Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

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

Come on, man.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Duck Blogging / Monday Evening Respite Open Thread

Monday Evening Respite Open Thread

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From what little I know of ducks, they’re also an ‘organic replacment’ for chemical fertilizers…

Speaking of which, props for carrying that ‘poop pad’, Duck Companion!

(h/t commentor Sister Golden Bear)
.

Bonus musical accompaniment:

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  2. 2.

    RedDirtGirl

    Open thread? The Biden/Harris campaign is having an event tonight with Kamala, Hillary, and their SNL doppelgängers. 6pm Eastern time. Could be the uplift I need today.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    This weekend my sister treated my brother and me to a “pandemic breakfast.” She and my brother live in Texas and I’m in California, so she got our orders, contacted appropriate eateries and had the meals delivered. To be double safe, I asked that my delivery be left outside my door.

    Everything got delivered okay and we had a brief video chat afterwards.

    A bit crazy, but a fun respite.

  5. 5.

    pb503

    Only need only one author Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache story to know how important & perceptive ducks are, especially when they’re companions to poets.

  6. 6.

    TaMara (HFG)

    OMG, Anne Laurie, where’s the love – all this duck awesomeness and you didn’t alert me! LOL I’m here for it.

    What I know about ducks and bugs – I have no grasshoppers in my backyard (front yard another story) and I’ve seen them catch flies out of the air with ease.

    As for fertilizer – let’s just say, they earn their keep.

  11. 11.

    raven

    I’m doing up two giant redfish filets that I’ve had in the freezer for almost a year. You can find things that say fish won’t last more than a couple of months and you can find things that says they’ll be fine as long as they are frozen. They are so big I didn’t want to thaw them for just the two of us but I’ve waited long enough. Redfish on the half shell!

  15. 15.

    oatler.

    Enough with the “medieval covers” gimmick. It worked for Dread Zeppelin doing reggae covers  of Zep songs, then it didn’t.  I prefer Gryphon’s 1972 lp which has a genuine “cover” of a song written by Henry XIII.

  17. 17.

    Anotherlurker

    @raven: Bon appetite!  I have had great preservative success with vacuum sealing Golden Tilefish and Yellowfin Tuna steaks and filets. Do it right and 1 year frozen is no problem.

  18. 18.

    prostratedragon

    Back in an earlier millennium when Chicago had things like streetcorner newsstands, there was a man at the one on Randolph St. just outside the main public library who had a pet duck. He and that duck –I like to think it was the same one– were mainstays for years, in any kind of weather. At the end of the evening rush I’d see them elsewhere downtown making their way home, wherever that was. He looked just a step or two above homelessness, but if he owned that stand he was probably fairly comfortable. There were a few news articles and local tv spots about them over the years.

  20. 20.

    Scuffletuffle

    I hear that everytime I buy out all the bluefish at the fish market. I just laugh and say “Don’t worry, it won’t last that long.”

  24. 24.

    dmsilev

    @Baud:

    Ducks. Is there anything they can’t do?

    I’ve never seen one that was any good at all at solving partial differential equations. And I certainly wouldn’t trust them to run a lathe.

  26. 26.

    kindness

    That Mideval Macarena…..why am I hearing the melody of Walk Like An Egyptian in it?  Hey Oh Way Oh…

  29. 29.

    Phylllis

    This seems right up the alley of some folks here–free program discussing Pat Conroy’s experiences as a teacher and his respect for teachers.

  31. 31.

    Emma from FL

    If any of the photo mavens among us has a minute could you recommend a photo editing software that does not have a hugely steep learning curve and doesn’t require me to fork over my firstborn, if I had one, to Adobe? Thanks!

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    Dutiful Ducks

    dutiful
    the drano ducks collide
    and mercy
    gather-collide-like
    fancy tension
    pow-wow
    dutiful dutiful ducks
    than double Elly
    Macy
    treetops pray
    the signal
    hay in May
    says
    dutiful
    —
    dutiful
    ducks
    —
    dutiful
    —
    dutiful
    dutiful
    ducks

    –Charles Amirkhanian

  36. 36.

    raven

    @Phylllis:  Our local OLLI had a two hour session with the director, Jonathon Haupt, of the center last week. I once wrote Pat a letter and he wrote me back!

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    @Emma from FL:

    Photoshop Elements is one of the few Adobe products one can buy, not lease, and can occasionally be had on sale for $70. The kid finds it relatively easy to use. I mostly use Lightroom but am on LR6, the last version that was available for purchase. Still use Photoshop for heavy lifting but rarely–it’s overkill for general editing and doesn’t have a photo library data base.

    For free, the Google editing suite can handle simple treatments and cropping, etc.

    Capture One is popular among photogs but I have no experience with it. Looks powerful and there are modules aplenty.

    Most cameras come with that maker’s editing tools. Some of these are really sucky to use but the price is right.

    Good luck!

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Those of you are being naysayers about ducks, are these things that they cannot do or merely things that they chosen not to do?

  47. 47.

