Post Race!

[dday9]

I got some bad news from the vet today. My cat is 16 years old and recently lost half her body weight.

Logically I know that she's at the upper-end of how old most indoor cats live, but emotionally its incredibly difficult to have to come to that realization that she doesn't have much time left.

[dday9]

Basically they gave her a shot for the arthritis, some fluids, and an appetite stimulant. If there isn't dramatic improvement within a week then we'll need to put her down.

[dday9]

By the way, by half her body weight I mean she went from 10lbs to 5.4lbs.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Always sad to lose a pet.

[wes4dbt]

I was never a cat person, then while my son was living with me his girlfriend gave him a kitten. Long story short, he moved out the cat stayed. After 14yrs I had to have him put down. It was a terrible. I never got another pet, didn't want to ever go thru that again. Though now, they would probably out live me. lol

[Shaggy Hiker]

Get one of the larger parrots. They'll definitely outlive you, unless there's an accident.

[Shaggy Hiker]

My sister and brother-in-law ended up with two different sets of consecutive 'rescue' cats. The first pair weren't really rescues. My parents went into the Peace Corps and needed them to take the cats for a couple years. Since my parents ended up doing the full-time RV life, my sister ended up with the cats for the rest of their lives. After that, they got two cats from a friend who had to move somewhere. Now...no cats, though I pointed out that their next two would be Cat 5 and Cat 6, it has yet to happen.

[wes4dbt]

You just got to laugh at humans sometimes.

https://apnews.com/article/jane-birk...f4ae65ddb5ec41

$10 million for a purse. lol

[Shaggy Hiker]

Sounds like a unique part of the Birkin stock. Strange that somebody would foot that bill.

[wes4dbt]

It's just the absurdity of one person being homeless and hungry while another spends $10 million on a purse. What's that say about us humans???

Who knows, maybe they have given $100 million to charity. Still, $10 million for a purse. lol

[Shaggy Hiker]

Not just that. Had a museum paid that, it would be a bit excessive, but the purse would be there for display. In this case, the purse will most likely be put into a climate controlled box and hidden away somewhere.

[wes4dbt]

Just imagine the cost of appropriate matching dress and shoes. lol

[dday9]

This is fashion, do you honestly think they match?

[Shaggy Hiker]

The pictures of that purse make it look like it is a bit beaten up. It isn't supposed to be new, but it looks like it's had a life. So, would the rest of the outfit just look like a drunk coming off a three day bender?

[dday9]

I was thinking the same thing in that it looked pretty beat up to have sold for that price tag.

[wes4dbt]

This is fashion, do you honestly think they match?

Of course, mine always do. That's the way I roll!!!

[dday9]

Today was the day I put my minou down. I'm not going to lie, it is probably one of the saddest things I've done, but all things considered I'm glad we did and she lived a good life.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I think you are referring to your cat. Minou would be a good name for a cat, especially if it is a regional term for cat, though it wouldn't be a good cat name for a fish biologist.

The reason my sister has not gotten any new cats is because the loss of them is so hard on my brother-in-law. I get where he's coming from. By bizarre chance, I've almost always been on the other side of the country when any animal that was particularly close (emotionally, not physically, of course, since I was on the other side of the country at the time) to me passed away.

[dday9]

Yeah, I think it's French. It's at least Cajun French. Her name was Stella Belle, its funny because when we adopted her I wasn't sold on her name (it was already given to her), but after a few months I couldn't picture her with any other name.

[wes4dbt]

Today was the day I put my minou down. I'm not going to lie, it is probably one of the saddest things I've done

It's a terrible thing to have to do. How do you say, Ok, go ahead and end their life. Pets turn into family members.

Now, there was times when my kids were in High School that I wanted to have them put down. lol

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, I think it's French. It's at least Cajun French. Her name was Stella Belle, its funny because when we adopted her I wasn't sold on her name (it was already given to her), but after a few months I couldn't picture her with any other name.

Cat in French is chat.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Ah, Google Translate to the rescue: Minou is kitty.

[dday9]

We've got Invest 93L set to come through in a couple of days. Not so worried about the wind, but we've been absolutely soaked the past several weeks. I just hope it isn't slow moving and gets out quick enough so that flooding isn't too bad.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Invest 93L???? Are tropical storms getting corporate sponsors, these days?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Sounds like you'll be getting soaked by an investment scam. They do tend to do that.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I had to look that up. While I didn't look for very long, I also didn't encounter an explanation for that name. It's a tropical depression, so it isn't a named storm, yet. The 93L is not so surprising, but where did the Invest come from?

Investing during a depression seems likely to produce poor choices.

[dday9]

Ohh, quite the opposite. Investing during a depression is the best time to earn the most money with a long time preference. As the old saying goes: buy low, sell high.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, if you have money to invest and a long horizon. The only major depression we have good stock market data for managed to last a pretty long time, and have a lot of businesses go bust. I wouldn't have wanted to be trying to decide which direction to go back then. That was a nasty time.

[dday9]

Before I read Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression I wasn't aware that there were actually more millionaires created during the depression than anytime before it.

I did know, however, that Louisiana was so poor already that many didn't realize that there even was a depression.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's depressing.

[wes4dbt]

On a less depressing note, we're having great weather here. Low 90's for several days now. Very rare for July here.

[dday9]

It's been unreasonably cool here too. I see that the Northeast is experiencing a heat wave, but in South Louisiana it's been cooler than normal. This tropical development that, thank God, never formed is also helping it stay cool.

For context, our high for today was 85^f where as it was 91^f in 2024, 94^f in 2023, and 93^f in 2022. When you take in the "feels like" with humidity, a difference of 6 - 9 degrees is huge.

[Shaggy Hiker]

We're on fire, but only slightly, so far. It has been a reasonably comfortable July, with only a few days hitting triple digits.

[Peter Porter]

This past week was cool, except for today. I'm glad my car has a fast-working AC.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I was cool this past week...the weather was not.

[dday9]

Yeah, but were you this cool?

[wes4dbt]

From about age 25 to 50 my cars didn't have AC. I use to pick my granddaughter up at 5pm and then spend 30min in rush hour traffic driving home when it was 108 degrees in the summer. Even worse, I had a car with an overheating problem and would have to drive with my heater on in the summer to keep the car from overheating. That's what happens when your poor. Luckily I was in pretty good shape back then. It would literally kill me if I did that now.

[Shaggy Hiker]

All the time I was growing up, every car had AC: You just opened the window.

We didn't have rush hour, let alone traffic.

[Shaggy Hiker]

There were those little triangular windows that directed air into the cabin.

[wes4dbt]

All the time I was growing up, every car had AC: You just opened the window.

We didn't have rush hour, let alone traffic.

Didn't you grow up in northeast? I've never got the impression hot weather was a real problem there.

There's only a few spots in town that have traffic backups. This road is the main way to go across town. That time of day it's just waiting at every signal light, sometimes multiple cycles. The old 2 60 AC works Ok if your moving, doesn't help when sitting still.