I went to lunch

 

This is Eastern Oregon, up around Lookout Mountain. This is where I’d go…

I went to lunch, recently, with the relatives. Here’s a gem that sparkled in the very air. Prepare to be dazzled.

“…yeah, that school shooting in Florida was bad. But listen to this, I was listening to [I didn’t catch the name, because I was wondering what was worse than seventeen or so kids dying at a school shooting…] and there’s this court. In New York City. This landlord painted over some graffiti on his OWN PROPERTY. And this liberal New York judge, mind you, awarded the shits SIX MILLION DOLLARS. He whitewashed over their art, it was his property! So the judge goes on about how those people had rights! And she goes on how that landlord raped her, the #metoo thing! Artists have rights now to destroy property!”

Seriously. That was near the actual gibberish that fell from my uncle’s indignant lips.

Here’s the actual court case, which my uncle had obviously not read or researched…  https://img.nyed.uscourts.gov/files/opinions/13cv5612.pdf

There was also the rehash of ‘it’s a mental health thing’ and ‘teachers can’t do anything to these kids, unlike in my day when teachers could beat kids for looking at them funny’ and ‘mainstreaming those kids, it’s the law, they have to do it’.

Which delved into why are mentally and physically disabled threats to law and order and all things normal allowed into ‘normal’ classrooms. Liberals and snowflakes did that, liberal and snowflakes!

This went on for several hours, this ‘talk.’ Among people I’m related to in some way. Mostly. There was a stray old lady there with her scruffy little dog, called…wait for it…Shooter. Ahem. I didn’t make that up. Shooter. Now, I remained silent. It was five against one odds and I’m a chickenshit lately. For a while now. I’ve been writing polite fiction and keeping my snout down.

I feel [shhh!] like I don’t have a right to say anything to the above blarney and propaganda hit pieces. Because it’s family and I’m supposed to ‘love’ them. My mother made it very plain I was to be ‘nice’. That I wasn’t ‘nice’ to start with and that being ‘nice’ was all that counts.

Because I’m not JK Rowling-level successful as a novelist [this gets brought up every time by my uncle who wonders why I write at all if I’m not making gazoots of cash…why do I write at all?] and I’m not the possessor of some magical trust fund and…!

Oh there’s a list of my failures that burns into my brain every time I even think of wanting to speak up or speak out or even roll my eyes so that ‘they’ see it. How dare you oppose our views, you LOSER? That’s pretty much what I expect to hear if I dared SPEAK UP.

Of course a LOSER would oppose our FREEDOM TALK. LOSER!!!! 

And since real life is not one of those inspirational movie scenes, ever…yeah. Those stand up and cheer scenes are mostly just fiction of writers who WISHED LIKE HELL they’d had the moxie to stand up and say something in the very loud face of nonsense and bullshit and assclownishness in an actual real life situation. Here’s a chance to say those things YOU WISH you’d said to the people who most needed to hear it. [I don’t think I’m reaching here. At all.] 

I hid in the other room, where the caged birds are kept and stared at the storm coming in over the Owyhees through the porch window rather than go to town on the bullshit in the living room. The caged cockatiel tried to rip my face off and gave me warning chirps to just try it, just try it.  That talk from the other room veered into the Black Lives Matter  hissings against and why professional athletes should be compelled and made to stand for the flag and the National Anthem or be fired.

And my liberal brain went, hey, what about that 40’s court case which said people don’t have to pay homage of any kind to the flag or the pledge or the national anthem because there’s something called freedom of speech and…? You know, actual freedom to express your displeasure with your country openly without the government stepping in to bitchslap you? Or kill you? Or lock you away or…? Ugh!

I can’t be around that again without saying something. My conscience demands it. I’m not a saint or rolling in writer cash but…I cannot remain silent and seething any more over the things I heard said.

