Jesus God, I need a little break from everything in the news right now. Been in a doomscrolling loop.
In case you do, too, here is a respite thread, closely monitored by this cat The Child and I saw coming back from school this afternoon.
Talk about anything you want; try to avoid politics for an hour, lest Judge Ginger up there gives you a swat.
UPDATES: mali muso and family are about to adopt this Very Good Boy, and I thought you’d like to see the adoption center’s video for him. Meet Luke:
Also, commenter Joyce H mentions that the first book in her Regency Mage series, Mary Bennet and the Bingley Codex, is currently free to download and read on Kindle (device or via iOS app) until this coming Wednesday. If you love Jane Austen AND magic, this sounds like your ideal opportunity for escapism. This is the top UK review:
Support a fellow Jackal, stop thinking about The Horrors for a bit. Win-win.
WTFGhost
I tried to avoid politics for an hour, already. So, let me talk about my pent up political angst… never mind.
mali muso
Respite thread and pet discussion fodder. So after several years of the kiddo begging and pleading to get a pet, the spousal unit and I are finally giving in. She is 8 and theoretically of an age to assist with taking care of said pet, although I am grimly aware that the bulk of the work will fall to us. In any event, yesterday we went to see a potential dog at a shelter, but by the time we got there, he had been adopted already. As luck would have it, we hung out with a few of the other possible adoptee dogs there to see if one clicked and it looks like we will be bringing home our first family dog next week after we come back from our beach vacation. Meet Luke. Thoughts and prayers for our tidy house, sleep schedule and sanity. lol
Old Man Shadow
5 or 6 week-old kitten appeared in my backyard tree this weekend screaming loudly. She got our attention. Now she is comfortably residing in a space in our living room attacking a scratching post, learning how to use a litter box, and enjoying four meals a day.
She still hisses when we approach, but she has no aggression in her. We pick her up, pet her, and within seconds she’s purring away.
Haven’t seen any social media posts or posters about a lost kitten. So I’m guessing she got separated from her mom and siblings or they kicked her out. Either way, she got lucky and found a bunch of suckers who will give her a very good life.
My rescue dachshund is not sure about this new development yet, but I’m hoping once kitten is potty trained, they’ll become begrudging best friends.
Rose Judson
@mali muso: I have known three different dogs of different breeds all named Luke, and they were all Very Good Boys Indeed.
Can I add that video to the main post? So others can bask in his loveliness.
JoyceH
How about this? From now through Wednesday, you can go to Amazon and download book one of my Regency Mage series, Mary Bennet and the Bingley Codex, for free. (Don’t have a Kindle? The Kindle app for iPhone and iPad is also free.)
mali muso
@Rose Judson: Yes, please! We are nervously excited about our new family member. Hoping he will be a very good boy; he certainly seemed to be quite chill when we hung out with him yesterday.
Gvg
Sanity is LOL cats aka I can haz cheezeburger? I have been using it constantly since about 2001 as things keep getting stupider. Today they are featuring unusual coat patterns so a calico sort of goes with that.
hueyplong
Very, very relieved that “You may approach the throne” is about a cat (or other type of pet). The way things are going, it plausibly could have been a real quote by someone.
rusty
@mali muso: Luke is lovely, good luck with the adoption! Our children at points “acquired” various pets, that remained with us long after said children headed off to college and more. The one advantage is, that while the teenager may become grumpy, sullen and dislike your mere existence, the pets will continue to be joyful at your arrival home each night.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I just got a dumpster delivered. Now I’m trying to figure out what to do with it.
I did a lot of deck repair last summer and my wife has been very patient with the pile of discarded lumber occupying the back yard while I occasionally explored disposal options. She kind of ran out of patience and I finally decided I was going to stop being a cheapskate and pay the junk removal company to take it. So a 10-yard dumpster just arrived.
That thing is a lot bigger than I anticipated. It could probably take 5 times the lumber I’m going to throw in. So I’m now thinking this is an opportunity for a little “Swedish Death Cleaning”, time to go through the house and clear some crap out. Wish me luck maintaining my good intentions for an entire week.
Splitting Image
I have some genuinely good (if trivial) news to impart.
With the Windows 10 sunset on the horizon, I’ve finally begun upgrading my computer and have completed the following steps:
Bought a new M.2 drive and partitioned it.
