Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Come on, man.

Let me file that under fuck it.

He really is that stupid.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

This really is a full service blog.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

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

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Sometimes Life Gives You… Pollen

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Sometimes Life Gives You… Pollen

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(TBH, I thought it was the ferschlugging oak trees!)

I retreat to my happy place…

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  2. 2.

    p.a.

    Despite regular workouts & walks, including hills, squats, leg press, the first few days of yard cleanup/garden prep fracking HURTS!😂🤬

    Naproxen!👍🏻

  5. 5.

    Math Guy

    My first Spring living in MN: sneezing my lungs out. Still, better here than back in MO.

  6. 6.

    WereBear

    I find a lot of explanations in the human stress response. There are three varieties. 80% of untrained people freeze, 10% think flight (me) and 10% try to fight (in context of most emergencies, they panic with nothing to fight.)

    But I wonder if this leads to mental patterns, too. All this upheaval is showing us the 10% who search for something to fight. And they aren’t thinking clearly at all.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    Brings back memory of the gingko trees there was no way to avoid when going to or coming from a college dorm. They reeked something awful each spring. Aroma like suddenly encountering a billion farts in a phone booth.

  8. 8.

    Gravenstone

    Remember years ago visiting a friend in Marietta, GA in early Spring. Woke up to find the pollen settled nearly 1/8″ deep on my car. While I’m not afflicted with allergies, that visit definitely strained my sinuses for a couple days afterwards.

  10. 10.

    Barbara

    @Gravenstone: The pollen you see isn’t actually the problem, it’s the stuff that is so small that it gets through your nasal passages that creates all the dripping and sneezing.   It’s definitely in full swing here, and I need to start taking allergy medications again.  It’s still amazing to me, though, that how much it varies from year to year.

  11. 11.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    I’ve never had problems in the Spring and so far, so good this year.

    When I was younger, autumn allergies used to mess up my breathing so bad I’d be incapacitated.

  12. 12.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @MattF:

    Those oaks need to be slut-shamed.

    They don’t care where they spread their pollen. No standards, no discretion.

  13. 13.

    Soprano2

    Strangely enough ever since the advent of Covid, my allergies are MIA. I think I’ve had two times I felt like pollen was bothering me, and that’s continued into this year without face masks. It’s strange.

  15. 15.

    Redshift

    Allergy seasons are getting longer & more severe.

    Don’t I know it. I used to have a few weeks with antihistamines in the spring, and a rough time in late summer/fall (ragweed) when that plus Sudafed wasn’t enough. Now I take daily Claritin all year round, with only occasional breaks of a few days.

  17. 17.

    CaseyL

    I think I’ve developed some pollen allergies over the last year, for the first time in my life.  My nose is always runny, I sneeze a lot, and sometimes feel like I’m coming down with something only for it all to go away in a few hours.  Since this is Crazy Sexy Times for plants, and I have a lot of them around my house, I can’t think what else it could be.

    (One of the more minor, but still annoying, things about getting older.)

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Old School: That’s the sort of thing I would let happen, but he has staff for that kind of shit. I guess he too hires only the best people.

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’ve never had trouble with allergies, the only issue I have with pollen season is pollen all over the deck furniture.  Just when it’s finally pleasant enough to sit out on the deck, dammit!

    I’d been thinking I didn’t remember its being this heavy, so I totally believe this report that it’s staying for longer and getting more abundant than it used to.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Stupidity is an infectious disease:

    philip lewis@Phil_Lewis_
    “Missouri House Republicans voted to defund all of the state’s public libraries, in a proposed $45.6 billion state budget that will soon move to a vote in the GOP-controlled state Senate”

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    The cat with the egg in his mouth reminds me of when I made a meat loaf five or six weeks ago, and left what was left out on the counter after supper.  Only to come back into the kitchen and find one of our cats on the counter, licking it.

  28. 28.

    Another Scott

    @CaseyL: An allergist told me that there’s an “allergic” response and an “irritant” response.  When the pollen / mold / dust / smoke levels are high enough they bring out an irritant response in people who aren’t allergic.

