Grass cut, yard weed-eated, hedges trimmed, sidewalks swept and clean.
House dusted and vacuumed, glass cleaned, all wood lemon-oiled, kitchen clean, laundry done. Sheets changed, bathroom cleaned, toilets and shower spotless.
AND NOW WE NAP.
Reader Interactions
75Comments
Comments are closed.
stuckinred
It’s a beautiful day in Georgia and the Masters is heating up!
Michael G
So far today I watched 5 of the “Attack of the Clones Review” YouTube videos.
NOW WE NAP.
Colette
Just back from a kids’ birthday party at the park, and it’s a typical summer day in San Francisco: about 50 degrees, blustery, overcast, with occasional showers. The kids didn’t seem to mind, but the adults were all huddled together saying, more or less, “eight more months of this crap before next winter starts? Where the hell is the whisky?”
Global warming can’t come soon enough, sez I.
Incertus (Brian)
Celebrating 300 years of copyright. Not as boring as it might seem. It’s certainly more fun than grading the papers sitting next to me.
Luthe
But did you do it all naked?
MTmofo
They’re so cute when it’s new. In six months John’s new place will be like a baby Easter bunny. ;)
Snarky Pickles
@MTmofo:
Mmmmmmm. Baby Easter bunny.
licensed to kill time
Jeez John, you have a lot of energy for a guy with a busted shoulder. I’m exhausted just reading about what all you got done. I may have to take a nap now, too.
It is fun to get settled in to a new house. We want to see the video of Tunch the hotrodder, though, so get crackin’ !
Turgidson
@Colette:
Ugh, yeah. It’s not supposed to get this way until May or June, dammit! And once June hits, I have to (finally) report for work at the law firm and will no longer have any free time to notice the weather outside anyway. Can’t it just be relatively nice until then?
Mark S.
Did the Bushies do anything that wasn’t two parts evil and one part incompetent?
. . .
via
eemom
Took my doggie for a nice long walk. Chatted with a pleasant fellow in one of the parks about how ridiculous they are about the “leash law” in this stupid town, and then got into an obscenity-hurling brawl with a woman who got all pissy because my doggie dared to sniff in her fucking flower bed. God I love suburbia.
dj spellchecka
quite possibly the most disturbing catholic church story yet…
Alaska Natives are accusing the Catholic Church of using their remote villages as a “dumping ground” for child-molesting priests—and blaming the president of Seattle University for letting it happen.
thestranger.com/seattle/the-pedophiles-paradise/Content?oid=1065017
Svensker
Sounds lovely, John.
I did the same thing, except for the nap part — we have people coming over for dinner in a few hours and I have a project deadline tomorrow afternoon. Whoever planned this weekend was not scheduling well.
John Cole
@licensed to kill time: My shoulder is doing pretty well. I would say it is about 75% now. The problem now is my other shoulder, which may need surgery down the road, too. I wish I hadn’t played all these sports and been so damned reckless when I was younger.
Phyllis
My chores are done and we are settled in to watch the golf match. Split pea and hambone soup is simmering on the stove and there are two! buds on my plum tomato plant. Life ain’t half bad.
Aaand I see Tiger’s new leaf lasted two days. We can read your lips, dear.
MikeJ
@eemom:
Same here. People think it’s cool to let a hundred pound carnivore roam around out of control and shit anywhere something looks slightly green. I’ve been bitten three times on my local hiking/running trial because fuckwits won’t leash their goddamned dogs.
Little Dreamer
Well, I see I should have posted this on an open thread, but I didn’t see one that was active, so I placed it somewhere else (some place that appears to be officially dead) – so I’ll repost it here:
Something I did not know about –
The Star Spangled Banner used to be a Greek Drinking Song (with possibly sexual/erotic suggestions in the lyrics)… did anyone else know this?
I present to you the original lyrics for the tune that we now call The Star Spangled Banner – originally titled “The Anacreontic Song” (a/k/a “To Anacreon in Heaven”):
Youtubes available here!
Hmmm, no wonder this country is so screwy, even our anthem is full of lust and folly!
