Flying The Crazy Skies

I FLEW BACK FROM FLORIDA YESTERDAY…and, boy are my arms tired. Not from flapping them like wings, but from dealing with a crazy person on the plane.

For some strange reason Southwest Airlines figured out that it would be good business to have a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Indianapolis at 6:30 AM. What??? I don’t get it either. At that time of day you are only going to have customers who have been drinking all night, an assortment of crazy people, and a few folks who are so strung out they don’t know what planet they are on. Oh, yeah, and then there was me just trying to get back to Terre Haute (That’s French for, “That woman is crazy.”)

A 6:30 AM flight boards at 6:00 AM. I had to return my rental car so push back my arrival time at the airport another half hour. We are now talking about Official Werewolf Time. Why do I do these things to myself? For a ticket that is half the cost of the flight at 9:30 AM that’s why.

So here I am at Gate A-4 at about 5:30 AM. Looking about I can see three other people; the Southwest Agent at the desk, and two young women who are getting ready to open up the Starbucks on the other side of the empty concourse. I’m the only one who looks like I’m planning on going anywhere.

Throwback Thursday from June 2016 – “Bagpipes And Fractions”

 

Bagpipes And Fractions

SATURDAY MORNING. THE SUN IS SHINING. The sky is blue and my butt is dragging like a line of tin cans behind the newlywed’s car.

Why? Was I out partying all night? Have I been on a three-day bender and just woke up slumped over my keyboard? Have I just finished my fourth Iron Man Triathlon this week?

No. No. And No in a million years.

No party. No booze. No, because my idea of a Triathlon is Chips, Salsa, and a Burrito. All of that might make me run a bit, but not 26 miles worth.

No, my friends – my rear end is dragging because I am about to hit my biblically allotted three score and ten years and I find the world getting more and more stupid as I get older.

Half the world wants to kill the other Half because they are the other Half and they want that other Half to be like their Half. They want it both ways. If the other Half won’t be like their Half they figure it is best to kill them so their Half can become the Whole.

Of course, if their Half becomes the Whole it then wouldn’t be long before they would feel it necessary to have another Half to be upset with and they would be off and running again trying to kill “them.’

Got it? Me neither, but it’s a fact – of a sort.

Let’s see.

Two Halves. One Half wants the other Half in a Hole so they can be the Whole until they decide which Half of the remaining Whole needs to be in the Hole with the original other Half.

Using that illogical equation – eventually the Whole would end up in the Hole with all of the other Halves and then they would, no doubt, start Halving again – all in a most Unholy way.

I think I’ve just given myself a headache.

As for you, the observers, are concerned, it is your chore to determine which Halves are which and which Halves are most likely to end up in a Hole and which will become the Whole – until the next Halving.

Personally, I don’t think either Half is operating with a Whole deck. Each Half has Quarters within it that are pulling them in many different directions. It seems to me that before the main Halves are able to put any other Half into a Hole they face the possibility of being Halved from within themselves.

I see these internal Quarters rendering the Halves less able to dispatch the other Halves into a Hole. The Quartering of the Halves, and likely Eighths and Sixteenths in time, will lessen the possibilities of any Holing of any Halves. What we will end up with is a collection of highly insane fractions that will have to be content with being nonlethal pains in the butt to everyone in their neighborhood – something similar to living next door to a guy who collects bagpipes.  

Getting to this stasis with bagpipes might take a while and things will be very unpleasant until then, but I don’t see any other way of surviving that is Wholly acceptable.

I say, let the Whole thing commence by all of us sitting down to lunch. I’ll have Half a tuna sandwich and a glass of Whole milk. And an Aspirin.

Fiction Saturday – “Haight Street” – Conclusion

Fiction Saturday – “Haight Street” – Conclusion

Pushing his aching body as fast as he could Luco arrived at the Arboretum Gardener’s Shed in fifteen minutes. He called out.

“I’m here, Thayer. Marlee, are you in there? Are you OK?”

