Cassie had a solid night of post-anesthesia sleep and woke up mostly refreshed. The cone still bums her out, and the surgery bill bums me out, but at least she's walking at close to her normal speed. She gets her stiches out—and her cone off—two weeks from today.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:
- Very stupid people have allowed measles, which we functionally eliminated from the US in 2000, to infect close to 1300 people this year.
- Jennifer Rubin argues that the Department of Homeland Security provides neither “freedom from danger” or “freedom from fear or anxiety,” i.e., security.
- Former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers is ashamed of the OAFPOTUS's tax bill and what it will do to the most vulnerable Americans.
- George Will praises former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel for holding the center against the loony left.
- Echoing my own thoughts, Stephanie Bai wants people to stop throwing blame around for this past weekend's Texas floods. (The blame for future disasters, however, falls squarely on the Republican Party.)
- Paul Krugman lauds victories over NIMBYs that are starting to revitalize building in urban areas.
- Cook County's practice of stealing people's homes for non-payment of property tax will likely cost us hundreds of millions of dollars once the class-action lawsuit gets going.
- Strava has once again lost control of its subscribers' location data, this time outing the Swedish prime minister's bodyguards, and thus the PM himself. Oops. (In fairness, it might be that the bodyguards themselves failed to protect the data by posting workouts publicly.)
Finally, lightning bugs appear to have made a small comeback in the Chicago area after a few years of reduced numbers. Educational campaigns have encouraged people to leave leaf litter undisturbed whenever possible, to allow the critters to breed safely. A mild winter and wet spring also helped a lot.
I'm glad to report that Cassie's face looks pretty much like it did before surgery. But for the next few days she's going to look like something out of Buffy. Here's the before, last night:
And here's a few minutes ago:
Her left ear is now a bit back of her right ear and slightly closer, but it does look like the surgeon did a great job taking out only the minimum.
Right now she's napping on the couch. We'll try going for a walk before dinner, where we'll work on her not smacking me in the bum with the cone as she did getting to the car.
Updates as conditions warrant.
I dropped Cassie off at the hospital a little before 7 this morning. The surgeon called me just before 10 to say that the operation went well and Cassie is recovering normally. I'll pick her up at 2 this afternoon, after which I'll post before-and-after photos.
The temperature dropped 7.7°C in the last 90 minutes, and yet it still feels sticky. I had hoped to take Cassie to the beach one last time before her surgery Tuesday; unfortunately, the lines of thunderstorms accompanying the cold front did not allow it.
So, at least she'll get another decent walk today (she's already had over an hour, including a 5 km walk before breakfast), and tomorrow it looks like it'll be cooler and drier.
Also, I fixed a long-standing architectural problem with the way Weather Now handles weather lists for registered users (not yet in production though) that will enable users to add multiple weather lists in the future. As with all architecture fixes, however, it took a lot of running in place: 6½ hours and it works the same as before. (I hope to push these changes into production next week.)
I started today a bit earlier than I usually do because I woke up somewhere between dawn and my usual time of 6:30. So, with the extra morning time, the day still cool enough to enjoy, and the rain still about an hour away, I took Cassie on a 3½ km walk before 7am. Then I sat down and refactored how Weather Now stores personal weather lists. Sometimes you just have to run with your creative energy, you know?
Cassie needs another walk, and I've (mostly) finished the feature, so I'm now going to enjoy the rest of my holiday, and contemplate whether America will make it to 250 years old with most of its Constitution intact.
I'll get to the ABBA—sorry, OBBBA—reactions after lunch. Right now, with apologies, here is a boring link dump:
Finally, does a healthy adult really need to drink 4 liters of water per day? Well, it depends on a lot of things. National Geographic debunks this and five other myths about hydration.
And just because she's so pretty, here is a gratuitous photo of Cassie:
Note: I started this post at 8:30 am but got interrupted by work and HOA stuff.
Somehow, tomorrow is July 1st. As far as I can tell, this is because today is June 30th, and yesterday was June 7th, and last week was sometime in 2018.
And yet, I have more stuff to read at lunchtime from just the last day or so:
And now, despite an uncomfortable 34°C heat index, I must walk Cassie.
We spent some time at Montrose Dog Beach yesterday:
Of course, we walked 3.2 km to the beach, 1 km to The Dock for lunch with Butters and her family, and then almost 5 km home, so by 5pm Cassie was pooped:
Including one more walk around the neighborhood in the evening, Cassie got 12 km of walks over 2½ hours yesterday. Today will be less strenuous for her: only about 6 km. And lots of nap time.
New York City adopted Ranked-Choice Voting before the 2019 Democratic mayoral primary, and they got Eric Adams—their least-popular mayor in decades—out of it. Since ranked-choice voting was supposed to reduce the likelihood of electing an extremist, this was a surprising result. Fortunately New Yorkers have had a few years to get the hang of ranked-choice, so in this year's Democratic primary, they won't make that mistake again, right?
Oh, bother. The extreme leftist won. With incumbent Eric Adams running for re-election as an independent, and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who lost last night, threatening to do the same, it's quite possible the Republican (Curtis Sliwa) could squeak on through. Good work, guys.
(For what it's worth, I don't know who I would have voted for if I still lived in NYC. I am fairly certain it would not have been Cuomo or Mamdani.)
In other disappointments:
- Former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken argues that the OAFPOTUS's attack on Iran "was a mistake," but he hopes it succeeds.
- Surprising absolutely no one, Illinois governor JB Pritzker (D) has announced he will run for a third term, without a hint of whether he'll run for president in 2028.
- Is US Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) the future of the Republican Party?
- The Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Scott Turner, has decided he'd like the National Science Foundation headquarters to serve as his executive mansion.
- Chase Strangio, the guy who lost the most important trans-rights case perhaps ever, blamed everyone and everything except his own extremist strategy for the loss, proving once again that narcissism knows no political party.
- A rumor going around town says the Bank of New York might buy Chicago's last locally-owned bank, Northern Trust, though the latter denies it.
- The Economist goes deep into the history and consequences of OnlyFans.
- Apparently I was one of a record number of travelers to pass through O'Hare on Sunday.
Finally, how did I not know about the Lake County Forest Preserve Districts's giant 18-hectare off leash dog area in Lake Forest? Cassie, honey, guess where we're going this weekend?
I spent all of last weekend with friends, and we wound up just having fun and not worrying about photos. So, not much from Seattle to post. I did capture Hazel lazing on the couch, though:
I don't know what I did to deserve it, but Hazel spent a long time staring at me the way Cassie does. Of course, they do know and like each other:
I'll have the usual roundup of horrifying current events later today.