Svensker
@eemom:
Don’t know what suburbia has to do with it. If you really want to get wild-eyed crazy people, try to walk your dog without a leash in a city. Or have your dog pee on somebody’s tree planted outside their brownstone.
That said, if you are going to be around unknown people and dogs, your dog should be leashed. Ever see an unleashed boxer kill a chihuahua in front of the latter’s horrified owner in the blink of an eye? The boxer’s owner kept saying, “He’s never done anything like that before! He’s always been so gentle! I’m so sorry!”
Edit: Or what MikeJ said better. :)
srv
here
srv
@Michael G: If people only watch one episode, the last one really sums how much Lucas does not understand his own memes.
licensed to kill time
@John Cole:
Good to hear you are doing so well. I have a friend who was an avid jogger when he was younger, and just had hip replacement surgery. He says if he’d known how much damage he was doing to his hips and knees he wouldn’t have pushed himself so hard. We tend to take our bodies for granted when we are young and seemingly invulnerable, then regret it in our decrepit old age ;-)
eemom
The leash thing is a matter of common sense. I don’t think it’s wrong to let a safe dog or two run around in a large grassy area when there’s no one else around. OTOH, only an idiot would let a dog loose on a trail where people are running/biking, or in a densely populated area.
In other words, no shit.
Moses2317
Adventures in conservative land.
Sometimes I go to and comment on conservative websites for the sheer entertainment value, but here is a truly frightening comment exchange I just had on the Human Events website responding to this article glorifying the Confederacy.
Brachiator
@John Cole:
Don’t beat yourself up too much. I tried to keep relatively good care of myself, but now I have stuff popping up that afflicted my grandfather and other family members.
As an aside, any iPad users with buyer’s remorse? Just kidding. I’m alway interested in real world use stories. Anybody see an iPad in the wild?
Mark S.
Well, if Winston says that’s in the Bible, that’s good enough for me.
Little Dreamer
@Moses2317:
Moses, you are arguing with a dominionist, and you will never lead him out of the wilderness, sorry!
srv
@Brachiator:
Well, I hear it will blend, but here it is in the wild
Little Dreamer
@Mark S.:
It’s British Israel theory of the lost tribes.
Look it up. There is a certain Church of
ChristGod who preaches this today.Whoops! Fixed, sorry, I was wrong on the denomination.
Moses2317
@Little Dreamer: Thanks. I know – I usually just do this for sport and to mess with the clowns on the right. Rarely do I come across one that is this unhinged.
PurpleGirl
@Little Dreamer: Nope, not a Greek drinking song but English. From Wikipedia:
English writers loved using classical Greek references in lots of things. I first saw the drinking song lyrics in an English literature class in college.
Brachiator
@Moses2317:
Well, I guess that settles it.
But even if you get into that whole “slavery is God’s plan” thing, how do these boneheads reconcile Exodus 21:2 and 3?
And what about Exodus 7? Is this guy up for being able to sell his daughter as a maidservant?
Little Dreamer
@Moses2317:
Ask him if he attends a church service where the altar is made of heaped dirt or a pile of rocks – haha!
According to the Old Testament, that is the only type of altar that is to stand in a place of worship, and I’ll bet the chances that even five hundred people in this country attend such a service is near zero! (link goes to a lesson online, one I don’t condone, but, just to show you the lesson – it has lots of pictures of stone alters and a lot of the kind warned against in Exodus too).
Little Dreamer
@Brachiator:
Jubilee is a great argument. Even if those who were slaves were accepted as such, they should have performed that duty and been set free at least 130 years ago, so no one can possibly be a slave today.
Little Dreamer
@PurpleGirl:
Well, okay, you are correct, I saw all the greek and I guess I should have explained that better.
Yes, when I saw that, I wondered if that’s what all those Ivy League secret society type clubs (and maybe Oxford and Cambridge too) do behind closed doors, I mean when they’re not laying in coffins naked telling all about their dirty little sexual escapades of their hapless teenage years in the dark. Hehe!
trollhattan
@Moses2317:
Dear Gawd, I don’t know what’s worse, the article and subsequent comment hosannas or being surrounded by nothing but animated gun ads. Thanks for carrying the load so I never have to go back there. I need a shower.
