Mrs Whiggins

If you do end up heading out today @woohorn, wouldn't hurt to add a bag of kitty litter and small dig out shovel to the trunk as a just in case. We went off road traveling through Kansas in an ice storm once and those two items got us back on the road in a jiffy. With all the precipitation, the ground can put your tires in a rut pretty fast and like Mona Lisa Vito said, " The ’64 Skylark had a regular differential, which, anyone who’s been stuck in the mud in Alabama knows, you step on the gas, one tire spins, the other tire does nothing."

Same with the Waze app; there may be fewer cars to report issues hence not so accurate with respect to closures/accidents. If the icy roads aren't difficult for your vehicle, then the traffic may be light enough that I-45 will be less problematic the further south you go due to the angle of the freeze line. Mostly have to watch out for trucks, etc losing control on bridges and ramps. Wasn't seeing any closures reported and DriveTexas (https://drivetexas.org/#/11/31.8162/-96.0513?future=false&resources=traffic )is showing green south of Fairfield on 45.

Maybe she is mad because she didn't want you to slip on the way to the feeder (like @NoName with the trashcan) and take out a window with a plate turned frisbee or throw your back out or something. Sometimes angry voice is covering for worried voice.

We simply cannot have that graphic novel depicting lesbian sex serving as a GATEWAY DRUG into Greek mythology because those Greeks, foundational in the Western canon of literature, were off the charts when it came to getting it on...oh wait.... Seriously though and strangely coincidental to the last few pages topically, I was chatting with a friend recently and she used the phrase between a rock and a hard place and did not know the origin of the phrase or the story. Guess no one has time for The Odyssey anymore or ever listened to The Police or any of the other frequent references and show the least shred of curiosity about the names. I will say, my children were precocious readers and so we did monitor some of what they were reading and had frank discussions with them regarding the human body and sexuality. They attended school with children whose parents thought the Harry Potter books were dangerous because...magic. I do think there is an age at which privacy (for the young adult) becomes important while simultaneously having an open door with respect to judgement free discussions regarding what they and their peers are reading. Hence, the parenting part of parenting. I realize that not every student has this opportunity, so I think parents, school personnel, and the community should tread carefully when considering items for removal. Err on the side of keeping materials and put the onus on the parent to permit or prohibit because some parents simply wish to avoid uncomfortable topics that may arise when doing so or even recognize that their teen has agency over their own thoughts.

Watch til the end if you haven't seen the movie and scene before....thought of it when you posted this. Good luck with the transformation, will be watching to see how it goes!

All true. Welcome to 2023.

It does! It really perked up in the Before/After. With respect to topic, I tend to think of the Gardening one as fairly broad in nature. Veggies may dominate most of the discussion, but to me it ought to include flowers and other similar things because the Lawn & Landcape thread seems more suited for diagnosis and discussion of lawn issues as well as overarching design considerations i.e. what plant would be good for this area of someone's landscape etc. I don't wish to clutter that thread when I have a photo heavy blooms post that might bury a lawn pest question. The Gardening thread never gets so large during the year that it is ever cumbersome, IMO. Post away with bonsai! Bonsai is a neat hobby and when my children were little they so would have put tiny gnomes or tiny army people under that plant, haha.

Seed catalogs have been arriving and display the lovely 4 color processing that tempts the fingers to reach for the wallet with optimism and dreams of blooms and bountiful harvests. Last couple of years have been a challenge. Crazy heat, crazy cold, and this week I was surveying the effects of the extreme freeze on some of the cool season crops and also the fall planted flower seedlings (poppies, larkspur, snapdragons, etc). Yuck, not great. Lost pretty much all the snapdragons even though I had covered them. Grew 3 flats from seed into nice sized plants and too late to grow more I'm fairly certain. Beets, carrots, and lettuces all look sad due to the length of the cold but may rebound. Ornamental cabbages in the front are woebegone but may rebound with some sun and seasonable weather. Oh well, on to the spring. Will start tomatoes inside here shortly as well as peas, etc for veg and haven't decided on which flowers. I've got a half dozen or so sweet peas (love the scent) that I'm babying along outdoors when the weather is nice and will transplant past the last freeze date. I always plant sunflowers, zinnias, etc but have plenty of good seed from last year. Looking at putting in tomatoes (Celebrity), cucumber, peppers, herbs, and I'm giving up on any squash save zuccinni I think. Just ran out of room and tired of fighting the bugs. Potatoes in soon, and the lettuces that I grow all the time save the hottest months for sure. I had some celery growing that I transplanted from seed in the fall, and it looked amazing (too small to harvest though) and the cold just wiped it out. Too much liquid in the stems of certain plants spells disaster when it freezes. But it was fun to grow anyway. Anyone else have plans?

Wouldn't be surprised if all of the leaves drop, but vines such as jasmine can still photosynthesize and grow new buds afterwards. Since there is still some cold weather to come, I would be reluctant to do much now, but you could always take a small knife or pruner and go down a branch and trim to see how the wood looks. The aloysia after the great freeze looked like they had died all the way to the ground, but they did not and are around 8 feet tall now. I'm going to leave them until late spring before I touch them with anything sharp and even then very gingerly. They have a scent that is every bit as lovely as the jasmine plants that you have, which are divine.

