Rainy Sunday mornin'......

It’s a rainy Sunday, a quiet morning, dripping ‘n drizzling ‘n the occasional rooster voicing his frustration....we got ourselves some badboy roosters on this little street...
I don’t really want t’go out there ‘n kill all the durn chickens but I wouldn’t care at all if some hungry folk wanted t’collect their ‘two chickens for ev’ry pot’....Heck! I wouldn’t care if they wanted t’take more.....
Anyways....we need the rain...’n the snow. The more snow the better ‘cause the more snow we get in the Sierra, the more water we’ll have in the valley.....the reality being however that there is absolutely no way that Mama Nature c’n keep up with the demand from southern California....truly a land of extremes.....basically a desert that doesn’t have enuff natural water to support a tenth of its population.....the biggest problem I c’n see with cutting off their water is that most of ‘em would be forced to leave SoCal ‘n they’d prob’ly move up here so we have to give ‘em water to keep them all down south....we have enuff home-grown nutz of our own ‘n we’re having a hard time keeping San Francisco contained....San Francisco only has room for about three quarters of a million people (been that way since Gold Rush days) ‘n even if a whole bunch of San Franciscans don’t reproduce, the immigrants (emmigrants) just keep comin’.....spreading out over the entire Bay Area like a cancer, little fingers of ‘em growing insidiously like unwanted ivy or the Chinese Tree of Heaven (Chinese Stink Tree) which when it takes root in your yard requires, like freedom, eternal vigilance.....anyways, it’s a rainy Sunday morning, a quiet morning....a pessimist might say the ‘calm before the storm’ but I like to think of myself as....if not an outwise optimist, at least a middle of the roadmist.....c’mon, it’s early ‘n I’m only halfway thru my first pot of coffee......

The New King of Crestline Ave.....

As you may know, or maybe not....down at the end of lonely street is heartbreak hotel but down at the end of my street is the Cath’lic Radio Station where the Evening Cat often goes for dinner....we haven’t seen him for awhile mostly cuz I’ve been out of step ‘n it’s knocked us off schedule.....but t’day...ah, t’day we managed to stroll down the street just about on schedule....Now, I’ve been fighting a cold ‘n haven’t really been walking the boys the way I should ‘n they’ve been a little upset with me..(Willie more so than Rusty).... anyways t’day we got to stroll along the street ‘n investigate all the little ‘hot’ spots ‘n the new vehicles ‘n take a look at a new neighbor that was moving into Gene’s little house which has an odiferous problem which Gene hasn’t wanted to deal with but that’s a ‘nother story....so we wandered thru the parking lot of the Cath’lic Radio Station ‘n no Evening Cat ‘n as a matter of fact.....no chickens or skunks....Willie was obviously disappointed but he kept circling nose to the ground, pausing now ‘n then to scan the horizon for bad guys but there were none t’be found.....at least until we went down the back side of the hill ‘n found a rooster....’n not just a rooster but A ROOSTER.....tall ‘n gold ‘n white ‘n ‘stremely proud...way too proud to run from a little dog like Willie even tho’ Willie charged him as ferociously as I’ve ever seen.....’course, when the rooster didn’t run, Willie hesitated but only for a moment....that gave Rusty a chance to decide he wanted t’be in on the chase as well.....but surprise-surprise....the rooster not only didn’t run...he seemed to grow even taller ‘n ruffed his neck feathers ‘n charged.....Ah but fortunately I was there to save the day ‘n discretion being the better part of valor, I tightened my grip on the leashes ‘n walked away..
The rooster only followed us a few feet but was too lordly to press the point ‘n swaggered away....still the King of Tayo’s gravel parking lot.....

I have a co'd in my head.....

G’mornin ever’one ever’where ‘n all the ships at sea...I can’t remember what newscaster used t’say that...it might’a been Gabriel Heatter....(google him, I had to)but it c’d just as easy been Walter Winchell but who cares...
Not I, not tonite for I have a cold ‘n colds make you pensive ‘n short-tempered as well as sleepless...I don’t get a lot of colds anymore...not since the chemotherapy anyway...during the chemo I tried to avoid places where I might catch a germ...that ‘n I stayed away from my g’children cuz kids go to schools where they got lots of other kids ‘n kids get colds ‘n bring ‘em home to.....well, you get the idea...
anyways I guess I tho’t maybe I had already had my share of colds ‘n wasn’t gonna get anymore....(shows just how much we learn over the years don’t it)...anyway somewhere over the last week I evidently got too close to someone who had a cold ‘n now I have a cold....’n I hate having a cold....I hate feeling achy ‘n yucky ‘n having my nose run like a faucet that you can’t quite turn off without paying a plumber an exorbitant fee to turn it off for you....’n nothin’ tastes good when you have a cold... it even affects the taste of coffee altho it don’t stop me from drinking it....altho I only had six cups on this rainy old gloomy old dreary old day.....I’m not getting any sympathy here, am I? ‘Course not ‘n I don’t deserve any cuz nobody likes a crybaby.....or whiner....
The dogs don’t care that I have a cold...Willie especially but now Rusty is yelling at me that he wants to go outside ‘n walk in the rain.....he’s becoming very insistent but that’s okay.....better that I get up ‘n let him out than him deciding poodle-fashion to play his own game of payback......
ah well, sumwhere the sun is shinin’ ‘n sumwhere hearts are lite but there ain’t no joy in Mudville t’nite so I’m gonna take my stuffy head, my watery sinuses, my sniffles ‘n sneezles ‘n go back t’bed.....

