How Much is That Doggy in the Window?

On a summer afternoon when I want to take a nice little nap, I turn on a baseball game, turn the volume down just a bit, and allow the nasal vocalizing of the announcer to lull me to sleep. There in my big fluffy recliner chair my eyes lids slowly close and I drift off to dream land. It would be nice if it stayed that way for more than five minutes, but unfortunately I have dogs. In an instant I am jarred from my slumbers by the insane cacophony of barking dogs. It seems that my tenant is doing his laundry again. No matter how many times he has walked by my living room window, no matter how many times he has said hello to my dogs out on the front porch, no matter how many times he has petted them when visiting my house, they go absolutely nuts if he dares to walk past their window on the way to the laundry room. It's not just my dogs that are that way. My other tenant has a lovely dog named Mia. She is adorable, she loves my dogs, and wags her tail in anticipation when she sees me. Yet no matter how many times we have bonded out in the dog run, or when I am in her apartment, I cannot walk past her window without her going nuts. What is it about dogs and windows? Why can't they see that the same guy outside the window is the same guy who says hello to them in the back yard? Anyway, again yesterday I was jounced from my sleep by the dogs. Of course it's not as if all would be right in the world if the dogs didn't awaken me from my naps. Because even if they didn't exist, or were the best behaved mutts on Earth, I'd still have Mark, who also seems to hate to see me napping.

Alicia Gives

Our Civic Doody

Ferguson Missouri has a sixty seven percent black  population. Their mayor is white, only one of the six city council members is black, and nobody on the school board is black. Now I understand the urge to march and protest the killing of a black kid by one of the fifty white police officers (only three are black) in Ferguson, but that isn't going to get anybody anywhere. The real reason the black population of Ferguson is totally unrepresented is the fact that nobody votes. Other than presidential elections, nearly no one votes. The black turnout for the last municipal election in Ferguson was seven percent, which allowed the seventeen percent (also abysmal) of white voters to out vote them.

Yesterday was primary election day here in Florida. I know that a lot of people vote early and by mail now, but I don't think it's all that many. Early yesterday Mark and I toddled on over to the quaint little church where we vote. I like Mark, still get a kick out of the actual going to the polls and voting on election day. It seems to add a bit of excitement to the process. So we walk into the place and over along one wall are eight voting booths. On the other wall are two electronic ballot scanners. Out in front of the church was an election official who advised us to have our I.D.'s ready, which we did. the nice lady sitting just inside the door took my driver's license and scanned it. She then gave me a little receipt, "Take that over to those tables honey." Sitting at a long table were three more election officials, one for republican, one for democrat, and one for something else. Possibly she was in charge of it all. I handed my receipt to the democratic official, and he handed me a ballot and directed me over to a little spindly, cardboard voting booth. It was very dark over where they had set up the voting booths, and I had a little trouble with the names and the small circles I was supposed to fill in, but I managed. I now walked over to the person in charge of telling me to slip my ballot into the scanner. "Please, slip your ballot into the scanner.", she told me. So I did, and the ballot got sucked in, and then the ballot came shooting back out. "Oh dear, something is wrong." the lady in charge of the scanning exclaimed. She took my ballot, marked it spoiled, and instructed me to get another from the long table. Suddenly the whole polling place was in an uproar. Nobody it seems actually knew what to do. "You must have colored outside the circles on the ballot." one person said. "Do you need some help voting sir?" another questioned. "He's blind, he's legally blind, yes he needs help." blurted out another voice very similar to Marks. "I'll help him vote." Mark told them. "Oh, no! He has to request that somebody help him". So I requested that Mark help me vote, which resulted in more forms being filled out, and more hand wringing.

Here's how it went. Seven polling place officials, eight voting booths set up in a darkened corner of a little church, along with Mark and me. Nobody else in the place. Nobody else came in the place the entire time we were there. I walked over to one of the little booths and again voted, but this time I just handed the ballot to Mark and let him fill in all the little circles. I didn't even tell him which ones I wanted. I'm sure he/I voted for every black candidate on the ballot. When I walked back over to the lady in charge of scanning, she again told me to insert the ballot into the machine. This time it worked. The lady also pointed out how many people had voted before me. Ten. Ten people had voted as of eleven o'clock in the morning. So if we get a bunch of buffoons elected this time, nobody can bitch about the politicians we elected. Nobody except me, Mark and the nine other people who voted.

Cat Poop

There's a smell out by the front porch. It's a very strong, pungent odor that smells like cat poop. Probably because that's where cats have been pooping lately. Ever since the yard guy cleaned out all the vines from the front yard, every cat in the neighborhood has claimed our front yard as the communal litter box. I've asked around for ideas on how to mitigate the obnoxious odor, and the one I find most intriguing comes from Mark. He told me that five pounds of lime spread around the area should kill the odor, and that it is readily available at Home Depot. By the way, Mark pretty much told me last night that he does not want to move to Chicago. He is dead set against it. So, if five pounds of lime can kill the stink of cat poop out in the front yard, how much would I need..... 

IS You IS, or IS You Not Afraid?

Here we go again. I was laying in bed watching the Sunday morning political blab shows, and there they were. The blithering idiots who inhabit these Sunday morning shows trying to scare the poop out of the many chicken hearted in our country.

