Welcome to the
Froggy Bottom Cafe
Froggy Bottom Cafe
Newbies, Lurkers and Splashers
hop on in!
Beware of the guard dog!
Nevermind…
Newbies, Lurkers and Splashers
hop on in!
Beware of the guard dog!
Nevermind…
Newbies, welcome to the Froggy Bottom Cafe – where everybody knows your name (but only after you post a comment)
Come on in! Bud doesn’t bite, I promise
Beware of Dog. Never mind. Ha!
Hey Manny.
Congrats on the great review of the book, I didn’t get a chance to comment in that thread but I did read the diary. Very, very cool señor!
Looks like today will be brainstorming day for the 12 Days of Justice campaign to stop Alito, looking forward to putting on my boxing gloves. (but first, lots of caffeine and sugar!)
Here’s the feline herd:
Not to mention the wonder woman who makes me tea in the morning.
Oh kitties! I love lots of kitties….!!!
I’m a sucker for anything soft and furry and cuddly…good thing my house is too small or I’d have a herd of kitties too!
Oh, they’re beootiful! And so’s your wife. What glorious hair.
Thanks! I’ll pass the compliments along to the recipients. The cats will take it as their just due and Laura will smile and blush. The hair is the first thing I noticed about her. She was walking across the grounds of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival where I worked and it was love at first sight. That’s sixteen years ago now, and it still feels like love at first sight, if you know what I mean.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but every time I see your screen name KMc, it gives me this feeling that someone has just walked over my grave. I was stuck in a very unhappy marriage for over 20 years with a guy with the same initials..KMc….and now it’s even funnier because my name is Laura and I still go by that Laura Mc name because of my kids.
Although I have to admit there are many chuckled being had by me regarding the scene that would be caused if Bud was in the room, he loves cats…..for breakfast.
I have an attack cat….literally….
Whenever he sees a dog nosing in his direction he takes a swipe at noses! We’ve watched him do it 3 or 4 times now AND heard the results another half a dozen…
We’ve also seen him start at the hind quarters of a black lab and move right up the side of the dog aiming for the head! We stopped him BUT….
This was a really sweet dog – but really dumb – this was his second encounter with the cat.
That’d be pretty much the case around here too. They’re all five rescue cats with full sets of claws and four of ’em survived extended periods of time as outdoor strays. They’re loving little sweeties, but they’re also tough as nails and not afraid of a little blood. I know they’ve drawn enough of mine over the years. Our first rescuee, who died a while back left me a perfect kitty footprint scar on my ribs that I’ll have for life. It’s actually kind of cool and if I ever got a tattoo it would probably be an outline around the scars.
Hi meho, just slipping off to bed.. . .See you in the morning! Get the coffee started.
Loves and Hugs
Shirl
Glad to see the Welcome Wagon out and about, you and diane are great hosts 🙂
Not even close at this hour my friend….
11:30 pacific and we all should be asleep…I’ll bring some Apple Struedel from my local German bakery in the morning.
For now I’m pulling up a pillow and sleeping with ‘Bud’….my spouse’s childhood nickname was Buddy! So dog or spouse, either way I sleep warm!
Finally awake – Strudel for breakfast as promised!
Back for snark after more coffee!
I’m not much of a breakfast person, but I’ll make an exception for the Strudel.
shortly…but got caught up in BooMan’s latest offering.
All women, men who love women, women who love women, and men who love men but who have women in their lives that they love must read this piece…part of it is what folks at the Orange Empire would call “old news”, but when it’s personal, it’s never old…
See you folks in the morning…
can Bud come out and play?
So cute!
My dachshund woke me up about two hours too early this morning. I guess she wanted to make sure I knew it had snowed. But then when I took her out in it, she turned tail and ran back into the house, giving me a look that said, “Do I LOOK like a polar bear to you?”
ooo, you scared me. I wasn’t thinking about snow at all!
But luckily, it’s barely snow. Snow sprinkles maybe.
When you’re one foot tall a sprinkling looks like a blizzard.
Nice BooBooks publicity, Kb! Thank you for doing that. In another thread, Mnemosyne wondered if it would be possible for this site to have some kind of notice posted of each month’s upcoming BooBook. We’ll have to remember to ask Susan or Boo. I also wonder if Powell’s could post an ad each month for the book we choose.
I finally started back reading it again last night. There go my good intentions to read it twice before we meet! Ain’t gonna happen.
I kind of wondered that also. But, you know that ad we had for the Photo Fair was paid for by a generous frog, don’t you?
