At my parents neighborhood they brought in a local Fish and Wildlife Service guy. His recommendation was that he would go out at night with night vision goggles and a silenced rifle and cull the local herd. They decided to open it up to bow hunting instead. (This was about 10 years ago. It divided the neighborhood into pro-hunting and anti-hunting sides. The bitterness extends to this day.)
Small world! Ruble grew up in Liberty Borough, just outside McKeesport. His dad worked at US Steel in Duquesne.
Wow. My gf’s dad was an electrician in the mills. Small world indeed.
I am so jealous.
IRL I try my best to counsel people to sell their guns at buy-backs or to sell them to gun shops. The money is there and the bottom hasn’t dropped out of the market (yet).
Still, the minute even one of them looks out their window and sees a guy with night vision goggles and a silenced rifle or a compound bow stumbling through their yards, every one of those idiots with ARs and AKs and ‘Other’ LEGO-build machineguns… is going to feel totally justified. Hell, they all might just start a firefight. Which will spread to the next two houses.
And so on.
And so on.
And so on.
Eventually, I could see entire neighborhoods, if not parts of entire states,
going up like mats of firecrackers.
.
= Meanwhile in Canada =
“Whoa…! Those Yanks sure know how to set off fireworks. What holiday is this anyway?
Guy Fawkes Day?”
“Who can tell? Those Yanks are kooky. Hey, a bit of ash just landed on your shoulder.”
“Wait… I think it’s a bit of Yank. < flicks bit off of shoulder>
Welcome to Canada, Yank! Fuck You…!”
If you are tired of the Zoom meeting and want out, try this variation.
Stop, look at the screen, mouth something like “Are you there, can you hear me?” Furrow your brow, move closer to the screen, poke at it like you’re pressing buttons trying to fix something. As you are doing that, place one of your fingers right above the LEAVE button, as close as you can get without pressing it.
Then freeze completely, preferably with your mouth in mid sentence position. Hold it for several seconds, don’t blink. Then, without moving any other muscle, move that one finger just enough to press the LEAVE button.
Last night while heading out to the garage to bring in the groceries I managed to miss a step, fall to the landing, bounce off and fall 4 1/2 feet to the tiled basement floor. I hit my head, my shoulder and my hip. Let’s just say I got my bell rung. (On the plus side, my head missed the litter box by inches.)
Because I didn’t lose consciousness or have any other concussion symptoms, I waited until this morning to go to an urgent care facility to get checked out. I woke up feeling like one of my puppy’s chew toys. My diagnosis is no concussion, lots of bruises, and the pelvic X-rays showed no damage. As a 52-year-old woman, I’m mightily impressed that nothing broke. Moral of the story: Drink your milk. It does a body good. Oh, and pay attention on staircases.
Holy crap you have superpowers. 
(I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt.)
Thanks. My mantra is “Bumbles bounce.”
Damm, you don’t mess around, do you?
Yeah, but unbeknownst to you, your cat is walking past in the background. 
I was getting out the “ordinary” everyday dinner plates tonight when I noticed there was one missing. Not in the dishwasher; I assumed it was upstairs somewhere. Nope. At this point my touch of OCD kicks in and I become obsessed about finding this goddam plate – dinner plates do not just disappear. I even looked in the fridge, freezer, and laundry room. Nada. The intensive all-points-bulletin search for the fugitive dish continued for fully an hour and a half.
It was in the microwave. We’d had popcorn a few nights ago, and I always put popcorn bags on ceramic dishes because I once had the glass microwave turntable explode from the heat of the boiling oil. But then I leave the dish in there and often forget about it (no, this wasn’t the first time).
This rant isn’t really about a dinner plate. It’s about the loss of short-term memory. I think. It may have been about something else.
Now maybe you can find my missing king-size fitted red sheet. How does something like that just disappear? No, it’s not in the microwave.
That’s where I usually find my missing coffee cup.
These day, I’m in constant pain from my leg wound.
Then I go to bed and dream of being in constant pain from my leg wound.
No escape.
Three days later I’m all banged up. My bruises are coming in a nice shade of raspberry. My whole left side aches. I wish I still recovered fast like a young person. Guess those days are past me now.
I saw a post on FB offering ‘free firewood’ and I was all set to say yes. The house was located on a stunning hillside with a magnificent view of NYC. Evidently they had a huge tree taken down and told the contractor to leave to wood… so they were offering it for “free”.
Now, I have to describe this house. The road that it is off of is on on the side of a pretty steep hill. They have a driveway which goes downward at a 20-25 degree grade to the front of the house, which looks like any other (truly beautiful) house. Because it is on the side of a hill, however, the back of the house is built on stilts. Think of the house featured in ‘Lethal Weapon 2’ if it was build by Frank Lloyd Wright with stained brown wood beams.
Now the wood is in the back yard which is very steep… much closer to a 30-40 degree grade… and the wood rounds are at least 150 lbs each. At the end of her property is another property with an equally beautiful house. Actually, it’s more of a mansion ( and not a McMansion either ). It’s a huge estate home with a North wing and a South wing which is easily over 100 years old. Both houses are easily worth dozens of millions of dollars each.
I just texted her and backed out of the ‘Free Firewood’. Why? Well… picture for your imagination the Sisyphus-ian effort of trying to roll even one 150lb tree round up a 30-40 degree grade 200 feet… to get to the bottom of a driveway that is another 100 feet long, but only a 20-25 degree grade… just to get it up to your truck. And that’s the best case scenario!
Now imagine that you get it most of the way up to the driveway and slip/fall losing control of the 150 lb sold wood tree round? Hmmm… a solid wood cylinder rolling down a 30-40 degree grade… accelerating a 9 meters per second squared… Velocity equaling Mass times Speed … gaining speed for 50 or so yards… with me jumping after it like Mario… until it slams through the center of a multi- multi- multi- million dollar mansion and out the other side?
( Raise your hand if you think that it would leave the North and the South wings of that mansion like a 2 - 10 split. )
panache, I’m so sorry. I wish I could help, but that’s all I’m got - a ton of sympathy. I hope it heals very, very soon.
My own mini-rant today is TMI. I legit think I’m on the beginning end of peri-menopause and my husband, unfortunately for him, is getting the brunt of it. I’m managing for the most part to keep even keel, but sometimes I just kind of want to slap the shit out of everyone. Then I wake up drenched in sweat. I’m this close to finding a cave to hide in until I’m 60.
I had my hip replaced in 2018. Worked out well everything got fixed. I had kind of a tough recovery though. No fun at all. I think most people have it easier though.
Anyway, it’s bugging me again. I’m really hoping I just slept on it weird or otherwise aggravated it and it will be better in a few days. It’s WAY to soon to have to go through that again.
Our home isn’t air-conditioned, which is fine on 99% of the hot summer days. Strategically planted shade trees, ceiling fans, windows, all help. Then my gf went through menopause and experienced crazy night sweats.
I bought a room air conditioner and installed it while she was at work. Most appreciated gift I’ve ever gotten her. It didn’t stop her hot flashes, but she said it made them more tolerable.