My shoulder hurts.
Today was the first day when fall really felt like fall. It was 51 degrees, and in years past when I was younger I would still be wearing shorts, but I put on pants (overalls, actually), some good wool socks, and a comfy long sleeve t-shirt. I’m getting colder and wiser as I age.
Spent some time at the Ohio County Democratic party HQ filling out postcards for Bill Ihlenfeld, then had to head to Best Buy to pick up a new charger cable for my laptop. I dropped off a big bag of apples and some cider from the orchard at HQ because every time I have been there they just have a load of crap- cookies, pastries, etc. Figured they could use something tasty and healthier.
Now I am sitting here watching Breaking Bad (again), filling out more postcards, petting animals, and scanning twitter.
Oh- have any of you ever made crystallized ginger? I want to make some, but I want to sweeten it with monkfruit so it is a low calorie guilt free snack. Think that would work?
I gotta say, it is nice being able to wear a terry cloth bathrobe and slippers again, and I just love waking up with it cold in the room while I am nice and cozy under the comforter.
Thurston, for all his many flaws, which in fairness aren’t really flaws but just his essential character, is an amazing sleeper. He cozies up right next to your hip and belly, and after he gets settled, is a nice little heater. Here is a pretty adorable picture of him from earlier when he was (as always) craving attention:
He’s a very good boy.
Scamp Dog
That picture is a great example of how dogs are great pals to have around!
Mary G
We are getting lightning and thunder! The teen is freaked out.
Doug R
It got up to 14C(anadian) which was almost 58 degrees here today. Have you been keeping up with the shenanigans on Better Call Saul?
A Ghost To Most
Enjoy the fall weather. We’re expecting 2-5 inches of snow tomorrow night.
eemom
I’m so old I remember what the band Three Dog Night was named after.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
In Pasadena we went from 20% possible rain to 50% in the last half hour.
Ruckus
@eemom:
I thought you were 29.
Mike in NC
We endured a brutal summer where the average day was above 90 degrees with humidity to match. Many days where you literally didn’t want to venture outside, as in parts of Florida. Tomorrow will be a chilly 75!
rikyrah
So cute ?
A bunny born with no ears gets knitted replacements https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/12/a-bunny-born-with-no-ears-gets-knitted-replacements-8030943/?ito=article.amp.share.top.twitter via @MetroUK
rikyrah
Thurston is adorable ? ?
Mai Naem mobile
I like your rug. I need a pretty big rug but haven’t really found anything I like in quality and design. I was thinking of getting a commercial carpet remnant and getting it bound.
Anyhow there was a poll(ABC?) out earlier this week that had Kyrsten Sinema down by 6. Ugh. Ugh. I hope it’s an outlier but Mcsally has been running a shitload of negative ads. Nasty ads. Also the Dem gubernatorial candidate sucks and is completely outgunned by Dougy Douchebag in $$$. Watch out for Douchebag. He’ll be running for POTUS in 2020(assuming Trumpov is in prison)or 2024.
Oh and John be careful of overdoing it on the crystallized ginger. It can be rough on your mouth and throat.
John Cole
@Mai Naem mobile: This was like 20 bucks or something ridiculous on amazon.
eemom
@Ruckus:
150 is the new 29.
stinger
I knew it! I always knew it!
Mary G
@Mary G:
Ruckus
@Mai Naem mobile:
There is a rug place down the street from me that is having a going out of business sale. Called Global Liquidation Co. Lots of Persian, Modern, Antique Rugs. They are going out of business but I suspect that it has to do with the property owners because of the 4 businesses on that block they are managed by the same company and 2 are empty and this one closing. Rather unusual for the area. The website comes back as certificate no longer valid but if you google rugs in Pasadena, CA they come up. As far back as I can remember they have been located there. They have a lot of beautiful rugs, of all sizes. BTW I have no connection, I just walk by there a lot and the door is open when they are. I may go in myself, just to check it out further.
