As always, no matter how good you feel, you’re never going to feel that way forever. And so the entirely predictable fall event of a cold has descended upon my head, the reason for my enervating tiredness of late. I felt the first stirrings on a bike ride last Sunday, when every pedal revolution felt a little harder than it should have been. This was the day we got back from Stratford, so?
BLAME CANADA.
Although, it would seem, we are not blaming Canada for anything these days, but rather, celebrating their Parliament’s sergeant-at-arms for bringing down the terrorist who was bound and determined to shoot up the chamber on Wednesday. I assume he was wearing his ceremonial garb when he did it, prompting Josh Marshall to call him Lord High Badass of Canada, and I think that fits. If only he’d hit the guy with his ceremonial mace, too. Now that would retire the badass title for life.
So I’ve been laying low, taking care of myself, eating vegetables, but right now I’m thinking I’d like to do some damage on a pizza, just so I don’t have to cook. Alan’s off this week, and we’ve had our fill of family dinners, with and without Kate. She has a new job and is arriving home late for dinner the nights she works. The other night she texted and asked me to save her some chow. On a night when we had sausage, beans and kale? Not bloody likely. I think she made do with a PB&J, and counted her blessings.
So, is there bloggage? Oh yes there is.
Holy shit, is this ever excruciating: MarthaStewart.com advises you on how to throw a punk-rock party. Every paragraph is a groan-worthy gem, but I think this one takes the prize:
A full-on “nosh pit” is just what this punk party calls for. Offer a plate of Spinach Ricotta Skulls (a classically punk motif) alongside a bowl of Spinach, Bacon, and Onion Dip (for “noshing”). Lastly, mix a punch bowl of dark and delicious Spiced (and Spiked) Concord Grape Punch (sans vodka for the kids).
A nosh pit, get it? GET IT?
I have generally given up making fun of Mitch Albom here, but I took a second look at his Sunday column, a phoned-in argument against teen sexting, and realized his lede is so all-purpose it could serve for almost all of them. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
This will make me sound old, but I’m going to say it.
Really? I really think this is so perfect, we ought to just leave it at that.
For those of you worried about Coozledad, fear not! I spotted him in the comments over at Roy’s, and, y’know, he’s doing election work down in the Carolinas. He’ll be back.
So now I think I’m gonna take myself out for a gourmet grilled-cheese sandwich and tomato soup and wish you folks a good weekend. See you Monday, feeling better, I hope.
Basset said on October 23, 2014 at 6:38 pm
Most of what I say makes me sound old, at least at work. Meanwhile, some grilled cheese recipes, although I’d probably used a different adjective:
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/ubMGS
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Little Bird said on October 23, 2014 at 7:32 pm
I see grilled cheese sandwiches in my future, to go with the tomato soup Deborah and I made a few days ago (we froze the leftovers).
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Lois Marquart said on October 23, 2014 at 8:08 pm
You will not be breaking your isolation like a certain Fort Wayne native for your soup, will you?
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Jolene said on October 23, 2014 at 9:30 pm
Posted this in yesterday’s thread before I realized there was a new one. A follow-up to the UNC discussion.
The PBS NewsHour had a very good piece on the UNC scandal. Worth a few minutes of your time. Also, if you’re interested and didn’t click on it earlier, take a look at the story Sherri posted at #47, the details re the motivation of the woman most responsible for what happened there are compelling and sad. She was, to a great extent, responding to the way universities take advantage of underprepared student athletes.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/one-flag-uncs-bogus-classes/
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Jolene said on October 23, 2014 at 10:19 pm
Wow! I just flipped on MSNBC, and they are replaying a press conference re the new Ebola patient in NY. Present are Mayor DeBlasio, Governor Cuomo, Mary Bassett, who is Commissioner of the NYC Health Department, as well as several other NY public health and medical officials, with Tom Frieden, head of the CDC on the phone. Meanwhile, in West Africa . . . well, you know.
Fortunately, the patient is an American doctor who was working with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, so we should be spared, in this instance, further discussion of nefarious, disease-ridden foreigners.