weary of dreary

I grow weary of dreary,
of the rain ‘n the snow ‘n the winds that blow.....
I know, I know....
our resevoirs are low ‘n so
is the groundwater below...
I know.....
but I grow weary of dreary.

Justin Other Smith
February 16, ‘09

For Millyrose......

The rose is a rose
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose
And the pear is and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose,
But were always a rose.
Rob’t Frost

Anyone can catch your eye but it takes someone special to catch your heart!

Should be sleepin' like a log.....

It’s four in the a.m. ‘n I dunno why I can’t sleep.....”I should be sleepin’ like a log.....” Beatles circa ‘64 or 5....
Millyrose is asleep.....the dogs are asleep....there’s a few wakeful roosters standing guard t’let ev’ryone know the Bee is being delivered.....’n the Bexar family that delivers the Bee (at least until the 15th) is awake but they’re being paid for it altho prob’ly not overpaid....OK, definitely not overpaid....prob’ly why they’re quitting....I hope they have a better job ‘n it’s not just an example of the Bee’s cost-cutting.....I have some pages (comix) from the Bee of the twenties.....Wow! It was a real newspaper back then....the pages were at least half again as big as t’day....’n the comix.....well, suffice t’say you didn’t need a magnifying glass to read them....’n the colors were fantastic.....even after having been buried beneath layers of carpet for decades....
‘Course, it’s not just the Bee.....newspapers all across the country are going belly up...’n I don’t agree with Bill O’Reilly that it’s their lack of trustworthiness that’s putting them out of bizness (altho it would help if y’could believe them)....no...it’s the internet....if you wanna stay current with the news, y’gotta go online....Heck! Even television can’t keep up with the ‘net....(in the case of network news, I think lack of trust is hurting NBC a lot)....I don’t know how Newspapers are going to make a profit when everyone starts reading them online but the rainforest will prob’ly last a little longer.....other the other hand, a paperless society will undoubtedly find another use for (‘n excuse) for what has been described as the ‘lungs’ of our planet....ah well, as the once believable NY Times proclaimed...”All the news that’s fit to print”.....right up there with, “What’s good for GM is good for the country.”....
Paraphrasing Ol Ben....”Early t’bed ‘n early t’rise makes a man cynical.”

From Your Valentine.....

“I claim there ain’t
Another Saint
As great as Valentine.”
Ogden Nash

Once upon a time in the long, long ago.....(Y’know it’s a story when it begins thusly...) There was a young man named Valentine.....wasn’t an unusual name at the time...
‘n he grew up ‘n became a priest.....(Catholicism was very big in the western world at that time so he became a Catholic priest)....
Now at this time, the big boss in Rome was a guy named Claudius ‘n he was among other things, a pagan....he also believed that married guys made poor soldiers ‘n he needed really good soldiers ‘cuz people disagreeing with him made him sulky.....so after pouting over his troubles for awhile, he made a decree (‘n when the Emperor decreed....well, it was serious stuff) anyways, Ol Claudius decreed that none of his soldiers should get married....
‘Course, some of his soldiers were just born troublemakers (or they cudn’t get laid w/out a wedding band) so they sneaked around to find a priest that ‘ud marry them....’n they found Valentine!
Showing the courage of his convictions he performed a bunch of secret marriages which got him in big trouble with Claudius who didn’t happen to be real big on Christian priests at that time anyway ‘n he threw Valentine in jail ‘n eventually stoned him ‘n cut off his head becuz at the time capital punishment was a bit on the brutal side.....
As the tale goes, ‘n ancient tales do tend to run on so I’m gonna edit quite a lot here....Valentine fell in love with the jailers daughter ‘n wrote her a goodbye letter professing his love, etcetera, ‘n signed it.....(c’mon, you knew this part).....From your Valentine.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Wm. Shakespeare

