Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

He really is that stupid.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Pete Dreams (Are Made of This)

Pete Dreams (Are Made of This)

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Even Pete the pup can’t sleep through airboat noise:

The poor fellow was deep in REM sleep when the stupid airboat woke him up — paws twitching and ears in motion! He went right back to sleep though.

This morning, Pete went all the way up the stairs by himself. We’ve been carrying him up and down the outside stairs a dozen times a day because we’ve worried he’d fall, but this morning, he bounded up before the mister could stop him and cried at the screen door for me to let him in. Progress!

Here he is playing with Badger a few days ago:

It hasn’t been all sunshine and squee. Pete pissed on an heirloom Christmas tree skirt, and I had to pile all the wrapped gifts on a table because he would rip into them. But he’s learning!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

95Comments

  1. 1.

    laura

    Tails of Badger n Pete! Bring it on, share it all, it’s so much sweeter than most other subjects of late.

  5. 5.

    Raven

    Not the greatest two days for Artie. She spent most of the time on her bed in the van and she handled it like the trooper she is. She’ll get extra goo-goo when we get home.

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    Badger looks so big.  LOL.

    Thought at first this was a Butigieg thread, but cute baby doggo is even bettah.

  11. 11.

    Miss Bianca

    I may well keel over from the squee effect. However, I will gird my loins and brave the “puppy Pete play bow-bouncing” video again. For science. Or something.

     

    ETA: Particularly enchanted by the “Oh, gosh, Badger noticed me, I better pretend to be super interested in this toy all of a sudden” move on Pete’s part, for some reason.

  12. 12.

    germy

    Don Marquis had a character Pete The Pup who appeared in short stories and poems.

    Here’s one of my favorite Pete The Pup poems:

    i ran along the yellow sand
    and made the sea gulls fly
    i chased them down the waters edge
    i chased them up the sky
    i ran so hard i ran so fast
    i left the spray behind
    i chased the flying flecks of foam
    and i outran the wind
    an airplane sailing overhead
    climbed when it heard me bark
    i yelped and leapt right at the sun
    until the sky grew dark
    some little children on the beach
    threw sticks and ran with me
    o master let us go again
    and play beside the sea

    pete the pup

    https://allpoetry.com/Pete-At-The-Seashore

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    That’s wonderful! Love all the archy & mehitabel stories, but had not come across Pete the Pup before. Very sweet.

  15. 15.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    (Accidentally posted to a dead thread)

    We are currently on the lam, as our yard and roof are full of equipment and roofers.

    Our current roofing job (part 2 of 2) was delayed for a couple of weeks when the last crew announced they weren’t going to do it because they were afraid of our roof. It hasn’t escaped my notice that the spanish-speaking crew that was afraid had no heavy equipment, but the company rented a cherry picker for the white guys who showed up today. I’m trying to convince myself that they would have anyway for whoever was working today if our roof is unusually tricky, but it’s a hard sell.​​

    Does anybody remember Eldin from Murphy Brown, the painter who was eternally working on her apartment? It’s beginning to feel like that. At least they’re outside.

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    I know you will all be shocked, shocked! to hear that Madison Cawthorn is lying.

    Madison Cawthorn's divorce just went from boring information to national security concern in about 77 seconds of interview time with the Daily Caller.This does not sound a normal meet-cute story whatsoever.Very few of these stories involving Russia are.pic.twitter.com/Iw0gajXYhw— Grant Stern is boosted! (@grantstern) December 27, 2021

    If you’re in Sweden, you can’t just “pop in” to St. Petersburg, because an American passport holder needs a visa to enter the Russian Federation. And you can’t go to a casino in St. Petersburg, because that city is not in one of Russia’s permitted gambling zones.

  17. 17.

    opiejeanne

    Today is our 52nd wedding anniversary.

    He got me flowers and I’m making a nice supper tonight. It’s 12 F outside, 5 inches of snow, so we aren’t going anywhere if we can help it. The world is white, it’s gorgeous, and only one noisy car has driven past the house this morning; they must be out of toilet paper.

    Right now I’m contemplating the trek to the mailbox, which hasn’t been emptied in a week. I’m feeling sorry for the mailman.

  21. 21.

    germy

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    What a life Marquis had.  Many years ago I read a biography; someone who knew him wrote it.

