We had a good Easter. I hope you did, too. We invited Kate and her boyfriend, then thought hell, make it a party and invited four more people, which is just about the limit for my entertaining-indoors skills. But it turned out great; the secret is always in getting the right mix of guests, and it was a fantastic four-generation mix (Boomer, X, Millennial, Z). We had ham and biscuits and eggs and fruit and lox and pumpernickel and all the fixin’s, including my effort to make a frittata for the vegan guest, that which collapsed, so it was rechristened a tofu scramble and it tasted fine. Plus cake. Can’t go wrong with cake for Easter brunch.
The weather finally broke, and it was sunny all day, so we repaired to the back yard, and that was fine, too. Alan bartended, and made killer daiquiris, bloodies and all the rest of it.
I needed one day of joy, after the news of the weekend. First Clarence Fucking Thomas, then Matthew Fucking Kacsmaryk. Every time I see that smug mug on Thomas, I think unkind thoughts, things like you look like a frog and I hope you die on the toilet. Kacsmaryk is another breed of cat, far, far younger, but like Thomas, he has lifetime tenure, so we’ll have to hope for judicial isolation in whatever shithole in Texas he currently occupies. I saw some defenses of Thomas’ sugar daddy, Harlan Crow (god, what a name, right out of Faulker, or Dickens) over the weekend, mostly of the he’s-a-really-decent-man-and-only-collects-Nazi-memorabilia-out-of-love-for-freedom variety. But I’d ask you: If for some reason you felt that way, would YOU keep such items in your HOUSE? Of course not. These people are awful.
You knew the high from Janet Protasiewicz couldn’t last. I only hoped for a few more days.
So here we are at the beginning of the week. Temperatures ABOVE 70 predicted by Wednesday, so we should celebrate, at least a little.
Neil Steinberg has a good column today, which you can read, paywall-free, at the Sun-Times. It’s about a man living with HIV, among many, many other obstacles to a good life, including mental illness, autism, recent homelessness and at least some gender dysphoria (he uses male pronouns but is planning to live as female at some point in the future. But he’s also benefiting from a wide array of social programs, too. I always appreciate the twists Neil’s columns often take:
Since I know that readers can take a Victorian view of philanthropy — those benefiting from social service agencies ought to somehow earn their support by cleaving to a hazy puritanical ideal — it’s worth pausing to ask how the city would be better if Cox were being ravaged by AIDS in Grant Park rather than living his best life, healthy in an apartment in Forest Park?
He’s certainly better this way. And, it’s fairly clear, so is Chicago.
OK, so it’s on to the Monday grind. In the words of our sex-working former First Lady: Be best.
Icarus said on April 10, 2023 at 10:15 am
including my effort to make a frittata for the vegan guest that collapsed
I hope the vegan guest has fully recovered. 🙂 #EnglishIsFunny
We are going to have 70s all week here as well. Kids are home today but the rest of the week will be me dropping them off at school and then getting as much yardwork done before pickup time.
I’m very embarrassed as all our southern states try to outdo each other in terms of being repressive authoritarian A-holes.
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nancy said on April 10, 2023 at 11:06 am
I count on you folks to keep my honest. Fixed.
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Deborah said on April 10, 2023 at 10:27 am
We leave this afternoon for Minnesota for my niece’s husband’s funeral tomorrow. My rightwing sister of course will be there and a very rightwing crowd. The good news is I will get to see my other niece with whom I’ve been having lively email exchanges over the last few months. I haven’t seen her or any of them for about 10 years when I was there for the wedding of the niece who’s husband died. My sister told me that they haven’t yet told the 7 year old that his father died. I don’t know what to think about that, it seems kind of odd to me.
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Dorothy said on April 10, 2023 at 11:19 am
Having lovely meals that turn out great and there are no mishaps is always a grand way to celebrate a holiday. Most of the time that happens, but honestly it seems more often than not, though, we get to experience fun little derailments and that was the case this year too! This will make you all laugh.
I mixed up a double recipe of the cheesy potatoes we’ve been making in our family for about 35 years. I had them at someone’s funeral luncheon and now they’re usually eaten at our big dinners. The potatoes went into a disposable pan and covered with foil and put in the fridge until it was time to cook them an hour before we planned to eat. I invited my daughter-in-law’s mom, who is widowed, to dinner and she brought a delish lemon bar cake for dessert, and a disposable pan of strawberry pretzel salad. The dessert needed to thaw out and the pretzel salad went into the fridge.
