Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I was promised a recession.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

This fight is for everything.

He really is that stupid.

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

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

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

After roe, women are no longer free.

People are complicated. Love is not.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Come on, man.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Something Good Open Thread / Open Thread: We Did It!

Open Thread: We Did It!

by | 100 Comments

This post is in: 

Big thanks to everyone at Balloon Juice, and otherwise, who donated to the Four Directions $50,000 match!  They reached the 50k mark, so they will get the matching funds from their generous match donor.


It’s raining today, but open blooms on my last peony plant are coming soon!

Let’s use this thread to pat ourselves on the back for our part in this and to share anything else that we feel good about this week.

Open Thread.

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  2. 2.

    West of the Cascades

    This is great news! And beautiful flowers. Grateful for a bit of rain in Portland this week (things have been absurdly dry for the last couple of months, not good for the fishies).

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    anything else that we feel good about this week

    Week’s not over yet. Something in that vein is bound to crop up.

    :)

  6. 6.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Omnes Omnibus: This is how good things happen. Let’s keep it up.​

     Amen!

    Three cheers for WaterGirl, who orchestrated this effort, and for all the jackals who donated.​

  8. 8.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    That looks like my (only) peony plant, which is also blooming now.  Aren’t they beautiful flowers!  I’m finally getting used to how it dies down to bare soil in the winter and then grows anew each spring.  Man, plants are NOT like animals.

    I’m so pleased to be supporting Four Directions.  I actually got a phone call from their financial director over a contribution I made at the end of last year.  First time a donation of mine has ever been acknowledged so personally

    Tell me about the new supports, please. Even without rain, my flower stalks lean over (I guess because the flower heads are so heavy).  Obviously I need to be using something too.

  9. 9.

    Omnes Omnibus

    My niece graduated from high school on Monday. The next day, she interviewed with Americorps and was offered a position at her old elementary school which is just across the street from my brother’s house.  She starts on Tuesday.  She plans on majoring in elementary education and wants to teach third grade.*

    *Her grandmother, my mom, taught third grade.

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @H.E.Wolf: And all who have donated in the past and will in the future.  Everyone can’t give every time, but enough do enough times that it matters.

  12. 12.

    WaterGirl

    @H.E.Wolf: I will leave the thermometer up in the sidebar through 5/31, because that is the match date, in case anyone else wants to be part of this.

    I don’t understand all the details of exactly how all this works, but who knows, maybe the match donor will decide to match everything donated through 5/31.

    A girl can hope, anyway!

  14. 14.

    CaseyL

    This is fantastic news!  Thanks again to WaterGirl for organizing, and to all the jackals who gave time, money, and attention. Four Directions isn’t just supporting good stuff; they’re effective at getting voters registered and voting.  I hope for great news from them

     

    @Omnes Omnibus:  I used to know someone who taught 3rd Grade.  She loved it, because the kids were in that brief time where they could hold a real conversation but had not yet fully developed a “social self,” meaning they were less self-conscious, more forthright.  (That was before social media, so I don’t know if it’s still true.)

  15. 15.

    Ejoiner

    I can (and will!) bitch and moan about the complete failure of my state leadership, but I gotta say I’ve been impressed with my school administration throughout this pandemic – very good communication, very pro-active, and very safety oriented. I know it hasn’t been easy and there have been plenty of bumps along the way, but for all the adults who have failed their “moment” test I certainly appreciate the great many who have stood up and done – successfuly – the right thing :)

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    More good news for me this week, I guess, is that I didn’t make a total fool of myself moderating the zoom.  (Hopefully!)  I’m sure I’ll get better at it, but the zoom link worked and no one shouted “this sucks, I’m leaving!” so I will call it a success.  And our guests were great, so no one was probably paying any attention to me, anyway.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    @sab: You are welcome.  For the ones I posted, you have to put them in place so the peonies can grow up through the tops.  That seems to keep them upright way better than my previous kind, that you could put around them after they are grown up, and link them together into a circle.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    I have a really good crop of strawberries this year, and I just saw a fresh strawberry cake recipe on the previous thread.  I am going to try to make that this weekend.

    edit: and now geg6 mentioned strawberry trifle.

  23. 23.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    Week’s not over yet. Something in that vein is bound to crop up.

    :)

    What have you cooked lately?

  24. 24.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: I just made strawberry  cheesecake. I used the recipe on the graham cracker crust box, added half a cup of crushed strawberries into the mixer with the cream cheese.. Then I cheated and used an Oreo chocolate prepared piecrust. After I filled the crust with the filling I sliced a few of strawberries to put on top, and sprinkled those with a tiny bit of sugar.