Dennis was waiting.

“I’m sorry, Reyes. I’m afraid she’s a bit tied up right now.”

“Dennis, let her go. She’s not invol –“

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Dennis screamed. This is my turf and I make the rules here.”

Luco paced back and forth knowing that every second that Dennis still held Marlee anything could happen.

“Dennis, let’s talk. Come on out here, face to face.”

Dennis looked at Luco through the window shutter, standing there. “Did you come alone, Coffee Boy?”

“Yes, Dennis, I’m alone.”

Inside the shed Dennis, grinning, turned to Marlee. “He came alone. He really is such a Boy Scout.

“Reyes, you come in here if you want to see your little ‘Nursey-Wursey.’ Now!

But…But…I Love You

 

HERE I AM SITTING IN A SMALL TOWN when I know that my fame and fortune lies in the Big City with Bright Lights. You know, some place like Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Albuquerque, aside from being the only city with two “Qs” in its name, seems to be a really “Happening” place. After all, wasn’t the hit TV show “Breaking Bad” set there? And so is “Better Call Saul”- my personal favorite. Albuquerque seems to be the place to be. It is also the home of a World Record Holding Crazy Person.

Fiction Saturday – “Haight Street” Part Thirty

Fiction Saturday – “Haight Street” Part Thirty

The new lock was child’s play.

Marlee had been home, caught a few winks, fed the cat and gone back to the Stanyan Street apartment above the bicycle shop to be with and care for Luco. She wouldn’t be back for hours, maybe all night. He wouldn’t need that much time. Not even close.

Dennis Thayer picked the lock in less than ten seconds, entered the apartment, and locked the door again behind him. He set his small box on the butcher block dining room table.

“Here, Kitty. Kitty, Kitty. Come to your Uncle Dennis.”

The cat had moved behind the sofa as soon as it realized that it was Dennis and not Marlee opening the door.

Dennis took a piece of netting out of the box on the table and started to silently stalk the little yellow tabby. He knew where the cat liked to hide. He pushed one end of the sofa against the wall cutting off one avenue of escape. He wrapped the netting over the other end, trapping in the cat – or so he thought. Taking out a small flashlight from his pocket he knelt on the couch and shined the light down on the terrified kitten.

“Hello, little Kitty. Time to come out and play.”

The light reflected golden off the kitten’s eyes.

Not waiting for his pursuer to grab him the kitten launched itself up the back of the couch with claws extended. When he reached the top of the couch he kept climbing, clawing his way across Dennis’ face leaving a trail of deep bloody scratches from his chin, across his eyes and into his hairline. Before Dennis could react the cat was under the bed and huddled against the far wall.

“Want to play rough do we, Kitty? Then I’ll show you rough, you mangy little fleabag.”

Moving slowly and warily Dennis walked into Marlee’s bedroom and closed both doors trapping them both in the room.

Shining his flashlight under the bed he could see the frightened cat up against the wall. It hissed when the light beam hit it.

“There you are. Come here, Kitty, Kitty.”

J.P. hissed again.

“No? You don’t want to come out and play? That’s not very friendly. I’ll tell you what – you stay there for a minute. I’ll be back in two shakes of a cat’s tail.” He got to his feet and went to the dining room, making sure to close the bedroom door behind him. He searched through the box on the table singing softly.

“What’s new, Pussycat? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ah, there we are. Playtime is over you little furball.”

J.P. Cat was still in the corner, under the bed, shivering in fear.

“I’m back, Kitty. Still don’t want to come out? You’re shivering. Are you cold? Well, here, let me warm you up.’

Dennis Thayer: Psychotic killer, drug addict who hated drugs and other addicts, Sadist, and Unforgiving, killed a small terrified kitten with the barbs of a 50,000 volt taser. He laughed as the young cat convulsed even after it was already dead.

“Now we can both play and cook up a little surprise for Missy Marlee.”

When Marlee returned home seven hours later she unlocked her door and with two steps inside she knew that something was wrong.