I watch the kids from the Parkland shooting take on the world and it’s glorious. They’ve grown up in an era of normalized mass shootings and watching people’s rights get tossed away by grinning, empty-souled Pretend Christians pandering for votes from scared elderly assclowns hankering for the ‘good ole days’.

Also, am seeing where conspiracy theorists, who went after Sandy Hook and other such shootings as being ‘false flag’ events designed to ‘take away our gunz!!!!!’ have gone after the Florida students. Accusing them of being planted actors, by the Democrats. No, I’m not making that up. I couldn’t even begin to be that awful or evil. It would be an actual stretch for me to sink that fucking low. I’d probably be a lot richer and my books would be best sellers!

Rage takes over for a bit when I realize some Americans would rather make up shit about people who’ve survived a mass shooting, some of them ACTUAL CHILDREN, than consider maybe guns are a bit of a problem and maybe we should, consider, um, some practical solutions to limit who can get a gun capable of taking a hundred lives in about ten seconds. [I know. It can only shoot X amount of people in ten seconds, I’m just being a liberal snowflake bitch plant who wants to get rid of Jesus in schools and Big Brother and freedom and eagles!]

Oh and speaking out against all things gun is somehow not-American or patriotic. Or…ugh!

I’ve rewritten this particular post about seven or eight times.

I’m watching my country swirl down the toilet and yet watching the Next Generation [I don’t know what name has been assigned them yet] rise up like tornadoes. Willing to swirl into public opinion with a gutsy teeth-bared earnestness that hearkens back to actual crusaders for things like voting rights for women and the end of Jim Crow. Which were also met with conspiracy theories and laughter and ‘it’s always been this way, can’t do nothin’ about it.’

I, for one, experience a bit of hope. I, for one, want to be a better version of my cowardly chickenshit self. Even if only for a day or two. And entertain notions of telling off those Fox News gasbags wearing the skins of my blood and kin. Yes,  sensible, reasonable gun control can be achieved. Yes, global warming is real. Yes, there is a actual problem with racism in America yet. Yes, your gravy is delicious.

Perhaps I need to stuff a few things in my backpack and head off for the volcanic hills that surround this high desert. Write the silly things in my head on rocks older than the Bible. At the very least, I would not have to hate the very people I’ve been told to love and not have to listen to gut-savaging conspiracy theories about how those shootings are all staged. Or listen to how it’s white people who have it rough in America or…yeah. A backpack and some cave and living off the grid and growing my leg hair to truly titanic lengths. I’ll put that on my list of things to do today.

Right up there with write better novels and plays and poems and rework resume so that it reflects independence rather than incompetent awfulness.

I have to descend into a bit of light sarcasm as examining my country right now and its reactions to anything gun…turns me into a seething not patriotic eagle-hating liberal menace. And that here, in Eastern Oregon, will just get me shot.

 

Bango

 

Thoughts and prayers sent out. Again. And probably tomorrow, when yet another ‘senseless tragedy’ unfolds like clockwork at a school, a church, a shopping mall, a concert, a home, a military base, a movie theatre, a college, a…uh huh, there’s a list. Which gets read out once in a while people claim it’s ‘not the time’ to ‘politicize’ this ‘senseless tragedy’. And the slogans, so carefully crafted to ring like silver bells of ‘common sense’ in American ears.

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Mentally ill, a fruitcake, probably sick in the head, a psycho. A lone wolf.
If you outlaw guns, only the criminals will have them.
It’s just the price you pay for living in a free democracy that values rights and freedoms.
Liberals just wanna take your guns away.
Watch how all the liberals will use this to come for your guns.
We don’t need to take away guns, we need a good guy with a gun then X wouldn’t happen.
It’s too soon to talk about all this.
Let’s have some respect for those at the funerals.
Let’s not talk about this now while people are recovering, let’s show some respect.
Now is not the time. It’s not time now. Time later for this discussion.
We need to arm the teachers.
We need to put police and soldiers in schools then this wouldn’t happen.
An armed society is a polite society.
Are you going to outlaw cars and knives and axes, lol?
Automatic weapons are already outlawed.
Well, what about Chicago?
What about the no-go zones over in Europe? Do we want that here?
I have the right to defend myself.

