Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

This really is a full service blog.

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

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

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

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

So many bastards, so little time.

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Something Good Open Thread / Respite Open Thread: Ducks and Puppies and Kitties

Respite Open Thread: Ducks and Puppies and Kitties

by | 62 Comments

This post is in: ,

I had some requests for photos of my critters. Zander and Emma are MIA, they did not want to be bothered with photos today. I did manage to get the ducks to play along. They were spread out all over the yard, a sure sign of spring.

Mabel asking, “Why the heck are you following me, stalker?”

Penelope Pearl and Maddie haven’t quite caught on that I’m snapping them next.

Maddie, feathers ruffled, which is her usual manner when I’m around. I’m not her favorite person.

And finally, fan-favorite, Penelope

Next up, my officemates unconcerned with the day’s happenings, knowing I’m stocked up on the important things: their food.

I had put Scout’s blanket away around Christmas time, tucked it in the ottoman before a party and then forgot about it. She kept stealing my blanket and in the middle of scolding her the other day, I realized she needed her blanket. Problem solved.

Gabe asking nicely to go outside. The cats are so great about going outside. They come in when I call, never jump the fence and play nice with the ducks. Here Gabe waits patiently for the temperature to be warm enough for the patio door to be opened.

And finally the big guy. This is going to be a difficult week for me. On Friday it will be a year (!!) since I almost lost him. It’s easy to forget these days he was paralyzed for ten days just a year ago. I went back and read your comments today and seriously, you guys were a lifeline, helping me get through those long sleepless nights and hard days. Today, you’d never know it ever happened.  Grateful for every day I can, without thinking about it, yell at him for being a stubborn pain in my ass. He’s the biggest love and most stubborn, good boy ever!

One final thought:

Respite Open Thread: Ducks and Puppies and Kitties 6

I’m on my second week of working for clients who cannot pay me, but they need my help and I’m sure that down the road, as things get better, they will be able. We are all navigating the new reality of SBA loans and grants and unemployment insurance for the self-employed. The dogs and I walk every day and I reach out and check on friends and family often. Other than that, coping here.

How are you doing? Thinking of the words of encouragement you all gave me a year ago, I hope this place offers you the same during these strange and stressful times.

Respite open thread.

 

 

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Pleeeeez tell me it’s just a bizarre camera angle & that cat is not morbidly obese…

  3. 3.

    CaseyL

    My god, has it been a year?  Tempus fugits, all right.  Delightful to hear Bixby is fully recovered!  And as always, thank you for sharing the critters with us.   I didn’t know Maddie disliked you; ungrateful baggage.

    My kitties, who usually do their napping upstairs in bed, have started to do some of it on the ottoman by the sofa, so we can all be near one another.   It’s quit endearing.

    I’m holding out pretty well.  Online has enough content to keep me entertained, and there are always books to read.  I wish I was more active, though.  I may tune into an On Demand music channel and dance around a bit.

    This blog, the FPers and people here, are a godsend.  News, commentary, learned discourse (and the other kind), conversation and snark, all in one place.  THANK YOU BJ

  7. 7.

    John Revolta

    @Uncle Cosmo: I dunno about the cat but that Maddie is one big old hunk o’duck!

    ETA: Okay, I see she is just “ruffled”. Never mind! She looks pretty funny though with her little feets sticking out of this big blimp body.

  9. 9.

    Redshift

    If you wanted to do a post about the new unemployment insurance at some point, in sure it would be appreciated. It’s not my personal situation, but I know plenty of people who it applies to. (And in light of the “Democratic establishment rolled over and the relief bill is just corporate bailouts” rhetoric floating around, there are people who don’t know they need to know.)

    Sorry to put this in a respite thread, but since you brought it up…

  10. 10.

    BC in Illinois

    My daughter just sent four pictures from today of the four g’kids — 4th grade, 2nd grade, k’garten, preschool — each looking at a screen or mobile device. The p’schooler is just being entertained, the k’gartener is learning about bananas and their flowers, and the older two — who go to the St Louis Language Immersion School (a St Louis Public School, where they are learning Chinese) — are now learning the Chinese for “mute your microphone.”

    This generation will grow up with a different skill set than their Millennial parents and Boomer g’parents.

  13. 13.