“What is that smell? Did I leave something…?”

She went into the kitchen and felt the heat from the oven.

The people standing at the bus stop in front of 1298 Haight Street looked up at the windows of Apartment 6. They heard a woman screaming in horror. She couldn’t stop.

***

When the police entered Apartment # 8 it was obvious that the renter had abandoned it. His clothes were gone. Food in the kitchen, what there was of it, was old and stale. The one plant in the apartment, a Hibiscus, was shriveled and dead.

In his bedroom the wall that had been covered was bare except for remnants of tape and the corners of torn photographs that were now…where?

After his butchery of Marlee’s cat Dennis knew that he couldn’t stay in the building. He took what he could carry and he was now living out of his mobile sanctuary – his gray van. In the van he was hidden. The Motor Vehicle registration listed the van as being red, but a cheap paint job down in the Mission District fixed that. The police would waste time and energy looking for a red van that no longer existed.

He needed his invisible hideaway so he could carry out the next part of his courtship. Luco was still alive, injured but alive. That had to be corrected.

Dennis didn’t want to go after Luco again. He had to lure the Coffee House Cry Baby out of his apartment – out to where he was helpless and vulnerable. Out to where he would die.

The van gave Dennis mobility. The entire city could become his trap. He would lure Luco into the trap with the most delicious bait.

He had injured Luco; Marlee was traumatized and unable to focus.

Easy pickings.

The “What’ and the “How” were already decided. All that remained were the “When” and the “Where.”

“Let the cops look for me. I am invisible and in control because I saw her first and I never share.”

Marlee was staying at Luco’s place almost around the clock; partly to continue helping him in his recovery, and partly because she couldn’t bear the thought of returning to her apartment on Haight Street – not after what Dennis Thayer had done there. Any trips to 1298 Haight were just to pack and move her possessions to Stanyan Street.

As Luco grew stronger he tended to help her closet the horror so she could resume her new life in San Francisco. That was something they both needed to do. While they had both been given a second chance there was no guarantee that they would ever be blessed with a third. They couldn’t let Dennis Thayer decide their Tomorrow. They couldn’t let him win.

As each day passed and the police couldn’t find Dennis Thayer Haight Street became more nervous and afraid. Another young Street Kid was killed and dumped in the middle of the night in the doorway of the Bicycle Shop on Stanyan Street.

At night the gray van hid in the fog. Dennis slept and dreamed of his next moves – to draw Luco Reyes to his death and to have Marlee Owen wrap her arms around him. After all, he saw her first

Fiction Saturday – “Haight Street” Part Twenty – Nine

Fiction Saturday – “Haight Street” Part Twenty – Nine

The TV didn’t offer any diversion. After more than three weeks of taking care of Luco at his apartment with only short trips to her own place to change clothes and see to the cat Marlee just collapsed onto her couch. Too exhausted to think she just stared at the screen, not even sure what she was watching. The cat cuddled up next to her. They both needed the closeness.

When Luco checked himself out of the hospital, over the Doctor’s objections, it was Marlee who took charge, making sure that he was cared for. Pete had hired a Home Healthcare Agency, but Marlee was there almost 24 hours a day feeding Luco, washing him, making sure that he got his meds correctly and on time. Now, after a week, the initial shock had worn off. He would survive and recover.

It was when Luco had recovered enough to become a bad patient, becoming impatient and wanting to do everything for himself, that Marlee knew that she could go home and rest. Home – that 420 Square foot apartment, a 12 minute walk from Stanyan Street, where she lived alone with J.P. Cat her lonely yellow tabby cat.

Marlee sat there knowing that J.P. needed fed. So did she she, but while there were plenty of cans of “Friskies” for the cat there was nothing, or next to it, for herself.

“It’s good to see you home, Missy.”

Startled by the voice from behind her Marlee jerked around. Dennis Thayer was standing by her kitchen door. Her front door was wide open. The cat jumped down and hid behind the couch.

