Category: FWIW

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Ani-mules

Current situation with :ani-mules” here at twc central is not ideal, but it’s liveable. My Wonder Woman and I do not currently have a dog, but we have access to Son&Heir’s Wonderpup for canine companionship. We do have three cats, now, all via different processes.

Olde Fella (not his name) was “encouraged” into our family well over a decade ago by Lovely Daughter, who argued that the stray kitten who wandered up onto our front porch deserved a good home. With us. OK. He’s a bit cranky from time to time now, but he’s the one who’s also a real lap cat, and he’s otherwise very, very well-behaved, so win for him and win for us.

The Olde Fella has always kinda sought out my lap/company, and so my Wonder Woman felt a need for a cat of her own. Found one in a litter being offered by one of her students. Purty cat. LOVES my lap, too… but only when I’m sitting on the toilet. Otherwise, she’s very, very attached to my Wonder woman.

Latest addition, Pixel, was featured here recently. She’s a peach, but NOT a lap cat. Loves being petted ONLY on her own terms. Generally finds a place to nap/groom about 1/2 way between my Wonder Woman and me. *heh* Given the circumstances whereby she entered our lives, we have more intense investment in a short time with her than with the others, though the long term investment is, of course, less. So far.

Ideally, we’d have room/land for a few dogs, horses, small livestock, etc., but we’ll make do with these three, I imagine.

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On “To Trust or Not to Trust?”

On the Trust/Don’t Trust Scale, one thing to weigh is whether a person

1. Doesn’t like animals and
2. Whether animals dislike that person.

Usually, they are one and the same. Especially watch out for people who do not like dogs. They have no heart. People who do not like cats are often (usually, in my experience) control freaks and manipulators.

People who don’t like horses are usually just ignorant. *heh* If they refuse to learn better, they are willfully ignorant, and willful ignorance is elective stupidity. Such persons should only be trusted with small things. Very small things. 😉

Etc.

(Frankly, I even have problems with folks who don’t like skunks. 😉 )

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Little Blessings

So, early on the morning of the coldest day in a year, “someone” (*cough*not gonna say who but you know who you are) let our lil rescue kitty out into the cold, shortly before 4” of snow began to fall. By 0500, she had. . . disappeared. So, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, through Thursday AM, with snow on the ground and temps in negative numbers overnight (and not above freezing during the day), lil Pixel. . . dealt with it.

I kept putting food out. Her fav bed was in her cat carrier with bags of “donation clothing” over the carrier for insulation and a heating pad inside the bed cover. Food kept disappearing but kept not seeing Pixel and got no response to calls. Saw tracks that looked like they were hers, but no cat.

Last checkup “yesterday” was ~0100 this morning. Again, food was gone but no cat. Refilled the food container.

Got up this AM and went out with food to check, and food was gone. Saw movement to the south. Pixel. Called, she came. Pet her. Tried picking her up and she ran. Called again, and the second time was the charm.

Seems no worse for wear, though she did demolish a large bowl of water.

Yeh, yeh, it’s just a cat, and a “stray” cat at that. But still, small blessings.

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Globull Warmening Redux

Got up late this A.M., so it was already hotter ‘n fire on our front porch. -3°F. Means it’s probably somewhere around 10°F colder in the bottoms, if the usual pattern holds Not driving (yeh, driving, not walking) a mile in these conditions (and my conditioning *heh*) to find out, either. Refrozen streets unfunny, what with the 30° hill with hairpin turn just to get off our street (although I do expect the similar incline/hairpin at the light on the highway to be clear, since it was yesterday).

Globull Warmening.

And yes, I do know the differences between “weather” and “climate,” but since the CACAs (acolytes of the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism) misuse weather events ALL the time as arguments (as stupid as they may be–“Cold weather means more Globull Warmening!” #gagamaggot), what’s good for the goose and all that.

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This Is Rich

[With a tip o’ the tam to Ori Pomerantz, via John Lambshead]

Soldier Decapitates ISIS Thug with Spade in Afganistan

This is rich on so many levels. The primary story, sure: prevailing against odds with whatever weapon is to hand: great. But. . .

