Discussion thread for the "Polls only" thread (Part 2)

I’ve seen various numbers for our house, including what the county assessor thinks. But during our recent remodel, we have precise plans created for the entire “as built” house. The even brought in some kind of 3D laser survey camera. Now I know. Just shy of 5,000 sq. ft. It’s more than we need, but we’ve spent 20 years making it exactly what we want, and it’s in a stunning location. (also, when children and grandchildren come, it works well). We’ll stay here until we can’t.

I made a bong out of one of those.

I have no idea what La Croix is or when/where it became popular. I remember drinking New York Seltzer in the 1980s. Not sure if that’s before or after La Croix.

La Croix is a brand of flavored sparkling waters, which first introduced in the '80s, and was originally made by the G. Heileman Brewing Company of Wisconsin, which was better-known for brewing Old Style beer (though they sold La Croix off to another company in the early 1990s). I remember it being pretty common here in Chicago in the 1990s, though it seems like it took off again in the last decade or so.

Re: cats on leashes. I’ve not ever tried it with our current two cats (who are purely indoor cats). But, the cat which we had in the 1990s loved to go outside (always on a leash and harness), and would happily walk for a while, though he’d often stop to roll around on the sidewalk, to scratch his back.

I had to google La Croix.

I’ve occasionally, but not often, drunk plain seltzer water of whatever brand was available, either on its own or mixed about fifty/fifty with good apple cider (either sweet or hard cider, but usually sweet) or occasionally mixed with other fruit juice. I’m not at all interested in paying extra for sparkling water that the company selling it has flavored a bit. Didn’t vote in that one.

I have had multiple cats who occasionally accompan(y/ied) me on walks around the place; but it’s not really a matter of ‘taking them for a walk’ as they’re indoor/outdoor cats and it’s usually a matter of them finding me outdoors and deciding to follow me, often meowing and/or getting in front of my ankles in an attempt to get picked up and patted. (Yes, I know. They wouldn’t do that so often if it didn’t work so often.)

I don’t know how that fits in the poll so didn’t vote in that one either.

I have a vague recollection of once, many years ago, attempting to get a cat to walk on a leash. The cat lay down and refused to budge. But the recollection’s vague enough that I’m not sure I wasn’t watching some other human do this.

He was very good, but did he ever score that many points in a basketball game?

My dad has drunk seltzer water regularly for all of his life, so I’ve had it occasionally since I was a child.

I am at this moment outside with a cat on a leash. She loves it, and when she’s had her morning “walk,” she tends not to try dashing out the front door. I’m not really walking her, per se; we just go in the back yard and I let her meander around and act like she’s going to kill things. Because I’m at the other end of her leash and humans are just too loud and slow, she never seems to catch anything except a stray grasshopper, but she never seems to suspect I’m foiling her on purpose.

I’ve really enjoyed the Lemoncello and Hibiscus La Croix varieties.

They’re also quite nice with gin.

We have two cats who want to go outside. We have harnesses for them.

They just wander around the back yard, sniffing, eating a little grass, etc. Sometimes the older male will then snuggle up with one of us if we are outside sunning.

I started taking our cat for walks out of necessity. We recently moved overseas, which involved the movers removing absolutely everything from our apartment two months in advance of the move. All that was left was an air mattress on the floor. I didn’t want to leave the cat in a completely empty apartment all day for two months, so I started taking her to work (with permission of my employer, of course).

At first I took her in a cat carrier but after only a couple days she started begging to come out mid-commute. So I started walking her on the leash and she got the idea pretty quickly. She loved to walk from the apartment to the subway (or vice versa) and look out the windows of the subway. She was never bothered by the crowds, even during rush hour.

Now, in our new home, she loves to go for long walks in the forest. She’s got a 3-metre retractable leash and pretty much stays in that radius without me having to tug. She usually follows behind us but sometimes darts ahead. The only thing she doesn’t like is when other people appear on the trail, especially if they have dogs. When that happens, she parks herself on the side of the trail and refuses to budge until long after the other party has passed. I find it amusing that she has no problem jumping into a crowded subway car but flinches at the thought of sharing an isolated trail with even one stranger.

There is a formerly four-lane street near my house. They were all “general” lanes which any vehicle could use. One lane was turned divided in half lengthwise and it is a two-way lane for bikes.

I bought a harness for the cat who wants to go outside, but i haven’t gotten around to trying to put it in her. Maybe some day.

(I expect she’ll hate the harness.)

I’ve had seltzer from time to time for a couple decades, now, but I’m not terribly aware of “La Croix”, and have no idea whether i started drinking seltzer before it after that brand was invented, or became popular, or whatever. I’m not certain whether I’ve ever had that brand, either.

I like American style race cakes as something to nibble on. I wouldn’t say “delightful”, but i do eat them plain from time to time. Wasn’t certain how to answer. The Korean dish looks spicy, and unless someone assured me that it didn’t have peppers in it, i would give it a wide berth. I don’t like “spicy” and i despise the flavor of peppers.

I have rarely taken one of my cats (the Bengal) out on a leash. He’s generally very happy about it, but since he’s an indoor cat and I don’t want him at risk for fleas and god-knows-what, it’s rare.

He falls into the can be walked, but will eventually refuse to cooperate, although more in an adorkable manner rather than destructive. So he’ll flop over and demand attention, or decide he wants to roll in gravel over and over and over, or he’ll find a human willing to pay attention to him until he gets overstimulated.

I’ve taken him to one of our local chain pet stores a few times, but otherwise just on sidewalks in my local neighborhood. And he was very popular with everyone. I -might- have done it more often if he wasn’t so car shy.

There’s an old saying about Mussolini making the trains run on time, as if that was supposed to excuse all the awful things he did.

I won’t vote to make my own life a little more comfortable if the cost is making others’ lives much, much worse.

Being able to use a public restroom, or getting treatment for your ectopic pregnancy before you.are at death’s door, are very practical issues. So i was confused by this question.

I’ve known dogs to eat their harnesses; but even they didn’t swallow much of them.

(Yes, I know it’s a typo!)

– I’ve never seen the Korean rice cakes before, and I’d try them, but with caution, in case they’re too hot for me. I like a little spice heat, but not lots of it.

It’s easier to recover from practical damage than from social damage. However, it strikes me as really unlikely that any two candidates are going to divide in that fashion. The social-damage people often claim they’ll be great at the practical stuff, but no the trains don’t run on time, if only because they’ve locked up or driven off too many of the train-maintenance people.

My mother’s “hot dog stew”. Involves beef hot dogs, potatoes, tomato sauce, and I’m not sure I’ve got her recipe quite right.

Yeah, the separation between the “practical” and the “social” in that poll were so artificial, and of course, excluding the middle, makes it near valueless. I mean, given the choice, the candidate who excels on the practical manner is going to run a great nation for (heavily implied) straight white Christian men, and the rest are going to be second class citizens at best, locked up or killed at worst.

So it doesn’t matter to ME how good they’re going to be at running things if I’m dead or locked up, as I miss on one of those categories.

Flip side, if they’re so bad at the practical, taken to the same ludicrous extreme, then our economy, nation and freedom will all collapse after they enact a 5000% percent tariff on everything, or embraced a perfect communist society based on true ideals rather than any practical considerations.

For cooking hot dogs, we always used the hot dog electrocuter back in college. Shockingly good!