Sorry for the no-show yesterday. Work intruded, and I planned to update Monday morning, but alas — I woke up with a cold, which will teach me to make plans for what promised to be (and was) the warmest day of the year so far.
I’m not a good cold sufferer. I’m very whiny. If I didn’t have another big project due in two weeks, I’d have taken the day off and mainlined “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” all afternoon. You shouldn’t take sick days for a cold, though — it’s burning your sick-days seed corn.
So I worked. But I’m watching “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” now. And enjoying it very much.
Can’t say so much for “House of Cards,” which has already lost me, but I may power through anyway. It has skated so far from Realityville that it’s not even fun to hate-watch anymore. However, Claire and her wardrobe — actually, everybody and their wardrobe — never fails to entertain. I’ve never seen a show where everyone dresses to match the sofas.
“Who are you wearing?”
“Restoration Hardware!”
So, as you can tell, I’m pretty tapped out. Not much bloggage, either. There’s this very good story from the NYT’s ongoing occupation of Detroit’s North End neighborhood, a look at the city’s scrapping economy, and the parties who oppose one another in it. It’s very good — glosses over a few fine points, but for a national audience? First class. Recommended.
Me, I’m going to bed. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe a shot of whiskey will cure me.
Hattie said on March 17, 2015 at 1:51 am
Good article. Hope you are feeling better soon. Highlights help, I hope.
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Sherri said on March 17, 2015 at 2:22 am
I never knew colds were contagious over the internet! I’ve had an awful cold for a week, but it’s finally getting better. The worst part is that I strained a rib muscle coughing, so the coughing fits that come over me periodically are no fun at all.
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Dexter said on March 17, 2015 at 2:32 am
I used to get sick every March but so far so good. I was sick enough from Thanksgiving until the middle of December with a case of pneumonia, which I recovered from.
Anyway…there is so much good TV I can barely keep up. All caught up with ‘Backstrom’ finally, finished ‘House of Cards’, watched ‘Better Call Saul’ last night, now a new one, ‘Battle Creek’ has hooked me, and now everybody’s going ape over ‘Jinxed’, which I missed totally and have to catch up. Did you know HBO’s fantastic doc-series ‘Vice’ has commenced S3? Yep…I did watch the first episode, about the ice melt in Antarctica.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 17, 2015 at 7:27 am
Mr. Jones. He’s tough to help. The heart and intention is there, but it’s something braided into addictive & compulsive behavior that would lead me to not encourage his siblings to take him into their homes even if they would. Rapid rehousing dollars in our area, at least, would give him a step, and you do see a few after a week or two in a decent apartment start to take steps forward…and some after two weeks on a job and bathroom and small TV on their own suddenly dive into a two quart or three bag bender that blows them out of both job and apartment, and back onto the long march. You see ’em again at Sunday dinner at Salvation Army, and Mr. Jones’ cousin-in-spirit will tell you they knew how it would play out before they laid down the $20 for the jug, but it was just “too hard to hold it together,” and they had to do something or they’d just bust.
What do the Mr. Joneses need to get through recovery? Medication, groups, counseling one-on-one, prayer, 30-in-30, a friend . . . no golden tickets out there. It’s bricks in a pile you stack until you have a step up, and even then there’s the moment of deciding to take the step, or turn and walk away back into the cold and dark.
But he will still come by for Sunday dinner, and a little conversation. Someday, he’ll settle down. Someday. That’s what he keeps saying. He leaves, and out the window you see him duck behind the maintenance shed out back and pick up a ragged roll of wire he stashed there before coming in for the meal, then around the corner towards the tracks, and the bridge.
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adrianne said on March 17, 2015 at 7:44 am
About to head into NYC, clamber over the drunks in for St. Patrick’s Day parade, and make my way into the office. St. Patrick’s Day is amateur hour for drinkers, like New Year’s Eve, and there was already threatening messages from the MTA that they reserve the right to throw drunks off the subways, trains and buses.
