Durn near hot....

One hundred 'n four t'day.....or maybe one hundred 'n three....whatever, it was triple digits the first time this summer...a hot time in the old town t'nite....has an entirely different meaning at this stage of my life.....
I c'd tell about Willie chasing a chicken 'n they were both walking but that'd be a lie...Rusty walked but Willie ran from side to side, back 'n forth, all the way up the street 'n back down....'course, when he got back home, his tongue was almost dragging the ground 'n he drank so much water I tho't he was gonna burst but he didn't....now both of 'em are splayed out on the floor dead to the world....at least until I turn off the lights 'n tell em "Bedtime, boys!"
'and on that, g'nite Mrs. Calabash wherever you are. J. Durante

All fall down......

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down......." R. Frost

Don't remember the poem but that p'ticklar line stuck in my mind....along with 'what goes up must come down'.....well, trees grow up 'n trees come down...generally takes a few years 'n depends on a multitude of factors....some oak trees stand for a couple hundred years....Heck, some redwoods stand for a few thousand...I can't remember what kind of tree that sciencetists cut down a couple years ago in order to prove that it was the oldest tree on earth...don't know why human curiosity leads us to destroy things in order to study them...you'd think that if we looked at a tree that we suspected might be the oldest tree on the earth, why we'd just naturally want to protect it, maybe build a fence around it, put up a placard 'n charge people for looking at it but, no, we killed it. Cut it down in order to count the damn rings....sort of like Trophy Hunting....find the biggest 'n best of a specie 'n kill it to hang the corpse on a wall somewhere....makes you wonder if maybe somewhere in the universe there might be a 'civilization' like our own that has a trophy human stuffed 'n mounted....anyways, I digress again....Millyrose was invited to spend some time with an old friend....ackshully, both of us were invited but I couldn't take the dogs 'n I didn't want to board 'em out for a week so I didn't go....what I did do, however, was volunteer to drop Millyrose off....sort of a Plan B thing....
We rolled out’a here a few minutes before ten in the AM headed for Lake Tahoe.....Larry didn’t get here until around noon....inbetween times, the last of the trio of oak trees in the phone company parking lot decided to drop a branch..
It wasn’t a huge branch but it wasn’t all that small either....sort of a middling size branch, I guess you c’d say....too big for me to pick up ‘n toss back over the fence tho’... Actually, too big for me to have picked up 20 or 30 years ago altho’ back then I might have just grabbed a chainsaw ‘n cut the damn thing up m’self.....not t’day however....this time I went around to the phone company, opened the phone mounted by the door ‘n follyed the directions...spoke with Ann who took my name ‘n phone number ‘n promised to pass them on to a supervisor.... Glory in the morning....I got a call the next morning....’n t’day, early this morning, I got another call from Jerome of the giant rocks who assured me that he would come around ‘n take care of the fallen branch.....





 




 

Potpourri......

A fancy term for a mish-mash!

Obama’s oil spill.....67 days ‘n counting.....

House investigation panel chairman says BP won’t let him question some employees about what caused the oil spill....Y’know, I think it might be better to focus on stopping the damn spill before spending time ‘n effort to find out what stupid thing caused it....
Anyway, there’s a hurricane brewing in the Gulf of Mexico...
Maybe Obama can stop that!


Harry Reid. the Senate majority leaders, raises more money outside his state than any other senator. Nevada voters may be tired of Reid but he ‘ain’t going quietly into that long night’.....and unfortunately, it isn’t just Nevada citizens that are affected by his tenure.

And the duplicitous Obama administration has struck again....This time, they’ve named Harold Hunt, a former police chief in Houston and Phoenix as the new director of ICE.....Joh Morton, the Homeland Security ass’t for ICE says, “He is a respected member of the law enforcement community...” Really? A respected member of law enforcement that advocates breaking the law! My, my...times have changed. Matt Dillons head must be spinning.

And speaking of spinning heads.....I saw Daryl Steinberg on Fox News last nite explaining why he, a California lawmaker (actually Senate President Pro Tem) supports breaking the law....it fairly boggles the brain....although I suspect the huge profits engendered by the drug trade have regularly turned the heads of better men.....

And on the lighter side:
Millyrose is spending a few days in Lake Tahoe...me ‘n da boyz are muddling thru...
My next door neighbor (AT&T) use’ta have three big old oak trees all in a row....only one left now ‘n it’s looking shaky....
big ol branch came tumbling down Thursday morning...jus t missed the Ranchero (darn it).....I got a phone call t’day...
very apologetic, they’re gonna clean it up...

