Humans and Monsters

Monsters live among us. Not the imaginary monsters children may think are lurking under their beds. I refer to real monsters in the shape of human beings. These monsters want to kill you and your family and friends and neighbors. They want to kill as many of you as they possibly can, and they want to do it as quickly as they can. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, or whether they know you. They want to kill you. You might be sitting in a parked car, sitting in your living room, walking your dog, or doing some other mundane activity while minding your own business. They want to kill you. And at the same time, ironically, your death means nothing to them.

According to Gun Violence Archive, as of this date (August 5, 2019) there have been 255 mass shootings in America this year. (Gun Violence Archive considers a mass shooting incident to be one in which at least 4 people are shot.) The number 255 may seem very high, but that is probably because most mass shootings are only reported by local news outlets where the shooting occurred. If 4 people are shot and injured, that won’t be on the national news. However, you needn’t take my word for it. Go to the Archive and click on Mass Shootings in 2019, and you can find the details: where, when, the incident report, and source material.

The mass shooting phenomenon in the U.S. seems to be escalating, and people appear to be getting numb to the phenomenon. They break out the clichés: “Our prayers are with you,” “We have to do something,” “It’s too soon to talk about it,” et cetera.

Of course, we know how to end it. We’ve always known. We could end it now if the majority really wanted to end it. But until we make that decision, the monsters will keep winning.

I Am Not A Cook

To paraphrase Richard Nixon: “I am not a cook.” And there is another truism: “accidents happen.” The two statements do not combine well.

I was cooking dinner for myself (pan-fried salmon) when I had a minor kitchen accident. The salmon fillet was done on one side and I needed to turn it over. But it was stuck pretty good to the so-called non-stick frying pan I was using, and as I tried to pry it away from the pan, it suddenly flipped over and landed on its other side in the hot cooking oil. That caused hot oil to splatter on my right arm. I put down what I was holding, turned to the kitchen sink, and ran cold water over the burn. Then I grabbed a few ice cubes and rubbed down the area with ice. Then I went hunting for some kind of burn ointment. I found some in the bathroom medicine cabinet. I hadn’t bought it—it was in the medicine cabinet when I moved into the house in 2003. But I figured, chemicals stay good for a long time, don’t they? And ointments are just chemicals, right? I wouldn’t take oral medicine that old, but a burn ointment is either going to work or it’s not.

I applied the ointment then drove to Wally World to get fresh ointment in case the old stuff didn’t work. Then it occurred to me that if the ointment didn’t work, I would need some other kind of analgesic. So I picked up a bottle of White Zinfandel and a bottle of Sangria.

I came home and applied more ointment and wrapped my arm with a bandage and taped it down—while using only my left hand. The process was a little awkward, but it worked. Hopefully, the bandage will prevent ointment getting on the bed sheets when I hit the rack in an hour or so.

By the way, the salmon with lemon-butter sauce and coleslaw on the side was very tasty!

The Trump Path

Trump doesn’t worry me. I don’t think he alone can take America down a bad road. The people who worry me are his supporters. When they demand for a person to be imprisoned who hasn’t been charged with the commission of a crime, let alone convicted of one (“lock her up!”), that says something about them. When they demand for a person to be deported because that person disagrees with their leader (“send her back!”) that, too, says something about them.

One of the hallmarks of a fascist government is forcible suppression of opposition. It doesn’t bode well that Trump’s supporters are demanding it. Regarding the fascist chanting, I heard a Trump supporter say, “Oh, that’s just a Trump rally.” In other words, fascist slogans are acceptable to Trump.

If fascism comes to America, I don’t think it will be the German version. More likely it will be a uniquely American version whose shape is yet to be determined. But I’m sure it will have some of the same elements: appeals to racism, appeals to nationalism, and suppression of opposition.

Trump seems to enjoy the company of dictators (Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Rodrigo Duterte). It’s easy to imagine Trump wanting similar power. He doesn’t seem to understand the president’s job (which is to administer laws and resolutions passed by Congress) and he becomes annoyed when Congress doesn’t do his bidding. In fact, he seems annoyed by the process of negotiation.

To his supporters, I will leave a couple of thoughts that come to mind.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayana

“Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.” —Chinese proverb

Government Bulls***

I received a letter from the DMV: ”It’s time to come in and renew your driver’s license.” The last time I renewed it, I was able to renew online, but this time they wanted a new photo; hence, the personal invitation.

