The ladies were very busy overnight!
You don’t need to buy fancy Halloween decorations if you stop pouring fucking poison on every square inch of your yard and just embrace everything that is going on and stay out of its way.
In other news, Thurston is being the goodest boy. He spent six years wanting to be an only dog and he is rising to the occasion. He follows me everywhere, and if I stop short he runs into the back of my leg. He never ever sat on my lap, preferring to sit on the couch when we were both downstairs (even when Lily was upstairs), but now I can barely get situated in the chair and he is up there embracing the constant attention. Needy bastard.
Dad will be released from his rehab joint on Saturday and is coming home, and I didn’t tell you all this because of the Lily news on Saturday, but he contracted covid there and tested positive on Saturday, as well. The fuckers even tried to blame him for bringing it to the facility because they had taken him to the hospital for updated X-Rays on Thursday. The nervy fucking bastards. His General Practioner is a great guy and pitched a fucking unholy fit, just absolutely fucking livid that they let this happen, and dad was on the anti-retro virals immediately and felt better by Monday. So that is good. He’s really going crazy in there because he is absolutely not mentally built to be in a situation where he is not in control. Neither is my mom, for that matter. I, on the other hand, am a much more “jeebus take the wheel” kind of guy, and I don’t know where I got it. Maybe the army taught me how to realize how to just roll with the punches, or maybe it was the numerous encounters with psychedelics when I majored in street pharmacology as a youth that allowed me to just sit back and see where shit takes me. But, whatever.
Finally, and I know I have a track record of being wrong on a lot of things, but I just don’t think things are going to be as bad as a lot of people do. I’m not gonna engage in speculation about the polls or any of that unskewing the polls bit, but it just does not FEEL like the energy is there from Republicans. I’m not seeing the signs, or the anger, or the general mania I felt in 2016 and 2018 and 2020. Maybe I am so isolated and in a cocoon that I am going to be shocked, but I am just not feeling it. Regardless, there is nothing I can do about it but vote. So we will see.
Hope you all are well.
cain
We need to make like He-Man and lift our ballots and scream “by the power of Dark Brandon and the Masters of the Democrats”
OK, feeling corny today – sue me.
ETA – I swear I tried to wait a bit so I can grab #2.
ETA 2 – glad to hear that your dad is doing better – but WTAF, getting Covid at the hospital? Some protocols are not being followed. Yay for pup – glad he’s helping fill the void. But boy he’s going to be pissed when the other cat shows up. :-)
West of the Cascades
Cole – you have a hell of a way of doing so, but for the decade+ I’ve been lurking on this site you’ve managed to give me a hell of a lot of hope about stuff (like knowing I wasn’t the only person to hurt himself in a shower accident). Hoping your hope for the midterms goes from your fingertips to the FSM’s noodly appendages, and hoping for a good recovery for your dad and for you in grieving Lily.
I think Gabe Vasquez is going to win NM-2 – that would be one D pickup in the House.
dexwood
Love the pictures, Cole.
Elizabelle
I wonder if Thurston worries he is somehow going to be “disappeared” too? Anyway, hugs to the goodest boy.
And I hope your dad continues a good recovery. From covid too, now. The experience might keep him off ladders, whatever, for a while.
Kristine
Best wishes for Dad Cole.
I’m seeing signs for local Dems on lawns where I never expected to see signs for local Dems. They actually outnumber the GOP signs on my street, and I live in what is considered a conservative section of town.
No signs for statewide offices, though. I don’t believe I’ve seen one Pritzker sign. Maybe folks are just putting out the signs they feel won’t get stolen or defaced.
Anyway, I do feel more optimistic than I did a few weeks ago. I hope I’m reading the cosmic tea leaves correctly.
Benw
Dude, people come around all the time to sell me on spraying poison on my house, and I’m like no, I like the spiders, they eat the annoying bugs!
I’m glad your dad and Thurston are doing okay! May your political gut feeling come true!
