42 responses to
“This year’s model.”

1. coozledad said on July 13th, 2009 at 5:40 am

   I found a pair of three dol­lar sun­glasses a few weeks ago, and I thought they were suit­ably non­de­script. Usu­ally they make me look like an old school coun­try singer in rehab or an elderly woman. Find­ing that mid­dle dis­tance is tricky.
   We were start­ing to walk in a hard­ware store recently, when my wife said I should prob­a­bly take them off: they made me look like I had bad intentions.

2. Dorothy said on July 13th, 2009 at 8:59 am

   Con­do­lences, Dex­ter. We watched “Mar­ley & Me” over the week­end and it wasn’t so great, but the end­ing did me in big time. It’s hard try­ing to find movies suit­able to watch with one’s 87 year old mother. “Curi­ous Case of Ben­jamin But­ton” was plod­ding, I thought. I didn’t think it would ever end. “Milk” was the best movie of the week­end, though. Highly rec­om­mend it.

3. brian stouder said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:05 am

   This past week­end we ‘red­boxed’ “Paul Blart, Mall Cop”, and for a buck it was a great movie — plus, the fea­turettes at the end were pretty funny, too (espe­cially “Sugar”)

4. Sue said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:25 am

   Aww, Dex­ter, I’m sorry. Is there a story behind her name?

5. Julie Robinson said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:26 am

   Dex­ter, I’m so sorry, I know it’s just as bad as los­ing any other fam­ily mem­ber. Cling to the good mem­o­ries.
   Speak­ing of dis­ap­point­ments, we watched Feast of Love and found our­selves want­ing to slap the char­ac­ters out of their idio­cies. And I loved the pre­views for Julie & Julia, with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep, respec­tively, but ran out of patience with the book.
   Not dis­ap­point­ing was the deli­cious zuc­chini, first har­vest from our small gar­den.
   Harry Pot­ter fever is high in our house­hold. Yes­ter­day our son hosted a marathon of the first five movies. These guys have grown up with the books and from the con­ver­sa­tions float­ing up the stair­way, they highly appre­ci­ate the growth of the female actors as well, espe­cially Emma Wat­son. I guess the movie will be fan­tasy on more than one level.

6. Sue said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:35 am

   Speak­ing of movies, every­one, Fair Warn­ing:
   My daugh­ter called me last Fri­day to say that she had just gone to see “My Sister’s Keeper”. She said she’s never cried through an entire movie before. She said the the­ater sounded like a funeral, with sobs and snif­fles through­out the movie. Going into the ladies room after­wards, she said there wasn’t a line for the facil­i­ties but women were three deep at the mir­rors try­ing to repair com­pletely destroyed makeup.
   And I have a newly acquired affec­tion and respect for Daniel Rad­cliffe after see­ing him hap­pily mak­ing fun of his image on that episode of “Extras” and giv­ing an inter­view to an 11-year-old Scholas­tic News reporter.

7. Dexter said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:58 am

   Thanks, everyone…Sue, P-Dogg was my nick­name for her, I took over her care when she was about a year old and had a name, Princess.

8. Jolene said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:59 am

   Am just lis­ten­ing to the chat pre­ced­ing the open­ing of the Sotomayor hear­ings. Word is that today is for open­ing state­ments. A whole day for open­ing statements!

   No won­der they don’t think they’ll be able to fin­ish a health care bill this sum­mer. I like a good speech as much as the next per­son and rarely run out of words, but, if there is any­thing gassier than a sen­a­tor, I can’t imag­ine what it would be.

9. Jolene said on July 13th, 2009 at 10:14 am

   Wow, Nancy, I just looked at your Grosse​Pointe​To​day​.com piece. That’s an impres­sive piece of work. Makes me a lit­tle sad that you don’t have a more vis­i­ble place to pub­lish it. I won­der if news­pa­pers will catch a clue and begin to use sites like yours as sources.

   One quick thing: In your note at the top, you say “the Grosse Pointes and its res­i­dents”. Should be “their res­i­dents”, no?

