JeffreyW shared that photo with me and I loved it. I have been trying to stay away from all things political these days. I have strong opinions, but not ready to share with anyone but my close circle. There are A LOT of changes happening in my life right now, so I’m focused on that for now.
In the meantime, I consider it my duty to provide you with distraction and entertainment. What’s on your entertainment menu this weekend? I’ve been invited to an ice skating party tonight and a chance to raid a friend’s holiday decorations tomorrow, to be followed by BBQ dinner. Then I need to finish putting the gardens to bed, since we’ve finally had a few days of cold weather.
Open thread.
RECIPE THREAD NOTE: There will be no recipe threads for a while, but I’ll probably put together some holiday stuff later in the month. My focus is usually around Christmas stuff, but if anyone wants to send me recipes and info on different holiday celebrations, please do. I would love to post about that – include photos!
Elizabelle
That’s a kind of disturbing photo. Those Burmese pythons be getting out of control.
TaMara (HFG)
If you want to send me holiday recipes/photos, use this address: whats4dinnersolutions (at) live (dot) com
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
The only fruitcake recipe that is actually worth a damn. This is a variation off of one my great grandmother used to make, and my aunt and RWNJ mom used to attempt with varying degrees of success, which usually resulted in mediocrity, as they simply never learned to cook well from my lazy-assed grandmother.
I think my tweaks actually make the product taste like what it is supposed to taste like, and it is actually good.
WAKEFIELD FRUITCAKE
6 eggs
1/2 lb butter
1/2 lb brown sugar
1 pint sifted flour
1 t baking powder
1 lb white raisins
1/2 lb chopped figs (dried)
Any combo of dried fruits will do; do not have to follow this exactly.
Get craisins also.
Basically need 3 lbs of dried fruits. No prunes; look for whats on sale.
1 1/2 lbs chopped dates
2 lbs chopped nuts
1/2 pint cherry preserves (this is the cherry jellly)
1 glass jar grape jelly
1 T cloves
1 T allspice
1 T cinnamon
1/2 to 1 cup bourbon (whatever your preference)
Line 3 loaf pans with brown paper grocery bags cut and measured to fit the
bottom and four sides. Grease the pan and then put in two layers, greasing
each layer. (Use Crisco–no spray. You NEED the fat for this one, baby.) I
cut my papers about 1/2 higher than the pan, and this seemed to work well.
I could spoon more batter in, and not be worried about it going over.
Sift flour, baking powder, and spices. Dredge the fruit in small amount of
this mixture so that it does not stick together.
In a very large bowl (I had to use a stock pot) mix eggs with butter, then
add brown sugar. (I always wonder about not creaming the sugar with the butter
before adding eggs, but the final product seems to work)
Add 1/3 of dry ingredients to wet, alternating with the jelly until all
combined. Add your bourbon. Mix on low speed until well mixed. Stir in
your cherry preserves, and then start adding the fruit and nut mixture, a
little at a time. Stir until your arm falls off.
Spoon carefully into loaf pans, be sure the liners stay in place. This cake
only rises about 1/2 inch, so fill er up! If you want, you can decorate the
tops with nuts placed lightly on the batter.
Place on middle shelf of 300 to 325 degree oven. Place pan on next shelf
down and fill with hot water. Keep this filled thru the baking process. g
Bake forever. Mine went about 2 hours in 325 oven. Check after 1 hour,
rotate loaves. Its a little difficult to tell when done, but the tops will
be a little shiny, a little cracked, no give to the cake when you press down.
Try the toothpick. Finally, just cross your fingers, and pull from oven
and hope its not raw in the middle.
Cool in pan, and then remove and peel off paper layers. Wrap in cheesecloth
dampened with bourbon, then foil or wax paper, and put in refrigerator. You can make this weeks/months in advance, but be sure to periodically apply bourbon for moisture and flavor – typically once a week.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
That pic must’ve come from Florida.
LAO
@TaMara (HFG): How’s the puppy doing?
jeffreyw
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: WOW! Awesome! I dub thee Recipesplainer.
