Monday

Something really weird happened Sunday night. OKay, other that that, I woke up cold

Its been eighty degrees outside! I stopped turning on the electric blanket and I had taken off the heaviest of the winter blankets and sent them to the foot of the bed for a time out, and I had been thinking of sending them away for the season. And then I woke up cold! I couldn't even grab the dog because he was curled up in a dog ball and there was no warmth to borrow. The blankets were buried under decorative pillows and were unreachable.

SO I went to sleep very late, I woke up cold and I could do nothing about it and it got morning much sooner than it should have.

To make up for the very late night. I slept very late Sunday. I woke up with tiny kitty stretched out on my legs and Ace kitty laying on my chest grooming my nose. I guess the Ace I have a very sloppy  nose that needed some very aggressive grooming. I now have a red mark that silently testifies to my how badly I needed grooming and Aces hard work to bringing my nose back into line. He is very lucky that he just missed the space where my glasses rest because otherwise I would be very uncomfortable until it healed up and I think it will be a while because that nose really needed to to be brought into line.

Oscar Results 2017

Best Supporting Actor Male ( 8:49) Mahershala Ali - Moonlight
Best Make Up/Hair Styling - (8:58) Suicide Squad
Best Costume Design - (9:01) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Best Documentary - (9:12)OJ Made in America
Best Sound Editing - (9:28) Arrival
Best Sound Mixing- (9:30) Hacksaw Ridge
Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Viola Davis , Fences
Best Foreign Film -  Iran (10:00) The Salesman , Directer not attending due to protesting travel ban.
Best Animated Short Film - Piper
Best Animated Feature Film -Zootopia
Best Production Design - La La Land
Best Visual Effects - The Jungle Book
Best Achievement in Film Editing - Hacksaw Ridge
Best Documentary Short Film - The White Helmets
Best Live Action Short Film - Sing
Best Cinematography - La La Land
Best Original Score - La La Land
Best Original Song - La La Land
Best Screenplay - Manchester By The Sea
Best Adapted Screenplay - Moonlight
Best Director - 32 years old.  La La Land
Best Actor - Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Best Actress - Emma Stone , La La Land
Best Picture - La La Land     NO IT DOESN'T!!  After I closed up shop and went to bed very late at night and hours passed my bed time, it was announced there was a MISTAKE,  The BEST PICTURE went to Moonlight

Friday Cats Blogging

Friday

Did you know that we are looking down Ash Wednesday?  I just cleared out the last of the Christmas stuff and now Lent.

In honor of all this, I bought some seafood to have in the freezer. I bought a nice seafood medley stir fry that says that it goes great with either rice or spaghetti and I would guess that it would also make the leap to going well with riced cauliflower or spaghetti squash. It is going to have to because it is not going to have the opportunity to go with real rice or real spaghetti , its going to have to make do with ersatz carbs.

Thanks to Cheeto  and his leaky, leaky admin  and the wonders of Twitter I know what the Deep State is, and that we do not have one, really, and I know what IC means. and I know a passing bit about Cheetos Russian business dealings and the Russian mobsters he's tied up with. The Presidency isn't a reward from these people, it's a punishment.

Wednesday

Having so much fun. I went to the doctor and the office tried to grossly overcharge me and I told them to fuck themselves. They tried to be sneaky and do it electronically on their fancy new tablets and they thought they would get it by me by being all electronic and tablet-y. I'm not one of their geriatric patients, I'm not that easily fooled.

 They tried to charge me for a specialist visit, I just saw this guy two weeks ago and it was a regular visit charge, so this week should also be a regular visit charge, if I was off on a field trip see a specialist I would be fine - however, this was an office visit to my same old doctors office to one of their docs. No specialist visit charge for me.

You have to keep and eye on these people.

As it turned out, they could have charged me rent for as long as I sat in their waiting room. They called every single person in there before they called me. They called one woman who came in after me who had only just walked in! She was put out by it. Not as put out as I was, but she managed.

