what is up with you people?

The prompt from yesterday's workshop: Write about your morning routine from the point of view of your pet. And so, once again, Oscar observes how the world doesn't conform to his expectations.

 

This morning, Oscar, our bulky tabby, stretched out of his thick curl behind my knees and then climbed up my legs, arranging himself along the ridgeline of my body, pinning me in a kind of wrestlers move created by his weight and almost savage intent on getting breakfast and then outside. First he nuzzles and then he glares, restless, needing the Comptroller of the Cupboard, the Doorman of the Door to stir and attend to him. 

Ahem he seems to say, with every shift of his considerable bulk, ahem!. Why are you still abed, with the morning larks a-buzzing and the dawn gilding the slight horizon? What is this snoozing, when squirrels are beginning their taunting dance and I must attend and chase? Up up, lazy bones, get a move on!  Okay, so  maybe they aren’t larks, maybe they are finches and winter sparrows, but I must remind them who is the Boss of the Lawn! 

And now why must you spend so much time in the water closet, that place of Growls and Gurgles? What gods are you appeasing before you stagger to the location of bitter smells, the Grinder of Beans and Clatter? What is up with you people? 

I implore you and your thick legs, I rub them with my most endearing pheromones of pleasure and appeasement. I watch your every move; I trouble your legs with my double-cross leg-weaving to guide you to the Big White Doors that hold the most deliciousness of treats, the Salmon Pate, the Tuna Snackerals I so desire. Like right now! My mouth waters, I reach out to remind you with my Sharp Reminders which way to go, not toward the door to shoo me out, no no no, but across the kitchen to the Big White Doors. 

Dang howdy, that was fast! Up by the scruff of my neck and now I am outside, in the damp, in the cold, no Tuna Snackerals, no Salmon Pate, just the graze of my Reminders in your salty, marbled flesh. 

That was a mistake, yes, yes, but not something I can’t recover from. A well timed thud against the door should work. Thud! Um, no. There’s some anger behind that door, in those grumpy phrases. Okay, up on the ledge under the window, a few scritches on the screen. That always cheers you up, right? 

Um, nope. Not sure why I deserved that howl, that slam of window. I switch my tail to indicate my displeasure with this whole process, but I’m beginning to worry that I might be served chum - outside, on a metal plate, with pickles, like a prisoner. 

The wind is coming up, fluffing up the fur along my flanks. I offer my most piteous Meow of Apology. Now I need in, I want in, I’ll be patient, I swear. A splatter of rain drops, a fine mist floating across the grass, a heaviness in the dark thick air, a dampness, a pressure. Okay, okay, I’ll be good, I’ll behave, just let me in. 

I raise my paw but don’t scratch, I squeeze and pulse my eyes, to become the greenest of greens, as I’ve heard you say. Open the door!!! Open the door!! Jiminey Crickets, where did this all go wrong? From a warm bed to the bitter cold sideyard in less time than it takes me to stalk a squirrel. Oh woe is me, oh woooooh meohhhhh is me!

Before the rains, she goes into the forest.

Wrote the following piece one evening last week on the cusp of the mega-rain last weekend, in response to these prompts and also memories of hiking up in Mendocino, at Russian Gulch State Campground:

•  “The forest is a place in which everything your heart desires and fears lives.” by Charles Simic, in the book Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell,  a quote I found on Peg Alford Purcell's Instagram: .
  
• Arriving at the Church of Poetry.*
  
• She gave a sweet, slightly mocking, smile.*

* Sources undocumented. Apologies. Will try to track the authors down for these two quotes.  

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Arriving, she gave a sweet, slightly mocking smile. This, indeed, was the church of poetry: this forest, which the heart desired, this forest, where fear conspired. She walked into the cathedral of tree trunks, dwarfed by the redwood spires that twisted slightly as they rose; that smell, as pungent as cinnamon, that damp as close as a best friend. The path was wide and spongey,  bordered by ferns at times, ferns as big as cows, as big as desire, as big as the space between molecules, which when she thinks of it, is a big as it gets.

She sidestepped a big yellow banana slug, munching its way along the muddy edge of the path and then was startled by the big eyes of a mottled salamander, skin glistening as it turned and vanished under the soggy edge of a log, the felled corpse of a redwood lying parallel to the trail for a hundred feet or more. The horizontal trunk, blanketed by green moss, was high enough to be a bench to sit on, wide enough to walk along with out having to balance, simply placing one foot casually in front of the other.