RedDirtGirl
Are those Key Imperial overalls, John?
Ruckus
@eemom:
OK that was good for a chuckle.
I do think though that if I’m the representative sample 70 is the new 150.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: I’ve seen some rain on the IR cam.
RedDirtGirl
@A Ghost To Most: Where are you?
Jim Bales
“Thurston, for all his many flaws, which in fairness aren’t really flaws but just his essential character …”
There is wisdom in those words.
Steve in the ATL
@Mary G: i don’t follow twitter links. Is that a weather person who can’t spell “lightning”?
John Cole
@RedDirtGirl: Indeed they are.
Mary G
Florida man must’ve moved north to Tennessee:
Genine Tyson
@eemom:
That made me (truly) laugh out loud.
John Cole
@Ruckus: I would like to buy a rug from them.
Genine Tyson
@Mary G:
That would make an awesome story.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The radar/satellite shows Pasadena not yet getting moisture. However the NOAA forecast has changed rather dramatically in the last 45 min or so. Now calling for heavy rain tonight.
ETA First crack of thunder. We will get wet tonight.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus:
Somebody notify Paul Manafort’s attorney.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Just heard thunder here.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Bless his heart!
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Dude needs to up his game. Mississippi Man has him beat.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Here’s the sunset from earlier tonight,
ETA: Check out the Astronomy Pic of the Day for today, great pic of the Falcon 9 launch.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
I was trying to edit this comment, had over a minute left and had time when I hit save but it crapped out.
ETA2 It’s raining in Pasadena now, reasonably steady. Actual rain, what the hell is this world coming to?
Belafon
I don’t know if any of you watch the video in the right hand column, but, for the last couple of days, an ad runs about every 5-10 seconds.
Ruckus
@John Cole:
How may I assist you sir?
oatler.
I used to get crystallized ginger at the herb shop in OR. It came in little ziploc baggies like drugs.
Adam L Silverman
@Belafon: Alain is aware. He’s also aware what it’s doing to everyone’s devices. He’s working on it.
And by aware, he and I were discussing this the other day on behalf of a different commenter.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m way east in Brea tonight. Haven’t heard a thing, and I think it’s still dry.
Art Night Pasadena is happening tonight, so it sounds like lots of people are going to get unexpectedly wet. ☔️
RedDirtGirl
@John Cole: The Aristocrat of Overalls….
Mary G
@Steve in the ATL: I don’t watch TV news, so I have no idea, but I thought it was a random person who got a great photo on the freeway tweeting to the weatherperson, just my guess.
LA people are seriously excited:
M. Bouffant
@Ruckus: In Koreatown it is raining & thundering as I type.
And it is definitely fall in SoCal; I didn’t take my pants off after getting the mail, & may have to put on a long-sleeved shirt for the third night in a row. Brrrr!!
Belafon
@Adam L Silverman: Cool. I was wondering what was going on.
Steeplejack
First day that really felt like fall also here in my corner of NoVA. High in the low 60s, humidity low(er) at about 65%. And a good breeze, at least in the morning. Supposed to be 59° and rainy tomorrow. I’m okay with that. Next week the high is bouncing between 62° and 72°.
HumboldtBlue
The skill and technique are far beyond me.
The rhythm and scale are not.
Louis Sauzedde is a maestro.
Master boatbuilder.
I can barely add and subtract. That man is the embodiment of a geometrical plane.
M. Bouffant
@Steve in the ATL: Saw that too. No, the Twit is “IT / Developer / Statistics | Chronic Professional Student. Likes Watermelon.” Hell of a “student”.
Steeplejack
if blackcatsrule is around, I would like to mention that Rover.com is the pet-sitting service that my friend’s daughter used (and liked) in D.C. for her two cats.
The website is dog-o-centric, but they should be able to provide links to good cat-sitters.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
4676 rounds of ammo.
