Buckwheat's Place

2006-12-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

POST-XMAS-POST

Christmas came and went and I bought cheap Christmas cards at Wal-Mart, along with many other little things that help me save a little money, and as I shop there I make sure I don't dwell on the lousy things that corporation purportedly does to its employees. That's conscious ignorance like the rest of the shoppers. The truly bad thing is this truly agonizing layer of ennui that falls like grimy snow between the holidays. Now it's almost New Year's, many changes are coming, some are already here, and the only President I've ever met died.

I shook Pres. Gerald Ford's hand when I ran into him at a photo studio in Century City more than 25 years ago. Since then I've rubbed shoulders with other celebrities and a few politicos, but there was a magic energy with Jerry. Of all the many things that have been said about him and his life since his death, NO ONE has mentioned that this man of high integrity called for a congressional UFO investigation in the wake of the sightings in the state he watched over as senator. The state was Michigan.

I'm a bad girl. You may not see another posting here for ages, and ages. Or ever! Don't let that dissuade you from keeping in touch, however.

2006-09-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

GUILTY AS HELL
I haven't posted for WELL over a month. Less and less to say! What's going on? Am I losing it? Or is IT losting me? Never had IT to begin with.

Lack of ambition. Lack of concentration. Lack of money. Lack of critical edge. But I do have Don, a refrigerator with some guacamole, whipped vanilla yogurt and Mocha Mix staying just cool enough, and of course my dear Buckwheat. He's WAY cool. Here's what I'd like to put on this year's Christmas card:
Cropping out the hands and dirty pillows, of course.

2006-08-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

SWEET SWIMMERS

How can you resist this face -- these faces?

For Buckwheat's Place's first charitable entry, I've chosen to relay the information in a dog-eared piece of paper that's been hanging around my desk for months. Someone sent it to me. Everyone should know about the

SAVE THE MANATEE CLUB

Careless Floridian boaters -- not to mention ocean pollution -- have endangered the lives of these big, sweet-faced, innocent aquatic animals. Over 1,200 have been killed since record keeping began in 1974.

I'm not some teary-eyed radical with more compassion for animals than humans. No, wait; maybe I am! The planet's animal kingdom is helpless in the face of human incursions on the environment, and manatees are one species feeling this most acutely.

You can join Save the Manatee's Club's Adopt-A-Manatee program for only $25 annual membership. Many bonuses come with the membership, including a photo and the adoption papers of your own manatee!
You just can't say no when the lives and well-being of these rotund darlings are at stake. Contact the Club at www.savethemanatee.org or call (800) 432-JOIN (5646).
Some adorable--if zaftig--manatee is relying on you!

2006-07-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

THE WAR OF 2006

It’s a toss-up: Who in the Middle East
Deserves the title “Intransigent Beast?
Twixt Israel and heedless Hezbollah,
Upon that `rabbi or that mad mullah,
Don’t place your bets until you know which one
Can aim and then unleash the biggest gun.
Katyushas, now, can only go so far
And in the fight might only rank sub-par:
Blasts are short, their landing places random
Compared to missiles with their stages tandem.
But bad Iran now lends Silkworm support
To target ships far from the Hebrew port.
Hezbollah’s aim has sharpened, too, looks like,
Katyushas deadlier with every strike.
So America steps up to the plate
To seal, we hope, Hezbollah’s final fate
By giving Israel some bombs with lasers.
(They’ll have to do until the world has phasers!)
But will this battle solve the basic glitch?
It’s not a fight between the poor and rich,
It doesn’t pit the dumb against the smart,
It’s more a test to see who’s right at heart.
Israel stands up to fearsome neighbors
Its valid “right to be” it still belabors
While fascists touting Islam’s “peaceful” way
Should kill the infidels and seize the day.
Not only that. Hezbollah and the rest
Would like to crush the values of the West
Until all Jews and Christians disappear
And Earth is ruled by politics of fear.