Oh yes, that list of excuses and slogans and easy-peasy pie sayings that soothe and comfort and assuage. They get offered like sacrifices to quiet those logical gods that whisper about gun control, legislation and doing something with laws and regulation that actually DO SOMETHING. The gods get their buckets of tasty hot fresh blood and go silent until the next ‘senseless tragedy’ and wait, with bored expressions, for the slogans and excuses to be slung at them. Those slogans that drip with gore, splattered child brains and destroyed internal organs fragments. Drip drip. Drip drip.

Oh and in America, you can get shot for free but try paying for it if you survive a mass shooting. At least we can crowdfund and GoFundMe for multiple bullet wounds and physical therapy needed to walk again and multiple surgeries to correct what a stray bit of metal did to your innards. Hallelujah, praise AmmoJesus, RifleGod and the Holy Machine Gun.

I know, no one can buy a legal machine gun, sure, uh huh. It’s too soon to talk about machine guns anyway. And machine guns don’t kill people, people kill people and they’d use a kitten to do it, so why don’t we ban kittens? LOL.

When Columbine didn’t make us change our ways here, when Sandy Hook got turned into a conspiracy theorist’s wettest, dankest, smelliest dream, when Orlando got used to…you wonder what it will take to take an actual look at GUNZ in America.

Others ask this one all the time. What will it take? We’re supposedly full of Christians here and allegedly love children and…then my head gives a soft little whump as my brain boils away as yet another ‘senseless tragedy’ repeats like an I Love Raymond episode over on Nick at Nite. We know the story, we know the characters involved, we throw up our hands and claim it’s all new. There’s even a laugh track flung at ‘libtards’ who try to ‘take our guns’. LOL, only out of my dead cold hands, libtard commie American-hating freeloaders! Freedom ain’t free! LOL LOL LOL

That familiar, played out trope of gun+man+lots of ammo= multiple deaths divided by Thoughts and Prayers. All of which sit over a We Must Do Something factor that never seems to get figured into that equation at all because Freedom and 2A, bitches. 

Helped by the present-day actual mass shooter-helper called the National Rifle Association. Which seems to exist to sell as many guns as possible, rather than education, gun safety training, gun classes designed to teach respect and responsibility…uh. Mm. How much money flows to politicians…to keep the guns coming. To paint a picture of Americans clutching their guns at the least provocation…to bring up the Founding Fathers as gung ho gun-lovers…viva la gun. Oh sure.

Am I being hysterical and over-reactive and blaming this innocent saintly institution of American ideals for what a lone wolf psycho mixed up mentally ill lone wolf did? Prolly! After all, there’s just NOTHING WE CAN DO about GUN VIOLENCE in AMERICA. Second Amendment. Rights. Freedoms. Eagles. The flag. Liberals did this. We just have to accept such things because we’re all about freedom here. Freedom something something. Something freedom. 

If someone gets sick from a strawberry in America, we regulate and even ban that red fruit and overreact and snarl and stomp about and give speeches during prime time viewing hours while looking serious and angry and resolved. We are a nation that DOES SOMETHING. Look at how we DO STUFF when SOMETHING BAD happens!

Oh look, something shiny…guns don’t kill people, so let’s ban abortions,  send boxes of candy bars to poor people like that Blue Apron thingie because they don’t have jobs anyway; build a giant fencewall and shout the National Anthem with our fists to the sky because patriots and eagles flying and freedom.

http://www.westword.com/news/parkland-to-columbine-school-shootings-list-9993641

 

from Waffles at Noon. You thought I was kidding about those Sandy Hook conspiracies? Nope.

 

from the Atlantic

Columbine

A Bit Gloomy Right Now

I’m so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind? Langston Hughes.