I don’t know if they can put up unpaid ads.
that would be lame, not to be able to put up ads on your own site for free.. I suppose he could always add a non-ad element to the site to promote the latest book of the month.. I think it would be cool.
I think they choose which Powell’s ads to show and add their own descriptions, so they might be willing to add the book for the month with a “BooBooks” blurb….
I’m traveling this week which means that the dogs are currently “outside dogs” — which really means that I will punished with serious snubbing once I get back.
So that photo is really a plea for help? “She’s leaving again! Give us a hearth! Save us from the Great Outdoors!!”
They usually spend the better chunk of the day outside anyway — it’s that I’m not there to let them in and out whenever they want that pisses them off. Apparently, the idea that the maid isn’t always available is an affront to their dignity.
One of the reasons I go to the library to work is to escape the cats and dog constantly going to the door because they think maybe the weather has changed in the last five minutes. Or they try a different door. “Hey, it’s snowing on the deck, but maybe not in the yard!”
And I thought our shih tzu was the only dog crazy enough to think there might be a whole new world outside every 5 minutes. Actually, I think she keeps going to the door now because the cookie box is next to the kitchen door…
The big dogs just lie on the floor in my office and follow me out to the kitchen all day…
Going to the kitchen all day. . .in my house, that’s our main exercise.
What a sweet face!!! Great shot… tiny little paws, big adoring eyes.
the paws aren’t little, it’s just the perspective. He is a big boy — 76 lbs.
So adorably needy. You should send that face to negotiate contracts for you.
that face and eyes are why he is named Hopeful.
I don’t know what this says about my psyche but in my head your dog has the voice and accent of a street urchin ala Oliver Twist when he begs, “Oh please, kind sir, please trade my mother some more copper coins for the instruction booklets she makes for you. I’d be ever so grateful if I could eat my kibble off the floor from inside the warm house tonight, please sir, some copper for my mother to buy firewood and kibble?”
Actually we always thought he would sound like Mortimer Snerd. The rest of the speech is pretty close (except for the instruction booklet part — thank the cosmic muffin I never have to write training stuff, I don’t even like writing doc for my code — but you also need something about how “I’ve haven’t ever been fed a meal in my entire life.”
Just as soon as he puts his shoes on:
I posted this photo of kansas and me studying last Saturday night, but some of you might have missed it (plus we endured too many laughs from strangers to waste it)
For those who haven’t heard about this, BooBooks is our local book club. We meet about one weekend a month, with the next meeting this coming weekend.
The book (a novel this time, but the last one was non fiction) is, Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, by Lydia Millet.
Stop by your library and pick up a copy. So far, everyone I know who has looked at their library, found it there.
And for those who missed the voting process, here’s a bit of a description:
Summary
A masterfully crafted literary and
philosophical tour-de-force that moves from the poetic to the hilarious
to the dreamily apocalyptic, this novel from the 2003 PENUSA Award
winner imagines the small foibles and grand moral negotiations of the
“genius” A-bomb scientists.
Review
What if Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi
and Leo Szilard, the primary physicists from the Manhattan Project,
returned to contemporary America to survey their atomic legacy? That
question forms the heart of Millet’s excellent fourth novel, in which
the souls of the three take earthly form in the present-day Southwest.
Ann, a New Mexico librarian, spots the reincarnated Oppenheimer and
Fermi at a restaurant near her home; Szilard soon joins them; Ann
persuades her garden-designer husband, Ben, to take them all in.
Subsequent trips to Los Alamos and (with the help of a rich UFOlogist)
Japan to view the monuments at Hiroshima persuade the three to work for
disarmament. Army surveillance ensues; at one rally, shots are fired;
and Christian Fundamentalists try to take things in a more rapturous
direction. It takes considerable talent to pull off a conceit like
this, and for the most part Millet makes it look easy, drawing
full-blown, dead-on portraits of the three scientists that don’t
diminish their characters or their work. Her threads on weapons
buildup, the topsy-turvy mosaic of contemporary American political
culture and the difficulties of marriage feel realistically motivated
and nicely argued. Millet gives a whimsical conceit real depth, and the
result, if a bit pious in spots, is a superb, memorable novel. (July)
Millet, whose three previous novels include
the PEN-USA Award winner My Happy Life (2002), boldly fuses lyrical
realism with precisely rendered far-outness to achieve a unique energy
and perspicacity, the ideal approach to the most confounding reality of
our era: the atomic bomb. This trippy yet revelatory epic begins in
present-day Santa Fe, where librarian Ann and her gardener-husband Ben
end up giving sanctuary to three renowned atomic physicists bewildered
at finding themselves in the twenty-first century when the last thing
they remember is the Trinity test in July 1945. There’s elegant and
chain-smoking Robert Oppenheimer; depressed Enrico Fermi; and Leo
Szilard, who, when he isn’t stuffing his face, is busy launching a
global disarmament movement. Ann and Ben take this unholy trinity of
unwitting time travelers on a pilgrimage to Hiroshima, after which a
megawealthy Tokyo pothead offers to bankroll Szilard’s mission. Things
soon take on an End Times intensity as the physicists travel
cross-country in an ever-growing caravan (picture Grateful Dead
followers), which is soon hijacked by a militaristic Christian group
who worships Oppenheimer as the Second Coming. As nonfiction books
about the nuclear threat proliferate, Millet’s brilliant, madcap,
poetic, fact-spiked, and penetrating novel (think Twain, Vonnegut,
Murakami, and DeLillo) illuminates the personal dimension of our most
daunting dilemma.