She walked along the wide trunk, soft and crumpling a bit underfoot, a highway to the inner courts, to that confluence of light and mist, that tapestry that captures just what is molecule and what is wave, where dissolving is not so much an act as a state of being.

Writing Prompt: “Well, you know, he was in a prison in Dubai”

 These are the warm days, the warm side the hot side of the year. We have gone from keeping track of wooly cowls and warm shawls to searching out the gauzy, light fabrics. Crinkle cottons, wide-brimmed straw hats. We’re putting up the shade-sails, unfurling the umbrellas against the blast of the bold sun, rising higher and higher in the sky.

The mockingbird pair bounce along the top of the fence, jabbering at the indolent, rotund tabby cat, who might have once in his younger years been a threat, but now is more intent on loafing his days away in sun or shade. He’s a real garden cat, lolling about under the stunted artichokes, sunning himself on the hot rocks. He watches a caterpillar inching down the slender trunk of the new pomegranate tree. Meanwhile, the mockingbirds, feeling he is too close to their nest in the wildly blooming pyracantha bush on the other side of the fence, take turns to dive at him, skimming his fur and causing no end of consternation from us witnesses. Nevertheless, Oscar, that thick-headed tabby cat, continues to loll and flaunt his considerable flanks, the lines and sworls of his sides like a map of a forgotten island in an atlas of abandoned lands.  Where we all seem to be residing this spring.

This is not a crowd of mockingbirds; nor are they repugnant, evil little dive-bombers. They simply refuse to believe in the serendipity of a fat cat in the garden enjoying the sun before it becomes intolerable even to this inveterate heat-seeker. They understand only that the shape of a predator is far too near their babies and they are determined in their strut and bluster and buzz-drills to drive him away.

But you know, Oscar acts like he had once been in a prison in Dubai. Nothing excites him, nothing annoys him. He is on the bulky side now, as if making up for those lost meals from prison, which adds to his look of imperturbability, but there comes that moment when one of the mockingbird scores a more direct hit, grabs a twist of fur, yanks. Oscar snarls and hisses, then curls up to sitting, gives himself a lick, and waddles off, as if he intended all along at precisely 10:13 a.m to move around to the other side of the house. And so he does, tail tall and stately, like a flag of state. Not giving up exactly, but not sticking around, either. 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

October 2021 

I found this post anguishing in my stack and thought I would publish it, seeing that it's from that other side of the summer, before the heat drove us half-mad and the drought drove us the rest of the way.  ~ lk

Maybe I Am Wrong

This October morning, redwing blackbirds swarm the backyard trees, absolutely loud with their raucous chatter, scratchy and scritchy, like a foreign language I almost understand, but don’t. But maybe I am wrong, maybe my body does understand — as I rouse and walk outside to refill the watering bowls, padding along the few soft, still-damp sections of the mostly brown and crispy lawn. 

Squirrels bounce along the top of the brown wooden fence, taunting the taut and laser-focused yearling kittens hunkered down behind the wire grid of their catio, set across the lawn. One squirrel, an acorn gripped in its teeth, dances down the thin trunk of the young ceanothus leaning against the fence, skittering around in the dusty dirt under the mulberry tree, hopping straight toward the kittens. The two kittens sit hunched side by side, frozen in their desire to capture this tail-snapping, sassy-ass squirrel. 

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems like the flippant creature hops closer and closer, throwing a knowing glance or three at the kittens trapped behind wire, and digs in the duff and old wood chips conspicuously within leaping distance. The kittens stare and swivel their heads in exact unison, like two heads on one cat neck, conjoined in their focused desire, side by side, just behind the wires.

 Today, I wake up with ideas, with a plan. Time to get my book out of the laptop and into the real world. I can't keep it trapped within wires any longer.

.... apologies for the slump in activity. I think I fell into some kind of mental ditch this winter. Or hibernation. Or coccoon. Or just general languishment.

Sept 14 2020 - Monday - a note from the near past.

There is the grinding down, as we circle through the whirlpool, 

before we are spit out into a new world. I feel stretched and thinned out.  Effaced.