    To this day, whenever I see the statue of liberty I’m reminded of his young son, who loved seeing it from their apartment window in NYC.

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    It’s Marlene Dietrich’s 120th birthday. In her honor, Letters of Note shares a letter written to a hotel that accused her of making off with the cutlery.

    16 April 1975

    Dear Mr. Griffin,

    What a shame that after all these years the haggling over hotel hardware should be the termination of my relationship with the Savoy Hotel. For no matter how much I have loved this hotel in the past, being accused of “stealing” certainly makes it impossible for me to ever reside there again.

    Actually the situation is so ludicrous that it has take me to time to realize that you really meant such an insult.

    Assuming that I would wish to travel around the world with my luggage full of cutlery — I assure you that it would be of stirling and not your tawdry stuff! What happens, once the tables have been pushed into corridors in a frenzy to get rid of them after waiting for hours for the atrociously bad room service pick-up, should have nothing to do with your guests.

    So we have come to the operative word, “Guest”. I thought I, and the many friends I encourage to stay at the Savoy, were considered GUESTS, not thieves!

    I shall certainly now inform them of their new status should they ever decide to stay at the Savoy Hotel, which, of course, I shall never do again!

    Ms Marlene Dietrich

  32. 32.

    mrmoshpotato

    @trollhattan:

    Assuming that I would wish to travel around the world with my luggage full of cutlery — I assure you that it would be of stirling and not your tawdry stuff! 

    Marlene: Your cutlery is subpar trash which isn’t worth stealing!

  33. 33.

    Mike in NC

    A neighbor told us that her 4-year-old granddaughter fell from the jungle gym at a local playground yesterday and broke her left wrist. Fortunately she’s right-handed. After getting a cast she demanded and got pizza for dinner.

  35. 35.

    Redshift

    I didn’t get onto the last thread before it was dead, but the NASA thing has been bugging me since I saw it on Twitter. (Yeah, it’s just a joke, but still.) In case anyone is interested:

    NASA didn’t “just” hire theologians. The tweet appears to be copied from a NY Post headline, which doesn’t include the word “just” and does end with “: book”, so the thing that just happened is that a book came out that talks about it.

    NASA didn’t “hire” theologians. They gave a grant to a theology center at Princeton, which brought in various theologians over several years (not all at once) to consider how religions and religious people might respond to first contact. The program ran from 2016 to 2018, so not exactly news. (I remember reading about it at the time.)

    So no need to spend your holiday time worrying about some eschatological event NASA hasn’t told us about. That is all.

  37. 37.

    Cmorenc

    @SiubhanDuinne: re: the puppy pee smell in the christmas tree skirt: thankfully pete is a dog not a cat.  Small-dog pee usually comes out in the wash, whereas cat pee odor seldom does completely come out.  And once a cat has peed on a specific something or place, they tend to resist efforts to train them otherwise, whereas dogs are more trainable bc unlike cats dogs have a desire to please their owners.

  38. 38.

    germy

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Cristina’s father, Eddy Bayardelle is accomplished & educated with a PhD. He’s Haitian and her mother is Puerto Rican.

    I don’t get how she goes from this to being a “Russian honeypot” ?

    thread:

    It's bizarre that Cristina Bayardelle ever dated or married Madison Cawthorn in the first place, given his politics and her family background. /1— Rachel Wolf ?????? (@iamrachelwolf) December 23, 2021

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    @Mike in NC:

    Aww!

    Our grade school jungle gyms were set on good old American asphalt and harvested more than their fair share of victims. Of course, there was a school nurse unlike today, so a fair trade I’m sure.

  41. 41.

    Gin & Tonic

    @germy: I didn’t call her a Russian honeypot. I said his story is full of holes.

    I was wrong on one thing – there is a ferry line you can take which will give you 72-hour visa-free access to the city. My error. So it *could* have been a spur-of-the-moment decision.

  44. 44.

    Mike in NC

    @mrmoshpotato: In the past decade we’ve been treated to an infinite parade of stories about how the Russians infiltrated right-wing American institutions like evangelical churches and the NRA. Safe to assume that half the GOP is on the Kremlin payroll.

  50. 50.