I go back in a month. In the meantime, I keep doing my exercises and I am duty bound to let the office know if there are any changes. I think I have arthritis and a pinched nerve , but I'll keep doing the exercises if they make the doctor feel better,

I didn't end up going to my Town Hall meeting. I realized while I was downtown walking the dog that it was 5:30 and the meeting was supposed to get under way at 6pm somewhere in Cary and I was not going to make it. I understand that Sen. Tillis was not going to make it either. I like a good evening of Theatre as much as the next guy too, but  watching people yelling at an empty chair for a couple of hours no matter how cathartic is loud. Hopefully they will stage the next one closer to me. Maybe tomorrow I will call and leave a nice angry message on his answering machine, maybe all his answering machines.

Tuesday

While I was in the parking lot at Sam's I had a great idea for ane entry. But now I can't  remember what that idea was. It was great though I remember it was funny. It was either in the Sam's parking lot or last night in the Target parking lot. I spend a lot of time in parking lots having great thoughts.

Another thought I am having,  I am still thinking about getting a baby bornesque thing for Tiny so I can take him to work.

Rocket a good day today. I had a very dull staff meeting after work so he got to spend the day at daycare for the first time since before Christmas, he was very happy to be back. I  would like to take him there more frequently but its not convenient to most of my life and since they have moved further away they have gotten more expensive and over time, Rocket has just gotten better at being by himself and I have taken advantage of that.

But. He really likes it there and it really tires him out very effectively for like a good two days after he goes and that is super awesome for his behaviors . It also helps him be a better community dog and that is a huge benefit.

They do give him a lot of snacks during the day and that does give him the trots, but I think when they give him the treats they are doing some form of training or other - for example. he can now  catch treats in his mouth -  and I can't really complain about that too much. I might try to take him there on Saturdays while we are going to Agility class on Sundays. I think that even if he is only there for a few hours, it will really help tamp down some of his "enthusiasm"  and maybe help him be a little more focused on the class work.

Monday

Don't you wonder what Milo really did? That interview was on the web for a long time and was well known, he was a well known sleaze bag and famous, race baiting, misogynistic,  bigoted,  big old self hating homosexual. But then he has to go fulfil all the rightwing tropes about homosexuals and pedos.

 People knew about him for a long time and just now the right wing decided he was just too skeezy to hang around with? His publisher knew he was a scum bag and now they don't want the scum money he brings in? He and his merry band of scum bags were hateful to SNL's Leslie Jones last year when she was in Ghostbusters because she had the nerve to be both black and female.

She was more and able to defend herself because she is very smart and very funny and mean as hell and pushed, and also black and female and badass. She posted on Twitter that she done with him last year after she blocked him on Twitter and had him banned from the platform,  ( after he and his army of trolls mercilessly tormented her for months) but I bet she is a little bit pleased to see him publically taken down.

What did he do and who did he do it to? It can't be just that they grew some taste or that they decided that he was just too much of a racist for them  - President Bannen is allowed to stay in place and they don't get rid of him in a huge flaming ball of outrage. Well, we should be happy that Milo is gone. One down, uncountable millions to go. Question now is, where in the Admin will Cheeto put him?

Weekend

This was the first weekend in what seems like a very long time that I didn't march . It feels odd. Instead I did laundry - some but not all, I got bored of it. I did get the dishes done and that feels good. It makes the kitchen look larger when the sink isn't full of dishes.

I also went on a search and destroy mission for dog bombs in the back yard. Democracy's loss was my households gain.

Sunday, Rocket and I attended his first Urban Agility class. We went up and down and all around the History Museum, it was fun but nothing we haven't before. Many times.  The instructor said he was "very enthusiastic".  The first class was just walking along planter boxes of various and ramps and the occasional odd surface. Rocket has never met a surface he finds odd and heights aren't a problem.

He did very well, I mean, of course he did. We've been there countless times. He isn't at is best in groups and he was a little bit wild.  A little bit. He was rotten and I wish he could have behaved better. He was bored! He wasn't even a little challenged! The biggest challenge was not crawling up the tail of the dog in front of him! and then leaping over the instructor's dog. Both lovely, but slow moving and short of leg.

Its going to take practice to not jump over these other dogs, we're going to need to work on his rusty obedience skills over his agility skills I think. I do not like his halter, he doesn't even notice that it is there .