This was written a long time ago, in a world strangely just like now. Where minorities are hated and feared and blamed for everything wrong. Where racism is front and center, as it never really left the building AKA America. Where Christian power is cruel, cold and self-serving. Where ‘little people’ get stepped on with great abandon and reckless sadism by those with even an inkling of superiority that they are not ‘one of those takers’ or…

Yes. We’ve been here before.

Many times, in many ways. Where the divide between groups is Grand Canyon sized. The Grand Canyon might very well become a memory if the current gubbermint greedsters have their way with it and rape it death for its resources. Mining companies, oil conglomerates, private developers, yippee skip.

from Pinterest

I am a bit gloomy right now. A lot, actually, but I didn’t wish to rain on anyone’s parade. As you’d have to stir about and find an umbrella or maybe check the weather reports for a good day for a parade. I don’t want you actually paying attention to my rain, because I’d have to declare some sort of truth and then wearily defend it against those frog people from the ‘other side’. You know, those weird frog people called Pepto or Peepo or Peepie La Pew…yep. 

from Snopes, who confirmed that, yes, Dr. Seuss did pen this. From 1939 or so. 

Waiting for someone/s to come save us all is fucking exhausting. Waiting for some magical savior to rise from these streets and bitchslap the crap out of the current GOPers brings on real malaise and the need for cookies and milk and a long long long nap. Are we going to get an FDR-esque sort to rise from whatever’s left of American politics? A ruthless, ballsy/ovary-bold sort who takes on the Bad Guys and wins the day? FDR has taken on mythical status, and no, I never forget the actual man behind all that. Okay? Okay.

I don’t remember where I found this but I was never taught this in school…

It’s what we do here in America.

We wait for someone to come save us. Our politicians, our rock stars, our Hollywood stars, our…those with any sort of public face.

We wait placidly–except for those who take to the streets and shout things about oppression and a new dawn–for that mystical SOMEONE ELSE who will tell us where to squat and lean. “Where are our leaders?” has become the current battle cry…instead of an actual battle cry said by actual sorts who ‘stepped up’. As no one can agree or come together behind a solid banner…that squabbling over just what issue gets top billing instead of hey, let’s just get our people into office and then deal with this, that, the other. Bernie Bros versus everyone else versus feminists versus those who don’t need feminists because they’re not victims lol…yeah.

Pumpkincunt, the Great Pretender in Chief, the Liar’s Liar, made promises. Bigly ones. [Its still campaigning and holding rallies. Sad!] Those promises sounded super-bitchin’ and when said REALLY LOUD drown out the whispers that drift from the ‘other side’ that maybe this orange con-thing has never kept its word or been successful at much of anything at all except self-promotion. Fake news! You libtard losers should just get over it. You upset, snowflakes? Her emails and Pizzagate and Uranium One! 

I also saw where the Bible offered to slaves, in America and elsewhere, had all the passages about freedom taken out. [Parts of the Holy Bible, Selected for the Use of the Negro Slaves (AKA “Slave Bible”) 1808. Though called “Holy,” it is deeply manipulative. Based on the KJV, it omits all entries that express themes of freedom.] That was in the Museum of the Bible tweets, by the way. I am reminded of today’s so-called Christian Right, who seem to omit any calling out to be kind to others not born to wealth and privilege. They also omit where the Bible mentions offering help to refugees and travelers, as so and so were strangers in a strange land. [Exodus 2:22, as said by Moses. Wow. Huh. Gee.]

See? Even God wants you all to be slaves!

Imagine the Bible with no Exodus. Go ahead. I’ll wait. 

I hear that America is just going through a bad patch and everything will magically restore itself. Checks and balances, checks and balances will restore everything and we’ll all hold hands and skip. There will be glorious sunsets, apple pie, puppies and root beer for all!