OH....I almost forgot....it rained this morning in Fair Oaks....
Willie got me up about 4:30 (unusual for him)...it was coolish outside with a nice breeze....I turned off the fan in the living room ‘n went back t’bed....when I got up at 7:30, I made the coffee ‘n went outside t’get the ‘paper ‘n discovered that God had let the sprinkler run in the street.....ah well, He moves in mysterious ways.....

In Requiem.....

The Rastafarian Rooster is gone, victim most likely to the big Raccoon that’s been scouting the ‘hood recently...
He was a very nervous rooster ‘n took to his heels almost the moment that Willie ‘n Rusty hit the street... Willie, especially, loved chasing that p’ticklar rooster prob’ly ‘cause he was so skittish...birds what don’t run, don’t get chased by Willie....
We do get our share of wildlife on our little street...
well, we’re maybe a half-mile from the American River ‘n that’s a popular place for coyotes, bobcats, turkeys, more ducks ‘n geese than y’can count, the occasional mountain lion altho’ that gets disputed by the park rangers....I don’t believe the rangers tho’....I think they’re kind’a like the Sac City police ‘n the SacBee who somehow never seem to report the majority of muggings, assaults, etcetera that take place downtown (bad for bizness, y’know).....anyways, we get deer, most summers at least two or three come to laze around our back yard...Millyrose sez that we should keep water for them....we get raccoons, oppossum ‘n skunks in addition to the feral cats ‘n chickens....lots ‘n lots of chickens altho’ there’s a few less since their leading proponent has moved to a different location...she has been coming back to feed them but that’s slacking off somewhat.... too bad for them....still, we have someone else that walks thru in the mornings spreading chicken feed ‘n, of course, we have the ‘CATLADIES’ that come in the evenings to feed the feral catz....ah well, who wuz that character (Blanche duBois, when you’re old the mem’ry comes ‘n goes) in A Streetcar named Desire that ‘always depended on the kindness of strangers’.......I’m poking a little fun here, but there ain’t a thing wrong with compassion. It would truly be a sad world without it!

Pick a lane.....

One of the things that y’come to appreciate about freeway driving is that everyone is going the same direction ‘n when you have three lanes, y’can pretty much accomodate the get out of my way, I’m in a hurry drivers ‘n the 55 stays alive drivers along with the insecure ‘n ambivalent middle of the roaders....what tends to upset the proverbial apple cart (‘n who in God’s name remembers a time when we actually had apple carts) is the guy what can’t make up his mind which lane he (or she tho‘ most often it’s a he) prefers....almost always prompting Millyrose to state, “Pick a lane, any lane.”
Anyways, yestiday being Fathers Day ‘n all, Millyrose ‘n me picked ourselves up ‘n headed west into the afternoon sun towards the Peoples Repuclic of Davis where daughter Bean was hosting a bbq for dear old dad (me)....we stopped in Sac ‘n picked up the Care Bear ‘n drove right into the middle of what appeared to be a gigantic parking lot but in reality was the usual jam of traffic where freeways come t’gether in West Sac....
It never is as bad as it seems like it’s gonna be unless you’re the sort of driver that’s easily frustrated in which case you shouldn’t ought’a be playing in California traffic anyway...
It was a pleasant afternoon what with the Chico Wheat Beer ‘n dissecting To Kill a Mockingbird to figure out who the supporting players were ‘n why nobodys ever heard of some of ‘em since....Andrew grilled some great burgers stuffed with a multitude of spices (don’t even ask me what) ‘n The Bean outdid herself with gourmet potato salad ‘n rootbeer beans (you’ll have to ask her, but they were goooood) but the coup de grace was her scratch cherry pie coupled with ice cream....
Got home in time to walk the dogs before it got too dark for which they seemed extremely grateful...ah well, y’know, it’s really the small things that makes life such an intaresstin experience...

Fathers Day footnotes.....

T’day is Fathers Day, calloo, callay,
he chortled in his glee....(apologies to Charley)
so I tho’t I’d use this space to play catch-up with all the idiot stuff that deserves a snide comment but no more than that...sort of one of those ‘honorable mention’ things that get footnoted.....

