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Good morning!
Today’s quote is from a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer:
“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”
Welcome to our daily (except Sundays) open thread, where you, the commenters, choose the topics of conversation.
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back to top57 Comments to “Whirled Views 6.22”
I wanna say Faulkner or someone who’s lived in the south without an A/C!
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I hate summer.
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Summer
A season where the schools are out. Where enjoyment of life is in. Where the heat of the day makes ice tea so much desired, wanted, needed.
Where the sweat of your brow makes you proud as it cools you
whenever a zephyr goes by.
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Just to start your week of in the right way:
Ten best ways to destroy the earth:
http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy_earth_mp.html
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Random, I like #6, the vacuum mode best. However you overlooked one:
2 Peter 3:10
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
But that isn’t the end of the story:
2 Peter 3:13 (New International Version)
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
So, this then, is the end of the story.
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4. Oh goody. As a conservative that is one of my main goals in life.
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Looked the list over and decided it all looked too hard. I guess I’ll just continue to throw away recyclables and vote Republican. It’ll take longer but I should have the earth destroyed in a couple of thousand years.
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Okay, I’m about to offended one of the most vocal and passionate groups on this blog, but I’ve been up since 5:30 with the puppy and will spent a large part of my day cleaning my rugs among squeals from he kid “She’ biting me! She’s chasing me! She pooped in my room!” I now remember why I am a cat person. I tried to tell him. If he had just listened to his mother I would be sitting here with a sweet, quiet kitten who knows how to use a litter box.
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Seriously, why would anyone not recycle? It’s easy! And fun. Well, maybe not fun. But easy!
I don’t like summer either. My favorite time of the year is late fall — October and November — when it’s cool and crisp but not yet winter-cold.
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KBells #8, you are not alone as a cat person. Those “dog people” aren’t bad, they’re just slightly wrong. They got the four feet and a tail right, but are incorrect on the size and disposition.
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One of the best joys of summer is an ice cream cone from a little dairy stand on a hot day. It melts faster than you can eat it, getting your hand all messy and sticky.
But oh, what a smile it puts on your face!
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Duh, SteveG. I’m trying to destroy the earth.
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10. Amen brother, and don’t even get me started on her following me around with that mournful “Did I do something wrong?” puppy face.
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I think favoring cats over dogs is a much quicker way to destroy the earth that not recycling. But since you’re doing both, you’ll get there eventually.
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I could be a super villain. I just need a lair and a better code name. kBells just doesn’t have that “strike fear in the heart” sound to it. I need to start rounding up cat minions.
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KBells,
Did I forget to mention crate training? In the crate except for outdoor times for the first year if needed. Dogs sleep most of the time. They like dens. Consistancy and strength and it only takes a short time. But puppies are not grown dogs. They need perameters, just like kids do. When given these things, they make wonderful pets. When not given these things, they become nuisances that nobody likes to have around except a few addled owners who think the sun rises and sets around their dogs. Same with kids.
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Not only am I a cat person (even though I am allergic to felines), my daughter has Sylvie, the world’s most affectionate cat. (Notice, I did not say my daughter “owns” Sylvie as one does not “own” a cat.)
Most cats are introverts and rather stand-off-ish until they get to know you. Sylvie is an extrovert (a very rare breed) and immediately loves you and wants to sit in your lap and purr two seconds after she meets you.
Sylvie also helped raise my granddaughter. Even when Random Granddaughter pulled her fur at two years of age, Sylvie never scratched, bit, or even hissed. She simply walked away with an expression that said, “I will visit you again when you are old enough to learn a few manners.” Now that RG is five years old, she picks up Sylvie (who looks philosophical about being dangled awkwardly) and says, “Sylvie, I love you.”
Pets do help children learn responsibility and love. Even dogs. They’re OK in their place.
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Chas,
Those verses brightened my day! Thanks!
Steve G,
Recycling through recycling centers is not so easy as you might think. A lot of us live far enough from them that the fuel consumption and auto use outweigh the benefits. Not to say recycling by: using newspapers in gardens, using milk cartons for feeding animals, composting, etc are not doable. Just the set your recyclables out by the curb. Which in my opinion is not the best way to recycle.
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It was 100 degrees where I live yesterday. I suffered and I liked it. Beats all those cold, icy, below zero days up North.
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Mumsee- quite right about folks who arent in dense metro areas. Recycling is a good thing unquestionably but unless you have a whole lot of stuff to recycle, hauling or storing it until you can haul it in might be a problem.
I used to weigh crushed cans at a store back when you could turn in glass bottles for the deposit etc. The cans would often reek of beer or other spoiled liquids.
