Architecture Wednesday: A Connecticut Barn

Goddess, I love a barn. Rustic or new; timeworn or modern. I love the high ceilings and the mix of materials. I want a barn, dang it.

And this one, in Greenwich, Connecticut, is perfection. It was built in Albany, New York, in the 1860s, and was then transported to Connecticut to have a new life, using all of the original timber framework.

The remaining timber was used for the exterior siding and trim work, interior flooring, walls and ceiling boards. Details from the exterior of the original barn inspired the new design of the doors and windows, a chimney, cupola and the conservatory.

The conservatory is wonderful space can be enjoyed  during all four seasons, as it has both air conditioning and heat along with a radiant floor.

Inside the barn, a spacious interior allows for a great room with an open layout and plenty of space for sitting and dining areas. A grand floor-to-ceiling fireplace anchors the room, along with large arch top windows on either side. Additional windows and a cupola helps to flood the interiors with natural light and are appropriately scaled and detailed to complement the barn aesthetic.

On the other end of the great room is an open concept kitchen, which includes a custom designed wet bar composed of reclaimed wormy chestnut. The custom built-in cabinet was designed to appear like a hutch, yet functions as a wet bar and even has a refrigerator concealed in the bottom. And, most important—for me—is the basement wine cellar, outfitted with antique timber for the shelving and ceiling beams.

The barn provides 3,100 square feet of living space with a balcony sleeping loft, and a full bathroom.

Okay, yeah, 3,100 square feet is a lot of space for a one bedroom home, but perhaps I failed to mention that this is not the owner’s home. This is what they call the Entertainment Barn, for parties and such, with a guest room for those who don’t stay in the main house on the state.

Kinda makes me wanna see the main house …

One Kind Design

Pantene: Shampoo For Trans Kids & Their Lesbian Moms ... According to OMM

Monica Cole, leader of the Hate Group One Million Moms—which has just 93,000 Facebook followers so math is obviously not their strong suit—is coming for Pantene, and Procter and Gamble:

“Pantene just released an online commercial that has resulted in backlash from Christians and non-Christians alike. Sawyer, a transgender girl, and Sawyer’s two moms are featured in the latest Pantene ad, which glamorizes the LGBTQ lifestyle.”

Wait. Shampoo is glamorous? I’m clearly doing it wrong, but I digress …

“Just be yourself and don’t let anybody tell you who you are” is one of the extremely misleading taglines from the new Pantene ad. A feel-good nod to those who falsely believe gender can be chosen, the tagline sadly goes against the biblical truth that God created us and decided who we were before forming us in our mothers’ wombs.”

And stop. Any educated person, clearly not Monica Cole, knows that trans people don’t ‘choose’ their gender; their choose to live life in accordance with their gender identity, but I digress again …

“The commercial is narrated almost entirely by one mom as the other mom quietly sits beside her, with a few added lines from Sawyer. But do not be deceived. Notice some of the misleading wording used within the ad to normalize the LGBTQ lifestyle.

Procter & Gamble, Pantene’s parent company, also owns several other lines of products that conservatives should avoid purchasing and supporting.

This ad is not the first time P&G has pushed the LGBTQ agenda in their commercials.

In fact, 1Million Moms has launched campaigns and voiced our concern in the past regarding P&G’s transgender Gillette ad for Father’s Day, as well as their lesbian Head & Shoulders ad for prom.”

Trans Gillette and Lesbian Head & Shoulders? Where do I buy those products, cuz I just thought it was razors and shaving cream and shampoo for all people, but, again, digress …

“We wanted to let you know that, once again, P&G has decided to cater to homosexuals and their sinful lifestyle choice.”

Huh. I thought P&G catered to anybody who wants to buy their products. I didn’t get the memo about the Gays Only P&G.

One Million 93,000 Moms wants y’all to buy store brands because no store brand is LGBTQ+-friendly or supports liberal causes, right?

Again, I thought it was just shampoo.

Tuesday Thought #3

 

Tuesday Thought #2

Tuesday Thought #1

 

A Gaggle of Qidiots

Arkansas’ Q Governor, Asa Hutchinson, just signed new legislation that allows doctors and other health care workers to refuse to perform certain services if they have “conscience-based objections.”

That’s GQP lingo for Don’t Help The Gays.

Senate Bill 289—The Medical Ethics and Diversity Act—is a retread of an earlier Hate Bill that was presented in the 2017 legislative session. Ethics? Diversity? Not so much.

But I guess in Arkansas if you first can’t pass a Hate Bill, try, try again.

There’s a proposal looming in North Dakota to shield schools and teachers from lawsuits arising from those schools and teachers posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

In public schools.