I was stationed on a, at the time very modern US Navy DDG, or guided missile destroyer and I doubt that we had than number of rounds of all the different types of ammo we carried. 24 guided missiles, 12 ASROC torpedos, 6 conventional torpedos, 1200 rounds of 5 in shells, .45 cal for handguns and Thompson sub machine guns, 30-06 for the BAR machine gun. I’d bet no more than a couple thousand rounds of the small arms ammo, if that much. That’s less than what this doofus had in his house.
Belafon
I know that in two years we’ll probably be complaining about a drought, but California can have some of the rain we’ve been getting here in the DFW area. We’re all caught up and then some.
PeakVT
Wouldn’t it be nice if Cole’s weather musings were the most newswothy post of the day, because the country was run by competent, honest people?
I simply dread the news these days. I may have to close the nozzle on the intertubes for while after the election, no matter what the outcome might be.
Local SoCal
You’ve said before that your mother once had an unholy fear of you kids making the family look like a bunch of hillbillies. Has she gotten over it, or just despaired of your love affair with overalls?
I kid, I kid.
I am jealous of your day and your good puppies. Good luck with the ginger crystallization.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Very nice sunset. Shades of Maxfield Parrish.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
They sure are now.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I’m getting lightning where I am, but no rain yet. Guess I’m not going swimming in the hotel pool tonight! ?
chopper
@Mary G:
it’s like stephen king’s bible fanfic.
Ruckus
@M. Bouffant:
I’m still working and walking around in shorts and a tee shirt but then I do that when it’s in the mid 60s.
M. Bouffant
Ho-lee crap, coming down hard now.
I was up at six this a.m. (like John, my shoulder hurt) & watched all five local newscasts, not a damn one said a damn thing about any of this.
I think WeatherBug had something about thunderstorms, which I immediately dismissed because nothing fun ever happens.
stinger
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Two great pics – thanks!
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
G says they had a dance performance going on in the library courtyard and everyone dashed inside. He’s stuck behind the main desk, so he can’t really see outside.
frosty
@Mary G:
Two of my SoCal friends visited me in Baltimore the summer after I moved east. They really liked standing on the back porch and watching the electrical storms.
Jay
@Ruckus:
When my Dad retired, we had a shipping trunk full of .38, 12 guage and 30-06 ammo. Thousands of rounds.
He got issued fresh ammo every year to train with, requalify with and for duty.
Every year, he only shot 5 rounds of each to requalify as marksman, so, over 25 years it added up.
So, the last few months of his Service, my Dad arranged with the RangeMaster for my Brother and I to shoot it all off, as it couldn’t be returned, couldn’t be sold, and we had no use for it once Dad was done.
dlwchico
Yay Thurston!
You’re always talking trash about Mr T, good to see you admit that he’s a good boy.
Adam L Silverman
@RedDirtGirl: Lined with rich corinthian leather…
Adam L Silverman
@Belafon: I’m not the tech side of things around here, obviously, but he knows about it and is working on something.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Thanks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@stinger: You’re welcome, I’m just the messenger on the second one.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Yes, but the Global Zionist Conspiracy, Radical Islamic Terror Inc, Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ menace, and a bunch of pissed off women in hand crocheted pink hats weren’t likely to besiege and/or attack your destroyer. You can’t be too careful these days…//
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: We get quite a few up in the local mountains and out in the desert, but electrical storms are not common on the coast.
Ruckus
@Jay:
When I first read your comment I read it as “shipping truck” and that didn’t sound right at all. Second read and it makes more sense.
Dad was a cop?
Gary Kennedy
Not to question your geographic choices, but I’m puzzled: you live in WV and send out postcards from OH?
Adam L Silverman
@M. Bouffant: Yesterday it had dried out nicely and just as I got the dogs ready to go to the dog park a monsoon started. Needless to say the dogs were very, very, very displeased and let me know about their displeasure for most of last evening.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Are the Elders aware of this?