Recycling centers should be set up within walking distance of homeless shelters. Many recently paroled criminals can’t get decent work. Put them to work sorting, stacking weighing recyclables. It might be their “doorway” back into the ranks of responsible lawful citizenry. In fact, instead of being govt-run I wish mega churches would partner up with Chuck Colson and hire the recently paroled to sort cans, newspaper etc
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It is cold and rainy here with thunderstorms expected. But we are going camping so all is well with the world. Though it would be more well if hubby were able to go with us. We live just past the road to nowhere and we are going beyond that. Still have some packing to do.
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I love summer!! Fun weekends end way too soon, though.
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Mumsee, keep a log because you have to report when you return.
Otherwise, have fun.
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In the days before recycling became so stylish, I helped a group of my high school students set up a recycling center.
One day a group of boys at a “reform school” were bussed over to help out at our recycling center. When the boys discovered that someone had dropped of a carton of old Playboys and similar porno magazines, their enthusiasm for recycling went way up.
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Mumsee, we’re trying the crate training, but she wakes up a 5:30 every morning and starts to cry. I’m afraid that if I don’t let her out she will have an accident in the crate ruining it for her, plus the noise wakes up the kid. Things will get better when hubby finishes fencing in the yard but in the meantime cats are looking so quite and clean.
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Plus I think cats make better minions.
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Recycling’s a good idea and we do as much as we can but in small towns and rural areas it doesn’t always work like it should.
Greenville Illinois is a small college town not too far from where we live (but like MUMSEE mentioned, the drive often outweighs the benefit). The town offered a recycling drop-off point for residents only to announce earlier this year that because of the economy, the waste hauler said once the current contract expired, they weren’t taking recyclables because there was no market for them.
The city negotiated with one of their regular trash haulers to take the stuff but whether or not it’s actually being recycled is anyone’s guess. Word has it the stuff may just be carted off to the landfill like the rest of the garbage.
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When do you normally let her out? They generally start anticipating you and start whining before time as they are excited to be getting out. An accident won’t ruin it for her, and may even encourage her to be more responsible. Nobody likes sleeping in that. Remember, you are in charge, not the little dog. She needs to learn your schedule.
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Mumsee: That’s a good point. I’m in the ‘burbs and we have curbside pickup, so it’s easier for me than for many.
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SteveAubrey and Kbells, I am a cat person also. Although I also love dogs , horses, emus , cattle, hogs, elephants and giraffes. I have an affinity for animals and they seem to recognize it. I once sat in the Big Thicket in Texas just sitting and found myself faced by six squirrels who seem to be waiting just waiting for me to tell them a story.
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Years and years ago, second son had a recycling business at the age of eleven. He took his wagon round and gathered all of the neighbor’s recycling and stored it in our garage. When he had enough, we drove him to the center. He learned it did not pay to recycle. Even with an entire truckload at once. The cost of driving and paying for the wagon outweighed any thing he was paid. Every trip he got further behind.
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Kbells,
Granted collies are easier to train (in some ways) than a lot of breeds, and granted Misten came equipped with the extra-large bladder option from puppyhood, but crate training does work. Misten had NO accidents in the house her first week and a half at home (I watched her a little less diligently after that, and thus she had a couple), and never ever pooped in the house. She had a grand total of three wetting accidents. (Four if you count one time she had a very full bladder and got so excited when a neighbor boy came in and poked her through the bars that she lost control–but that wasn’t a failure of housebreaking, so I don’t usually count that one.) She was reliably housetrained by four months, and so reliably trained by six months that when she was spayed she once started to go potty, caught herself and sat down instead . . . and I had time to get her to the backyard where she had diarrhea all over the yard.
Because she wasn’t as reliable on not chewing, I continued to keep her in a puppy play pen at night and when I was gone till she was a year old, but if housebreaking had been the only issue, she’d have had the run of my house at four or five months old, since she never had an accident after three-and-a-half months. And again, I definitely know some breeds are easier than others, but the earlier a good habit is established, the better, for any breed. I know someone who got a six-month-old puppy that hadn’t been reliably trained, and it took them a full year to get him to fully understand the concept, because he was so established in bad habits by that time–better to take the time now than to go THAT route. (He was also a cockapoo, and cockers are harder to train, but they had a much harder job than they had with the cockapoo pup they got at two months old and trained right the first time.)
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OK, so I see there are not only cat vs. dog people but summer vs. other season people here.