According to their website, the DMV opens at 8 AM. So I got up at 7 AM, bathed, shaved, dressed, got my paperwork together and drove to the DMV. I arrived about 8:10. There was already a crowd inside. An armed security guard directed me to the Information Desk. (“All who enter must pass the Information Desk,” he intoned gravely.) It was staffed by a young female who looked to be about 15 years old. “Your papers, please, old timer. And be respectful; I work for the Government and you don’t.”

I gave her my documents. She carefully inspected each document (current driver’s license, birth certificate, social security card, voter registration card, and the deed to my home) and returned them to me. Lest you think I’m making this up, the Government has its own reasons for requiring these documents. They were proof, of a sort, that I was a U.S. citizen, that I was who I claimed to be, and that I lived at the address I claimed to live at.

She handed me back my papers along with a clipboard and a pen. I had another form to fill out. As she handed me the clipboard, she looked me straight in the eye and said in a low voice, “See this computer right here on my desk? I can fuck with your tax returns whenever I want to. I’m with the Government.”

I looked back at her and said, “The joke’s on you. I don’t file tax returns.”

“I’m making a note of that,” she said as she began typing into her computer. I guess that retort will come back to bite me.

I turned and walked to the seating area. At first glance, there appeared to be enough people to sink a cruise ship, but I took one of the two remaining seats and began filling in the new form. They wanted a lot of personal information including what medications I might be taking and why. I guess HIPPA laws don’t apply to the Government.

I completed the clipboard document and waited. My ticket number was “I-102.” A computerized female voice called us up to the counter one by one. “R206, come to line 7.” “A002, come to line 4.” Et cetera, et cetera. After about an hour, they called my number, “I-102, come to line 8.” By then I felt like I had been playing Bingo From Hell for about, well, forever. I took an eye test and proved to their satisfaction that I could see stuff, answered some questions, showed them my paperwork, had my photo taken, and most importantly (to them) I swiped my credit card. After twenty minutes I was released on my own recognizance and allowed to return home.

On the way home I stopped at an auto garage and had my car inspection renewed. The inspection fee had increased by four dollars since the last inspection. That didn’t surprise me. It’s Big Brother’s hand in the car inspection racket. The Government can do anything they want. Don’t believe me? Ask them.

Rusty Tanks

It has come to my attention that some Russian news media have claimed “rusty” tanks were displayed in Washington, D.C., on the 4th of July. Furthermore, some Russian sources went so far as to describe the tanks as “rusty and battered.”

Not just rusty. Not just battered. Rusty and battered.

So it has come to this: name-calling, and third-rate name-calling at that. When I was a boy, the U.S. and Russia had a proper Cold War, with missiles pointed at each other and movies like “The Hunt for Red October” in theaters. Now the Russian propaganda machine has sunk to calling our tanks rusty. Come on Russia, you can do better!

And if the Russian news media can’t invent better insults, they should say nothing. In the words of an American proverb, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

The Mowage De-Commitment

Today appears to be the best opportunity for mowing the yard I’ve had in several days and may not have again for several days. So at 2 PM, out the back door I go. The temperature is 90°F, heat index 103°, humidity 65%.

I go to the garage, get into my Jeep, start it, pull it forward as far as I can, turn off the engine, climb onto my lawn tractor, start the engine, and begin to maneuver the tractor between the back of my Jeep and the garage door opening. But I have trouble steering, so I look at the tractor’s front wheels. Both of the tires are flat.

I pull the tractor forward and turn it off. I retrieve my electric tire pump (which plugs into the Jeep’s cigar lighter), I plug it in, I turn the Jeep’s ignition key to ACC, switch on the tire pump, then get out of the Jeep and try to reach the lawn tractor’s front tires with the pump. Won’t reach. I get back into the Jeep, start it, back it up about 2 meters, turn it off, and try again to reach the tractor’s front tires. Still won’t reach. I push the tractor up to the side of the Jeep. Now the pump hose will reach the tractor’s tires.

But what is the correct inflation pressure for these little tires? I get on my knees in front of one of the wheels and, using a little flashlight built into the pump, I try to read the small print embossed on the side of the tire. I have to read upside down. It takes about 5 minutes of reading various notations upside down, but I eventually determine that the maximum pressure is 14 psi. (My friend CyberDave would have insisted that I write “96.5 kilopascals,” but as I noted, “14 psi” was embossed on the tire. I’m only willing to stretch this metric thing so far.)

