe Fina is my favorite local place a bit outside Santa Fe. Highly recommended if you’re in the ‘hood!

  11. 11.

    Cheryl Rofer

    It was blizzardy, really nasty at Cafe Fina, which is right where the mountains meet the plains. Back in Santa Fe, it’s just cloudy and cool. The weather around here is amazing.

  14. 14.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Sort of non-political, a while back I tweeted out what was meant to be a funny story about a middle aged woman’s effort to sabotage Trump via an enchanted Etsy account. I failed to thread the tweets, making the story hard to read. If you think it will amuse you, there’s a threaded version starting here. I mention BJ but name no names. :-)

    ETA: Oh boo. Did I break the non-political atmosphere? I’m sorry.

  15. 15.

    MobiusKlein

    I’m just trying to get the gumption to start (ugh) taxes, after a disappointing Youth Soccer match on Saturday.

    Seems that non-elite teams in the W-U19 arena sorta fall apart over time. 4th scheduled game of the season with the first 3 being cancelled or re-scheduled. Also inconsistent ref calls on fouls at times.

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    Very cool photo!

    Nothing could be finer
    Than to meet at Cafe Fina
    With some Jackals!

  19. 19.

    FlyingToaster

    I’m trying to take a breather after a couple of hellishly long weeks, compounded on Wednesday night by the abrupt skyrocketing of the pollen count.

    I have two more weeks like this, though slightly less hellish due to WarriorGirl having completed the spring Project (she was Eris, she presented on Wednesday, had the school visit their Museum on Thursday, and went to the MFA Ancient Greece exhibit on Friday). And then we get a week off, and then the hell-week that is the Bookfair comes in.

    I really want it to be June already. I’m sick of this.

    τη καλλιστη!

  23. 23.

    FLS

    Looks like it was great fun! Weird weather in your parts, but I can only imagine that it was a delightful time at the cafe.

    @opiejeanne: In that region, I’d put the money on long “e” – sucker bet perhaps.

  25. 25.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @opiejeanne: I’ve always been intrigued by the assumptions (narratives in our heads) we all make about our internet friends and the shock of the real. Person on left was delightful and looked not at all like the picture I had created in my mind.

  26. 26.

    Mart

    @MobiusKlein: I coached non elite High School girl teams. Between homework, boyfriends, interpersonal disputes, etc. it was a major headache just getting 11 to show up. But mostly had fun.

  27. 27.

    West of the Rockies

    Cheryl, I’ve read a couple biographies on Oppenheimer (American Prometheus was fabulous). Is there some sort of Los Alamos museum or such to visit?

  29. 29.

    PsiFighter37

    This is months in advance, but if anyone in the LA area is around on Thursday, June 27, I would be down for a meetup. It may be the last time y’all get to see me in a while, as my wife and I are expecting a baby girl in August – so I anticipate general availability and travel to be down substantially in the upcoming future.

  30. 30.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @West of the Rockies: Los Alamos has a history museum in the buildings from the boys’ school that preceded the Laboratory and is part of the National Manhattan Project Historic Park. It also has the Bradbury Science Museum, which is run by the Laboratory and contains both history and stuff that the Laboratory does.

    Santa Fe’s New Mexico Museum of History has an exhibit, “Atomic Histories,” which will continue throught the summer and is about all the nuclear stuff in New Mexico. It even has a little bit about me.

  33. 33.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, and what if they’re a serial killer? //

    Actually, I am always careful to meet in a public place initially with meet-ups, just in case. Thankfully the online friendships have transferred well to real life so far. On that note, I will be traveling back to Chicagoland next year for the Ring Cycle. Maybe we can organize a meet-up then! I’m pretty confident I won’t hate you IRL. :)

  35. 35.

    burnspbesq

    Here in Central Texas, Winter has decided it wants one more go before it leaves for good. Highs in the 50s and lows around 40 today and tomorrow.

    Rooting for Auburn in today’s first game.

  36. 36.

    JPL

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Bravo! I might suggest reading fewer blogs though.

    I just watched an episode of Call the Midwife. It’s the one where the au pair, Magda finds out she’s pregnant and tries to abort the fetus on her own, Since I live in GA, that story will replay in my head several times So sad and unnecessary.