    Same recipe works fine with graham cracker instead of chocolate crust.

    I make my own traditional crusts for regular pies, but the store bought cheesecake  crusts are better than mine. Not so for the regular crusts.

  25. 25.

    laura

    @CaseyL: a dear friend was an elementary school teacher – now a teaching coach for her district, third grade was her favorite because it is an age when a huge brain development occurs and amazing things happen. Just surprising everyday miracles.

  26. 26.

    WaterGirl

    @sab: I have started using a Galette Buttermilk Cornmeal Crust for all my fruit pies.  It’s amazing.  I will never use a regular pie crust for anything fruit related again.

    I tried it with pumpkin, but it was not great with pumpkin.

    I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to use that crust, just without the sugar, for quiche.

  27. 27.

    Martin

    Son started his first job out of college. He’s an electrical engineer, and the firm he started with makes equipment for semiconductor manufacturing – something that is becoming a bit of a national/global crisis. Right now he working on developing a process to disassemble the parts from returned assemblies, test the components, so they can be put into new assemblies because the folks building the equipment to increase semiconductor components themselves can’t get semiconductors, so they’re scavenging parts. Their customers gave them the okay to do this.

    So yeah, he landed a job with benefits that pays well enough to modestly live in the Bay Area. He’s in  his first apartment (1BR, $2200/mo which we felt was a steal for the area) with almost no furniture, but he seems to be flourishing with the new independence. His mother wishes it wasn’t a 6 hour (best case) drive to see him, but his dad doesn’t mind because even though I am a strong advocate for fewer cars, the drive up through the central valley always reminds me of how amazing this state is.

  28. 28.

    smith

    @Mary G: i wanted to thank you again for your recommendations of GOTV organizations to support. I’ve set up continuing monthly donations to several of them. For a number of years I’ve supported Vote Riders, but wanted to expand my portfolio this year, given the urgency of the need.

    I’m a long-time supporter of ACLU — do you or anyone else here have recommendations for other good organizations that will take on the voter suppression laws in court? Thanks.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @CaseyL: I find it amazing that she has wanted to do this since she was little and hasn’t wavered.  From eight to eighteen, I probably wanted to be 50 different things and that doesn’t even include being a knight, a pirate, James Bond, or other things like that.  Hell, I still am not completely sure what I want to do when I grow up.

  31. 31.

    cain

    @Martin: Awesome – I’m in the circularity business myself so I think doing all that re-use is a good thing and the company should look into getting carbon credits for that work.

  32. 32.

    Joe Falco

    I have a strawberry-raspberry cake recipe I’m aiming to try later today. I’ve had a basket of fresh strawberries to go through, and this recipe should about use up what’s left.

  36. 36.

    stacib

    @WaterGirl: I LOVE peonies!  I have some in my yard, too and it’s the only perennial that my mother didn’t pull out of the ground.  Lilacs, lillies (three kinds) and the cactus – all gone now.  :-(

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @VeniceRiley: Pretty sure you can’t wait for travel?  Guessing that autocorrect thought you were hungry.

    That’s a beautiful photo – that’s where you are going to be living?

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @stacib: Are you living in your family home?

    I miss my lilac bush.  It was huge and old and it finally started to rot.  The old-fashioned lilacs are my favorite.  Not the biggest fan of all the newfangled varieties.  I want the old ones that smell like lilacs should.

  40. 40.

    Mike in NC

    Today the Key West History Museum was well worth a look, as was the Maritime Museum which focused on salvaging Spanish treasure ships. After lunch we returned to our room to chill. Streets are very crowded with pedestrians who mostly ignore traffic signals and the city’s masking policy. Tomorrow we’ll take a tour bus (90 minutes) and maybe visit the Hemingway Museum. We decided there wasn’t time to go to the Dry Tortugas National Park, which really requires a full day to explore.

  41. 41.

    Nora Lenderbee

    Husband is making ice cream in our new ice-cream-making attachment for our dough mixer.

  42. 42.

    stacib

    @WaterGirl: Yes, family home – been there for 57 years.  The lilacs were beautiful, and I looked forward to them every year for the past 20+ years.

    My mother is a crazy person.  :-)  She likes to reconfigure the flower bed almost every year.  We have to keep up with the Sykes family.  Ms. Sykes is a genius in the yard.

  43. 43.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    That sounds suspiciously like a challenge.

    ;)

    Lemme rephrase.  What have you made with your Instant Pot lately?

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @stacib: I would have fought her before I let her take out lilacs!