And one asshat, GQP state Senator Janne Myrdal, even listed a litany of social ills, including sex trafficking, child sex abuse and crowded jails, that she says could be remedied with displays of the Ten Commandments in North Dakota schools.

Honey, if that worked at all, posting your list of rules that a great many Christians do not follow in your churches and religious schools would have ended those social ills years ago.

Try a little something called Separation of Church and State. And keep your religious idiocy out of public schools.

Senator Steve Daines [Q-MT] is quite the idiot.

During  a visit to the Mexican border with other Senate Q’s, to spew the lie about a crisis, he lamented the loss of the meth trade from Montanans to Mexicans:

“Twenty years ago in Montana, meth was homemade. It was homegrown. And you had purity levels less than 30%. Today the meth that is getting into Montana is Mexican cartel.”

Seriously. He’s genuinely upset that Montana’s meth trade is losing business to Mexican cartels.

You cannot get much more asshatted than Steve Daines.

Even some of his own Party members couldn’t hide their reactions to Daines’ idiocy. Fellow Senator Mike Lee [Q-UT] couldn’t stop smiling as Daines whined about the death of meth in Montana, and even began looking at the ground to hide his smile.

Steve Daines. Asshat.

Georgia, Where Racism Is Now Law

Last week. When Georgia’s GQP Governor Brian Kemp signed the state’s new restrictive voting bill into law the photo of the signing quickly went viral.

Why? Well, a law that most people feel will inhibit voting by People of Color was signed by a white man, surrounded by white men, celebrating the signing, in front of a painting of a notorious slave plantation in Wilkes County.

The painting titled Brickhouse Road depicts the Callaway Plantation, once a 3,000-acre plantation that owned up to 100 slaves. Their master was so cruel he built a quasi-jail on the property for unruly slaves, and set dogs onto those who tried to escape.

That’s how Brian Kemp and his white supporters celebrated Jim Crow 2.0. And while a gaggle of white men cheered about voter suppression, a lone black woman was arrested for trying to enter the room

Oh, and let’s not forget that while Kemp was signing the legislation, Georgia state troopers were arrested Park Cannon, an out Black female Democrat state representative, because she was knocking at the door.

Let that sink in … a group of white men gathered in front of a painting of a plantation to celebrate passing a law that makes it harder for low-income people, and People of Color, to vote,  while an out Black woman was knocking at the door asking to come inside.

They don’t even try to hide their racism any longer.

The Funny Papers

Mike Luckovich, Bill Bramhall, Marc Murphy, Nick Anderson, JD Crowe, David Horsey, Darrin Bell, Ed Hall, Chris Britt, Michael de Adder, Jack Ohman, Rick McKee, RJ Matson, Michael Ramirez, Clay Bennett,

I Ain't One To Gossip But ...

Many moons ago …many many moons ago … Vanessa Marcil played Gina Kincaid on the last two seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210 where she met her ex-fiancé-baby-daddy Brian Austin Green. And last month, because she clearly has nothing going on in her life, Marcil went on Instagram Live to talk about the “cattiness” on the set of the show that has been off the air for decades … specifically from Jennie Catty Garth who apparently told Marcil:

“Maybe it would help if you didn’t walk around like somebody who isn’t liked?”

And, as happens, Jennie and her BFF Tori Spelling also have nothing to do so they took their talk of Marcil to their podcast 9021OMG with Tori muttering:

“What the fuck does that mean? That doesn’t sound like something you would even say. I’m going to go on record that you didn’t say that… No matter how she phrases it, it has a negative connotation to it.”

Jennie chimed in to say that while it doesn’t sound like something she’d have said when she was younger, it is “sound advice”:

“To her point, from what I sort of gleaned… she was in a bad place in her personal life, in her development. Like she was in that place where she took everything too personally”

Isn’t it funny that the girls accused of being catty bitches in the late 90s acted all catty about it in 2021?

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A couple of years ago, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Sharon Stone laughed out loud when asked if she had ever experienced sexual harassment in the film, and now she has a memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, coming out, and in it, she talks about all the sexist crap she faced while working in Hollywood.

Of course, we know the legend of Stone and that Basic Instinct coochie-flash. She says she was never told that her vagina would be making a cameo, and that it was simply going to be implied that she wasn’t wearing underwear—she was told to remove her own underwear because they were reflecting the light—and that first time she saw the scene, vagina and all, was in “a room full of [male] agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project”:

“That was how I saw my vagina-shot for the first time, long after I’d been told, ‘We can’t see anything—I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on.’ Yes, there have been many points of view on this topic, but since I’m the one with the vagina in question, let me say: The other points of view are bullshit.”

