Friday (the 13th) Bag o’ Friendship

It’s okay to be whoever and whatever you are, including white, but it’s not okay to say “it’s okay to be white.” Those are code words used by the alt-right. Saying “it’s okay to be white” is the equivalent of waving an All Lives Matter sign at a Black Lives Matter demonstration: your meaning is clear to everyone.

Dawn Patrol

These are the best mornings. Up early, walking through the neighborhood while it’s still cool, policing the back yard for dog poop, coffee and a hot muffin for breakfast, a devoted dog by my side, the rest of the morning mine to write, read, or whatever I want to do.

Eight-Legged T-Shirt Marauders, Oh My! (Updated 8/19/19)

Polly came home late last night and found a small tarantula at our front door. I took its photo because in spite of living in the Sonora Desert we don’t see them all that often. So if it’s all the same to you I’m taking this sighting as a good omen.

Any Lap in a Storm

Southern Arizona has a monsoon season. It runs from mid-June to the end of September. This is when the 100-year rains come. We lived in Phoenix during the summer and fall of 1978 and had two of them back to back.

Here Be Bitmojis

I joined a closed Facebook community called “A Group Where We Pretend to be Boomers.” As you’d expect, members are baby boomers who make fun of themselves by posting as if they don’t understand the first thing about computers, email, the internet, and social media. To me, that’s more of a “greatest generation” thing, but I do know boomers my age who fit the stereotype well. But hey, isn’t Facebook mostly a boomer thing anyway? Aren’t all the youngsters on Snapfilter or whatever?

Tuesday Bag o’ Normalcy

If I had a rant in me this morning, I’d lay into NPR for its slavish commitment to normalizing Trump, arguably not the worst unelected occupant of the White House (George W. Bush still has that distinction IMO), but certainly the most abnormal.

Sunday Bag o’ Background Noise

I’m just waiting for someone to tell me those are coyote tracks, because I have some very literal-minded friends who never understand when I’m joking, and of course I know those are coyote tracks because that’s why I took the photo, innit?