Which of us is which. Oh well, you’ll have to guess.
I guess.
::wildly waving raised hand::
I know! I know!
Me too, me too!!
The book is great, I just wish I had more free time to read it!
Yeh, it’s hard to believe we meet this weekend. I thought I had another month!
Bring your great ideas to share with everybody here! Homemade or “bought’n,” thrifty or free, complex as croissants or easy as pie (I haven’t had breakfast yet), all ideas are welcome. You never know what idea of yours might inspire other great ideas, too!
And can I plug boran2’s Saturday morning arts diary…he’s having an exhibition this week! Display your own work too! (I’ll be unveiling one of my secret talents…)
Thanks, CG!!! Morning to all!!! Be back later.
I thought I was having a hard time waking up. But, I don’t think it’s sleepiness. I’m not sure what it is though.
That is not good. Have you eaten?
Yes, and had coffee and I’ve driven 15 miles to work. But, I didn’t do my walk, because after 3 or 4 laps around that room, I felt like I was going to tip over.
(and I’m blaming the dizzyness on any stupid comments I’ve made anywhere else!)
Is it convenient for you to check your blood pressure? Or maybe that cold you thought you had (that was you, right, after the flu shot?) is just lingering around.
No, that’s a good idea, I have a blood pressure monitor at home. But not here. (I did just test my blood glucose. At 93, it’s just fine.
it could be some fluid in the Eustachean tube — if you can take decongestants, go home and try taking one (do it at home because they’ll make you drowsy), or use a nasal spray. Of course, I’m not a doctor — I don’t even play one on TV. 🙂
Sounds like a very good reason for you to get the h-e-double hockey sticks out of the office and go home to rest…
Eustachean tube . . . . .
You know — I really must be thinking thickly.
I have had this problem periodically for quite a while, and it is related to my Eustachean tubes (one doctor says they are too narrow (but I never felt comfortable with that explanation))
OK, now that I’m pretty convinced it’s not a tumor of some sort, I can hang in until I get home.
Thanks!
Keep us updated so we’re not worrying about you all day. My cousin/roommate was feeling similarly last week and it turned out to be an ear infection so stay safe!
Thanks! That’s a good hint — one of my ears has felt stuffy.
I’ll try that Mutrex (?) stuff, it’s over the counter now. And I have some at home.
please.
I will, I really do think it’s the Eustachean tube thing. And I feel better just having a handle on it.
I have stuff I can take when I get home.
(Thank you very much!)
Katie, have you ever read about Meniere’s disease? I had it real bad for a time. It baffles most doctors, they all hated that I had done my own research and self-diagnosed. Luckily there’s plenty on the web about it now.
I do hope that’s not your problem, but suspect you’re not eating enough.
Alice, thank you so much for suggesting this. I’ve taken a look at a couple of sites and it does seem like something I should look into very closely (although I’m not sure what would change by doing that, judging by what I just quickly read).
Did you take some action to get it under control? It sounds like it isn’t as bad for you now as it has been in the past??
I’m kind of boggled to see so many of my symptoms listed on one page.
(It’s kind of you to suggest that I’m not eating enough, but I assure you that’s not a problem. Maybe someday.)
Sorry for the delayed response, I was watching Fred Astaire. I can go on and on, so will write to your email to avoid filling up this diary.
That would be wonderful Alice. (But it will probably be after work before I can correspond)
I went away to write my long story, but there is hope. I am totally cured by this surgery if you want more workplace reading. I’ll keep checking back for you to holler if this link won’t work. Good luck.
Click on the thumbnail to see one of the bearprints my hubby found Sunday morning in the snow. That’s his hand next to the print. We estimated that the bear print was close to 9″ long… this print even had dermal ridges. If you look carefully on the full sized shot you can even see the fur marks in the snow around the outside of the print.