So, the State of Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner...
Good riddance, sez me....they used five gunmen but one of ‘em had a blank cartridge...p’litical rationale that....

The Obama administration sez ‘they’re gonna sue the State of Arizona’ ...they didn’t tell Arizona, they didn’t even announce it on NBC...Nah! They announced it over foreign teevee..ya gotta wonder what’s really important to Obama...all I c’n say to my liberal family members is a quote from Sarah Palin, “How’s that hopey changy thing workin’ out for ya?”....speaking of Sarah, how’s her lack of experience stacking up against Obama’s lack of experience now?.....

Speaking a little more of Sarah Palin, y’wanta know what’s really scary is that her brief experience as Govenor of Alaska actually gave her more valid experience than Obama ever had ‘n now he’s proving it....who would’a tho’t that poor ol dumb Palin might have been a better presidential choice than the intellectual Obama? Well, a whole bunch of middle America tho’t so, I guess...seems like the 48 or 49 percent that voted for McCain ‘n Palin might have been right.....

The ubiquitous ‘THEY’ say that Joran Van der Sloot is going to end up in a Peruvian prison that is possibly the closest thing to Hell that you c’n find here on earth.. I’m not sure I believe that but I wouldn’t want to research it for m’self.....I think maybe we should wait ‘n see ‘n then after some time has passed, we c’n ask old Joran hisownself.....c’d be that Karma really is a bitch !

And in the schoolyard, they’re all lining up to jump on British Petroleum (MUCH,MUCH BETTER KNOWN AS SIMPLY BP)....not that BP doesn’t deserve to have their butt kicked, they do. It’s just that all these schoolyard bullies that are kicking BP now are the same bunch that were taking their money, eating their food, drinking their booze and slapping their backs in everlasting friendship a couple weeks ago....Ah hypocrisy, thy name is politics...

I understand that Flagstaff, Arizon has an out of control wildfire that is forcing evacuation of homes ‘n business.....I’m waiting for some idiot to say that must be God’s way of telling them to quit picking on the poor drug smugglers......

Ah well, oobla-dee, oobla-day, life goes on....

Life, liberty 'n the pursuit of happiness.....

Any old goatroper’ll tell you there are some things that c’n be roped ‘n some things that can’t....well, I expect almost any young goatroper’d tell you the same thing ‘cause the young learn from the old....’n if they don’t, why they’ll probably find themselves in a whole ‘nother kind of job anyway....I was talking to my buddy, E.V. ‘n he was telling me how he went down t’the courthouse to pay the license fees on his vehicles...he was late ‘cause he’d waited until the last minute which is pretty usual for him anyway but then he got sick for almost two weeks ‘n now he had to pay some late charges....He gave the girl behind the counter the paperwork for his four vehicles ‘n she said, “You’re late!” E.V. replied, “Which car do you want first?” She said, “You’re late!” ‘n E.V. said, “Which car do you want first?” She said, “You’re late!” ‘n E.V. said, “Which car do you want first?” An older woman was at a desk behind the girl behind the counter ‘n she spoke up ‘n said, “You’re rude!” And E.V. said, “Which car do you want first?” So the older woman at the desk behind the girl behind the counter called the Sherrif to come ‘n talk to this rude customer. Now, it happens that the Sherrif back there in Greenup County, Kentucky is E.V.’s nephew and he was able to sort things out pretty quickly. E.V. said that next time he goes into the courthouse, those women’ll prob’ly recognize him ‘n call him rude again. I told him that he had a Constitutional right to be rude.
Re-Constitute America!

Crankshaft rules...

“Do not send to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

Evidently, it tolled for me yesterday. I was offended by the inherent crudity in the performance of the band, ‘Weird Harold’...I wouldn’t have liked it if it had been confined to a more appropriate venue but, then I wouldn’t have been there anyway so it would have been moot.....the fact that the performance was at a private home, at a celebration of a young teen’s birthday and that the ‘crowd’ consisted of young people, old people ‘n the inbetweeners who seem stuck in a time-warped world of juvenile potty humor.....ah, am I digressing again with my not quite veiled insult of the inbetweeners.....ah, it must be that damned tolling bell that distracts me....

A little roadtrip....

