Saturday, July 23, 2016

One less orphan

It doesn't matter, in a way, where this is. But you're looking at two folks from Wisconsin who traveled a very long way to adopt this little guy. They say there are 147 million orphans in the world. Now there is one less.

If you're wondering why anyone in America would travel that far too adopt a special needs child, then I'll suggest, with all due respect, that you become informed about the various requirements in both in the US and in nations who are signed with the Hague Adoption Convention.

In a month that's seen more international horror - and more in-country strife than the US has seen since he Vietnam War protests, we thought we'd shine a little light on something fine.

And to those of you who matter in the life of a child or an animal, we don't think there are small ways to matter: We may not know you but thanks for showing up. And yes. It counts if they're your own.. Actually, it counts big.

We now return to the silly skirmishes at hand.


Sports Day

Imagining that the powerful feelings this little video evokes will travel around the earth - even further and: why not?? - and binding us up, in fine ways, ways that pulverize the antithesis of Love.

Failing that - because, after all, that kooky cosmic talk is just as cheap as the other kind - we hope everyone in the way of this furnace of a July week gets a Popsicle in your favorite flavor.

https://www.facebook.com/BBCWiltshire/videos/606095242893270/

Thursday, July 21, 2016

And now....a warm fuzzy.


Throw waaaay back.

This goes back a way. Let's see

Eisenhower was president. That far back.

As the good general was leaving office, he went on national television - ha! phrase you don't hear anymore - and spoke about the vast military-industrial complex in an eloquent and cautionary way. It's probably on YouTube.

Just maybe those were the last truly important words spoken by a US president. Big picture stuff. Doesn't get any bigger.

So. Back to the throwback.

Yeah. That little baby right there.

SHE loves the hyperbole.

(I know. Resemblance to drooling softball is definitely there.)


My groovy grandparents...

My groovy grandparents on the obligatory Alaska cruise. Granddaddy just wanted to be with her. He was happy at home with his family, his pipe and when one of my sisters and I talk about him we can smell the tobacco from it.

Waiting for the day I see them again.


Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Bless you.

The Miracle German Shepherd Network has saved her.

To those of you who responded quickly with ACTION, our heartfelt thanks and admiration. Thank you.

Just knowing that you were willing to save this girl across the miles meant so much - especially to our shelter connection.

This writer is far from the front lines of rescue, but occasionally we get to meet and know the heroes who ARE. Thanks for encouraging him with your sincere displays of solidarity and not puppy love which is easy but with sick old dog love.

That's the scariest kind of animal love of all.

Bless you.

Coupon

The minutia of this post subject may, in itself, be shocking. We'll try to arrange commensurate and opposite drama very soon to make up for it. Your forbearance is appreciated...

We're guilty of tossing out coupons. Usually they're for stuff we never use like processed food where the list of ingredients takes up the whole side of the box. (A friend lives on Hot Pockets and while we're a far cry from vegan and we do not drink enough plain old water to keep a neon tetra damp, even seeing those things has syrup of Ipecac effects on us.)

But today. We were putting the grocery bags in the laundry - hey. From leaking soup, lest anyone think we're that OCD. We threw some paper in the trash and "something" told us to look at one particular piece out of several.

We'd like to thank the fairy in charge of tapping shoulders and whispering really loud: "Hey, ho! Eyes on the ball!"

Because. Ten bucks. Is. Ten bucks.


5 Hour Energy

These little pink plastic bottles are some kinda go juice that we get for no good reason at all except... maybe this guy is at the store that sells 'em. While everyone else is buying liquor or lottery tickets - things we either gave up or never acquired a taste for, thank goodness - this little ball of useless and his big blonde friend play catch until...

Let's just say we're getting pretty good at it.

He's a seven year-old rescue from the shelter about a mile from us - one that, unfortunately, euthanizes the overflow.

Happy to see this fellow landed a great home.

Btw, he's safe and doesn't have the run of the store but has plenty of room where he's behind a gate near the register. But - on account of us being VIPF - very important puppy friend - we're allowed to go back and throw the itty bitty green ball you see here as long as we want. For the record: Popo has NEVER called it quits first.

This is a shot of him saying goodbye at the register. Is it any wonder it's difficult to leave??

So. Because this old spinning globe we're all riding on has been heaving with all kinds of trouble of late, wishing you this...

May the little things in life - these precious ones - pile up into huge storehouses of treasures for you all and, at the very least, may we all have somebody look at us this way at least once a week. At the very least.


Tuesday, July 19, 2016

The Best Guy Ever

Garry Marshall passed away and even the big bright moon tonight can't make up for what he brought...

Funny, creative, gentlemanly, smart and mighty kind. We feel selfish for wanting him here even knowing how he's cracking up the angels.

Happy trails, sir.

You were much loved.

‪#‎GarryMarshall‬

ABOUT PRECIOUS

For those of you in the know about animal rescue, you won't be surprised to learn that all kinds of things are happening for our girl.

All I can say for certain is that her health is being addressed, thank goodness, and that - because so many offers were made to help her, folks are stepping in.

We'd like to thank and hug the person who brought her to our attention. And we're sending the same to those of you with your prompt, kind responses.

If this sounds oblique, my apologies. In the rescue world, toes are long and I'm trying to get out of the room without stepping on any.

Somehow, I think those of you deserving the thank already understand.

Blessings to you guys. And let's please still keep this dear girl in our prayers.


Going All Nancy Grace Part II... But with red flake pepper on top.

Not to name-drop or give me - or anyone else - carte blanche for bad behavior, but Jesus had a famous 'fit' once. (And we're not even including the fig tree that took a hit before the big show.)

