Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

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

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

He really is that stupid.

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

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

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

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

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

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Winter Wonderland Open Thread

Winter Wonderland Open Thread

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Took a break to take a walk through a lovely, gentle snowfall this afternoon.  Here’s Boston (actually, Brookline) doing its winter wonderland thang:

First up: we grow our herons tough up here:


 Winter Wonderland Open Thread 1

Next–local cats are pretty hardy too.

Winter Wonderland Open Thread 3

I had a long, long week of writing something very hard to bring off–just finished yesterday, and it’s damn good if I do say so as shouldn’t. So today I’m going to look at birds and four-foots and not apologize for playing hooky.

That’s the story from the Hub of the Universe.  How y’all doing wherever you are?

Which is to say–have some thread with which to spin a yarn.

ETA: That was some professional grade bigfooting! Imma just leave this up here for people to enjoy–I think we can all handle reading two posts, one after another. And this ain’t much of a post.

ETA 2: And unbigfooting almost as fast! Hah! We are a full service blog, fully as organized as the Democratic Party.

ETA 3: Just uploaded a slightly edited version of the kitty photo–tried to get a little truer to the colors as seen IRW.

 

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  1. 1.

    Betty Cracker

    I wonder if the heron switches feet so one is always warm? I guess I would if I had to stand in the snow without shoes! Boston is pretty in the snow.

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Sledcat evidently making up its mind about the whole bundle up and go outside thing.

    On the topic, we, too, have snow.  This is a Good Thing (and handily, well away from the house).

  5. 5.

    Ken

    Herons, ducks, geese — they’re all amazing. Wade or paddle around in the near-freezing water, ducking your head under to get lunch, then when it gets too cold, hop out and stand on an ice floe for a while.

    I still find the squirrels the most impressive, though. I wouldn’t want to try to make it through winter inside a ball of leaves forty feet up in a tree, exposed to the full force of winter winds.

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    That kitty is, obviously, neither Tikka nor Champ, both of whom would have in no uncertain terms prevented this put-the-kitty-in-a-sled shenanigans before the first muffler came out!

    Very happy to hear your writing is going well, because I enjoy the hell out of your books.  (Yes, I do realize its actual publication is… a long way off.)

    @Betty Cracker: I am always wondering how outdoor critters keep their feet warm in the winter.

    In birds, my understanding is there’s some fiendishly complicated blood flow loop thing, where warm blood from the body’s interior is constantly sent to the feet and cold blood from the feet is whisked back to the interior to be warmed up again.

    But other animals who seem to happily pad about in the snow?  I have no clue how they manage it.

  12. 12.

    Danielx

    Expecting five to nine inches on Wednesday, or so I’m told. On the other hand they were talking 12-24 couple of weeks back and got maybe an inch.

  13. 13.

    Tom Levenson

    @CaseyL: Thanks re the good wishes on the writing. I’m just returning to the book, actually. The project last week was a preface that I’d been invited to do to the first Chinese edition of my dad’s work.  That would be Joseph R. Levenson–who is someone well known in China studies circles and no where else. For a lot of reasons that was a very tough assignment.  Rewarding, but hard, both intellectually and emotionally.

    Now I’m back to cholera, which is much more pleasant, if you take my meaning.

  14. 14.

    Tom Levenson

    @Danielx: If you’re talking about Boston/MA–last I looked here in greater Boston itself we’re hovering right on the snow-rain line.  It could be a very sloppy Wednesday…

  16. 16.

    Chris T.

    @CaseyL:

    In birds, my understanding is there’s some fiendishly complicated blood flow loop thing, where warm blood from the body’s interior is constantly sent to the feet and cold blood from the feet is whisked back to the interior to be warmed up again.

    The rete mirabile, it’s found in numerous critters, in various places. Humans have one in the nose, for instance.

  17. 17.

    C Stars

    We were in Marin County yesterday and I saw a svelte woman in a fur-lined puffy vest walking her svelte dog in a fur-lined puffy vest. I love pets in clothes.

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    RIP Sal Bando. I’m not a big baseball expert, but I remember his name coming out of my mother’s transistor radio as she listened to the game.

  19. 19.

    CaseyL

    @Chris T.: I hope it works better for birdie feet than it does for my nose, which does NOT stay warm in the cold.

    (Though, I will grant you, the insides don’t actually freeze, which is possibly all the rete mirabile is intended for.)