HumboldtBlue
I live a life filled with women, smart, informed, impactful women, and in addition to the trend of young folks turning in ballots, I have a sense that women, old women, young women, Juicer women (who are never old or young, just of indeterminate age and timeless, that also includes Not Max, who I am still not convinced is an actual person), middle-aged women, tall women, short women, the whole clan are going to win Tuesday for the good guys.
I don’t think men, particularly men in media and politics, have a true sense of what the future looks like when women get their anger on, and the anger is palpable. Now, gerrymandering and state-level suppression efforts will still play a role, but women, I sense, aren’t having this shit.
TaMara
Glad to hear about your dad.
I’m with you…there doesn’t seem to be any Republican energy out there…I mean, I’m sure the 27% crazy factor will vote, but I wonder about the enthusiasm gap for the GOP, after a late summer and fall of bad news all around for them.
Ohio Mom
About twelve hours ago I asked Ohio Dad if he would pick up the papers strewn over the floor by his side of the bed because I was vacuuming and mopping. Nothing happened so I cleaned everything but over there.
Now Ohio Dad is going through all of it, stopping to read various bits and pieces, tossing others in the recycling bin and all around keeping me up past the time I had hoped to close my eyes.
Marriage is a long course in building tolerance.
Glad Papa Cole is on the mend and soon to be heading home. Hospitals and rehab centers are as bad as kindergarten classrooms when it comes to spreading germs.
Ohio Mom
@HumboldtBlue: I’ve seen NotMax in photos of meet-ups and once on a Balloon Juice zoom. He exists, though I agree with you that he appears to have had a fairy tale of a life.
cain
They might want to look to see what’s going on in Iran.
middlelee
Beautiful photos. Spiders make magic.
I’m with you, John. I’m not feeling a red wave on the horizon.
Ann Marie
I’m glad your father is out of the rehab center, but shame on them for letting him catch Covid there. Thurston may be enjoying being the only dog, but he may also be missing Lily and wanting the comfort of being close to you.
Hope you’re right about the election. I sent a little more cash to Fetterman today for the final video push.
HumboldtBlue
@Ohio Mom:
Conjurer. Tupac hologram stuff from a Snoop show.
@cain:
That was my first thought.
jayne
You’re good people, John. I’m glad your dad’s doing better.
I’ve got a standing agreement with my spiders. They stay out of my shower and my bed, and the worst they get from me is a ride in a cup to outside.
James E Powell
I have covid. First symptoms & first positive test on Monday Oct 24. Seems like a long time ago. Mild symptoms – probably due in part to the five vax shots – fatigue, sinus, coughing, coupled with general annoyance at sitting alone in a house for over a week. Most recent positive test was this morning.
Not sure why I’m telling you this, not sure what I”m supposed to do about it other than wait till it goes away. Doctor recommended mucinex for the sinus & urged me to get plenty of liquids & rest & monitor for fever. I’ve had no fever the entire time.
Fortunately, this is a good time of year for sports. Made a mistake & saw some political news. I know there are some decent people in that business, but the business itself is so effed up that decent people can’t make it better.
Benw
@James E Powell: hoping the best and that it stays fairly mild!
Tehanu
Glad to hear Dad Cole is coming home! Thanks for keeping us posted.
Kelly
When we’re walking in the woods Mrs. Kelly prefers to be in front where she has view of something more than my back. The exception in sunny days in late fall when the first person walks into lots of spider webs. A few nights ago insomnia had her awake at 3 when she noticed I was having a disquieting dream. She reached over and gave my face a comforting stroke. I bolted awake with a shout. I’d been dreaming about pulling a wad of spider web off my face which morphed into a hand sized spider walking up my face. Didn’t get another wink of sleep.
Betsy
Hey Cole, I’m sorry about your dad, and glad he is getting better rather quickly and got the attention he deserved from his GP.
I know I was terrified my dad in his 80s would get C-19 in the hospital or rehab after our wreck this past summer.
cbear
Hmmm, that’s interesting…I used to major in street pharmaceutical sales. Did you ever buy any brown acid that was bad? That was me. Sorry!