I also have a bridge for sale. And have had a child with Bigfoot and Nessie lives in my bathtub and Jesus appeared on my English muffin just this morn.

Now!! What am I doing to ‘take back my country’? Sigh. Not much.

I think I’m going to have to actually do more than mope and whimper and retweet this or that. I once thought America would never have another civil war or reasons for massive protests or go through a Nixon-esque escapade ever again. That we had learned our lessons. That we were protected from such shenanigans. [Checks and balances, checks and balances…if repeated enough, it becomes a mantra and meaningless sounds.]

That we would not react like racist fucktwits over the next wave of refugees coming to our shores. [Cambodian boat people, Rwandan fleers of genocide, Somali…yeah, there’s a list here! Not to mention the Irish, the Chinese, the Germans, the Russians, the…ergh a burgha bug fug a lulu.] That we would not be like FDR and other Americans in the days before and during WWII turning away those running from Poland and Germany, etc…who happened to be Jewish. [We just had International Holocaust Day in January, after all. Never forget. Right? Uh huh.]

Notice those labels on those grabby hands, kiddos. Notice that a lot. 

I keep waiting for others to wake up [omg I hate that fucking phrase. It gets used more than a box of Tampons but is far less sanitary.] so I don’t have to. I never went to sleep, of course. I [almost never, I promise!]  ignored the good, the bad and the truly astoundingly ugly. Except when it was inconvenient or it caused waves or I didn’t want to face ridicule and scorn or even violence against me or…uh huh. I am no crusader. [Except with words once in a while. Maybe.] I wish I were. I prefer to be left alone so I can write silly things in peace.

from history.com. Thomas Nast anti-Irish political cartoon

I have been called an ugly bitch by my own family and learned to MUMBLE A LOT, internalize everything and go silent and hunch-shouldered and head down all the fucking time. Except I can’t please those who were never pleased with me to start with. Life lesson in there somewhere…

But I fear that time is over. Has been over for a long time. And I am hiding and being complicit and all the things that get thrown at those who hesitate. Who gulp at taking on the vociferous trolls and the earnest ranters alike. I’m so tired of waiting for the planet to find some sort of balance. I fear America will have to actually get a taste of fascist regime fuckery before it goes, oh, that’s bad, m’kay, lol, let’s get the gunz out and make speeches. We did have that one revolution, once, well, twice, and then there was that whole civil war thing but that was fought over state’s rights and…uh huh.

I also want to watch as those who think they won’t be affected by the current crop of awful laws being flung out and the mass deportations being planned and actually executed won’t be…affected or deported themselves.

It took me about half a year to get my correct birth certificate. It’s probably still not correct. I wonder what country my country will deport me to? Norway? Germany? France? Will they DNA test me before shipping me somewhere with twenty bucks in my pocket and English as my only language? [I can get by in Spanish, sort of. I am a true American, I never bothered to learn a second language. Gulp.]

I’m a liberal. A female. I can claim to be a Protestant on a good day. Brought up in the Lutheran church.

My grandmother’s birth certificate is in Norwegian. Will that affect my current ReelMurican status? Sure, it says she was born in Nebraska, but her mom and dad were not. [If they were, their parents were from the Old Country. Just sends a shiver down my spine!] She’s a damn anchor baby! I’m a product of CHAIN IMMIGRATION. Thanks, dad! Why didn’t you apply for that easy-peasy ReelMurican post card thingie so my entire family doesn’t get  sent back to NorGerFranDutchWhateverlandia?? I don’t speak EUROPEAN! They’re all SOCIAL COMMIE SPACE LIZARDS THERE. Everyone has FREE HEALTH CARE AND PAYS TAXES OR SOMETHING!

God knows what’s actually on my mom’s side of things. There’s one account of a relative who snuck over here from Germany/Bavaria/Bohemia…not sure there. And worked her way through Nebraska [both sides of my family can claim Nebraska as their Old Country]. She cleaned or invented cats, not sure there at all, either.