  20. 20.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Trump honors Diamond at memorial service but says he doesn’t know Silk

    Diamond & Silk was the minstrel show Dump would use as an opening act for his campaign rallies. He even had them in White House for various photo opts. Diamond passed away a couple weeks ago at age 51. Many, many people say it was due to Covid as she was a virulent vaccine denier, who peddled demented conspiracy theories.

    Dump openly and repeatedly complained to the audience that the service was too long. He said it should only be 15 to 20 minutes, not three plus hours.

    Still, Dump pulling his “I don’t know her, I’ve never met her, I wouldn’t know what she looked like if she was standing next to me” at a funeral got me to laugh out loud. At least he didn’t plead the Fifth.

  21. 21.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

     “Look, this is what happens when you have a narcissistic sociopath give a homily at a funeral. It won’t go well.”

    ~ Charlie Sykes

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    It’s 61 degrees here, and my dogs whimper and look pitiful if we stay outside more than two minutes. Hard to believe their ancestors were based in Boston!

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    I love Sled Cat.  And thank you for the snow pictures.

    I love snow, and always hope that we get some each winter.  Even though we are not set up well for it in central Virginia.

    Look forward to the new book.  How does cholera fit in??

  27. 27.

    TaMara

    @Betty Cracker: ooo! ooo! I have ducks, so I know the answer to this.

    Ducks and other birds have a circulation system that keeps their feet warmed (up to a point, I have to watch the ducks when temps dip below 24 degrees F).

    The rest of them is full of downy feathers they can puff up, so that’s not an issue. Pick up a duck and you can feel the warmth under their top feathers.

    And water birds will often sit in the water, because its temp is warmer than, say, the 20-degree air temp.

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @TaMara: clever birds! Can confirm the last point — we had a hard freeze over the holidays, and I saw lots of waterbirds in the river!

  31. 31.

    Ajabu

    As long as we have an open thread:
    I finally posted the reference to my dear friend, Joyce Carol Thomas – writer of children’s books for Black children, on the long dead medium cool from last night. Please check her out. She was an extraordinary woman. Also, because it’s an open thread: Valentine’s Day is near and I have a wonderful cd of Love songs available. Get my email from WaterGirl if you’re interested!

  32. 32.

    currawong

    I call your heron and raise you an elephant seal. (thats’ where I park to take my dog for a walk along the shore)

    Link

  33. 33.

    NutmegAgain

    Oh, how I miss living in MA.  oh well, them’s the breaks I guess.  How on earth did those folks get their cat to sit still in the sled… and why did they think it would enjoy the ride?

  34. 34.

    Tom Levenson

    @Elizabelle: Cholera is such a great subject!

    In my book, it’s a key player in the attempt to figure out what causes infectious diseases. I’m writing about germ theory–its long prehistory; how it was worked out; and then what we did with that extremely useful knowledge (squandered some/a lot of the advantages we gained from the advance).  I’m just starting the last chapter in which it plays a major role, looking at incidents in the 5th (sic!) global pandemic wave of the 19th century.

  35. 35.

    West of the Rockies

    Dating myself here, but seeing Boston in the snow, I started hearing the theme to Love Story in my head.

    Of all the silly lines ever, “Love is never having to say you’re sorry,” is near the top.  Now, being a narcissist is maybe never having to say you’re sorry.

  36. 36.

    Tom Levenson

    @currawong: Awesome animals!

    I got to see the breeding population at Año Nuevo State Park (between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz in California) last Jan.

    They be big beasts.

  38. 38.

    CaseyL

    @Tom Levenson:

    I know the story about a community well somewhere in 19th (?) Century London that gave everyone who used it cholera, which led to the first municipally-maintained water supply.  But that’s the only factoid I know connecting pandemics, germs, and public health.  I’m sure there’s much more to it.

  39. 39.

    Anyway

    @West of the Rockies:

    Of all the silly lines ever, “Love is never having to say you’re sorry,” is near the top.

    My candidate for that is “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”

  45. 45.

    Tom Levenson

    @CaseyL: John Snow’s Broad Street Pump!

    That’s a great story, and it’s definitely in the book.

    I just came across a weird anecdote: the 1910 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in its article on Egypt asserts that the Brits gained the loyalty of the newly reorganized Egyptian army’s enlisted by the care provided by British officers and nurses for men struck by cholera in the 1883 outbreak there–when the Egyptian officers and the wealthy of Cairo had headed for the hills (as the article alleges–haven’t checked that).

    Imperialism, natural history, pandemics, science (the Egyptian outbreak was Robert Koch’s first stop in the expedition on which he rediscovered the cholera microbe and confirmed what folks like Snow had argued without knowing what the cholera “poison” in the water might be).