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basset said on October 23, 2014 at 11:53 pm
Our local Fox outlet started their 9 pm news tonight with a LIVE! picture of a local hospital and a moving crawl about “Ebola symptoms”… by ten they had backed off to a simple flu case and “Ebola scare”… gotta make it “compelling,” gotta make it “must-watch tv,” gotta get those eyeballs.
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brian stouder said on October 24, 2014 at 8:47 am
I thought it was interesting that the newsies kept saying that the NY MSF doctor “had contact” with his girlfriend yesterday morning.
Must have heard that phrase from 6 different people (newsies and officials), and ‘the girlfriend’ is now said to be in quarantine.
A doctor, fresh back from a hot zone, doing heroic work nonetheless, and feeling a bit out-of-sorts, might possibly be expected to remember that “first, do no harm” thing.
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Sue said on October 24, 2014 at 11:42 am
The most horrifying part of the Martha Stewart punk party is the thought that kids will eat spinach ricotta anything. The rest, eh. It’s a ’50s party without the poodle skirts and elvis records.
It’s probably written by someone on Martha’s creative team who was once a punk rocker and eventually turned to the REAL dark side.
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Hattie said on October 24, 2014 at 12:37 pm
Gosh, I just hope it isn’t ebola. That could put a cramp in your Halloween plans!
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Judybusy said on October 24, 2014 at 1:12 pm
We have a Halloween tradition of getting together with the same group of friends to watch scary movies, and with some type of food theme. One year it was the insensitively named white trash food. This year, it’s food with a story. I’m excited for this year, because we’re hosting in the new gal cave. “Woman in Black” is the movie, and I don’t really know much about it except it’s a psychological thriller. There will be no nosh pit!
Grilled cheese on sourdough is my favorite. One of the local co-ops has a great bakery, and the sourdough is so good.
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Sue said on October 24, 2014 at 2:10 pm
“the patient is an American doctor who was working with Doctors Without Borders”
Here comes the benghazi-ization of Doctors Without Borders.
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brian stouder said on October 24, 2014 at 2:26 pm
Sue – I am heartily sick and tired of the blowhard flying-monkeys of the rightwing airwaves…and especially the people who mindlessly parrot the crap they’ve heard on talk radio (many of whom I work with, and therefore pick up their second-hand shit-smoke, wafting across the office) from people who don’t know one scintilla about…. anything. (And the really galling thing is, I used to be one of those know-it-all types, when I was a young guy and had hair)
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beb said on October 24, 2014 at 2:51 pm
Brian @7: horny people do incredibly stupid stuff, even doctors.
In a way we’re getting too much news and one result is that there’s terrible competition for eyeballs which means an ever increasing hysterical tone to any news that’s out there. I’m old enough to remember when Walter Cronkite got a mere 15 minutes for world news. That’s still all you need to cover the highlights of news.
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brian stouder said on October 24, 2014 at 3:03 pm
One stopper I have for ebolaphobes is: Do you know how many Americans died of the flu last year (and the year before that, and the one before that, etc)?
(about 3,000 – give or take)
Add pneumonia to the flu numbers, and you have 50,000+ dead Americans each year.
Ebola is just to convenient for xenophobes and racists to latch onto
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brian stouder said on October 24, 2014 at 3:04 pm
too
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Jolene said on October 24, 2014 at 3:08 pm
It could be worse, Brian. You could be in Congress. Just think who your colleagues would be then. I watched most of a Congressional hearing this AM, and, good grief, is it depressing to hear the people who make our laws speak.
To make things worse, one of the panelists–an MD who is a high-level official at HHS–was someone I knew slightly when I worked at RAND. She is so much smarter than most of those doofuses that I couldn’t but feel sympathy for her having to deal with them.
All this makes me incredibly sad. I mean, I am a big-government liberal. I want to live in a society that uses the power and resources of the state to make life better for people. We do a lot if that, but we could do more of it and do it much more easily if there weren’t a passel of boneheads getting in the way.
