Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The lights are all blinking red.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

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

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

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Lily

Lily Chemo Update, Website Redesign Update, Fundraiser Update, All in One Thread

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1.) Lily and I headed to the big city today for her chemo, and she was, of course, an angel:

All the other dogs have to act the fool, but Lily just sits there like THE ANGEL THAT SHE IS. Everything is fine, come back in six weeks was the verdict. Now we are just relaxing:

2.) Had a conference call with Watergirl, Steeplejack, and Bella for about a half hour tonight, and we are still doing the prep work before accepting bids from web designer/developers. That’s a royal we, because they are doing most of it and I just blurt out an obscenity every time they start speaking dork. At any rate, they wanted to put out a call for any wordpress designer/developers you all might recommend. No spouses, significant others, relatives, please. Please email me with any recommendations (AND INCLUDE YOUR COMMENTER NAME SO I CAN REACH OUT TO YOU).

3.) Fundraiser is still underway, thank you to everyone who donated via paypal and sent checks. For those of you still wishing to do so, the info is here (or email me for a snail mail address):

4.) BJ Calendar: I have not spoken to Beth in a few days, but the last we talked she was doing the layout, so I imagine it will not be long before that is ready.

Is there anything else I am missing. I’m tired.

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Lily’s Monthly Chemo Update

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Took Lily to chemo today, and she got a clean bill of health, and basically all they said was that everything is great, her numbers are fantastic, come back in a month, and btw several of the vet techs were plotting to steal her:

Since she is on no meds anymore except her monthly bloodwork and vincristine, this was the cheapest visit yet, at only 200 bucks. Which is down from when it was twice my mortgage a month, then matched my mortgage, to half my mortgage, to a 1/3 of my mortgage- you get the picture. So I am doubly happy today. She’s worth it anyway.

I did make a tactical mistake, today, though, and went to Costco two days before Thanksgiving. I always go when I am up there for her treatments because I have nothing else to do, and dad wanted me to pick up some vitamins and a few other things. I wasn’t at all thinking about the holiday, BUT EVERYONE ELSE IN THE GREATER FUCKING PITTSBURGH AREA SURE WAS. At any rate, it was a horror show, with a thousand people thinking only about themselves just wandering off leaving carts unattended, stopping in the middle of the aisles to talk on the phone, or just stopping everything because there is a god damned free sample of something they won’t buy anyway. It just amazes me how much of the world operates like no one around them exists. The only people who get a pass from this sort of assholish behavior are the mothers with two or three kids running around raising hell. You can see it in their eyes that they are just 50% ready to go off like a hand grenade whose pin has been pulled but no one knows when or 50% ready to just sit down in the aisle and have a solid cry. I feel for them.

Everyone else has no fucking excuse. I do breathing exercises and try to tell myself “Hey, everyone there may be having the worst day of their lives, don’t judge,” and try to be kind, but it just drives me into madness anyway. Is it because people decide “this is going to be awful regardless what I do so might as well just let my asshole flag fly?” Is that what it is? Because that is the opposite of my logic. Maybe it’s my past in the military, because my mentality is “Ok, this is going to be awful, let’s do what we can to not make shit worse and maybe we will get out of here without any felonies, fatalities, or me becoming an infamous youtube star in someone else’s video.”

Regardless, I made it out alive, my dog is healthy, I picked up Chinese food for mom and dad, and now I am off to nap with Lily and Steve. Aren’t you jealous?

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Lily Cancer Update and Site Maintenance All In One Open Thread

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1.) Lily and I spent the day in Pittsburgh at the hospital getting her now monthly treatment, and the doctor is very pleased that her numbers and everything look fantastic, and we only have one more monthly treatment until we move on to every five weeks. Lily did have fleas, which surprised me, because I brushed her and bathed her and did not see any, but this means that if Lily has fleas then all of my dogs have flees, so I just spent the last hour wrangling three dogs and a cat to give them a pill each and then a separate preventative one- I guess last month’s frontline did not work. Lily has a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween bow and I will post a picture of it later because right now she is out in the back yard doing dog stuff.

Side note: Giving three dogs and a cat flea and tick meds shouldn’t take an hour and cause an aerobic sweat and leave me winded FER FUCKS SAKE ANIMALS WE’VE BEEN TOGETHER FOREVER WHERE IS THE CIRCLE OF TRUST YOU FUCKERS?