In my opinion, intransigency
Might very well turn out to hold the key
To freedom’s preservation on the earth,
Each nation-state revealing its true worth.
We’re calling on our allies, even France
To recognize this war give us the chance
To place decisive blows against the Beast
Who’s really f***ing up the Middle East.
It is our world at risk, make no mistake:
It is a job we all must undertake.
Simplistic though this rhyming rant may be
Don’t counter terror with apology
Don’t support the idiots who rate
Fighting back as “disproportionate.”
Remember, kids, the job will not be done
Until the Western world has finally won.

2006-07-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

POST-PYONGYANG MISSILE MISS MESS

The many quirks of crazy Kim Jong Il
May seem to be a very bitter pill.
He tries to quell his country’s desperation
With taunts and threats aimed at our stronger nation.
He thinks he’ll scare our democratic throngs
With reckless launches of those taepodongs.
Annoying, yes, but Kim’s a plain whack job
At whom some bigger missiles we can lob.
And if we do, you can be sure that Kim
Will find his future looking pretty dim.
Actually, we’ll try diplomacy
To force this creep into some normalcy.
But who can reason with a boastful talker
Whom all agree is clearly off his rocker?
His missiles cannot seem to reach their mark;
Perhaps his bite’s not quite up to his bark.
What are the chances that this little puke
Will top his taepo with a lethal nuke?
Will North Korea gain the expertise
To bring our greater nation to its knees?
Will China and/or Russia get a grip
And then the power balance rightly tip?
Or will China and Korea carry on
Then gang up to exterminate Taiwan?
Seems Russia’d rather sell guns and sit back
Than help us read ol’ Kim the riot act.
For its part, the U.N. still has clout
If only all the communists get out!
It's just another crisis to outwait,
To count upon men's wisdom and good fate,
To pray to God Kim's missile plans will flop
So once again the good guys land on top.
And if they don't, the world will always wish
That Kim Jong Il had eaten poison fish.

(I could write more couplets but I'd better stop.)

2006-06-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

PIC OF THE DAY
This little gem was plucked off a fractal site and I found it oddly charming, even comforting. So I decided to post it here. My one and only complaint would be the colors.

2006-06-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

APHIDS AND GLOPHIDS

The little prickles are almost healed and you wouldn't wanna see them anyway. Trying to make the aesthetic most of our arid backyard, I planted a cactus several years ago and the awesome creature is taking over!
I agree that it's quite a beautiful specimen of desert life, but often I see stray pieces of tissue or Buckwheat's ball in between the -- whatever those cactus branches are called! So last week I foolishly stick my arm between the "branches" to fetch a piece of tissue, and those skinny prickly things -- called glophids -- I swear jumped on my arm. They harmlesslessly make their way into the body eventually, but before that they incite a rash the likes of which can only compare to poison oak. Fortunately there is no itching!

Gardening experience # 2: We have a fragrant rose bush on the north side of the house. It's apparently healthy, even fighting for sunshine with an encroaching tree, but come spring the aphids are dotting the poor baby. So I had spray! And I sprayed them good. We have big flying things in the bedroom at night and yesterday Don killed a black widow in the bathroom.

Wild! I love it.

2006-05-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

RECOVERY
Buckwheat is fine. The rest of us are fine. The weather has cleared up. I am posting a photo of my favorite TV investigative reporter and myself in Vegas. You, too, can see George Knapp on KLAS-TV when you're in LV, or read his trenchant comments about the characters and happenings in Sin City at http://www.lasvegasmercury.com
After having dropped in there myself and having read his May 18 column, I can confidently say that the Knappster will provide a stellar replacement for Art Bell on Bell's radio show this Sunday night. Go, George! As for Bell, last heard that he apparently absconded to the Philippines with his new honey.
B's little encounter with the truck has made us extra alert. I never knew I could feel so close to a dog! We're bonafide doggie people, Don and I.

