Because it’s a mite long and I already spent the weekend zooming down to Northern Spain, zooming up back to Northern France and then assembling a bunch of furniture. Did you know that disassembling a bed, taking all the pieces up one stair that’s not wide enough for two people, reassembling it and assembling three other pieces of furniture requires muscles that office work does not? Either that, or my joints are starting to be older than my brain, which wouldn’t be terribly surprising either.
Never mind, then; you get your rest. I’ll look out for it on YouTube tomorrow and post a link if I find one. 
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The Sultan’stheme skin is the New Skin. The classic Straight Dope theme is the Old Skin.
Dear neighborhood busybodies who manage to pop out of the woodwork, are you looking for a reason to be outraged?? Yes, I know my 13 year old and 9 year old are at the park playing basketball. I know that because, since they’re home all day for a whole damn week for spring break and I have the pleasure of working from home so they don’t burn the joint down, they were alternating between arguing and complaining of boredom because I refused to let them watch any more television. I helpfully offered to give them something to do, such as scrubbing the kitchen floor, cleaning windows or organizing closets, but much to my amazement, they decided to go to the park and play basketball over household chores.
Anyway, I DO appreciate that someone is concerned for my children. So, thank you for that. But the not-so-veiled comments about my motherhood because I a) work and b) sometimes let my kids go somewhere independent of me, while impressive (you managed to insult me twice in the same sentence even! congratulations!) are not helpful. “Oh, well I guess it’s your choice whether you work or not and if you’re comfortable not knowing whether your kids are safe, well…” Yes, the world is truly a dangerous place, but the basketball courts are less than 1/2 a mile away; I’ve spoken to my son on his cell phone and they’ve safely arrived and are happily playing outside, in fresh air, etc., etc.
I’m fairly sure that our neighbor would develop a case of the vapors if she knew how many of my daughter’s friends in the area already come home by themselves because - guess what? - most of the moms work and many of them don’t want to pay for aftercare if they only need it for the 30-minute gap between when their elementary aged kid gets home and the middle school buses show up.
Ahhh, motherhood - another thing to feel shitty about. Yay!
I’d say take her to the vet. I’m pretty sure it’s doggy senility. I had a dog who lived til 20+. She went through a phase of barking at nothing and we noticed she had cataracts and was seeing shadows and it alarmed her. She finally went completely blind and that stopped.
Elder dog care is an adventure in chasing down and trying to alleviate symptoms. Good luck.
We went through Home Advisor to get a tree service. They came out and gave us a good estimate, so we hired them. The day they were supposed to come, they called and said they couldn’t make it because the city dump was closed. Then it started raining and they pushed it back and back till finally the rain stopped, and they did show up, and once they came, they did a good job. Then we called them last week to come to take out one of the trees in our front yard. They were supposed to come Thursday afternoon, they didn’t show up. They didn’t call. I called them and they said, “Oh, no, we were supposed to come Friday.” No, they were supposed to come Thursday, but okay. Then Friday, they didn’t show up and they didn’t call. I called them SEVERAL times and kept getting “Oh, we’ll be there.” Then I called again and the guy said, “Oh, our truck is stuck. We’re trying to get it free.” Never called back. I called them again this morning, and the guy said, “We will be there by one o’clock, you have my word.” It’s now 1:30.
I will be reporting them to Home Advisor.
So now it’s “end of the day”, did they show up?
We had the flip side of that trope. We remodeled a quirky 20’s bungalow, and the only handyman willing to handle it was an older German guy “from der olde country ya”, with his sons being the crew. He even hired me one day a week to help out.
Once we got used to his Sgt. Schultz accent, everything went fine. One morning The Wife looked at our Caller ID: “Uh, oh, it’s Ernie…”
Me: “Damn, I took this morning off to help him and show him some places where the rafters’ll have tricky angles. I can’t take off tomorrow. Gimme that phone!”
Ernie: “Uh, ya know where I said we’d be dere 'bout nine?”