Brachiator
@srv:
RE: Anybody see an iPad in the wild?
YouTube vids don’t count. You have to sneak up on a padder in the wild and actually see them touching it.
PurpleGirl
Little Dreamer: Another thing about the drinking song aspect to the Star Spangled Banner — being a few sheets to the wind (i.e., drunk) was probably the only way the song could be sung with that weird high pitched segment.
jeffreyw
Some Bees
Mnemosyne
@Little Dreamer:
And the ones who do are probably Wiccans or some other form of neopagans, not Christians.
D-Chance.
Ditto. Used an electric chain saw for the first time, today. Cut up a 20-foot tree that had fallen next to my rv cover. Went much smoother than I’d feared. The saw is much easier to operate and quieter than I would have imagined. It only took a few minutes. Hell, now I’m thinking I can handle some of the other trees on the property myself instead of contracting out to a tree service.
Then, the lawn (electric mower blade needs sharpening).
Then, the trimming, and I gave up on that endeavor. Bought an off-brand model because it had the same trimming diameter and power rating as the Black-and-Decker next to it, and was $10 cheaper. Now, I know why it was so cheap. Single line instead of dual, and a freaking manual feed. I had to stop every 15-30 seconds to reach under the blade shield and release more line. So, it’s back to the store for a better quality trimmer in the morning.
Enjoyed the hot shower afterwards, but am already a bit sore from using some muscles I hadn’t used since last November.
If the wind stays calm, and the work night easy, tomorrow will be the day to rake up the mulch and final winter leaves and start a roaring fire with the grass and the cut-up logs.
Looking out the window, I can see several robins and blue jays picking their way through the fresh clippings. Also, a squirrel roaming around.
Delia
@D-Chance.:
Me too. Actually it was the first time I’ve used a chain saw EVAH, so I was fairly pleased at the cost differential between removing a dead lilac bush from my front walk myself and paying for someone to come do it for me. But other than walk the dog that’s the only thing I’ve gotten done today. So I pretty much hate John for being so efficient.
Little Dreamer
@Mnemosyne:
True!
Besides, those Christians don’t understand that Jesus is a “fisher of men” for a reason…
“Fear, the pit and the snare are upon thee…”
NeenerNeener
RE: Anybody see an iPad in the wild?
@Brachiator:
If my living room is considered “the wild”, then, yes.
kdaug
@Little Dreamer:
Gah. I get it that some might find religion in general comforting, but I can’t be alone in feeling that it’s a net poison to the body politic.
The concept of accepting 2000-4000 year’s old parchments as literal truth – millennia later?
Sourced before they knew the earth was round? Before they knew of bacteria or microbes? Before the proof of heliocentrism?
Why should anyone care about what these people think at all (except their tendency toward violence)?
And is that what religion is today? Just weird people we need to be wary of? Is it all child rapists and insane crap?
Seriously. What the fuck can we make of this shit?
kdaug
@D-Chance.:
Oh, God, avoid Black & Decker.
Every tool I’ve had of theirs has died within months of purchase.
Don’t know what happened, they used to be reputable, suspect it the standard “outsourced all our parts to the cheapest Chinese factory we could find” syndrome.
But trust me. They suck now.
Little Dreamer
@kdaug:
kd, it would take me about 3 weeks to answer that question, if you want to do an in depth email conversation about it, contact me by emailing John and tell him you have permission to get my email address (reference this thread) – I can’t subject everyone to all the information for that answer here. I only give little hints once in a while.
And remember, it’s only what I think, but I’ve studied quite a lot (and still do), not that I’m ordained or anything. I can tell you that our current understanding of religious belief is a bunch of lies.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Song help needed.
If anyone was listening to World Cafe this afternoon and heard a long Irish Ballad with female singers, I cannot remember the name of song or group. The titles had bonnie lass in it (but not the simple Bonnie Lass song) and the group was called The (something) Kings. Not the group The Kings.
I’ve been googling those fragments for the past hour, and can’t locate the tune, which was especially beautiful/
kdaug
@Little Dreamer:
Done.
Mr. Cole, will you please forward Little Dreamer’s email to me at the email registered to my account?