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The Elders have not authorized me to confirm or deny that there is a Global Zionist Conspiracy or that they are involved with running it. But they do want you to know that if there is one, and if they are, indeed, running it, that it is supported by all of world Jewry. Also, please remember to buy a JNF Israel bond and we will plant a tree in your grandmother’s honor/memory.//
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
All true. Those pink pussy hats can be brutal.
In the North Atlantic we sailed along several times with Russian destroyers about a 1/4 – 1/2 mile away. As I recall they were always on the rear quarter, matching speed and heading. Sometimes they would stay with us for 2 or 3 days. This guy seems to have more fear of people with no weapons than anyone was of those destroyers.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Some people have an insufficiently developed sense of paranoia. Some people have a sufficiently developed sense of paranoia. This guy had an extremely overly developed sense of paranoia.
Jay
@Ruckus:
Yup, Dad was RCMP.
Before that, he was a depression era kid and WWII kid, from 20km away from where I live now. Both he and his brother were expected to put meat on the table with no waste of ammo.
We had so much ammo that even the RangeMaster got bored with us shooting at static targets for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, so he took us through the “Combat Course”.
eldorado
they’re good dogs, juan
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Gary Kennedy: Ohio County, WV. It’s the next county down from where Cole lives, and it’s in the Ohio Valley, next to … Ohio.
Steeplejack
@Gary Kennedy:
Ohio County, West Virginia.
tobie
@Adam L Silverman: If I may offer a slight correction on a minor point: Most of the pink pussy hats were knit, not crocheted. I’m sure some of my sisters in the Resistance used crochet hooks instead of knitting needles to make their hats but knitting seemed to be the favored technique. Jan 2017 was a proud month. America sold out of pink yard in three weeks.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@tobie: Yup, I had to resort to sewing hats from pink fleece. It was easier to make the ears that way, though.
Adam L Silverman
@tobie: I couldn’t tell you the difference between crocheting and knitting, though I do know they’re not macrame. So you may offer a slight correction on a minor point.
Sister Golden Bear
@Mary G: Repeat after me (and all the talking heads on the local TV news): “STOOORRRMMM WATCH!
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam, you really, really, really need to work on your use of hyperbole.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Gary Kennedy: @Steeplejack: I wonder how many states have places named after other states? Pennsylvania alone has California, Oregon, Wyoming, Delaware, and Ohio, as well as Mexico. There’s no Alabama, PA, but there is a Pennsylvania, AL.
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: They gave up counting magazines at #46?
Kay
They’re just incredible:
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Also in Pennsylvania: Indiana, Idaho, Texas, and Oklahoma. Truly it contains multitudes.
Adam L Silverman
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Pretty much everything between Valley Forge, PA and the eastern Pittsburgh suburbs are Alabama.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Noted.
Adam L Silverman
@JaySinWA: Apparently.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Golden Bear:
That’s the funniest thing about this storm — they were predicting rain earlier this week, but it never showed up. My boss said that one of her 6-year-old sons was really pissed off because he got all of his rain gear ready and there wasn’t so much as a drop.
This storm raced in pretty much out of nowhere, and nobody was expecting it. The “Stormwatch” guys are scrambling to explain why they didn’t see it coming!
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Adam L Silverman: Well, technically, Pennsyltucky, but that’s pretty much indistinguishable from Alabama except for the general lack of brown humans.
Adam L Silverman
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Yep. I’m amazed some of the smaller townships in the center of the state didn’t have the motto: “Alabama done white!”
And I wish I could put sarc tags on that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Good thing about the rain, I got a free car wash!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I tell folk the weather here’s usually so boring they hired a comedian to do the weather.(Fritz Coleman does standup,)
Mnemosyne
Classic Buzzfeed video:
https://youtu.be/1m4hryJ4Nag
It’s scarily accurate.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The thunder just arrived in Brea. The lightning was going for quite a while before that.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Ohio County, WV, was named after the river, not the state, according to Wikipedia. It was formed in 1776, before Ohio was even a state.
