Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

White supremacy is terrorism.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

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

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

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

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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

No Justins, No Peace

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Respite Open Thread: Here’s A Cat On A Hat

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  1. 1.

    C Stars

    Our kids are pretending to be just about ready to board a flight to Slovakia. They disappeared for about 20 minutes while my spouse and I washed dishes and then one of them popped back in the kitchen to have some chocolate raisins and let us know that their flight had actually been delayed. Then they popped back up about 15 minutes later to have some more chocolate raisins and mentioned that their group hadn’t been called yet. It was cute.

  5. 5.

    BruceFromOhio

    Hiding under a rock with The Pretty Reckless blasting in my ears has worked well these last few days. These last few weeks, actually. Okay, since 2016.

    But still. Working well.

  6. 6.

    lamh36

    No pets, but since it’s a respite thread I’ll talk about my respite activity…watching tv

     

    So I made the mistake of putting on that show Fleabag on Amazon Prime to watch in the background while I tried to study for a class. Ya’ll, I binged both seasons of that show! I have NEVER been more invested in Catholic priest falling in love since the Thornbirds!!!!

     

    I mean…yeah, I’m hooked

  9. 9.

    Gravenstone

    Hopefully Gabe is a good boy. Just got done doing an emergency load of laundry after discovering one of my monsters did something foul on a pile of (formerly) clean clothes  – including my work t-shirts. It’s fortunate that they’re so cute.

  12. 12.

    Nicole

    My 9-year-old was expressing quite a bit of anxiety about Covid-19 this weekend.  I showed him The Daily Show with Trevor Noah‘s piece about it, “Is This How We Die?” and, fortunately, seeing it presented with humor took away his fears.  I was really pleased with myself, until I remembered that one of the things about being 9 years old is that you like to watch the same things over and over again and now I’ve had to sit through “Is This How We Die?” 5 times in 48 hours.  Though, I guess it beats those effing videos of guys loudly speculating theories about Fortnite, which he also likes to watch over and over again.  At least Trevor Noah is both funny and cute.

  13. 13.

    Ken

    a hat that has escaped the donation pile

    Clearly I need to pay more attention.  What’s the backstory here?

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    Going over a Phrygian-mode scale diagram in my notes today, I found errors that had been screwing up my attempt to learn the scale. Fixed.

    I’ve been listening to Springsteen’s cover of Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom. I don’t know why, but it moves me to tears.

  22. 22.

    Redshift

    I met a cute cat while canvassing this evening. She was pretty timid, though; didn’t run away, but wouldn’t get quite close enough to sniff my hand.

    Her person appreciated that I had kept her from getting out, but actually the storm door wasn’t closed when I got there (open about a foot wide), and she didn’t seem included to go out.

    I also saw through a window a very waggy dog (pit bull mix, I’d guess). I didn’t get to meet him, though, because his person told him to lie down before opening the door, and he was very well trained.

  24. 24.

    Nicole

    @lamh36: Big props for the Thornbirds reference.  And 10/10 would follow your live tweet of it.

    I never saw it (I was too young; my mom wouldn’t let me.  She also wouldn’t let me watch Roots or Shogun or ANY of the great 1970s miniseries).  I read the book, though.

  26. 26.

    Gravenstone

    And to add to the evening’s excitement, the little one just let out an unearthly noise. I found him in full alarm posture up against the back window. Guessing he saw one of the neighborhood ferals that like to wander around.

  27. 27.

    zhena gogolia

    @lamh36:

    I certainly remember it, and that priest had Barbara Stanwyck lusting for him, so I think that beats Fleabag!!!!!

  28. 28.

    Gravenstone

    @Nicole: The 70s miniseries were often such guilty pleasures. I was actually reminding myself this morning about a few of them.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    @C Stars: You’re gonna be really surprised when they’re not in the house tomorrow morning and you get a post card from Bratislava next week.

  31. 31.

    lamh36

    @Steeplejack:  No new job yet actually.  I been applying for thigs as much as possible, but so far no bites.