WHAT IT WAS, was a three-day trip to Crescent City ‘n for those who may not know, Crescent City is in the extreme northwest corner of California awful durn close to Oregon...fact of the matter is, it’s so close that weatherwise, it might s’well be Oregon....
We had a pleasant enuff drive up 5 to Redding, not too much wind so we didn’t get bounced around a lot, turned left at Redding on 299 ‘n proceeded to wind our way westward....I told Millyrose that someone from Kentucky must’ve laid out that road ‘n he had to’ve been drunk at the time, prob’ly followed a snakes trail...still, it was pretty as we slowly inched around ‘n about ‘n up ‘n down the Trinity Alps....last time we went thru there was maybe ten or twelve years or so ‘n not much had changed at least as far as we could tell....we finally run thru the mountains ‘n broke out on the coast at Arcata...it was a little cloudy but darkening a little...I remember thinking that if we were back in Sac, the sun ‘ud still be shining bright but, what the heck, this’s the northcoast ‘n the northcoast is famous for...well, fog ‘n rain ‘n uh, pot ‘n hippies ‘n stuff.....anyways, when we got to CC, it was a balmy (moist) evening, just a tad on the coolish side but not unpleasant......THE NEXT MORNING was what the Irish call ‘a soft day’ which basically is a pretty description of virga....’n virga for any of you who aren’t familiar with the term is when you c’n feel the rain but you can’t actually see it....’n it got progressively cooler as the day progressed, so much so that when I retired to the mtrhome that evening, I turned on the heat ‘n left it on ‘til bedtime when I shut the generator off...still, I didn’t open any windows to let the ‘cool ocean breeze’ in, instead, I opted to pull the blankets over my head ‘n snoozed the nite away....THE FINAL MORNING was out ‘n out rain, y’know, the kind of rain where y’need to use the windshield wipers....I hate driving the mtrhome in the rain mainly cuz it limits the visibility ‘n people in little cars pull in front of you as tho’ you c’n stop on the proverbial dime...scary.....anyways, we ran out of the rain when we got to Arcata, well we ran out of the rain but we still had a little virga t’deal with but that was gone by the time we made Eureka.....still, we didn’t really see any sunshine until Willits where we turned off ‘n headed for the valley....Clearlake is full to t’brim ‘n really pretty, lots of nice homes around it but slow going until we crossed the mountain ‘n headed for Williams....Millyrose, from her vantage point in the passenger seat, kept nagging me to stay between the ‘lanes’....I tried to oblige her as much as possible but she kept it up all the way to Fair Oaks.....Ah well, home again, home again, jiggety-jog!

Happy Birthday to Millyrose.....

So, the gurlz called yesterday...what it was, they were sitting at a winery down outside Santa Rosa, tipping a few....well, I think they’d been to several wineries whilst making a tour of the the wine country ‘n they had a brilliant idea....call up dear old dad (that’d be me) ‘n float the idea of taking mommiedearest to a winery for a picnic lunch on her b’day...”Keep it on the downlow” they said, not realizing that I routinely put the phone on speaker....Big Deal! So the surprise was a day early, so sue me....shoot arrows thru me....anyways, Millyrose tho’t it was a great idea so she got up at four o’clock this morning (her b’day morning) made some potato salad, etc...’n loaded up the mtrhome....’bout 10:30 Kellye ‘n Ashby ‘n da gurlz accompanied by a friend showed up ‘n we maneuvered the bus out of the side yard ‘n onto the street ‘n pointed it west....we picked up Cary Heather enroute ‘n headed for wine country.....”On highway 12, just outside Napa” they said....we cruised thru Napa ‘n headed for Sonoma....”Just t’other side of Sonoma” they said....Ah well! Passing thru Sonoma, Millyrose looks out the window ‘n exclaims, “What the hell!” There’s a chubby white guy, looks t’be 30 something, maybe 40 something, strolling down the street, no shirt ‘n holding his pants up.....well, up a little bit, maybe midway his scary white butt....I figured that deserved a blast on the air horn so I did so....”A couple more miles” they said.....”A couple more miles” I said, “and we’ll be in Santa Rosa.”.....And sure enuff, on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, “Turn right here” they said, and we pulled into a side road that led to a delightful little winery....’N the rest, you can figure out....we had a nice picnic lunch, with wine ‘n soft drinks ‘n a chocolate cake with chocolate-covered strawberries on top....we took a horse-drawn tour of the vineyards, got out pics taken by the gurlz (check ‘em out on FB)....loaded up the mtrhome ‘n came home....Da gurleez watched a movie (Pocahontas, methinks) on the way home, the highlight being when Emily called her Daddy to tell him that ‘his song’ was coming up ‘n he went back to the teevee ‘n they all sang along with Pocahontas.....all in all, it was a good birthday!