2.) I am soliciting quotes for a complete site rebuild and redesign so we can move to a new theme and get rid of this outdated theme that no longer really works with any of our plugins and is just a pain in the ass for all of you. It’s also not fair to Alain who has been duct taping and bubblegumming shit together for about a year and doing the tinkering on the live site because shit keeps breaking, which also is a pain in the ass for the users. I have a metric ton of RAM in my computer and unlimited bandwidth, so I don’t notice things like many of you do. I will also be doing a review of the ads and getting rid of some of them because there are just too many god damned ads and some of them don’t do anything and there is no point having them.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE THREAD FOR YOU TO START LISTING WHAT YOU WANT IN THE NEW DESIGN. WE ARE NOT THERE YET.

ALSO NOTE: We’re gonna just try to limp this motherfucker through the election and only then will we start to formulate a plan to move forward. I just want you to know that I have heard you and am working on it.

ONE MORE NOTE: THERE WILL NOT BE NESTED COMMENTS OR UP OR DOWN VOTING OF COMMENTS AND THERE NEVER WILL BE AS LONG AS I LIVE AND BREATHE ON THIS SHITTY LITTLE ROCK FLOATING AIMLESSLY AROUND THE UNIVERSE.

I LIED ONE MORE FINAL NOTE: I would like to add a writer or two and trim some of the less active writers from front page status. I am looking for people of color, LGBTQ, and women. We got enough straight white dudes.

3.) I am so fucking angry right now. Not at anything in particular, but actually everything in particular. I am so worked up about this fucking election and having mood swings and just literally hating on everything that crosses my path. I’m the human embodiment of sweaty dynamite on a bumpy wooden carriage in 100 degree heat. I’m flipping off yard signs of candidates I don’t like and I almost said FUCK IT GBCW and drove the Honda over a stretch of signs with several candidates I did not like. I am on edge. Yesterday I was convinced all is lost, today I was driving and remembered back to 2016 and I never saw a Hillary sign but everywhere I looked were signs for Fershee and Ihlenfeld and AJ Thomas and Fluharty and all the people in whom I am personally and emotionally invested and felt super positive.

I seriously think I need an ativan drip for the next two weeks.

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Lily’s Chemo Day

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Spent the day driving my very special girl up to the pet hospital in Pittsburgh, and you all will be pleased to know that she is doing extremely well, is no longer on any medication other than her now monthly (this was our last three week visit) chemo, and everything is going swimmingly.

I’m so proud of her- she’s so tough. It’s no exaggeration that driving up and back and dealing with this is now harder on me than it is on her.

On the way home I stopped by the orchard and picked up a peck of apples to make applesauce, as well as five pounds each of Autumn Crisp and Gingergold. Right now my house smells amazing, with the smell of cooking apples and a little cinnamon. It’s a nice antidote to the stench of our current national politics.

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Lily Chemo Update

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Spent the day in the big city taking Lily to the animal hospital for her chemo, and other than a little weight loss, everything is going great:

NEW WORD: FLOCCULATION!!!!!

She has been shedding a bit more and her fur feels coarser, but the doctor said that is normal and not to worry. It’s also 5 kajillion degrees outside, and I would be shedding if I could.

The weight is something to keep an eye on, but she is still eating every day. I think the weight drop may be attributed to her going off the prednisone, which made her eat like a horse. They prescribed some mirtazapine to stimulate her appetite (holy fucking shitballs is that expensive), so I will keep an eye on her.

Regardless, she has been cleared for the beach, and was issued a regulation nautical bow by the nurses:

On the way home I stopped at the Brown’s Orchard and Cider Company and picked up some cooking apples for dad, some gala apples for my mom, and I picked up a five lb bag of Gingergold and a fiver of Honeycrisp. The Gingergold were so good I can honestly say they were life changing or life affirming or something. I actually pulled over to eat it so I wouldn’t be driving distracted. IT WAS THAT GOOD.

It’s nice to know nothing unsettling happened in the news today while I was busy with Lily.

*checks headlines*

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

I’m going to go water my plants and pretend everything is ok.

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Lily Chemo Update

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Here’s a nice picture of a freshly bathed Lily on the way to the doctor for her checkup (man, three weeks went by fast):

As you can see, she is shedding like crazy after her bath because I didn’t have time to brush her out after her bath. “Why were you in such a rush, you ask?”