After the scene was screened, Sharon slapped director Paul Verhoeven, and immediately called her lawyer, Marty Singer who said she could sue and keep the film from being released:

“Marty told me that they could not release this film as it was. That I could get an injunction. First, at that time, this would give the film an X rating. Remember, this was 1992, not now, when we see erect penises on Netflix. And, Marty said, per the Screen Actors Guild … it wasn’t legal to shoot up my dress in this fashion … Then I thought … What if I were the director? What if I had gotten that shot? What if I had gotten it on purpose? Or by accident? What if it just existed? That was a lot to think about. I knew what film I was doing. For heaven’s sake, I fought for that part, and all that time, only this director had stood up for me. I had to find some way to become objective.”

After giving it some thought, Sharon decided not to fight it because “it was correct for the film and for the character; and because, after all, I did it.”

But Stone also dishes about an unnamed producer who suggested she literally fuck her co-star to make their on-screen chemistry better. For that unnamed film, Stone had actor approval, but nobody cared about that, and the producer hired an actor who bombed his screentest. Then, instead of finding a better actor, the producer put it on Sharon to fuck a better performance out of him:

“I had a producer bring me to his office, where he … explained to me why I should fuck my costar so that we could have onscreen chemistry … [I thought] You guys insisted on this actor when he couldn’t get one whole scene out in the test … Now you think if I fuck him, he will become a fine actor? Nobody’s that good in bed. I felt they could have just hired a costar with talent, someone who could deliver a scene and remember his lines. I also felt they could fuck him themselves and leave me out of it.”

I love her.

So, who is this sleazy producer? Well, it might just be the late Robert Evans who produced Sliver in which Sharon co-starred with the immensely talented[?] Billy Baldwin. I am waiting for this book to come out and I will read it with wine and popcorn and love every minute of it.

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Johnny Depp hasn’t had a great year , you know, between trying to appeal a UK court’s ruling that The Sun could legally refer to him as a “wife beater” … and preparing to go Round 2 3 4 5 Whatever with ex-wife Amber Heard in yet another defamation lawsuit trial … and wondering what happened to his film career. But then add in the two, count ‘em, two times in the last three months that someone has broken into Depp’s homes and you can see he is not having a good time.

Last January, a woman was found inside Depp’s Hollywood Hills home; nothing was stolen, and she was arrested a few homes down, and is ALLEGEDLY to other break-ins in the area. But then last week a man was found breaking inside the house.

Police were called to the Depp’s home by a neighbor who spotted an apparently homeless man hanging his backyard near the pool. The neighbor confronted the man, who took off and hopped a gate, which actually got him closer to Depp’s house. The police were called again, this time by Depp’s security team, alerting them someone was inside the home, and when officers arrived they found the man having a cocktail and taking a shower , and refusing to come out; officers had to kick the door down to arrest him.

Wait, a homeless looking guy drinking in Depp’s house and acting the fool? And it wasn’t Depp? Are they sure?

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After Alex Trebek passed away, Jeopardy! has enlisted a string of guest hosts—like Ken Jennings, Aaron Rodgers, Mayim Bialik, and Katie Couric—but when producers announced that Dr. Oz would be taking a turn at Alex’s podium, over 500 past Jeopardy! signed an open letter to producers calling the move “a slap in the face to all involved.” Here’s an excerpt of the letter:

“We understand that first and foremost, Jeopardy! is a television show, and ratings are important. However, Dr. Oz stands in opposition to everything that Jeopardy! stands for. Jeopardy! is a show that values facts and knowledge. Throughout his nearly two decades on television [Oz] has used his authority as a doctor to push harmful ideas onto the American public, in stark contrast with his oath to first do no harm. These ideas include promoting supplements that do nothing, legitimizing gay conversion therapy (which is banned in California, as well as 19 other states), dangerous “cures” for autism, and, most recently, the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. None of these things is backed by any scientific fact and by promoting them he is actively putting his viewers in danger. In fact, his ideas are so dangerous that thousands of his colleagues have petitioned to have him fired from his position at Columbia Medical School. And what kind of message does this send to the LGBTQ+ and autistic contestants and viewers of Jeopardy!?”

Sadly, hottie Mike Richards, executive producer, kind of just shrugged and let a man who went on Fox News last year and said schools should reopen because the mortality rate among children was only 2 to 3 percent, which, to an ALLEGED doctor is a suitable number of kids dying.