10. moe99 said on July 13th, 2009 at 10:20 am

    Dex­ter, my con­do­lences on your loss. Dogs give us our bet­ter selves just through their uncon­di­tional love. My lab, Max is 12 and I am dread­ing the day. I think it’s why I got a minia­ture dachs­hund puppy this sum­mer. So that my other dog, Scooter, also a minidox, will have a friend after the inevitable.

11. LAMary said on July 13th, 2009 at 11:11 am

    Con­do­lences, Dex­ter. I’ve lost a few dogs, but I think when the day comes when I lose my Lab it will be fier­cly dif­fi­cult. He’s my close com­pan­ion and can read me bet­ter than any of the humans in my household.

12. 4dbirds said on July 13th, 2009 at 11:14 am

    Sorry Dex­ter. Dogs are great friends.

13. alex said on July 13th, 2009 at 11:29 am

    Deep­est sym­pa­thies, Dex.

14. crinoidgirl said on July 13th, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    I am very sorry for your loss, Dex­ter. Our three dogs and nine cats are very dear to our hearts. I know how awful it feels to lose one.

15. Catherine said on July 13th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    Dex­ter, I’m so sorry for your loss.

16. derwood said on July 13th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

    Sorry Dex­ter. Our neighbor’s lab is more our dog than theirs and she is get­ting older. Will break my heart when she goes.

    –daron

17. kayak woman said on July 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pm

    I once pad­dled a canoe a lit­tle too close to a swan nest and know what it’s like to be threat­ened by daddy swan (guess­ing it was the male, don’t really know). Ter­ri­fy­ing! Swans or not, I wish I was kayak­ing today instead of sit­ting in my cube lis­ten­ing to one of my weirder co-workers warn me about deep vein thrombosis.

18. mark said on July 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm

    Sorry for your loss, Dexter.

19. crinoidgirl said on July 13th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    I’m sorry to inter­rupt, but:

    I-GOT-A-JOB!!! After eight months! WOOHOO!

20. Sue said on July 13th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    That’s won­der­ful!

21. paddyo' said on July 13th, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    1. Job: Con­grats. So, details!

    2. Kayak tour: Splen­did. Num­ber of boats up or down this season?

    3. Sotomayor hear­ings: I’ve pledged NOT to lis­ten to a sin­gle word of this week’s live cov­er­age. I’ll read dead-tree ver­sions the next day — maybe. There’s been so much blovi­at­ing for the past months since the nom­i­na­tion, I sim­ply can’t bear to hear another fat­head blah-blahing about “qual­i­fi­ca­tions” or “activist judges” or any more of that silliness.

22. crinoidgirl said on July 13th, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    Pad­dyo’, job is tech­ni­cal writer at a defense con­trac­tor. Here in SE Michi­gan, the defense con­trac­tors are doing very well, pretty much in inverse pro­por­tion to the auto industry.

    I do not sup­port our cur­rent wars, but at this point beg­gars can’t be choosers. I jus­tify it to myself because what I will be doing will actu­ally help the men and women who are serv­ing. Plus, we’ll prob­a­bly be in Afghanistan and Pak­istan for the next 20 or 30 years, so this is a growth industry.

23. Dorothy said on July 13th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    I’m very happy for you, crinoid­girl, as being out of work majorly sucks. My hus­band had two long spells of it dur­ing the past 27 years or so and I hope to never have to live through that again. And what you said about Afghanistan made me gulp. My son is in the National Guard and that is where we fear he may be assigned when it’s his unit’s turn to be deployed.

24. MichaelG said on July 13th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    My con­do­lences, Dex­ter. I know what a loss that is.

    Con­grats, C-Girl. Don’t worry about jus­ti­fy­ing it. Get­ting a job today is a major achieve­ment and a major need. Have bit of the bub­bly tonight.

25. crinoidgirl said on July 13th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    Dorothy, I didn’t mean it as a throw-away line. I’ve been read­ing every­thing I can get my hands on since my sec­ond inter­view with these folks. Our coun­try is going to be in it for the long haul, as jus­ti­fied or unjus­ti­fied as this mess is.

    I hope your son remains safe through his deploy­ment, if that’s where regard­less of where he ends up going.