    Dan B

    @opiejeanne: The forecast for the week is not encouraging.  A high for the week Wednesday of 35°.  I’m not sure how garbage and recycle will go on Thursday since our street has a very steep stretch just north of the corner.

    At least we’re not Bellingham.

    Little grey BaBoo finally went out.  He postholed very carefully.  Very cute.  First snow for him

    Happy anniversary!

  51. 51.

    mrmoshpotato

    OT – I see North Carolina and South Carolina will be tackling each other in a bowl of mayo.

  52. 52.

    Captain C

    @Gin & Tonic:

    And you can’t go to a legal casino in St. Petersburg, because that city is not in one of Russia’s permitted gambling zones.

    FTFY, as I’m sure there are a number of not-exactly-legal casinos in St. Petersburg, just the type of honeypot establishment that might want to lure in a potentially friendly future U.S. congressman.

  53. 53.

    Redshift

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If you’re in Sweden, you can’t just “pop in” to St. Petersburg, because an American passport holder needs a visa to enter the Russian Federation.

    I don’t disagree that Cawthorn is a lying Russian asset, but it’s possible that one bit is actually true. When I was planning a trip to Helsinki some years ago, we considered a side trip to St. Petersburg. The visa process looked scary (give us your passport months in advance, and we don’t promise to return it before your trip), but there were cruises where, by some arrangement, you could visit St. Petersburg during the day as long as you spent the night on the boat. At least that’s what I remember, but it’s possible I’ve got it wrong.

  54. 54.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Sitting at a lake in East Texas and just saw a couple bald eagles fly overhead.

    My immediate thought was of an awesome band that I played a gig with back in 2010ish.  They were a band called the Dagg Nabbitt Stubbs and they were an extremely ironic, Swampcore band from Phoenix AZ.  Swampcore being a genre they invented to openly mock conservatives and rednecks while playing some pretty kick-ass, heavy metal.  Anyways they have a song called Riffosaurus Rock that is all about a trailer-park dude who one day, at the urging of the Devil (every song of theirs somehow involves the Devil) decides to build the mother of all trucks.  About half-way into the tune there’s a spoken-word portion that always comes to mind when I’m in Red States/Counties, or see American Flags or Eagles, because I think it perfectly and hillariously mocks the essence of small-town, ignorant America.

    “What is Freedom?
    What does it mean to be truly free?
    Is it stepping out on your back porch and
    smelling the fresh air and watching
    your kid run around like a little goon?
    Or is it something more?  Is it something special,
    deep inside all of us?
    Nope, it’s not that either.
    Freedom is buying something huge, you can’t quite afford
    and then driving it around so other people go
    ‘God damn look that thing!
    Look at that thing he can’t afford!
    Nu-uh…that guy must be truly a great man!’
    That’s what Freedom is.
    ‘Look at him burning rubber down the road,
    flying free like a goddamn eagle…’
    YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

    You can hear the song here

    (the spoken word part is at 3:30 min mark)

  56. 56.

    Ella in New Mexico

    It hasn’t been all sunshine and squee. Pete pissed on an heirloom Christmas tree skirt

    Basicly the life story of every owner of a baby dog, cat or human. Everything gets peed (or pooped) on in the end, no matter how cute they are. But we love ’em anyway :-)

  58. 58.

    zeecube

    As a precaution, we encircle our Xmas tree with one of those collapsible dog kennels that can convert into a doggie corral that surrounds the tree.  A tradition started when we brought home our first pup.  Somewhat a deterrent to curious cats too.

  62. 62.

    Nutmeg again

    OMG, so adorable!  I love how Badger bosses him with a gesture. I love how Pete is a bouncy hopping baby. I’m smitten!

  63. 63.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Redshift: I corrected myself. There is a ferry you can take from Stockholm that will allow you 72-hour visa-free access.

    The ferry ride takes 38 hours.

  64. 64.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Baud:

    I had to drop out of spy school because I kept failing honeypot resistance training.

    During my Cold Warrior years I heard many amusing stories which I’m reluctant to repeat because I’m not sure of the classified status.

    However this reminds me of one that involved multiple honey-pot attempts. “… a little later there was another knock on the door and there was a beautiful young MAN who also spoke perfect English…”

    That story ended with our hero deciding to succumb (to a female) but only after putting a pillowcase over his head for the cameras.