Installed Zorin Linux into the new partition.
Installed Dosbox and migrated all of my old dos games into the new partition.
Installed PCem and migrated all of my old Win9X games into the new partition.
Installed VMware and migrated all of my old WinXP games into the new partition.
Installed Wine and began migrating all of my Win10 games and programs into the new partition.
I’ve gotten a bit bogged down during Step 6 because I set up my City of Heroes server in Linux and started a new character to test everything. Gamers can guess what happened next.
Step Goolgolplex, installing Windows 11, in scheduled to take place after the Big Crunch or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes first.
I still have the Windows 10 partition available, but I only have a couple of programs left that need it. If I can get those working through Wine, I’ll have a MS-free computer. No more downloading updates and restarting the computer when I have unsaved work open. (Once was enough.)
stinger
I finished a short story this morning. If Old Dan and Little Ann shows up here, I’d like to thank them/ask permission to use their grandmother’s greeting, which I’ve stolen to use in the story.
Chat Noir
@Old Man Shadow: We had a similar incident when a tiny kitten needed a home and found his way to us. That same kitten is now 17 years old and has been living a very excellent life since that time. We still refer to him as “the kitten.”
Good on you for adopting your newest overlady!
HinTN
@mali muso: Love the orange background for the text. Shades of Smokey 😎. Enjoy your new family member.
Juju
@mali muso: Welcome to the pack, Luke.
BC in Illinois
Sitting here at my daughter’s place. Mrs BC, our daughter and the two g’sons are out for the morning. Just me and two sleeping dogs. But I have made a discovery.
The doggos will sleep through all of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but they will wake up, perk up, and look around when Winter begins. I expected them to start barking at the intrusion.
[Julia Fischer and the Academy of St. Martin out in the middle of the Field.]
[Winter starts at 29:54]
Rose Judson
@mali muso: Updated, thanks!
@JoyceH: Also added a mention of this to the main post, plus a link!
HinTN
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
GOOD LUCK
mali muso
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Good luck! That sounds like a possible blessing in disguise…the opportunity to really go all out and declutter.
@rusty,@HinTN,@Juju: Thanks! We are busy dog-proofing the house and trying to make sure we have everything ready to welcome him next week.
Eunicecycle
@Chat Noir: we have had all of our cats but one adopt us this way. They show up, realize this is a good deal, and stay. We’re down to one now but have had up to three.
Betty Cracker
@mali muso: Handsome doggie!
JoyceH
@Rose Judson: that’s for the link – I’m on my phone and never figured out how to do links from here. But a clarification- the first book of the series is free. The idea/hope is that people will like the first book enough to buy the rest.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I follow Larry the Cat on twitter.
He’s an ancient codger now but holding up well.
Guess we could have said that about the late Queen.
Rose Judson
@JoyceH: Aha, got it. Will fix!
Gloria DryGarden
@BC in Illinois: I love this story about dogs sleeping through Vivaldi until winter . I love that whole suite. Apparently there are not just 4, but 13 sections to his piece, whose Italian name is escaping me. One comes across it during YouTube scrolling.
Gloria DryGarden
@mali muso: the scrap lumber could be put in a reachable place and offered on Craig’s list for free. someone might be very glad to have some of it.
When I was building a shed kit, my dad helped. He made fun of me dumpster diving for 2x4s and shelving, until I built shelves on one side of the shed for $200+, and the other side for zero dollars. He shut right up, then.
trollhattan
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
If it were here that lumber pile would be packed with black widows. Which would be enough motivation to hire dudes to do the hauling.
Nevertheless it’s true a half-empty dumpster is an affront to the lord.
stinger
@JoyceH: I got Book 1 in the Regency Mage series a few years back, followed in short order by Books 2 and 3. Are there more? I apologize that I haven’t kept up.
Gloria DryGarden
Two movies recently watched on YouTube, that were a pleasant and uplifting break: “Pride” about and lgbt group in London supporting miners during a strike in wales.
The Girl in the Cafe, about a nerdy numbers finance guy (bill nighy) befriending a young women over coffee, who he soon invites to join him at the G8 world summit he’s attending. He knows a lot of statistics about world poverty and she latches on to that and becomes surpringly, refreshingly outspoken. Sweet and cute, rather than heavy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’ve read several of Joyce H’s books, and they’re great!