She also married someone who was not the father of her illegitimate baby. Slutty ancestors! Also, though, whenever her husband got mad at her, he made her sleep out in the barn, with her illegitimate kiddie. They had kids, however, [the guy who did marry her other than the guy who was not allowed to marry her because she was an immigrant and not good enough…] so it was just her and her bastard son out there. In the barn. Being punished. Traditional marriage, huh? What a hoot! So, that’s fun. Thanks, mom. I’m a double anchor baby product. God damn it!

I’m trying to gear myself up for a political protest beyond retweeting stuff and holding arguments in my head with current, super-stupid, relatives over this or that. I write a tiny bit better than I talk, so. Maybe a poison pen screed or seven will fill in my Civic Participation certificates.

Andy Terney is the gentlemen in the pic. I wear that shirt all the time but it’s sadly a tad invisible for the moment. 

While I wait for SuperPolitician to rise up and smack the bejesus out of the SuperVillains in the White House, a’course. Then I don’t have to bother with a feeble dribble of words. Hopes and prayers sent to me from me for that happy day. 

What Next?

 

from the Odyssey

I am languishing a bit, waiting for ‘inspiration’ to tell me to…!

I, meanwhile, work on crap and shit, because I have to claim I’m ‘working on something’ or I lose my cool Writer Street Cred with the other growling, snarling Writers that lurk near my part of the forest.

I have a collection of writings I’d never show anyone. And maybe one day publish under a name not mine and make tons of cash because it’s easily digestible fluff and not angsty, vague, endless examinations of why my parents didn’t really love me. [Are we writers all not, pathetically, Eugene O’Neill on his worst and best days?]

from the Roslyn School District

And then I remember someone thought of Sharknado and pitched it and people loved that.

And then howl with despair, inside my head, of course, at the state of my own serious ‘stuff’ and not write anything for the rest of the day. Or feel guilty I’d rather knock out some fluff-n-fold, which won’t advance my career in the least unless I show it to someone who has the power to publish it…if not self-publish it but then I’d have to go back through it all, tidy it up, fill in blanks I left because I wanted to get to the ‘good parts’ and…oh the work load alone. It’s both exciting and terribly not exciting at all.

So!!

I have some options for my next Serious Stuff Project.

I can think of something brand new, based on a short story or something I started. Or something yet in my head.

There’s Aftermath, my zombie short story that grew into an actual novella and now waits for me to finish it or call it a day. I left Hannah staring down into a giant crater outside of Boise, Idaho, with wild zombies closing in. I know. Zombie. I know but…well. And like every other god damn zombie blah ever, it’s NOT ABOUT ZOMBIES. It’s a METAPHOR FOR TENTACLE PORN AND ACID-WASHED JEANS and possibly something about politics and feminism and greyhound racing. Zombies, pfft! It’s never about zombies, is it. 

There’s the Tales of Beastface Bay, my Wind in the Willows meets Modern Societal Wrongs meets the Marx Brothers rompings. No. I can already feel myself just going nope nope not yet in my head.

I can work on my third book in the trilogy of my House on Clark Boulevard fun. I need to read through the first two. Alice in Oregonlandia might need a reworking…ooooh. Maybe.

Work on my Honest Women full length play. Mm.

Curl up on the floor, in utter despair, at what has happened in a very short time, to America. Drink directly from vodka bottle. Eat a taco of leftover stuff from night before. Continue with this list.

Give up writing altogether and slit wrists. Mm. Maybe.

Take up writing fanfic. Either Watership Down or something in the Barbara Kingsolver area. I could really work the hell out of a Bean Trees/Twilight mashup. And all my characters could be badgers who act like British rabbits. Which would lend nicely to my Beastface Bay squrivvels and scribblings. [Made up word, ten points!]