We are working on the new world.  We are birthing it

together. 

 

 

 

November 2 2020 - the Day Before

 ...not that we will get much closure about the election on Nov 3rd. But ...well, it's all we can think about.  Will the Deposed Maniac try to claim victory and hold onto the presidency if he's ahead Tuesday evening -- and then try to end the ballot count? Then I will take to the streets, because all votes must be counted. Besides,  races aren't always called on Election Day -- that's a convention brought about by media and the ability to predict an outcome. Back in the day, it would take weeks to tally the vote and get the results to the Electoral College.  We will Protect The Results.  Absolutely.

 

We are restless, hearts thrumming

like the hummers

roaring in and out of the purple sage. 

We are haunted by 2016 - when we felt the time was right, that we were in the sweet spot to have a woman president to continue a more just society.  Now we are grimly hanging onto our hearts, crossing our fingers, gnawing our nails, working to propel a woman Veep.  These four years have changed us - all of us, We are a different nation, in many ways, with a new respect for health, for justice, for a government that works for the common good.

Today, I watch a patch of pelicans, brilliantly white with black wing tips, wheel across the sky, determined and steady. That is us, the Determined Ones. We're not extremists, seeking to bash heads or run candidates off the roads, using intimidation, bullying, falsehoods and lies to secure the election because we can't run on our record, because we have nothing to offer the country but more chaos and ineptitude. We use steady inexorable persistence to make headway against injustice, writing batch after batch of postcards, 10 or 20 at a time, to remind voters of the power of the vote, of their voice.

Protect The Vote

Sept 13 2020 - Saturday.

Picture by  Buddy Poland     from Heather Cox Richardson's post Sept 13 2020

Taking a cue from Heather Cox Richardson today, from  - because I'm exhausted just thinking about all the levels of chaos going on. And HCR stated it all so well in her post from today, which I quote in it's entirety. :

"Lots of people are tired right now. Indeed, the whole point of the constant stream of chaos coming from the administration is to exhaust us to the point we will stop caring what Trump and his supporters do.

But have you noticed that reporters are increasingly calling out the administration's lies, and people are increasingly articulating what they want the world to look like, rather than what we are currently enduring? Famously, "in the midst of chaos there is also opportunity."

Here's a little inspiration for those of you for whom the chaos is obscuring the opportunity: Wilhelmina Smith of the highly-regarded Salt Bay Chamberfest, a small non-profit performing arts organization in Maine, playing her cello-- somewhat unexpectedly-- in the light of a late-summer afternoon. 

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-13-2020

Taking A Mental Health Break

This in the midst of the horrendous fires in Ashland, Oregon and Butte County, California - (again)

Fires, fires, fires.

 But we soldier on, right?

Sept 12, 2020 - Saturday NapDay

the wild abandonment of kittens to the power of a nap

 

Tuesday, Sept 8, 2020- Smoke and Fires, No Mirror Needed

(apologies for lack of continuity here)

Overwhelmed by the sadness of the smoke and fires. 

22 days of Spare The Air alerts doesn't even begin to describe the constant presence of smoke and fire. It's like a deep winter season in a way, when snow and ice kept us housebound and indoors, only this is excessive heat and too much smoke. Exercise becomes an indoor activity: yoga or tai chi on a good day. 

For others, the fires force them to flee, leave everything behind, stare into an uncertain future. 

Woke today to an oppressively oily-yellow light, the sun a weak red disk behind a high screen of smoke from a fire somewhere else, perhaps the Wallbridge Fire flare-up that sparked evacuation orders again around Guerneville and Armstrong Woods State Park. Thick blankets of smoke, reminding us that fire has destroyed homes and lives and livelihoods elsewhere.  I hear now that this smoke is from fires in Mendocino.  There are or have been fires, I think, in every county in the North Bay, this past month. And now the Sierras are erupting in fire,  with courageous helicopter rescues of flame-trapped hikers and firefighters and citizens of all stripes and ilk.

A visit to the National Weather Service Twitter page has me saddened beyond relief -- satellite views of the sea of smoke settling into the inland valleys. Insane waves created by the heat and wind. Historic wooden train trestle in Yakima, Washington a gridwork of flames. And Southern California not one whit better.