I grew up with cats, still like them very much, but find dogs to be much more fun and interactive. Still, puppies are hard and since I work full time and live alone I’ve always adopted young adult dogs. Sometimes they’ve needed a little work in house training, but rarely does it take long for them to get the idea. And with a doggie door giving them access to the backyard, I can go to work and not worry.
As for seasons, I’m with SteveG, fall is the best — the crispness in the air, apples, the approaching holiday season. I used to love summer because school was out and we’d get to go to the beach all the time. But ever since I began working full time and became less tolerant of hot weather, it’s really not that much fun. Except for the 4th of July. I enjoy summer up through mid July, maybe, then feel like I can’t wait for fall.
And leave it to Random to start out our week on such a cheery theme as all the different ways to destroy the earth. Well, it is Monday. (But Sylvie is a pretty cat, there’s a picture of her on his blog.)
Have fun camping Mumsee! And good luck Kbells with the pupster.
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Is John Stewart a prophet? Does the J-C god have a sense of humor? Jim Wallis thinks so…
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2009/06/daily_prophet.html
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P.S. Several posts were added before I finished my previous posts, so I see you are working with the crate training. But I think that not giving the puppy freedom to roam the house without being observed by an adult is the key to much of it. If the pup “went” outside recently, then it can have a bit more freedom inside, but if it hasn’t, then it needs strict observation, crate time, or outside time.
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Re seasons: I’m learning to love fall myself. I’ve never really experienced it before. In Phoenix, fall was simply an extension of summer (my last visit to my mom, in mid-September, we saw 100 several days), and the leaves in Phoenix only turned yellow and fell off briefly. In Chicago, fall was prettier, but a transition to the dreaded winter, and thus I dreaded it too.
Here in Nashville, fall is gorgeous, and winter isn’t unlivable, so I’m learning to love it. But spring and summer are still probably my favorites, and winter will always be last on the list.
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Puppies do need constant supervision and their bladders simply can’t go very long without a bathroom break (which is why it’s impossible for me to raise a puppy, I’m gone at least 10 hours most days).
But one of the keys with even young adult dogs who may need housebreaking work is to praise them whenever they go in the yard. If you catch them starting to go in the house, you do the “AAA!” or so some other sound to catch their attn so they stop, then calmly escort them outside and when they go there, tell them what good dogs they are! They’ really do start to get the idea pretty quickly (though as Cheryl pointed out, some breeds, like cockers and some terriers, can take longer to “get it” — they also tend to be more stubborn breeds).
Collies (including border collies) tend to be very submissive dogs by nature, they’re bred to work closely with humans so they’re always trying to please.
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Being an incurable romantic I find that I love all seasons. So many wonderful times in many places. It is lovely to see how people change to go along with the seasons. It is also lovely to get cool when it is hot, to get warm when it’s cold, to get dry when it’s wet , and to drink a nice drink when it is dry.
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You people reminded me of the reason I don’t have a pet. Except the rock I told you about.
I like spring best, then fall, except that it means winter is soon upon us. I like winter least. I like summer, but it’s too much work now. What I need is a smaller place, that affects my approact to summer.
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Cheryl and Donna, part of the problem may be that our last dog was a Border Collie who was very easy to train plus we didn’t have a kid then. Maybe we’re expecting too much from her. The kid has already declared her to be “dumb as a sack of peanuts.”
I don’t know what that means either.
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She’s a baby! She needs time to learn. Not everyone is “potty trained” quickly.
I was shocked last week. Last year I saw wild turkeys a few towns over, but in a wooded area. Last week there was one down the street by the highway. And I saw a hawk swoop down to grab dinner, but he did not succeed. Not used to seeing that while driving on the parkway. Something is changing.
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I love summer. It’s a great excuse to not do stuff.
“I can’t cook, it’s too hot.”
“I can’t clean, it’s too hot.”
And I love cats because they lay around being lazy with me while I’m not doing stuff.
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Almost packed, number three daughter has the charge this time. She is doing a fine job. Quite the change from when she joined us and her mantra was, “I can’t!” She just commented, “Remember when we got here and none of us could catch this (air mattress)?” I love my kids.
As to seasons, what is not to love about all of them? Each one a gift from God. Enjoy them for what they are and all are good. Expect them to be something else and you are headed for trouble.
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So, Monty, pilot, Californian, etc, did you happen to know Aunt Betty and Uncle Chuck? They used to have a flight school down there somewhere, she was the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific?
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Another thing about summer. (I say this because he showed up while I was having lunch.)
Every morning, before six. This bird, little larger than my thumb, lands on a chair on my deck just outside my open bedroom window, an starts out with a 90db song to proclame that he ownes the place.