Actually try to make heads and tales of my fluffy, can’t-show-to-no-one, pennings. Arrange them, put them in order, rewrite the truly awful ones. Fanfic…ahem, um, yes. Sparkly vampire badgers who spout Moliere…oh yes, spank me with a gray tie. [If you get that, we can now be friends.]

Start a new blog, under another name, full of naughty stuff. To see how popular that would be as opposed to my dull, proper plodding blog here. Anne Rice and A. N. Roquelaure, for instance. Maybe I’ve already done that! Ooooooh! [I haven’t, for the record.]

Take up knitting or adult coloring because it’s clear my writing is full blown crap on burned, moldy toast that no one outside of my patient, tolerant friends, would go near.

Take an online course in how to have self-esteem and sell your crap to friends and strangers alike for cash to pay things like bills.

Um…yeah. This has been fun. I should go watch the twirly skaters or stare at the sky, waiting for the snow. It still has not snowed here. I’m flabbergasted and hurt.

What about an earthquake full of bears? Bearquako. And then the sequels! Bearquako, Fists of Bees. Samantha Saves the World, Bearquako III. The Son of Bearquako! And of course, Bearquako, the End? And that has to be a question, because sequels…they sell. The marketing does itself. 

Obviously, I have about two maybe good-ish ideas on here for NEXT ACTUAL PROJECT and some silly-Susan kinda wafflings. Wish me luck.

from the Smithsonian, article on Ghost Bears.

 

 

The No-Snow Winter

 

Molly and Jake. This is from last year’s Snowcalypse. See what I mean???

That damn groundhog. It’s lying. Punxsutawney Phil! You lying rodent bastard! Six more weeks of winter, huh? Winter never got started here! We didn’t even have that deep freeze cold that renders the pipes unable to bring water forth in the house. Where I have to lug in water from the only faucet outside that does not freeze in such weather and boil it on the stove to wash hair, dishes and underwear. Sometimes all at the same time. Ha ha ha. Ha.

from Travel and Leisure. 2018. A rodent, the American flag scarf, shadow cast. 

I wish and pray and hope and sacrifice virgins to the local volcanoes and…zip, zilch, nada.

No snow, there is no snow. There’s spats of rain. There’s drizzles of rain now and then. It may seem weird that I’m complaining about an absence of frozen water.

Or whatever snow actually is. NASA probably lied to us about that, too, as well as hiding space aliens, using tax dollars to hide evidence of God and that whole moon landing thing. NASA and the UN are probably in cahoots. Cahoots!

Snow represents winter, it’s really that simple. When it’s winter, it should be snowing or snowy or snow-covered. I am a child of the four seasons trope. Summer is hot and winter has snow. Spring is when the snow melts and you finger the seed packets and maybe do some yard work as the dogs get muddy or pester you to throw the ball, throw the ball, throw the ball NOW NOW NOW. Fall is the smell of cinnamon and getting the blankets back on the bed because the nights have gotten nippy again.

Oh sure, every comfortable, comforting Americana notion about the seasons, sure, you betcha. I got em. I got em in a basket with a purple ribbon on it. In my head where such baskets full of seasonal Americana tropes live, breathe, fart, snore and drool.

Ah! Trouble and Margot are both gone now, but Molly is still here. All three have noticed a mouse on the far side of the fence…

Am I ignoring, sort of, that political suckstorm wrecking my country right now? You bet your patooties I sorta am. It’s a new month and I, being a conscientious and commercial-minded blogger now…um, thought, hey, I should post something. And since I finished my rewrite [Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane] and have not yet latched onto a NEW BIG PROJECT THAT WILL BE UTTERLY IMPORTANT AND CHANGE THE ENTIRE FACE OF LITERATURE AS WE KNOW IT, well. Here we are.

Gentle ramblings about an American tradition involving a rodent and a longing for the traditional march of the seasons. Traditional if you live in a place that has four seasons, of course. I’m quite aware that other places don’t have four seasons. In case someone comments that I live in a bubble and should get out more.