    Just finishing up this grad degree this semester

  35. 35.

    lamh36

    @Nicole: I was like 7 when the original came out.  But when I was younger, I may have told this story before, my family didn’t have cable or tv in each room, but we did have a VCR and so I used to check out movies and stuff from my local library alot.  So by the time I was a teenager, I was obsesses with trashy romance novels already, and so I’m sure that’s how I got hip to the Thorn birds miniseries.

    And like I said, I was OBSESSES as a teen…LOL

  36. 36.

    BC in Illinois

    @C Stars:

    I like the parts about flights being delayed and groups not being called up yet. Kids’ imaginations can have a great attention to detail.

    I was once in a room down the hall from a group of kids playing “school.” A lot of it was standard “stay in your seat,” “raise your hand,” “who knows the answer to . . .” — that kind of stuff.  But they also wrote kids’ names on the board (for acting up) and sent other kids to the counselor’s office. Details.

  39. 39.

    Poe Larity

    Since it will be an open convention, who do we really want?

    Imagine someone younger than Chris Matthews.

  42. 42.

    Nicole

    @lamh36: Ha!  That’s great.  I also was a trashy romance reader by my teen years, although I have to blame my grandmother for that one.  She read lots of romance novels, and when I was about 11 or 12, gave me two she’d read, telling me they both had strong women characters and there wasn’t “too much sex” in them.  Judging from some of the ones I read later, she was correct, there wasn’t, but for a kid who’d never read a romance novel before- WHHHOOOOOWEEEEEEEE!

    I found the one, This Cherished Dream, in a drawer at my parents’ house a few years back, and reread it for the lulz.  It… held up better than one would expect an early 1980s romance novel to.  Grandma clearly chose it with care when she gave it to me. ;)

  43. 43.

    Lyrebird

    @HumboldtBlue: Thank you for linking to that channel before; she is awesome and so at home in her home-style kitchen.  Cheered me up to watch a couple of her videos even if I haven’t tried the recipes.

     

    @Nicole: …and thanks to you for the Trevor Noah recommendation, my eldest might need and relate to that.  I just today watched his interview (Trevor Noah’s that is) with his grandmother, which is really sweet and also really real (about growing up under apartheid etc).

     

    BTW I know this is the non-politics thread, I just wanna say that I peeked at some clips of the Dallas rally, and even if my fave candidates weren’t there, it was SO NICE, definite respite, to see folks lifting each other up and lifting up the local races into the limelight.  Also, Beto’s little girl dancing around was for me almost as cute as one of the Twitter-famous otters.

  44. 44.

    geg6

    Sorry to go OT on the respite but Brian Williams just said Obama is saying privately that the signal is going out that Joe is the guy.  Shit is getting real.

  47. 47.

    Nicole

    @Lyrebird: It really is a funny segment. And Trevor Noah does a frighteningly good and hilarious impersonation of Trump. Much better than Alec Baldwin’s.

  49. 49.

    hilts

    Al Hunt (husband of PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff), Bloomberg News’ former Washington editor and one of the organization’s most visible faces in politics until his 2018 exit, was accused over the course of years by multiple women of giving unsolicited massages and verbally berating employees for minor infractions, Business Insider has learned.

    h/t https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-news-al-hunt-accused-unsolicited-massages-verbally-berating-employees-2020-3?op=1

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    @lamh36: 

    So I made the mistake of putting on that show Fleabag on Amazon Prime to watch in the background while I tried to study for a class. Ya’ll, I binged both seasons of that show! I have NEVER been more invested in Catholic priest falling in love since the Thornbirds!!!!

    Glad to hear that you enjoyed it. I am anticipating the new James Bond film even more than I normally would because I’ve read that Phoebe Walter-Bridge contributed to the screenplay.

    I think I watched Season 1 over a number of days. But I zoomed through Season 2.

  52. 52.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @geg6: Was hearing that earlier, too. Tomorrow is going to be interesting. See if Joe-mentum holds up.