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beb said on March 17, 2015 at 8:16 am
Last year – or was it the year before – the legislature considered a bill to rein in scrapping to some extent by imposing burdens on the sellers of scrap metal. One proposal was that scrapyards only pay by check. The thinking was that scrappers like Mr. Johnson would have a hard time cashing a check and the delay between getting the check and cashing it would deter them. The Republican majority voted it down because it would impose a burden on the scrapyards. Just another “go to hell” message to Detroit…
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coozledad said on March 17, 2015 at 9:25 am
“Who are you wearing?”
“Restoration Hardware!”
High traffic fabrics that can resist stains from red wine, bif Bourguignon, streets ankle deep in shit, and the occasional brush with poors!
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/upload/img/ingres-madame-moitessier-NG4821-fm.jpg
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Bruce Fields said on March 17, 2015 at 10:20 am
“The Republican majority voted it down”
Beb, are you sure about that? My only source is the New York Times article, but it does say:
“The State Legislature last year passed a measure forbidding scrapyards to pay cash on the spot to anyone offering $25 or more worth of commonly stolen metals like copper, requiring the yards instead to complete the sales by check, debit card or money order in the mail. It also required the yards to photograph both what they were buying and the sellers.”
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Bitter Scribe said on March 17, 2015 at 10:21 am
The upside of being able to work from home is that you no longer have to burn a sick day for a borderline thing like a cold. Of course, the downside is that you feel guilty using a sick day unless you’re so sick that you can’t sit at a keyboard in your pajamas, and you have to be deathly ill for that.
Feel better, Nancy.
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Sue said on March 17, 2015 at 10:58 am
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/17/irish-african-american-dna-tests
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Suzanne said on March 17, 2015 at 10:58 am
The cold is obviously passed through the Internet. I have it, too, and stayed home today. Slept 12 hours last night & still feel tired. Sinuses feel like some little leprechaun filled them with green cement while I was sleeping. Had some very strange dreams, too. I hate being sick, especially when the weather is finally improving.
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Bob (not Greene) said on March 17, 2015 at 10:59 am
Sick day. That’s a good one.
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beb said on March 17, 2015 at 12:35 pm
Bruce Fields, I admit I could be wrong on this. Maybe they passed a watered down version of the bill.
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beb said on March 17, 2015 at 12:41 pm
I should have goggled first. From Crain’s website:
Legislation cracking down on illegal scrap metal sales is headed to Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk after the Michigan Senate voted 31-6 today on a compromise bill.
Michigan scrapyards that buy copper wire, air conditioners and catalytic converters will only be able to pay sellers by mail under a deal brokered Wednesday by legislators attempting to crack down on sales of stolen scrap metal.
The state House’s 98-12 approval of legislation signaled the end of a monthslong dispute over the measure intended to help law enforcement solve and prosecute cases.
“I think it’s a compromise we can live with. Our cities have a good feeling about it,” said the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Paul Muxlow of Brown City.
The agreement caps more than 2½ years of work to update a 2008 anti-scrap metal theft law that detractors said wasn’t working.
So, yes, a weatered down version.
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crinoidgirl said on March 17, 2015 at 12:54 pm
Alex and Jeff (tmmo) from yesterday: still here, mostly lurking. Sticking closely to my Women For Sobriety message boards and meetings for safety’s sake, but sometimes grief gets the best of me.
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Scout said on March 17, 2015 at 1:51 pm
I lost most of February to a horrible chest cold, the kind that makes it embarrassing to go out in public because every time you cough you sound like a bucket of phlegm. It was just gross.
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alex said on March 17, 2015 at 2:05 pm
Glad to hear from you crinoidgirl.
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LAMary said on March 17, 2015 at 2:30 pm
I had that same thing, Scout. It sounds like you have TB or something. It also hurts.
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Basset said on March 17, 2015 at 2:37 pm
JeffTMMO@4, that’d make a good country song if anyone was still writing country songs. Over-researched pop, yes, but no real country that I know of.
