No One Says Anything about a Moose

Moment of Zen yesterday evening as night descended in earnest, one of the many things about Autumn I don't like. I'm a big fan of daylight until half past eight so this a few-minutes-darker-sooner-than-yesterday stuff wears thin in a hurry.

My wife and children joined me here in the Land of the Round Doorknobs nearly twenty-two years ago-and I was reminded again last night of how Americanized we can be (I have a head start; I am an American).

Sigrid was startled by one of the neighborhood squirrels, to whom we feed peanuts on such a regular basis they look like the Michelin Man in a fur suit. Bibendum is his actual name; those French! They have a name for everything. And people say you learn nothing from reading blogs. HA!

I realized she was surprised because she was carrying on a conversation with, at first, one and then the other of the animals as they swung by on their home to the nest from a full day of foraging just to see if the timid woodland creature act might net them a few peanuts for the road.

Times have been tight in our house thanks in no small part to the turmoil in Washington DC and its impact on my bank account. The peanut budget hasn't been spared its portion of 'shared sacrifice.' Of course, squirrels have a brain about the size of the legume they are eating so a serious discussion on the failures of the Keynesian economic model in the US public sector is completely wasted on them.

Not that Sigrid was leading that particular discussion, but, rather, she was offering a lecture on why they needed to get along better with one another (and the subtext was to stop frightening her by popping out of nowhere). I'm starting to think that's why her English is so conversational; ubung macht den meister.
-bill kenny

Jesus Loves You

Out yesterday enjoying a marvelous Saturday that, by the calendar, should be somewhat less spectacular than it was, I ended up with this image finding its way into my camera.

And I smiled. If I were a religious man, I might have given thanks though I'm neither a pilgrim nor a huge John Wayne fan, but I had two thoughts one chasing the other almost immediately. I'm betting you can guess the order of the thoughts.

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." - Albert Einstein
"All God does is watch us, and kills us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring." - Chuck Palahniuk. And you had wondered why there was no Our Lady of Perpetual Palahniuk?
-bill kenny

Anything Made of Paper

I spend a lot of time involved in and engaging with 'Social Media' and I don't even know the half of it though I am knee-deep in Big Muddy, more or less with them.

The way we can extend our humanity through our command of tools and technology is awe-inspiring when you think about it and that we are so callous and careless in how we interact with one another suggests to me we don't think about it very often.

There's a back story to today but not the one I am not telling you. It begins in long ago in Frankfurt am Main and then forms into two streams, one in Austin, Texas and the other in Norwich, Connecticut but only involves two of us until right here and right now.

As of here, take and make of this what you wish and remember everything sooner or later is West of Memphis. Especially Anything Made of Paper.
-bill kenny

Everybody Knows How to Raise Children

I'm wondering if we're not the best humans we can be when we first arrive as opposed to in the here and now (in my case at nearly 61.5 years of hanging around the water cooler).

I have no idea if there's any government money for a study (actually at this moment I know there's NO government money of any kind, but that's a rant for another day) but I got to thinking about this reverse smart-stuff again a bit ago after I fell across an amazing article in the Huffington Post.

Amazing article and Huffington Post is not a turn of phrase I use lightly or often, so this is quite impressive stuff. I was and have always been mostly neutral on the HufPo (her accent is baked as far as I'm concerned) until they, and their corporate masters at AOL, did a truly stupid thing to someone I know here in my end of the ant farm and now I usually think they suck a lot. Except for this on "18 Things Children Can Teach Us About Happiness."

How are you coming on getting the backing off that Band-aid anyway? Look at that Owie, will ya? Maybe I'm a gonna amputation or something. Don't you have anything besides Powder Puff Girls?
-bill kenny

Just a Few Words in Defense of Our Country

I'm numbed by the political poop from just about everyone who's popped up on my TV since Tuesday at midnight when I found out I and about 800,000 other federal employees would go from a summer where we got screwed out of 20% of our salaries because champion chimpanzees couldn't take yes for an answer, to an autumn where we would get screwed out of the rest of it.

I've since learned neither John Boehner nor Ted Cruz called any of the people to whom I owe money to explain it was they and not me who is keeping them from getting paid. I am sorely vexed, gentlemen.

And what exactly was that theater of 'Let's show The Honor Flight Vets of World War II Their Memorial Which Our Own Porcine Obstinacy and Arrogance Closed" video clip supposed to be all about?

Seriously, Far Right Noise Machine of the late, great, Republican Party-now you care about veterans? Should I tell you that nearly two dozen veterans kill themselves everyday and you've cut the budget to the Veterans Administration AND now you've closed it? Helluva a photo op, ain't it?

The Tea Party is the Republican Party's cross to bear-not mine or yours and we cannot fix them or help them heal. Speaking just for me-I don't want anyone with an R behind her/his name to get better at all. And if I have my way they won't.

Here's the deal current members of the Republican Party seeking office, anywhere within the sound of my voice. Even if I liked you (note the verb's tense) yesterday or voted for you previously, the blush is off that rose.