Fridays Cats Blogging

He can't even. If he wanted his picture taken he would have taken his own damn picture.

Crazy

I tried to watch the now infamous press conference. It made me dizzy, just reading excerpts were very troubling . I talk to crazy people on the phone, confused, crazy people who have been routed to the wrong place and are unhappy about being dumped with me and he sounds like them! No one wants to deal with them and they don't want to deal with the crazy people, because crazy people are royal pains in the ass, they are needy and whiney and completely self involved. And crazy people complain about EVERYTHING. There is very little in their lives that do not cause them some sort of irritation. And damn it, they know their rights! and they know for a fact that you are trampling on them and them. You don't know your rights because you don't have to.

Cheeto is annoyed by everything and everyone is cheating him and his rights are constantly being infringed upon. He is every crazy person I have ever gotten stuck on the phone with. And the entire world and everything in it is all about him. He gets on a topic, say, his electoral college points or whatever and he just can't not talk about it all the time, he'll go back to that no matter what he's supposed to be talking about. He can't help himself. He's too crazy! He needs to be  darted and netted and put inside and his meds figured out.

He is what crazy people sound like. If you ever wondered what crazy people sound like, he is what crazy people sound like.

Explained

So many things! So much ! Why is he so wrong!? So soon?

The Obama admin went 416 weeks. Eight full years without a single scandal.  Cheeto was sworn in less than a month ago and Vox had to post this: Trumps Three Russia scandals explained    I like Vox despite its reputation for man-splany-ness . Sometimes I need stuff explained and I don't care who explains it to me.

Go and read the Vox article and be scared and then read it again and be angry. And then call both your Senators and your representative and demand that they investigate anyone and everyone in the Cheeto administration. It doesn't matter that they are the newest frosh in the senate or an undermember of an unimportant nothing. They have to know that you are angry and that you went through the hassle of finding their number and then calling and talking to whoever answers the phone. It counts, you count and you have to let them know that you are going to set them on fire if they don't act on this.

 They already have nightmares about you and me and 35,000 of our friends wandering around in the street in front of their office this and every weekend until something changes. I don't have anything better to do, its my duty and yours. We are protecting our nation!

 The GOP really needs to figure out that they have to the power to make it stop, him and us, but they have to remember who they serve for real - they can make him and his insanity stop, they can pull the leash and bring him to heal and stop the madness but thus far they have resisited this and seem to either be paralyzed by fear or so fascinated by the train wreck that hey can't look away- because we are not going to stop or look away. RESIST.

Under the lights.

Today was a good day because I was wearing black shoes and black pants. As opposed to MOnday when I was wearing navy leggings and a navy skirt and what I thought was a navy top and black shoes. I need better lights.

As it turned out, my top was black, so my shoes were not entirely not right. But they were still pretty  not right. Fortunately I spent the day in my dark office and I don't think any one else noticed. In addition to the wrong shoes.  I thought I was wearing a navy blouse so everyone else thought I was wearing a navy blouse. That's what I am going with.

So today I mad extra special sure that I was wearing actual black shoes, black pants and that the color on my blouse was actual black .I was not dressed all in black but now that I have successfully changed clothes, I can't remember what I wore to work today other than I did wear black pants with it. I did not wear  a black blouse! I wore a blazer! it was black. but it had colors in it! I wore a purple turtle neck!  Okay short term memory intact! Go me!

In honor of Valentines Day, I took myself out to lunch and that was lovely and after work, the dog and I did not go for our walk. Instead I emptied the dishwasher and the sink and refilled the dishwasher and ran it then I made some chicken and green bean stir fry and watched a bunch of M*A*S*H reruns. I also spent the day cackling over the Cheetos admin crumbling. It was a nice day.

I want to say that I called Flynn being on the way out when I read the CNN breaking news thing about  Cheeto realing some sort of statement expressing confidence in him. That was about the time I took dog for his walk Monday after work and I said to myself "Oh, he's done". Its such a cliche! Every time any president officially  expresses "confidence" in a member of his administration it means they are cleaning out their office. Count on it.

