What I did yesterday

Not much, actually. I fixed pork roast for dinner. Watched a lot of football and went to bed before all the excitement and madness at the end of the Steelers/Bengals game.

Plus, our Wy-Fi was down all day and I couldn't get on line. I know less than nothing about routers and whatever else the stuff is called. Then today, while I was at church, Bern unhooked her I-phone from the Wi-Fi (how do you spell it?) and figured out, from her phone how to get it all fixed.

My lovely little wife, usually as much a technological Troglodyte (thank the Lord for spell-check!) did all that without consulting anyone.

I was shocked and amazed!

And she was quite proud, I must say. And rightly so, I think.

So, we're back on line and I'm writing this where I couldn't access it yesterday.

I  told her, 'you're ready for Silicon Valley!'

She demurred....

Lukie really is dying this time

Lukie, Luke, our 15 year old yellow cat, is probably, really dying. He is skin and when he used to be 20 pounds of cat. We're going to Baltimore next Thursday and we always leave him with lots of food and water when we go away for just a few days. I actually hope he dies before we go because I want to be here when he goes and to be able to bury him in our Pet Cemetery off our back deck.

I'd hate to come back on Saturday and find him dead.

He's been a wonderful pet--so lovely and loving.

We got him when Mimi was graduated from college and living with us. Hold on, he's probably older than 15, given that--16 or 17 maybe--I'm always lost in linear time....

We've had up to 4 cats at a time. Lukie is part of the four of Millie, Catherine (Millie's mother) and Big Fatty, whose real name I've forgotten, since we called him 'big Fatty' for so long and after that, when he became even more disgusting, "Big Fuck" (pardon the language--but he was the worst cat we ever had).

Luke has been on only cat for years now. Bern refers to him as 'our last cat', and he probably is.

He's been great and always inside. Annoying as cat's can be--but wonderful.

He's not in pain and runs upstairs as fast as always, but he sleeps most of the time and eats so little.

We've said goodbye to so many creatures over the years. But I will miss Luke greatly. I love him more than any cat I've known.

Pet's are so wonderful. But when they die it is a clean, clear pain.

It will be for Luke.

Picking Bela clean

Bela is a Puli dog with lots of hair--it is 'hair', not 'fur' because it keeps growing and has to be cut a lot.

His hair is black and curly and when he goes out he is a dead leaf magnet.

We have to pick him clean after every walk. Sometimes he has two handfuls of leaves in his hair.

He doesn't much like being picked clean--except when there are burrs, which he hates.

Don't ever get a Puli--they are a pain in so many ways.

But Bern loves this dog like nothing I've ever seen. We've had lots of pets, but this is the one she loves best--maybe because he is such a pain.

Who knows?

And since she loves him, so do I--pain that he is.....

For once, Donald Trump was right

He said it in an odd way, but it was on target.

He said, "I'll probably lose 5 points in the polls, but I think Obama's tears were sincere."

At last, something The Donald has said that I can 'amen'.

He went on to say that though sincere, the President is wrong, wrong, wrong about gun control.

But for that brief moment we were on the same page.

Amazing to me.

He may be the greatest con-artist to ever run for elected office. But he is speaking to an anger and dissatisfaction of a great number of Republicans. It is that anger and dissatisfaction that worries me.

The American economy is the strongest in the world. Employment is back to a decade high. I, and many other middle-class Americans are in the best place we've ever been. Things are, in an odd way, good. I'm not sure why so many are so angry and dissatisfied.

The rich are too rich and the poor too poor--but Trump and the other Republicans aren't concerned with that. Welcome to the stranger is at a deplorable low in this country--but Trump and the other Republicans 'welcome' that.

But on this one thing we agree--Donald and I--the President's tears were sincere about those who have died from gun violence.

The President was clear that no one is going to take guns from Americans. I would, by the way, round them up--send the Marines house to house and collect them. But that's just me.

What I really want

I really want to live in a nation without guns.

I really want everyone--no matter what gender, race or ethnic background--to have an equal chance.

I really want to live where police don't see a person's color, but their humanity.

I want to live where everyone has equal health care.

I want to live where noone is homeless.

I want to live where there is no "one percent".

I want to live where drugs are not 'outlawed' but not 'present'.

I want to live where the minimum wage is a living wage.

I want to live where 'strangers' are welcome.

I want to live in a nation of true equality.

I want to live...it seems to me...in a dream, a place that doesn't exist.

But couldn't it? Really, couldn't we do that stuff? Really?

And then all live there, together, equal, with 'enough', at peace....?

Is that too much to ask?

Just when you thought it couldn't get crazier...

So, Donald Trump's campaign released it's first TV ad today. He hasn't needed ads since he's covered 24/7 on cable news--all of it.

In the ad he has pre-recorded rants about Muslims and immigrants. When he's talking about immigrants, a video clip shows lots of people running across what is supposedly a boarder--Mexico to US, right?

Wrong!!! It was a clip of people going from Morroco to Melilla, which is a Spanish city in North Africa--who knew?

What did the Trump campaign say: "It was intentional. We wanted to show what it could be like on the Mexican boarder."

So--we knew it was a lie but we meant it anyway? Even when illegals crossing our southern boarder is at a decade low?

Just when you thought...well, you know the rest or that....

With Friends like that....

Saudi Arabia, one of our few allies in the Mid-East (Interesting, isn't it how we think we're the center of the universe and label the other parts of the world from our perspective--'mid-east', 'far east', 'western Europe'--from their point of view, they're just were they are) beheaded 47 people yesterday around the country at the same time.

That an 'ally' of ours beheads people is awful enough, but that they do it in such a dramatic way is beyond comprehension.

Some of the people beheaded were not, as the Saudis claimed, 'terrorists'. They were just Shiites in a  Suni country--in fact, one of the more extreme forms of Sunis.

The whole Suni/Shiite thing is still a mystery to me. But, I suppose, 500 years ago Catholics and Protestants were killing each other over minor disagreements.

But we have to reconsider who our 'friends' are. Really.