The Watering Hole: May 25 — Toile

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Photo by Zooey

One of the fabrics I’m always drawn to is toile, or more exactly Toile de Jouy, which translates to “cloth from Jouy-en-Josas“, which is a town of north-central France.  Toile’s simple color scheme — usually a red, black, or blue on cream — is easy to look at, and the longer you look at the various pastoral scenes, the more you see.

Toile de Jouy, sometimes abbreviated to simply “toile”, is a type of decorating pattern consisting of a usually white or off-white background on which a repeated pattern depicting a fairly complex scene, generally of a pastoral theme such as a couple having a picnic by a lake or an arrangement of flowers.

The peaceful scenes in the bag pictured above feature families going to market, planting a garden, washing clothes in a stream, and fishing.  Very nice.  I’m looking forward to working with this lovely fabric again.

This is our daily open thread — Happy Friday!!

92 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: May 25 — Toile”

  2. Bewick’s Wren vocalizations/song reminds me of an old fashion sewing machine. And the ending here like ripping out a seam!

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  3. From Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert… “I did not endorse anyone,” he stipulated, lest anyone mistake what came next as genuine praise for Romney. “If you’re not sure about whether to endorse Mitt Romney, whether you’re liberal, moderate, or conservative, you should be excited … because he’s been on your side at one time or another!”

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  6. Egos and Immorality – NYTimes.com

    Think about where we are right now, in the fifth year of a slump brought on by irresponsible bankers. The bankers themselves have been bailed out, but the rest of the nation continues to suffer terribly, with long-term unemployment still at levels not seen since the Great Depression, with a whole cohort of young Americans graduating into an abysmal job market.
    And in the midst of this national nightmare, all too many members of the economic elite seem mainly concerned with the way the president apparently hurt their feelings. That isn’t funny. It’s shameful.

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    • As I recall, When Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen (sp?) first came up with his “bailout” plan for the financial institutions, it was three pages long and it had virtually (maybe absolutely) no restrictions on how the financial institutions could spend the money. So the executives used part of it to give themselves big bonuses.

      When Obama had to do the next bailout, he said there would be restrictions on the money, including that they couldn’t use it to give themselves bonuses. And they whined and complained, and they actually said (get this), “If we don’t give out bonuses, we won’t be able to attract the talent we need to do the job.” You mean the talent that created this financial crisis in the first place? You’re worried that they’ll take their “skills” to a competitor and nearly bankrupt them?

      (Am I remembering all this right? Is it just me? Or is that how others remember it happening, too?)

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    • I am sooo glad I don’t wonder about other people’s sex lives. Trying to imagine what a gay who hates gays would have for one would cause brain implosion.

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  9. Average CEO Pay 2011 Nearly $10 Million At Public Companies: AP Study

    That’s because the stock awards are being tied more often to company performance. In those instances, CEOs can’t cash in the shares right away: They have to meet goals first, like boosting profit to a certain level.

    The idea is to motivate CEOs to make sure a company does well and to tie their fortunes to the company’s for the long term. For too long, activists say, CEOs have been richly rewarded no matter how a company has fared – “pay for pulse,” as some critics call it.

    One sure fire way to boost short term profits; lay off a bunch of workers. Cash in on the options. Make the existing workers do more; cap raises for workers to 2-3%/year. Cut benefits.

    Yep. Trickle-down, my ass.

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  12. Obama Accuses Romney of ‘Cow-Pie of Distortion’ on Debt, Deficits – Yahoo! News

    “I know Gov. Romney came to Des Moines last week worried about a ‘prairie fire of debt.’ That’s what he said: ‘Prairie fire,'” Obama said. “But, you know, he left out some facts. His speech was more like a cow-pie of distortion.”

    “I don’t know whose record he twisted the most, mine or his,” he added.

    Obama argued that the pace of federal government spending during his tenure has been the slowest of any president in 60 years.

    “By the way, it’s like the Republicans run up the tab and then we’re sitting there and they’ve left the restaurant,” he said. “Why did you order all those steaks and martinis?”

    Cow-pie, is political-speech for bullshit. (He should have just said bullshit.)

    I do like his analogy about the righties complaining about all the debt THEY helped run up.

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  13. Just in case there was any doubt that the culture of lying at FAUX”News” comes from the top; dig what Roger had to say about the politics of the people he puts on the air. Personally, I take it as another sign that the God of the Bible doesn’t exist. The dude that I read about would turn Roger into a pillar of salt or cause him to burst into flames. Of course, he might have meant that the people he employs don’t personally agree with him but they are so corrupt that they will dish out any bullshit he feeds them.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/201205250005

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  14. He’s at least guilty of being a psychotic, latent attention whore:

    You “confess” to killing a child 33 years ago. Surprise!, you get arrested. The next day you’re put on suicide watch.