“You still need to be more careful about your door, Miss Marlee.”

Marlee sat up. “It was closed. I locked it. How did you get in?”

He just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He ignored her questions.

“Have you eaten? I’ve made some lasagna. Want some?”

She looked at him standing in her apartment. Too exhausted to maintain her anger, defeated, she turned back to the TV.

“I’m too tired to eat. Leave me alone.”

“Marlee, you need someone to take care of you – some able-bodied man who makes a mean lasagna.”

Her limit had been reached.

“Screw you, Dennis. Get out of my apartment. Get out! I’m going to have that lock changed tomorrow. Now, get out, and stay out!”

The cat peeked from around the corner of the sofa.

Dennis Thayer’s smile melted away. His expression turned to one of highly controlled rage. Without making a sound he let his eyes linger on her before turning and heading for the front door. When he got to the hallway he turned and spoke loud enough for Marlee to hear him.

“I have been very good to you up to now. I’ll go, but remember this, Missy – I don’t share. Not with anyone. Never.”

And he was gone.

Marlee went and closed the front door, locking it again, then returned to the couch. The cat came out from his hiding place and jumped back up next to her.

“How’s your tummy, JP? Feeling better? “

They were both asleep in seconds.

Inside Apartment #8 Dennis Thayer was tearing down more than a dozen photos from his wall, tearing them to pieces.

“Never.”

XXX

Most of the larger pieces of glass had already been swept up from the sidewalk on Haight Street. Inside the “Universe Café the cleanup was slower. Each table and chair had to be washed and dried to remove every sliver of glass.

The brick that had crashed through the window had to have been thrown sometime between 2 AM and about 5 AM when Spider showed up to start the day’s prep work and to open the doors at 6 AM. When she arrived she found the window destroyed and three Street Kids stretched out asleep on the church pew seating along the walls. The security alarm had not been triggered.

Spider called Pete. He was there in minutes.

“Sweet Jesus, who could have done this? Why? We have a good vibe with the neighborhood. Who would do this?”

Spider pointed to the still sleeping figures stretched out by the wall. Pete stormed over to the nearest one.

“Did you do this? Did you break my window?”

Pete had the kid by his filthy shirt front. He was screaming, spitting in his face. “You dirty little pig. Talk to me!”

The Street Addict pushed Pete back from his face.

“Get away from me Old Man. I didn’t bust your window. I just came in here to get out of the cold.”

“Then who did this – one of them,” he said pointing to the other Kids who were stirring.

“No, Old Man, I told you I came in to get warm, them too.”

Pete looked around at the mess holding his head. “Oh, Lord, why did I let the insurance go? I thought we were safe.”

“And the Alarm Company too, Pete?” added Spider. She was holding a broom, already sweeping the floor.

Pete wandered around the café mumbling to himself. He bent over and picked up the brick that someone had, for some reason, thrown through his window. A simple yellow brick just like millions of others that made up half the buildings along Haight Street. The only difference with this brick was the heavy-duty red rubber band around the middle of the brick. Pete turned over the brick and saw a small folded piece of paper under the rubber band. Pete unfolded the paper. Handwritten in block letters was the answer to Pete’s desperate question – almost.

“Reyes – Get well soon so I can give you another ride. Your time is coming. Remember – I DON’T SHARE!”

Spider stood next to Pete, reading over his shoulder.

“I don’t share? What the hell is that supposed to mean, Pete?”

“”I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this means, except that Luco has one sick SOB enemy.” He refolded the note and put it into his shirt pocket. “I’m going to call some friends to come in and help us get this mess cleaned up. Will you be OK until they get here, Spider?”

“Sure, I’ll get going here and we’ll be open again in no time, Pete.”

“OK, good. I’ll call the police, but you’ll have to talk with them. I need to go see Luco.”