Next up? That blond Attention Whore. She should be falling on her sword any minute now, if she isn't pushed on to it. She's a weight around the admins neck and she will be replaced by that little Nazi Miller. Why do you think he's suddenly doing her work?  Going on morning shows? Being the admins mouth? That is her job. It was her job.  Its his job now.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/donald-trump-aides-russians-campaign/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/russia-cruise-missile-spy-ship/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/republicans-want-flynn-investigations/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/donald-trump-administration-michael-flynn/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/republicans-want-flynn-investigations/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-white-house/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-white-house/index.html

Embattled Flynn was in 'fluid' situation Monday night leading up to resignation http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-white-house/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-white-house/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-white-house/index.html

Valentines

Rocket and I went shopping for his agility harness, or any harness at all once I discovered it can be hard to find one for a large, deep chested dog. It's a very nice color and it looks nice on him. It doesn't have as much fabric as the ones on the model dogs the woman showed me on Sunday at the dog fair - however, those were small dogs and the world caters to small dogs and their needs, wants and desires.

Harness options for big dogs do not come in fabric heavy options. If you can find a harness for a big dog you pretty much buy the harness for a your big dog because it fits your big dog. Harness options for big dogs are not  as option-y as the options available for smaller dogs, so I am happy that I was able to find something that fit him. I had to go to two stores to find it. Sadly, it does not match his collar or his leash but the leash I am open to replacing sooner rather than later. And he is not a matchy matchy kind of guy any way.

He loves TV!

Weekend

Me and eighty thousand plus of my closest friends gathered on downtown Raleigh Saturday morning and got our protest on. Again. To think the first time I went to an anti-Trump protest in Raleigh a few days after the election it drew a total of about fifteen people and it was depressing as hell. Really, it was awful.

As it turns out, all the rest of the city really needed to be horrified enough to come out was to just get to know the man a little better. The Women's March made me feel significantly better about the people around me in my corner of the world. but the march on Saturday was a nice shot in the arm.  I'm going to have to start calling my useless representatives again. I may even have to go to one of their pointless Town Halls to remind the cock suckers who they work for. I understand those Town Halls are significantly less fun for them now and significantly more fun for their constituents now that we are actually attending them.

Its nice that I don't have to hate all white people I come across- not everyone I see is a Trump voter, there are a lot of white people who did not vote for him. I can limit my knee jerk hate to just obvious  poor white trash. If I see a truck with a confederate flag sticker on it in the Wally parking lot and I want to say, curse the owners with an itchy crotch, I can feel comfortable doing that and not worry about getting an innocent non-Trump voter on accident.

Sunday I went with Brosky and Alphagal and the kids and the dogs to Puppapalooza to get free stuff and watch the dogs compete. Tiny Esme and my niece won a ribbon for obedience and my sister in law ran the puppy in agility. Here is Rocket watching

Rocket competed in the high jump. Sigh. He did okay. He didn't do as well as I would have liked him to do or as well as I know he could have done and other dogs did much better - in my dogs defence, I would prefer that I be able to leave my dog in the yard and not worry about him casually going over any fence he feels like and time he feels like it. He does have his limits, in my experience, he can jump up to a surface quite a bit higher than he can jump over .

But after watching the agility competition ( such as it was) if I had known you could enter your dog even if they weren't any good at it, I would have entered Rocket! They even let you do it on a leash! Damn! We could have rocked it! It was like a baby course for babies! Little bitty barely off the ground baby stuff! He could have done with his eyes closed! And on a leash to keep him  focused? Dayum! Had I but known!

I did get him into the Urban Agility course the school offers. It starts next Sunday. It looks interesting but it also looks like the kind of stuff we already do, but hey, it looks like fun in a group . I am going to have to get him a harness and that does kind of suck. The last time we did agility a harness wasn't a requirement, not wearing his pinch collar was a requirement and that sucked too.

Friday Cats Blogging

They are both "seeing him in court".

Still Winning

The Shit Gibbon says he'll "See us in court". Thats right, he'll see WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in court. Where WE THE PEOPLE are doing pretty well and  WE THE PEOPLE ARE WINNING SO MUCH BUT WE ARE NOT TIRED OF WINNING. I bet he is tired of LOSING.