Worst of all are their attacks on NIH and the CDC. I see these two organizations as the crown jewels of the federal system. The CDC has taken a lot of hits because the two nurses in Texas got sick. But, really, there were dozens of people involved in Mr. Duncan’s care, and, so far at least, they are the only ones who’ve become ill. And who knows how careful they were about following the CDC guidelines? Not saying they were careless, but anyone can make a mistake.
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Jolene said on October 24, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Also, about 100,000 Americans die every year of hospital-acquired infections. It’s very hard to control what goes on in every room in every hospital across the country.
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brian stouder said on October 24, 2014 at 3:42 pm
..and the beat goes on –
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/24/us/washington-school-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Screaming (clickable) headline, which takes you to a live streaming feed – says it all (anymore) –
Student gunman at high school in Washington is dead, police say. Up to 5 people were shot, federal official says. Watch live now on CNNgo.
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Deborah said on October 24, 2014 at 4:01 pm
What is wrong with this world?
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David C. said on October 24, 2014 at 5:24 pm
Because it’s a world where there is more truth and sanity in an Onion headline (‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens) than in the entire hair on fire 24 hour media.
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Basset said on October 24, 2014 at 5:31 pm
Enough of this. Change topic. Nance, how’s the band going now that school/college/whatever has resumed for the fall?
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Deborah said on October 24, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Changing topic: we have skunk city again in our yard in the wee hours. We have tried Critter Ridder, Cayenne pepper and now again moth balls. Hopefully something will work. Anyone have any other ideas? We have raccoons too but they don’t bother us and I’ve heard that skunks don’t get along with them, but we’ve seen both out in the yard at the same time? Not happy with each other mind you, but still out there.
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David C. said on October 24, 2014 at 7:24 pm
I was told by our humane society that there isn’t a lot you can do to get rid of skunks short of trapping and removing them. If there is rotting wood around remove it because termites are their favorite food and make sure there is no place for them to den. Other than that, all you can do is wait.
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basset said on October 25, 2014 at 10:04 am
Also, if you have fruit trees in your yard don’t let the fallen fruit collect on the ground – neighbor had skunks in her back yard & cleaned up under her pear trees, haven’t seen em in awhile. Failing that, a 22 to the head is effective… quick kill before they spray.
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Danny said on October 25, 2014 at 12:29 pm
A work friend of mine has been trapping & relocating a lot of critters that have been digging holes his suburban San Diego yard. Probably about a dozen altogether and two skunks were in that mix. When he told me about the first one, I had to ask EXACTLY how THAT was done! He said it was a bit tricky because whenever he got within 30 feet of the captured skunk, the thing hissed.
So wearing old coveralls, a hooded windbreaker and protective goggles and hidden behind a raised sheet/tarp, he slowly approached the cage, slowly wrapped the sheet around the cage and ever so carefully, loaded it into his vehicle and drove it out to a golf course to release it. Of course, releasing it was everything in reverse, with the added wrinkle that he had to at first partially lift the sheet to OPEN the cage door and then continue to lift the sheet and back away hiding behind it very slowly. The thing that makes this even more hilarious is that he does this at like 4 AM in the frikkin’ morning.
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Little Bird said on October 25, 2014 at 1:13 pm
I hope that golf course was at least ten miles away, else the stinker could actually come back! I hope the golfers enjoyed the critter!
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Jolene said on October 25, 2014 at 4:05 pm
Here’s something fun: an interview about his reading habits with Atul a Gawande, the doctor who’s written all the interesting pieces about medicine and healthcare for The New Yorker. Many of the books he mentions are familiar (and overlap with the tastes of at least some nn.c’ers), but there were quite a few that were new to me too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/books/review/atul-gawande-by-the-book.html?_r=0
Gawande has a new book out, by the way, called Being Mortal. Has gotten lots of positive reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414267437&sr=1-1&keywords=atul+gawande
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brian stouder said on October 25, 2014 at 4:22 pm
Jolene – that was a great article you linked to. Thanks for sharing it
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Deborah said on October 25, 2014 at 8:26 pm
We went out to Abiquiu today to get things ready for the foundation concrete pour on Monday. Because we got back later in the afternoon/evening we stopped a Trader Joe’s and got their frozen Mac and Cheese but mixed it with a couple of spoonfuls of Hatch chili salsa in the microwave. I don’t know if you can get that everywhere but oh my gosh, if you can find it at your local Trader Joe’s get it and quick, I think it’s a seasonal thing but holy cow is it good. It’s official name is Trader Joe’s Hatch Valley Salsa. Yum.