26. Joe Kobiela said on July 13th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    First off, sorry Dex­ter, I am on my 5th Golden Retriever and it doesn’t
    ever get eas­ier.
    Con­grat­u­la­tion C-girl on the job, been in your posi­tion, 30yrs in the auto indus­try will do that.
    I would love to see C-girls job dis­cussed by a panel of con­ser­v­a­tives and lib­er­als.
    Ques­tion.
    If you don’t sup­port the war, should you profit from it?
    I pic­ture Rush, Ann Coul­ter and Bill O’Rielly vs Ober­lin, Math­ews and Mayd­off. Man you could sell tick­ets for that one.
    Pilot Joe

27. John said on July 13th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    Good point Joe K. Kinda like the folks who scream about the gov’t pork spend­ing but then work like the dick­ens to get their con­gress­man to get fed­eral money for their district.

    Con­grats to you C’girl! I’ve been in the defense indus­try since the Carter admin­is­tra­tion and have seen the good days with the bad. Just focus on your work and be grate­ful for the pay­check and the bennies.

28. beb said on July 13th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    Most of the peo­ple who have sup­ported the Iraq/Afghan wars were prof­it­ing from it. The real ques­tion is: if you sup­port the work AND profit from it, should you do your best work for the DOD, even though it will eat into your prof­its? Or do you do take the money and turn in crap work because ‘it’s the gov­ern­ment, nobody cares?’

29. paddyo' said on July 13th, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    Well, Pilot Joe, that’s an inter­est­ing panel-discussion ques­tion there. But I’d also sub­mit that there’s “prof­it­ing,” and then there’s sim­ple, hon­est work. Unless proven oth­er­wise, I’m going to put C-girl’s gig (con­grats) in that lat­ter cat­e­gory, espe­cially when it’s “tech­ni­cal writing.”

    I was a news­pa­per reporter for nearly 33 years. I left my nose-diving indus­try a year and a half ago when I had a chance for a decent buy­out (not the sad “sev­er­ance” that many of my ex-colleagues are get­ting now over in Gan­net­t­land). Even­tu­ally I landed with a fed­eral gov­ern­ment agency doing pub­lic affairs work (though not on the defense side).

    Like C-girl, I’m not a fan of our cur­rent wars, either (and actu­ally, I’ve detested the use of the word “war” in the case of Iraq and the “— on ter­ror” that the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion used).
    Some folks might sug­gest that folks like me “profit” in some way from our government’s involve­ment in such things. Oth­ers would say, nahh, only if you’re work­ing directly in the stuff that ends up on the bat­tle­field or in the Pen­ta­gon suites.
    I say that at this level, it doesn’t really mat­ter either way. We’re com­mu­ni­ca­tors. We explain, shed light and high­light, make things under­stand­able. No need to defend or apol­o­gize for that.

    But yeah, Joe, you could still sell tick­ets to that dream debate — though you might have to stage it in a steel cage. Or, bet­ter, a mud pit.

30. nancy said on July 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    Con­grats, C-girl. First you, then (maybe) me. Is that a ship on the hori­zon? Is it mine?

    Who asked if there were fewer boats in the water this year? Answer: yes. Many open slips in the mari­nas, fewer going out on the water (gas is expen­sive), the usual.

    As for using your mad word-Ninja skilz for the forces of good, I took spe­cial pride, when han­dling war report­ing at my old news­pa­per, in chang­ing “Oper­a­tion Endur­ing Free­dom” to “the war in Afghanistan” at every oppor­tu­nity, and ditto “Oper­a­tion Iraqi Freedom.”

    “Over­lord” was a code name. “Desert Storm” was marketing.

31. crinoidgirl said on July 13th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

    I’m hop­ing it’s not “Amy’s Wine House” on the horizon.

32. Sue said on July 13th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    I think a more per­ti­nent ques­tion for debate would be: what has hap­pened in the last 50+ years that war-related work has changed from “doing your part for the war effort” to “prof­it­ing from war”? Peo­ple of my par­ents’ gen­er­a­tion proudly worked in muni­tions fac­to­ries etc. and a few gen­er­a­tions later, it seems every­one on this site under­stands exactly why Crinoid­girl is con­cerned about accept­ing a tech­ni­cal writ­ing posi­tion for a mil­i­tary con­trac­tor.
    The debate would go on for weeks.