JoyceH
@stinger: I published book 4 soon after the other three in 2019. There’s still just the four currently available. Then I hit a loooooong dry spell, but just a few weeks ago I finally finished book 5 The Haunting of Longbourn. Now I need to remember/figure out how to publish on Amazon and find out if my cover artist in Ukraine is still alive, but it should be out soon. I think you’ll like book 4, the Shades of Pemberley – we catch up with Lizzie and Darcy and find out how they’re doing.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: My neighbor across the street had a dumpster delivered last year for his basement cleanup, and once he had all his junk in there, he offered to let me add any junk i had. it was a godsend – I cleaned out my shed at last!
Ken B
@JoyceH: Link in the post goes to the Amazon UK website.
I just checked and it’s also available on the US site for free. Also available on Kindle Unlimited if you would prefer to borrow it instead.
I apparently bought it a few years ago.
Ohio Mom
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Good Luck! I am working on decluttering the room I call the girl cave (guest room and office). I lasted two hours.
Going through papers and unfinished projects is exhausting. Though there is now two shopping bags’ worth of paper in the recycling bin, so I accomplished something.
Hoping to get a second wind after lunch.
eclare
Spooky photo today!
eclare
@mali muso:
He is adorable! Congratulations!
Old Dan and Little Ann
Soccer win Friday. Basketball win Saturday. Softball win Sunday. Huzzah. The best weather weekend since September or October and the spawn wore herself out.
eclare
@Old Man Shadow:
Yay! That is a lucky kitty!
Omnes Omnibus
@Gloria DryGarden: Pride is a dramatized version of a true story. It also captures the look of London in 1984 almost perfectly.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@stinger: Hey. It’s fine with me but you’ll have to remind me what you are talking about please. : )
I’m a newly 50 yo white, bald dude FWIW.
JMG
In a mishap worthy of Cole himself, I managed to give myself a black eye last night rolling over in my sleep. Somehow left eye and left thumb made contact in the maneuver. Not a real shiner, not even as much as Elon’s was, but it can be seen (and laughed it when explained.
stinger
@JoyceH: Thank you! I just bought The Shades of Pemberley!
Do let us know when #5 is out!
Snowlan01
I see the conversation about which Amazon link was originally attached. It sort of converged with my first look at the photo, where I thought to myself: “that house and cat look more UK than US to me.” :-) But perhaps I should have know that already . . .
stinger
@Old Dan and Little Ann: On May 27, you said in a comment:
“I hope you have fun today and a 50th year full of health, prosperity and happiness.
That’s how my grandmother signed birthday cards.”
I’ve stolen the HP&P phrase and given it to the Great Goddess:
“The gods have looked upon men,” said Danu, “and we see that you are troubled. We meant for you to enjoy health and prosperity and happiness. Instead, you suffer anger and fear, wickedness and strife, all the great sorrows and petty mischiefs that make life a misery.”
(And I recently re-read Where the Red Fern Grows.)
Baud
@JMG:
You don’t have to make up stories. We would love to hear about your brawl with Scott Bessent.
JoyceH
@Ohio Mom: I’m so impressed by people who declutter! I keep saying that I’m going to…
opiejeanne
Netflix has a very good short documentary called “The Quilters”. It’s about a program to create quilts for charities, in a Max security prison in Missouri, only 33 minutes long but stay for the credits because you get to see some of the finished quilts and the recipients.
Steve Paradis
Faded Page is a source of free ebooks in Canada, where the copyright laws aren’t the same as the US.
As they say, These books are public domain in Canada (because we follow the Canadian copyright laws), but if you are in another country, you should satisfy yourself that you are not breaking the copyright laws of your own country by downloading them.
So be very very careful to obey the laws of your own country.
https://www.fadedpage.com/
Scout211
@Splitting Image: Can you translate that comment? It seems to be in a foreign language. ;-)
mali muso
@opiejeanne: We watched that doc the other night and found it very fascinating and thought-provoking.