I don’t approach this with any solid convictions. Just as a seeker.
IndyLib
@srv:
All the money spent in Afghanistan and Iraq is having a lot of far reaching consequences across the board.
The Navy is currently in serious “suck it up mode”. The active duty workforce (staff members) on the base my husband works at has been nearly cut by nearly 1/3 in the last 2 yrs. The promotion level for senior NCOs has dropped significantly, causing a shitload of E7 an E8s to retire, leaving most shore commands and ships seriously low on Chiefs.
This is about to have a real-life sucky effect on my personal life. My husband was just informed that for his next sea-duty station he has 3 choices – Japan, Japan or Japan. Usually we have the option for going to sea-duty at one of the big bases here in the states, San Diego, Bremerton/Everett, Washington or Norfolk. We have 3 kids, so under normal circumstances they’d be perfectly happy to let us stay in the states because of the cost to move and house us in Japan. But not this go-around because the the forward deployed aircraft carrier in Japan is undermanned and there is an E9 billet in my husband’s rate that has been sitting empty for 6 months and they plan on putting his name on it and waiting for him to transfer in Oct. to fill the billet.
I can’t tell you how unusual it is and how bad for the Navy it is for senior enlisted positions to go unmanned for so long, especially on the only forward deployed aircraft carrier in the Navy. The carrier from Japan does not deploy once every 3 years like most other carriers, it deploys every single year.
For the first time my husband and I are considering him going unaccompanied. If he makes Master Chief this year or next, he would be there for 2 years, 65 percent of which he would spend out to sea, if he doesn’t get promoted, he would be there for 18 months when his mandatory retirement would kick in.
This is a crappy choice we have to make, the move to Japan would be incredibly difficult for the whole family. It takes a year to get base housing over there, which would mean living in Japanese housing with two 10 year-olds and a 12 year-old, which is nightmare. The military-affordable housing over there is not condusive to housing 5 people used to living in the States, and base housing over there isn’t much better. We’d have to store over half our household stuff and wouldn’t be able to take our pets without a huge problems that include the extra cost and both of the animals being in quarantine for a time, which I am afraid would traumatize my dog. And, like I said above, if my husband doesn’t get promoted he’s out of the Navy 18 months after we get there, so we could move over there just to have to move back in a year and a half.
My husband and I used to shake our heads at his Navy collegues that would take a duty and their families would stay in other states, never understanding quite how they could stand to be apart anymore than the Navy already forces with sea-duties, but we find ourselves doing just that now – mostly due to the fact that the Navy has found itself on the short end of the stick as far as funding goes due to the amount of money being spent mostly on the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t resent the amount being spent on personnel and what it takes to keep them safe in combat zones – I resent that this crap war on terror ever started for the crappy reasons it started and how much money it has sucked out of so many other places it could have been used and how much of it has been wasted on things that have done our country no good.
And add to that I absolutely detest how much of it is being spent of the fucknut disgusting mercenary groups like Blackwater/Xi.
Brachiator
@NeenerNeener:
And is your iPad experience fun, useful, or just OK? Anything unexpected?
Little Dreamer
@kdaug:
You gotta email him to ask him, he isn’t going to tell you what it is here. ;)
I don’t want everyone knowing my email address, although a few people here do.
Little Dreamer
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
The King’s Singers – A Little Pretty Bonny Lass?
srv
@IndyLib: As someone who spent my first 16 years in the AF in some hell holes, you have my sympathies.
That said, a foreign adventure in my youth would have been a hardship, but also an awesome thing. My older sister got to see Europe, and I got nada. It has taken me 20 or so years to catch up.
The situation for the Navy and AF (and economy) are only likely to slightly relent in the next two years, so either the path most likely to promotion or optimizing job skills should be the first choice, IMHO.
Brachiator
I just ran across this news story while scanning the InterTubes,
Hatred? Damn. It just won’t stop.
The only saving grace in all this hoopla is that no Republican seems to appeal to the majority of these folk. For example, they like Romney until somebody reminds them that he pushed for soc i a lized medicine in Massachusetts.