Spider nodded. “Yeah, go make sure he’s OK. He is still pretty gimpy. I know that Marlee’s been spending a lot of time there, but still…”

He looked at the brick, turned his back, and headed toward the door, “Thanks, Spider. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“No problem, Pete. We’re Family. Strange and mildly freaky maybe, but Family. Go check on Luco.”

The sun was beginning to peek above the East Bay Hills illuminating the ships in the bay and the already congested lanes on the bridge coming into The City.

Pete pressed the button next to Luco’s name by the door on Stanyan Street. He waited, but got no answer, either on the intercom or the buzzer that unlocked the front door. There was only silence. It had only been ten seconds, but to Pete it felt like an hour.

He pushed on the button again, holding it down, determined to get an answer. Silence. He stepped back onto the sidewalk and looked up at Luco’s front window. The curtain in the window stirred and moved aside. A shadowy face looked down. The curtain fell back in place.

Pete stepped back to the door, ready to lay on that buzzer until he woke up everybody in the building. Just as his finger depressed the button the buzzer unlocked the front door.

Pete rushed into the vestibule and headed for the stairs ready for anything and whoever he’d seen in the window. He struggled to take the stairs as fast as his aging legs would take him. Looking up at the landing he caught his breath when he saw Luco, leaning on his cane, look around the corner.

“Pete, what the hell are you doing?” Luco stage-whispered down the stairs at Pete who had stopped to catch his breath on seeing Luco’s face.

“Luco, are you alright? You OK?”

“What’s the matter, Pete? Get up here before somebody calls the police.”

As he slowly climbed the rest of the stairs up to Luco’s apartment over the bicycle shop Pete gave Luco the basics of what had gone down at the café on Haight Street.

“Oh, Jesus, Pete, is anybody hurt?”

“No, it’s just property damage, but it was all just a way to deliver a message.”

“A message?” asked Luco. What kind of a message? For who?”

Pete reached in his pocket for the note that had been attached to the brick. He handed Luco the folded up note.

“Read this, Luco. It was help to the brick with a rubber band.”

Luco silently read the note. “I don’t share. What does that mean? Share what?”

“You tell me, Luco, but this isn’t any love letter. Somebody doesn’t like you. Any ideas who?”

“Over the years, Pete? I could name half a dozen, but this is insane. ‘Give me another ride.’ What does that mean?”

“I read that,” said Pete, “And I had to come and make sure you were OK.”

“I’m fine, Pete. I’m just half awake, but other than that…”

“I called the police on my way here so I’d better get back to the café,” said Pete. “I left Spider in charge, to talk with them and to start the cleanup.”

“She can handle the police, Pete. Let me shower and I’ll come in. Give me twenty minutes.”

“OK, Luco, but be careful.”

“I’ll be fine.

Standing under the hot water trying to wake up Luco had one phrase from the note going around in his mind.

“I DON’T SHARE.”

A View From The Corner

 

WHO NEEDS TELEVISION? Who needs movies? Who needs any form of traditional entertainment when you’ve got people walking around? Every day, free of charge, there is a non-stop parade of the Human Animal passing by in all its variety. I almost said, “Passing by in all its Glory,” but Glory is rare in humanity. Variety is a better word to describe the people I see every day.

People Watching is more fun than Movies or TV. With the actors on the screen, who are always good looking and mouthing someone else’s words, they are following a Director’s commands. Their moves are predictable and rarely surprising. However, the folks wandering in front of my astigmatic eyeballs are anything but predictable and continue to surprise me on a daily basis.

Everybody, Shut up!

I’M FEELING CROWDED THIS MORNING. I’m feeling that way because I am being crowded today. On most days at 6:30 AM I have my writing corner all to myself, but today for some reason, this is the most popular place in town. Is St. Arbucks giving something away for free today?

With the crowding comes noise – People Noise. The usual background noise in the morning is made up of cars and trucks driving past, but this morning I can’t even hear the traffic going by. Instead all that I can hear is the people sitting at the next table. Three people all trying to talk at once. They are all so excited. Why I can’t understand. They are all jabbering about Real Estate. Not a topic I would usually associate with such unbridled excitement. To each his own I suppose.