For me to pull the lever (old image-new one is darken the circle) for you on the first Tuesday in November, you need to rid yourselves of those meddlesome Tea Party priests. Sorry-not interested in why you can't or how come you won't. Not my problem just as how they're wrecking my life and others isn't yours.

Welcome to quid pro quo, population: you. If you don't unload the Tea Party, I will vote for whomever is NOT a Republican; anyone-even if that choice is a slug, and it may well be. Yep, I will cut off my own nose to spite my face; that's why I have a fresh roll of duct tape to help me keep my glasses on.

Here's a handy list of everything your gals and guys in the DC Main Office helped shutter as of Tuesday morning-just so you know I'm not being petty. I finished filing for unemployment compensation yesterday, because I and my colleagues don't have jobs. Sorry, that was being petty. But y'know what?  Ted Cruz is right-it feels great!
-bill kenny

Signs if not Signs and Wonders

I saw a sticker the other day on a nearly-vintage red station wagon, 'Honk if You Can Read This." I didn't quite know what to make of the silence from the vehicle behind him. Perhaps that driver was an illiterate...

We are a nation of fans who wear our passions and convictions along with our hearts and other organs on our sleeves, tee-shirts, bumpers, and ball-caps. As the autumn shadows lengthen and the leaves pile high on fallow grass, lawn signs for a plethora of candidates for political office spring up practically overnight.  

I smiled walking around this weekend at the number of signs and their size and in which neighborhoods I came across the most. If there is a seasonal growth business, aside from beach cabanas at the shore, it's most assuredly campaign signs.

While we have the good fortune to have volunteers willing to seek office for City Council and Board of Education, it's easy to forget the costs they pay in terms of time and money to become candidates.

And there's more to costs than meets the eye. There are the things you cannot buy because you're paying for campaign materials and there's the time away from family and friends because you're knocking on neighborhood doors and visiting with registered voters hoping to get them to at least hear you out. Conversations require two persons and when one is missing, it's a monologue.

I don't mean to offer that last point flippantly but there's a lot of things we don't too well for the most part and while this isn't a complete list, it's a pretty good start:

push the chair back in under the table when we we get up;

put the seat down on the toilet;

come to a full stop at the red light before making a right turn;

not talking on a cellphone while driving

and definitely not voting in municipal elections.  

We complain about a lack of freedom of choice but I think we actually prefer having freedom from choice. By insisting that 'there's nothing I can do' or that 'no one cares what I think' we absolve ourselves of all responsibility and blame when things fail.

And as we all know, things fail frequently. It's all part of life and why life is a contact sport. You can continue to claim you're a victim or you can listen when a candidate for office stops by and tell them what you'd like them to do for all of us. What are they gonna do? Tell you to shut up? They started it!

We can continue to tell each other that 'it doesn't make any difference' and 'one vote doesn't count,' and guess what? Eventually, we're right. We become our very own self-fulfilling prophecy-aside from maybe winning a tee-shirt, I don't see what the benefit is to that kind of behavior.

Did you ever hear about that city in Connecticut whose residents became more passive in each successive election until they barely reached double digits in voter turnout? You haven't? Neither has anyone else.
-bill kenny

Happy HalloThanksXmasYear!

The countdown to "the holidays" has already started. I was disquieted when my local big box stores were rolling out the "Dumpsters O' Candy" for all the trick or treaters before Labor Day (the ghost with the most can wear white even after, I guess).

And then I saw Christmas lights on a shop entrance this past weekend and my first impulse was to contemplate burning the place down. I'm inclined to use flaming figgie pudding as an accelerator because that's how my sense of humor runs and send firemen with seltzer bottles to battle the blaze.

I love Christmas and hate nearly all the hookum that comes with it, to include but not limited to all the different calendars that count down the days to Black Friday or whatever it is we are calling that increment on the calendar when Santa Claus brings the Baby Jesus a gift certificate to the Gap for Kids or whatever you get children born in barns.

Stop rolling the various holidays together but, first of all, let's STOP pretending Halloween isn't just a creation of the Mars and Hershey's folks, okay? If you're a grown-up and you get excited about this non-holiday holiday, there are no words to capture my contempt for you, if you try to force me to 'celebrate.'

If you stay over on your side of the universe with whatever you do on Halloween, (please don't call them 'customs' or I will be ill) that's terrific and thanks. But only if you don't send me a card, okay?

Thanksgiving is for families and not for anything else. If you like to watch football, I'd be a lot happier if you did it with your family at your house. And if you're in a relationship where you and your significant other have discussions about which holiday is spent at whose parent's houses and you have a schedule set up, you are in the wrong relationship.

As we get ready to hit the holidays, please.... Start your own traditions with whomever you call your family. And remember your family is whomever you care about and whomever cares about you. If you have a legal or biological relationship to one another, great, perhaps even better, but if not, so what? And NOT knowing today how many shopping days there are until the Feast of Saint Hubbins may be enough to start a family.
-bill kenny