Aforesaid Don and I made it to the recent California Dept. conference for the Military Order of the Purple Heart. It was quite an extension of his energy, but went well. For my part, it was breathtaking seeing my husband, fond of spending his days gimping around in his coffee-stained nightshirt, all decked out in a sparkling white dress shirt and nifty gray sports jacket....and a tie! A tie. Wow. No pic, but I'll take one next time, for sure. However many months or years that is from now!
COMING UP: Aphids and Glophids

2006-05-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

MAY DAY! MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

My day started out with waking up to the depressing realization that Don and I had given "special thanks" in the MOPH chapter newsletter to several people -- but somehow forgot the very individual who forced the scum to the top (that's a long story), and who fearlessly began the onerous but vital process of reinstating the chapter's integrity. So I've been beating myself up all day about that; can't help it. Really an inexplicable, probably unforgiveable oversight and I'm unsure how to rectify the sitch; apologizing seems lame but we'll start with that.

A horrible thing happened on Friday. Buckwheat took off after a rabbit as I was walking him and was hit by a truck.....I heard the traumatizing screech of brakes and he was nowhere to be seen when I got up to the road. I saw the perp
leaving-- an old truck, with a lot junk teetering in the back. The fuckers didn't stop! I could barely speak but managed to tell a neighbor what happened and she had seen Buckwheat in the field next to our house. We ran there. He was SO frightened! At the vet they checked him out and except for a limp, our boy has no serious injuries, no broken bones or smashed organs, and I am so thankful to God and so freaked at the moment that I'm not sure when or how I'll be able to walk him again. But I will.

So that's been weighing on me, too, another scene from that heart-wrenching movie most of us have at least bit parts in, "The Nearly Unforgiven." This morning sucked! I forced down some puffed wheat with Mocha Mix.

Then some people came over to clean the house. Yes, those people, as in brown-skinned Spanish-speaking, very hard--but probably illegal--workers who either a) decided they'd rather have a little American money than march on crowded L.A. streets or b) decided to make the most of their clout by earning the money and demonstrating afterwards! For our part, we considered that not needing them anymore would be the logical response had they not shown up. Funny, the date was made far in advance of the walkout plan. Anyway, I was pretty sure I knew these people. Really wonderful, cheerful folks and no matter how hard I try I cannot clean like they do. (I warned Don early on that I'm a half-assed wife type. Covers a lot of drawbacks.)

Now I'm gonna go look for the Maypole. And tomorrow is another day. A new day. Not this day!

2006-04-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

PLEASE, PLEASE!
Please don't let it rain! We don't want rain! This is Southern Califormia, land of sunshine. Too much rain is patently verboten!BUT IF IT MUST RAIN I WILL FEED THE ROSES. There, I found a satisfactory option, come what May.

2006-04-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

WHY ASK WHY??

I'd like to say my Easter is filled with reverence for resurrected Lords, Spring thrills and chills and a nice ham dinner. Yes to that last one....and Don is cooking!.... and yea to the first one, but my interpretation of Christ and all the myths surrounding him is for another blog at another time.

Anyway, we went out to breakfast this cloudy morn, and on the way back, Don asked an interesting question. It has to do with Easter, so sit back and listen, all you eggheads!

So he asks, why, if Easter actually grew out of the Jewish holiday Passover -- celebrating a fairly profound Hebrew miracle some years back -- do people eat HAM?.... When, see, pigs (from which hams come) are considered unclean animals by the Jews? So, being the logical thinker and sparkling conversationalist that I am, I regaled him with my theory, which runs as follows: First of all, I said, perhaps there was an overload of pigs one season and that's all they had to eat! And, as Easter is the unequivocally Christian mutation of a profound ancient miracle, there's no prohibition of certain meats (unless you count meat on Friday for the Catholics).

A better question would be, why do the Islamic and the Jewish faiths both exclude pork from the diets of the obedient, often fanatical, faithful? Anyone who's eaten a bacon and tomato sandwich with mayo (and/or mustard) would logically ask this.

Other than celebrating Easter by musing on religious meat preferences, I also planted some petunias, along with a strong warning into Buckwheat's pea-brain to keep his petunia-pickin' paws outta there.