  37. 37.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Raven: Oh yes. It’s still a missile testing range. Has a missile museum at its south entrance. And the north entrance is open twice a year for visits to Trinity Site. Usually the first weekends in April and October, so next week.

  38. 38.

    Raven

    @O. Felix Culpa: One would hope no one would schedule a private meet -up with someone they didn’t know. I once sold some football tickers online and the young lady called and said she’d meet me in the Wal Mart parking lot. I said “I don’t know if you’ve thought this through but we need to me somewhere safe and secure”. We did.

  39. 39.

    MomSense

    Today we had an impromptu memorial for my friend Maya. A mutual friend called and asked if I wanted to take a walk on the trails between our houses. She met me with two flowers and we walked through the trails to a pond where we said a few words and threw our flowers in the water. Then a pair of ducks decided to swim out and around our flowers and just go about their duck things. Since Maya’s family haven’t organized any kind of service, this was the first chance to sort of stop and share a dedicated moment.

    It was supposed to rain but ended up being warm and sunny. I could see a few shoots of woodland flowers (just stems and leaves for now) poking through in the places where the snow has melted.

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    On my way to see the movie “Us.”

    Lots of discussion among co-workers. I always have to step away to avoid spoilers.

  44. 44.

    burnspbesq

    It’s extraordinary how little history young people know. Case in point: all the idiots raving about how Zion is the best player in Duke basketball history. He’s not one of the five best.

  48. 48.

    JPL

    @PsiFighter37: Congrats! My son’s baby boy is seven weeks old, and sleeps in an expensive bassinet called a SNOO. I mocked him heartily, but it works Babyboy is sleeping 6 1/2 hrs and then nurses and sleeps 5 hrs more. My DIL has three months off before she has to return to work. Since family is close by we are going to provide day care for at least the next three months, so babyboy won’t have to go to daycare until he’s six months old.

  58. 58.

    tobie

    50 years of feminism comes crashing down as I read this post’s headline and think to myself, “Wait, isn’t the personal political?” Glad you three had fun talking about everything and sundry in beautiful Santa Fe. You folks are lucky devils to live there!

  62. 62.

    Mai Naem mobile

    The person on the left looks like the tomboyish actress from Facts of Life. Can’t remember her name and am not wasting my time looking it up.

  63. 63.

    JPL

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: When my son was sixteen months old, a neighbor who had given birth a few months earlier asked me at what age he slept through the night. When I couldn’t answer, she burst into tears. They go on sale quite often for hundred dollars less, but of course are still expensive.

  64. 64.

    JGabriel

    @O. Felix Culpa: <blockquotePerson on left was delightful …

    And seeing as how Person On Left hasn’t identified herself yet, I assume she’s still sleeping off the mayhem and debauchery the three of you must have got up to yesterday.

  66. 66.

    Sister Golden Bear

    In honor of Transgender Day of Visibility, I wanted to give a shout out to “And Then There Was Eve,” co-starring my friend and all-around bad-ass, Rach.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7CRad4ZKc

    Headed by an all-women team, it won best in category at the LA Film Festival, and just came out on video-on-demand (on Amazon, etc.).

    It was also a return to acting for Rach, who’s gotten glowing reviews. She’d been a successful off-Broadway actor when she was living as a man, but after she transitioned about a decade ago, the only roles available were for the live trans hooker, or the dead trans hooker.

    Kudos to the writers/director/producers for being insistent that they cast a trans woman to play a trans woman — even when it looked like that might mean scrapping the production.

    BTW, if any of you go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Rach is playing the Duke Senior (as a woman) in “As You Like It” — to more great reviews — and has a supporting role in another play this season.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.siskiyoudaily.com/news/20190330/theater-review-well-crafted-as-you-like-it-at-osf%3ftemplate=ampart

    I’m looking forward to seeing her on stage when I head up to Ashland in a couple weeks.

  70. 70.

    JPL

    @mrmoshpotato: In defense of him, he’s cautious with his money. They are using sofas that I had forty years ago. Truth be known darn things are still really comfortable.

  71. 71.

    James E Powell

    I’m watching Hanna. There are parts of this that are pretty good, but there are far too many of those moments where a supposedly super savvy person – not just Hanna – does the stupidest thing possible.