    It sounds beautiful, though.  Have you ever submitted pictures to Anne Laurie’s Sunday Garden Chat?

    Fine print:  Easy to say since she’s not my mom. :-)

  45. 45.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Nora Lenderbee:

    Husband is making ice cream in our new ice-cream-making attachment for our dough mixer. 

    Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is a must.

  46. 46.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: Oh, you have no idea. This is just icing on the cake for me. They are activists, in various ways. They care about people, and are champions for those without privilege. That’s what I’m most proud of. Every time they gently correct me or educate me on something I simply hadn’t considered, or didn’t take the time to learn, I’m so proud I just want to cry.

    I did tell him that if I can’t get a Playstation 5 by the time Horizon Forbidden West comes out, I’m going to blame him for failing to remedy the global semiconductor problem. So he knows he’s on blast.

  47. 47.

    TomatoQueen

    Oh lovely. Gardens Alive plant supports on the second page of those offerings are what I used with a lively yellow foxglove what came from White Flower Farm, at tiny size and the next year went completely berserk in height and width but did not propagate at all, so no unruly offsets, just this foxglove shrub that woke every year at the same time, bloomed for a month, then went to sleep. But it needed the one grow-through hoop, and some water. Also I let the spent flowers go to seed, much to the delight of the wrens.
    Your peony there is a delight. The whole thread is great stuff.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: You have every reason to be proud!

    I have heard plenty of tidbits here and there over the years to know enough to phrase my comment as I did.  :-)

    I am reminded of a friend who moved away years ago, but came back for a conference so I got to see him when he was married with a young son.

    He was bursting with pride when he told me a story about his son, who was maybe 6 years old.  The teacher was having a very bad day and had snapped at the kids, making them all stop what they were doing and have quiet time, just sitting there.

    His 6-yr-old son got up and walked to the teacher’s desk and said “Miss Martin, you need a hug.”  He gave her a big hug and went back and sat down at his desk.  What a great guy, and what a great little kid.

  50. 50.

    The Golux

    @sab:

    I make my own traditional crusts for regular pies, but the store bought cheesecake crusts are better than mine.

    My favorite cheesecake is pumpkin (for Thanksgiving, of course) with the following flourishes:

    1. Instead of graham crackers for the crust, use ginger snaps. An enormous improvement, for pumpkin or regular cheesecake.

    2. When the crust is still warm after prebaking, scatter chocolate chips and then spread them after they melt.

    Sadly, it has been many years since I have enjoyed a pumpkin cheesecake, because a) my wife dislikes anything pumpkin-flavored, and b) I have become a type-I diabetic since I last made one. Sigh.

  53. 53.

    jnfr

    This is such great news! I’ve donated to these folks a couple of times separately. They are doing such important work.

    My only peony has just sent out buds, and quite a few of them for this particular plant. I am otherwise spending the weekend catching up on mowing, which has totally gotten away from us with all the rain this spring.

    I do plan to make a cheesecake this weekend though.

  54. 54.

    CaseyL

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Hell, I still am not completely sure what I want to do when I grow up.

     

    Me, neither. I took a swing and missed at most of the things I wanted to be back when I was younger (though I am glad I at least tried). They were all artistic pursuits, which is fine because I still “do art”: it’s just not what I make a living at!

    Now I’ve progressed, if that’s the right word, to the point that I now define “grow up” as “when I retire.”

  55. 55.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Omnes Omnibus: From eight to eighteen, I probably wanted to be 50 different things and that doesn’t even include being a knight, a pirate, James Bond, or other things like that.​

     
    I’ve heard it said in jest that what one loves at age 7-8 can be a good career match as an adult.

    No one was more surprised than I was, when that turned out to be true. PS: My childhood list looked somewhat like yours. :)

  57. 57.

    piratedan

    note to self, stay the fuck off of twitter today, apparently now that the GOP Senate has blocked the Jan 6th Commission, AZ GOP Congressman is now tweeting out that there needs to be an investigation as to why Ashli Babbitt was killed, apparently attempting to make her a martyr.

  60. 60.

    MazeDancer

    @WaterGirl:

    For some reason, could be the heat, lilacs, like everything, are early this year. And their fragrance has been cut by 3/4.

    Every year within memory, one could walk around any Village in the NE and be surrounding by the wafting nectar of lilacs. Not this year.

     

    Also, congrats on making the raised 4D goal! Well done!

  62. 62.

    mvr

    @H.E.Wolf: Three cheers for WaterGirl, who orchestrated this effort

    Yes, for sure. She does a lot around this place. All good.

  65. 65.