Me: “Yeah…”
Ernie: “Ya, well, lookin’ like it’ll be more like nine fifteen. Really sorry.”
I called him at 2:00 and he said “We’re going to get there real soon.” I told him not to bother. And I gave him a one star review.
When my mother-in-law died in 2014, I found a website where you could put in the info and get rid of all the junk mail. I can’t recall what it was now.
My father is 85. His dementia is getting worse, and for the last 2 months he has been in an assisted living facility. So of course, he gets called for jury duty. Shouldn’t be a problem, anyone over 75 is exempted if they send in the documentation. But the documentation is an affidavit that needs to be signed and notarized. Even though the jury pool is selected from drivers license information, which of course includes the date of birth. I have POA for my dad, so I am sending in the form un-notarized. Don’t have time for that sort of bullshit. If they give me any shit about it, I’ll deliver my dad to the courthouse and let those fuckers take care of him.
WTF? They are damn lucky they didn’t call me. I don’t take well to those sorts.
Well, I tried. But y’all carry on with your jackass selves.
Hindsight and all…check is in the mail(overnight)
How rude. I was and am teasing Wolfpup. It’s ok. He’s not going to do what he doesn’t want to do. Give him some credit.
Update, since the accursed subject has come up again: I have been sent a picture of the beast that is at the center of this Cat Crisis. I assume it to be in the nature of a sort of promotional shameless pro-cat propagandizing, intended to corrupt my doggy-loving soul. I’m reluctant to upload it for general viewing because that seems to take the proceedings one step too far in a direction I would prefer not to think about too seriously, but I did it anyway. I’m sure that you becatted lovers of all things feline would think it’s “cute”, but what I see in that picture is a murderous feline stare, a look of such contemptuous hatred that no one should feel safe anywhere within pouncing distance!
Besides, if the adoption went ahead, I would have to appeal to the admins here to change my username to “Catboy”, and who wants that?
Behold the night-and-day contrast with this look – feast your eyes on true love! No murderous stare here – that is a look that says “I want to be your Best Friend Forever and love you with all of my great big heart”. That looks exactly like my BFF and devoted companion for a glorious decade that is now gone forever. That’s just a website pic, but Bernese Mountain Dogs all have nearly identical tri-color patterns differing only in fine details, such as the amount of white on the chest or the width of the stripe on the forehead. There is so much love under all that shaggy fur! 
Awwww. That cat is just too cute. You won’t fall magically in love til you smell those toes. I do love the Bernie too. I loves me some big furry dog!
Can I ask? Why haven’t you gotten another over the years? If that’s too personal feel free to not answer, I’ll understand.
Awwww, he looks just like my Cobalt who died in December. What a beauty! Cobalt used to let me rub my face in his belly, but I would recommend caution before trying that with a stranger cat.
Thanks for the pics, wolfpup! The contrast in attitudes is striking.
As is that cat… the dog wouldn’t strike you, just suffocate you, but it’d be inadvertent.
And sorry that I hate all the goopy “Aww, widdle toesies, rubbing my face in lovey-dovey kitteh/pupper smoochiness…” But if you talked about a human (someone you were dating?) this way, all your friends would leave you… since you clearly can’t control yourself gushing about a pet they restrict themselves to rolling their eyes when you’re not looking.
Look, I love my pets - I’m a dog and cat person. But I don’t turn into a toddler when I talk about them.
My apologies. I didn’t see the posts on page 4 of the thread, and I retract my complaint.
There’s nothing especially terribly personal, just a lot of circumstances about why I haven’t got another Bernese. Part of that “glorious decade” is that it was part of my son’s transformation from childhood to adolescence – this was nominally “his dog”, but you know how it is – it really became mine. It was also an enormous amount of work (and also expense) to keep him happy and healthy, which I’m not sure I’m capable of now, though it would probably do me a lot of good. There’s something about running through the park with a Bernese in the early morning sunshine that seemed so wonderfully vibrant, and brings back so many great memories, but it’s the kind of thing that’s alien to me now.
What is it with you and cat toes? 