Tag: raccoons

Triviality

jono55

Robin and I started with a new physician this week. The doc we’ve had since moving to Paradise is retiring, and we wish her well.

The new MD is thirtyish, asks all the right questions, gives lots of solicited advice, and has definite opinions about things she should have definite opinions about.

I like her.

I don’t mind at all being ordered about by a female physician, it fits well with the pattern of the rest of my life. It turns out that I do better at taking orders from women than my own gender because, in general, those orders have a higher sensible/thoughtful score and rank lower on the bluster/buffoon index.

(Actually I’d rather not take orders at all, but that part seems unavoidable.)

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I mentioned a couple of posts back that our house has been recurrently invaded by three young raccoons.

They’ve been back several times since that first visit and I’ve been straining my brain trying to figure out how to get them to stop coming in without harming them. Then I remembered that farmers and gardeners have been using the urine of predators sprinkled around their trees and plants to discourage deer and small animals (including raccoons) from eating or damaging them.

So we left the cat door open as it’s always been, but I’ve started putting the T-shirt that I’ve worn during the day right by the door at night. Interestingly the raccoons have not come in since.

I don’t know if they’ve given up on us or if they’ve just decided to wait me out, but our home is presently raccoon-free. I feel that I should add for the sake of propriety that there is no urine involved in this operation. None whatsoever.

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Last evening Robin and I watched a 2016 concert on PBS where some of the stars in the country music world paid tribute to Kris Kristofferson. People like Willie Nelson, Reba McIntire, Martina McBride, etc. It was nicely done, and the performances of KK’s songs were excellent.

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Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down

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Kristofferson’s music has played its part in both of our lives, starting long before we met and I’m pretty sure that it will continue through the rest of our personal stories. What stands out in his writing is truth and honesty. If he’d only written Me and Bobby McGee, just that one tune, he’d be on our fave list. But there is so much more.

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Loving Her Was Easier

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The irony of one of this week’s events on the political stage … you couldn’t make this stuff up, honey. When a man avoiding an international arrest warrant for criminal acts of war comes to Washington DC to announce that he has officially nominated President Cluck for the Nobel Peace Prize.

My, my, my. Another chapter in the malignant fantasy that is Cluckland.

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The two friends in the header photograph have moved on to camping and paddling in another part of the cosmos. I wonder how the scent of woodsmoke registers there.

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Psychedelia

jono55

One more tag-end to our recent trip. On the return leg we overnighted in FairPlay CO. I believe Fairplay, Colorado might be one of the least gentrified communities in the entire state. Perhaps the entire country. We sought advice from the motel desk clerk and went to Otto‘s for supper. Otto’s was located in one of my favorite sort of venues, a simple wooden-frame structure whose bathrooms were approached by going out the side door and around the back. The kitchen was very busy with young men working hard at preparing a large number of their signature dishes which are fried chicken sandwiches.

Robin and I each ordered one of those and sat down at a table to wait. The music coming at us from the small Bose speaker in the corner was straight out of a late sixties psychedelic playlist.

It was all wonderful stuff, but there was one particular song that came on which I had never heard before and admired greatly. I went to the desk where we had ordered our food to ask the gentleman if he knew what was playing on the overhead. He immediately came up with the answer, which was Fearless, by Pink Floyd, from their album Meddle.

I have included that gem in today’s post.

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Fearless, by Pink Floyd

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From The New Yorker

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Robert Reich reposted a message a couple of days ago that I wish I had written. It brings together what was an inchoate mess of thoughts ricocheting around in my own cranium and then organizes them. It calls for action by all of us who are sickened by current events, and does not at any point suggest that we sit back and watch in bemusement.

It especially calls for the leaders in the Democratic Party to be … well … leaders. To leave their comfort zones so far behind they can’t remember where the keys are and really dig in while digging is still possible.

As the graphic indicates, democracy is not a spectator sport. The house is on fire, friends. The next right thing to do is to grab a bucket and join a brigade!

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From The New Yorker

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It’s a bit after one a.m., and while I am computerscribbling in my office I hear a scuffling noise out in the kitchen area. The pet door is open to the outdoors, and rarely another feline will wander in to sample whatever we’re feeding our own cats. So I walk quietly to that room and discover not one, but three young raccoons, each the size of a small kitty.

They took poorly to being discovered and went out the door, across the yard, and over the board fence in a dignified hurry.

That’ll be about that for a while, I say as I button down the cat portal. I do like these intelligent critters, but only outdoors. They are quite good at probing human defense systems, and it is likely that our home is now on their list of good places to visit.

Oh well.

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