When a timer went off to remind me to put the potatoes in the oven, I had the baby on my lap. So my son offered to get the potatoes in the oven. And you can probably figure out how this story is going to take a turn. About 40 minutes later I realized I needed to take the potatoes out of the oven to stir them and move the colder interior portion to the outside edges and stir the warmer portion to the inside. Well, my husband had the oven mitts so he said “I’ll stir them!” and that’s when we found out we’d been baking the cold strawberry pretzel salad for the last 40 minutes. It was actually BUBBLING a little bit. I thought my daughter-in-law was going to barf when she looked at it. A cooked jello salad just isn’t fun to peruse.
Then an hour later, after I kicked the oven up to 425 instead of 350, and we were clearing the table after eating ham and chicken and potatoes and a new asparagus recipe, I knocked over a partial glass of iced tea and it cascaded on the nice table cloth, the pretty quilted table runner I made a few years ago, and on my knees and down my legs to my tennis shoes. Oh well, there’s always the next dinner party to look forward to! P.S. the lemon bar dessert was really tasty.
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Deborah said on April 10, 2023 at 11:55 am
Mitch McConnell is “devastated” by the shooting in Louisville this morning. Do you think he’s going to start supporting gun control? Nah.
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JodiP said on April 10, 2023 at 12:24 pm
We had a lovely Easter, spending with a friend’s family. The day before we had brunch with some of my wife’s family.
Dorothy, that was quite the fiasco!
I am beyond excited for spring. My bulbs and a few perennials are finally growing. I am experimenting this year with spraying the tulip and crocus with a very smelly rabbit repellant, as they usually eat them down to the ground. So far, so good!The sorrel I will have to put a little cage around, as of course I wouldn’t want to spray an edible with that nasty stuff.
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tajalli said on April 10, 2023 at 1:07 pm
Easter was welcome, as usual this year, as the end to lent and a nice day off. The emergence of vegan cooking is great for me – recipes without my dasterdly allergen, egg. The cooked salad story was hilarious and will no doubt become legend within your family, Dorothy.
It’s finally beginning to warm up. I lived dangerously last night and put on only one quilt – it’s been two since November, way too long for winter.
Boxing Day I planted snow pea seeds, a cool weather crop, for their nitrogen fixing ability to enrich the soil (besides for their tastiness) in advance of planting cherry tomatoes. But they’re only just now flowering, a full month late. Sunset’s Western Garden Book will require massive revision of growing regions with all this climate upheaval.
This past couple weeks have been an intensive training for serving as a field representative for the American Housing Survey (US Census). The next couple weeks will be hammering out the details to my own satisfaction before going out into the field in May.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2023 at 1:46 pm
I have an update on my car that was rear ended a month ago. It was not totaled; the repair estimate came in at around $8k, while the car is probably worth $15K, despite being almost 10 years old. So, it is being repaired, and I am told that the biggest delay is the wait for a new muffler, of all things. There is a nationwide supply shortage of mufflers for this model, I’m told.
Since I was prepared for this to be a long process and am lucky enough to not have to wait for the end of it to replace my car, I can just watch it happen without getting upset. Eventually I will get the car back, I will sell it, and can put the whole episode behind me.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2023 at 2:06 pm
So, if I were to carry a gun to a Greg Abbott event, would the fact that he has armed security mean that I’m acting in self-defense if I shoot him?
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David C said on April 10, 2023 at 2:50 pm
We had a quiet Easter. Ham and Hassleback potatoes followed by a walk in the woods.
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Dave said on April 10, 2023 at 3:35 pm
Easter was my birthday, I find it surprising that I was born on Easter Sunday, 1950, but it took 73 years for me to have an Easter birthday. We had a very nice time with family, all were there except for our Virginia son and family.
Sherri, I had a very similar thought about the Texas governor, what awful men he and his lieutenant governor are. Poor Mitch McConnell, too, such sad thoughts. Meanwhile, the NRA convention is coming to Indy and TFG and Pence will both be speaking to them, as well as our own heroic governor.
Deborah, sad news about your niece’s husband, I’m thinking you’ll probably have to bite your tongue a lot to make it through. May it go as well as could be expected.
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Bruce Fields said on April 10, 2023 at 3:51 pm
“I find it surprising that I was born on Easter Sunday, 1950, but it took 73 years for me to have an Easter birthday.”
Huh. This made me wonder if 73 years is the longest time between two Easters sharing the same date. I guess not:
https://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/qa-what-are-the-earliest-and-latest-easter-dates/2111585/
“Easter as early as March 22 is very rare. The last time it happened was 1818, and the next time will be 2285.”
Calendars are weird.
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susan said on April 10, 2023 at 4:15 pm
…especially lunar calendars.