Friday Sept 11 2020

 Heather Cox Richardson - Sept 11, 2020. 

Yes.

Thursday Sept 10 2020 - Darkness Breaks at Noon

 

Wednesday Sept 9 2020 - Drawing Cricles, Under Tangerine Skies

Drawing Circles - many of them, 170,000 of them, in fact,  to try to understand what a number that big actually is.  Calming, but with intent.  There's a beauty in both the practice and the result, if drawn with focus and purpose. In John Green's podcast, The Anthropocene Reviewed, Episode # 24 he reviews The Works of Art of Agnes Martin and Hiroyuki Doi - she of the color fields and geometric grids and he of the many many circles. And then this response, which loops into the act of drawing, an attempt to understand the magnitude of a number like 170,000 -- which by now has reached 180,000 and for sure, will eclipse 200,000. That is, the number of folks in the US who have died from this pandemic. Each circle is a life, encircled by family, friends, work, projects, art. 

 

John Green

Woke to weird tangerine skies, a thick layer of smoke held in place by fog above it and no wind to speak of. Not so hot today, but oppressive in spirit. Small flecks of grey-white ash drift down to sprinkle the tomato plants, coat the tables, obscure the views of hillsides and mountain. Thick enough on the cars to write "VOTE" on them, leaving fingertips black. 

Meanwhile, others are fleeing their burning houses. 

Tuesday, Sept 8, 2020 - Red Sun at Eleven A.M

...in which we begin to use AQI to define the day.

 

Monday, Sept 7, 2020 - A Labor Day with Postcards and pictures

Petaluma Postcard Pod and Petaluma Arts Center teamed up to send postcards to voters in Florida and Kansas with a Labor Day Postcard (Socially Distanced) Picnic.  Great success, even under pink-tinted skies and high heat. Over 1,000 PAC postcards sent out to voters --whoooiee, mamas!

A Trio of Postcard Pod Wranglers: Nancy, Alice and Sue. 

 

Sept 6, 2020 - Sunday Statement

Thinking of these past six months, of 2020 in general. 

I'm not able to concentrate, my attention is as scattered as spilled rice; I'm as jumpy as a cat on  a hot tin roof. If it's not the specter of COVID-19, its the wildfires and the acres and acres of smoke that lid the sky, or the extreme heat that keeps us behind windows and doors. It's the wobbly state of our Democracy; it's the sense that danger lurks everywhere, seen or unseen. And yet the tomatoes ripen, the sunflowers burst open in praise of the sun, the little birds bathe in the water dishes with abandon and pleasure. 

Perhaps  this discordance is the hardest to bear.

Sept 5 & 7, 2020 - Military Woes for Benecdict Donald -- Veteren's Lives Matter, Too.

Stories from The Atlantic, "Trump: Americans Who Died at War are Losers and Suckers" by Jeffrey Goldsmith, on Sept 3, 2020

and  the follow up  Everyone knows its True  by Robert Frum from Sept 7, 2020. 

Pretty damning -- and depressing-- if you ask me.

NYT Military Votes

Direct URLs if links above are broken.  

• https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/everyone-knows-its-true/616138/
  
• https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/
  
• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/us/politics/trump-military-vote-democrats.html
  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/us/politics/biden-trump-soliders-insults.html  
  

 

And this list of over 50 points and items, stolen from a Facebook post, shared by a friend. 

As Frum states in his  article, very few people from the military are defending him and even fewer people talk about any instances of kindness or campassion.

 

Why are troops turning away from Trump?........
Maybe because...

• ⁠In May 2020, the White House ended National Guard deployments one day before they could claim benefits

• ⁠The Trump admin seized 5 million masks intended for VA hospitals. Kushner distributes these masks to private entities for a fee, who then sells the masks to the government.  ( I think  that is technically called graft)

• ⁠Trump fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after he warned superiors that COVID19 was spreading among his crew. The virus subsequently spread amongst the crew.