    We’ll probably need another duck-in-a-scarf relief thread tomorrow.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    @Nicole: My daughter was also worried and she’s 19. She’s taking Intro Stats this quarter, so we dug into the math. So, there’s a decent chance she’ll catch it, and an incredibly small chance she’ll die from it. Far more likely to be killed driving to stats class. Even her parents don’t need to worry about much. Her grandparents, however, we need to take good care of them.

    I said the changes we need to make to get this under control will affect her much more. Just today we put the first concrete steps in place (finally) in anticipation of a campus closure in 2 weeks or later. Don’t know if it’ll come but we’ll be slightly better prepared for it.

    But this is a good moment for people to pay attention to – the selfish assholes are going to glow in a way they never have before. It’s been not even one day and I already have a few colleagues that I want to deliberately infect.

  54. 54.

    burnspbesq

    I got out of February only having acquired two new guitars, a Guild D-40E and a Fender Acoustisonic Telecaster.

    There may be a “real” Tele in my future, the new variation with a humbucking pickup in the neck position (the Robbie Robertson variation). Or not.

  55. 55.

    Martin

    @TaMara (HFG): I’m sorry. I am normally incredibly dismissive of thread topics but I do try and respect the respite ones. People shouldn’t marinade in shit 24/7.

  56. 56.

    chris

    We had a holiday Monday a couple of weeks ago and I was visiting in Halifax and spotted these guys patiently waiting for their human who just had to stop by the office. So cute and completely unfazed by the stranger pointing a phone at them.

  57. 57.

    Lyrebird

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Thanks for putting up the respite threads!

    Do your ducks ever try to hop on your giant doggies?

    The scarves are beautiful, the ducks are beautiful , and so are your Bixby and Scout photos (hope I got names right).

  60. 60.

    C Stars

    @Nicole: guys loudly speculating theories about Fortnite

    Yeah, I know those videos. Although my kiddos tend more toward the “Minecraft Prank” genre. I don’t really understand what any of it means, but shouting guy in the corner with a headset seems to be a common theme.

    I might check out the Trevor Noah clip. So far our 6 and 9 year old don’t seem too worried, for whatever reason. They joke about it whenever one of us sneezes.

  62. 62.

    Kent

    Speaking of parenthood.  It doesn’t end when they leave the home

    I just found out that my wife was worried about the oldest daughter, senior in college, so she ordered on of these on amazon and sent it to her to keep in her purse:  https://www.amazon.com/BACtrack-Breathalyzer-Professional-Grade-Accuracy-Professional/dp/B0026IBZSK/

    Apparently the kid actually uses it when out with friends before getting behind the wheel.   Good for her.  I didn’t even know but my wife talks to her more than I do.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    @MisterForkbeard: I think Obama threatened to endorse Biden and told everyone to get on board because they wouldn’t want to be on the outside of that decision. If they dropped out and endorsed Biden, he’d stay out of things for now and they’d stay in good standing with the next Dem administration.

    I don’t think he was intent on cutting everyone off, just those candidates out of cash needed to get out and endorse before tomorrow so Biden could get some momentum. I’m guessing Obama saw the potential for Bernie to be the candidate, and since Bernie already rejected Bloombergs money (and Bloomberg took it off the table for Bernie as a result), that’s a real problem for Dems.

    Notably, Warren is now viable in CA per the polls. She wasn’t a week ago. She’s going to have to pick up a solid bit of Pete and Amy votes to get over 15% in a number of other states though. She’s in the 12% range in a lot of places, so maybe. If she doesn’t get there in TX and NC, or win some other states then I think she’s gotta drop after tomorrow. And she’ll immediately endorse Biden.

    I wouldn’t worry about a contested convention with how things look now. If it’s Biden/Bernie tied up around 40%, all of the other delegates will get pledged to Biden, and the superdelegates will honor that.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @Steeplejack:

    There was a group salivating over Rachel Ward in the noir thread yesterday.

    Well, she was lovely in the mini-series and in films like “Against All Odds.” And many women salivated over Richard Chamberlain in “The Thorn Birds” back in the day.