"Many (ISIS terrorists) with European accents have passports that would grant direct travel to the U.S."

"...with enough space and planning, this could become the most significant terror threat we have ever faced in this country."

"...there's a number of Americans, a number of Canadians and a number of West Europeans who went to Syria to join ISIS to fight with them."

"...we need to worry about a 9/11-style attack by ISIS."

So we're supposed to be scared to death of a bunch of idiots seven thousand miles away, who may or may not try to come to the United States, armed only with a passport. Because unless they have a navy, or an air force, the only way they'd be able to get here is on a commercial airline. "But!" you say, "That's how they got here on September 11th, 2001."  Well, yes it is. Unfortunately, that was our own fault. How was that our fault, you ask? I'll tell you. Way back in 1969, within eleven days of each other, two airplanes were hijacked in the United States. After that it seemed like it was open season for hijackers. What did the government do to stop hijacking of airplanes. They hired a bunch of nitwits to look through our carry-on luggage and pass a 'wand' over our bodies before we boarded our flights. What they should have done was secure the cockpit doors on every single airplane that flew into and over the United States. A secure cockpit door that was strong enough to withstand any force, that was bullet proof, and 9/11 would have been much different. Also, we would not have had George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld scare us into spending trillions of dollars on two dumb ass wars. If they couldn't get into the cockpit, they couldn't have flown those planes into those buildings.

So no, I am not scared of those morons running around the desert with the equipment that we gave the Iraqis, that the Iraqis left behind when they ran away. What I am afraid of are the people right here in our country who despite the slaughter of twenty first grade children, despite the slaughter of twelve people who went out to simply watch a movie, despite the slaughter of thousands of Americans every year, still insist that no controls what so ever need to be instituted against guns. I am terrified of the hateful racist cops who beat and kill unarmed people without consequence. My blood runs cold when I realize that there are hundreds of cult like hate groups in the United States who would love to murder me just because I am gay. Is ISIS scary? Yes, if I lived in Iraq. But I don't. The assholes who stood on the highway overpass in Nevada with automatic weapons aimed at the Federal agents who were trying to collect unpaid taxes from that nut bag Cliven Bundy, that's scary.

Things Change

My old house on Wellington in Chicago

 Mark and I are planning to move to Chicago next year. Well, I am planning to, Mark is grudgingly "considering" it. This is going to be a massive undertaking for somebody like me who is basically lazy. I moved here twenty six years ago with no more than my car towing a trailer, three cats, and an ex-boyfriend who wasn't an ex yet. I had a furnished townhouse in Fort Lauderdale waiting for me so it was easy. This time it will be much more difficult. I have to sell my property here, buy property in Chicago, then move a massive amount of crap there along with two dogs, possibly two cats, and a kicking and screaming Mark. There is a lot of planning to do between now and then.


Having moved from Chicago twenty six years ago I realize things have changed. The neighborhood I moved from is out of bounds for me now. I cannot afford it. The street where I actually owned a house back in the 1970's is out too. I sold that house for twenty two thousand dollars. The house sitting on that same lot now is worth over a million dollars. It's not the same house of course, they tore that shit box I lived in down. So Mark and I will have to look farther out, you know, just a neighborhood or two further than the hip and happening neighborhoods. That is why I have to find an affordable place on a nice tree lined street with a fabulous kitchen. Yes, the kitchen will have to be fabulous. Because if the house isn't up to his standards, if the kitchen looks like Aunt Bea's, all old and smelly, if it isn't just right, getting Mark through the front door would be like trying to put a freaked out feral cat in one of those little cat carriers.

Flip Flop Family

I have nothing against flip flops, on other people. I myself cannot stand wearing them. That thing that sticks between your big toe and the one next to it bugs the hell out of me. In fact on those occasions I have tried wearing flip flops, I ended up with my between the toes area being rubbed raw. I just can't see walking around all day with those things on, stomping on down the filthy street full of dog crap, used chewing gum, other peoples spit, and the grime of the world.

Yesterday I was standing at the Walgreen's pharmacy counter waiting for my antibiotic eye drops, because now the illness I caught in Chicago has moved into my left eye. It was a fifteen minute wait for the prescription so I sat down. Right next to the pharmacy was one of those Dr. Scholl's custom insole machines, you know, the one you step on and it tells you which insole they should sell you. After a bit, a large plump man wandered around the corner and stood there staring at the machine. Soon he kicked off his flip flops and stood on the little foot outlines with his bare feet. While he was poking at the computer screen a little girl came bouncing around the corner, "Oh daddy, can I try it?". So she kicked off her flip flops and plopped her dirty little girl feet, probably all sticky from candy, on the machine. Before she was done another overweight man with another little girl walked up, obviously part of the family. "Me next, me next!" the smaller girl with smaller flip flops and dirtier feet cried. Sure enough, she had her turn followed by the fat man, again barefoot, and flip flopless.

I don't think the Dr. Scholl's Company meant for everybody to share their athlete's foot, plantar warts, toe nail fungus, and other infections. But now I know not to ever use one of those custom insole kiosks. God forbid I should have somebody else's germs spread to my feet by some hick in flip flops. At least that was what I was thinking while hacking up a fresh phlegm ball while waiting for my prescription.