What Did June Wreak? And What Does the Future Hold, if Anything.

There is so much unpleasantry going on in these United States this summer. The Son's 18-year marriage dissipated into thin air yesterday with the stroke of a Judge's pen on a Divorce Decree. The Supreme Court has become decidedly and unashamedly activist. (I particularly like one post that I stole and shared on Facebook: "My feed looks like the Confederacy has declared war on a Skittles factory.")

Reparations for Antebellum slavery are going on nationwide, although they're not being identified as such. Donald Trump and Chris Christie have announced campaigns for the presidency. TV Land has canceled re-runs of The Dukes of Hazzard, for crying out loud, and NASCAR is backing off displays of the Confederate Battle Flag!  NASCAR!!!!

And on June 30, there was a convergence of Jupiter and Venus that made them the brightest objects in the night sky.

One blog notes that the last time this happened was a little over 2,000 years ago while three Kings were en route to Bethlehem to welcome our Saviour.

It kinda makes a body wonder. And to get one's affairs in order.

Of Pigs, Wearing Beagle Suits, at the Trough: A Cautionary Tale

Since we lost our Wendy Whiner beagle girl, I've noticed a change in the eating habits of Bouie, the sweet young lab, and Rosie, the geriatric mostly-blind-and-usually-deaf shih tzu.



Supper Time used to be a closely monitored activity. There were three bowls, in three different spots in the kitchen, and the bowls for Bouie and Rosie were not set in place until Wendy had her bowl. Rosie and Bouie had to wait because, otherwise, Wendy would nudge them out of the way and glom theirs down before they had a chance even to sniff their food; but, if she was preoccupied with her own bowl, the other two stood a chance of getting to eat.


Wendy never left a morsel in her bowl. Holding it down with one paw (quite the clever and talented hound dog), she always licked the bowl down several times, even after it was empty, digging in to scrape the last tiny morsel out of the creases in the bottom with that all-powerful beagle tongue. After she gave up on finding anything else in her own bowl, she would slyly (in her own mind!) set off to check out the others' bowls, hovering near them and staring down her canine brethren much like Snoopy did when he was pretending to be a vulture, willing them to step away from the bowl. If, by chance Rosie and Bouie didn't finish the whole serving, Wendy would take care of that for them, licking their bowls doubly clean as she had her own. On more than one occasion we feared she might explode. So, we took to picking up Rosie's and Bouie's bowls when they left something in them, both to preserve what was theirs and to prevent a bursting beagle. It was time-consuming, but worth the effort in the end, even if sometimes Rosie and Bouie didn't get quite full enough.


Since Wendy has been gone, the other dogs have felt free to nosh at will, not feeling obligated to clean their bowls all at one time; knowing that what they left would still be there waiting for them later when they felt like a little snack, but still willing to let the other have a nibble or two if he or she felt the need.


I think there's an allegory in there somewhere: the Tale of the Federal Government and the Taxpayers at Supper Time, starring Wendy as the Feds (and featuring Bouie and Rosie as The Taxpayers).


We should all take heed of the tale -- sometimes The Feeder has to monitor the action and pick up the supper bowls early; sometimes the beagle explodes and everyone has to clean up the mess.


The Feeders still have a choice -- for awhile.

Musings on a Humid Morning in New Orleans: Can Federalized Health Care Reform Work?

This is the interior of the window in our foyer. It is covered in a film of heavy condensation, and it looks like this pretty much every morning for 6 - 8 months a year. This is why we think about mildew a lot down here. And why we have such nice, moist skin!

I don't pay attention to the humidity too terribly much since we live with it every day, although I have learned strategically to plan shampoos for the least-frizzy time of day. Then, this morning, a friend who made a quick business trip to New Orleans from Sacramento, called to let me know that her plane leaves at 2:00 so she couldn't do the "windshield disaster tour" after all. (That's where I give my special guided tour through the City and areas that are still recovering from the Katrina floods in my sweet ride).

In a carefully-measured voice, she told me, "It's so -- um -- muggy here." I think that's trying-to-be-nice California-speak for, "Dang! You can barely breathe here unless you have gills, and don't even think about trying to get your hair to cooperate!" She also said that since she grew up in the Midwest, she previously thought she knew what "humid" means. I just giggled.

Then I welcomed her to Moogie's World.

The condensation is usually gone by noon-ish, and the humidity levels drop enough so that the uninitiated can venture outdoors without SCUBA gear. She'll miss the best part of the day for sightseeing, but she promised to come back so she can see the buildings from Brad Pitt's "Make It Right Project" in the lower Ninth Ward.

Her observations made me think, though. We live in a truly big country -- one in which the folks who dwell on the edges don't really comprehend how the folks live and play in the middle -- and vice versa. We're a confederation of distinctions; a Republic of varying wants, needs, and interests.

If styling one's hair differs so much from region to region, how can we expect any one-size-fits-all federal program to work nationwide? I'm thinking it can't, with any equitable outcome. Now what?