Throwback Thursday -June 2015 “Bagpipes And Fractions”

Throwback Thursday -June 2015 

Bagpipes And Fractions

SATURDAY MORNING. THE SUN IS SHINING. The sky is blue and my butt is dragging like a line of tin cans behind the newlywed’s car.

Why? Was I out partying all night? Have I been on a three-day bender and just woke up slumped over my keyboard? Have I just finished my fourth Iron Man Triathlon this week?

No. No. And No in a million years.

No party. No booze. No, because my idea of a Triathlon is Chips, Salsa, and a Burrito. All of that might make me run a bit, but not 26 miles worth.

No, my friends – my rear end is dragging because I am about to hit my biblically allotted three score and ten years and I find the world getting more and more stupid as I get older.

Half the world wants to kill the other Half because they are the other Half and they want that other Half to be like their Half. They want it both ways. If the other Half won’t be like their Half they figure it is best to kill them so their Half can become the Whole.

Of course, if their Half becomes the Whole it then wouldn’t be long before they would feel it necessary to have another Half to be upset with and they would be off and running again trying to kill “them.’

Got it? Me neither, but it’s a fact – of a sort.

Let’s see.

Two Halves. One Half wants the other Half in a Hole so they can be the Whole until they decide which Half of the remaining Whole needs to be in the Hole with the original other Half.

Using that illogical equation – eventually the Whole would end up in the Hole with all of the other Halves and then they would, no doubt, start Halving again – all in a most Unholy way.

I think I’ve just given myself a headache.

As for you, the observers, are concerned, it is your chore to determine which Halves are which and which Halves are most likely to end up in a Hole and which will become the Whole – until the next Halving.

Personally, I don’t think either Half is operating with a Whole deck. Each Half has Quarters within it that are pulling them in many different directions. It seems to me that before the main Halves are able to put any other Half into a Hole they face the possibility of being Halved from within themselves.

I see these internal Quarters rendering the Halves less able to dispatch the other Halves into a Hole. The Quartering of the Halves, and likely Eighths and Sixteenths in time, will lessen the possibilities of any Holing of any Halves. What we will end up with is a collection of highly insane fractions that will have to be content with being nonlethal pains in the butt to everyone in their neighborhood – something similar to living next door to a guy who collects bagpipes.  

Getting to this stasis with bagpipes might take a while and things will be very unpleasant until then, but I don’t see any other way of surviving that is Wholly acceptable.

I say, let the Whole thing commence by all of us sitting down to lunch. I’ll have Half a tuna sandwich and a glass of Whole milk. And an Aspirin.

I Need A Time-Out

AS DAYS GO TODAY STARTED OUT LOOKING TO BE A GOOD ONE. The rains had stopped, the car got a free washing courtesy of “God’s Car Wash”, and I think I saw the sun trying to peek through the clouds.

According to the Weather Bunny on the TV today is supposed to be a dry day. I’m glad because later I’ll have to drag the recycling bin down to the curb for pickup later today.

Dear Me !

I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN A LETTER TO DEAR ABBY or to whoever it is who is actually doing the column now that the original Abby is among the Dearly Departed.

Just like everyone else, I’ve had personal problems to deal with, but when I have a question 90% of the people I know are lined up to give me “The Answer.” The other 10 % are usually the cause of my problem.

Thank God Texas Has A Lot Of Room

TAKE ME TO THE BUTTER CHURN is a cry I hear on a regular basis when we go south to visit family. “The Butter Churn” is a restaurant/feeding station aka buffet just a waddle or two away from the family home in Sinton, Texas. And every time we visit, along with an assortment of several generations of nieces and nephews, we go to The Butter Churn.

All I Want Is Everything Done My Way

I’M NOT PICKY. REALLY, I’M NOT. I just like things done the way I want. Is that too much to ask? I think not. When things are not going the way I like, I tend to get cranky. This morning is a case in point.