Wednesday

Just because it can not be in enough places:

"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."

Mitch McConnell, You would think he would have been smart enough to just let her say her piece and sit down. She would have said her piece and sat down. The show would have gone on, no one would have cared and no one would have known. Instead the dip shit went too far told her to sit down and shut up and instead he created a martyr. What an idiot. And what a boon for our side! She gets to play Camile for the next forever and he gets to have given her consumption. Good work.

All she has to do and can do at this point, thanks to his asshollery, is sit there and sell tee shirts. Lots of tee shirts. This weekend there will be thousands of signs with that written on it, because we will be out there, again. I hope McConnell and the rest of the GOP is very proud.

And every woman carrying on of those signs who may have been getting tired of carrying her sign and was thinking of maybe not carrying that sign this weekend, because maybe she really didn't want to carry that sign again, is going to gird her pussy hat, pick up her new sign and go out and march again. because she wants to, again. Thanks Mitch!

Tuesday

Yay Tuesday! Whee! All day it was Tuesday! I finished up my latest book: The Daily Show. The Book, An Oral History and tomorrow I am going to start on The Princess Diarist and after that I'm going to restart Razer Girl, the Carl Hiaasen I started and didn't finish . I am hoping by the time I finish up with that one that hopefully David Sedaris' most recent will go on sale and I'll be able to get it and then read it.

Have I mentioned that I hate my two Republican senators? Tillis and Burr? Spinless pieces of  fascist shit. Burr isn't running again and thinks it doesn't matter any more, that he can get away with these kind of choices. He must have wanted to be remembered for something? I'm guessing being Trumps Bitch was not what he was planning on, but that is what he will be remembered for in the books. Sorry not sorry, asshole, you worked for years and this is it for you: Trumps Bitch.

 Tillis committed political suicide for himself and his staff, which I will tell his staff as soon as they start answering the lines again. He is a dead man walking. He could have saved his political future and made a name for himself, but he decided that he was tired of the political life and wanted to disappear . Good work, his term is up in 2020 and he will not be reelected and those little people will be out of work.

Yup. Those poor sad things that staff his offices.  They love politics and they are True Believers in whatever it is that Republicans believe in. It's sad that their futures in the field  are trashed. They worked for him, their reputations are tied to his, irrevocably. They worked for a Trump backer and that is going to be poison for their political futures. It doesn't matter if that is true or not, I want them to think it is. And I will plant those seeds, doubt is a painful splinter and it is hard to get out.

They can save themselves, they can get out and go to work for better politicians. They could change their party and get saved,

Monday

Other than watching a very unsatisfactory Super Bowl, I also went to another protest, now becoming a weekly event,  I'm going to another on next weekend.  Despite a another visit from the bad back fairy, I made some absolutely lovely chicken soup -  even though I bought the chicken broth, it was still good even without the  homemade broth step. I baked the chicken parts myself and defrosted the frozen veggies  and that's worth points.

I attended my nephews birthday party and he can now officially spend the rest of his life bragging that he has been a card carrying member of the ACLU since he was eight years old, damn it! pretty rock solid liberal credentials. He has a adorably precocious hate for Cheeto, it's so cute and I hope he clings to it.   I also got him a nerf gun that shoots actual ammunition that if they hit you cause some discomfort. I don't which one he was more excited about. That's a big lie, he was more excited about the war toy.

I saw it taped on a newspaper box and came home and looked it up online and low and behold it was actually for real. Who knew?  I also did spread the word through instagram and Tumbler  and now here because I am just that kind of gal.
It is real

Friday Cats Blogging

TGIF

I was having such an absolutely lovely time doing absolutely nothing that I forgot that I did have something to do! So, yeah. I did get the trash and recycling out, so I can say I did that so I get a star.

 While I was watching  re-runs of another show,  it came to me that I really do not like watching reruns of  Will and Grace as much as I thought I would. I remembered I liked Will and Grace, but tastes change, I do not need to record all of them when they are aired, and when they air, they air a lot of them. I only need five at a time. They are a good distraction but no one needs hours and hours of those people.

