Comments

  1. birgerjohansson says

    What the hell, I might as well try to distract you from the misery;
    “Scientists answer all the difficult questions in songs” http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2016/12/08/scientists-answer-all-the-difficult-questions-in-songs/
    And today, January 20th, people around the world are watching the newsfeeds waiting for this confirmation: “Sweden’s population reaches historic ten million milestone” http://www.thelocal.se/20170120/swedens-population-reaches-historic-ten-million-milestone

  2. Derek Vandivere says

    #2 – It’s There is no Time off Lou Reed’s New York that’s been stuck in my head lately. Time to ignore all the baloney and ‘take dead aim and attack.’

  3. Alverant says

    Not to pile on the sad news but my cat, Lena, went to the vet yesterday. Her kidney disease has taken a sharp turn for the worse. She’s not eating or drinking and spends most of the time in one hiding spot or another. We got some tests done but they’ll only confirm what we already know. It’s her time. She’s been with me for over 10 years which isn’t long enough. I will give her the best days I can in the time she has left and hold her when she passes away. I will always love my little girl.

  4. cartomancer says

    Alverant, #5

    My sympathies. It’s five years almost to the day that my beloved Wednesday left us. Mouth cancer in her case, though she didn’t suffer much until the very end. I was distraught for nearly two years afterwards, and I still think about her, even though we eventually got another cat to carry on her legacy. There’s not much one can say to make it any easier to bear, though I found there was some small comfort in reminding myself how much better her life had been for all the love and affection she had been given.

  5. birgerjohansson says

    Alverant, my sympathies. Those who say “it’s just an animal” have no goddamn clue.

    A little classic by Phil Collins. “…I won’t be coming home tonight / My generation will put things right / wer’e not just making promises / that we know we’ll never keep…”

  6. blf says

    An oldie† but still relevant song, This is Free Europe (Attila the Stockbroker).

    Plus (which happened to the next one on the playlist), Levellers / The Diggers Song. Not the best version, perhaps, I myself tend to like the Dick Gaughan version (technically, The World Turned Upside Down, a different but related song).

     †  Whilst this upload only dates back to 2010, it is much older; I heard it in person in the early-1990s.

  7. davidc1 says

    Oh come on doc ,nice photos of octopussies on a Friday is the highlight of my week .
    Can’t you at least post the video of those silly farts carrying the image of a saint where they drop it .
    I saw that clip on another site and i followed back to you ,that was in 2008 i think .
    PLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE
    Thank you .

  8. davidc1 says

    Alverant ,sorry to hear about your cat ,on the carers uk site here in GB there is a woman who cat is nearing it’s end ,he is 17 years old .
    My 4 little sods are still young ,i think they will drive me to my death long before their time comes .

  9. Derek Vandivere says

    #5 / Alverant: My condolences. Herbert (17 years) is basically on hospice care now, so we’ve been saying a long goodbye for several months. It’s rough, I know.

  10. magistramarla says

    Alverant@5,
    I also feel for you, friend.
    My blue-eyed boy, Casper, is a 14 year old Flame Point Siamese. Like Derek’s Herbert, he’s basically on hospice now. He’s lost lots of weight and has forgotten all of his manners, so we think that he’s a bit senile, too. He still eats well and enjoys being on my lap for petting, so we think that he’s still enjoying life for now.
    My German Shepherd service dog is 11, and he’s retired now that he hyper-flexed his paws. Walking is painful for him, but he still enjoys lying around on his temper-pedic bed and hanging around with the cats.
    As long as as their quality of life seems good, we’ll keep our two good boys hanging around.

  11. numerobis says

    My cats are in the prime of their lives, licking each other, thwapping each other and running away, exploring boxes. I’ll give them both extra scritches.

  12. davidc1 says

    Mine are busy murdering all the local wildlife ,one of them brought the remains of an British Blackbird in ,just the wings and a bit of shoulder blades.

  13. woozy says

    On one hand we are swearing in woefully incompetent and ignorant demagogue in control of the last superpower. But on the other hand I discovered if I fold my blankets with an accordion fold rather than an envelope fold, they’ll unfurl automatically when you wrap them around you.

    Maybe those will balance out.

  14. Alverant says

    Thanks everyone. I got a call from the vet and her numbers are worse than I thought. Her CRN went from 2.3 to 10.5 in just a couple of months. THE appointment is made for Monday so I can spoil her this weekend and have a chance to thank her for what she added to my life.

  15. lucifersbike says

    Alverant – make the last weekend as happy as you can for both your sakes. We lost two cats (one shared with neighbours) to old age last year, and their gentle, funny, successor ate something bad and died less than three months after settling in. We couldn’t stand the empty house so we went back to the shelter this June and adopted a mother and her two kittens.

  16. Akira MacKenzie says

    @10 biggerjohansson

    The problem is that many of that generation happily voted for Trump.

  17. multitool says

    Alverant:
    I had to put down Sam, my favorite cat ever, back in July.
    It really left a crater. Sorry you and Lena have to go through that too.

  18. multitool says

    Alverant:
    BTW if Lena has any issues freaking out at the vet, ask for a sedative you can administer at home.

    Our vet gave us oral syringes of buphrenex, ‘kitty morphene’ ro use when the time came. It made a world of difference to be able to relieve all of her pain as soon as it started happening. She was high as a kite, in a very mellow way.

  19. mudman says

    Stay strong my American friends. All right thinking British people are with you in these dark days.

  20. Rich Woods says

    @mudman #32:

    I don’t disagree with your general sentiment, but less of the ‘right-thinking’, please. It’s not helpful.