2006-03-31T17:22:00.000-08:00

YO NO COMPRENDO!
While I struggle to break free of my insular little world, I am reminded that the U.S. has a major crisis on its not-so-insular hands -- in the form of immigration disputes that just may spiral into the Second War with Mexico.
Reality Check
Most Hispanics come here, legally or illegally, for work opportunities: TRUE. I myself have paid Hispanics who live here both legally and illegally to perform tasks I'd rather not have to do myself: TRUE (Damn. There goes my chance to be Secretary of State...). I voluntarily speak a few halting words of Spanish to these workers, and laughingly, silently congratulate myself on my friendly, egalitarian ways: TRUE. Privately I know I am a spoiled American hypocrite who would gladly help the new Minutemen if I saw my own comfort, security and livelihood being directly threatened by illegal immigrants: TRUE. These poor people clandestinely crossing the border have every right to be free and prosperous in the United States of America: FALSE, FALSE, FALSE! To me there is no debate: Millions of immigrants from outside the U.S. have blithely broken the law. They broke the law. Why should it be so difficult to simply enforce laws already on the books? Key word: ILLEGAL.
Heritage
The forces for amnesty might argue that America's legendary open-arms invitation to "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . ." should and would be mocked to infamy if illegal aliens are forced to leave or to pay a hefty price for living in the U.S. Worse still are the double-speakers who call such rational enforcement of the rule of law hate-mongering. The hatred is clearly from the other side when you see the flag of another nation flying above our own! What's really going on? This crisis begs for Americans to preserve the integrity of the nation. That does NOT mean blanket prevention of immigration. But it does mean laying out a strong set of rules applicable to each and every individual from another country who wishes to reside here. Our heritage of unprecedented personal freedoms is precisely that because of laws conforming to the interests of all. It is not in the interests of that American heritage to allow the character of our nation to be diluted by an influx of people who cannot or won't respect the foundations of freedom. Principal to those foundations is the rule of law. You hear that phrase bandied about by canny politicians, even when they don't conform to it themselves. It's powerful and influential; it hearkens to an imperative of wisdom and honor, a pristine legacy impossible to put into words. We can't reach it in reality. But we can consistently work toward it, ideally. That is the pure character of America.
Solution?
When thousands of citizens and immigrants take to the streets, insisting that foreigners of all nations and stripes--but, honestly, folks, mostly Mexican--be allowed to stay here and break the law, there seems to be no solution. They would thumb their noses and say, "the people have spoken." Who are the people? As NBC Nightly News is asking in its important series, "Whose America" is it? Again, there should be no debate. The lawful residents of this country are the ones whose voices should subsume the wave of illegality that appears to be engulfing California, and threatening to encroach on the entire country. As the protests rose, President Bush made a quick trip to Mexico, where he reportedly spoke with the leaders of both Mexico and Canada. Like an actual snapshot, this tells a story. To the north, a socialist nation with some immigrants. To the south, a virtually lawless governing body with thousands upon thousands of would-be immigrants. In between, an apparently ineffectual leader who cannot find the workable compromise between an economy both blessed and undermined by the wave of humanity crossing our borders.

I'd love to be a fly on Vicente Fox's shoulder.

2006-03-22T13:43:00.000-08:00

PHOTO RE-UP

The site that hosts my online photo collection urged me to either clean out my album or buy more space. I wasn't about to do the latter and so I rapidly did the former, in the process inadvertently deleting the photo of Roy at his birthday party. Consider this a replacement!
And for a double shot of cute, here's his little brother Gus:

It's been a long, bland month. Spring is creeping in, but not enough to warm up the mornings, which still require turning on the heater. Loose plans to sunbathe in Palm Springs are in the works, but until they tighten up, another bland month lolls on the horizon. How to spice it up? Well, I am continuing with my Never-Ending Story: cleaning up the office and planning some backyard landscaping.

This morning I caught myself going ga-ga over a small, red-headed bird that came to partake of the seed I put outside the window. Then, while walking Buckwheat, I saw a GREEN BIRD! It wasn't a lost parakeet nor was it indigenous to the canyon. He provided me with a genuine thrill. Does this mean I need to get a life??