TaMara (HFG)
@LAO: Well, she just drank my coffee…so that tells you how our days have been going. LOL She’s the sweetest and really blended into the family well.
raven
@jeffreyw: Whatchoo been doin Dawg?
dmsilev
I have a dinner party to go to tonight, and was tasked with bringing dessert for ~16-18 people. Went with a flourless chocolate cake that Epicurious calls La Bete Noir (“the black beast”). I’ve made it before; it’s really good, especially when paired with a raspberry sauce or similar.
LAO
@TaMara (HFG): that’s excellent. My puppy, on the other hand, has decidedly too much beagle in her mix. It’s her way or the highway. If she weren’t so cute, I’d of killed her by now. (Metaphorically speaking).
Knight of Nothing
Love that pic! It reminds me of a page out of Richard Scarry’s 1965 classic “Busy, Busy World” –
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UCUNDBmTFzk/RyduC0gTOiI/AAAAAAAAAYg/57IeEwIvsdo/s1600-h/noahtheboa3.jpg
Major Major Major Major
Cool bus.
@Chris: South Africa maybe? Or Scandinavia?
jharp
I’m now considering attending the Big Ten Championship game being played 15 minutes from my home.
$10 gets you in the door.
And something about the ticket scalpers getting their asses handed to them I find amusing.
Thoroughly Pizzled
For the Hamilmaniacs, the alleged recipe of the wedding cake at the wedding of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler:
JPL
@LAO: How is he adapting to car travel?
Major Major Major Major
@Thoroughly Pizzled: a fella could have a pretty good weekend in
DallasVegas with all that stuff.Elmo
No entertainment. Weekends are for housework. Mrs. Elmo decided over the past few months to start demolition projects in the guest bath and the basement, and then her health issues flared up so she can’t work on them or do any of the other routine house maintenance stuff. I’m living in a tornado of dust and clutter, and about to turn 50 in two weeks. It’s taking all my energy just to use the weekends to catch up with cleaning, let alone moving forward with putting stuff back together.
So THIS is why people have children! It never occurred to me before. Young strong energetic people with no back or shoulder problems to help lift heavy things!
raven
@jharp: Pretty crazy doings in Bloomington.
Elmo
@jharp: When I was in college, a group of friends and I went down to New Haven for The Game. It was eleven degrees with a 20mph wind. When we got there after driving down from Cambridge, the one responsible friend we had all entrusted our tickets to suddenly got very pale and said “Oh no.” He had forgotten the tickets.
Not to worry. The ticket scalpers were lined up in the bitter, bitter cold, practically begging passersby to take the tickets from their shivering hands. We engaged in some hard bargaining and got the whole group into the game for twenty bucks.
LAO
@JPL: Pretty well, thanks. I took some of the advice I was given, including replacing my car seat cover as a “do-over” and she was good. No excessive drooling or throwing up.
PS — I’m finally preparing for my argument before the 11th Circuit — which is scheduled for next Friday in Miami. I can’t believe how long it took to get to argument in this case. My client has been in jail since the verdict in July of 2014.
Betty Cracker
One of my dogs just almost swallowed a mouse USB plug — I had to extract it from her jaws! I was swapping out my mouse with my husband’s because mine’s highlight and drag capabilities have gone wonky, and as I was carrying the mouse and mini-plug back to my workstation, the plug fell out of my hand and into the dog’s mouth. She must’ve thought I was transporting food.
Thank dog I was able to retrieve it. Otherwise, I guess I would have had to examine her turds until she shat it out to make sure it had passed safely. And that would not have been pleasant.
gogol's wife
@Elmo:
You wouldn’t have missed much.
hovercraft
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Where? Even if I had one of those fancy commercial sized ovens that wouldn’t fit.
Also is it me or do the eggs seem excessive and the salt lacking?
For now I think you’d be better off with the fruitcake upstairs.
WereBear
@hovercraft: Maybe you set the large oaken tub on fire.
