Long Live Queen Trudy

One day, I was in my office and my wife came in to show me a picture. It was of a beautiful six month old kitten.  My wife said, "Look at this baby". This began our latest project.

As you may remember, last year we lost a member of the family.

Well, not really. It seems like we lost a member of the family: our 21 year old cat, Gracie.

We got the cat when our son was in first grade. That cat was with us through elementary school, middle school, high school, college, son's first job, and his marriage.  She was with us from Clinton's second administration to Donald Trump's.

That's a long time to have a pet.

Frankly though, it was nice to be petless for a while. 

We didn't have to buy any pet food and I didn't have to clean out a litter box. 

We talked about getting a dog because dogs like humans better than cats.

I think dogs have a deep spiritual side. Your average dog could easily join a Baptist church.  "Are you a sinner?"  "Why, yes I am but I want to be a good boy."   The average cat would probably be a Unitarian. Maybe an Episcopalian.  "Are you a sinner?  (Cat looks around, ignores the question, and goes to sleep.)

Dogs actually like you and they miss you.  When you go to the store and come back it is like the Father greeting the Prodigal Son.  "Oh, I missed you so very, very much. I didn't think you were ever coming home".

When you go somewhere and come back, the cat says, "Were you gone somewhere? My bowl is empty".

Cats have their ways. Scratching.  Gracie literally tore up two couches.  I told my wife we need to get a scratch board or something if we get this cat.

We bought a scratch board and it had some information about cats which is incorrect. 

It says "Cats scratch in order to leave scent marks using the scent glands on the pads of their feet".  This is wrong. Cats scratch in order to tear up your expensive furniture to let people know you can't have nice things.

 Cats also like to show you their butts. 

In the article called "Why Cats Show You Their Butts" Rae Paoletta says  “For cats, it’s normal for them to sniff each other’s butts as a way to say hello or confirm another cat’s identity. It’s hard for us to relate to, but for them, smell is much more important to cats and how they recognize each other than vision is. So cats may be ‘inviting’ us to check them out, or just giving us a friendly hello.”

In summary, cats show you their butts just to give you a friendly hello.  That is ground breaking knowledge!  In other news, a rattlesnake rattles just as a little "howdy-do".

Well, we decided get the cat.  She was a rescue feral kitten. Remember that.

The people that rescued her from a life of feralness gave her all her shots and had her spaded.  Apparently now, they "clip" one of the ears of the cat to let people know she has been spaded.

Her given name was Ivy. She has a brother named Kudzu.  We renamed her Trudy, after Pete Campbell's wife on "Mad Men" because I think Alison Brie is the cat's meow. (Sorry, I couldn't resist it.)

We brought Trudy home and for two weeks she hid from us. 

Feral cats are basically wild animals and have a fear of man. We thought that maybe Trudy had a little too much of feralness in her.  She wouldn't look at me except to hiss. 

I told my wife that we may have to take her back. (The cat-not my wife.) My wife showed me a little video clip where the foster cat mom was petting Trudy.  Then I thought, maybe Trudy just doesn't like us. If you've ever have anything to do with cats, you know they do what they want to do.

My wife began to bribe Trudy with some cat treats.  Trudy came out and allowed my wife to touch and pet her.  Then I came in and after a while, Trudy allowed me to touch and pet her. It was sort of like "The Miracle Worker", except it was with a cat.

The only problem is we have to be sitting on the floor for Trudy to allow us to do this.  For us, sitting on the floor is like planning a vacation.  We have to plan how we are going to sit on the floor, how long we are going to sit on the floor, and how we are going to stand up from sitting on the floor.

But Trudy seems like she is getting use to us.  She likes to sit at the window and watch the school bus. She has a favorite toy. She likes her cat food.  She is purring.  That may not sound like a big deal to you, but three weeks ago, we were not sure of anything with this cat.

I tried to look at it from the cat's point of view. New house. New smells. The feral nature which teaches them to always be prepared for threats. Eventually though, I think this cat will be all right.

She's already showing us her butt.

 

 

Turn Out The Lights

 

“What? Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!” - Bluto Blutarsky

 

One of the perils of sort of/kind of writing with a deadline in mind is that sometimes you publish something in which you make a joke about how long it is going to take to "call" the Presidential election and it happens the very next day.  I wonder if Dave Barry ever had days like these.

You might have heard that President Trump has taken his election defeat graciously.  Just kidding. Trump is acting like Trump. He's filed lawsuits alleging voter fraud. Which probably occurred because it occurs in every election. The question is was there enough to change the outcome of the election.

The answer to the question is no, there is not.

Andrew McCarthy of The National Review, which isn't a liberal magazine says,  "Even with the election having been close, we are talking about the need to shift tens of thousands of votes — I’d estimate at least 80,000, and probably more, spread in the right quantities over three states — before the outcome would arguably be in doubt."   

That's a lot of votes to find and they are not there.

The reason for Trump's loss is in his mirror. He was just too much Trump for his own good. 

After Mitt Romney lost to President Obama, there was a lot of talk that Romney was just the latest in the line of Republicans who didn't fight back and were gracious losers. Somewhere after the 1988 election, the GOP lost its mojo and wouldn't punch back when punched. 

In comes Trump who not only punches back but does a whole MMA on his opponent, whoever it may be: a former party nominee, a Pope, a beauty queen, parents of a fallen solider, a senator from your own party.  It didn't matter to him.