2006-03-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

ROY TURNS FIVE!

2006-03-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

MONDAY AFTERNOON MUSINGS...ON INTO THE REST OF THE WEEKAccording to an unimpeachable source on some TV program I watched recently, "apologizing is a sign of weakness," so therefore I won't apologize for not posting here for over a month. I think it was Dr. House who gave that sage advice. He's such a shit, but so damn brilliant.

That doesn't mean I'm not weak. I can't shake my sugar addiction, my obsessive desire to hug my dog, kiss my husband and consume my periodic homemade cocktails.(I always use fresh limes.) Those things go together, don't they? And it all amounts to fussing with my brain's unique chemical signature. Let's here it for endorphins! Let's hear it for serotonin! And praises to that chemical additive that regulates said chemicals (but don't ask me how):
SSRIs!

That said, I'm steeling myself for a weather condition designated as mas depression-provoking: rain, and more rain. Harbinger of that most restive of seasons, Spring. In turn, a harbinger of the agricultural gamble we can't resist investing in: growing tomatoes. When the rain clears I'm going to get those adorable seedlings and have a ball pretending to be a gardener!

It's well worth it. I have a stack of tomato recipes. I can make my own marinara sauce. Lycopene will course through our veins. If something pisses me off I can throw tomatoes at it.

Subject change: My grandson had his 5th birthday! Photo to come.

And it hasn't rained hard at all. Yet.

2006-01-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

ENCOUNTER

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

--Poem by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by the author and Lillian Vallee. From "The Body Electric," edited by Stephen Berg, David Bonanno and Arthur Vogelsang (W.W. Norton). I love this poem.

2006-01-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

I've done everything but ambush Blogger headquarters with knives, Derringers and enraged barracudas to try and get a new template -- including several attempts to sign up on another free blog site, all to no avail. I now DESPISE this template, especially because it only has a long, boring index when one might choose to log on.

Not that anyone reads here, anyway. I've decided not to care. Decided that the most profound and explicit word to describe life and its meaning therein, up to and including all the ontological nonsense that's been spewed by any and all the brain mavens, psychologically tortured (and torturing), wannabes, would-bes, neverbes, once-wases and pathetic poseurs over the course of human history (you know who you are!) is ... and always will be:

2005-12-31T11:23:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2005-12-21T15:07:00.000-08:00

WINDING UP 2005

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Okay. Now let's blow this Popsicle year and get going into 2006 -- destined for extravagant good luck and breathtaking blessings. Worldwide!

2005-12-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

BURIED--but not deep enough.

It's been a month since I've posted. Not to be a complainer, but some mind-numbing life phases have hit and so I decided to hell with it; I'm giving myself a break. So therefore, my mind's become even numb-er (which, I guess, is better than dumber). In trying to crack through the ice of the mental frozen zone, I've continued my lifelong project of cleaning up my environment. I so doing, I'm sheerly appalled at the amount of CRAP around this house. I mean, we are sooooooo over-tschotked! Do I really need to keep my dead Mom's little glass bluebirds and that garishly ornate German pitcher? What about all those the half-used candles? My sister, beloved snapshot freak, gives me new family photos all the time. Do I have to hang all of them?

Recently our neighbor came over to help us with a small repair and he had to go into our garage. Embarrassment overcame me like a tsunami, nearly dousing me with as much agony. A tsunami through the garage would not be a bad thing. Don refuses to let go of the old paperbacks he's been collecting since grade school, and a variety of useless hardbounds, including textbooks. Anyone who knows him knows that INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNTING is not exactly bedside reading for him. As for me, I can't seem to part with anything I can throw on the bed or on the torn-up sofas we have. (Dog owners please note: keep cheap furniture!). That includes a ragged afghan that Don's dead Mom knitted. Dead mothers: They're hell on the minimalist design sense.

The attached pic only evokes my general mood, not the house (though it does resemble a corner of the garage). Gotta go do the dishes now, to assuage a little of this dumpy mood. I'll try to be back before another month passes. But just in case: Merry Christmas!