Hopefully, when Oz’s turn is done, someone drops a house on him—see what I did there—and he never returns.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Barack Obama, after the shootings of the last few days calling for gun control:

“It is long past time for those with the power to fight this epidemic of gun violence to do so. It will take time to root out the disaffection, racism and misogyny that fuels so many of these senseless acts of violence. But we can make it harder for those with hate in their hearts to buy weapons of war. We can overcome opposition by cowardly politicians and the pressure of a gun lobby that opposes any limit on the ability of anyone to assemble an arsenal. We can, and we must. A once-in-a-century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country. It’s time for leaders everywhere to listen to the American people when they say enough is enough.”

Nice words, but we’ve been saying ‘enough is enough’ for years, and our elected officials in DC are too far deep in the pockets of the NRA.

That’s the change we need; no more NRA!

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Jeanine Pirro, the chardonnay-drinking, perhaps drunk on air, Fox News hack, says migrants are a “lower level of human being”:

“We’re spending 86 million dollars for 1,200 families to get them hotel rooms, while we’ve got 10 million Americans out of work? We’ve got 10 million Americans who are going to be competing with people for jobs? It’s not about politics. When that sheriff said to me, ‘Jeanine, this is modern-day slavery.’ The bringing of these children into this country, where they will be forever connected to a cartel, is slavery. What we’re doing here is we are promoting a lower level of human being, who will be controlled from other countries. So stop trying to make this about this is who—not who we are. This is about crime coming into this country and it’s a reality. And we’re losing.”

It’s stunning to me that a pundit, even an idiot like Pirro, can say the most racist things on a news show and her bosses don’t come for her.

Ain’t that America? We won’t end racism until we silence the racists.

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Jody Hice, [Q-GA], believes Washington DC should not be granted statehood because … :

“D.C. would be the only state, the only state, without an airport, without a car dealership, without a capital city, without a landfill, without even a name on its own, and we can go on and on and on.”

Washington, D.C. is home to more than 700,000 residents, which means it has a greater population than Wyoming, but, shoot, no car dealerships.

Damn.

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John Oliver, taking on Meghan McCain for saying Thing #45’s use of the racist ‘China Virus’ would help him get votes in 2020 and then Tweeting for an end to anti-Asian violence in 2021:

“Oh good! Meghan McCain doesn’t have a problem with it. Listen not to the scores of Asian Americans telling everyone that the term is dangerous and offensive. Instead, gather around and take the word of a wealthy white woman who’s dressed like she’s about to lay off 47 people over Zoom. Meghan McCain posted this week, ‘Stop Asian Hate,’ with three broken hearts emoji, which is a fine sentiment to throw up on Twitter after the fact, [but] there has to be an understanding that saying, ‘I don’t have a problem with calling it the China virus’ is very much giving space for hate to grow. The minimization of racist rhetoric plays into the harmful stereotype of Asian Americans as a model minority pitting them against other minority groups and pressuring them to swallow their experiences with racism, without making a stink because that’s how you earn white acceptance, and that is something that takes its toll. Our long, ugly history of anti-Asian racism and the fact that it often peaks during times of crisis is the exact reason why, just last year, many were loudly warning that [the twice-impeached, one-term loser] calling COVID names like the ‘China virus’ was likely to lead to a rise in violence against people of Asian descent—an argument that not everyone, at the time, seemed to find convincing.”

Bang on, John.

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Meghan McCain, apologizing on Twitter for her anti-Asian statements:

“I condemn the reprehensible violence and vitriol that has been targeted towards the Asian-American community. There is no doubt [the twice-impeached, one-term loser]’s racist rhetoric fueled many of these attacks and I apologize for any past comments that aided that agenda.” 

What’s the deal with McCain? A supposedly educated woman who spouts such ignorance. She spends more time apologizing for being a moron than she does making sense.

PS Now apologize for stealing Barbara Eden’s I Dream of Jeanie hair.

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Stella Keating, a transgender high school student, speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, about the Equality Act:

“Good morning. My name is Stella Keating and my pronouns are she/her. I am 16 years old, and I live in the state of Washington. I am a sophomore in high school and just got my driver’s license which was a great day! What happens if I want to attend college in a state that doesn’t protect me? Right now, I could be denied medical care or be evicted for simply being transgender in many states. How is that even right? How is that even American? Right now, I live in a state where I have equal protection under the law. And as a high school sophomore, I’m starting to look at colleges, and all I can think about is this: less than half of the states in our country provide equal protection for me under the law. What if I’m offered a dream job in a state where I can be discriminated against? Even if my employer is supportive, I still have to live somewhere. Eat in restaurants. Have a doctor. And why am I having to worry about all of this at the age of 16?”

Out of the mouths of babes comes simple truth.

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Bobservations

Carlos and I love to cook, though I will say, having worked in hotels and such, and bars and such, in the past, and knowing some really great chefs, I tend to be the better cook in the house.