33. Dexter said on July 13th, 2009 at 4:18 pm

    I just signed on again and I want to again say “thanks” to all you fine dog-lovers who know or can imag­ine how that “sock to the gut” felt last evening.
    Cre­ma­tion, I pick up the ashes in a few days, and I have scat­ter­ing plans.
    I still have our eight year old Jack Rus­sell Ter­rier, and she has adopted a feral cat which means we have, too.

34. LAMary said on July 13th, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    I have a very right wing brother who is in the oppo­site posi­tion. He’s an employee of NREL, which has been given a huge bud­get boost. He’s mak­ing money off the Dems and renew­able energy. He doesn’t seem to have any prob­lems with cash­ing the paychecks.

35. MichaelG said on July 13th, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    If it’s in my dis­trict it’s pub­lic works. If it’s in your dis­trict it’s pork.

    I’d like to think there’s a dif­fer­ence between some­one like C-Girl who is sign­ing on as an employee to do an hon­est day’s work for a day’s pay and Hal­libur­ton, an orga­ni­za­tion which seems to exist for the pur­pose of scam­ming as much money out of its cor­rupt Govt con­tracts as pos­si­ble for as shoddy and as lit­tle work as possible.

36. crinoidgirl said on July 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm

    Dex­ter, I can tell you that scat­ter­ing the ashes will involve a LOT of tears, no mat­ter how much you think you will be stoic. My Jas­mine (Pom) is in Kens­ing­ton Metro Park. I can’t believe how hard it was to do.

    Try to steel yourself.

    And I’m cry­ing now that I’m think­ing about it.

37. Dexter said on July 13th, 2009 at 6:57 pm

    crinoid­girl: I had a Pomeran­ian in the early 1970’s. He’s the dog that peed on Ply­mouth Rock…we were thank­ful no US Park Rangers or author­i­ties saw that one!
    Thanks for the heads-up. Cloak of steel descend­ing around me.…

38. alex said on July 13th, 2009 at 8:44 pm

    Con­grats, crinoid. My brother used to work as an engi­neer for a defense con­trac­tor that built air­craft. He’d toil for years on mas­sive projects only to see them can­celled at the eleventh hour. I think this was some sort of stim­u­lus spend­ing under Rea­gan only they called it some­thing else back then.

    Just vis­ited with my old Dobie who’s stay­ing with my par­ents. I don’t know how old she is. I was told maybe six or seven when I took her out of a bad sit­u­a­tion where she had no human atten­tion what­so­ever. That will have been five years ago. She’s good com­pany for my retired par­ents, who lost a beloved old Labrador. Every now and then I get these pangs of guilt per­haps like those of a mother who sac­ri­fices a child for adop­tion, but I know she’s bet­ter off being around peo­ple all day than locked up and alone while I’m work­ing. Also more land to roam on and fewer peo­ple to intimidate.

    Her absence might also explain why my garden’s get­ting ran­sacked by chip­munks and squirrels.

39. derwood said on July 13th, 2009 at 9:46 pm

    crinoid­girl — con­grats on the job. My wife is a tech­ni­cal writer on con­tract for an “evil” phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pany. She also has a Jour­nal­ism degree but never offi­cially worked in the field.

    Take the pay­check from where you can get it.

    –daron

40. Rana said on July 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    Dex­ter — I’m so sorry.

    crinoid­girl — Con­grats!

41. joodyb said on July 14th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    Isn’t it amaz­ing, my hus­band fre­quently muses, that we choose to live with dogs. And there’s a rea­son for that. You’re in good com­pany here, Dex­ter. I guess you know that.
    C-Girl, mark the occa­sion. This is a big deal these days. So happy for you.
    As for the military-industrial com­plex, we’ve all done it, wit­tingly or no.

42. poochlover said on July 14th, 2009 at 8:47 pm

    Dex­ter, so sorry about your loss; it’s a bless­ing she went peace­fully with you by her side. My last dog’s ashes are in a beau­ti­ful box on the man­tle with an engraved brass plate that says “Beloved Friend.” She had such a gen­tle spirit and I’m pretty sure she under­stood Eng­lish.