This caused a daily drama that frankly wore the country out.  

I'm not saying that a Republican should be a namby-pamby type that accepts all criticisms. For a Democrat to receive Republican type scorn from the national media he has to start a land war in Southeast Asia.   It comes with the territory of being a Republican. However, there has to be some middle ground somewhere between Romney and Trump.

It was nice to hear a Democrat say, "Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now.".  Especially the Democrat that said, just eight years ago, that Republicans wanted to put people in chains.

It was nice, but Biden has people in his own party wanting to put people on "lists", to make them "accountable" for being Trump's "enablers".

I'm old enough to remember when Nixon had a list and all of the people at the New York Times had a tizzy.

But this is a different time and the people making the "lists" now have a (D) beside their name which makes their intentions pure, clean, and bright.

So forgive me for being cynical, but I'll believe this dawning of the Age of Aquarius when I see it.

Four years ago, "The Resistance" started and featured people going into the streets wearing genitalia hat ware and speaking in glowing terms of blowing up The White House. You had several entertainers publicly fantasize about killing Trump  

I remember Mark Halprerin comparing Trump's election to 9/11.  I remember people arguing on Facebook. I had a person on Facebook tell me that I was the reason Clinton lost Wisconsin, which was a cute trick since I live and voted in Georgia.  I remember one person told somebody on a thread I was involved in to "drink bleach". The Resistance folks were nice people.

This year you have Conservatives putting this message on Facebook:  "I'm Going To Parler"

So, sure, I agree there are those that are in the Five Stages of Grief and haven't left the denial stage. They should. They will. It like the old song Don Meredith used to sing on Monday Night Football: "Turn out the lights, the party's over".

Any-who, the Trump administration will soon be history. It's been fun. It's been real. I'm not sure it has been real fun though.

 

 

 

The 2020 Election: It's Not Over Until It's Over

 

Of course, we just couldn't have a definitive Presidential election. It is 2020, you know. 

At this moment (Wednesday, November 4, 2020), the Presidential election has not been decided because the country that put a man on the moon has lost the ability to count.  Four states are still "too close to call" and there's another one that's been called but President Trump is sending his lawyers there to request a recount.

We could have a result later this week. Or this month. Or this year. Or the year after that. However, we are certain we will have a new President sworn in by the New Hampshire Primary in 2024.

Let's take a moment to review the candidates shall we?

According to historians and political scientists, the reason for the closeness of the election is that "both candidates really suck".

One candidate is President Trump. Maybe you have heard of him.

I know people who don't like it when I try to put a positive spin on President Trump. Here is my positive spin on President Trump:  It has never been a dull moment with the great orange one.   It seems like yesterday when he caught COVID, recovered, and returned to the White House and RIPPED OFF HIS MASK.

However, in BC (Before COVID) the economy was trucking along, doing great.  It looked like this election was going to be another "Hold Your Nose" election and Trump would cruise to re-election.

Then you had the shutdowns, the Depression, Dr. Fauci, Social Distancing, and the five hour press conferences in which Trump and press would get into fights about masks. Then came the unrest, which reminded people of the 60's except the music this time around was a lot worse.

Of course, President Trump is just the type of person you want to calm the nation.  Ha!  Often it seemed like he would search for exactly the wrong word to say in a situation.

The other candidate is former Vice President Senator Joe Biden.

We remember Vice President Biden from his days as Barack Obama's Vice President when he would drop the F-Bomb on auspicious occasions and strategically sniff women's hair. 

Biden ran in a crowded Democratic primary field that included somebody older than him and with more discredited ideas (Bernie Sanders)  It also included a Senator made famous by making an employee dry shave her legs (Amy Klobuchar), and the mayor of the fourth largest city of Indiana, not that there's anything wrong with that (Pete Something).

Who can forget Elizabeth Warren, who for years made a big deal that she was a "minority" because she had a "Native American"  background?  She took a DNA test and it turned she was as Native American as your cell phone.

Despite being 240 years old and occasionally wandering off the campaign trail, Biden was nominated because he was seen as the most "electable".

These were two candidates with very big problems.

For President Trump, his problem was everybody hated him.  

For Vice President Biden, his problem was nobody saw him as a solution. He was elected as a senator from Delaware in 1972.  I was in the eighth grade. 

Vice President Biden only had one positive: he wasn't Donald Trump. However, his party saddled him with a ton of ludicrous stuff that he couldn't put a happy face on. Two years ago The Democratic Party was telling us The Green New Deal was "aspirational", this year they were more specific. More taxes on "the rich". Medicare For All.  Court packing,  You name it and Biden had to mealy mouth around it.

Trump had one positive: he seemed to enjoy campaigning and entertaining his base. Trump has everybody against him. All of the news media. All of the entertainment industry except for talk radio. All of academia. Everybody was against him except his base.

Biden, to me at least, really ran a lazy, lackadaisical campaign. His campaign introduced a new term to the lexicon: "lid"  meaning the candidate would not be making any more appearances. Sometimes the "lids" were before noon.

Trump seemed to be "happy", in whatever way he can be.  Biden seemed to be disheartening, warning us of a "dark winter". That will pick up your spirit.

Still, it is remarkable of the three elderly candidates in the past 25 years (Dole, McCain, and Biden), Biden is the one who will across the finish line as the victor with the help of a compliant news media and an opponent who seemed to do everything to help him.