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Coffee and Kurds
Monday. A very unremarkable day. But that is not a bad thing. Really.
Coffee, a big chocolate chip cookie, news feeds and social sites. The stuff of mornings.

I am starting to wonder if the Kurds are kin to the Jews, they get betrayed so much by their ‘friends’. But we abandon them with hardly a thought or backward glance. They were useful when we fought in Iran, and useful when we fought in Syria.
I do admire them and wish the US still retained that same idealism and dedication that they have. But I fear that love of country and nationalism has become passè with the new generation. We never learn from history.
A couple of birthdays on facebook. Quick happy wishes to them. A comment on the blog. One new blog and a comment, and my morning chores on the ‘net are done.
The days roll by, more body parts start complaining. Snooks feeds her livestock and family. The sun continues to rise as the morning unfolds.
Good morning!
Morning Grump and Coffee
Once again, a clean sheet of faux paper glares balefully back at me, knowing that my mind is still full of cobwebs and that I am not fully caffeinated yet. I had a restless night of odd dreams and aching body parts until I finally arose in defeat and medicated myself into tranquility. I don’t like doing that because I miss the sunrise and sleep in late.
The mutts and cats were fed, the coffee brewed, the bird sufficiently annoyed and the studio blinds were opened as I staggered into the studio with coffee cup and cookies. Of course, the mutts who had been busy barking at some feline activity half a mile down the road, still heard the faint clink as the cookie jar was opened, magically appeared and followed me into the room. Beggers!
The news was predictable. A Presidential tweet offended half the population. A new ‘whistle blower’ appears on the scene since the last one was obviously a dud. There is the Ukraine this, and the Ukraine that. A mother sells a baby for dope money. More human feces in the Golden state. Rocket man Kim rattles his saber. Democrats threaten impeachment, or at least look into the looking into it procedure. Leftist polls show the President losing, right polls show him winning. Someone proves the dead were voting in Colorado.
And the refrain from the Kingston Trio’s Merry Minuet plays in my head: ♫♪They’re rioting in Africa, and Texas need rain.♫♪ I would give you a video clip of it here, but I just have the cheapie WordPress account that kills the advertising, but doesn’t allow me to include videos. Personally, to me, that would be a blessing as a reader, but apparently a lot of you like them.
Snook is on the treadmill, so I get a few more minutes until I start the waffle making this Sunday. Not feeling all that inspired, so it will be plain waffles and turkey sausage. And today I send in the grocery list to the nice people who shop it and deliver it to my porch. I am so decadent.
So that about rounds it out for the day.
Good morning!
A Scapegoat and a Mystery

Can I be the only male in the world whose dream house doesn’t have a car parked in the living room?

Can I be the only male in the world whose dream house doesn’t have a car parked in the living room?
Some day it will change, someday …
OK.
Blank sheet of paper.
Sheet of paper? It is just a monitor with a bunch of pixels turned white and bright. Hexadecimally ffffff. (255) (255) (255) in the simulation of a sheet of paper.
I remember typing on a Brother typewriter a few æons back. Pica typeface … no spellcheck, no italics, no bold. And you had to backspace to underline. Paper was NOT cheap for a budding writer back then, and you hated to waste a sheet of the precious stuff just to start over again. I think that is where I learned to hate poetry. Poets erase a lot, and to erase on a typewriter you had to backspace, get out the pencil eraser, and leave a gray smudge to type over.
And you needed a thesaurus and a dictionary on the bookshelf beside the table. There was no rhyming dictionary to help you over the stumpies … you had to have your thoughts in order before you put something down. Perhaps that is why so many writers from the middle of the century smoked pipes. Sometimes you just needed to sit back in your chair and let your mind go. But I quit smoking, so I am left with leaning back in my chair, taking a sip of coffee and wondering where to go next with this stream of consciences post.
Damn! There is that ubiquitous coffee cup again! This has morphed off into another coffee post.
*sip!*
The days are cooling finally. It will only get up to 96° today. Time to drag out the woolies. We get chilled at 75° here. The county has a burn ban, but perhaps later in the week a 40% chance of rain will give us some moisture. But if you never go outside anyway, it doesn’t matter. The house stays 75° all day, and 66° at night with the electric blankets set to toast.
So here is your morning coffee post … but dammit, I AM going to change that. Really. Yeppers! Some day it will change.
~r
The day of the trumpets …

Sunday. For some of us, the week begins. And for some of us the New Year begins at sundown with Rosh Hashanah, also known as Yom Truah. The Day of Trumpets. Some day in the future, one special shofar will sound. May this Yom Truah be that day.
On grieving and being a lout.