    Nora Lenderbee

    @mrmoshpotato: ​

    I fully agree. Mr. Lenderbee wants to experiment with things like rosewater and cardamom. Whatever, it’s still ice cream, right?

  67. 67.

    Lewis Cohen at Four Directions

    Thank you Balloon Juice Jackals for helping us reach our $50,000 match goal. Your incredible help over two weeks helped us meet our goal, something we simply had to accomplish to be able to do our voter registration work a lot more efficiently going forward. On behalf of OJ, Bret and myself – a profound and heartfelt thank you goes out to you all. We are deeply appreciative. Everyone, have a terrific Memoral Day weekend and we’ll talk again soon. You guys are the best!

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Adam often posts a doom thread shortly after mine.  He waited hours this time!

    edit: To be fair, I often post after Adam because the doom threads wear me down.  So perhaps he feels the same way, only in reverse.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Some people revel in it.  I am not one of them.

    Some don’t revel in it, but sometimes get sucked into it.

    Sometimes that is me, but doom is not my home base, nor do I have any desire for it to be.

  74. 74.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    The strawberries that I’ve gotten at the farmer’s market these past two weeks have been too good to use in any recipe and for anything other than just eating after rinsing.

  75. 75.

    MomSense

    Hooray!! This is such wonderful news.  Well done Jackals!!
    ?????????Four Directions

  77. 77.

    Comrade Colette

    Colette jeune will graduate from high school next week. It’s been a really tough 4 years, including a traumatic mismatch with his first high school and then transferring mid-year during his junior year, only to have the school shut down a few weeks later because of the pandemic. He’s been remote-learning ever since, still knows literally no one at his current school and now never will, and he’s really sad about that – but he’s worked hard, raised his GPA, got into a good college (SJSU) and is excited about going there. I’m proud of him.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: @WaterGirl:  Sliced with sour cream and brown sugar.  Sublime.  Not as raspberries, but what are?

    ETA: Not suggesting the sour cream and brown sugar on raspberries.  Just that nothing is better than fresh raspberries.

  81. 81.

    debbie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Have you ever had black raspberries? my absolute favorite of the fruit kingdom. I’m counting down the days until they show up at the stand.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    Proud of the jackals who put Four Directions over the top.

    I am an untapped resource on this; decided to peek in on 5/30 to see how fundraising went.  And — it went.  And you did it.

    Great group.  Enjoyed the Zoom meeting last night; very educational re their approach and stamina.

    So:  will pony up some $$$ on another ask.

  87. 87.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    I just Googled “peony supports” and found an article that referenced a peony supply nursery in New Jersey called Peony’s Envy LOL

    And a big Thank you to Water Girl for all she does around BJ, and also to Four Directions for the fabulous job they do.  Good work everyone.

  88. 88.

    MomSense

    @Omnes Omnibus: 
    When I was a kid I spent my summers on my grandparents farm.
    We could just pick blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, black raspberries and wild blueberries right off the plants and into our mouths. And we did! I miss that so much.

  92. 92.

    Torrey

    @WaterGirl: I’ve just spent a year and a fifth attending Zoom meetings and doing my own teaching via Zoom. I’ve attended professional conferences, committee meetings, unit meetings, classes, lectures, and events via Zoom; I’ve attended a ton of trainings on Zoom run by IT professionals. And with all that experience behind me, if you hadn’t said that this was your first time running a Zoom meeting, I certainly wouldn’t have guessed.

    So, well done!

  93. 93.

    Torrey

    Just wanted to thank DougJ for doing the due diligence on donation opportunities, and particularly in this case for bringing Four Directions to the attention of those of us not already aware of their work.

  98. 98.

    WaterGirl

    @Torrey: Yeah, DougJ has been awesome.

    We all have to share credit on Four Directions.  Someone mentioned Four Directions in one of my Playing to Win posts, which started in Feb 2020.

    At some point, someone else mentioned them, and I sent email to DougJ asking if he could make a thermometer, which he did.

    Then at some point, yet another commenter got a phone call from Lewis to thank him for his donation, and told him that they were getting all these donations from something called “Balloon Juice” and wondered what the heck that was.

    That commenter told us about that phone call from Lewis.  And on and on.

    It really does take a village.

    But the fundraising all started with DougJ.  All hail DougJ!

  100. 100.

    Torrey

    @Elizabelle: Don’t know if you’ll see this, but we had some heavy thunderstorms during the meeting, and I couldn’t answer your question about the dog. Yes, she’s a beagle. She was at the time an extremely disgruntled beagle, since thunder is always a signal that the world is about to end, and I’m apparently supposed to do something about it.

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