Calling a spade an “espada,” so to speak, and making it so: really rich.

spade?espada I like the etymology, too: [Gr] spatha? [L] spathan? [Sp] espada, especially since “spade” itself also shares some of those roots (pre-grecian). Using a spade as a [Middle Dutch] “spade” (sword) seems particularly fitting for a British subject, since the House of Hanover has roots in nationalities where “spade” also once meant “sword.”

Then again, root words for “spade” also meant “spoon” or “paddle” at times, in different languages, so “paddling” the ISIS thug to death with a “spoon” also makes me smile.

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FWIW (a brief note on worship)

Many, many people worship Satan without ever considering their actions as such worship. As an Authority on the subject once said to some such,

“You are of your father, the devil (diabolos = slanderer, false accuser), and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of lies.”

Just sayin’. . .

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Missed It? Here.

Interesting lil tidbit that comes up every “supermoon” (a term I had never read until 2017, strangely enough) is “perigee-syzygy” (a particular alignment of three celestial bodies–a term I had read/heard long ago). It refers to the particular Earth-Moon system condition that results in what is apparently called a “supermoon.” *shrugs* I find “perigee-syzygy” more congenial and felicitous as a term.

BTW, you can try again on the 31st, if that’s a thing for you.

Continue reading “Missed It? Here.”

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Writers Who. . . Shouldn’t

Writers who have not bothered to become literate and who are too cheap, stupid, or stuck on the lefthand side of the Dunning-Kruger Curve to obtain the services of a literate editorial staff just should not write. No, seriously. Wading through knee-high sewage to get to the occasional flower worth plucking gets old.

Oh, the signs are Legion, but I’m sure you know them well. Here are but a few:

1. execrable grammar and punctuation

  •  inability to use tenses properly
  •  apostrophe abuses/neglect
  •  comma splices
  •  misuse of objective case/subjective case pronouns
  •  etc.

2. basic vocabulary failures:

  •  using words of which they wot not the meaning (and I don’t just mean inexplicable misuses of prepositions *sigh*)
  •  utter incomprehension of when to use/not use compound words1
  •  confusion of homophonic words with disparate meanings
  •  etc.

I could go on, but won’t. *sigh* Someone(s) needs t tell these people to JUST STOP. They are polluting the English language with their illiterate, childish crayon scrawls. That was once the gatekeeping function of traditional publishing houses, and while I’m sure it resulted in some worthy manuscripts being dumped in the reject pile, at least it did not so frequently result in utter crap being published as is all too frequently the case with the self-pub democritization of publishing nowadays.

Folks who write books without bothering to become literate, with no serious intention of even submitting their work to literate proofreaders before publication, are insulting their readers. And this issue is quite apart from the issue of folks writing “authoritatively” on subjects they quite obviously know NOTHING about. That is another rant entirely.

DO NOTE: I have read some VERY well-written and edited self-pub books, however that minority represents less than 10% of the self-pub books I have tried to read. *sigh*

Continue reading “Writers Who. . . Shouldn’t”

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Let It Snow!

So, front porch thermometer said 25°F. Car reported 24°F. Aaaaand (as usual) the report from the rural electric temp display in the bottoms (less than a mile away) was 15°F. Occasional flecks of “angel dandruff” in the air.

Checking on *meh*-start on my Wonder Woman’s car. Less than 2-year-old battery. Required wearing proper gear for weather and battery check, so t-shirt and old BDU blouse, nitrile gloves. *heh* “Sealed” battery had several cells low. Topped up with distiled water (thankful for clean turkey baster 😉 ). Attached trickle charger. We’ll see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzlJRjXSGY

Despite some of the *cough* “unique” *cough* construction choices made when this house was built, one choice has stood us in good stead: the routing of the HVAC ducting and the water lines. As long as our heating unit is working, we are pretty darned safe from freezing water lines. . . inside the house. Oh, there is one area that is unheated: a storage area under the house directly below the laundry room. But, the storage area is enclosed and has power, so I have a small, thermostat-controlled, electric heater plugged in down there which has kept those pipes from experiencing freezing temps for several years (it’s the successor to earlier iterations). Still, even 10 years ago in the aftermath of a severe ice storm that left power out throughout the county for about a month, we’ve never had problems (knocks on head as closest wood *heh*) with frozen water lines in this house. *shrugs*