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Deborah said on March 17, 2015 at 2:59 pm
I had the cold for 3 weeks in Feb. I wish my cough had gotten phlegmy, instead it kept me up half the night with a tight dry tickle and when I coughed I sounded like a dog barking. We went car camping Sunday in Abiquiu and the Junipers are pollinating. I got very oarse after being out there. It had been 72 during the day but it got below freezing that night, which didn’t help. Happy St. Patrick’s day, I’m glad I’m not in Chicago at this time, the stench of vomit there is pretty overwhelming about now.
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Deborah said on March 17, 2015 at 3:02 pm
Hoarse
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Julie Robinson said on March 17, 2015 at 3:07 pm
It’s been going around here too and frequently morphing into bronchitis and/or sinus infections, as it did in both the ladies with whom I share an office. I’ve been Lysoling the heck out of everything when I go in.
And poor hubby, who is never sick, actually used his first sick day in eight years at this job. His office mates told him to stay home. It’s a bad’un!
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coozledad said on March 17, 2015 at 4:32 pm
Schock is a Republican hero. You gotta be unashamed that money is your god, and there isn’t a trace of shame in him:
http://juanitajean.com/woo-woo-3/
Yay congressman trim jeans!
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 17, 2015 at 5:59 pm
May crinoids still blossom for you, ma’am; ancient hope still unfolding.
(That was my favorite exhibit to explain to kids as a docent in the old Indiana State Museum in Indy.)
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brian stouder said on March 17, 2015 at 6:09 pm
I know nothing much about this Schock guy, other than he redecorated his office (at some expense) with a Downton Abbey theme – and this passage made me say the word “wow” –
Schock billed the federal government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car between January 2010 and July 2014. But when he sold that Chevrolet Tahoe in July 2014, it had only roughly 80,000 miles on the odometer, according to public records obtained by POLITICO under Illinois open records laws. The documents, in other words, indicate he was reimbursed for 90,000 miles more than his car was ever driven.
I may already have mentioned – but I just recently learned* there was another member of Congress from Illinois, a tall thin guy back in 1849, who fluffed his travel expense log pretty shamelessly, pocketing about $700 more than he should have, in travel reimbursements. Members of Congress were allowed a travel reimbursement for travel between their district and the capitol, amounting to .08 cents/mile…and everyone pretty much took maximum advantage of that.
The tall thin guy claimed mileage for campaign swings he made into New England, and for a trip he and his wife made to Niagra Falls, amongst other places.
We know this, because Horace Greeley got the honor of serving a three month stint in Congress, and had access to the records, and – to the great annoyance of the rest of the House, he studied those reimbursements, and compared them to US postal routes for the members.
By way of saying, Schock strikes me as an odd bird, but still – I’m surprised he resigned.
*in Harold Holzer’s book about Lincoln and the press
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Julie Robinson said on March 17, 2015 at 6:53 pm
It makes me think there was much, much more out there that he didn’t want brought to the light of day. Besides, he can legally keep the money in his campaign fund and presumably doesn’t want to spend it all on lawyers.
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Deborah said on March 17, 2015 at 7:46 pm
Judy Busy, You’ve mentioned some musical events that you’ve enjoyed in the Minneapolis area and I wonder if you ever seen Riena Del Cid? I found out about her through NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Contest. She didn’t win but her entry was listed along with others they found worthy. Here’s the entry for the contest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZSYJgg8Ks. It’s definitely one of those things that sticks in your head, or at least I think so. It actually reminds me of a recurring dream I’ve had where I’ve died but I have to keep it a secret as long as I can from others or I’ll be buried. Sounds dark but the song is delightful to me.
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coozledad said on March 17, 2015 at 11:13 pm
Brian: Get this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Gotham-History-York-City-1898/dp/0195140494
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Deborah said on March 17, 2015 at 11:26 pm
I’m not sure how I missed this earlier, but tonight I just found out that Tonette, Scott Walker’s wife is 12 years older than he is. They married in 1993 when he was 26 and she was 38. She is 5 years younger than I am. I’m kinda shocked. Not sure why.
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brian stouder said on March 18, 2015 at 7:24 am
Cooz – I have added it to the list! (b-day is upcoming, so I may have it sooner than later)
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