LAO
@Betty Cracker:
Because I live in a city, I have to pick up my puppy’s poop. In the 2 months since the adoption, I’ve learned through said poop (after the fact) — that she has eaten several plastic pens, many things made of fabric — socks, maybe? and a button. Thank goodness for the hardy constitution of a mutt, no tummy aches or damage.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@hovercraft: I found some more info:
“The ingredients were mixed in an oaken tub, as decreed, Then the batter was poured into large pans which were attached shovel-like to a long handle, and baked in old time Dutch ovens, out of doors.”
Humdog
@Betty Cracker: have you ever had to force a dog to vomit? Once I had a bottle of chewable rimadyl up on the counter near the treat cookie jar. I was upstairs in the shower and heard a crash. Ran down to find the new pill bottle cracked open about half eaten an four guilty looking dogs. After calling the vet, I had to get all the dogs to vomit to see who ate the pills. i was instructed to get each dog to swallow big swigs of hydrogen peroxide. Grabbing the bottle and the first snout, I plugged her nose and poured the h-per down her gullet and moved to the next dog. In the end, all four were foaming at the mouth and yakking. Fun times! Never leave anything tasty on the counter.
Elmo
@gogol’s wife: It was the 1987 Game. More than twenty years later, the Yale coach remembered it as the most uncomfortable of his career. I think it was the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.
raven
@Humdog: A syringe works well
Brachiator
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
You left out the most important part:
Semi kidding. Fruitcake just not one of my favorite things.
Joe Falco
My puppy is almost five months old, and the vet thinks she’s a border collie/Australian shepherd mix. She’s my and my wife’s first puppy since we got together, and as an inexperienced fur baby foster parent, I’m learning something new everyday with this big pile of fluff. She’s destroying parts of the wall if we’re not watching, but we chalked it up to her still teething. Big plastic 2 liter bottles and ice cubes are her favorite things.
Betty Cracker
@Humdog: Good lord, that must’ve been a sight!
Larkspur
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Honest to dog, that recipe is cool, but you know that the passive voice – “the ingredients were mixed…” meant that slave folk were doing the heavy lifting.*
I’m dog-sitting for much of Saturday while the pup’s mom goes to an all day continuing education seminar, so I will have floofy fun indoors and out.
Then I will be brooding about supplemental insurance plans, and dithering about mundane details about house plants and whether I should paint a piece of furniture or strip it to wood and stain it, and I will worry about why I have so much trouble doing small tasks and making minor decisions. I will also be reading Trevor Noah’s new book, Born In Crime.
I will also be wishing Elmo luck with the project, and I’ll be thinking good thoughts for LAO to kick ass in a proper judicial way in court.
*Unless they weren’t. Maybe all their friends and bridesmaids and bridegrooms pitched in and it was like a cooking bee. I’d love to be corrected.
Poopyman
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Pearl ash? Huh! A Google produces this interesting article, plus a source.
Brachiator
Not much. I have to try to minimize walking, running, jumping for a few days after a doctor visit. I injured by leg, and made it worse by avoiding seeking early treatment. At least my doctor dealt with me with a bit of good humor:
My doc said, “Dayum, you look good for your age. But yo ass is falling apart.” Will be taking some sweet painkillers.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Chris:
@Major Major Major Major:
Great guess, M4! It’s from Copenhagen. Scandinavia FTW!
WereBear
Be very careful. Mr WereBear was lied into one who has been tormenting him with incorrect information every time he calls, screws with his doctor and his medical needs, and right now he’s trying to track down a supervisor he can complain to for someone who was rude to him on the phone, telling him SHE is paying for his disability with her tax dollars.
NO. He earned it by working for years and paying into the insurance!
You know, I’m old, because I remember when one could live their life without spending hours and hours of it on the phone wrestling with idiots who expect the customer to run the company and solve the problems.