Valentine’s Day c’n be a hard day for kids....at least it was back in the days of my apple-faced youth...
(y’know...my ‘way back when time)
Valentine’s Day was a big deal in grade school....popular kids got lots of cards ‘n the less popular kids....well, they got fewer cards of course......but some kids....some kids didn’t get any cards at all...boys toughed it out or at least acted like it didn’t matter but some of the girls were just devastated....
I was never the most popular kid in the class, ever...no matter what class at what age but I was never shut out either....s’funny, I recall who the popular girls were but it’s the faces of the forgotten ones I c’n call to mind now...
When the schools began to institute a policy that made sure everyone got a card, I tho’t it was a good thing...
y’know, no child left behind kind’a thing...but by that time I was older ‘n knew so much more about everything.....
A lot of people think that age brings wisdom....t’ain’t so...age don’t make anyone smarter....sort’a like computers.....lots more knowledge but not enuff sense to know what to do with it.....
T’is true that the longer you wander around this old world, the more you know...it’d be impossible to live as long as Methuslah ‘n not have the slightest idea what to do with all the stuff you learn over the long years but by God, we all die trying.......
Anyways when the schools decided to make life for fair ‘n insure that ev’ryone in the class got the same amount of Valentine’s Day greetings, it somehow didn’t work out the way it was s’pozed to....social engineering never quite works out the way the do-gooders want it to....its a natural law y’see.....the law of unintended consequence...
that’s a big one t’day ‘n affects us in so many ways....like when the bottom fell out of the housing market becuz’ the social engineers put people into homes they couldn’t afford....well, enuff ranting...Valentine’s Day changed but the popular kids still got all the attention ‘n the unpopular kids still got to feel left out.....’n so it goes....
Life just ain’t fair sometimes ‘n there ain’t a durn thing that y’can do about it....at least, not on the grand scale....
On that proverbial other hand that I speak of so often, it’s another story entirely...y’know what I’m talking about....

“A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won’t come true....” Ray Evans

Coming attraction.....

“Roses are red, my love,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet, my love,
but not as sweet as you.”
Bobby Vinton

Valentine’s Day is WHAT? Next weekend? Can’t be... it’s too soon, ain’t it? .....I know it comes around ev’ry year or so...okay I know it comes ev’ry year, it just seems like it ought’a be one of those holidays that you shouldn’t have to worry about.....so it shouldn’t be a surprise...It ain’t like an anniversay or b’day that you c’n legitimately say you forgot.....It’s a too big of a day for retailers for any of them to let you forget it... well, not all retailers of course but for those that stock ‘gift’ items.....candy ‘n jewelry...flowers ‘n books of poetry,
lingerie too, I guess maybe hardware stores fr the more practical amongus.....gossamer dreams for lovers ‘n other strangers.....

Morning coffee.....

Six cups of coffee seem just about right on these bright sunny mornings....’course, six cups in the coffee-maker equals 3 mugs (or two, if I use the really large mugs) so I’m really only having two or three cups...that works, don’t it?....
On those grey, overcast, yucky days when you c’n work up a shiver just looking out the window I find that eight cups work a lot better at jump-starting the day....except on those really really cold ‘n dreary morns when nuthin’ works....
I like the dark roasts, French ‘n Italian...mostly I stick with Starbucks French Roast ‘cuz that’s what Costco carries....I tried some Peet’s at their new store in O’vale...later Millyrose ordered the same drink at Peet’s
in the Raleys store ‘n tho’ it cost pretty much the same, she said it didn’t taste the same atall....
I blame m’kids for getting me hooked on whole bean coffees....I use’ta drink Yuban, drank it for years ‘n years...bought the 3 pound cans of ground coffee ‘n was happy with it ‘til the kids interfered with the beans ‘n the grinders ‘n all the rest of the amateur barista stuff...well, amateur barista might be a stretch ‘cuz I don’t know much at all about how to brew the ‘perfect’ cup of coffee....I don’t even like espresso or mocha lattes.....I like regular coffee ‘n I like it black...no cream or sugar or other additives....I don’t like flavored coffees ‘n I consider instant coffee t’be a crime against nature....that said, I continue to drink coffee at the various ‘n sundry restaurants even tho’ the best restaurant coffee I’ve had in the last couple years is from McDonalds....I like their coffee...I just don’t eat there....Recently had breakfast (brunch) at Lucky’s Cafe in downtown Sacramento...coffee really sucked but the breakfast was prob’ly the best I’ve even had in a restaurant....’course I’m aging rapidly ‘n my mem’ry sucks bigtime now......

Chicken Delite......