AMERICA'S FUTURE

California high school ends 'Beat the Jew' game; 7 seniors face discipline
Published June 04, 2010 | Associated Press

LA QUINTA, CALIF.
LA QUINTA, Calif. (AP) — Seven seniors at a Southern California high school were facing disciplinary action for participating in a game called "Beat the Jew" in which losers were subjected to "incineration" or "enslavement," a school administrator said Friday.

I've had liberals accuse me of being racist because I didn't vote for Obama. A few (very few) have suggested that not voting for Obama was a 'hate' crime commited by 'white' America....National news people have stated emphatically that the 'Tea Party' people are disgruntled white supremacists that only represent a bigoted, redneck America...Now, just so's you know, I've been white all my life...I was born that way...'n I've seen enough movies 'n television to believe that there really are white supremacist groups hiding in mountains somewhere just waiting for the day that a full scale race war erupts...I know that the Aryan Brotherhood exists in prisons...I know that but I've never personally actually met anyone who professes to be a white supremacist. I have met militant members of La Raza and had a friend (now deceased) who was a militant Black Muslim 'n once upon a time was a temporary bodyguard for Malcom X...In his younger days, he hated whites 'n I'm not sure how it was that we came to be friends but friends we were. But, as usual, I digress. I've known Jews who felt so strongly about Israel that they gave up their American citizenship 'n emmigrated. I once met a Palestinian emigre who was so virulently anti-Semitic that I couldn't bring myself to do business with him but I don't equate all Palestinians with him. I do believe that if the Arabs laid down their arms, there wouldn't be any war in the mid-East but if the Israeli's laid down their arms, there wouldn't be any Israel.....I don't know why the Obama administration is so quick to yell racism when as far as I can see, the biggest problem they have is that Obama is living proof that he had less experience in government than Sarah Palin and to date, has only shown that he has less leadership ability than Palin...Hell, he has less leadership capability than Joe Biden...
What I'm saying, I guess, is that I resent Obamas apparent lack of support for Israel. It makes me think that our President, y'know, the one who is supposed to be President of all Americans is a devout Muslim who has demonstrated support for Muslim countries but can't be bothered to demonstrate the same support for America and our allies.

Whitewash.....

The Los Angeles Unified School District school board wants all public school students in the city to be taught that Arizona's new immigration law is un-American.

I swear t’Gawd, there just ain’t enuff money in the whole damn world to make t’days schools better...
Once upon a time, a very long time ago when the world was new, well when it was new for me anyway, teachers were underpaid but highly appreciated... They had standing in their communities, they were respected, their words carried weight....civic leaders sought them out, asked their advice...maybe didn’t follow their advice, civic leaders seldom ever actually lead, mostly they try to get in front of any parade so that spectators will think they’re actually leading.....well, heck....that’s the nature of politicians everywhere..sort’a bred in the bone, y’might say....
Now, I’m not saying that teachers back then didn’t sometimes teach things that exactly true...I recall when I was a boy, they taught about ancient mankind...Neanderthal Man, Cro Magnon Man and an all-time favorite, Piltsdown Man....Except Piltsdown man was a hoax...It was proven to be a hoax within a few weeks of it’s somewhat fanciful discovery,,,by that time, however, it had already made it into the newspapers ‘n it took a couple months for a retraction to make it into the ‘news’ media....’n guess what....that was sufficient time for the Piltsdown Man to find his way into the history books...’n there it stayed...for a lot of years..the hoax took place, I think, around 1947 ‘n it was still being taught as fact in 1955. Ah well, stuff happens!
There were far worse things that were taught (or not taught, which was more often)...State-sponsored historians routinely whitewashed historical events... for example, under Woodrow Wilson, school history books excluded almost all the contributions of African Americans in the building of the United States....they also left out most references to the genocide directed at aborigine Americans...and government sponsored military action (expressly forbidden under the Constitution) against union personnel. Rather like air-brushing models ‘n movie stars t’day...we air-brushed the warts out of our history....Not a new thing, y’understand, all countries routinely do the same thing ‘n they all use the same excuse, “History is written by the winners.”......
‘Course, that don’t make it right!