    A visit to the Wayback Machine circa 2013 reveals just how great an impact the mini-series had on pop culture.

    In 1983 Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown headlined the ABC miniseries adaptation of Australian author Coleen McCollough’s bestselling potboiler. Set in the outback in the early 20th century, it chronicled the tortured romance between an ambitious Catholic priest (Chamberlain), his spirited ward (Ward) and the ranch hand (Brown) with whom she seeks solace.

    A sensation in its initial broadcast, “The Thorn Birds” remains the second-highest rated miniseries of all time (after “Roots”) and continues to amass new generations of fans in each rebroadcast and new home video incarnation.

    It was also pivotal in the lives of its stars: On the plus side, it secured Chamberlain’s status as the reigning king of the television miniseries, alongside 1980’s “Shogun,” and Brown launched a successful career in Hollywood with hit films including “Gorillas In the Mist” and “Cocktail.”

  65. 65.

    Amir Khalid

    @burnspbesq:

    When it comes to Teles — and Strats — I must confess I’m a single-coil purist. Speaking of Teles, I just this minute broke the high E string on Queen with a particularly hard strum while practising chord changes.

  66. 66.

    C Stars

    @Adam L Silverman: I mean, I would definitely be surprised. But with these kids….maybe not 100% surprised. They were being cute tonight but can definitely get up to some big trouble. Maybe not transatlantic flight trouble, but certainly hacking into mom’s Amazon account trouble.

    @BC in Illinois: It’s amazing, isn’t it? Things we barely hear or think about resonate and mean something interesting to them.

  68. 68.

    Kent

    @C Stars: She’s gotten through 4 years of college without getting pregnant, into drugs, or dropping out so that’s something!  At age 17 we weren’t quite so sure about any of that.

  70. 70.

    Lyrebird

    @C Stars: shouting guy in the corner with a headset seems to be a common theme.

    I find Zebra Gamer the least annoying of the corner dudes we’ve followed thus far, but he doesn’t cover as many pranks.  Just all of the games we’re not buying but think it’s okay for little ones to watch.  They’re so deprived (j/k).

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36: Olivia Coleman is so low-key, every-day evil in that show that I’m going to catch up on The Queen just so I can watch her play Betty. I hope that’s the same season where Bellatrix Lestrange plays Princess Margaret

    My very Catholic grandmothers were furious that the network aired The Thornbirds during Holy Week. They weren’t alone

  72. 72.

    Brachiator

    Something for the cooks.  The world’s best and easy to prepare pasta sauce:

    Just as Julia Child changed the way Americans felt about French cooking, Marcella Hazan changed the way they felt about Italian cooking. And though she’s not a household name the way Child is, you’ve probably seen a copy of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking in a kitchen or two.

    One of her most famous recipes is also the simplest. Her pasta sauce only requires three ingredients and less than an hour, as Delish alerts us.

    First, the ingredients. You’ll need a 28-ounce can of whole, peeled tomatoes; one peeled, halved onion; and 5 tablespoons of butter. (Yes, 5 whole tablespoons of butter.) You’ll also want a pinch or two of salt.

    Put everything together in a single pot and set it to simmer over medium heat on the stove for 45 minutes, uncovered. Give it the occasional stir.

    And that’s it. After the 45 minutes is up, toss out the onion halves, and pour the sauce over your favorite pasta. Easy.

    Enjoy.

  74. 74.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Brachiator:

    As a victim of garlic-bomber-Harris-types (I get garlic but sweet mother of allium sativum back the hell up with the 12 cloves an’ shit) butter, tomatoes and onion go well on a pasta.

  75. 75.

    smike

    @Brachiator: I’ve got to see what the result is. Simple enough to find out.

    After finding most retail options underwhelming, I decided to do my own pasta sauce and meatballs from the ground up. I grow rosemary, thyme, basil, and oregano in the yard and use that with canned tomatoes, store bought onion and garlic, etc. I flavor meatballs with the a lot of the same ingredients. It works for me.

    Anyway (as Uncle Joe would say), my time is – ummm – well, I’ll try it.

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