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LAMary said on April 10, 2023 at 4:18 pm
I lost a parent when I was 7. They need to tell the kid. He probably knows something big happened. How weird is it going to be when they finally tell him?
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Sherri said on April 10, 2023 at 5:49 pm
Long and depressing, but I can’t argue with it: https://michaelpodhorzer.substack.com/p/just-another-week-in-the-federalist
“ Maybe a corollary to Stringer Bell’s admonishment not to take notes on a criminal conspiracy should be to not have a painting commissioned of one either. The Supreme Court presents itself to the American people as a neutral arbiter that simply calls balls and strikes on whatever cases happen to come before it. To be clear: Justice Thomas does not rule the way he does because Crow has spent millions wining and dining him; he is a Supreme Court justice because he could be counted on to rule the way he has. This is not about a quid pro quo. Instead, both Thomas and Crow are part of a supremely well-funded conspiracy operating in broad daylight called the Federalist Society that obtains the appointments of judges who will ignore the particulars of every case in order to accomplish through the judicial system what the revanchist coalition of capital and church cannot hope to accomplish in anything like a democratic fashion.”
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Julie Robinson said on April 10, 2023 at 6:01 pm
We’re trying something new for holiday dinners, simplicity. We had a ham and for the no-sodium person, a non-injected turkey breast. People requested seven layer salad and asparagus, future DIL brought her famous dinner rolls, and that was it. Costco cheesecake and one bag of Easter candy for dessert. Like Nancy big groups are too much, so half were invited for dessert after the others had gone home. Easter is a lot for a pastor’s family.
Said pastor went to a rally for Representative Maxwell Frost’s new anti-gun legislation today, while the shooting of the day played as a backdrop. Jesus wept.
Sherri, make sure your frame isn’t bent. Never believe anyone who says that can be fixed.
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David C said on April 10, 2023 at 6:10 pm
Yeah, Julie. It happened to my parents. Fortunately, the alignment shop didn’t come as close as they could and push it on. They told the insurance company the car couldn’t be aligned and the insurance company ate the cost of the useless repairs.
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LAMary said on April 10, 2023 at 6:57 pm
I did nothing for Easter. I’ve finally accepted the idea that it’s pointless to plan anything for the actual holiday. I will have to reschedule. The ex will petulantly summon his sons to his home (or rather the girlfriend’s home since he has a nearly unbroken record of living in places women purchased or rented) for a holiday dinner. Sometimes he cancels at the last minute. In other words, we all realize now he is an inconsiderate putz. We’ll have our celebration next weekend. It will include something cooked on the grill, lots of stuff from the Saturday farmers market. Older son’s girlfriend told me she would not be attending the Easter dinner at the ex’s house. She can’t stand his attitude towards women. Smart girl.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2023 at 7:10 pm
While conservative pundits don’t seem to have been bothered by Harlan Crow’s collection, others were: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/04/harlan-crow-nazi-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences/
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Deborah said on April 10, 2023 at 7:13 pm
I agree LAMary, the poor kid has got to know something major is happening, unless they shipped him off to another relative’s. Even then he’d still probably figure out something is up. His grandmother died a year ago and she lived with them and they didn’t tell him for a while, I don’t know how long. I don’t get it. His father died of cancer and had been ill for a while, and gravelly ill at home for the last month or so.
We’re in Minnesota now. Snow remnants on the ground but 69°.
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alex said on April 10, 2023 at 7:17 pm
We did our traditional Easter open house for family, friends and neighbors. Perfect weather. Excellent food. Hubby did a 20-pound Ossian ham on the grill overnight. I did two varieties of pork tenderloin; cream cheese mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy; chicken tetrachloride (as LAMary likes to call it); and my mother’s traditional potato salad recipe with egg, bacon and bell pepper.
Got hungry just thinking about it. Gonna go eat some potato salad.
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Mark P said on April 10, 2023 at 7:45 pm
I had a burrito at Del Taco for Easter dinner. We have no family, so there was no gathering.
Sherri’s car is almost certainly a unibody, so no separate frame. Unibodies are great for a lot of reasons, like lightness, rigidity, and better crush zones, but what seems like a small tweak can total the car.
I, too, cannot understand why they wouldn’t tell a kid his father had died. That’s likely to be more traumatic than the death would otherwise have been.