  74. 74.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @O. Felix Culpa: I’m amazed you gals are so committed that you braved the 22 degree wind chill temps to go out to breakfast. Here in ABQ it’s only marginally warmer–I only got out of my PJ’s about an hour ago. What the heck happened to our spring? lolol

  78. 78.

    delk

    I completed my very first fair isle knit yesterday. Couple of errors but none involving the color work. Not too bad considering that at the start of the year I couldn’t even tie my shoes or zip my coat because of surgery for a fractured wrist.

  81. 81.

    The Dangerman

    @raven:

    Fuck Duke.

    I think Duke has a problem with MSU. They’ve been damn lucky the last couple games; I think r runs out today.

    I think Virginia wins the whole thing.

  84. 84.

    Tim C.

    @Cheryl Rofer: Okay, this is probably too deep in the thread to be seen, but you are the only nuclear expert I know of on even a “read the blog” level.

    What the hell is the story on the Vela incident in the late 70s and do you have a professional opinion about what actually happened? Or at least a trusted source about it.

  85. 85.

    West of the Rockies

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    I saw Merry Wives of Windsor there a couple years ago (been going to the festival since ’77!). Falstaff was played by a woman. I don’t recall her name or if she was a cis woman, but she was fabulous.

  91. 91.

    Raven

    @Tim C.: This is a really interesting book.

    Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety Paperback –
    by Eric Schloss

  92. 92.

    Raven

    @JPL: NO! And the Princess is in London. Good thing I have the DVR! She’s flying to Amsterdam to see the tulips tomorrow.

  93. 93.

    James E Powell

    @Raven:
    @burnspbesq:

    It’s hard to compare players from the one & done era with other eras. And I gather you are talking only about college, not pro. We can only imagine what players like LeBron, Kobie, Durant, etc. would have done in four years of college.

    But you really want to argue that Grant Hill is better than Zion Williamson? Hill played four years at Duke. Compare freshman seasons: Williamson 22.6/8.7 to Hill 11.2/5.1. Hill’s best year was 18.0/6.4.

    The people raving about Williamson are not idiots, they are just looking at the numbers and at how he dominates. Is he the best ever? I do not know, but to say he is not even in the top five is a bit much.

  96. 96.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JPL: No judgment intended. It just blows me away when things that don’t seem to need that much engineering are that expensive.

    I get the Jurassic Park “We can charge $10000/day” feeling.

    And more power to the big comfy couches that knew disco.

  97. 97.

    raven

    @James E Powell: I’m Raven not Jay Bilas. I did play on the Champaign Park District B League champs in 1983! I had 15 in one game and they other dudes said “the old guy killed us”. 1983

  100. 100.

    JPL

    @mrmoshpotato: Since it works, my hope is that others produce something similar to lower the cost. I see things like that and think about the fact that if there is a power outage, they’re screwed.

  101. 101.

    Anne Laurie

    @PsiFighter37: Congratulations! — certainly on the impending baby woman (very old Doonesbury joke), and possibly on the less-work-related travel part, too.

  102. 102.

    The Dangerman

    @raven:

    Auburn is giving the Cats as run.

    Auburn would be a pick to take the whole thing but they lost a player (don’t recall name) to an ACL.

    Takes a little luck (see Virginia) to win the whole thing. Auburn got really lucky against New Mexico State (Dude had a wide open look as I recall).

    Duke is only here (mostly) because UCF blew a bunny and Virginia Tech … well, that would have only gone OT, but that was even a bigger bunny.

  103. 103.

    Raven

    Here’s where my bride is headed.

    Tulips in Holland She had lunch in the Olde Fighting Cocks pub in St Albans and said it was the best lunch she ever had. What am I, chopped liver!!!!

  105. 105.

    James E Powell

    If Auburn beats Kentucky Charles Barkley’s insufferable index will spike to new highs.

  106. 106.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Tim C.: LOL. A lot of words have been spilled on the Vela incident of 1979.

    This is a good summary of what we know so far, with some original documents.

    I worked in the same building as the Vela people back then. and I can tell you that they were vocally, indignantly convinced it was a test. According to the summary in that link, that’s where the community is coming to now. Every once in a while, somebody comes up with some data on sheep thyroids in Australia, or whatever, and occasionally I get sucked into it.