    Nicole

    Love the photos; thank you!  It dawned on me this week, while on a solitary run in Central Park that the mallards must be incubating eggs right now, because I’ve only seen a few male mallard ducks out by themselves the past week.  DUCKLINGS ARE ON THE WAY.

    I haven’t had too much time to comment this week; we’re doing our best to stay busy, but I’m enjoying reading everyone here- FPers and commenters both.  Thanks for being entertaining and informative.

  14. 14.

    Fair Economist

    You bring Maddie food and she still ruffles her feathers at you? My rabbit doesn’t understand that at all. Food is love!

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    Los Angeles Times: Can pets get the coronavirus?

    This one is worth clicking for the photo of the little dog in the bright yellow mask. If TL;DR: short answer: no. Extremely unlikely. But this bit of advice:

    Animal healthcare experts agree that although there have been no cases in the United States of a human passing the virus to a pet, the best practice for anyone infected with coronavirus is to treat their companion animal the same way they would a human: Avoid all unnecessary contact.

    “If you’re sick, practice social distancing,” Rankin said. “The big thing is to not be in contact with anyone else — dogs, cats or humans — when you’re sick.”

    In practice, that means pet owners who are diagnosed with the virus should avoid petting, snuggling or otherwise being in physical contact with their pets, said Dr. Jerry Klein, chief veterinary officer for the American Kennel Club. They should also be sure to inform their veterinarian about their illness.

    If possible, a healthy household member ought to feed and take care of the animal, Klein said. If there is no one available to do so, ill caretakers ought to wear a face mask and wash their hands before and after feeding and otherwise caring for their pets.

    Social distancing from your pet while you’re both quarantined at home? Yeah, good luck with that.

    Also, have a backup plan for pet care in the event you are hospitalized.

  16. 16.

    Sab

    Many years ago my baby sister accidentally started a great tomato plant by abandoning half a BLT in the rose-garden. Since the garden stores will probably be dead by summer, should I try hatch tomatoes from one of the tomatoes I am about to eat?

  17. 17.

    Yutsano

    @Sab: Someone might beat me to this but yes.

    I made my first attempt at pasta con le sarde tonight. It’s very good and I know the adjustments to make next time I make it. And it’s different but surprisingly good!

  25. 25.

    Sab

    @TaMara (HFG): That is so cool. Mega-mallards. Or are mallards mini-rouens. All sizes, like poodles. My own personal experience with ducks is migrating mallards in my neighborhood. Quacky little guys.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    @Yutsano:

    I have worked out scale patterns for all the modes of the harmonic minor and melodic minor scales. I shall add these to my practice routines. For my next adventure in music theory, I shall attempt to learn the modes of the chromatic scale.

  28. 28.

    frosty

    How are we doing? I retired at the end of January, we hitched up the trailer and started a 4-month road trip to Florida and then the southwest to see half a dozen National Parks.

    Coronavirus has forced some changes. Joshua Tree closed this morning so we’ve now gone to ground in Arizona state parks for three weeks to see what will happen in California and Utah.

    Social distancing has been pretty much the same for us as everyone else, except our house has wheels.  We hang out in the trailer, take walks or bike rides, go to the grocery store, stay away from other people.  From our experience the whole country is complying.

    The trip so far could make an unusual On The Road piece.

  30. 30.

    Kattails

    I had a lovely British gentleman who’d visit the store I worked in occasionally, and when I’d ask how he was doing he’d say “All the better for your asking, thank you!” How sweet is that?

    Love Gabe’s face, he always looks so thoughtful & a little bit worried, I remember when you got him and all the name suggestions, that was fun. And so glad your gigantic boy got better.

    Hoping to do a little visit with my sister one of these days, lots of outdoor walks around the lakes area she just moved to as long as we remember not to hug. And she got a video of a woodcock in her front yard yesterday, sent me a still, good heavens the thing is half beak.

  32. 32.

    Keith P

    This is gonna be a bad year fleas, it appears.  They have absolutely blown up on my cats in the last couple of days, and I had dosed them with Cheristin 2 weeks ago (last year, a single dose of that knocked out visible fleas for 3+ months).  I thought I’d get a jump on them this year, too, since I usually don’t dose until April or even May.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    Neither Scout nor Bixby look comfortable in their repose; if I slept in those poses, I’d fall off the couch.