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Dorothy said on April 10, 2023 at 8:00 pm
I don’t understand people’s thought processes when they delay or withhold serious information from kids. Don’t they realize that they won’t be kids forever, and when they grow up, they’ll be angry and filled with resentment for realizing that grownups did not treat them fairly? The grownups thought they were doing the kids a favor by not revealing very sad or upsetting news, when in reality they need to tell the child ASAP and deal with it immediately. Yes it’s uncomfortable; yes it’s awful. But it’s life, and the sooner the kid(s) find out the sooner they can learn how to deal with it. They don’t need gorey details if the death was gruesome – they just need to know why someone they loved is no longer there. Period, end of sentence.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2023 at 8:04 pm
MarkP, you are correct, my car is a unibody chassis. Probably what saved my car from damage to the unibody was that the car that hit me mostly went underneath my car; it was a 20 year old Mercedes sedan. Had it been another SUV, my car might have suffered more damage. As it happened, the damage was more superficial than I expected.
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Dorothy said on April 10, 2023 at 8:13 pm
I forgot to add this:
Dave that is amazing about your birthday – amazing in the sense that I know someone else who’s husband was also born on 4/9/50. She posted about it on Facebook yesterday. I knew her from when I worked at Kenyon College. Her husband Jim died of a sudden heart attack in 2008. I had never met him.
My son was born the day AFTER Easter in 1985. I am fairly positive his birthday has not yet fallen on the day after Easter since then.
*gory* – not *gorey* in my previous post
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jcburns said on April 10, 2023 at 9:17 pm
My birthday has been on Easter on 1971, 1982, 1993, 2004…and then 2066!
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Deborah said on April 10, 2023 at 9:30 pm
These are fantastic. Whoever does this is an artist https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq4FVG-JiWb/ I hope you’re able to see them.
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Sherri said on April 10, 2023 at 10:13 pm
Easter has been on my birthday in 1995, 2006, 2017, will be in 2028 (assuming I live that long), but after that, not until 2090, which I don’t expect to be alive for! Before my birth, Easter had been on my future birth date in 1933, which was before either of my parents were born.
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susan said on April 10, 2023 at 11:59 pm
Deborah, those are perfect! Need to print them out and put them in Post Offices along with the Most Wanted.
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LAMary said on April 11, 2023 at 1:28 am
My birthday will always be on Epiphany. Me and spit take king, Danny Thomas.
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Dexter Friend said on April 11, 2023 at 2:57 am
My local county veterans’ rep has me going hither and yon for medical tests , proving I have a higher disability rating coming due to Agent Orange exposure all those decades ago. Now for the first 44 years post-active duty overseas, I was told I had nothing coming, just forget it. Now the PACT act has expanded the conditions for disability compensation, and I am just applying to see.
My point is, my step-daughter the nurse practitioner is a Trumper and sort of “lit into me” about veterans’ benefits being a waste of taxpayers’ money. She worked in Las Vegas hospitals and clinics for 15 years and she had a co-worker, a male , who ran marathons, walked straight, had no medical issues at all, but had some issues while in the armed services, and is getting a 100% disability rating. Compared to the very high salaries that job yields, the $3,550 per month disability award is chump change, but that got under my daughter’s skin a bit and she lashed out. I realize I am not getting a 100%, but to me a full rating would be life-changing. It is odd that that issue is what made her yell at little ol’ me, her old pappy since she was 6 years old. Otherwise, politics aside, of course, we get along just fine. I just don’t bring up Trump and all that mess.
I visited Isle of Palms, Mt. Pleasant, SC, at least a couple dozen times over the years, as Carla Lee’s sister lived there and we drove there many times. The mass shooting there on Friday injured 6, on a beach I knew well.
I lived near Louisville for a few months in the Army, I know Louisville a little. Now it’s places I know well that are experiencing the hell of living in America, if you venture out to buy groceries, stop at the bank, just anything, even sitting watching TV…guns can and will kill you or someone you know.
So let’s expel state legislators, yeah! Especially the Black ones. One of the Justins is to reinstated today I heard. Tennessee, the real USA.
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alex said on April 11, 2023 at 7:38 am
Deborah, the Washington Post picked up the Right-Wing Drag Race All-Stars. But your link is free so I’ll paste it here again.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq4FVG-JiWb/
My vote goes to Lady G.
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Suzanne said on April 11, 2023 at 8:21 am
I do love the conservative drag stars but I can’t figure out who #7 and #9 are.
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JodiP said on April 11, 2023 at 8:44 am
Dexter, I hope your rating is increased–it will of course make such a difference for you!
It also irritates me that many conservatives will complain about people like your step-daughter’s co-worker (also: is that *really* true or some made-up bullshit she heard thru the grapevine. We know how hard it is to be 100% connected!) but seem to have no knowledge or anger about the true grifters: the ultra-wealthy who pay very little in taxes. Those conservatives in power get this; that’s why they want to roll back extra funding for the IRS.