    The openly available data are still ambiguous. I have some questions, but I also tend to believe those building-mates.

  107. 107.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @West of the Rockies: She was a cisgender woman playing Falstaff “drag king” style — not just the gender reversal but the satiric exaggerated masculinity. And yes, she was fabulous.

    She’s back again this season, although I don’t remember in which plays.

  108. 108.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Jay: Wow, that grass looks brown and dead. Not surprising you’re getting grass fires already when the conditions are like that.

  112. 112.

    Jay

    @WhatsMyNym:

    Its in the trees now.

    Once the snow is off the ground, it takes about 2 to three weeks for the ground to unfreeze, another 2 weeks for the grass to green up.

    A decade ago, fire season was July to September.

    Now it’s March to November.

  114. 114.

    Dan B

    @Jay: OMG! There was a fire in the Columbia Gorge a week or so ago. It’s been dry in Seattle. I hope it’s not a pattern.

  115. 115.

    Jay

    @Dan B:

    It is.

    Alaska had it’s hottest spring ever,

    Cariboo, grizzleys and moose have extended their ranges 200km further north,

    Permafrost is melting, releasing methane into the air and methymercury into arctic lakes and turning the water brown.

  116. 116.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Ella in New Mexico: For some reason I thought you lived further south. I was in ABQ yesterday for a training. Maybe we can meet up sometime, taking all the necessary anti-serial killer precautions. As for braving the cold, the company and food were worth it. I fired up the wood stove when we got back home.

  117. 117.

    Dan B

    @Jay: I had to stop looking at global warming blogs when the permafrost methane releases became significant. Too scary if you have a clue what it means.

  118. 118.

    Jay

    @Dan B:

    Being a rancher/farmer/small buisnessman living on a section filled with matchsticks means I don’t have the option of looking away.

  119. 119.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @West of the Rockies: yes Nancy McKeon. She used to be in one of the ‘you won’t believe what this sitcom star looks like today!!!’ spam ads(that I never clicked on.) If I remember right the blond cheerleader type in Facts of Life turned into a RW evangelical nutjob. Or she came out as gay. I get her confused with the blond from Little House on the Prairie. One came out and the other became a RWNJ. I don’t know why I remember this stuff.

  120. 120.

    normal liberal

    @mrmoshpotato:
    Likewise. From central Illinois I can be downtown in around two hours, so maybe brunch instead of breakfast? A weekend would help.

  121. 121.

    Miss Bianca

    And I am on the one on the left, just made it back home from Santa Fe, and yes – a simply smashing time – good food and GREAT company, thank you, ladies all!

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    OMG, you’re in a museum?!!! Way cool, historic personage!

    At first I thought we had been to your Cafe Fina, but the place we ate at a couple of times was north of town.

    Cheryl, have you ever heard of Cresson H. Kearny? He wrote a book about Civil Defense in the nuclear age, which tells me that simple protection is way, way better than nothing. Worked at Oak Ridge, actually… which is why I ask, thinking you may have heard of him. Some of the field work for which happened out west.

  126. 126.

    Sab

    I am pretty sure I have seen OFelix from other meetup pictures. Whyohwhy can’t we have a NE Ohio one?

  129. 129.

    J R in WV

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Since we’re asking “did you ever know?” I’m going to ask if you ever heard of a guy named Cresson H. Kearny. He worked at Oak Ridge, as a civil defense researcher, and wrote a book called “Nuclear War Survival Skills” about how to build an ad hoc shelter with common hand tools and material from your home, like shower curtains and bed slats.

    I found it fascinating. The forward is by Edward Teller. The author intro is by:

    Eugene P. Wigner. Physicist, Nobel Laureate, and the only surviving initiator of the Nuclear Age.

    May, 1979

    The book is free located at:

    http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p907.htm

  131. 131.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    For some reason I thought you lived further south.

    I do live in Las Cruces. But since last summer I’ve been spending most of my weekday time in ABQ working on my Family Nurse Practitioner degree at UNM. This is my last semester and I’m working full-time in my last round of clinicals. Graduating in May so by then I’ll actually have time to live a normal enough life again for a meet up! :-)

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