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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\tI scoff at trikes and the pussies who ride them (unless of course they’re disabled … which, I sadly note, they almost never are), but whoever was man enough to ride into the Triple T parking lot on this particular machine has earned my respect. Obviously home-made, this trike is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Just look a the length of that tiller … the rider probably has to dismount and run alongside whenever he needs to make a sharp turn. The seat is mounted on a plywood base, and there is, of course, no belt.\u00a0 The old BSA thumper in military paint was a real treat. I saw it at a general store near Corona de Tucson where I often see antique bikes on Sunday mornings. Next time I go there I’ll bring a better camera.<\/p>\n
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Our dog Schatzi has been keeping an eye on me ever since I got home, probably to make sure I don’t sneak off again.\u00a0 We put her on a grain-free diet and the scabbing on her snout and eyes has almost gone away.\u00a0 Our daughter Polly all along has said that Schatzi’s scabs … which we thought were ringworm … are the result of fool allergies, and it’s starting to look like she was right.\u00a0 Naturally, grain-free dog food is expensive.\u00a0 So what else is new, right?<\/p>\n
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We learned today that Donna’s cousin Howard, who lives in Las Vegas, has taken in family members fleeing Japan.\u00a0 One of his daughters is married to a Japanese man and had been living in Tokyo, but she’s back in Las Vegas now.\u00a0 A daughter-in-law and her children were stationed at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan with one of Howard’s sons, who’s in the Air Force.<\/p>\n
Last I heard, these evacuations are voluntary … no Americans had to leave Tokyo or our military bases in Japan.\u00a0 American civilians working in Japan have to decide how much they need their jobs, I suppose, and military members stationed there probably have to stay.\u00a0 Spouses and children of military members, as I understand it, were offered the choice of staying or evacuating.\u00a0 Tokyo is about 150 miles south of the Fukushima nuclear power plant; Misawa is about 150 miles north.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m not questioning anyone’s decision to leave, but if I were still there I’d stay and stick it out with the Japanese.\u00a0 Donna says no way, she’d have been on the first plane out.<\/p>\n
In any case, we have only one grown daughter living at home.\u00a0 Howard has two (a second daughter, in the process of a divorce, has moved out of her husband’s house and is also staying at Howard’s, along with her children), plus his son’s wife and kids.\u00a0 Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!\u00a0 We’d better count our blessings.<\/p>\n
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A couple of weeks ago we were subjected to another buttload of birther nonsense, delivered up in a steaming racist teabagger pile by print, radio, and television reporters.\u00a0 This round started with attention-whore Donald Trump<\/a>, who amusingly produced a birth certificate that looked just like the one Barack Obama produced during the 2008 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n When I saw the photo of Trump’s birth certificate, it hit me that my own birth certificate looks just like his, minus the fact that we were born in different hospitals.\u00a0 So I went to Google and looked up Obama’s birth certificate (which you can see and study to your heart’s content at FactCheck.org<\/a>), and guess what?\u00a0 Change the names and it’s just like Trump’s.\u00a0 And mine.<\/p>\n