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Peter said on April 11, 2023 at 8:48 am
Suzanne, I think no. 7 is Rep. McCarthy from Bakersfield, and no. 9 is our own Rudy Giuliani.
If the right wing media machine’s objective was to break my brain, mission accomplished. This morning there’s an article that several right wing commentators have claimed that yesterday’s Louisville shooter was motivated because of pronoun issues. One said “see, guns don’t kill people, pronouns kill people”, and another said “this person killed because he was forced to identify as a male…” and why? because his profile has “he/him” after his name.
Have they really gone off the deep end? Two weeks ago the mass shooting was due to someone being gender confused; now it’s because someone is not gender confused?
I need to adjust my meds. Again.
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JodiP said on April 11, 2023 at 9:06 am
I’ve been meaning to share this entry by Heather Cox Richardson about why the Clarence Thomas situation is about much, much more than grifting for money. Dahlia Lithwick has reported on how carefully crafted the takeover of the SCOTUS was. The conservatives were patient, strategic and rotten cheaters to create this SCOTUS. This, combined with the structure of our legislatures, successful efforts to gerrymander districts, voter suppression and false flags of election stealing are why I am pretty pessimistic about much getting better.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-6-2023
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Jeff Borden said on April 11, 2023 at 9:37 am
Jennifer Rubin has an interesting column in the Washington Post this morning suggesting the multi-decade effort by hard right conservatives to seed our federal courts with atavistic knuckle-draggers has worked too well and will soon impact the electoral prospects of the QOP. When an ultra-right-wing judge in Amarillo, Texass cites the 1873 Comstock Act as an argument against FDA approval of the abortion pill –just as Strip Search Sammy Alito cited a witch-hunting English judge in his decision destroying Roe v. Wade– you’re looking at a political movement that is as interested in returning to the 19th century as the Taliban are to the 6th century. No wonder the QOP is working overtime to make it so much harder to vote, to allow citizens to introduce initiatives to change the laws, to criminalize dissent and protest. The bastards know they are far out of step with a majority of the country.
And the cruelty and stupidity! The 5-foot-9 Napoleon wannabe in Floriduh has introduced one of the nastiest and harshest immigration laws in the nation and with super majorities in the legislature, he’ll get what he wants. It goes full bore anti-immigrant with felony charges in store for those who drive, house or employ them. Floriduh hospitals must report any patient they treat if they’re undocumented. There will be virtually no state services available to them. So, sure, DeathSantis is buffing his asshole credentials for a presidential run, but think about it. Floriduh is home to the largest percentage of seniors in the nation. They are absolutely dependent on immigrant labor. But with the little man in search of a large balcony (hat tip Jimmy Breslin) putting a target on the backs of undocumented workers, who will help those old folks?
Jesus, the QOP is a fucked up party.
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Icarus said on April 11, 2023 at 9:44 am
Regarding the 7-year-old, I wonder if they plan to tell him by taking him to the funeral? I’m not sure how you break that kinda news to a kid. My 8-year-olds understand what dead means but I doubt they truly grasp what life without a loved one is like…and I hope it is a long time before they do.
Dexter, there are only about 6.5 Million of you left down from nearly 9M. I think it’s pathetic that the same people who wrap themselves up in the flag want to cut benefits for veterans.
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LAMary said on April 11, 2023 at 10:36 am
I like Drag Ted Cruz myself. A real looker.
And I meant to thank the hostess for the sex worker quote. The hard work she’s done all these years deserves recognition. The previous sex worker in her role couldn’t keep up with the demands of the job but Melania is unstoppable, soldiering on with that look of grim determination and commitment to outlive the bastard.
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FDChief said on April 11, 2023 at 10:46 am
Jeff, the GOP – or, rather, the wealthy that are it’s blackened heart – has been all about undoing the post-Gilded-Age since 1932.
Their long-term problem was that there were just not enough gullible chumps to vote them power so long as non-two-yacht-class-Americans had 1) no particular reason to vote Republican and 2) some sense of what the rapacious sonsofbitches would do once they got that power.
Civil rights was the magic key. Once the richies could graft racism onto plutocracy they were on their way. Then came the megachurches and their substitution of the Mammon of “prosperity” over the god of lepers and whores. Then came the gunlickers and their fetish object.
But the goal has ALWAYS been a new Gilded Age. The other stuff? Feh. Their kids go to spendy private schools and they live in gated communities – no nutter shootings there! When their granddaughter has a little oopsie after a fling with the pool boy the “clinic” in Switzerland will take care of it. And in the window of their church is a tastefully Episcopalian stained glass image of a camel leaping effortlessly through the eye of a needle.
