Oh, no. I haven’t written anything today. Or yesterday. I am sorry. But I was cooking for, and wrapping for, the birthday twins’ celebration, which was yesterday. We had dinner, cake, gifts, the first half of the Lions game. I didn’t sleep well, and today I’ve been dragging ass, as they say. But it was a good party.

The individual gifts aren’t as important as my one brainstorm for a family gift that all three of us November babies can enjoy (along with three friends): A two-hour cruise on the J.W. Wescott, i.e., the mail boat that services freight vessels on the Detroit River. It advertises itself as the only floating zip code in the country (48222), based on when it would deliver mail to ships on the Great Lakes for weeks at a time. Now that letters from home aren’t so important, they do package and food deliveries — yes, you can order a pizza or a shwarma to be delivered to, say, the MV Paul R. Tregurtha as it passes through town — as well as pilot changes, which is what I’d really like to see. They pull up next to a ship under way, match their speed, and send the new pilot up a rope ladder, and take on the guy coming off duty.

I think that’s also how they’d deliver a pizza, only with a basket or some sort of conveyance, now that I think about it.

It all sounds exciting, different, fun and very Detroit. I can’t wait. Now to herd all our cats aboard.

The Wescott website talks about how they got their start, ferrying letters to ships in a bucket tied to a rope, and it reminded me of the Columbus Dispatch bucket, the fifth-floor bucket the staff would drop to photographers coming back from breaking news, on deadline. They’d deposit their exposed film in the bucket, and by the time they got parked and back into the building, the film was being processed. Was it ever used by a particular photographer to purchase weed from his dealer down on the sidewalk? I’ll never tell.

(Yes.)

So that’s why I’m so tired and not particularly productive today. But tomorrow is another one, and it won’t involve cake and two bottles of wine. So let’s see how it goes.

How many of you have young-adult children? And how many of them are at least as disgusted with the Democrats than the GOP? Are they even, perhaps, more disgusted, because at least the GOP says it’s the enemy of things that are important to them, while the Dems pretend to be on their side? And refuse to leave their elected positions until, like, oh, Eleanor Holmes Norton, they have to be forced or shamed out due to their physical and mental deterioration? (Note: This hasn’t happened yet, in Norton’s case. She plans to run again.)

How is the Surrender Caucus going over with those young people?

This combination photo of eight senators who are facing criticism from the Democratic party for their deal to end the government shutdown shows Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., top row from left, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and bottom row from left, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. (AP Photo)

Fucking Dick Durbin in particular:

Whoa — Sen. Durbin went to up Leader Thune during the vote last night to tell him that on the shutdown vote and ACA promise that "8 of us are sticking our neck out that you're going to keep your word. I hope you will. He said 'I assure you I will,'" Durbin says just now

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev.bsky.social) November 10, 2025 at 12:59 PM

We had one week — not even! — to savor our victory before the Neville Chamberlain Caucus ripped it away.

When people tell you that the GOP is unpopular, but the Democrats are even more so, this is why. The scoundrels.

So: With that mood established, I made the mistake of reading comments on a story about a local billionaire’s divorce. Thirty-year marriage, five children, which included one son who died young of an incurable disease (neurofibromatosis). They were together when they were young, and they split up when they were rich. See if you can guess what at least some of the online reaction was?

But of course. She’s a ho’.

Can you tell it’s been cold the last two days? Bitter wind, all of it? Yep. Let’s hope the back half of the week is more promising.

The plan for Saturday evening was fairly straightforward: To head to the Dakota Inn Rathskeller, another beloved Detroit business absorbed by my friend Paddy Lynch so that it may continue. (His previous purchases: The Schvitz and Dutch Girl Donuts.) But! It was also the 250th birthday celebration for the U.S. Marine Corps, and if you’re wondering how the Marines are older than the country itself, well, so was I, but I read up on it.

The birthday is actually celebrated Monday, November 10, but the 8th was a Saturday. It’s also observed with a cake-cutting and various associated rituals, and a German restaurant on a Saturday night with a resident piano player seemed like as good a place as any.

The bad news: The place was a madhouse, packed to the rafters with German-food enthusiasts, and a 1.5-hour wait for a table. We decided to go to the basement Rathskeller to wait for the cake and singing. Which came around 7:30, with a long windup about Tradition, but not so much that it killed the vibe. The cake is traditionally cut with a Maltese Mameluke sword, but we’ll use this knife, etc.

And the cake was cut, with the traditional order of serving: First slice to the guest of honor, who was the guy whose family owned the restaurant for two generations before selling it to Paddy. Second slice to the oldest Marine present, i.e., this guy, who fought at Guadalcanal:

Third slice to the youngest Marine, who was very strapping. And then we all sang the Marine Hymn, which contains my favorite passage in a military song, the dis at the very end:

If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven’s scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.

And then the friend I went with started feeling ill, so I took her home and met our third for tapas at a quiet Spanish place.

Happy birthday, Marines, including our own Jeff Gill. Glad the pugil sticks didn’t leave you with brain damage.