I also decided that I will be attending the protest this weekend.

That was a Wednesday if I ever saw one.

Thanks to all the chaos I have had to limit my media exposure. In the evenings, I watch reruns and during the day I  read books.

I'm not in a complete media blackout, I spend the day checking one site and then another, for a long time I avoided the Politics tab at Fark but I went back. You can't avoid it. I have another protest on Saturday, This evening when I was walking the dog, I ran into a Air horn person  and we  smiled and waved at each other and were like Oh, hey! See you Saturday! like its just a thing we do now,  attended large protests. Air horn was a warm up to get us used to the idea of getting together in a crowd only now the  the crowd is much, much larger only and the stakes are higher than HB2. Maybe that's what air horn was for, a thirty week rehearsal for the real thing.

Books! Back to my books! So far I have have read or actually, reread three David Sedaris books and now I'm reading Anna Kendrick's autobiography, you are forgiven for not knowing who who is, she is an actress who has been in more than several movies that did great box office but that you didn't see if you are over forty, except for Up in the Air. with George Clooney, for which she was nominated for an Oscar. She also has been nominated for a Tony,  and done a lot of broadway so she's she has earned some  gravitas.

 I just checked her IMDB page and she was not in The Help, I thought she was, and she is older than I gave her credit for, good for her, I mean like she's only five years younger than I am.
I was going to say. Why is a really young girl writing her autobiography, I mean, yes, she has been working professionally for a really long time and she is funny and very clever and all that but I really thought she was like in her late twenties if she was a day ( she looks about twelve, its a blessing and curse according to her). As it turns out the girl is a grown woman, she is okay to write an autobiography if she wants to.

After I finished Kendrick's book it's going to be on to Carrie Fisher's last one and then I know I have some others stacked up in my Kindle that I haven't read yet or stop reading for whatever reason, I have a nice nest of books to turn to.

I can't avoid media entirely and I don't want to, I just need to not spend a lot of time with it. Wonkette is my friend and I spend too much time at Jezabel, I really like the content,even though I don't like the commenters very much at all, they make me want to troll very hard.Its a good thing I never joined the site and I can't actualy comment myself.  My Facebook feed could give the non-initiated a stroke and my Twitter is angry. I remember when it was just Steve Martin -  Who BTW, has not posted in days and he normally posts constantly, in between writing Tony winning plays and winning Grammys, the man does not sleep! or have a thought he does not share. Lately he has not been in a sharing mood. One more crime to lay at Trumps feet - he has made Steve Martin stop tweeting!

Shopping

So as not spend the entire evening in front of the TV watching M*A*S*H reruns, I spent some of my evening spending money.

I wasn't going out willy nilly,  had a very short, very strict shopping list!   Despite the fact that it was 66 degrees this afternoon when I was walking the dog, it is still winter and tomorrow is February . It is going to get cold again and I am guessing that in that cold that is going to be at least one more snowfall .

My snow boots died and I needed new ones to make sure that in that the cold is just cold. If I don't replace my boots it is absolutely guaranteed to snow, but if I do replace them, there is a good chance that I won't need them. Its like my snow shovel, when I didn't have one I ended up needing it and having to DIY snow shovels to varying degrees of not success and then I finally got a real one and I've only used it once to absolute success - although I do wish I had spluged on the ergonomic version.

So. Did you know that in February that there are limited choices in snow boots available but almost unlimited swim suits to choose from? IN February! Of course! However, the savvy shopper knows where to look and to the savvy shopper goes the very last snow boots in the store. And they even fit.

And after that, I looked down my list to "buy nephews birthday gift" . This was harder because they don't have a section marked "Nephew wants This", I texted his parents and learned he liked nerf (tm) things, I like nerf (tm) things! Sadly, the spesfic things he likes look like massive weapons and I really do not like buying toys that look like weapons. I avoid buying such things but this time it was unavoidable.

Then I had a thought. Nephew is a strong anti-Trump partisan and a junior member of the resistance! if I must buy him a war toy I can also get him a gift membership in the ACLU!  And I did!