He announced some type of media availability for this evening but no clear statement on what that entails. Perhaps he will just wish everyone a MAGA New Year or something. Maybe crash a party or wedding. Most of the pundits are saying he is clamoring for relevancy because the GOP is moving on to the other pols.

He has the demeanor of an adolescent boy so it seemed like it fit to me. Most well adjusted adult men treat relationships with others as a partnership but Tate has monetized the myth that to be male is to possess 'things.' Cars, houses, etc. Some of those 'things' are also human beings but to them that is perhaps not worth consideration. Both men are of a similar mind set in that they exalt themselves and their views to be the way the real world works when it comes to power. In some eras, perhaps so. I don't pity those two at all at all. Boys usually mature to see that for the dangerous game it can be and how so very shallow and so very very lonely. Enjoy the cold pizza and stale beer Mr. Musk. You will never please your *dad so perhaps you ought to seek validation through healthier behaviors. *if you've ever read an interview with his dad, there was one out there I read some time back--his dad is a piece of work.

Signed (facsimile) coloring book.

I cant keep up with all this chaos. Is Musk trying to make some sort of cryptic comment regarding the whole Tate Bros incident? What does he mean exactly? 1. Better to beat up on one's own family's women and keep it in house? 2. Stay home in (dual citizenship) the US or UK and trust that one can draw out the legal issues with $$ and never face any serious stuff (ala the way politicals/wealthy do) 3. Traffic and imprison women in the US so the Romanian mafia isn't involved and one can use your bois to spin the media influencer cycle or pin it on a house aide ala Matt Gaetz. 4. One has a paid staff and one's own pizza oven so stay home and keep all the legal issues at bay by using a green screen for fooling the haters? So much confusion. Good pizza is good pizza however.

Is there some sort of malevolent sprite that determines household machinery should break around the holidays regardless of whether one has company or family houseguests? With the new year beginning I'm making an attempt to cover all the bases with statuary, lucky colors, intercessory prayer, and incense but will consider any and all suggestions beyond chicken sacrifices. Poultry got too expensive. We do have an opossum under the shed, however.

It's crazy. I mean at ~20 a month you only have to grift 10,000 supporters to rake in over 2 million a year. Not inconceivable for fleecing the flock of true believers.

Are you sure it's gone? I usually wait until quite a bit after our last average freeze date in the spring before I pull out plants. We have several aloysia (almond verbena) bushes that are cold sensitive. I mulch them heavily each winter and even with the great freeze of two years ago, they survived. They took quite a while to put on leaves and appeared dead, but as the temps got into the regular 80s they came roaring back. Jasmine may do something similar where it dies back to preserve itself and then will resprout new tendrils perhaps? There is a hardy jasmine that goes to about zone 6 I think. Is this what you have? If you go to the Logee's website and enter jasmine or hardy jasmine they have several specimens that may suit you.

Also, it was the victim's fault because she tempted him in the house of the Lord or some such reasoning.

If the Suburban is properly maintained and has no issues, why buy a new one? Do the math for the insurance difference for two months or something to illustrate just one potential area of savings and perhaps that will slow the BUY BUY BUY momentum long enough for you to figure out how the market will go and what you'd like to do. If you're driving from Texas to NM it's not like you're going to New York or Canada with loads of miles round trip. OTOH, breaking down while traveling is not pleasant, but it does build character.

Board member Roof better clarify because that is a big nope nope nope when one is acting in an official capacity in a public meeting IMO. While it seems sectarian prayer prior to various legislative sessions is a common tradition and has been before SCOTUS, anyone with a lick of sense would know there are some easy ways to accommodate the various school community members that one represents as an elected official. But, school board members are often missing that sense so it's not like this is a revelation (pardon the pun). Edit: I prefer the moment of silence for a variety of reasons, accommodation of others being one of them, but mostly because silence and silent wisdom (thought which comes prior to speaking) is another scarce trait in civil society these days.

I don't know the answer to your question, but I've been pondering over this for some time now. At somewhere around $650 million, Dolly Parton is nowhere near as wealthy as Musk but she has invested money and time into literacy and other projects in her hometown and beyond and the region is the better for it. Philanthropy such as that--personal and relatable--makes one feel very very good so why Elon doesn't pursue that drug baffles me. On the other hand, were I in possession of that much money, I'd be enrolled in classes part time for fun and interest and traveling the world with loved ones the rest of it. One life to live so get out and do it.

That hasn't been our experience. We had a Civic with close to 200K and when we finally sold it we still had the original clutch and all. Great little car. We have other models now and both with over 100K. Keep them maintained and we'll see how far we get.

I'm right in line with you, but I'll admit that I paused for a moment when I remembered that Aggy has a medical school.

One of mine is also of similar mind. He believes that a mix of capitalism/socialism (read daycare/education) is not a bad thing but everywhere he turns it is fuck you I got mine and no future planning, no investment, no community care. He votes. Also true and the below is coming on strong. Hate sells.

I got the feeling that grabbing them freshly made is the way to go but YMMV. The ones on order are frozen and that may affect the quality slightly.