I have a full schedule and will not be back until tonight sometime, but in the mean time, I thought I would let you in on Thurston’s late night antics last night.
This time of year, even though it can get cold, I sleep with the window open, because the combination of the crisp fresh spring air and the some coming through the windows in the morning makes me feel 20 years old when I wake up in the morning. I don’t get cold because I have three dogs and sometimes a cat and a down comforter, so why not?
At any rate, apparently, Thurston got chilly, and somehow managed to get in between the duvet cover and the comforter, which was fine for a while, I guess, but when he decided he wanted to move to another spot, he learned he was trapped. He started squealing like a stuck pig, thrashing all over the place, kicking, wailing, he rolled on top of Rosie who promptly bit my foot, Lily ran across my head to unass the AO and get the hell out of there, and basically gave me a heart attack. I leaped out of bed, knocked my glasses off the stand while trying to find the light switch to see what the hell was going on.
At that point, I was naked, blind, it was three am, I had chaos in my bed, and I had to get down on my hands and knees to search for my glasses so I wouldn’t step on them. Finally found them, figured out what happened, and by then Thurston had himself in such a lather and the comforter and duvet so knotted up and tangled I had to just take the whole cover off to find him.
So yeah. Tuesday in the Cole household.
JPL
Somehow I imagine that good boy Thurston, was not what was said.
Tom
Sounds like some of the most memorable dates I had back in the day.
Paul in KY
Gee, I wish you had that on tape…
Iowa Old Lady
Thanks for the laugh, John.
SuperHrefna
Priceless! Poor little puppy, getting himself stuck like that. My cats sometimes get stuck inside the duvet cover but they are grown ups and better able to deal.
Thought I would signal boost for Con or Bust again. This is an auction to raise funds to help non-white people attend science fiction and fantasy conventions. There are all sorts of awesome items up for grabs ( signed books, rare books, fun accessories…) and you get to help increase diversity in SFF! http://con-or-bust.org
donnah
Things will never be dull or boring in your household. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I don’t know. But it makes for great reading!
Emma
I am so glad my office is away from main traffic or any valuable sitting space because the hyena sounds emerging from behind the closed doors would have been enough to scare St. Francis.
Thank you for my morning moment of joy, John.
WereBear
Thurston is my kind of puppy. Dorky, heedless, and terribly cute.
Of course, most of them are like that :)
Suzanne
Dawwww. That sounds awesome.
Fair Economist
Puppies!
phoebes-in-santa fe
Pictures…or it didn’t happen.
BGinCHI
For most of this I thought it was a live blog of the GOP thing up in NH over the weekend.
Violet
A lot of people would think being in this kind of situation was a good thing.
Amir Khalid
Aww. Poor baby boy. I hope you held little Thurston and calmed him down so he could get back to sleep.
shortstop
I heard this.
Suzanne
@Violet: Yeah, usually you have to pay for that.
Ken T
Let’s see – 3 AM, blind, naked, chaos in bed. I can remember a time when that would have been describing one hell of a great party.
MattF
And you were armed with a mop. But it wasn’t loaded.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@SuperHrefna: Donation made
the Conster
So you’re going to be a lifelong bachelor hope you know. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
aimai
What does “unass the AO” ? mean? I’m neither x military nor a pet owner so I’m asking for some clarification here.
aimai
@Violet: With a little reworking and the addition of a good beat this would make a great dance song. Needs more iambic pentameter and some drums.
Brendan in Charlotte
@aimai: got out of the Area of Operations…in this case – Lily fled the scene.
raven
@aimai: AO= area of operations. Unass= you can figure that out.
SuperHrefna
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Cool!
Bobby B.
Not as bad as getting up in the middle of the night to pee and finding out your sleepy aim is not true.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Suzanne:
Nosy question for you if you’re still around — has your dermatologist ever recommended that you get tested for pre-diabetes? One of mine suggested that when I got a weird candida infection on my face (fortunately, it came up negative). Apparently various yeast infections are very common for diabetics.
Tommy
@Violet: I think some people might pay for that. Just saying.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I need the hivemind for a minute: I saw my eye doctor yesterday and apparently I’m an ideal candidate for Lasik. She gave me a referral to a surgeon, so I’m going to research that, but does anyone have any tips? I’ve been wearing glasses since I was six years old and I’m pretty tired of not being able to see a damn thing without them, but the various reported side effects make me a little nervous.
Amir Khalid
On the topic of someone rather less adorable than Thurston, who the hell eats a hotdog with a knife and fork?
(H/T to YouTuber Rewboss.)
Petorado
It’s 3 a.m. and your pets are safe and asleep
But there’s a puppy in the duvet cover and it’s trapped
Something’s happening in the world
Your blog host will decide who gets Thurston out of the duvet
Whether it’s someone who already has been in the military — someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world
It’s 3 a.m. and your pets are now in a lather
Who do you want getting the puppy out of the comforter?
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I know several people who have done it, and the one question they end up with is “why did I wait so long?” I know none who’ve had any side effects.
I also have a good friend who does them for a living, and says there’s really very little to it (i.e. it’s very very hard to fuck it up.)
Aardvark Cheeselog
I’m kind of surprised that no one here seems to have noticed this bit of rank drugwar idiocy in KS:
Medical Marijuana Activist in Kansas Could Face Charges
Child Custody Case In Garden City Stirs Medical Marijuana Debate
Charges sought against medicinal marijuana advocate
An 11-year-old, after being subjected to Reefer-Madness era “drug education” at school, dared to call bullshit. The school called the laughably-misnamed “child protective services” drones, who got the cops to search the mom’s house, where they found some kind of cannabis extract. Mom gets jailed, kid gets hauled off into protective custody, and proceedings are underway to, I don’t know, find out if the Mom weighs the same as a duck so they can burn her I guess.