• ⁠After Iran's retaliatory strike, 109 US troops suffered brain injuries. Trump dismissed these as "headaches"

• ⁠On July 20, 2017, in room 2E924 of the Pentagon, Trump told a room full of Generals, "You’re a bunch of dopes and babies"

• ⁠Pardoned multiple war criminals, which stomped on long standing military values, discipline, and command. Trump has no military experience (May&Nov, 2019)

• ⁠Trump mocked Lt. Col. Vindman for his rank and uniform. He threatened said purple heart officer, resulting in the Army providing him protection

• ⁠Trump’s Chief of Staff worked—in secret—to deny comprehensive health coverage to Vietnam Vets who suffered from Agent Orange.

• ⁠There is a facility in Tijuana for US veterans that Trump deported. Wounded war vet, Sen Duckworth (D) marked Veterans Day 2019 by visiting this facility

• ⁠Russia took control of the main U.S. military facility in Syria abandoned on Trump’s orders. Russia now owns the airstrip we built

• ⁠On Oct 7, 2019, Trump abruptly withdrew support from America's allies in Syria after a phone call with Turkey's president (Erdogan). Turkey subsequently bombed US Special Forces.

• ⁠Trump sent thousands of American troops to defend the oil assets of the country that perpetrated 9/11

• ⁠In Sept 2019, he made an Air Force cargo crew, flying from the U.S. to Kuwait stop in Scotland (where there's no U.S. base) to refuel at a commercial airport (where it costs more), so they could stay overnight at a Trump property (which isn't close to the airport). Trump’s golf courses are losing money, so he's forcing the military to pay for 5-star nights there.

• ⁠In Sept, 2019, Pentagon pulled funds for military schools, military housing funds, and daycare to pay for Trump's border wall.

• ⁠In Aug, 2019, emails revealed that three of Trump's Mar-a-Lago pals, who are now running Veterans Affairs, are rampant with meddling. "They had no experience in veterans affairs (none of them even served in the military) nor underwent any kind of approval process to serve as de facto managers. Yet, with Trump’s approval, they directed actions and criticized operations without any oversight. They wasted valuable staff time in hundreds of pages of communications and meetings, emails show. Emails reveal disdainful attitudes within the department to the trio’s meddling."

• ⁠Veterans graves will be "dug up" for the border wall, after Trump instructed aides to seize private property. Trump told officials he would pardon them if they break the law by illegally seizing property

• ⁠Children of deployed US troops are no longer guaranteed citizenship. This includes US troops posted abroad for years at a time (August 28, 2019)

• ⁠On Aug 2, 2019, Trump requisitioned military retirement funds towards border wall

• ⁠On July 31, 2019, Trump ordered the Navy rescind medals to prosecutors who were prosecuted war criminals

• ⁠Trump denied a U.S. Marine of 6 years entry into the United States for his citizenship interview (Reported July 17, 2019)

• ⁠Trump made the U.S. Navy Blue Angels violate ethics rules by having them fly at his July 4th political campaign event (July 4, 2019)

• ⁠Trump demanded US military chiefs stand next to him at 4th of July parade (reported July 2, 2019)

• ⁠In June, 2019, Trump sent troops to the border to paint the fence for a better "aesthetic appearance"

• ⁠Trump used his D-Day interview at a cemetery commemorating fallen US soldiers to attack a Vietnam veteran (June 6, 2019)

• ⁠Trump started his D-Day commemoration speech by attacking a private citizen (Bette Midler, of all people) (reported on June 4th, 2019)

• ⁠Trump made his 2nd wife, Marla Maples, sign a prenup that would have cut off all child support if Tiffany joined the military (reported June 4th, 2019)

• ⁠On May 27, 2019, Trump turned away US military from his Memorial Day speech because they were from the destroyer USS John S. McCain

• ⁠Trump ordered the USS John McCain out of sight during his visit to Japan (May 15, 2019). The ship's name was subsequently covered. (May 27, 2019)

• ⁠Trump purged 200,000 vets' healthcare applications (due to known administrative errors within VA’s enrollment system) (reported on May 13, 2019)

• ⁠Trump deported a spouse of fallen Army soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving their daughter parentless (April 16, 2019)

• ⁠On March 20, 2019, Trump complained that a deceased war hero didn't thank him for his funeral

• ⁠Between 12/22/2018, and 1/25/2019, Trump refused to sign his party's funding bill, which shut down the government, forcing the Coast Guard to go without pay, which made service members rely on food pantries. However, his appointees got a $10,000 pay raise

• ⁠He banned service members from serving based on gender identity (1/22/2019)