And so it goes.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Little Dreamer:
No it. but thanks for trying. This was all female singers, the name of the group sounded like The Unkings or Umkings, I googled those and came up with nothing. I will call my local PBS radio station Monday to find out since they are closed on weekends. They will also likely update their playlist then also.
Little Dreamer
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Sorry, I tried. :(
Little Dreamer
@Brachiator:
Yeah, because, you know, running the entire country would just be SO MUCH EASIER than the job she QUIT mid term because she just didn’t want to do it anymore.
OMFG!
kdaug
@Little Dreamer:
I did, he emailed it, and I’m getting a mail server error::
>>> [email protected] (reading confirmation): 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account ([email protected]) [-5] – mta1078.mail.re4.yahoo.com
Cleared out the address links, but it’s what he has on file. Ideas?
IndyLib
@srv:
Truer words, etc.
We know my husband going unaccompanied is his best chance of getting promoted, if he doesn’t make Master Chief this year. And it’s a huge difference in retirement pay between retiring at 26 yrs at E8 and 30 yrs as an E9. The difference is almost double. Four more years in service and one promotion – hard to comprehend at times. It would be the difference between my husband being able to do what he wants to do when he retires and having to get a job just for the money.
On one hand it means all of the crap that goes with moving overseas with 3 kids (we’ve already done a tour in Japan, which is why I know I don’t particulary want to go back, especially with kids) or for my kids to be basically Dadless for most of 2 years. Like I said it’s a crappy desision any way we go. We thought about getting out this year, but the recession changed our mind damned quick.
Little Dreamer
@kdaug:
Wow, he emailed you the wrong one. He knows my email address.
Try this (I’m doing this because I don’t want certain IRL relatives to find it (wingers, I don’t want them to know I post here so that they feel they can harass me), so I’m doing this in code – every letter and number is written below as one letter or number ABOVE what it SHOULD be:
c
h
b
o
t
f
m
#10 (without the # sign of course)
AT.gmail.com
Ignore the spacing, that’s just how it came up in the post. No spaces at all in the addy.
Try that! ;)
Little Dreamer
@kdaug:
Yeah, I don’t put my real address on the BJ server, because up to now I’ve never had any problem with it!
;)
Try the coded message I gave you above.
Anne Laurie
@IndyLib:
Owwww! Truly, the Cheney Regency’s lousy decisions go right on making life more difficult for far too many people. Sounds like no matter what choice you make, it’s going to be uphill both ways. How adaptable are your kids right now? Does the idea of ‘Nippon, home of cool anime & video games’ intrigue them (you) at all? Can they wrap their minds around the concept of a two-year “exotic vacation” from the tedium of boring ordinary mid-American middle school? With 6 months’ warning, is there anyone among your extended family or friends who could “baby sit” your pets, or at least your dog, for up to two years, or would the separation be even more harrowing than quarantine for the poor beast?
NeenerNeener
@Brachiator: It’s just as heavy as I was afraid it would be. You really can’t tell in the store because they’re chained down to the counters. And it’s a slippery little devil, too. Since my middle name is “Butterfingers” I’m never going to take it out of the house.
That said – the display is gorgeous and I really like it better than my laptop for reading ebooks. I don’t know why, I just do. I have no buyers remorse for this, unlike the Nook, which I hated within hours of prying it out of its plastic packaging.
Brachiator
@NeenerNeener:
Interesting. I understand that Winnie the Pooh comes free with the iPad, and has illustrations. Other books read well, with font choices, etc.?
Have you tried out any magazines? I understand that some (Popular Science, I think) appear to be optimized for ipdad experience, while others (Time) are just ipadized versions of the print/Web edition.
John Cole
Little Dreamer- email me.
NeenerNeener
@Brachiator:
“Winnie” in iBooks is lovely. I haven’t thought to try changing the fonts yet, the default ones are so good. I also haven’t had time to try any of the magazine or PDF reader apps yet, or that Periodic Elements thingie that looks so nice, or the Marvel Comics app. Which reminds me, I wonder who I’d have to pester at Dark Horse to get “Buffy Season Eight” in an electronic form. It would be brilliant to get it downloaded straight to the iPad every month.