  65. 65.

    Captain C

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I like the story of the Indonesian leader (I can’t remember if it was Sukarno or Suharto) who, on a diplomatic visit to the USSR, was mysteriously visited in his quarters by some lovely young women, and the expected hijinks ensued.  When he was leaving, the KGB showed him the video, expecting him to be under their control going forward.  Instead, he grinned, and asked for a copy so that he could show all his friends back home.

  66. 66.

    Dan B

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Anothing for Mother Russia.  I’m surprised the next knock wasn’t a either daddy or dominatrix.  Russia needs to catch up.

    BTW Autocarrot didn’t have dominatrix.  I guess it needs to get with it also.

    Last visit to Rome we stayed at a hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps.  The luxury hotels there were swarmed with beautiful blonde Russian prostitutes.

  68. 68.

    opiejeanne

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thank you very much.

    We bundled up and wandered out into the snow. It’s sunny and gorgeous, and doesn’t feel cold if you’re in the sun and dressed warmly. A bluebird day, as some skiers describe it, even if it is 20 degrees and not 70.

  69. 69.

    CaseyL

    @opiejeanne: Happy Anniversary!  You live in an idyllic spot for staying indoors, so enjoy!

    In Seattle, another inch of snow fell overnight. Now the sky is crystal clear, blue and gorgeous – and that means it is FREAKING COLD outside.  Like, in-the-teens cold.

    I was girding my loins to go see Wild Lanterns at the zoo today – really wanted to see it, really did not want to deal with driving there. (Not worried about the cold, since I have many layers and intended to wear them all.) But the Zoo forestalled all that by announcing it is closed today, and Wild Lanterns isn’t happening.  No word on whether ticket holders can get refunds/reschedules.

  73. 73.

    opiejeanne

    @Dan B: Thank you.

    lt’s gorgeous outside, but I have yet to toss our Annie out into the snow, which I do every year when it first snows, but not into the really deep stuff. She does not appreciate it, and despite her insistence that she wants to go out (because BIRDS!!! outside the French doors), she makes a beeline back into the house.

    I’m unaware of the term “potholing” when referring to pets in the snow.

  77. 77.

    opiejeanne

    @BeautifulPlumage: Thank you.

    It’s just so pretty here right now that we’re going to stay indoors the rest of the day, maybe all week. More snow expected in a couple of days. We have nice windows we can use to admire it.

  79. 79.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: We intend to misbehave, but at our age there’s not much we can get up to that doesn’t make us nervous.

    Maybe we’ll rent an old Star Trek movie, maybe the 4th one? Where do you keep your nuclear wessels?

  83. 83.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: We had a 12 pound standing rib for 9 people, supposed to have 10 but one cancelled because he was too exhausted to drive out here. Lovely leftovers still, but we are having something else tonight. Tomorrow I will make another Yorkshire pudding to go with the amazing roast.

  85. 85.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @opiejeanne: I could handle anything but the one that has Scotty typing really fast on an old-fashioned 20th century computer. I really hate the “super-programmer typing really fast” trope.

    I think that was the one that had transparent aluminum and saving the whales.

  93. 93.

    opiejeanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Saving the whales, indeed.

    And any of the Trek tv shows or movies made before 2000 are hilarious because of the gadgets they think we’ll have in 200 years, but we have better ones right now. Like tablets.

  94. 94.

    opiejeanne

    @Jerzy Russian: Watching Data program is one of my favorite things. Watching random crew members do insanely complicated problems in their heads was fun, too.

    We just re-watched several of the Trek series and kept yelling at the screen, “No! Don’t poke the bear!”

  95. 95.

    Ben Cisco

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I think that was the one that had transparent aluminum and saving the whales.

    Speaking of which…

    We cannot create transparent aluminum in real life, but we can get close with two transparent ceramics made from aluminum compounds: magnesium aluminate spinel and aluminum oxynitride.

    Both compounds are hard and thin like the fabled Star Trek material, but aluminum oxynitride in particular exemplifies these characteristics.

    Aluminum oxynitride is a crystalline substance made of aluminate powder alloys that have been highly compressed and heated to extreme temperatures. The ceramic is then cooled, polished, and shaped into its desired form.

    Slowly, then rapidly…

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