• ⁠He denied female troops access to birth control to limit sexual activity (on-going. Published Jan 18, 2019)

• ⁠He tried to deport a marine vet who is a U.S.-born citizen (Jan 16, 2019)

• ⁠When a man was caught swindling veterans pensions for high-interest “cash advances," Trump's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined him $1 (Jan 26, 2019)

• ⁠He called a retired general a 'dog' with a 'big, dumb mouth' (Jan 1, 2019)

• ⁠He increased privatization of the VA, leading to longer waits and higher taxpayer cost (2018)

• ⁠He finally visited troops 2 years after taking office, but only after 154 vacation days at his properties (Dec 26, 2018)

• ⁠He revealed a covert Seal Team 5 deployment, including names and faces, on Twitter during his visit to Iraq (Dec 26, 2018)

• ⁠Trump lied to deployed troops that he gave them a 10% raise (12/26/2018). He tried giving the military a raise that was lower than the standard living adjustment. Congress told him that idea wasn't going to work. Then after giving them the raise that Congress made him, he lied about it pretending that it was larger than Obama's. It wasn't.

• ⁠He fired service members living with HIV just before the 2018 holidays

• ⁠He tried to slash disability and unemployment benefits for Veterans to $0, and eliminate the unemployability extrascheduler rating (Dec 17, 2018)

• ⁠He called troops on Thanksgiving and told them he's most thankful for himself (Thanksgiving, 2018)

• ⁠He urged Florida to not count deployed military votes (Nov 12, 2018)

• ⁠He canceled an Arlington Cemetery visit on Veterans Day due to light rain (Nov 12, 2018)

• ⁠While in Europe commemorating the end of WWI, he didn't attend the ceremony at a US cemetery due to the rain -- other world leaders went anyway (Nov 10, 2018)

• ⁠He used troops as a political prop by sending them on a phantom mission to the border and made them miss Thanksgiving with their families (Oct-Dec, 2018)

• ⁠He stopped using troops as a political prop immediately after the election. However, the troops remained in muddy camps on the border (Nov 7, 2018)

• ⁠Trump changed the GI Bill through his Forever GI Act, causing the VA to miss veteran benefits, including housing allowances. This caused many vets to run out of food and rent. (reported October 7, 2018)

• ⁠Trump doubled the rejection rate for veterans requesting family deportation protections (July 5, 2018)

• ⁠Trump deported active-duty spouses (11,800 military families face this problem as of April 2018)

• ⁠He forgot a fallen soldier's name (below) during a call to his pregnant widow, then attacked her the next day (Oct 23-24, 2017)

• ⁠He sent commandos into an ambush due to a lack of intel, and sends contractors to pick them up, resulting in a commando being left behind, tortured, and executed. (Trump approved the mission because Bannon told him Obama didn't have the guts to do it) (Oct 4, 2017)

• ⁠He blocked a veteran group on Twitter (June 2017)

• ⁠He ordered the discharge of active-duty immigrant troops with good records (2017-present)

• ⁠He deported veterans (2017-present)

• ⁠He said he knows more about ISIS than American generals (Oct 2016)

• ⁠On Oct 3, 2016, Trump said vets get PTSD because they aren't strong (note: yes, he said it's 'because they aren't strong.' He didn't say it's 'because they're weak.' This distinction is important because of Snopes)

• ⁠Trump accepted a Purple Heart from a fan at one of his rallies and said: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” (Aug 2, 2016)

• ⁠Trump attacks Gold Star families: Myeshia Johnson (gold star widow), Khan family (gold star parents) etc. (2016-present)

• ⁠Trump sent funds raised from a Jan 2016 veterans benefit to the Donald J Trump Foundation instead of veterans charities (the foundation has since been ordered shut because of fraud) (Jan, 2016)

• ⁠Trump said he has "more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military" because he went to a military-style academy (2015 biography)

• ⁠Trump said he doesn't consider POWs heroes because they were caught. He said he prefers people who were not caught (July 18, 2015)

• ⁠Trump said having unprotected sex was his own personal Vietnam (1998)

• ⁠For a decade, Trump sought to kick veterans off of Fifth Avenue because he found them unsightly nuisances outside of Trump Tower. 1991

• ⁠Trump dodged the draft 5 times by having a doctor diagnose him with bone spurs.