I laboriously inflate one tire, then the other. The first tire goes pretty easily: remove the valve cap, plug the air hose’s locking chuck onto the valve stem, inflate the tire, remove the chuck, and put the cap back on the valve stem. The second tire goes much the same until I get to the “remove the chuck” part of the show, and then the chuck does not want to let go of the valve stem. I pull this way and that way with all my strength, but the hose chuck has the grip strength of Jaws! But after a few minutes of battle, during which I ponder mowing the yard with the air pump attached to the left front wheel, the chuck suddenly lets go. I screw on the valve cap and push the lawn tractor back into its hidey-hole. I return my car to its normal spot inside the garage and close the garage door. My shirt is damp with perspiration. The day seems hotter and the humidity is definitely higher. This job can wait.

To Mow or Not To Mow

It’s about 4:20 PM. As I sit in my air-conditioned house and look through the window, the day is sunny and the temperature is 92°F with a heat index of 99°. That is according to the National Weather Service, which gets the temperature from the FAA’s automated weather station at the Dinwiddie County Airport. Weather Underground, which has several weather stations nearer to me, reports the temperature in my city to be 97° with a heat index of 107°. As for Accuweather, they’re going with the NWS. My phone says the temperature is 92° and feels like 100°.

Here’s my question: do I mow the yard? The weather forecast says 40% chance of thunderstorms this evening and tonight. Same thing for tomorrow. The grass is getting tall in places, though most of the yard is well within legal limits. That’s right, if the grass in my yard becomes too tall, the city will fine me and mow my yard themselves. Which will not be cheap.

What to do, what to do? One more look outside. Oh, now it’s raining! And it’s still sunny! No mowing today, and I bet somewhere nearby there is a rainbow! It takes so little to make me happy.

Lazy Sunday

Today is Sunday and my yard needs mowing. I was going to mow the yard yesterday, but I was hit by a serious case of don’t-give-a-damn. I decided to put off mowing until today. However, today is so quiet, so peaceful, that I hate to fire up the lawn tractor. The decibel rating from the lawn tractor’s puny 15.5 HP engine belies its small size. It sounds like a B-17 revving up its four engines and getting ready for takeoff. The outside temperature is only 82°F at 3:45 PM (2:45 by the sun) and a breeze wafts gently through my front window on its way to my back door. There is a lawn mower running somewhere in the neighborhood. I hear it but the sound is muted. There are no barking dogs to destroy the serenity of my neighborhood. There never are.

My yard is crisscrossed with mole tunnels. It makes for a rough ride on the lawn tractor. It bounces around as it traverses the mole tunnels, tilting this way and that. Nevertheless, I’ll put that thing in high gear and drive like I’m the Mario Andretti of lawn tractors.

The lawn mower I heard running somewhere nearby is no longer running and quietude settles on the neighborhood. Today would have been a good day to mow. Tomorrow will be about 10 degrees warmer. But then, that’s what air conditioners are for. I’ll take a swipe at the front yard and if I get too hot, I’ll come inside, mix a big mug of lemonade, and enjoy the coolness. Then I’ll go back out and mow the back yard. I don’t see me using the string trimmer tomorrow, but it has been known to happen.

Travels

My late cousin’s wife loves to travel, especially overseas. She has been to many countries in Europe and was most recently in London. Her plans will soon take her to Sicily (she’s been there before) and then on to four more countries. I can’t recall all their names but I know Nepal is one of them. I think another one is Bhutan, which makes sense because it borders Nepal so it’s right there in the neighborhood.

You can see sights over there that you can’t see in the USA. But America is a vast country and it borders another vast country—Canada. There are so many places and things to see in America. You could spend years traveling in America and not run out of places to see. People come here from all over the world to see just a few of these amazing places.