Tommy
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I got nothing for you. I only got glasses the other day. I am 45. It was kind of out of left field I needed glasses. Small things. Things are better. Little stuff.
shortstop
@Brendan in Charlotte: I am going to need to work this into conversation.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: I’m okay with the knife and fork, but as a Chicagoan, I demand hard time for people who put ketchup on their dogs.
MattF
@Mnemosyne (tablet): One thing to be cautious about is that eyes go bad as you get older. Vitreous separation, retinal tears, glaucoma, cataracts, dry eyes– all treatable, if necessary– but it may be wiser to let sleeping dogs lie. At a minimum, get a second opinion from an expert.
Elizabelle
Not hard to imagine Thurston imperiling himself within bedclothes. Proves he’s the perfect match for his human.
He will learn. Sweet puppy.
Elizabelle
Any Blue Bell ice cream fans out there? I hear it’s delicious; it’s a family-owned company based in Brenham, Texas.
Sorry to hear they’re having such troubles with listeria contamination; three people have died after consuming their products over the past year. (NYTimes link)
I hope the company figures out what’s gone wrong, corrects, and survives.
Abo gato
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I had lasik in 99 and truly, it was the best thing I ever did. Wore glasses from age 6 as well, with progressive myopia. My contact prescription was -10, so I was effectively blind. I could see like crazy once it was done and it was so nice to be able to do things like go to the beach, or wake up in the middle of the night and see the clock. It’s the little things you will love. Highly recommend it.
Oh, and yes, eyes do age. Now I am nearing 62 and have found that the myopia has returned, but not horribly so. At least now I can wear awesome glasses that are purple and green and don’t have 3/8’s of an inch thick lenses. When I had it done, really, I would have been fine with these results then, but I have had 16 years of 20/20 vision that I wouldn’t have had.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@MattF:
One of the websites I was reading had a good point: things like glaucoma, dry eyes, cataracts, etc. are all very common, but there don’t seem to be any good studies that are able to show that they’re more common among people who got laser surgery. Glaucoma especially seems to have some genetic links and links to other issues (like diabetes). I’m pretty much halfway to legally blind already, so part of my thinking is that it’s not like my vision has room to get much worse anyway.
Paul in KY
@Bobby B.: Was at a Browns game in ST Louis, staying in a hotel with friends. 3 of us in room. At about 3 in morn (on cold Winter night), one of drunken friends got out of their bed & thinking they were in bathroom, proceeded to pee into the AC unit for at least a minute (was awake listening & thinking I was lucky he wasn’t peeing on me). Thinking the first time that baby was turned on in Spring was memorable…
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Abo gato:
I’m a -6 in my “good” eye and a -8 in the other, so there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement.
David Rickard
Just stuff Thurston in a dog sweater before you go to bed… It’ll keep the mutt warm, and he’ll be so annoyed with you that he’ll stay out of your bed. Win win!
Amir Khalid
@David Rickard:
But Cole has got used to having him there in bed, which is why he’s there.for keeps.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Peaches and cream might be the best ice cream there is.
Hopefully they find the problem quickly.
Elizabelle
@JPL: Sounds yum.
Used to enjoy that from Gifford’s, a local DC area chain, long since gone.
SFAW
OT for an OT (who’d’a thunk?), but one of the ads on the FP tells me to “Jetzt Kaufen” etwas called “Silgel,” und ich kann zwanzig percent sparen.
I must have not noticed the place where I clicked the button that said I wanted ads auf Deutsch.
Don K
@Bobby B.:
I hate it when that happens!
Lavocat
Christ, your animal stories make me roar with laughter.
I think I have the name for one of your first short stories:
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
I can’t even imagine how the ad server figured out that you are covered in scars. Aber wenn deine Haut wirklich voller Narben ist, solltest du vom Sonderangebot profitieren.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I would be very nervous about the side-effects. Apparently, what they don’t tell you is that EVERYONE winds up with a weakened corneal structure.
http://www.lasikcomplications.com/TopTenReasons.htm
I don’t think they are totally upfront about the risks; that if something does go wrong, it goes really, really wrong.
slag
@Petorado: Ha! It works. Certainly wouldn’t want Romney to be the decider in that circumstance.
Hilfy
I l0ve you, John Cole, just fucking love you. Starting my day with a belly laugh is a blessing of the FSM and all other gods.
What do you mean “sometimes a cat” in your in your bed? Has Steve been displaced by a hoard of dogs?
Juju
Well, at least you can say exciting things sometimes happen in your bed.
Tenar Darell
Daym, all I did this morning is try to put the coffee into the machine without the filter basket or the filter.
Pogonip
I now have the opening premise for my equal-opportunity-offends-everyone-impartially-wins-science-fiction-award story: Captain Cole was in his bunk at 0300, naked, blind, with three dogs, a bald-butted cat, and a mop…
Cole’s life would be a lot safer if he’d put some clothes on.
rikyrah
that was hilarious
SWMBO
@phoebes-in-santa fe: Naked, blind Cole rescuing a puppy out of the covers?! Are you barking mad? There isn’t enough brain bleach to get rid of an image like that. Plus we’d all get a visit from LEO for viewing porn. Nope. No pics for me.
SWMBO
“So yeah. Tuesday in the Cole household.”
Monday, day 2.
Pogonip
P@SWMBO:And since he was blind he had to grope amongst the thrashing, squirming, yelping critters to find Thurston. Would you like some more bleach?
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
And me not even having a webcam or nuthin’. Maybe it’s the NSA?
Help me Obi-Rand Paulobi, you’re our only hope!