I think the Colonel (Harlan Sanders) has absolutely the best idea of what t’do with chickens.....just wish he c’d do sumthin’ about the chicken problem here in picturesque Ol Fair Oaks....being a chicken-hater in Ol Fair Oaks is kind’a like being a republican in this ‘historic’ year of the Democrat Ascension....the prudent soul ‘ud keep his head low ‘n his mouth shut...that said, nobody ever accused me of being a prudent soul....
So t’day my timing was off sumthin’ turrible....I was returning home from my ‘n I hate t’call it workout but that’s what a sojourn at the gym basically is....it was lunchtime ‘n I was looking forward to a chili dog....I didn’t get one but that’s another story....as I pulled into my driveway, I interrupted what I took t’be a chicken fight....no big deal y’understand, these Ol Fair Oaks roosters fight all the time....but there was sumthin’ a little different about this one cause one of the roosters was a hawk.....a big hawk....’bout the same size as the hen that was evidently spozed to be lunch....as I said, my timing was off ‘n I apologized to the hawk as he (or she) broke off the attack ‘n took refuge in my cottonwood tree to glare balefully at me.....(the chickens took the opportunity to run screaming up the street)....I apologized profusely but I guess I ruined his appetite for the moment ‘n after giving me a disgusted look, the hawk flew away.....I hope he (or she) comes back however cuz we got lots of chickens......

A simple case of entitlement.....

Oh gee.....Tom Daschle is ‘embarassed’....cuz he got caught, I spoze.....Tim Geithner didn’t seem embarassed at all at all when he got caught.....’Course, Timmy only cheated a little bit compared to Tommy...less than a third I think.....but Tommy....Tommy ‘forgot’ to pay $140 thousand dollars....if he’s at 30 percent on his taxes, that means he ‘forgot’ an income of over $400,000.00 dollars... ‘n if, as seems more likely, his tax bracket is closer to 15 percent.....that’s a lot of zeros....I betcha there’s a whole lot of people in South Dakota that don’t have an annual income of the amount that Daschle simply ‘forgot’ about..... but hey now, Dick Durbin of Illinois sez that Daschle is one of the most honest people he knows.... ‘course, Durbin is an Illinois politician so he might have a different definition of honesty than most Americans....but let’s give the Democrats a chance...after all, the Republicans had eight years to line their pockets...’n politicians are cheap thieves compared to Wall St CEO’s....unless y’count the cumulative effect....
I was wondering why Pres Obama threw Rush Limbaugh’s name into the mix.....seemed like such a basic mistake ‘n I don’t b’leeve Obama makes basic mistakes....so I saw it as a magicians distraction ‘n I just wondered what it was s’pozed to distract us from.....maybe it was Geithner ‘n Daschles tax problems....anyways I was reading Leonard Pitts column this morning ‘n he was defending his own attack against Rush...said he had lots of ignorant e-mails defending Rush...or maybe it was lots of e-mails from ignorant defenders...one or t’other....I don’t feel it necessary to defend Rush Limbaugh...he reminds me of my friend Pig...
As some of you may know, I have a longtime friend nicknamed ‘Pig’....he acquired it as a baby ‘n 71 long years later, he still has it....anyways as I’ve often said of Pig, he’d fight a running sawmill....why he’s so aggressive is between him ‘n his own demons ‘n none of my concern but the truth of it is that almost all of his many fights were of his own doing...he started ‘em....’n I never felt it necessary to step in ‘n help him...he won or lost them all on his own...I feel much the same about Rush Limbaugh... he’s perfectly capable of starting his own brawls ‘n he c’n fight them all by hisownself.....
I don’t think Obama will throw over either Geithner or Daschle for their ‘embarassing mistakes’ ....political parties don’t do that kind of stuff....’n why should they...if history shows us anything at all, it’s that the public has a short memory....I mean, there’s a lot of young voters who don’t have a clue who Richard Nixon was....or wait a minute....
is that Frost Nixon the same guy.......

Climbing Megiddo......

“In time the rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble They’re only made of clay.....”

And so it goes in the age of numb toes.....my friend E.V. McGuire informs me that all the signs point to a day of reckoning in 2010.....Nostradamus ‘n Edgar Cayce both say so ‘n so does the Bible....it ain’t necessarily gonna be the end of the world but it could very well be the end of time for us as we know it.....Wars ‘n rumors of wars, fires, floods, earthquakes... the earth will twist ‘n shout ‘n famine ‘n pestilence will stalk the land....”It will all begin in the mid-east” say the seers ‘n some say it has already begun...”That’s the way it is ‘n there ain’t a thing you can do about it.” so saieth Barney Miller long ago in a more blissful age as he explained that the great blue whale, the largest mammal on earth, had a throat with the circumference of a soccer ball.....
It’s odd what brings a person out of a sound sleep in the middle of the nite...odder still what fools we mortals be...’n it ain’t that I’m worried about the end of time as we know it...I make it a practice to never worry about things that I can’t do anything about ‘n I’m pretty sure that I can’t do anything about humanity climbing the hill of Megiddo (Armageddon f’r those too lazy or trifling to read)...there are lots ‘n lots of things in this world that I can’t do anything about.....’n prob’ly wouldn’t even if I could...I think it was the Prime Directive that instructed the crew of the Enterprise “Thous shalt not interfere”.....(Denny Crane might look for an exception but that’s another series).....