Scout211
We have some family members coming this Saturday to celebrate Father’s Day, our two oldest and their spouses and maybe a couple of our adult grandkids. This is the good news. The bad news is, I only have a week to clean the house! Just kidding. I started last week, so I have 10 days. But it will be close. And it will be worth it. :-)
Old Dan and Little Ann
@stinger: Aha. I figured it out. That day was my 50th birthday. Below is what Ohio Mom responded to me. Credit were credit is due.
Happy Birthday! I hope you have fun today and a 50th year full of health, prosperity and happiness.
That’s how my grandmother signed birthday cards. As a child, I didn’t get it, health was a given to me and prosperity had little meaning, almost all of my material needs and wants were met. Okay, I understood happiness.
Now I am an oldster and know how precarious health and financial security can be and how fleeting happiness often is. I’ve grown into an appreciation of my grandmother’s choice of words.
JoyceH
@opiejeanne:
Ha! I’m such a sexist! I saw your post and my first thought was ‘they have maximum security prisons for women?’ Looked it up on Netflix and it’s guys quilting! Good on them!
JML
Binged Dept Q on Netflix this weekend. It’s quite excellent. Matthew Goode is getting a lot of the raves (and he’s excellent) but the real star is the quiet Alexej Manvelov as Akram Salim who manages to be sympathetic and menacing as needed, and without needing any histrionics. He’s awesome. Also really liked Leah Byrne as the young DC looking for a chance.
Very smart show. I’m not sure if it should be called a Scottish detective show by way of Denmark or a Danish detective show by way of Scotland (it’s adapted from a series of Danish books that became movies, but this one is set in Scotland), but regardless: I’m here for it and looking forward to another series.
(It is an adult show, with little restraint on language, nudity, or violence, though I wouldn’t call it gratuitous)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Gloria DryGarden: Bill Nighy is one of those actors I’ll watch in anything. Adding it to my list.
wonkie
I enjoyed the first book but have run into some obstacles with the acquisition of the second one. Amazon won’t allow me to access it through Unlimited and blocked me from buying it by making a completely pointless demand for my cell phone number; however, I shall persevere! I am glad that poor old Mary, who is depicted by Jane as such an unpleasant, sad, and confused person is getting a life in these novels.
Splitting Image
@Scout211:
Windows 10 go bye-bye, and I can still play all of my old games and use all my old software. No more Windows upgrades for me. :)
stinger
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Oh, thank you! I’ll hunt down Ohio Mom!
ArchTeryx
To Gloria Drygarden from dead thread: 2 No Trump is a bid in contract bridge. It means your team bids that they can win 6 rounds+whatever you bid. 2 No Trump means, “I can win 8 rounds with mine and my partner’s hand, and no suit ‘trumps’ the other suits when I try to win that bid.”
But contract bidding quickly gets insanely complicated, because the partners will try and use bids to communicate how strong (or weak) their hands are, which is vital when entering a bid. If your partner’s hand sucks and yours is good, it limits the opportunities. There are entire bidding conventions for this sort of communication! Just as one example, 2 No Trump is often used to signal the partner, “I have a strong hand that’s likely to win at least 8-9 tricks (rounds), and it’s balanced between the four suits.”
A hand is 13 rounds, or tricks, and the maximum bid is 7 + a suit (or No Trump). A named trump suit wins any trick unless a higher card of the same suit is played.
There’s a political metaphor in there somewhere.
Ohio Mom
@stinger: I’m here.
I’ve adopted my grandmother’s words as a way of honoring her memory. She was definitely a mixed bag, with lots to admire and some to roll eyes at.
She had limitations that reflected the time and place she grew up in, and yet mastered being an American quite well. She came here from Hungary as an unaccompanied minor (heavens!) and made a nice life for herself. I don’t know if i would have had as much gumption as she demonstrated.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@stinger: Huh. Danu’s speech there reminds me of Tool’s “Right In Two”.
Ohio Mom
@JoyceH: Start with one drawer. I reccomend the sock drawer.
Throw out all the socks that are one wearing from developing a hole, and the ones that don’t have any elastic left, and the ones whose mates are clearly lost forever.
Then organize the remaining ones in whichever way makes sense to you and Voila! You have officially decluttered something.
Another easy one is the medicine cabinet. Lots of expired things that can be tossed, plus all those lotions and potions you bought, used once and went yuck!