The time: early this morning – about 6:45 AM. It is still dark outside. It is 30 degrees colder than it was yesterday at this time and I haven’t had my coffee yet.

When I stepped out into the cold the motion detector light mounted by the door does not go on so I have to inch my way to the car. It rained last night and there are patches of ice everywhere. Things are not going well and I am already starting to growl softly.

I made it to the car, turned the key to start it up and I am immediately blasted by 150 decibels of the Zak Brown Band. I must have not turned it off last night.

After putting my heart back in my chest I enjoyed the peaceful drive, all two blocks of it, to St. Arbucks – my oasis, my refuge, my aerie to let me observe the world below.

Something To Watch Out For

FOR THE LAST SIX MONTHS (AT LEAST) WE’VE HAD A MAJOR CHANGE take place in our television viewing habits. I think that this change has come about because of two things; Online services such as Netflix and Hulu among a number of others have begun to air some new and very creative programming. Just about everyone else has been wallowing in a Political Stew that has been tasteless, without any real meat, and triggering my gag reflex.

So, we were faced with a choice: Enjoy some new and excellent programs or endure sphincter clenching broadcast venom.

Not a difficult decision – let someone else watch all the stuff with zombies.

No Man is a Thousand Islands

NO MATTER HOW MUCH PEOPLE HAVE, THEY WANT MORE. No matter what people have, they want something different. That behavior pattern may be deep seated in our DNA going back millions of years – back to the days of our “Hunter-Gatherer” subsistence world. If we hunted and gathered the same things millennium after millennium we might like a change. Given the odds that we might starve to death – we would want more. Of course, one does not expect to such behaviors exhibited today.

Oh, yeah? Have you been to a salad bar lately?

Do It Yourself Justice

SOMETIMES PEOPLE MISBEHAVE for no real reason other than to prove that they are stupid. A perfect example of this has been imposing itself on a friend’s family.

Some idiot has been breaking into our friend’s garage as well as smashing car windows. Some things have been stolen, but this harassment is really being done out of sheer meanness. How do we know this? Because this fool has said so. He has left behind notes saying that he is doing these things just because he can. He has said that he can do whatever he wants without fear of the police because he is “Connected” with the Law and that the police will do nothing to stop him.

Nice guy, huh?

Weekend At Fidel’s

THE FIRST BIT OF NEWS I HEARD THIS MORNING was that Fidel Castro had died. At this point there has been no confirmation on that. What with all of the “Fake News” that is floating about on the Internet Castro could actually still be alive and dating Miley Cyrus.

When I think of Fidel Castro my memory takes me back to the late 1950s when he first showed up on the world’s radar screen. At first he played the role of Rebel Hero and only when he got the reins of power did he drop the mask and show himself to be your garden variety Despot with a taste for blood.

Advantage – Bats!

FIRST IT WAS MOUNTAIN LIONS, then it was Black Bears – and now it’s Bats. So far there are no Tigers involved.

I swear, this town is beginning to look like the Waiting Room for Noah’s Ark.

That Time Is Gone Forever

DON’T WORRY. WE’RE BOTH OK. My brain is bruised and Dawn’s eyes are a bit iffy, but we are recovering.

We recently spent an hour and a half watching “Sharknado.”

We Are Not In Kansas

There are days, not many, thank God, when I think that I am the only sane person on Earth.

Today’s example —

As I have written here recently my wife, the lovely and temporarily right-handed, Dawn, is recovering from a broken left arm. She has been under a doctor’s care. The doctor prescribed some painkillers for her and the Kroger pharmacy filled a little orange plastic bottle with the pills.

Her injury really laid her low and in pain, so I took the scrip to the pharmacy. I explained it all to the crew there and they were most sympathetic. They filled the prescription quickly and I was out of there in minutes. Of course, to do so I had to forge my wife’s signature. Big Whoopin’ Deal.