I was wondering what to say about my mother on her upcoming birthday. But then, grief is not something that I share with others. No one really knows whether I grieve or not, nor really cares for that matter. And honestly, they shouldn’t. Grief is an intensely personal thing and should be respected as such. I personally loath the public displays of some traditions that wail, throw themselves on the ground, and inflict their grief on everyone else.
Yeah. I know. I am an insensitive lout. So, sue me.
I do accept some traditions that wear black arm bands or cover themselves in black veils. You do have to go out amongst them. Life is that way. Stand on any street corner and watch the people pass. I don’t know what the statistics are, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one out of every ten that passed you would be carrying that awful burden of loss with them. Who likes thoughtlessly telling someone who lost a close family or friend to have a great day?
I am ever at a loss to respond to the loss of others. Grief sucks. Really sucks. There is no consolation. If you know I am grieving, kindly say you are saddened too, and leave it there. Politeness and kindness is OK. But keep it brief.
And yeah. I miss my mom and regret that I sucked as a son. And I did.
Demetia and other horrors
Dawn came in at a chilly 74°F this morning and is expected to climb to 9
5° by late afternoon. But a warm cup of coffee and a couple large M&M cookies wards off the chill as I compose this morning’s missive.
Snooks gave me a scare yesterday when she stuck her head in the door and how I stored the sausage I received from the store. I always buy five pounds in one-pound tubes, and she puts three in the freezer and two in the fridge.
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I told her that she always does that, but she looked at me a little weird, and said “I don’t know about that …”. But she went back to putting the groceries away.
I began to worry … I am not ready for dementia in either one of us. It probably is my biggest fear as an aging human. A bit later at brunch, she mentioned that as she was putting things away, she realized that I wasn’t talking about the prepared frozen sausage links I buy for a quick breakfast, but the freshly ground turkey sausage that comes in tubes. So she broke up the frozen ones and dutifully put some in the fridge and some in the freezer. I was so relieved that is was a failure in communications and not the first signs of dementia. Aging brings to mind the realization that it all ends someday, and maybe sooner than we are prepared for.
Dropping the morbid thoughts this morning it is on to the social feeds. Not much there today … a bad pun from my brother, and a comment from me. Updates from many friends, and I like those even though they are fashionably passé to some elitist out there who pan the medium. I like hearing of one friend and her walk out to the nursing home fountain each morning, and another friend and her morning walks with her dogs, updates on bad news/good news from family near and far. I live my life by facebook one liners, and I am just fine with it.
News? It seems that the “journalists” as the partisan hacks like to refer themselves, are reduced to inane speculations on Trumps electability … like they would actually know. So this day the feeds are mercifully thin and I can safely avoid commenting on them.
And so the day unfolds here in retirement utopia, with dogs roughhousing in the living room, Snook gathering up shed clothing for the laundry, cats, her birds and dogs all fed … later it is probably a trip to town for groceries for her. Life has its rhythms that mark the passage of time.
Good morning!
Click shopping and dry weather
Sunday
Waffle Morning
Day seven of my commitment to write and post each day.
“Thou shalt write of it each and every day. The profound, the banal, thou shalt write of it.”

Morning forecast. 94°, partly cloudy and NO chance of rain.
Grocery clicking day, otherwise known as Sunday. I sure do like ordering groceries online. What a development! No shrieking children, no bitter gummers on mobility scooters, no millennial meditating in the aisle on which brand of tomato paste to buy. No circling the lot for a good parking place.
A brisket of corned beef. They make great cookies in their bakery, so enough of them to fill the cookie jar. Hot turkey sausage. A tomato. An orange. Some chocolates for Snook. Clickity click click and the nice lady will deliver the groceries to my front stoop right after brunch … decadent!

Mercifully, no big new Trump ‘revealations’ on the newfeeds, nor page six retractions the day afterwards. Some people mysteriously die in Pittsburg wearing orange paper wristbands. That should keep the speculators busy today.
Dogs happily roughhousing in the living room … Snook must be putting on shoes and socks in preparation for the morning ball throwing.
It’s waffle brunch day today. And maybe I’ll make my Mexican green chili cheeseburger pie for dinner at the same time. Still have some frozen french-fries to go with it.
And so it goes! Good morning!
~r