  36. 36.

    joel hanes

    @Sab: 

    It’s almost always the hen mallards who do the quacking and flight calling. Drakes mostly do a kind of quiet grumbling chatter among themselves.

  37. 37.

    sfinny

    @Redshift:  Many of my neighbors have told me about being furloughed or fired, and didn’t know about the supplemental unemployment insurance benefits.  I make sure to tell all of them about it because I don’t know if it kicks in automatically.

    Also just downloaded the form for a small business loan to give to my boss.  He may be able to get a forgivable loan to pay my salary for two months.

  38. 38.

    joel hanes

    @Sab:

    If you have any cherry tomatoes about the house, that’s what I’d use for seed.    I used to grow eight or ten cultivars each season, but the only volunteers I ever got were indeterminate cherries from the excess Sweet 100s

  39. 39.

    mrmoshpotato

    Grateful for every day I can, without thinking about it, yell at him for being a stubborn pain in my ass.

    LOL That’s love!

  41. 41.

    frosty

    @Amir Khalid: Now do it in Open D. With a slide!

    Seriously, I’ve been writing my own guitar book a little at a time, since I haven’t found one that works for me. Last year I figured out 6th and 9th chords, just the top 3 strings. And no, without a slide. That’s just crazy!

  42. 42.

    joel hanes

    @Kelly:

    Steller’s Jays are one of the most beautifully blue things there are, in a class with spiderwort and gentians.

    The first time I saw an Indigo Bunting up close, I gasped.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @debbie:

    Their limbs are much lighter, relative to the body, than human limbs, so Bixby and Scout can hang them off the edge of the couch and not risk falling off.

  45. 45.

    Amir Khalid

    @frosty:

    You know what kind of guitar book I wish I could find? One with sample practice routines and a comprehensive list of exercises for beginner, intermediate, and advanced players. I have been flying blind for the past couple of years, and such a book would be a valuable resource for the player who’s teaching themselves like I am.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    Got the call today that landlady’s car repair is complete so drove her into town to pick it up. While there made a quick stop at Whole Foods to see if they had restock on rye flour (sold out when stopped there March 10).

    Score! As they had lots and lots of it on the shelves got three packages. Which isn’t as much as it sounds as each package is only a pound and a quarter.

    Do have a very slight headache now from the bleachy chemical fumes of the cleaning products they’re using in the store, which are absolutely permeating the place.

  48. 48.

    joel hanes

    @Kelly:

    One of my favorite parts of camping in the Sierra used to be watching the Steller’s Jays do their early morning patrol : starting on the ground, then to a tree on a low branch next to the trunk, and flap-hopping to each successive branch in an ascending spiral around the trunk.

  50. 50.

    HumboldtBlue

    I haven’t touched a fellow human being in just about a month.

    I recall texting my sister a month ago when the decision to shelter in place came as expected.

    “That may be the last hug I share with my friend.”

    We talked outside the window today in an awkward aside.

    I still can’t hug her. But fuck that’s awkward.

    Ain’t the same and Horace Silver knows it.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    I just gave Spawn the Youngest a little bit of a cookie for the first time.

    Guess what? I’M POPULAR.

  55. 55.

    Keith P

    @Yutsano:  I dosed them 2 weeks ago, before any fleas started to hit. I usually wait until they explode. Last year was pretty bad, since I was initially using Frontline, and fleas were heavy two days after dosing both months I used it. Cheristin KO’ed them immediately, but they may be resistant this year

  58. 58.

    Origuy

    @frosty: You might want to check out the Bureau of Land Management campsites. Probably few if any hookups, but they have suspended fees for the time being. Usually they are a lot less crowded than NPS sites.

  60. 60.

    frosty

    @Origuy: Thanks, we’re looking into those. However, all of them are closed near Moab. They’re chasing people out of dispersed camping. Can’t blame them. I read that the local hospital only has 17 beds. Hard to believe with all the mountain bikers crashing in the summer.

  61. 61.

    joel hanes

    @frosty:

    Dunno if the sites along the Ten Sleeps canyon in the Bighorn National Forest in north central Wyoming are open, but if I were to be dawdling, that’s an area in which I’d like to dawdle.  Hwy 16 between Thermopolis and Buffalo.

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