You know you're pissed off if they're talking about it two thousand years later. Yet that very human moment happening in a Divine Human was telling. And, for good or bad, that very episode has provided me perspective anytime I'm thinking about getting mad for a longer period of time than, say, that first choice phrase when you walk your longest toe into a wrought iron chair leg. You know. When "ouch" doesn't seem sufficient.

Sometimes the things that make me mad tell me a lot about what's important. Those times when I collapse into my own terribly flawed humanness can be illuminating. And wouldn't it be a pity if they weren't? After all, I'm almost sixty and if those moments weren't teachable ones, then - hell's bells. What have I been paying attention to for all these years anyway?

So last night I was listening to a program on NPR - one of several that make me happy not to have a television besides - Scott Baio (please see earlier post)

The show is called "Q", the once saucy Canadian program that - well, look it up if you're interested in the kind of show it is. Or was, since it was the co-creation of the pariah Jian Ghomeshi who's long gone. Ghomeshi, AKA a maple leaf version of Bill Cosby except that, instead of drugging women, Jian thought that punching and choking them without permission was that 51st shade of grey all chicks secretly want. Although Ghomeshi was very good at his job and the show was sooo much better in every way when he was at its helm, I could live another half century listening to far inferior moderators in his place.

That was quite a digression, but then again maybe not because, in my critique of Jian, my Mad Machine, that thing a good comedian needs to put forth product, gets a bit of grease. And mine's gotten downright rusty. Actually it's been in some kind of freaking prayer closest and it needs to be taken out and turned on. So. At this very moment, in your fine company, I'm amid the equivalent of opening the kitchen drawer filled with all kinds of different size batteries, seeing if this puppy has a charge....

Last night's "Q" guest was a comedian - that's right, only another comic could piss me off like this - named Mike Ward. From the sound of him - whiny and self-captivated - I incorrectly imagined him to be one of those preternaturally baby faced 26 year-olds, perhaps still living at home, the kind I traveled with for ages as a road comic: the boys who never ran out of waitresses with low self esteem and flexible lower jaws that he would later berate to other comics in that lovely way men with embryobic souls are wont to do. And I haven't even gotten to the part I'm mad at.

Make no mistake: This mad that I am isn't the prissy old lady 'how dare he' kind of mad. I'm old enough to own a bit of exactly that kind of mad, though, and the only thing separating me from other old ladies is - in ascending order - my low threshold for cruelty and incivility which I'm apt to return, ironically, in kind to the kids who err on my path and a ziplining way with words which will zoom past his ass before he has time to say, "I thought that bitch was dead already!"

This Ward punk/child comedian is being sued for being mean, as close as I can understand. This is really happening. By one of those cool departments in the Canadian government that sounds like an SCTV sketch. (And one that points to a fundamental attempt at decency in their government that's almost touching to consider. That it's possibly naïve, to boot, doesn't escape me.)

And while I completely get WHY this lawsuit is happening, I'm Little Miss First Amendment - yes, which isn't even part part of a Canadian document at all.

Realistically speaking, lawsuits notwithstanding, I think repercussions for meanness should happen in the form of collective moral outrage, good old fashioned heckling and maybe a karmic ass whipping which this petulant baby talking man-child didn't get nearly enough of in his formative years.

While I'm sure these traits don't account for his entire persona, Mike Ward is coy, abusive and shallow. He's also bright enough to be called out for this stuff. After all, I'm not implying he's an imbecile. The former traits are handy ones for a comic to have when dealing with the plethora of objectionable personalities in today's pop culture stage. Yet in Ward's case, instead of eviscerating a Kanye or a Dani Mathers, for example, bullies in their own right, he went after a defenseless child who simply wouldn't die quick enough to suit him.

What's worse and lower in every way is that he mocked the kid for a craniofacial deformity that has attendant health issues that can be quite severe and uncomfortable if not dangerous.

With all there is to mock in this insane world, why go after a child? To wryly the late, great George Mallory, "Because it's there."

By the way, if anyone's interested, all of what I'm talking about can be typed into a browser to your heart's content. Know this, too, please: I haven't bothered to apprise myself of each detail of the lawsuit. I've been fuming in the best way since getting out of the truck last night and started scribbling notes as soon as I let the dogs out to pee.

Sometimes mad is - and now I'll quote Martha Stewart - a good thing.

This particular lawsuit stands to make Ward eighty thousand Canadian dollars poorer when litigation is complete. He says he's already spent 93K on lawyers thus far - and the verdict isn't even ready9î. If he loses, he'll have to pay the family of the sick child that he used for comedy fodder. As they say with tongue firmly in cheek: Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Some things with karmic repercussions should, perhaps, be tried in actual halls if human justice but without monetary penalties. Having said that, the cloying whines of Ward were grating enough for me to pray for the financial penalty because some people can't be taught, shamed or cajoled into decency. Being out that much money won't change who he is, either, just because it's too late. According to Ickypedia, he is already 42 years-old: an age that generally sees few large changes.

Besides, he thinks he's a champion of things others are afraid to say. He's so wrong. Others have mined the same subject matter with far funnier results and with the added bonus of leaving audiences THINKING about imbalances in this life instead of heartlessly contributing to them.

The best comedy is about reversals of expectation, fortune and roles. The petty, profane for its own sake brand has been around as long as horny mean teenagers or stunted adults, both inarticulate and frustrated about other issues so deeply embedded in their mean little selves that guys like Mike Ward will always be able to make a buck. Or eighty thousand of them.

Btw, if I didn't see comedic potential in him, I wouldn't be half as pissed. He's just being lazy. After all, why try when the kids will worship you right where you are? And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you'll please excuse me, I've got some comedy to write.

Monday, July 18, 2016

End Times

Because Scott Baio.

Wanna be a fly on the green room wall.

Sarah P ought to be there.

She helped make so much of it possible.

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