2005-11-07T16:53:00.000-08:00

I LOVE THE NIGHT LIFE!

Hey, I know it's late. But there's nothing like a happy Jack O' Lantern. He stayed happy, too. Even in the light of Nov. 1:

2005-10-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

MOUNTAIN LION -- BIG DEAL!

So we're having coffee this morning gazing out the dining room window when a startled Don urgently whispers to me, "Oh God, Vicki, look! Walk slowly over behind me and look out the window . . ." I did as instructed but didn't see anything 'cause the big kitty must have detected movement and bolted, a very common wildcat thing to do. But I'm told it was a speckled mountain lion. Don, agitated, claims it was peering into our backyard and may having been scoping things out in search of Buckwheat.

That was enough to make me a tad nervous, but for Don it was as if Osama Bin Laden and Sigfried & Roy's biggest and baddest white tiger were both coming through the window. Well, I exaggerate, but soon Don was on the phone calling the Sheriff and Animal Control and the nearby fire station. Passive voice mail, and only voice mail responded, and that pissed him off.

He said the cat weighed at least 60 lbs. I'm certain he/she is dangerous, but when I told my sweetheart that he was overreacting and that there's nothing we can do about the wild creatures in our neighborhood, he only replied disparagingly, "Typical female response." Well dammit, Don, as I've told you over and over, I do NOT want to live a paranoid life! I am always careful walking Buckwheat (we went out soon after), and will make a point to be even more aware now. But please, take it easy! I already bite my nails and have itchy skin, so chill!

After all, some people have really big cats in their yard, and seem to handle it with a measure of coolness and poise:

2005-10-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

BABY NEEDS BOTOX!
I've gradually gotten over my funk about Uncle Grant, and realize such angst over quietly besmirched, long-dead relatives simply drives one's head into places that can potentially impair day-to-day functioning.

What helps? Parties! BIG parties! Due to the gracious thoughtfulness of one of our writers, Don and I were invited to attend this year's annual Safari Brunch hosted by the Wildlife Waystation. Don chose not to attend -- my dear boy has problems with crowds -- so I went alone. Alone, but not lonely: This was no spur-of-the-moment invite to the top floor of someone's west end apartment where a tray of limp deviled eggs is passed around. The setting -- The Playboy Mansion! The goodies -- Open bar, silent auction, delicious food, a smattering of celebrities and Bunnies and one lunar astronaut! Guest of honor: An 8-foot albino Burmese python.

Fueled by appreciation of Hef's huge, gorgeous landscape and several glasses of champagne, I led myself on an haphazardly guided tour, and as I took it all in, the contrast with other things going on here on Planet Earth struck me like a crystal wineglass smashed on the designer pool deck, over and over. While the beautiful (sometimes plastic) people cavorted, tremors shook the India-Pakistan border and people were dying; many refugees from Katrina still didn't know where they were going to live . . .

How arbitrary is the circumstance that a single human experiences on any given day?

I found myself in a mega-luxe setting where already beautiful women had paid significant sums to have their facial features altered by deft infusions of a deadly poison . . . where men in couples gossiped about the imminent collapse of of this or that film executive's empire and the sudden ascent of another . . . where exquisite wild creatures were put on display for the amusement of these oh-so-El-Lay trippers (and actually were far better off here slithering on Hef's emerald lawn than in the wild, their natural habitat an unnatural home for these animals born and raised in captivity).

I've always feared that great wealth means great insulation: Not just the plain luck of being protected from the more painful and humiliating exingencies of life, but, because of the constant comfort, distraction and smootheness that wealth affords, an icy insulation from any clear recognition of others' plights. SO many others, in fact. Most of the world, actually! Thus, the niggling old temptation to inwardly make requisite snide remarks about the callousness of the rich.