The rest of the weekend? Shopping errands work workout until Sunday afternoon, when I swam 2,000 yards, came home and ate ravenously, then dozed and read the afternoon away. In other words, a pretty good one.

Hope yours was, too.

In other news at this hour, the GOP is still trash. This is a direct response to the SNAP crisis. I checked.

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy has, shall we say, fallen in esteem in recent years, but that’s what happens when your feel-good, rah-rah, only-happy-news nonprofit has $40 million embezzled from it by its own CFO. Nevertheless, the conservancy was able to complete the last part, for now. That’s the Ralph C. Wilson Jr, Centennial Park, at the west end of the Riverwalk, just east of the Ambassador Bridge.

This weekend was the park’s grand opening, and the weather was cool but sunny. Seemed a good day to combine a little exercise with a little exploring. We parked near Belle Isle and rode the bikes four miles down to the new spot.

Bottom line: It’s a very nice park, particularly the children’s play area, which has some wonderful slides and climbing structures. There’s a bear.

And a beaver.

Pretty sure this is an otter.

All species native to Michigan, so points for that. The footing underneath the structures kids would be likely to fall near or from was soft and springy, and I hope it can survive a few winters. Wilson was a wealthy man, of course, and owned the Buffalo Bills, so the foundation his estate formed is spending his money on projects with a physical-fitness and outdoor recreation component. However, there are/were other zillionaires in town, including the Davidson family, who owned the Pistons. Their contribution is an open-air — but protected — pair of basketball courts.

There was also a food-truck row, and one of them was run by a barbecue dude with an array of trophies on display. What do you put on top of a barbecue trophy? There’s the obvious:

And in place of a golden athlete, this:

The angle’s not great on that one. It’s a rack of ribs.

I tried to avoid the news this weekend. It helped. But now we go on to the next one, which feels like climbing back into a demolition derby car. Let’s see what will be revealed.

Hi there. Sorry the comments on the previous post were closed. I posted that on my re-downloaded WordPess mobile app, thinking it might make posting on the fly easier. Didn’t realize it defaulted to closed comments; I just thought you guys were not into it yesterday. I need to find that setting and fix it.

How’d your No Kings rally go? Detroit’s went swimmingly, but as this is the third one, I’m no longer surprised by that. The first one, in…April? Yes, April 5. That one was a revelation, seeing thousands of people coming out to say, essentially, We Can’t Believe This Shit, And We Object. That was a moving march up and down Woodward, no speakers, just fellowship. The second, in June, was held at Clark Park, and was stationary; we came, held up signs, but didn’t listen to the speakers. (I kept hoping they’d put on a rousing playlist, but no.) This one, at Roosevelt Park under the newly renovated Michigan Central Station, was also a speaker-forward event. We walked around, took some pictures of the best signs, stayed a decent interval and left to enjoy a couple beers in the warm October sunshine.

The important thing is to show up. Be one of the millions who are not OK with what’s going on. There won’t be a quiz on the speakers’ remarks.

One guy was yelling about Palestine, with a sign that accused Biden, Harris and Trump of complicity in genocide. I pegged him as yet another Arab-American Jill Stein voter. It was a nice day, so I didn’t want to ask how the new regime was working out for his countrymen and women in Gaza. (As of Sunday? Not well.)

But it was the Grosse Pointe demonstration that was truly heartening. Officially it was for the Pointes, Harper Woods and the east side of Detroit, but it was really robust — a couple blocks of people covering the sidewalks at a busy corner, shaking signs. I didn’t stop because I was en route to Detroit, but honked the whole length of the demonstration. It was a long honk.

So we head into the cool months — I have to assume this will be the last one until spring — knowing we’re not alone, that millions are as horrified and distraught and angry as we are.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t seen this, you should see this:

This is what you-know-who posted early Sunday morning, after the No Kings protests had largely wrapped. I know none of these know-nothings care what the rest of the world thinks about us, but I do, and so should you. This is not just literally disgusting, it’s horrifying in what it says about the man who posted it. I wear my Is He Dead Yet? T-shirt with pride, but also dread.

This, by the way, is what the vice president posted yesterday:

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— JD Vance (@jd-vance-1.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 3:32 PM

I guess he really is the worst stereotype of the American hillbilly: Mean, parochial, clannish, violent.

But let’s not dwell on the bad news as the week starts, OK? Seven million of us showed up yesterday. That’s something. Have a good one. Here’s a cute dog to cleanse your palate:

Still thinking about the other side. See you at the demonstration, brothers and sisters.

It’s color season.

Hi, everyone. In the interest of posting three blogs a week, here’s a shortie. I wanted to share the wonderful photos Dorothy sent of the NN.c meetup in Arizona between her, Scout and Mike, aka Mr. Dorothy:

It looks like a wonderful time was had by all. Today, spider balls were on special at the market. I believe you civilians would call them osage oranges.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever it entails.

Coxcomb bouquets are another sign that fall is here.

Fresh thread for those who want to discuss the firehose of news this week.