    Jeffro

    Who’s up for setting off a string of firecrackers outside of Michael Caputo’s place tonight?

    Or at least leaving a SorosCheck stub lying around on his sidewalk?

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Brachiator:

    That’s a great idea! My younger twin sister and brother are turning 75 in a few weeks, and I’ve been fretting over what I can get them. Steve lives in Prescott, AZ, and Joyce is in Aurora, CO, so there’s nothing I can do for them in person. But treating them each to a great birthday meal is a fine thought! Thanks for the suggestion.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:   WRT ducks:  That is, I believe, the question.

    Also:  for us Princess Bride reading fans:  maybe you all saw this before, but I just did. CNN: ‘The Princess Bride’ had a prescient line about mask wearing

    It did, and its principals got into politics with CNN, too.

    [Ted] Cruz last week called The Princess Bride “perfect” and said he wishes it would stay out of “Hollywood politics.”

    Elwes responded that Cruz should “leave the fire swamp.”

    “Ted Cruz represents, in my humble opinion, the whole fire swamp of Washington,” Elwes told CNN Saturday. “In private they share their dismay at the man [Donald Trump], but in public they support everything he does, no matter how insane.”

    Reiner said the country is more divided than it’s ever been and in a 21st century version of a civil war.

    “This is a battle for the soul of the nation,” he told CNN. “We’re in a civil war. There’s no question about it. The only difference is instead of Abraham Lincoln in the White House, we have Jefferson Davis in the White House,” referring to the president of the Confederacy.

    Honestly. Jefferson Davis, much as I deplore him, had a lot more going for him than Trump. JD never completed a political term to which he had been elected/selected.

    Regrettably, it appears der Trump might, but we must hold him to one stolen term. No more.

    A tweet Cary Elwes sent out in July:

    Hello. My name is Coronavirus. You don’t want to wear a mask? Prepare to die.

  51. 51.

    germy

    New season of Jeopardy tonight.

    Contestants are not as close together.   Trebek is keeping his distance during the introductory chat

    No studio audience.

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    @Jeffro:   I am surprised that Caputo has not gone on medical leave.

    How could any other government or business figure — not in TrumpWorld — survive a story like the NY Times’?

    Maybe he has, and TrumpWorld is just not giving its critics the satisfaction of knowing so.

    Caputo needs mental health treatment.  His values and judgement absolutely suck, but now he is going paranoid bonkers, too.

  55. 55.

    Phylllis

    @raven: I’ve got a signed copy of The Boo around here somewhere; Conroy used to do impromptu book signings at Bay Street Trading in Beaufort once or twice a year. Just happened to be in town on a day when he was there.

  63. 63.

    logjam

    @Emma from FL:  For everyday cropping, resizing and basic color work that’s rually easy to use and rually free try Photoscape. I’ve been using it for 15 years. Has some interesting features. Perfect for me. For more advanced stuff I use Polarr. Fab program which is also free.

  64. 64.

    catclub

    @Roger Moore: have a pretty steep learning curve.

     

    my inner pedant says that a steep learning curve rapidly gets you to mastery of the subject.  while a long learning curve takes a lot of work and study.

     

    The world does not agree with me.

  66. 66.

    dnfree

    @trollhattan:

     

    @Emma from FL: I don’t know if it’s still available anywhere, but the desktop version of Picasa was great.  Google bought it and it was still great, and it had “I feel lucky” just like Google used to have.  You just clicked on it and it fixed a bunch of things–color, contrast, whatever.  Or you could do your own, but I liked “I feel lucky”.  Suddenly a few years ago Google just up and killed it.  I still have it on one of my computers.

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    @Emma from FL

    If al you need are basic photo editing tools, things such as:

    Cropping
    Resizing
    FSharpeniong or Contrast adjustgmen t
    Brightneszs controls
    Orientation changing
    Color swapping or enhancement or convert to grauscal
    Adding text
    Saving the file in any of a variety of file types

    then the always free Irfanview will do the trick, with practically no learning curve. There’s also a free pack of additional filter plug-ins which can be downloaded . Been using Irfanview to great satisfaction for more than 20 years.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Good gravy. So drained from big monthly shopping day that can barely make fingers work. Should read:

    Sharpening or Contrast adjustment

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    @The Lodger

    Sigh. Also should read:

    grayscale, not grauscal.

    So beat that just managed to muster enough energy to unpack and put away the frozen and refrigerated purchases. All else will have to wait until post-nap time.

  75. 75.

    Felicia Brown

    Thank you for sharing these! Since April, I’ve spent a lot of time with ducks – rubber ducks though. My husband (BTW he LOVES this blog and has been reading daily for years) and I have been racing our flock in the creek behind our house in what we now call the Impromptu Rubber Duck Regatta (IRDR). This has led to a lot a lot of joy and laughter as well as writing a story – Quacking Up – about how the ducks helped me overcome deep anxiety during the pandemic. It comes out in a book out next month. If you do another post on ducks, the IRDR would love to be in it:-)

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