    I got my allergies from my father, who claimed he was allergic to “everything that’s green and grows”, and I believe it.  Grass and oak are big ones for me.  The cars are yellow here in NoVA; the male oaks are working overtime.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    Here in central VA our cars have been yellow for a few weeks now.  I don’t have allergies but I’m taking Claritin anyway and it helps a TON.

  33. 33.

    BlueGuitarist

    Every year is the worst allergy year

    just like every election is the most important election

    no exaggeration

    both because of the climate crisis

  34. 34.

    cain

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I’m pretty sure that would be a universally unpopular move. Is it because all the so called groomers are going to be hanging out at libraries?

    As reddit tells me – it’s always projection – these people who are so obsessed with sex and gender are likely perverts projecting.

    Also, what the fuck is happening with the Dalai Lama? I’m kind of appalled.

  36. 36.

    cain

    I never had allergies but these past 4 years and especially the past two years I feel like I’ve developed more outright allergies. My eyes were always burning when I woke up – and that was earlier. After the time change it’s been much better that way – but I’m still sneezing during the day.

    I think all these wildfires and what not every summer has really fucked things up.

  37. 37.

    Heidi Mom

    It’s wonderful to see photos of Fishtopher the Cat enjoying himself in his adoptive home.  He was truly sad looking in the photos that popped up on Facebook — a droopy-faced cat with big tomcat cheeks who was miserable without love.  His people undoubtedly forgive all his transgressions.

  38. 38.

    Kayla Rudbek

    Good morning, everyone! I’m trying to get as much work done as I can before I leave for vacation next week, and I currently have the attention span of a gnat on LSD. And trying to get adjusted to the new supervisor/reviewer situation (switching from training supervisor to regular supervisor). And for some reason Outlook has decided that it doesn’t want to apply any sort of filters for focused/other emails, after having been doing so for about a year.

     

    Now I can hear the landscapers working (sawing something or other). It’s enough to make a woman want to go to the office and get some peace and quiet.

  39. 39.

    BlueGuitarist

     

    @Jeffro:

    Sadly, “how we can prosper together” isn’t as compelling as we hoped.

    “The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of who will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”

    commenter Davis X. Machina, in a post at Balloon Juice

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    @BlueGuitarist: I’m familiar with the quote, thanks  ;)

    The book is still a great read, and it’s still important to point out this kind of behavior whenever we can.  Every person who realizes that it’s costing them double to opt out of readily available public resources is one more person who is at least not working against us.

  43. 43.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Jeffro:

    you’re right.
    As many people as possible should know Heather McGee’s analysis.
    It is painful that so many people  don’t want to prosper together, but that shouldn’t stop efforts to inform others, Iike the extended interaction with a young barista Nelle described yesterday.
    i admire that you are working to educate people.
    I’m sorry not to have centered that, should have  put the curtain rods off to the side.

    Also, appreciate your response.

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    Had to revisit allergy shots as an adult after decades of living in CA’s Central Valley had me poor sinuses clogged year-round.  This year they added some trees and molds to my mix and I can REALLY tell the difference now. Is it worth the routine not one, nor three but four separate injections? Perhaps depends on whether you consider a porcupine to be a pest or a pet.

    Also got rid of the lawn, which might have helped but there’s still one next door so….

  45. 45.

    TKH

    @NotMax: Ginkgo are dioecious, meaning there are trees of female and male sex. The stench, from butyrate acid (butanoic acid) is associated with the seeds and hence the female tree. Where I was born, there lots of Ginkgo trees lining the streets. But the urban foresters made sure that these trees were male.

    Here at UH Manoa, right in front of Sinclair library, there is a tree of a different species that also produces seeds giving off butyrate acid. Every Spring the grounds keepers try to take off the seeds so that patrons can enjoy their lunch in the yard of the nearby cafeteria.

  47. 47.

    evodevo

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: ​
     yes they are – red oaks around here hybridized at the drop of a …leaf? Shumard oaks have very loose standards lol we had a forestry guy out to our place one time doing a tree survey and he was pointing out all the mixed species here. If you have trouble identifying an oak, that’s why.

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