I haven’t hooked it up to my Netflix account yet, either, but that’s on my list of things to do in the next week.
Jennifer
Jesus, Cole, I’ve never considered marriage but you’d be handy to have around. Plus, no danger of you going rogue politically which would keep the tensions to a minimum.
Grass cut, yard weed-eated, hedges trimmed, sidewalks swept and clean.
House dusted and vacuumed, glass cleaned, all wood lemon-oiled, kitchen clean, laundry done. Sheets changed, bathroom cleaned, toilets and shower spotless.
People think women want to hear “I love you” but the words above are the real way into a woman’s heart.
IndyLib
@Anne Laurie:
I could be worked out, just with a lot of head to desk banging going on.
My twins are adaptable, but my oldest son is high-functioning autistic (very high functioning as long as you don’t upset his routine significantly).
Unfortunately the move would include at least a month (if not longer, I know people who had to spend 3 months finding a decent house over there) in a hotel while looking for a Japanese house and I would need to find one that could accomodate 5 people, which is a stretch over there, due to the amount our housing allowance we get and the fact that Japanese houses are small. I would also have to change my son’s schooling. I’m currently homeschooling him because he struggles in public school and it’s very difficult for him to change schools every 3 years. But while DOD allows homeschooling (it’s popular with military not due to religious issues usually, but because of the need to change schools so often) they only allow their own program to be used which is still a huge change. My son is so far ahead of his age on math and science, but lagging behind his age peers in language arts that a change to a standardized program would be extremely hard.
The pet issue is difficult, my daughter would happily take my cat and keep him forever, but the dog is a different story. There’s no way she could take her due to her living circumstances and the rest of our family is scattered across the country and I’m not sure I would trust them with a dog. They’re a mercenary lot which does not bode well. My brother-in-law would be the best choice, but the last time we moved, my husband had Isis with him and left him in his brother’s house by herself and she ate their mini-blinds because she freaked out at being left somewhere unfamiliar by herself. Thus my sister-in-law can’t stand her (I can’t stand my sister-in-law, so it all evens out). And yes the quarantine would be a nightmare I’m afraid. Our dog is very attached to my husband and me and I really worry how she would react to being seperated and carted across the country and the Pacific to be put in a cage for 3 weeks.
Rock meet hard place.
scott
You’re gay.
And as a ProHo (Professional Homosexual) myself I can spot ’em a mile away.
Know what gave you away?
The lemon oil.
G.A.Y.
Mumphrey
Sorry to nitpick; well, maybe I’m not. But either way I think that should read “weed-ate“. Long live irregular verbs!
lizzy
Damn, I’m exhausted just reading that.
Cain
@Moses2317:
Dude, that was the best troll ever. He was really good! Very entertaining. Anybody who goes around saying “BASTURD!” has my two thumbs up!
cain
Anne Laurie
@IndyLib: Wow. Rock meet hard place, indeed. I begin to see how two years as a de facto single parent might end up being the easiest option for all of you (though it strains the definition of ‘easy’). You’ll be in my prayers, because just thinking about coping with your situation is scary… it’d fit in so well with the ‘Hardest Job Ever’ thread below.
IndyLib
@Anne Laurie:
Thanks, prayers are always appreciated.
Family life in the military has never been what I call easy and I feel kind of bad for grumbling about my own situation. There are so many military families with problems so much worse than ours and while my husband has served in a combat zone many times, he’s been worlds safer than any of those serving on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and I’m damned grateful for that.
But our situation is a definite symptom of what happens when we stretch our military so god awful thin.
All the money that’s been wasted makes me want to puke, all the lives of people that have been wasted makes me want to cry my eyes out and all of the families effected in so many negative ways make me want to punch somebody – preferably someone from the Shrub Administration. I have had revenge fantasies of meeting Donald Rumsfeld (his ranch in New Mexico is only about 100 miles away from my hometown in Colorado) walking through Taos, NM, and kicking him in the nuts.
Forest Keeper
I hope the tree cutting went well for you. When it comes to removing trees you should at least get an estimate from a good tree service provider. Most give free estimates and you may be able to pick their brain for some advice on how to do it yourself.