Offsite Comments

I hope y'all are ready for Mother's Day tomorrow.

Yup. Flowers a-ready. Supper plans made (dining in, not going out with the masses).

Glad to still have my mom around at 95 (her, that is, not me), still on her (sometimes wobbly) pins, and clear-headed. Gets a little tired after her workout at the gym sometimes...! (Pulls up abacus... calculates...) She's been a mom since 1943!

Going down to visit here with Milady, mother of our three. A wonderful and devoted (if *ahem!* not always sufficiently respected) mom since 1981.

Special mention for my daughter, whose baby, years ago, only made it a few months in the womb, but we consider her qualified as a Mom, too. In the hardest way.

Earlier today we took flowers to our neighbor, a wonderful woman who earlier this year lost the eldest of her three offspring.

Happies and hugs to all moms. They do all the work.

We've had so many pets here at the farm in the past 20 years, it's hard to keep track of 'em, much less remember which I've written about for the pet thread.

But I know I haven't told the story of the Original 7. Forgive the tl;dr, but it's seven cats' tails, after all.

♥

By twists of fate, our family started in Chicago. We never had pets in the city. Should've at least had a cat, I think now, but we had an apartment - I just couldn't see having a pet without the freedom of a big yard. Kids asked for a dog, but I knew who would've been out walking that dog in knee-deep blizzard, picking up poop in a baggie, and it wouldn't've been them.

Finally, though, Fate smiled upon us and we moved to rural Oklahoma - moved back, for Milady and me, moved from their home town for the kidlets.

♥

One year and a few days after we moved back, suddenly: kittens. We had two mama barn cats that had litters days apart, one litter of four cats, one of three. We ended up keeping all seven, the beginning of our Too Many Cats days.

The trio was: a wonderful gray-brindle male the kids named Zeus; his similarly-stripey but almost greenish-seeming sister, Aquata; and the runt of the litter, a stripey orange girl that the kids' cousin got to name - Tigger. (By these names you can tell the difference between our kids' home-schooling in classics and the public-schooled cousin.)

The quartet was: a mostly-black calico, Athena; a medium-mixed calico, Patches; a mostly-white calico, Diana; and a gentle yellow cat our daughter especially claimed, and named Caramel.

♥

Diana, when still mostly a kitten, got her neck broken jumping into a slamming car door. That was the first time I held a creature in my arms and watched as the light went out in its eyes.

One son had a special attachment to that white kitten who his brother accidentally slammed the car door on, and, later on, was especially fond of the all-white kitten of the triplets, I wrote about last week,* that his sister accidentally stepped on and killed. Heartbroke twice, that poor boy, and while he never talked about it, probably found it a bit hard to forgive his siblings, even knowing accidents happen.

* http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=363043#c25196465

♥

Aquata was the next to go, when still pretty young, like a teenager. I vividly remember driving up to the house, and Milady meeting me, her face a look of horror, crying, "I think Aquata is dying!" We rushed to the back, in time to see her take her last few, coughing breaths, and she expired. She was such a great cat - when you held her, she hugged you like a monkey.

♥

Tigger got the nickname of The Singing Kitty after chomping on some garlic (we think) and meyowling for quite a while. Longest-lived of all of the Original 7, finally just expired one day.

♥

Caramel disappeared for weeks, and came back with a broken leg - I wrote about her on an open thread back in December.* Actually got her leg fixed!
*http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=360438#c24513165

♥

IIRC, Zeus, Athena, Patches, and Caramel all just disappeared during some of the rough days for our family - maybe because we weren't at home as much for them, maybe because we didn't yet have a free-roaming dog to ward off the predators. Anyway, lots of sadness about all that.

They're all so long gone now that the generation of cats we had after them is all gone now. Miss each one of them so much. But I'll always treasure the days when our life in the country was new, the kids were young, and we had our seven kitties.

Yay! Pet thread!

I've got a long story about our first cats, but I'll wait a bit to post it - because, long.

Tucker has a great "who, me?" look. What was that torn up? Looks like, maybe, a pound of butter?

The only time our cats get into the kitchen trash is to pull out a butter wrapper. Oh, yeah, or the wrapper from bacon. We have to be careful not to leave the trash can undumped after cooking bacon!

(And of course, as usual, after posting that comment, I find your email address. Some variant of Murphy's Law there or something.)

Double doses of d'aawww in this one, bob.

Y'know, I thought I had an email address for you, but I can't find it, so I'll pass along this "face" link to you here, for your next pareidolia collection.

And again I'll mention that while I rarely leave a comment about it, I frequently link to your pages on my blog heap o'links - including today's.

Margarita DeVille #37: ...Mnuchin... Is anyone familiar with this name --- enough to know how to pronounce it?

"Munchkin"

For those missing RDB's landscape art (or art at all, in this post's case), here's last night's pretty pix post from BlazingCatFur:
http://bit.ly/1Twzyqe

bluebell #251: Vic, if you're still moving couches for your MIL, I don't think you're as old as you pretend to be.

Much less as old as the Horde pretends him to be.

Bluebell's comment got me wondering about an arm-wrestling competition between Vic and irongrampa. My money's on... the table breaking first.

All Hail Eris #208: Heck, the first episode of Lost in Space was semi-serious. I didn't believe it until somebody made me watch it, and it wasn't the robo-sexual campfest of the later seasons....

I remember watching the first episode, and thinking, wow, there's hope for good SF on TV, even with the modified Forbidden Planet robot! Then it degenerated into silly camp... in the 2nd episode!