Big Ole Hound
@Joe Falco: This is a very high energy mix of breeds, so the dog is very bored and needs a lot of exercise with other dogs who don’t mind being herded. Dog park is essential unless you can find other herding breeds to exercise with. Otherwise she will destroy your house.
Larkspur
@Brachiator: Ow. Do you have to do ice and elevation, too? Good luck. And thank goodness for the painkillers. I was getting the impression that a person had to have a giant sucking chest wound to get the effective stuff these days.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Elmo:
I remember a morning in Sharon, CT that was -19 with the wind-chill factor. My eyeballs hurt. Foe a CA lad, that was brutal. I was, however, in the company of a stunning woman whom I loved deeply, tragically.
PsiFighter37
Was on a plane to San Francisco last night, then spent 3.5 hours catching up with one of my oldest friends over burgers and beers. Wake up and now I see people aghast at Trump’s call with Pakistan, and somewhat appalled coverage of his ego-boosting rallies. Even on a day like today, where it’s clear outside and I can see the Golden Gate Bridge in its full majesty, it is still a running nightmare in the background that this jackass clown is going to be president in less than 50 days. JFC America.
Poopyman
And of course:
Twitter legal sniping. First World problems with whole-world ramifications.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
The Schulyer family owned slaves (yes, in New York state) so your surmise is probably correct. Elizabeth was the only one of the Schulyer sisters to have a wedding from the family home — all of the others eloped.
Larkspur
@Big Ole Hound: Truly. Those types of dogs need to work. It’s worth hiring additional help. In my area, I know a guy who doesn’t walk dogs, he runs them (usually one dog at a time). And I know people who have their dog picked up once a week by a guy who has a little dog ranch, and she spends the day running around a big, securely fenced area with other dogs. These are people who are good about walking their dogs on their own, but knew they needed even more, ’cause you know, a tired dog is a good dog.
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: I just saw there were funky Germanic words that weren’t English or German or Dutch!
MomSense
@LAO:
Let me just say that the drywall and leather couch that came out the back end of my pup should have done some damage.
@Joe Falco: See above for what a Border Collie/Australian Cattle Dog/Lab/German Shepherd can do. We have to walk a minimum of 5 miles and give her 30 minutes of cardio every day. She has to work for her meals either by doing commands or feeding them to her frozen in large kongs. We also periodically put a bit of food in a muffin tin and cover them with tennis balls so she can play/hunt for her food.
The short story is that they are a lot of high intensity dog in one body but incredibly loyal and sweet to their pack. When my son and I saw a black bear in the woods, she immediately got in front of him in full protector mode. I honestly think she would have tried to fight that bear if it came closer.
Brachiator
@Larkspur:
Mainly elevation. But the early pain was considerable and had intensified, so I guess the doc had not reservations in taking care of the issue.
Before the test, the nurse was asking me the standard questions (Do you smoke, do you drink?) and I joked that here in California they might have to amend that to include “Do you smoke weed?” now that we have legalized marijuana.
pluky
@Humdog: Amen. Princess Pup once scarfed a month’s worth of hubby’s high blood pressure pills off the counter. Luckily, the vets at Tuft’s said not to worry. They just needed her to stay overnight so that they could keep her hydrated (IV) while her kidneys filtered them out. Next day, $1300 later, I had my dog back. Cuteness is a wonderful protector against the urge to kill.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
I googled “The wildest place in town” and it came right up!
SenyorDave
@Poopyman: “Today I am filing suit to stop @DrJillStein’s frivolous, expensive recount request,” Bill Schuette, a Republican, wrote on Twitter
What an utter piece of schuette
Larkspur
@Mnemosyne: Oh, that reminds me of a book I read a while back: The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island by Mac Griswold (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013). Slavery looked different up north (obviously, as compared to the massive sugar cane and cotton plantations in the south and in Central America and the islands) and it was interesting (and, as always, creepy) to get a glimpse of a different mode of human bondage. I don’t own the book, so I can’t check the index to see if Schuylers are mentioned. Griswold takes us through the history, even interviewing a family descendant who now lives there and (IIRC) manages it as a historic site.
