Disjecta Membra
With no cohesive thoughts, but plenty of flitting nits on the radar screen, here's a fiver.
Let's start with I'm afraid that I've poisoned the mind of my lovely wife. Linda is now catching the stuff that I used to bring to her attention, and I worry that I have been a corrupting influence. For instance, in the AARP bulletin, she noticed the headline, "New studies show that good balance prevents falling". Another doorway to enlightenment. She also picks up on those blips, as she calls them, that cause the head to shake and the involuntary sighs to rumble into fruition. Like the obituary in the local newspaper for a stillborn; it listed the would-be parents as survivors. Certainly there is a great sense of loss, and people can have significant pre-natal relationships. But I think there should be some limits, self-imposed, on public mourning. It calls upon the community to share the grief, when sometimes privacy and silence would be more dignified.
Yes, this North State is a wild place. Travelers through Redding have a straight shot on Interstate Five running up the Sacramento Valley north and south, but those heading crosswise, west to the coast or east into the mountains are on some severely winding, two-lane roads. Indeed, just west of Redding the zig-zagging is so bad that the road is referred to as the Trinity (County) Wigglies. If there's no traffic, it takes you over three hours to drive the distance of a hundred miles over 150 miles of pavement. One of the reasons I learned how to fly is that by air we can be on The Coast in an hour or less. Another negative about driving are the trucks, whose sleepy, drugged, and angry drivers think they know the road but make mistakes. Like the ole fellar the other day, hauling forty cattle on the rain-slicked asphalt at fifty — he says — when the signs said forty. He was only slightly injured, but several cattle were killed, and traffic was blocked for hours. No doubt he's already back on the road again.
Maybe also up and running again, or not, Ms. Magazine is fluttering about somewhat Phoenix-like in its own ashes, as investors and dream-holders huddle to see about yet another revival. On the one hand, it would be grand to see this totem of the women's liberation movement survive, even thrive. On the other, while it was radical in its own way, launched a bunch of writers, and put in play some important ideas -- what more could you ask? -- it was never a great magazine in literary terms. If it were finally be put to rest, with grace, it would be a fitting honor to this icon.
How far we've come since Ms. first surfaced. Women share most titles and are ubiquitous where then they were invisible if they were there at all. Fer instance, on "Law-'n-Order" the other night, an FBI agent reported that seven of twenty fingerprint tests were suspect. To which the cute-young-thang from the DA's office commented, That's almost a third. Hey, a guy coulda gotten that wrong, too, but it's good she handles murders instead of fraud.
Would you believe it that it was Buster who caught the goof? Or was it woof? Whatever, Buster is the perfect dawg for me. He's smart, and not terribly energetic most of the time. When he doesn't want to be outside and it's time for me to leave the house, he hangs back, sometimes hiding in the back bedroom. Or if he is trapped anywhere near the front door, he'll position himself behind a piece of furniture, or simply stand still, thinking I won't see him. Hey, it works. He also will look at me with cocked-ear earnestness, portraying confusion, when he doesn't want to do what I'm suggesting. He never refuses a direct command, though, unless he really doesn't want to do what I'm saying. No, Buster is not a cat in dog's rags. He manipulates, yes, but he's not haughty about it.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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