I was so disappointed that, when TV Guide talked about this upcoming show called Star Trek and said it would be like Lost in Space, I failed to catch much of the first year of Trek.

Curse you, TV Guide. Curse you, too, poofty Dr. Zachary Smith!

Nevergiveup: What? Did I kill the thread?

Naw. Just temporarily made it unconscious/comatose.

Me, I was off writing up a TV Memories tl;dr.

Third-season Man From UNCLE...

I don't remember the sequence/timing of deterioration, but I remember it getting funkier. The gadgets and campiness were supposed to be adjunct to a real spy drama, but took center stage. (At least this gave us Kirby's Agents of SHIELD comics.)

Batman was best in its first season (again IIRC) - they had the campy biff bam pow stuff, but tried to be semi-serious (1950s comicbook) Batman. By 2nd season the biff bam pow that made it famous affected the show so it degenerated into insipid self-parody. (Ruined the early attempt to make a serious Batman in the comics, too.)

But this wasn't just a 1960s thing. Go back to the George Reeves Superman series, and there, too, you'll find the first season was semi-serious stories, Supes v gangsters, like the radio show. Then it degenerated into "Lois suspects Clark is Superman" and "Clark winking at the fourth wall" silliness.

Ah, but then, there's the Monkees, which started off as mere Beatles movie mimickry (the pre-fab four). Then the boys started insisting on doing their own songs but I don't think I watched the middle-period shows. Finally, by the final season when they realized they were being canceled, they went truly acid trip, culminating in the surreal Head movie.

I think as far as series' changing tone, the Monkees wins.

All of this IIRC from long-ago original viewing. YMMV and WTF apply.

(Washes hands to get the nostalgia stench off)

Stringer Davis: ...fake shirt-fronts for formal wear were also called a dickie...

Best thing about those was how they'd pop out and roll up in various cartoons and maybe some Three Stooges-level comedies.

Seamus Muldoon #160: ...Mis Hum inadvertently prepended part of the AOSHQ address in front of the link URL....

Actually, this time (checking source code), MisHum left "http://w" off of the link. Yes, starts with "ww."

When a link doesn't start off with an http or the like, pixyware assumes it's a local ref and prepends the AoSHQ part.

MisHum is, at least, creative in finding ways to munge the links.

Mmmmmmorning, Glories!

Another perfect Spring day here in NE Okla. Blue-sky, sunshiney, birds chirping, light breeze, gradually warming.

If only this was all there was to life.

☟

FenelonSpoke back at #11: Bowl of soup and a cocktail link not working.

MisHum always munges one link, at least, just to test whether anyone's actually clicking.

Just wanted to say... speaking as a parent of adult children... still waiting for grandchildren to spoil...

O God, you have taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared your wondrous works. Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shown your strength unto this generation, and your power to every one that is to come.

* falls asleep at the desk *

Tilikum #424: Attention, attention, the AoSHQ bathrooms are now closed....

Wait! There are bathrooms?

And all this time, I've been using the hole in the floor down near the end of the bar. Wish someone would tell me about these things. How embarrassing. Good thing I'm built as a Guy. The 'ettes' hole... behind the pinball machines, so I hear... is just a mess. So I hear.

Finally caught up, fourth-100 comments comment:

!

Nothing. Obviously, all the interesting comments get made in the first three hundred. Or all my responses.

?

Or maybe I got distracted looking at KBDaBear's links...

!!!

Wait! Wait! Last-minute entry:

Heather and the Healthineers #399:
I'd like to teach the world to eat Organic hominy...

That was good, H!

Almost caught up, third-100 comments comment:

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bebe's boobs destroy #242: ...15 stitches. I'm parked on Gushie's sofa cause I can't maneuver the bandages myself. I'm moving really really slowly so nothing tears.

Prayers for swift and utter healing.

I said utter.

1⅞

jake #238: ...Saw on OReilly that they ran out of ammo, all of them...

Milady was telling me she heard from the radio that the SEAL who was killed... was unarmed! Perhaps they only meant out of ammo. IAC, Damn!

₪

Richard McEnroe #272: took in an old grey abandoned cat yesterday... grateful as hell to be back in a horse.

Outside of a horse, a book is a ... wait, what? (In-joke for Book Threadies.)

Getting caught up, second-100 comments comment, and I still haven't caught up to my own 1st of the evening:

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Margarita DeVille #116: Brody Jenner, son of Brucilla, is engaged to a chick named Kaitlyn....

It could work... if they both take her last name.

!

sven10077 #148: ...DoJ no longer refers to people as "convicts" or "felons" b/c "feelings"...

Those of the incarcerated persuasion.

♞

@votermom #180: HEY EVERYONE, BC NEEDS A GROUP HUG!

Um... I don't even do non-group hugs. At least BC should take me to dinner first.

Getting caught up, first 100 comments comment:

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cthulhu #59: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu ONT wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?

ж

antisocialist #74: ...if we refer to our new "transgender transitioning from male to female" employee as "he" instead of "she", even by accident, we will be written up and/or otherwise disciplined...

What about "it"?

?

Jane D'oh #76: ...it's become a regular thing to see nice, older dogs and cats put up...

Sorta related - I figure we got our dog because he was a Christmas gift and then about when he quit being a Cute Puppie, they threw him out on the road. Heard that happened a lot with Dalmatians after that last 101 D's movie.