LAO
@Larkspur: Thanks!
@MomSense: I’m dreading that moment myself. Thank dog for the crate or my entire apartment would have passed through her digestive tract by now.
Larkspur
@MomSense: That is a great story, and a really good plan for a high energy dog. I love your dog.
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: well I didn’t! ?
laura
We just got back from 2 days in Seattle where we saw X at the Crocodile and we’ll see X here in Sacramento Sunday night.
It’s their 40th anniversary tour and Billy Zoom has had serious health problems, but they tore it up and were worth the time and effort.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Predicting some Heart of Darkness ending to the Trump administration were some GOP operative is dispatched to tell Trump he has to resign or Congress will impeach him, only to find Trump in some small town in Kansas wearing a baseball cap and flannel shirt, having gone native.
WereBear
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: One of the most twisted things about New Yorker Trump winning so many votes in the MidWest is how Kansas hates New Yorkers. When I was there there was this constant refrain of, “Kansas, we ain’t New York!”
Felanius Kootea
@WereBear: Trump supporters love rich people (because they all hope to be rich someday) and reality show stars (because they wish they could get paid for being assholes and are in awe of those who are). My husband and I laughed this morning at the story of a Trump voter in CA who was horrified by the Mnuchin pick because he was CEO of OneWest and foreclosed on her home. We felt guilty afterwards but not too much. We’re becoming horrible people.
cosima
I don’t know if this has already been shared on one of the call-to-action threads, but this is a document link shared by my Democrats Abroad FB group:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/174f0WBSVNSdcQ5_S6rWPGB3pNCsruyyM_ZRQ6QUhGmo/htmlview?sle=true#gid=1821495281
It’s very thorough — has calling list, issues, scripts, etc.
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Speaking of Trump and things sartorial, did you see this?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Nothing says “Christmas” and “Southwest Ohio” like this letter:
Panhandlers ruin Fountain Square experience
My LinkedIn says that there is a William Bischoff who is a Kroger scientist.
Roger Moore
@hovercraft:
It’s likely the butter was heavily salted, so you wouldn’t need to add as much to the batter. Also, too, the proportions look about standard for a pound cake- equal weights of flour, eggs, sugar, and butter.
MomSense
@Larkspur:
We tried the dog park but she kept herding all the dogs into tighter and tighter bunches until she collapsed from exhaustion. One time there were three giant golden retrievers huddled together looking around looking like they had no idea how they got there. Now we just take her with one friend to the field and throw tennis balls for them. I have to give the other dog a head start or he will never get the ball.
@LAO:
My office mate has a beagle/hound mix and wow is she a stubborn mutt. One of the cutest dogs I’ve ever seen but wowza. We have a running competition for which of us has the higher maintenance dog.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
As a followon aside, he managed to trash both current homeless AND the pre-gentrification residents of OTR, who happened to be poor and black.
Like I said – SOOOOOOOOO Southwest Ohio….
geg6
Hoping to just get out of the house this weekend. My John’s post-surgery recovery is going as well as expected, but I can’t stand being stuck in the house (except for work) with just him and the dogs another minute. He’s doing well enough that he can deal with life for a few hours while I go and hang with my sister and my friend for a while. Will probably also go looking for that small artificial tree I finally got him to agree to this year. And then just trying to figure out what to do with the sirloin tip roast I have in the refrigerator.
WereBear
@Roger Moore: I don’t think baking powder was invented until the 1840’s. While buttermilk-type recipes used natural ingredients to lighten the result, you had to work fast before the fermentation came to an end; not good for such a large batter.
Heaver cakes like pound cake and fruitcake were pretty much the norm in colonial times.
Ben Cisco
SEC Championship on Saturday; hopefully to coincide w/Dad going home.
ETA: CONFIRMED! He goes home in the morning! Woo!
Sab
@Larkspur: Hamilton was an abolitionist.
Pogonip
@Elmo: It helps if they’re tall, too. Except when my kid, who’s a foot taller than me, forgets the height difference when putting groceries away.