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  15. Daniel Oppenheimer does a deep-read of Battlefield Earth, the book by “Super Adventure Club” founder L. Ron Hubbard that Mitt has claimed as his favorite:

    “Our hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, has just finished taking down the Psychlo empire, which has ruled Earth for the past millennium and has dominated most of the known 16 universes for going on 300,000 years. Now Jonnie has to negotiate with the alien powers who are jockeying to fill the power vacuum left behind, and things aren’t looking so good for the human race. … He outwits his enemies at the conference table, finds a way to settle the 60 trillion galactic credit debt that Earth discovers it owes to the Galactic Bank and threatens the assembled dignitaries and thugs into signing a treaty forbidding war forever. Then to top it all off, he draws on his recently acquired knowledge of ancient Earth economic theory to persuade them that their interests would be best served not by reaping wealth through war, as they’ve been accustomed to doing, but by introducing free market capitalism, and commercial banking, to the universes.”

    http://www.salon.com/2012/05/24/battlefield_earth_romney_vs_the_psychlos/

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        • No but, thank you for heads up.
          I actually love bad movies.
          My big kick is to give a bad movie the MST3000 treatment

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          • My husband and I do that to lots of movies that we have seen a lot of times as well.

            I can usually find some redeeming value for maost movies that I see, but Jake Speed is the only movie I ever walked out of and asked for my money back.

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    • “Battlefield Earth” is a ridiculous book, every bit the gargantuan exercise in nerd-boy wish fulfillment you’d expect from someone like Hubbard, who was such a nerd-boy bent on wish fulfillment that he invented a religion to fulfill his dreams of mastery and immortality.

      Mormonism was founded about the same way..the hallucinations of Smith.
      Who loses golden tablets on which a ‘religion’ is founded?
      Oh, never mind…

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  16. Remember how Reagan would smile and laugh when speaking to the public? Romney does the same thing. Reagan was in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I’ve seen a “Reagan-like” affect many times when working in a nursing home. Romney has a similar affect and after not remembering what he said but was going to stand by what he said, I’m beginning to wonder if Romney is in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s. Maybe instead of focusing on birth certificates we should focus on the mental readiness of presidential candidates.

    I recognized Reagan’s Alzheimer symptoms years before it was made public.

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    • That was my impression of Mittens with the disconnect to reality. He was brought up and lived privileged and that could account for the disconnect…
      we’ll have to see how that plays out.
      As you pointed out – St. Ronnie was being handled long before his diagnosis was made public. (“Mommy Nancy” and others did a great deal of talking for him when Ronnie couldn’t cogently articulate).

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    • Well, any person who rises to the top of an organization like Bain Capital is pretty nearly a textbook sociopath by necessity. Call me narrow-minded, but that’s not the leading quality I would prefer for POTUS.

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  17. Levi Johnston filed for bankruptcy; lives with his mother.
    Squandered his money on guns, boats and four-wheelers.

    Of course he’s shirked his child-support.
    (being the ‘good christian’ that he is..spit)

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      • It is and the hallmark of someone who is not ready to be a father. That’s why responsible parents give their children birth control information and access even if they do make a case for abstinence, so they won’t become parents in high school. Right Sarah?

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    • Funny. i would have thought that most of it went to beer and meth. I think I need to see pictures of the guns, boats, and four-wheelers before I believe him.

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  18. Dragon arrives at space station in historic 1st

    The privately bankrolled Dragon capsule made a historic arrival at the International Space Station on Friday, triumphantly captured by astronauts wielding a giant robot arm.

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    • Truly impressive.
      A ‘green’ artist in grime. I really like his attitude about the art not having to last forever. He’s talented!

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  23. I finally got the call about the interview at the Community College, and although they want to interview me, I STILL don’t have a date or time. I am moving out of this place next Wednesday, but I don’t want to let them know that! Arrrggghhhhhh!!

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  25. Taylor made it to the second round of Classical Singers Competition. It doesn’t seem like much but she didn’t make it last year so …

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      • They also doubled her scholarship and gave her a $9K grant. And she won one of three awards give to choir member for exemplary behavior. Of course now here latest boyfriend is aggravating her and has to go. And she gets to play Cinderella again in Into the Woods.

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