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FDChief said on April 11, 2023 at 12:31 pm
Easter was, once again, a non-event in this unchurched household. But none of the progeny even mentioned candy which, like greed at Christmas, was the only genuine motivation for any interest.
Did remind me of an earlier Easter when, where driving home from somewhere (other than a church) the Daughter asked what Easter was about. Wife and Son jumped in to tell the Zombie Jesus Story.
“Jesus came back?” wondered Daughter, “Where is he now?”
Son gives it a beat, then looks out a window and points; “There He is!”
Daughter goes nuts looking in vain, then cries, and Son is utterly unrepentant under the weight of parental censure.
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ROGirl said on April 11, 2023 at 1:39 pm
Last week someone in my office was going around to people and saying, “He is risen,” and I thought to myself, “What is He, a loaf of bread?”
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Sherri said on April 11, 2023 at 3:05 pm
ROGirl, I saw this meme floating around:
https://secretly-of-course.tumblr.com/post/713941172941357056
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Peter said on April 11, 2023 at 3:25 pm
LA Mary – that Drag Ted Cruz has a little Joan Crawford wannabe thing going, if you ask me.
RO Girl – it’s way out of season now, but your comment reminded me of the old assistant manager who would come out of his office mid afternoon on Ash Wednesday with his full ashtray and offer to take care of any Catholics who didn’t make it to church that day.
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Deborah said on April 11, 2023 at 7:25 pm
Back from a funeral day and I am relieved to say the 7 year old had been told and was at the funeral and seems like he’s going to be fine as is his mother. My sister is the one who told me that the child hadn’t been told and I think she was just wrong. To be honest I’m kinda worried about my sister, she did not seem all there.
It was a typical Lutheran Missouri Synod funeral, a lot of talk about sin and death. But I expected as much, no surprise there.
It got up to 78°, a nice day for attending the ceremony at graveside after the church service. Then there was a dinner in the church basement with hot dishes all around. It was pleasant to see all 3 of my nieces, the one who lives in California was there too. I’m glad it’s over and we’ll be heading back to Chicago tomorrow where the weather will be good there too.
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Dexter Friend said on April 12, 2023 at 2:41 am
JodiP: I know, it sounds like real bullshit…who really knows? It wound up my step-daughter for sure.
Here’s a mind-blower, as I recently heard from the local vet-rep. In Vietnam, an infantryman was pulled out of his job and made a truck driver. They did shit like that, no paper work, just stuck guys and probably women wherever some officer ordered them to go. First convoy, the deuce and a half truck ahead of him gets blown up with fatalities. The soldier in the following truck never forgot it, and also never spoke of it…until he did, 54 years later. He filed a PTSD claim, with no other attached claims for anything else. 6 weeks later, bam! 100% disability award. The V.A. is a strange and wonderful world of its own.
I just feel hopeless and helpless about these daily shootings in the USA. Latest was in D.C.
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Dorothy said on April 12, 2023 at 5:56 am
Deborah I realized this morning that I never expressed my sympathy to your family on the loss of your niece’s husband. She’s got a hard road ahead of her with raising a 7 year old. I’m very sorry for the loss.
We heard last night about the death of the father of a family acquaintance. He ran a stop sign in Bucyrus, OH on Sunday night and died. He was 71. His 73 old wife (step mother of the friend) is in critical condition. No mention of injuries to the woman who was driving the other car. You just never know, do you, when your time is up?
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Dave said on April 12, 2023 at 7:54 am
Dorothy, I knew that man slightly, only from our common employer. I was in and out of Bellevue off and on throughout my days with the railroad.
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Deborah said on April 12, 2023 at 8:35 am
This is an interesting long explanation of how bad the Kacsmaryk decision was https://adamunikowsky.substack.com/p/mifepristone-and-the-rule-of-law-9c4?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web this was included in Heather Cox Richardson’s daily letter.
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Connie said on April 12, 2023 at 8:39 am
Dexter, my husband had a similar meeting on that topic with the county veteran’s rep just the other day.
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Dexter Friend said on April 12, 2023 at 9:46 am
I am camping right beside my front door here at home, daring to not leave for more than 10 seconds because I have missed the antsy UPS driver who has left stickers on my door for 2 days saying nobody was home and he needed a signature for my new phone. Well, dammitt, I have been here , this is the 3rd day now, waiting for this driver, and Pogo Labbie always barks when even a cat walks onto the porch, so I just am perplexed. And get this: my window for delivery can’t be zeroed in any closer that 9:00 AM until “7:00 PM or maybe later.” So I sit and wait, all damn day and into the night….