Currants
Cole I love when you post like this. Glad you’re around.
Sister Golden Bear
@cain: I like the way you think.
moonbat
Puppies know when their people are hurting. Thurston is taking care of you too.
Glad your dad is getting better!
dww44
I loved the story line of this post and it just cheered me up immensely. Hope your Dad recovers completely from Covid.
Also, too, we’ve had a banner year with a profusion of large garden spiders and their intricate webs. We’re just waiting for nature to take it’s course and for them to go off and do what spiders do in the fall awaiting the first freeze.
Betsy
@HumboldtBlue:
Most men don’t even know that a women they know has had an abortion.
Nearly ALL women know a woman who has had an abortion, many know several.
That’s because women share this stuff with each other, but not with men generally.
There’s a whole 49% of the population flying almost completely blind on the PERSONAL, VISCERAL importance and breadth of this issue to the other 51% of the population.
So the male-dominated newsers are missing it, just like they never knew what women thought of La Palin.
BellyCat
That’s the spirit, Cole!
RaflW
BF, mom-out-law & I went kayaking today. Which wouldn’t be exceptional, except we’re in Wisconsin this week. Kinda near Madison.
Avg. high 50 / low 38. 90th percentile high is about 64. It was 72 today. Was 71 yesterday. And the lake water is probably 54 degrees, which it would definitely not be if we were having ‘normal’ temps and clouds around here.
It was lovely. But also weird.
Dangerman
@James E Powell: In your Vax’s, did you get the binary? Just curious.
I got Johnson, followed by Johnson booster, followed by Pfizer, followed by Pfizer binary. Plus flu. I’m keeping my fingers crossed as someone came to work today that sounded like shit. I don’t have time right now to catch anything.
HumboldtBlue
@Betsy:
I know three. I was involved in two.
I also think that young men of the age where I was involved in two are wondering what the hell happens when every sperm is sacred, or, in this instance, every blastocyst is sacred. Methinks they might be voting too.
mvr
Glad things are going better and appreciate the somewhat upbeat remarks about our possible future.
Major Major Major Major
Hang in there elder mister cole!
mrmoshpotato
@cain: Dude, you got the first comment.
SAD!
CaseyL
I can easily believe Papa Cole got Covid in the hospital: hospital HVAC systems are notorious for needing almost constant maintenance, which is expensive, so it doesn’t get done as well or as often as it should. Plus, when you’re in the hospital, you’re surrounded by sick people – and I assume people have gotten as lax about masking there as they are most everywhere else. Very happy to hear the docs put him on retrovirals asap – but watch out for those, too; it seems almost everyone who takes them also gets a “rebound” case. Oy.
But he’ll get very good care once he’s back home, I’m sure : )
Best wishes to Papa Cole, and to Thurston “You’re Mine, Now! All Mine!” Cole, and everyone else in the family.
I hope you’re right about the election.
piratedan
guess I wonder if we need to revise media altogether and how it’s dealt with, namely anything that goes out over the public airwaves gets regulated and I can remember the days when there were hours allotted to informing the public and the education of children. I understand that while the return of those days of regulation are beyond us now, it seems like we need to find a way of informing the public (if they so choose to be informed) for their own good, because if we rely on businesses to do it, all we end up doing is allowing someone like Murdoch in thru the door to do the damage that he’s done. He’s the Gordon Gecko of broadcast and everyone in the media is following his lead.
Not all political positions can be covered in 30 seconds, or even 60 seconds, but you got plenty of time to misrepresent and spread lies that do not have the ability to be rebutted in 30 seconds themselves, short of a he said/she said leaving people frustrated and still regretfully uninformed.
Nora Lenderbee
I dropped off my ballot tonight. Now I can keep my fingers in my ears until Nov 8.
James E Powell
@Dangerman:
I’ve had Pfizers every time. The last one was “the new one” – about a month ago – I assume that means the binary one.