ETA: Of course, it probably would have been Ohio County, Virginia, back in the day.
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: It’s just that they were so specific in numbers of the other items, except for the KKK literature and the unspecified firearm magazines. It stuck out. That and listing the literature as subject to confiscation. I wonder what the legal grounds for that are.
B.B.A.
@Kay: I really wish we could replace Ellison on the ballot. I’d rather have a possible domestic abuser than a known Rethug, but I don’t know that the typical voter sees it that way.
Also, I believe Karen Monahan. If Ellison wins he should resign his first day in office.
Adam L Silverman
@JaySinWA: He probably had so many in so many different calibers that they just decided to go with 46 plus magazines. Honestly, owning lots of magazines is the least problematic thing on that list.
Sister Golden Bear
@Mnemosyne: My mother used to live next door to Brea. Are you at one of the hotels off the 57?
Speaking of Mom, thanks again to you and to @Ruckus for your support downstairs. Doing better tonight.
I’m sure this won’t be the last time the grief hits, but today was a of trifecta of being emotionally fragile to begin with — thanks to being drained from trying work and do aftercare these past weeks, adjusting to the new hormonal balance, and going through withdrawal from the cutting back the pain meds too quickly. Not to mention, this being the first time I’ve really been able to allow myself to feel, because I wasn’t having to stay strong to deal with other things.
So the next go-around should be much easier, and yes, life will go on. Been through this before after the death of my father, so I kind of know what to expect.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Golden Bear:
By the Brea Mall — I’m at kind of a mini writing conference. The main stuff happens tomorrow, but they had some write-ins tonight and I didn’t want to have to get up early to drive down since it’s at least an hour even in good traffic.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
I meant to do a longer comment about how place-names were more, uh, mutable (?) back in the day, but I got distracted. People were naming blank spots on the map, and there were far fewer “references” than there are today. So there was bound to be repetition.
Sister Golden Bear
@Mnemosyne: Truth.
NorCal is marginally better. But Maude help you if you need to drive during the first rain storm of the wet season.
BTW, I was guessing you were at that very hotel! When I lived with Mom, we’d go to the Brea Arts Center next door.
Jay
@Steeplejack:
Actually, there were a crapload of names for the “unempty spaces” on the maps, they just wern’t in English or French.
They were names like Kedgamakoujkk or Septiwigimiuck.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Out there in the west, quite a few places were named by the railroads.
ETA: On the way out to Amboy Crater, we passed through Siberia and Bagdad.
Gary Kennedy
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Thanks, I didn’t read carefully.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Golden Bear:
They did a major refurbishment about 2 years ago and it’s very nice. The restaurant still sucks, though. And the banquet food probably won’t be very good for the luncheon tomorrow. Oh well.
Also keep in mind that you’re probably feeling that bit of a letdown everyone gets after they finish a huge project. Your life has been revolving around all of the different surgeries for your transition for years and now it’s … done. A process that was using up a big chunk of your brain space is now completed and your brain doesn’t know what project it’s supposed to concentrate on next. That’s always a weird feeling.
Ian R
In crystalized ginger, the sugar isn’t just a sweetener; it’s a preservative. It draws the moisture out of the cells and prevents microbial growth.
It wouldn’t be much, if anything like crystalized ginger, but if you have some way to dry it well (food dehydrator, oven on super-low, etc), you could probably make a decent tasting, ginger-based snack.
Mary G
@Mnemosyne: When Gin & Tonic was asking about San Diego earlier this week, Wunderground predicted thunderstorms for Sat. & Sun. and I said – I bet not. Yet here it’s early, still going and we just had 20 seconds of hail, which got us all out of bed except for the teen, who sleeps through everything.
Aleta
My Great-Grandfather the Bundist, by Molly Crabapple in NYRB. Her great-grandfather was the artist Sam Rothbort, and some of his art (the ‘memory paintings’) is shown in the article.