That’s because despite having a bath yesterday in preparation for her appointment today, Lily took it upon herself to roll in goose/rabbit/whoknows shit and smear it from head to toe. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying off, and smelled something, looked down, and it was your royal highness covered in shit. I stopped drying, gave her a bath, dried her off, put her in my bedroom and shut the door, and got back IN the shower.

At any rate, she was a perfect angel on the ride up, although she did shed all over the car which had just been vacuumed and had all leather treated on Saturday, so it’s now a mess and smells of moist dog. When I took her in to the vet, the nurses and receptionist doted on her and used a lint brush on her and then brushed her out. She is their favorite.

As to the medical news, the doctor said she is a “rock star” (I have it in writing) and she is now no longer on prednisone, still taking plavix until the next visit, all her numbers are amazing, and we go back in three weeks.

Speaking of Lily, we are headed to the beach in the middle of September. I had such a good time last year with ABC and it has been such a shit year that at some point in July I said fuck it I am going again this year. I’m going to the Outer Banks for a week because I won’t die from the heat, that is a good time for me, and IT IS CHEAP AS HELL compared to the regular season (like 1/3 of what it costs during the peak). I still can’t afford it, but I don’t give a shit. My friend Melanie from undergrad who has had a horrible year with personal bullshit is coming for a few days, and Tammy is coming for a few days with Sam and then her husband is going to meet us for a long weekend. It should be fun. I’m excited. Here I am working on my beach body:

Back to Lily- Do I need to worry about sand fleas? I asked the doctor today and he said they are more like crustaceans than typical fleas. Is this an issue? Do any of you from the area know more about this?

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Lily Update- Things Are Still Going Great!

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Just got back from our weekly chemo, and it was a long one today. There were lots of emergencies with animals that took precedence over a routine treatment, so instead of a four hour trip it took us six hours. Long story short, everything is doing well with Lily, she gained another half lb, all her bloodwork was good, and we’re down to a quarter tablet of prednisone a day and a quarter tab of plavix.

While it took a long time, it was not that terrible because it was (and still is) such a gorgeous day. It’s the first time in weeks where there were no clouds in the sky, and it is a comfortable 80 degrees with (for WV) very little humidity. When I woke up this morning and went outside, I was hit with a wall of smells- everything is blooming at once, and all you can smell anywhere in my littler area of the world is honeysuckle and sweet blooming everything. I swear I smelled some lilac, but it is kind of late for that, I thought. It was so strong I called my dad- “Have you been outside? Am I having a stroke or is the air thick with a floral scent?” He assured me that I am not having a stroke and that he planted some gladiola bulbs three days ago and there are already shoots.

At any rate, it was so nice that after I dropped Lily off, I went to Trader Joe’s, which I know a lot of people just swear by and I like, but I am consistently underwhelmed by it. Regardless, I picked up some of those sesame crackers I adore and I got a container of cauliflower tabbouleh that was AMAZING.

I wish I could describe just how lush and green everything is for all you folks in cities and out west, but I guess pictures will have to do. If I had to describe it I would say it is what everyone thinks Ireland looks like or maybe I would say it looks like video game jungle green- it’s that green! Here are some pics from the ride home:

Since I know my audience, let me say some things before you go nitpicking ballistic in the comments. I the first picture, I was going 3 mph when I took the picture and no one was behind me so, no, I was not being unsafe in the middle of the road. This is WV. I could have stopped and taken a piss in the middle of the road and likely not seen anyone. And for the exceptionally curious, I was listening to OutKast ATLiens. In the second picture, yes, I am aware dogs should not ride with their heads out the window and that airbags can kill a dog but she only rides like that when we are on rural roads going very slow and also she has cancer so we’ll just roll the fucking dice and live a little. So don’t even start with me. Also, in the second picture, that’s one of the corn plots for a local farm and it has grown a full foot in just the last week.

Finally a shot of our girl, happy to be home and strutting her stuff after helping to water the lawn:

Finally, check out the grass we planted last week:

Tomorrow afternoon and Saturday we are planting the shrubbery, digging half the hostas and transplanting them out back, tilling the back yard, and hopefully putting down the top soil and then seeding it.

Ok, there was your break and Lily update, back to our regularly scheduled dystopic Trumpian horror show.

Lily Update- Things Are Still Going Great!Post + Comments (41)