The worst part is that there’s and idiot in this house that feeds him. Not only that, but he paid almost $60 for a feeder the squirrel can’t raid.
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kbells @#8- You prove that dogs belong outside. I love dogs, but never have liked them indoors. Of course, I prefer outdoor cats as well.
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Just checking in after a glorious weekend catching up with old friends–how did everyone become an admiral?
Had a fun coffee and lunch with Klasko–and I laughed outloud reading your antics on Friday . . . my husband owes me a trip to the midwest . . .
After so many years on the west coast, I’d forgotten about the east’s humidity. This is tough. Fortunately, all my friends have air conditioning, but it’s really hard for me to look out the window and be banned from taking a walk outside under the blue sky with the wind blowing. Oh, they all have washing machines and I survived the rain-out with thunder and lightning on Saturday, I may just go out anyway.
Sonoma County seems a very long ways away from Washington, D.C.–weather, word usage, tea-drinking, ways of looking at the world. And I’m surprised to discover people in Maryland have an accent, who would have guessed?
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Peter L.,
If a person is outside all the time, then an outside dog might make sense. I have neighbors with two outside dogs, and I have never yet seen the people outside except when they are getting out of their car–so why have outside dogs? I feel sorry for those dogs. And when outside dogs bark at night and aren’t made to stop, it’s rude to the whole neighborhood. As for me, I’m inside most of the time, and since my dog is my companion she’s inside with me. That means dog hair, but I can deal with that–and she isn’t allowed on the furniture, so I have fur only on the floor. (I’m not sure I’d get a puppy another time, because I really do hate training a puppy. But that was three years ago.)
I think “outside cats” are fine if you live on a farm. But if you live in the city and you have an outside cat, all that means is you feed a cat that poops in someone else’s yard, catches someone else’s songbirds, and yowls outside someone else’s window at midnight (making that someone else’s indoor dog bark–yes, I speak from recent experience). It’s downright inconsiderate, in my opinion, to make the neighbors put up with one’s cat because of one’s desire for an “outside cat.” At least an outside dog can be fenced–I think people who allow their dogs to roam are actually more inconsiderate than those with roaming cats. But again, outside cats or dogs on a farm are fine.
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Just posting for the heck of it. The spam filter keeps trapping my posts from home…
Hi all!
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Re: Outside cats. I read years ago that outside cats are prone to the sick loonies of the world who like to torture animals. And I’ve seen too many dead cats on the sides of roads.
Anyone hear about what’s going on down in Florida? Dozens (I think) of cats found killed & mutilated. Creepy. Police say someone that twisted will at some time switch to humans. I hope they catch him.
And may God save & deliver his pitiful soul.
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Hi Make It Man!
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#48- Understood, Cheryl. I just p[refer to keep them out side, which is why we do not have any cats, just an dog.
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Although my wife and I prefer cats to dogs, we both have slight allergies to cats. Also, when we unexpectedly became parents 9 months after our honeymoon, we decided we were both too selfish to give proper love to both a child and a pet. The child won, but barely.
http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=418
We thought about getting a cat after we retired to the country. However, a cat outside where we live would have a great time reducing the bird population and would be quickly reduced by the coyote population. An indoor cat would make us sneeze and rub our eyes too much. So at the moment we remain catless in Puget Sound.
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Our cats were always free-roaming and i’d have a hard time keeping a cat indoors 100% of the time. But one of my colleagues who lives in the Silver Lake section of L.A. called in to report today that she heard a ruckus at around 5 a.m. this morning and ran out to spot a coyote with her cat in its mouth. She chased down the coyote which eventually dropped the cat when a passing motorist pulled over and yelled. The cat was already dead, but my colleague picked up the body to take home when the coyote began chasing her!
She got home OK, had the cat cremated later. We’ve also had reports of coyotes in the area of L.A. where I live lately. They’re coming down from the nearby hills in search of food & water, I’m thinking many of them are feeding babies somewhere this time of year as well.
But lots of dangers out there for pets, even in the city. (Not to mention the usual cars, of course.)
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We were “kicked loose” early today, all our computers crashed at around noon, as did most of our phone lines. I’m on call to help edit copy from home that may get emailed in later, but my editor told me to go ahead and take the dogs out in the meantime if I wanted. So I guess we’re heading out to the dog park for a rare late-afternoon weekday visit.
My border collies will love that.
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Chas: It’s gotta be a wren. Amazing noise from such a tiny body. My own favorite one tuned up just as I was reading your post.
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Anyone else catch Glenn Beck reading th letter from a former Democrat woman last week? Read the whole thing at glennbeck.com
Here is the first paragraph:
He also has an interview with the author here.
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