• ⁠No Trump in America has ever served in the military; this spans 5 generations, and every branch of the family tree. In fact, the reason his grandfather immigrated to America was to avoid military service.

August 30, 2020 - What We're Listening To, What We're Watching To Get Through

Took a very informal survey of a small group of buddies about how we're getting through this. Here's what we're watching and listening to:

TV -- to watch; shows, comedies, stand-up comedy. In the interest of keeping this list tangle-free, I'll let you folks do the googling to find them.

• 
Better Things
 - TV show, comedy, drama, Sam Fox, a single-mom with three kids in LA.
  
• Sebastian Mancuso — stand-up comedian
  
• 
James Gaffigan
 - stand-up comedian
  
• Mrs Maisel
  - TV show about a comedian. Exuberant, set in the 50s and early 60s. Great cast, fast pace, dancing galore,  keep an eye peeled for Suzie..
  
• Hannah Gadsby
 - stand-up comedian
  
• Tig Natarao -both her standup comedy shows, but especially 
One Mississippi, her 2-season show.
  
•  Vera -- British Detective show at its best!
• Endeavor - prequel to Inspector Morse. So watchable!
  

 Podcasts & Radio

• 
California City - Podcast from LA List.
  
• 
Very Presidential by Ashley Flowers

• Ologies by Alie Ward
        \
• Fearology, Part 1 and 2 -- highly recommended
  
• 
Crime Junkies

• Invisibilia - early seasons are the best.
  
• The Moth

• This American
 Life
  
• 
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me

• Room Twenty 
Cold

• Everything is Fine
• 
Rumble Strip - (Vermont)

• GirlTrek
  
• 
Ideas — CBC Radio Show
 (anything from  the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, right?)
  

Sept 5, 2020 - Saturday

The start of another wave of heat for the Bay Area -- triple digits predicted inland, away from the water. Probably high 90's here, near San Pablo Bay. Maybe the 80's for San Francisco -- which is near the top for them. Over 100 in Petaluma?

Large orange moon last night, waning a few days from full looking like a deflating pumpkin, soft on one side, drooping about halfway up from the horizon.  A faint smell of old campfires drifts through our open windows.

It' s funny how the body knows a hot day will be here and prods us awake not long after dawn to prowl and pad around in the bigger rooms, seeking more water, seeking movement, as if it already knows a siesta is in the works for the long hot afternoon. Best time to curl up with a New Yorker, that early morning hour of a hot day, when sleep evades us, when the couch calls, when kittens play with our feet and end up purring near our armpits.  This is wha I read today - and I think it tucks up into one article some of the complexities of this past spring and summer, when pandemic and racism collided.

A Transit Worker's Survival Story 

https://images.app.goo.gl/EcaUUkzJBdyHz8JE7

Sept 4, 2020 - Friday - One more for the books.

Listening to SFJAZZ at Five -- a short online concert posted by SFJAZZ from previous concerts, to kick off the weekend. Tonight Dee Dee Bridgewater is doodling all day, smoothing the edges of these anxious weeks with a voice like mellowed, triple-malt Scotch.

Took a trip into a yarn shop, this afternoon; oh my, so difficult to only look, not squish, fondle, twirl the ply, hold against the neck to test for softness.  All sorts of lovely little project bags, many designed for tagging along with the knitter, where-ever they go, down the long hall from living room to TV room, for instance, or from inside knitting chair to patio, when the smoke clears -- which reminded me of the Japanese wrist bag I so admired many years ago and attempted to make. Hmmm.

Almost finished with a lovely soft gray cap -- to make this a Three Hat Pandemic. Not sure this will be the last, either.

Cool muted air comes in through the screens, a tinge of woodsmoke still. I don't think anyone is barbequeing, but ... maybe? More likely it s the 

Drumpf and the media is making a big deal aboug Nancy Pelosi's hair cut? This is all Drumpf has on her -- the incident about her hair salon? If she was set up or not And what's with this Crazy Nancy business? Lying Donny can't be bothered to treat anyone with any kind of respect. It's all about the name calling.  Like a five-year old. Just can't wait to get his big fat mouth locked up. Seriously.

I mean, really, this is someone to admire?