The local bear are late in hibernating because they say there is so much for them to eat this year. This one was poking around one of our ponds, then walked out one of our paths and apparently down the driveway. I wonder if it’s the same one we saw in the back yard on the morning of July 4th this past summer. (that one was absolutely beautiful!!!) It’s always a thrill to find something like this. At least this big fella made it through bear season!
Cool! Do they freak your horses out?
I’m still holding a grudge against bear from circa 1980, when one attacked my pet pig and nearly killed her, inducing me to spent the following week practically living in her pen and nursing her back to health. (Also still holding a small grudge against my father for not telling me I should’ve named that pig Bacon in the first place, but that’s yet another story.)
The bear we saw last July cut into the pasture before hightailing it away from the people, but the horses were not in the least bit freaked. Maybe if they had been downwind, or if the bear made a scary noise they would be more concerned. The horses are incredibly aware of their surroundings and notice everything. EVery once in a while they do get freaked in a big way… when that happens, I get scared too and run for the house.
I’m sorry about your pig. I never would have made it growing up on a working farm… I probably would have been a vegetarian much earlier in life. Poor Bacon, we knew her well.
lol, you’re funny.
I didn’t grow up on a farm, though. I grew up mostly in metropolitan Miami right by the international airport, but my dad moved to central Alaska in the 70s after he and my mom split up so I was back and forth throughout my childhood. The pig — Molly, a redhead — lived and died about an hour outside of Fairbanks on a very rural cabin homestead out in the woods.
Fwiw, I think you’re very wise to heed the horses like that; like many females, I’ve had a deep fondness and profound respect for horses since I was a little girl. 🙂
Like hot damn, only better. Ms. KMc or Dr. KMc as she sometimes prefers to be called made me a huge travel mug of tea before trundling off to insert physics into student brains this morning. She often does, but this time, wonder of wonders, I woke up again early enough to catch it at the perfect temperature. She’d leave it in the Mrs. Tea, but I’m not a reliable enough thinker in the morning to be sure to find it before the heating element does something nasty. I’m generally not allowed to operate anything that involves heat or heavy machinery before about ten a.m..
Today I go through the copyedited manuscript of WebMage and see if they’ve done anything I can’t live with. From a quick scan of the copy editor’s questions page and the first chapter it looks pretty good. Cool. Even cooler, the copy editor wrote me a note on the very last page — “brilliant piece of writing.” Now, if I were a copy editor and wanted the writer to be in a good mood and not argue too much with all of my carefully reasoned changes, I might write something like that on every manuscript. But even if that’s the case, it made my whole day yesterday.
On the companions front, I’ll see if I can’t figure out a way to post a shot of the feline herd upthread with all the puppy pics.
Oh AAaaandi… I’ve got a question for you. I remember you discussing food terminology some time ago in a cafe comment. Could you explain again what ‘pareve’ means? I am a vegetarian and often poke around in the specialty foods aisle looking for decent meatless soups, etc. I love kosher stuff. Alas, I’m not Jewish and the terminology escapes me. These days the cheater reading glasses aren’t enough to read labels in the grocery store… I need a damn illuminated magnifying glass. If I knew the lingo it might help.
I’m not AndiF, but my sister-in-law and her husband are observant Jews.
From the freedictionary.com:
“Prepared without meat, milk, or their derivatives and therefore permissible to be eaten with both meat and dairy dishes according to dietary laws”
Eating dairy and meat together is forbidden, so pareve is that which is neither. Whether it’s vegetarian depends on your definition of vegetarian, as fish and eggs are both generally considered pareve.
Thanks for answering, Kelly. And what you’ve said is correct.
Another thing you may see is “KP” which means “kosher for passover” which just means that the food has been prepared according to the special requirements for passover.
Sorry for the late answer. I’m offsite (not at working at home) and in meetings so I can’t play as much as usual.
Well, I’m showered and dressed nice and early; decided to let the spouse sleep in a bit. Need to start getting back on a regular schedule since he’ll be leaving here at about 5:30am starting next Monday, which means I’ll actually be able to get myself on some sort of schedule, including writing.
Damp day in Silly Con Valley; the storm door is finally open. Hope to at least get newspapers out to the recycling bin today; at least here the spouse can’t use mud by the bins as an excuse as he could in our old place (they’re right next to the parking lot!).