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Dexter said on October 26, 2014 at 12:55 am
Hello…after 22 hours I have successfully had a new OS installed on my Dell desktop. It was done via phone support with the good peeps of Mumbai or New Delhi or some damn whar. You’d think you could PayPal them a hundred and a half, have them send a link…done! HA! It took a whole day because the tech that finalizes the installation made me wait six hours before he called me. I pity the poor person who has never gone through this process because they really make you move quickly and when you don’t understand them exactly, they sometimes get just a LITTLE bit “short” with you. Like, it took me twenty seconds to sort out my install-discs before I found the right one…the lady got very impatient…and when they call back? You had better have you ass in the desk chair ready to start clicking. They do not tolerate small talk at ALL. I hate doing it but it’s still better than lugging the damn tower to some shop only to have the teenager there tell you “Duh…yer motherboard is fried, man.” (It happened to me)
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beb said on October 26, 2014 at 11:41 am
Speaking of skunks, My dad had trouble for a long time with ground hogs. Animal Control would trap them in the city and release them a couple miles out in the country, said release point about a mile from Dad’s place. He would sometimes take potshots at them with a rifle. (ah, the groundhogs not the animal control officers) but mostly he used a small live trap and an old horse trough. He caught a couple skunks (see I got back to it) that way. Apparently skunks can’t spray if they can’t raise their tails and there’s no enough height in the traps to do that. So Dad was safe while he dumped them in the horse trough.
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Deborah said on October 26, 2014 at 11:52 am
We had a couple of the skunks trapped last year, they used those low small traps so once in the skunk can’t raise its tail. But it cost $75 a pop so we quit that after the second one. We realized we had no idea how many there were. Our landlady said she’d be willing to trap them herself and have one of the neighbors drive the trapped skunk out to the country in the back of his truck. But we thought that the release of the skunk in the wild would be problematic, because probably the first thing it would do upon leaving the trap would be to lift its tail and spray and there would be no guarantee that the one releasing would be far enough away.
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basset said on October 26, 2014 at 3:55 pm
Seems like shooting them would be more humane than drowning, at least if you made good shots.
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Deborah said on October 26, 2014 at 6:26 pm
Basset, I would not be capable of shooting a skunk. Not because I wouldn’t want to kill them, they’re pests that I want out of my life. But I have never handled a gun before and one would have to be darn good shot to get it in the head before it had a chance to spray. Unfortunately they are cute as the dickens, they just stink up the place something terrible. Our upstairs neighbor has a handgun and is a good shot but I’m pretty sure it’s against the law to discharge a gun in a residential area like this to kill wildlife. Last year there were multiple bear sightings in highly urban areas (well urban for Santa Fe, not like Chicago by any means). They tranquillized the bears and carted them out to the wilds. There were something like 13 bears spotted in a 9 day period. I haven’t heard of any this year.
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basset said on October 26, 2014 at 10:37 pm
I would feel bad about it but if it had to be done… probably kinder than drowning them. Probably is against the law to shoot in your residential area, though.
Bears in urban areas… often when that happens food is scarce out in their normal range, easier to get in town, or both. In the tourist areas of east Tennessee it’s not unusual to see them dumpster diving.
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BigHank53 said on October 27, 2014 at 4:28 pm
A nosh pit? Punk may be dead but I’ll be damned if I’ll stand around eating dip out if its skull. You already won, Martha: no need to ritually humiliate the losers.
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