I've decided to hell with that! While here and there the poseurs marred the scene like chipped Greek statuary, the bulk of the guests simply had a good time and gratefully partook of the fleeting goodies that the party offered. I am one of those. I wished to have been with my mate, but curiously, I've spent many an excursion by myself over the years, whether a trip, a party, a movie or a restaurant meal. That used to bother me when I was younger, but no more. In my aloneness I have more opportunity for contemplating the larger issues that linger beneath surface enchantments.

Besides, I only recognized one and only one botoxed face, and it was well done, smoothe and unblemished. Only her lips were a little too fleshy.

My high-low point was my 15-second conversation with Apollo veteran Buzz Aldrin. When I'd finally ID'ed and cornered him and his wife Lois, I couldn't resist asking him a direct question about UFOs. "Remember what Carl Sagan said?" Buzz replied. "`Much ado about nothing!" As a couple of photographers approached, I knew there was no time to debate that. "How was the Moon?" I blurted. "Dusty," he said.

I got to pet the pale, pretty python twice. Slick, clean. And reacting to the entire shin-dig with her blank reptilian stare, as un-self-conscious as a newborn baby.

2005-09-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

DON JOHNSON AND MY DEAD UNCLE
In the paper today I came upon some shocking TV news. No, not that Felicity Huffman won an Emmy, but that my late Uncle Grant has been "immortalized" by having his name attached to the character Don Johnson plays on a new fall show on the WB. HOW DARE THEY!
Here's Uncle Grant, Grant Cooper, Esq., prestigious L.A. lawyer, during one of his more notable trials:
Uh-huh. That's him defending Sirhan Sirhan, poised for historical fame (along with his client) on the cover of Life Magazine. How dare they, I ask? Well, easily. Neither Uncle Grant nor his still living family members can either sue or explain away the coincidence. Don Johnson is not playing an upright "Law and Order" type, see. Grant Cooper on the WB is a semi-burnout who hopes to revive his flagging career with some young blood. Or plot lines to that effect. The WB had to stick in a youngster to appeal to their pimple-faced demographic.

Some people in the UFO field (maybe that's you, and you...!) have tried to shed suspicion on me because I am related to what some have called a notorious Mob lawyer. OK, so he defended Johnny Roselli, or Lucky Luciano, one of 'em, in the 1950s Friars Club scandal. One of those ducktail-era Italian homeboys gave him a new Cadillac as his fee. My mother told me this. What she failed to tell me and what I had to find out on my own is that Uncle Grant was popped for --gosh -- was it stealing Grand Jury testimony? And now, Sirhan's present lawyer pretty much outlines Uncle Grant's egregious bungling of the assassination case. Woe be Sirhan.

Did I know any of this as a little girl? Nada! You know what I remember? Uncle Grant and his wife had a big house with a swimming pool. I joyously swam in the pool with my cousins. I thought my Uncle smart and handsome, like my Dad. When he defended Sirhan and brought a measure of perverse celebrity to our family, I reveled in my Uncle providing the alleged killer his right as an American citizen.

All along I figured Sirhan Sirhan was the lone assassin of RFK. Not necessarily now.

In my files I have a letter of commendation from the City of Los Angeles honoring Uncle Grant. And now I have a son who's a lawyer, who's adroitly and shrewdly avoided criminal law. Get real, people. There are a million stories in the big city. Uncle Grant's mob connections and controversial reputation comprise only one of them. And I still like Don Johnson. But tonight I'm watching the premiere of this season's "Vegas," a city I love and that wouldn't be, were it not for some Mob ingenuity!

2005-09-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

DO PETS HAVE KARMA?

I seriously considered what I would have done if I was trapped on a roof in Louisiana and National Guard rescuers told me I had to leave Buckwheat behind or not come with them at all to be shipped to certain safety.

I cannot see abandoning a loved one, regardless of species. Yes, I have just as much compassion for people trapped and abandoned. But people are neither as unconditionally loving nor as so totally dependent on their own or other species for sheer survival. They're very little different than children: helpless, precious, beloved, irreplaceable.

If you've looked for somewhere to specifically assist these creatures who are also Katrina's hapless victims, try HERE.

For some cogent and enlightened commentary on people, tragedy, and human integrity,
go HERE.