I’ve done some traveling in America. I’ve driven over the Rocky Mountains and down into the city of Red Lodge, Montana. I drove through Yellowstone Park and watched Old Faithful spouting and visited the beautiful, colorful hot springs. I camped in New York’s Adirondack mountains and swam in its crystal clear lakes. I’ve driven west across the Great Plains with its seemingly endless grasslands that extend to the horizon in every direction, and I’ve driven east across the southwestern deserts of America. I’ve driven through redwood forests in California and through beautiful Glacier Park in Montana. I’ve driven down the Pacific Coast Highway from Crescent City to Los Angeles. (On the way, I picked up a hitchhiking “biker chick” on a street corner in San Francisco and gave her a ride to L.A.) I’ve driven from Ventura to Thousand Oaks and on eastward into L.A. on the Ventura Freeway.

I happened to drive through Winslow, Arizona, just when that great Eagles song, Take It Easy, was playing on the radio. (“Well, I'm a standing on a corner In Winslow, Arizona / And such a fine sight to see / It's a girl, my lord / In a flatbed Ford / Slowin' down to take a look at me…”)

I sat on a mountaintop west of Denver and watched darkness descend on the city as the sun set behind the mountain I camped on. I watched the million lights of Denver sparkle into brightness. Lest you think I’m all nature-lover, I will add that the best stripper I’ve ever seen danced at a club in Denver! But that’s another story.

I walked beside the Grand Canyon and the Arizona meteor crater. I drove the Embarcadero along San Francisco Bay (torn down now, I think) to eat seafood in a dockside restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf. I took a cable car to the top of Mount Sandia in New Mexico. (The Mount Sandia Tramway is the third longest in the world.) There is a restaurant on the top of the mountain and I ate dinner there.

I visited Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It’s beautiful, but so is the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I stood beside Niagara Falls and I walked out on a platform far above the Niagara River.

I hiked into Linville Gorge (sometimes called “the Grand Canyon of North Carolina”) and walked beside the Linville River for hours before setting up camp for the night. When I ran out of water, I drank crystal clear spring water that dripped from a huge boulder beside the river and I filled my water bottle with it. It was the most delicious water I’ve ever tasted! In Boone, North Carolina, I spent time in a house on a mountaintop. The city of Boone lay far below and when dawn arrived I found myself looking down on surrounding mountains with their valleys shrouded in early morning fog.

I stood on a beach at Hilton Head, South Carolina, and looked across the ocean waters to see the tops of buildings seemingly rising out of the water. I was seeing the tops of buildings in Savannah, Georgia, just over the horizon.

If I tried to list of all the great places I’ve been to in America, this blog post would indeed be a very long one. So I won’t do that. I simply want to point out that if it’s within your budget, you can visit many interesting places and do many interesting things without leaving America, without getting a passport, without contending with foreign languages you don’t speak, and without spending long hours on a passenger jet. And there is this: while places around the world may seem exotic to you, for the people who live in those places, America is the exotic land.

A/C Restored

In my last post I described the failure of my air conditioner. So I feel I should assure my readers that the one-week heat wave did not kill me and the a/c has been restored.

I bought an LG brand a/c. Some reviews said the LG unit was loud, and indeed it is somewhat noisier than my old GE unit. It also weighs less. Some of the parts, such as fans, are plastic instead of metal. The compressor is half the size of the compressor on the old GE unit.

A friend who lives near me, and his son and grandson, came to my house and installed the new unit. Actually, they began the installation: they carried the old unit to the back of my yard and put the new unit into the window opening. (The old unit was gone within 36 hours—picked up by a recycler.) Although the new a/c, like the old a/c, has side curtains designed to seal off the remainder of the window opening, they are nowhere near sufficient. So my friend returned the next day and we cut boards to fit into the side openings and caulked them and painted them, then we used joint compound to repair the inside of the window opening where winter air leaking in for years had destroyed some of the plaster.

The new LG has a remote control so I can operate the a/c without walking over to it. I guess that is progress of a sort, although I never considered walking across the room to be a terrible burden.

So my house baked in upper-90s heat while it was without a/c, but now that the a/c is restored, the temperature hasn’t gotten high enough to need an a/c. Today, for example, the high temperature was 77°. This is similar to the way the city’s tornado sirens operate. Sometimes in bad weather the city blows a tornado siren 100 feet from my house. The siren is loud enough to make you jump out of your skin. But it works. Every time that siren blows, the tornadoes stay away. The principle seems to be universal. I keep something I never need for 20 years and then one day I toss it out; the next day I need it. I pay $600 for an air conditioner and the outside temperature drops 20 degrees. I don’t know about you, but that’s the way the Universe has always worked for me.