I don’t have time for this shit either, but here I am, doing nothing.
Redshift
Glad your dad is on the mend, JC, and hers hoping he gets past covid quickly and easily. I’m unsurprised the rehab place tried to blame the hospital; my experience with Ms. Redshift’s parents is that nearly all rehab places suck.
I’ll join your optimism. It doesn’t hurt, and like you say, there are plenty of reasons to believe the political analysts don’t know as much as they think they do.
lgerard
Very interesting twitter thread
https://twitter.com/curious_founder/status/1587581943763587072
JoyceH
@Betsy:
Bingo. When I hear these pundits tell us that women have just gotten over having lost a critical right, because heck, that was a couple months ago and the price of gas went up, I feel sheer RAGE.
Been watching the news today, and all the MSM seems to have concluded that the House is most definitely Lost, based on the polls. But on the other hand, there are other numbers, and that’s the Already Voted – and those numbers are entirely the opposite of what the polls are saying. So – huh. Who knows? But definitely lost? Not so fast…
opiejeanne
I think we’ll be ok, I think we’ll add to both the House and the Senate.
In other news, I let a hand surgeon give me a shot of a steroid in the second joint of my right thumb. They sprayed the area with a very cold spray to numb it first, then injected a mixture that included anesthesia. It was unpleasant even so, but I really want the pain and the “trigger finger” effect to go away. I have an interesting bruise now and am looking forward to being among the 70% for whom this works.
NeenerNeener
The Republicans in my area are all hanging out on Next Door and blaming Biden for the local price of electricity from the Spanish-owned power plant, and the Democrats are all blaming Biden for the bear market that’s killing our 401Ks.
zhena gogolia
@Betsy: Yeah, I’ve never had one, but I took someone to have one. And there was a family legend about another one, bad but not fatal.
lowtechcyclist
@piratedan:
Like with Pandora, there’s no way to get everything back in the box.
There used to be something in broadcast regulation called the Fairness Doctrine. The basic idea was that if a broadcast TV or radio station was going to give opinions on stuff, they had to allow the airing of opposing viewpoints as well. It wasn’t required that they give equal time to those viewpoints – the equal time requirement only applied to political advertisements – but they had to give at least some time for people on the other side of an issue to respond.
The Reagan Administration, then the Supreme Court more permanently, stuck the Fairness Doctrine in the dumpster back around 1986 or 1987.
It’s hard to see how Rush Limbaugh would have succeeded without that. Per Al Franken, he really was a big fat idiot, and if his show had had to include opposing viewpoints, he’d have gone nowhere. He relied on creating a right-wing bubble for his audience.
And while I suppose Murdoch might have eventually tried starting up Fox News if Rush hadn’t broken the ground, Rush certainly was the proof of concept that something like Fox might work here.
So as I see it, killing the Fairness Doctrine got us Rush Limbaugh (and his host of local AM radio imitators), and Rush probably got us Fox News.
Other than resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine and applying it to cable as well as broadcast, which is vanishingly unlikely, I don’t see how one even somewhat stuffs the genie back in the bottle.
The one hope I have is in the aging of the Fox News audience, but it’ll still take them decades to die out.
J R in WV
@jayne:
Me too. I rescued a 3-4 inch wolf spider trapped in the bathroom sink just a couple of days ago, used a toothbrush to wrangle him into a quart sized pyrix measuring cup, took him downstairs to the basement where I hope he can do a job on incoming bugs. They can go from immobile to quick motion instantly… fascinating giant things.!.
Taking him outside now that it’s close to freezing every night didn’t fee like a rescue at all.
Cole, your pic of dozens of little spider hammocks is fabulous, thanks for sharing.
I have decided this election is now officially a Blue Wave, the Rs won’t vote en mass because TFG SFB is not on any ballot. I think we take Ohio, PA, GA, several others for a solid Senate and House.
Geminid
@J R in WV: Now you’re talking!