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Scout said on April 12, 2023 at 12:07 pm
We spent Easter like most any Sunday; yoga class, brunch, light cleaning, a soak in the hot tub, a game of cornhole, grilled fish tacos for dinner. It was ok because the night before we went to a party to celebrate my grandson’s big gay marriage and the day after Easter he and his spouse came to spend a couple days with grammy and hers. It’s really great how much fun we all have together, the boomers and Gen Z’ers.
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Julie Robinson said on April 12, 2023 at 12:15 pm
Scout, excellent! We have really enjoyed all the generations living in one house.
Dexter I swear those UPS guys drive right by without stopping and mark it as not home. There have been days when I was home all day but they claimed I wasn’t.
Good news from the ortho guy this morning; my ankle is all healed. Bad news; the swelling and pain can be expected for another six to 12 months. Crud.
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tajalli said on April 12, 2023 at 12:44 pm
Dexter@50, I have the same issue with receiving items from FedEx. My solution was to get the tracking number as soon as it was available and re-direct the pack to a delivery site at my local Walgreens. They’re open from 8am-10pm so there can never be a complaint that no one was home. Then they notify me that the package is ready for pickup. Check with UPS to see if they have a similar option.
In the past, I’ve had to drive to the distribution center (30 mile round trip) to get a router after 5 days of the non-delivery dance for an over-night delivery. So much for home delivery.
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Deborah said on April 12, 2023 at 12:50 pm
Julie, after I had the stress fracture in my heel bone it took ages it seemed before the pain went away, well after I was out of the boot. It did finally go away. I didn’t have swelling though.
I keep thinking about my experience yesterday and it’s made me realize that I was a bit traumatized by it. Not the funeral exactly but seeing my family and the people in the tiny rural towns that have been passed over. Their towns are dried up and blowing away and believe me they resent it. They are the ones who stayed either by choice or were unable to escape. It was depressing. Maybe they’re perfectly happy doing whatever it is that they do, but it didn’t feel like it. The grievance was palpable.
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Dorothy said on April 12, 2023 at 12:54 pm
No organization – UPS, FedEx, USPS – has delivery standards anymore, I swear to God. They leave those GD stickers on your front door and check the box saying “no one was home” without even ringing the f’ing doorbell or knocking. I know this because it’s happened to me three times this year alone. And when you confront them with this detail when you go to pick up the package, no one gives a flying f.
I guess I’m not too surprised, Dave, that you knew that man I referenced who died on Easter. So many of us who hang out here on this site live in Ohio. I never met the deceased. His son dated my son’s sister-in-law off and on. We really like him and wish they would get back together permanently. He’s a sweet guy. I’m very sad for him about his dad.
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Jeff Borden said on April 12, 2023 at 2:04 pm
FDChief,
You said it, brother. I am disgusted by conservative policies and politics, but I give them credit for never, ever stop trying. As you note, the bastards have been working to undo Social Security since before the ink on the deal wasn’t even dry. Same with Medicare and the ACA. If any legislation benefits people they don’t like, it’s always being targeted. If it helps the donor class, well, that’s a different story.
The courts will be a problem for decades to come –there probably should be term limits including SCOTUS– but young Americans really despise right-wing policies and they are going to keep howling.
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Dave said on April 12, 2023 at 2:20 pm
Dorothy, I’m trying to remember but I’m reasonably certain that his daughter worked for a time for the company that was contracted out to haul railroad crews from Point A to Point B to and from trains and terminals for a period of time and hauled me more than once. Of course, this is going back fifteen years or better now.
I’m thoroughly disgusted with the politics that party is playing throughout the country and their tactics scare and worry me, I just saw this story from Missouri and I’ve used tinyurl to shorten it, though I know that some of you folks don’t trust the shortened links: https://tinyurl.com/5xfc86tj
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Sherri said on April 12, 2023 at 6:07 pm
Okay, I got today’s Wordle in 5, but only because I couldn’t think of anything to put there, not because I thought that was a word. I thought it was a brand name.
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Deborah said on April 12, 2023 at 6:26 pm
Me too Sherri, LB and I thought the same thing, but she looked it up in her scrabble dictionary and it’s an allowable word there.
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Dorothy said on April 12, 2023 at 8:24 pm
I got three of the five letters in my first guess on Wordle today. Two of those three were in their correct places. So when I’m trying to figure out the word, frequently I put an X in a box to stand in for an unknown letter. So color me amazed when I plugged in X and another vowel today, and BOOM I had it in two guesses. I was blown away. I too thought it was a brand name.
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Suzanne said on April 12, 2023 at 9:18 pm
I got Wordle on the last try. I took a wild guess because I, too, thought the word was a brand name.