(It continues.)
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/06/my-great-grandfather-the-bundist/
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
It can be different with different people. And who you are at the time it happens and your relationship with them.
I was sort of stoic with my dad. He’d been in a nursing home because of his Alzheimers for quite a while and I was expecting the event. And I had to make the decision/take care of everything – that was his directive. And I had to explain what that meant to the family because they didn’t really want to know.
My sister was the hardest. She and I bonded pretty good in the second halves or so of our lives. She had cancer which she fought hard for 6 yrs, but it was a fight not to be won. But she also requested a Quaker circle for her memorial and that is as fine a way to do this as I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been attending services since I was 9 and my mom’s mom passed. There’s no judgement about what you say. You can break down, tell funny stories about them, all of the above, whatever you want to say. She had about 75 people at hers. She passed on mom’s 90th birthday, after a party in her hospice room. Smart, funny, artistic, bipolar, bisexual, mother, business owner/which she won prizes for and gone before her time.
My mom was 94, a couple days till 95. She had a long life and was as ready as one gets. As they say, just natural causes, she just stopped.
Life seems long and short all at the same time. And that time is different for each of us. How we grow, how we mature (or don’t), how we find our way in the world (or don’t), what we do for food/shelter (or can’t), how we deal with life’s potholes and washed out bridges and yet it really isn’t all that different in the overall scheme of life. We like to think it is, to think we are different, but we really aren’t.
Martin
@Mary G: No hail here in the OC, but pretty solid thunderstorms and rain. Always a welcome sight here.
Steeplejack
Damned if I haven’t been finding some of the YouTube “Muzak” channels pretty good lately for background music in these troubled times.
“Night of Smooth Jazz.” Others will appear in the “Up next” listings.
ETA: “Muzak” a semi-snide judgment, not their actual name.
Sister Golden Bear
@Mnemosyne: Very good point. I’ve kind of known that intuitively, but you crystalized it for me.
And aren’t rubber chicken lunches inherently part of the conference experience?
NotMax
@ Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
There’s also a Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. Nowhere near the ocean, it’s practically smack in the middle of the state. Go figure.
Amir Khalid
@Ruckus:
How much ,money must it cost to buy that much ammo? I presume the retail gun trade doesn’t give volume discounts.
Bjacques
@Aleta: that article briefly mentions Australia, where someone I know had parents involved in the postwar Bund there.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruckus:
Meh, what a piker, he only had
@Amir Khalid: He probably reloads (makes his own ammo) which cuts the costs quite a bit.
OzarkHillbilly
Another addition to the list of things the world isn’t ready for: Teslaquila
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’d still have to purchase the bullets, the casings, primers and the powder. Yes it’s cheaper but people with that level of fetish have to have some money just due to the basic volume, let alone the selection. I wonder if he actually knew how to fire most of them……
J R in WV
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
You left out Indiana University, PA>!!
ETA fix typo YAY!
JAFD
@Jay: I tell my friends from Merrie Olde that I grew up where a three hour drive will take you from Glasgow to Dover, with stops in New Castle, Odessa, Smyrna and Leipsic. ?
JAFD
Held my nose, filled out oval for Sen. Menendez, and put my absentee ballot in mail yesterday (have been working at the polling place where i used to live, new home about ten blorks away)
New Jersey has just been thru the warmest August on record, the 3rd warmest and 6th wettest September (I feel mildewed) (see climate.rutgers.edu for details). Supposed to stop raining about midday, ‘Mara weather’ tomorrow (but the Jints played Thursday evening,in rainstorm)
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@tobie: Is that really true? A fabulous statistic!
Even if not exactly true, it’s in the great American tall tale trad.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@Ruckus: Thanks for this. I’m not quite wise enough to absorb its wisdom fully. But I’m going to keep it, if that’s ok with you. Just as a meditation on my desktop.