Okay, time to get to work after a bit more reading…back in a little while…
Did you get smacked around by the cold front that moved in over the weekend? It was FREEZING at my parents’ house (really, her geraniums froze on Sunday night)
Been pretty chilly around these here parts…then again, I’m a native Californian, aka weather wimp. 🙂
I was actually nice to the spouse this morning — not only did I let him sleep in, I made coffee! Now that he’s up and stirring, I get to nag him to get his butt in gear so we can actually get something done today — Goodwill, grocery shopping to name a couple of necessities…which means I’d better get my own rear in gear and get a shopping list made. Took out a bunch of papers but it wore me out; energy has been a premium lately… 🙁
Back from the land of OZ, trying to get organized again…who’d a thunk 6 days gone could create such havoc?
Saw way to much of this:
missed the storm and road closures in western Ks and eastern Co by about an hour…was one of the last ones thru – lovely day for driving…and Oh Yeah, met the Kansass State Patrol…BAH!
Later
Peace
glad to hear you missed the storm. Isn’t it agonizing to see the road stretch before you, especially after several hours already on the go?
I really enjoy driving, especially if I take a route that I’ve never driven. My problem is I tend to drive rather fast…hence my introduction to the KSP officer. FYI, they don’t use conventional radar there…lasers…detectors are worthless…and no I couldn’t talk him into just giving me a warning…as I said-BAH!
Peace
R.I.P. my Big Hug Mug.
It came apart in Puget4’s hands as she was washing it. We suspect that it, like many cats, was microwave incompatible. The tape around the edges are to protect me in its afterlife as a sandpaper form, as it happens to be the exact radius I need for one of my woodworking operations.
The Big Hug Mug standing guard over 2 CNN smug mugs in happier times.
After reading your comment title, I was already mentally preparing myself for having to say goodbye to one of the Totos.
May the Big Hug Mug rest forever in the presence of the FSM.
My deepest sympathies on your tragic loss. Would a small hug from my goofy mug help? {{{Gooserock}}}
My BT mug sends a good bye hug and a “Hiya – look how good I look” wave at you…
Time for a froggy mug????
It’s beginning to look a lot like Holiday® .
Been having too much fun – must complete Strategic Business Plan by mid-afternoon (format and move around stuff…). Back maybe at lunch and this evening….
In the meantime – don’t eat too many flies!
Just got back from lunch. I was craving a chorizo plate, it was GOOOOD.
Just put up my mom’s Nativity set:
My mom brought this home from one of her first Mexico cruises several years ago. I’m not sure where she bought it; I want to say Mazatlan, but that might not be correct. It’s meant a lot to me since then — in fact, we were going to go to Mexico together in November of 1987, and I was going to buy myself one if I could find it…but Mom had her first heart attack in October of 1987 (on Halloween, in fact), so the trip was cancelled…and I have yet to get to Mexico.
Family tradition is to leave the manger empty until Christmas Eve…the spouse wanted to move the three Wise Men (on the right, coming “from the East”) farther away until at least Epiphany, but haven’t figured out how to do that yet. We may change how we set things up in future years, but this’ll work for now.
If this is too “Christian” for anyone, I apologize…but the set means a lot to me…I’m so glad my sister found it… 🙂
THat’s very pretty. My mom gave each of her 8 children a nativity set that is carved from Olive wood from the Holy Land. I guess that means Jerusalem but it might be China…who knows! ANyway, it’s really pretty and plain looking, not painted or anything.
One year when my kids were all around 7 to 12 years old, they thought the figures needed some shelter so they gathered some fallen sticks from around the yard and made the neatest little structure a la Lincoln logs and filled it with dried grass. It was perfect and we still use it a dozen years later. It’s so rustic and plain that I just love it.
some sort of structure as well — at least then I could have the Wise Men “outside” till Epiphany. 🙂 I might take a look at OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) today, since we’re stopping by there to pick up an extension cord for the bedroom, or I may wait till after the holidays and pick up one on sale. 🙂
Heading out soon, if I can ever get the spouse moving…
A friend of mine puts her wise men on the other side of the room and she and her kids move them a little closer each day until Epiphany. Of course, you have to have multiple places where they land without getting hurt. When I was a kid my sisters and I had a special Baby Jesus that my aunt (a nun) gave to us. It was plastic like a baby doll (and only slightly smaller than a real baby doll) and it slept in a little basket. This way if we picked it up, we couldn’t hurt it. And the “special” nativity set didn’t get broken.
I was running around the cafe and noticed you peaked your head in, welcome!
There’s a shelf at my nana’s house where she always kept the baby Jesus, all the kids knew that it was forbidden to touch. Of course, we still would dare each other, thankfully no broken fingers or toes!
Welcome again
Head on over, we have smoothies and drinks over at the new Cafe diary
(Bud is still sleeping, he needs his beauty rest)