Betty Girl In the past three years I have written 10 stories with the name Betty in them and yes, they have all been about our little white senior rescue pup who we got in 2020 from a place called Frosted Faces. I suspect, unfortunately, that this may be the last story I write about Betty. Betty seems to be in her end game today. She has not been eating her food, or most of…
Life As Imperfection I go down my share of rabbit holes while I empty my online inbox every morning. I am always on a kick to unclutter that inbox by unsubscribing from various emails and spam, but for one reason or another, like for most people, miscellaneous emails still find their way into or back into the inbox. If I am not in any particular rush at that moment or on that morning (like today,…
The Majesty of Place There is a line from America the Beautiful that we all know that goes “For purple mountains majesties…”. We all know the song written by Katherine Lee Bates in 1895 (originally called Pikes Peak). She was an English professor at Wellesley College and she wrote the song while taking a cross-country trip to Colorado. When she looked out at the wonders she could see from Pikes Peak, the words flowed into…
From Heather Cox Richardson‘s Letters From an American Turns out I’m more omniscient than I thought…………… In a Washington Post op-ed today, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) offered House Republicans a “path to a better place” than the “dysfunction and rancor they have allowed to engulf the House.” Democrats have repeatedly offered both in public and in private to enter into a bipartisan governing coalition, he wrote, but under former House speaker Kevin McCarthy…
Babies, Puppies & Vets There’s an old saying in politics that the things you never screw around with in a negative way are babies, puppies and vets. What’s that about? Those are things everyone…everyone… is sympathetic to, so you simply do not fuck with them, or if you do, you make damn sure no one else knows about it. Who doesn’t like babies? They’re innocent and helpless. Politicians make a point about kissing babies for…
Crossover The recent chaos in the House of Representatives over Kevin McCarthy’s speakership has made many of us ask the obvious question of what’s next. My friend Gary and I seem to be two of the only people that I know that have the stomach for discussing such things. Whenever I bring up politics these days, I mostly see peoples’ eyes rolling, and the firm expression on their faces implying that they wish I would…
Backsliding In 2020 I spent most of the year during the early stages of COVID working almost every day around the hilltop with Handy Brad, fixing up everything and anything that seemed either amiss or not exactly as I wanted it. Handy Brad and I got quite close over the course of that year. He is a salt of the earth guy who is like many of the working class Americans that inhabit the majority…
Marry Me a Little When Kim and I met in 2005, I had been separated from my second marriage for four years and been through several other relationships, looking for but not yet finding my next marriage partner. I knew myself enough to know that I was someone who wanted and needed to be married. I’ve never understood those who resolve “never again” after a bad marital experience. I don’t know if I’ve just made…
Adjusting to Form There are times when everything in the garden seems perfect and stable. There’s been enough sunshine and enough water and the weather has not been too hot or too cold. Everything is prospering and there is no reason to make changes just for changes sake. There are whole stretches of time when that seems to be the case and nothing is amiss. And then there are other times when everything seems to…
Memorabilia Wall When I was a kid growing up in Maine, my friend next door, Jimmy, had a step-father that had been an acclaimed Boston journalist. I remember wandering into his study one day and marveling at a wall that was covered in photographs of him with famous people, some of who I recognized and some who I probably should have better recognized. He told me that this was his memorabilia wall and that it…