    I could go on, and will–in the MS.

  47. 47.

    randy khan)

    Nice to see some civilized snow photos, instead of disastrous snow photos.

    We had a few flakes in the air over the MLK weekend, but barely enough to notice and certainly nothing that hung around.  February is actually the peak snow month in the D.C. area, but I’m not getting a real snowy feeling for this winter at all.

  51. 51.

    zhena gogolia

    Wow, Katie Porter’s annoying e-mails and texts have been replaced by Ruben Gallegos’s.

  53. 53.

    WereBear

    @Betty Cracker: I think that is how they work it because that other foot can get up into the insulation under the tummy. I’ll have to look next time there’s snow on my ground, too.

     

    Excellent work doing something very hard, Tom. You’re supposed to take a break afterward. Revel in it.

  58. 58.

    dm

    @zhena gogolia: I’ve taken to using the “unsubscribe” links at the bottom of those mails, and it’s gone a long way toward reducing the noise in my inbox.

    Regarding Love Story: the other day I walked past a Cambridge laundromat with a note in the window: “This laundromat was in the movie Love Story.”

  59. 59.

    Tom Levenson

    @WereBear: Interesting! Cool.

    That’s a fascinating interstitial time. After germ theory, after the first wave of vaccines begins to have an impact–but before antibiotics and before the full implications of the virus v. microbe distinction become clear.

    And with the flu pandemic being so rapidly flushed down the memory hole…

  67. 67.

    dm

    Oh.  Open thread.  The Earth’s core is slowing down:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/01/23/earth-core-slowing/

    It appears to do this on a 70-year cycle (slower than Earth’s rotation, then faster than Earth’s rotation).  I wonder (1) what the mainspring is, (2) how its period has changed over the eons (600 million years ago the Earth’s day was 22 hours long — the Moon exerts a drag through tidal forces that currently slows the Earth’s rotation 1.8 milliseconds per century).

  68. 68.

    dexwood

    @zhena gogolia: Jim Gentile! I was about 9 when he began playing for the Orioles and saw him play many times. The autographed ball he gave me disappeared long ago.

  77. 77.

    Ohio Mom

    We changed internet providers a while back and I had to give up my @fuse.net address.

    On one hand, it was a pain alerting crucial correspondents to note my new gmail address but on the other hand, the elimination of fundraising emails!

    Ohio Dad always had a gmail account so I’ve been hearing from him about Katie Porter’s pleas. Now I know to expect him to start complaining about Ruben Gallegos’s.

  78. 78.

    Anyway

    @zhena gogolia:

    I was spared Katie Potter’s annoying emails but have received numerous texts and emails from Gallego. I I unsubscribed but expect another blast now that he’s officially announced he’s running.

  79. 79.

    Shana

    @dm: When I took my daughter to the University of Chicago for her first year, in the fall on 2008 we saw a sign in a dry cleaner’s window touting that Obama used their services. I wonder if it’s still there. The local Walgreens had great Obama swag too.

  80. 80.

    dm

    @WaterGirl: I do, but you don’t thermometer all the candidates I want to give to (like Dem. Assn. of Secretaries of State, AGs, Dem Legislative Campaign Committee — i.e., farm team and infrastructure).  (On the other hand, I don’t get that much junk mail from those groups, I don’t think.)

    “Unsubscribe” seems to work for me, too.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    @BruceFromOhio: I was interested to see there is a new Sheriff in LA County. I remember that Mr. Luna was challenging the incumbent, but I lost track of that race amidst all the other midterm news.

    Hopefully this will be a change for the better.

  89. 89.

    Skepticat

    Maine’s Lake Region has about 12 to 14 new inches of snow, and a friend in Pownal stopped measuring once he hit 18 inches. It was pretty light and fluffy, but I ought not type that out loud for fear I’ll tempt the fates, as Wednesday’s storm is supposed to clobber us with about a foot of heavy, wet snow. Bye-bye power; I had no idea how fragile the power grid is in this area. It’s past time to return to The Bahamas.

  90. 90.

    mayim

    @CaseyL:

    I know this threis now long dead, but a couple things about the London cholera epidemic of 1854:

    The book The Ghost Map is a good introduction to the topic.

    After the epidemic, the new Victorian health department surveyed the area it happened and published a report about it ~ they asked details down to what rooms in a house people died in. I found it when working with a patron whose family lived in the area ~ nice genealogical tidbits. The report is digitized and available at archive.org.

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