Kathleen
Interesting. My experience with panhandlers around Fountain Square is that they stand on the sidewalks bordering the Square holding signs and wishing me a blessed day. Police crack down on panhandlers who approach or even speak. I would think there would be heavy police presence during holidays. Not necessarily doubting this guy. It’s just that my experience has been different. Years ago a policeman followed me into CVS because he saw a woman talking to me He asked if she asked me for money. I lied and said no. But that’s how aggressively panhandling is policed here.
? Martin
@Humdog: 5 large bottles of vitamin E. Nontoxic, but had oily diarrhea for 4 days. Recently ate a large bottle of ant poison but only consumed 1% of LD50 value.
Somewhere out there (can’t seem to find it now) there’s an LD50 (median lethal dose) table for dogs for various active ingredients which we consulted. If anyone finds it, maybe see if Cole can put it on the quicklinks given how many of us have pets.
Yutsano
@Joe Falco:
Find her a job NOW. Border collies NEED work. They have to have some kind of purpose of they will literally drive you mad with their bored antics. If you have a yard giver her something to do out there while you are gone.
tybee
@Major Major Major Major:
i saw what you did.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SiubhanDuinne: Trump huddled in the corner, or rather to go by the name his followers hailed him as “The Donald behind the Corn Rows” looked at me and siad,”No more ties now Willard, the flap in the breeze and get hung up on a combine. It’s not like New York City here Willard.”
Trump then sighed and took a bite out of his KFC chicken wing, Willard recalled Trump always liked his KFC over frog’s legs. So that much of Trump was left “I once told a Californian the Mexicans are trying to conquer their state after Obama let them in. The Californian said their state was part of Mexico until the US conquered it in a war. I looked it up Willward, he was right. These crazy liberals use these things called facts. Such madness, if we only had facts Willard we would be the greatest power on earth but were do these liberals get these facts? I mean no one reads a book anymore.”
Trump then lurched forward with a blaze of madness in his eyes “How you build wall across the American-Mexican boarder with just tax cuts Willard?”
Suddenly Trump fell the floor staring off into some unseen void “the horror, the horror” he muttered.
Pogonip
@Joe Falco: @Joe Falco: No, she’ll be happily destroying things when she’s twenty, if she lives that long. If you can, find her a farm home, especially if you can find someone who has something for her to herd, and get a house dog. She’ll thank you.Your fluffy puppy is NOT a house dog. She’ll go stir-crazy without work.
I guess you could teach her to do your taxes.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
Yep, slavery was pervasive in the whole country prior to the Revolution. IIRC, Benjamin Franklin dabbled in the slave trade as a young man, though he became an abolitionist in later life.
There is some thought that one of the “servants” that Elizabeth Hamilton brought with her to the marriage was a slave, but the woman seems to have been manumitted fairly soon after the marriage. Elizabeth herself became a strong abolitionist after Hamilton’s death, probably due to his influence.
WereBear
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: LOL.
I do like imagining the “natives of Kansas.”
jeffreyw
@raven: I’ve been out in the shop reupholstering a couple of kitchen chairs with vinyl. After I bought a little compressor and a pneumatic staple gun I had to get busy.
germy
washington post headline:
Trump threatens ‘consequences’ for U.S. firms that relocate offshore
Tax breaks?
Botsplainer
@Kathleen:
People’s Democratic Soc!alist Republic of Louisville panhandlers walk a very narrow public conduct line, despite the deeply progressive mindset here.
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It was a day like any other day….
rikyrah
Today, after work, Peanut is coming downtown with her grandmother and we’re taking her to see Santa Claus, and then dinner at the Walnut Room ( for my Chicago folks).
Tomorrow, I promised her that we’d go see that new cartoon movie that came out last week with The Rock doing one of the voice, and the music is by Lin Manuel Miranda.
germy
Sometimes I see a comment over at LGM that should be embroidered on a pillow.
rikyrah
@Poopyman:
If you scared, then say you’re scared.
hovercraft
All you liberals who said he would be shunned were wrong, he’s making all sorts of new friends.