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diane said on April 12, 2023 at 9:52 pm
Wordle fail here. I did not get it in the allotted tries. I thought of it but also thought it was a brand name and so tried something else.
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Dexter Friend said on April 13, 2023 at 1:10 am
Boy , how I adore Xi Jinping, don’t you? Top notch, that fella. And Kim Jong-un, why, a fine decent man, love that guy. And Putin, why he’s right up there with the brilliance of those other great, great men…
This is basically what Donald John Trump said like 36 hours ago. This is the crooked liar who will head your ticket next year, Republicans…can I get a witness? witness witness.
My iPhone 14 is the shit, as the kids say. I love it. A perfect phone for this oldtimer to keep up with all my friends and mechanics. The old Ford 150 is nearly done, a manifold leak is being fixed, new tires, new gas tank, many other repairs and replacement parts installed.
I drive minivans, and I love them. I have had many VW models and , yeah, fond memories. I have had big boat Chrysler sedans “come into my Chrysler, it’s a big as a whale, and it’s about to set sail!” (B-52s) , and all the fun times are emblazoned in my…aw shucks, there I go again, as Sam Elliot says; my point: my motorcycles and all those cars are finished memories, but I still had to have another truck. Just had to do it.
The creepy neighbor who flies a drone every clear night and plays with remote controlled cars all the time too, just crashed his little car into my old dog van, the Chrysler T and C . He lost control of it and BAM! I yelled, but it did no apparent damage…what a weirdo, he’s gotta be 50 and he’s obsessed with toys.
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Dexter Friend said on April 13, 2023 at 1:26 am
Oh, I had my phone brought alive at the Kendallville, Indiana T-Mobile store. I drove right past this venue a few hours before the shit hit the fan: UPDATE: Police still working Drake Terrace scene, barricaded suspect with ‘high-powered’ rifle
By Steve Garbacz sgarbacz@kpcmedia.com 4 hrs ago 0
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FDChief said on April 13, 2023 at 9:56 am
Didn’t see it, but apparently the Russian state broadcasts are reporting Tubby’s “interview” as him saying he’ll surrender to Putin when he gets back in power.
No surprise. But it’s still kind of gobsmacking to watch American “conservatives” go Full Traitor in real time. Imagine the reaction if Bob Taft had gone on record as saying he’d hand over all of Europe to Stalin back in 1949. Much as they haaaaaated FDR Republicans in the Olde Days still recognized a foreign enemy when they saw one.
Now the nitwits are so terrified of a ladyman in a cocktail frock they prefer to lie down with the KGB’s made guy.
And somehow CNN and NBC and NPR can’t straight-out say that.
WASF.
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basset said on April 13, 2023 at 3:08 pm
Meanwhile, a discount tire store near us is advertising free Tesla oil changes. Clever.
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David C said on April 13, 2023 at 4:12 pm
Using only the purest pressed by virgins banana oil.
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Deborah said on April 13, 2023 at 4:55 pm
Finally getting some info on protests about the abortion pill bans. There will one in Chicago around noon Saturday, April 15, at Federal Plaza. Not many people have signed up so far. We will go and check it out. I’ll try to find a link for it and others around the country.
Edit: https://action.biggerthanroe.com/local?source=text_t_wm_oth_map_041323
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Sherri said on April 13, 2023 at 5:45 pm
I’m sure it’s totally okay that Clarence Thomas’s billionaire friend who’s totally not a Nazi-lover bought his mother’s house and remodeled it, and Thomas didn’t disclose it. Just something friends do for one another, and has no impact on Thomas’s jurisprudence.
Expand the Court! At least make it more costly to buy the Court!
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Brandon said on April 13, 2023 at 7:20 pm
An interesting article, “Should we restructure the Supreme Court?”
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Sherri said on April 13, 2023 at 7:59 pm
This WaPo article on the leaked classified documents is so frustrating. In the first paragraph, it describes the leaker as “young, charismatic gun enthusiast.” The second paragraph says the members of the Discord server where the documents were leaked were “united by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God.”
It’s not until the 15th paragraph that we get to the inevitable “racial and antisemitic slurs” that you knew had to be coming, right? And the leaker’s anti-government sentiments don’t show up until the 33rd paragraph.
How might this person have been described were he not a white Christian male?
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Deborah said on April 13, 2023 at 8:14 pm
I’m confused (again), is there a new Covid booster available? I can’t even remember how many I’ve had, I think 3 after the initial 2 doses of the Pfizer vax, last one in late September of 2022. I thought I read somewhere that a new one was coming out soon, that was a couple of weeks ago, it will only be available to people over 65 at first. Did I dream that? I googled it, but it’s so confusing on the CDC site.
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