Don’t ever bother with the photographs, they are impossible to slog through. Your heirs will bring them to their homes and not organize them either.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@mali muso: Luke is a keeper.
JML
@ArchTeryx: yeah, I know just enough bridge to get in trouble. I can evaluate a hand’s strength, do basic bidding, and reasonably play a hand once bidding is done…but all the signaling and communication inside people’s bids is way beyond my level. And that’s before talking about transfer conventions, false card plays (which I sort of grasp from playing other trick-taking games), etc. Bridge is an incredibly complex and cool game. It’s also very cool.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Wishing you much luck and even more stamina in the week ahead
zhena gogolia
@mali muso: He’s so sweet.
Omnes Omnibus
Sly Stone died.
J.
@JoyceH: Just bought the first book and look forward to reading it. Publishing on Amazon = KDP is easy. I don’t think much has changed since you published your last book. And I have a great cover illustrator in the Czech Republic if yours is no longer available.
prostratedragon
Can’t have mid-50s mood without a diva. From the movie soundtrack to Good Night and Good Luck, Dianne Reeves:
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@JML:
We’re 3 episodes in.
One of the best things about it so far is his boss. An accurate depiction of most bosses at that level, ie., they’re not out to cover your back, support you, or do anything remotely useful to help you.
Most shows don’t depict bosses at that level that way. The old NBC series ‘Homicide’ did and also depicted how great it was if one had a front line supervisor like “G” to run interference between you and the shitty, pointy-haired management.
sab
@Ohio Mom: I have a box of photos that my parents moved up from Florida in 1966. Dad died last year at age 99. He also had kept his parents photos. My sister (the only one of us with kids) doesn’t want them, so there they sit in a yellow Mayflower moving box.
JML
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: yeah, I thought it was quite accurate how she took all the new funding she got for this new department and diverted as much of it as possible to the areas she cared about and dumped them into garbage quarters with no resources…while still expecting some results that she could parade about and take credit for.
Homicide: Life on the Streets was very good at showing how the further you get away from doing the day-to-day work of the department, the worse you generally are at caring about what your front-line staff actually need…but also showing how much bigger and nastier the administrative politics could be. (like Megan Russert getting promoted above G…and then getting demoted back below him after not playing ball. They didn’t just take her captaincy away, they took her lieutenancy too, all while dropping the racist & incompetent Gaffney in her job to punish G) It feels like Dept. Q gets that. I do think Morck understands departmental adminjitsu better than others of his ilk.
Ohio Mom
@sab: Your story certainly proves my point.
When Ohio MIL moved into the retirement home, one of the items she bequeathed to Ohio Dad was a photo album lovingly put together by Ohio Dad’s paternal step-grandmother.
Grandmadre, as she was nicknamed, hadn’t married until she was in her fifties; Grandpadre was a widower when they met.
I wasn’t around back then but have gotten the feeling that this was a bit of a marriage of convenience for Grandpadre, but for Grandmadre, this was the love of her life.
The photo album is her love song to Grandpadre. The first page is a handwritten note about how he fulfilled her life, what a marvelous man he is, and so on. Then there is one photo after the other of what looks like an ordinary retirement life but for Grandmadre, obviously each photo glowed and sparkled.
Anyway, both are long gone, nobody misses them anymore and this album means nothing to nobody. I’m keeping it as a reminder that all is vanity and striving after the wind.
If organizing photos gives someone pleasure, I say go for it, but otherwise there is nothing to feel guilty about. They can be —gasped —tossed.
J.
@JML: I’m watching it now and loving it — and totally agree with you about the actor who plays Akram. He deserves an Emmy. Whole cast is great.
opiejeanne
@JoyceH: There are quite a few men who quilt; it can be a very competitive hobby.
I knew a woman who was in a medium security prison, but I’m sure there must be a max somewhere for women..
Gloria DryGarden
@ArchTeryx: oh wow. Thank you.
My parents played bridge, but never taught us. Sounds like some complicated secret communication and signaling is required…I can’t figure out the metaphor in it, but great explanation
Gloria DryGarden
@Splitting Image: my first laptop was a dual book with Linux, set up by my pal Pollyanna. I loved it, and did most everything in Linux, using libre office for my college papers.
iirc, he had a laptop dedicated to playing one video game.