Donald Trump reaches out to like-minded foreign leader, Rodrigo Duterte
Kathleen
They pretty much do here as well
germy
The Mall of America’s first black Santa: ‘Santa comes in many different colors’
Another Scott
@Kathleen: I remember going to lunch with colleagues at the U of Cincy in the late ’80s and a woman following us back to the car and asking for money. Nobody said anything to her and we were just sitting in the car while she wasn’t leaving. I couldn’t take just sitting there without anyone doing anything, so I rolled down the window and gave her $5 and mumbled something or other like “hope this helps”. She took it and then said something like “now what about the rest of you?” I was flabbergasted and everyone else was shocked and it finally got the driver (our professor) to start driving away.
Panhandlers can be an issue anywhere. The way the local authorities treat them has a great deal to do with their behavior (e.g. there are a lot of homeless people in downtown Boston, but those asking for money are overly friendly rather than aggressive).
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
You will like it, and I’m not just saying that because of who signs my paycheck. The animation is beautiful, the songs will stick in your head, and they even worked in a few pee jokes for the 10-year-old in all of us.
I feel like a dope for not realizing this at the time, but Christopher Jackson does the singing voice for Moana’s father. He does such a great job of matching the other actor’s voice that I didn’t know it was him!
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: We have some aggro panhandlers and homeless people here in San Francisco, though I don’t often see them more than once or a few times.
tofubo
should munchkin get the post, this may one day be the 1st lady of the treasury
https://cbsjackseattle.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/louise-linton_l4.jpg
maybe she and melanoma could do a photo shoot together
germy
@tofubo: Why am I not surprised?
hovercraft
@germy:
No one tell Megyn Kelly, she’ll get very upset. Though in her defense in advance, Santa I believe is a Scandinavian thing, so he probably is white. Though in the American context where “Dad” plays Santa at home, he is everything.
germy
@hovercraft: I can tell you this: He isn’t Tim Allen.
jacy
Kid #4 has his drama club play this weekend — funny Christmas pageant. The Boyfriend will be attending — which is a milestone of sorts in the slow dance of family integration. The ex will also be there, which will be the first time they meet (and by meet, I mean probably warily eye other across a sea of other parents, while I try not to throw up) which is leaving me all kinds of apprehensive on various levels. Holidays. Whee.
hovercraft
Team Trump touts Sessions’ ‘strong civil rights record’
At some point these people are going to try to convince me that I’m a gay white 22 year old man, and call me bitter and divisive when I call them on it.
schrodinger's cat
I need to not read even Balloon Juice to be in complete news black out. I don’t need to know about the next plutocrat and his trophy wife chosen for the cabinet.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@germy:
Megyn Kelly holding on line 2.
germy
@hovercraft: My last outdoor cat had a strong record with squirrels and mice.
germy
@Steeplejack (tablet): Megyn: Proof that high school mean girls do always end up on top.
Amir Khalid
@hovercraft:
Are you sure Santa Claus is white? I’ve seen department store Santas every year here in Kuala Lumpur since I was a child, and in half a century I have never come across even one who was white.
tobie
@germy: On the one hand I agree with this, on the other I’m not sure the media would ever listen to Democratic complaints. I do think the party needs to learn message discipline. Channeling indignation and self-righteousness is out of character for a lot of Dems so it’s something that the party needs to practice. Gosh knows, there’s enough to be self-righteously angry about. And I think we as news consumers need to put pressure on the media–or to pull the plug on it by urging sponsor after sponsor not to air ads. Money talks.