Part of Carlos problem is what I call the Coco Chanel problem. As Coco once advised women:

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off. It is always better to be underdressed.”

I had to explain this to Carlos the other night because he made a delicious Salmon for dinner but there was something about the rice:

“What spices are in this?”

“Cumin. Curry. Turmeric, Coriander.”

“Oh.”

“Paprika. Garlic Powder. Salt, Pepper.”

“OH!”

“Chipotle Powder. Chili Powder. Garam Masala. A little bit of Cinnamon. And Five Spice. I think that’s it.”

Carlos is now limited to Five Spices…Salt, Pepper, and three others, lest I sic the ghost of Coco on him.

The Great Tuxedo has had a week. He’s getting on in years—he’s seventeen or eighteen—and has been having some issues with his hind legs being unsteady. A trip to the vet and a few tests and we’ll see if it’s diabetes—not good, because it requires two shots per day—or arthritis—not the best because there is no real treatment for feline arthritis—or a thyroid issue, which can be helped by medication. But other than that he’s in good health and a happy cat, so we’ll see how this plays out.

We first noticed his leg issues because he’s always been a jumper—he used to jump from  the clothes hamper in the closet to one of the high shelf’s, a leap of about six feet straight up, and now he has difficulty getting onto a chair.

Sidenote: he was, as usual, the hit of the vet’s office because he’s just so easy going getting poked and prodded, and still giving hugs to the vet and the technicians. The only downside is the car ride, which he hates, and lets us know by howling like a mad man.

Good times.

San Antonio doesn’t have Thing #45—thanks Todd—to push around anymore.  And you cannot throw things at him either …at least for the time being.

Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks has moved the wax figure of the twice-impeached, one-term loser to a storage—much like what the American people did in November 20202—because some museum visitors were punching and hitting the wax dummy.

Not to be confused with the actual lard dummy.

Dear Jeopardy: Just say No to Katie Couric hosting the show. Just say No to “Dr,” Oz. hosting the show.

Bring back Mike Richards.

After the last two weeks, and two more shootings that left 18 Americans dead, President Biden called to reinstate the US ban on assault weapons.

Biden said he did not “need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps that will save lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act. We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

These are not hunting weapons, or protection weapon, these are weapons used to murder. No one, and I don’t care who you are, no one needs these weapons.

Customers at Legends Diner in Denton, Texas are met with a new pink sign on the door when they visit the breakfast spot:

“Our new surcharge: $50 if I have to explain why masks are mandatory. $75 if I have to hear why you disagree.”

Co-owners Wayne and Kat LaCombe are asking their customers and employees to continue to wear masks even though the mandate lifted in Texas on March 10 because, as Wayne says, he cannot afford to get the virus and keep his business going.

See, that’s how it works.

Sorry, but  I'm more afraid of white people with weapons of war than I am of migrants at our border seeking a better life.

Rightwingnut lawyer Sidney Powell, who tried suing to hand the election to Thing #45 and ended up being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for defamation, is now claiming she is not guilty because "reasonable reasonable people wouldn’t have believed" her assertions of fraud, even though she filed case after case with the same idiotic assertion.

Now, she as an attorney, representing her client, says she was just stating her “opinion.”

Nice try, Kraken.

Congressional Democrats and Washington DC's mayor made their case for statehood for the US capital, proclaiming the disenfranchisement of DC residents as one of the last glaring violations of American civil rights.

More than 712,000 people live in the District of Columbia; a populations greater than both Wyoming and Vermont, and comparable to two others. Its residents fight and die in US wars and face a higher federal tax burden than people in the 50 states, but while Washingtonians can cast ballots in presidential elections, they are denied votes in Congress.

Taxation without representation much? The GQP is against the idea because DC is mostly Democrats, and the GQP wants to continue suppressing votes especially given that DC statehood would give Democrats three more  Congressional seats. See, it’s not about doing what’s right for Americans in DC for the GQP, it’s about cheating to win elections.

Last fall the US Congress passed the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act to establish a toll-free number with assistance for those with mental health crises.

Sounds like a good idea, but then why did the US Conference of Catholic Bishops quietly lobby against the legislation.

It's because it contained special funding for LGBTQ+ support, and a group of bishops said that, while “all persons must be protected from violence … codifying the classifications ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’" was problematic.

Cuz, you know, if anyone in the LGBTQ+ community kills themselves that should be okay. Or at least so says a group of closeted homosexual child raping money grabbing hypocritical fuckmonkeys.

I don’t know much about Fredrik Ericsson except that he is Swedish and has a stunning face …

… and he looks good out of his clothes …

… and good in them, too.