jenn
@Pogonip: Oh, come on. I know plenty of folks who live in the city, who have perfectly well-adjusted border collies and Aussies. Farm life is not required. Border collies tend to need something to do, even more than Aussies, though (most Aussies tend to have more of an off-switch; when it’s time to relax, they can relax with the best of them). Running, puzzles. My Aussies often get their dinner put into food-dispensing toys to keep them occupied. Agility is a great thing for border collies (dogs in general, really), and my experience is that there are agility classes scattered about all over. As for eating the wall, one of my parents’ border collies did that as a pup, too – and yes, she lives on a farm, and spends her days working sheep.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
As far as anyone can tell, the historical St. Nicholas was a bishop in Turkey, so probably not very Scandinavian-looking. As with so many other things in Christianity, there was probably an earlier gift-giving figure in the local mythology who got co-opted as a “saint” so the locals would be more willing to convert.
amygdala
Going to see Lewis Black tonight. Hoping to get some vicarious spleen-drainage from his take on the President-elect.
Kathleen
@Another Scott: I know many other people who have had bad experiences here. I am fortunate. I spend lots of time downtown.
jacy
@jenn:
I had Australian Cattle Dogs for years. We didn’t do a lot of activities, but they were with me 24/7, at work and not. They need to be constantly engaged to be well-adjusted. I have a French bulldog now — they also need 24/7 engagement, but not the exercise. I guess I’m a sucker for neurotic dogs.
opiejeanne
@geg6: I’m hoping to be able to get my pants on tomorrow, post-surgery for appendicitis. Tomorrow will be the 10th day since the operation, and my daughters want me to go with them to a craft fair at Seattle Center.
We’re riding the bus from the elder daughter’s house, so this will include more walking than I’ve done since before the surgery. This may be interesting. I seem to have been put back together with glue, not sure there are any stitches anywhere else but I can see the glue on the three tiny incisions the surgeon used.
Roger Moore
@Sab:
Strictly speaking, Hamilton was in favor of manumission (i.e. slave owners voluntarily giving up their slaves) rather than abolition (i.e. forcing the issue), and as several other posters have pointed out, his in-laws owned slaves. There’s even some evidence that he bought slaves for his sister-in-law and her husband when they were moving from England back to New York and he was helping to set up their household before they arrived.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not sure if “pervasive” is quite the right term. Slavery was present to some extent in most of the country before the Revolution and for some time after, but it was only really pervasive in the South*. AFAIK, in the North, slaves were much rarer than in the South and use mostly as household servants for the rich rather than as bulk agricultural labor.
*Actually, only in some parts of the South. Slavery never made much inroads in Appalachia, where the people were too poor to afford slaves and the land wasn’t well set up for big plantations.
Roger Moore
@hovercraft:
They didn’t say which direction his “strong civil rights record” goes. He does have a very strong record on civil rights: he’s against them.
Steve in the ATL
@opiejeanne:
Ain’t that the damn truth
Original Lee
Tomorrow is the regional band festival, so I get to listen to about 6 hours of pretty good music. Then the husband of a dear friend is throwing a surprise party at a really nice restaurant. I might pick up our Christmas tree in the morning and put it in water so I can set it up and decorate it Sunday afternoon. I’m anticipating everything being pretty mellow, actually, as long as I stay away from politics.
Iowa Old Lady
@opiejeanne: Take it easy. Recovering from surgery takes longer than you think.
Josie
@Humdog: I’m sorry; I’m a terrible person, but I am still laughing at the mental image of that.
Lalophobia
@Mnemosyne: Odin, I think.
Feathers
Dead thread, so posted upstairs as well:
From the previous thread and the Hamilton Wedding Cake – the Dinner:Impossible Williamsburg episode This was a very silly show on Food Network that had at least one great episode – Robert Irvine and co. had to cook a 18th century dinner with 18th ingredients and tools over an open fire. The amusement of the experts on historical cooking working with them is wonderful.
It’s pricey, but actually staying in the historic houses in Williamsburg is worth putting on your bucket list. They serve a historic dinner by fireplace and candlelight. The candlelight events at the Governor’s mansion makes you realize that the human eye really does adjust to candlelight. All those movies with huge blazing banks of candles aren’t historically accurate. It doesn’t take very many candles to light even a large room.