We Love Lucy

It's September and we are once again plagued with much near-record high temperatures.  High school football games around here will begin with 87-degrees.  It surely doesn't seem like football weather.

We have so many things to worry about right now.  But our Lucy plugs along with few worries of her own.  One of her worries concerns anything unusual on the deck.  We have several sets of photographs of her looking intently out the window at the deck.  And standing in an anxious posture.

Looking out the window at dusk

 She remains focused

 And what has her attention for this long?  OK, sometimes it's a leaf twirled by the wind.  But more often it's a fallen bird.  And this time it's a hummingbird.  For reasons I will never understand, the hummingbirds spend more time fighting and defending the feeders than nourishing themselves for their long migration.  Like miniature helicopters, they twirl and twirl.  And every now and then they collide and one of them falls to the deck below.

Lucy stares at any fallen bird until it takes off again.  As if sending encouraging messages, she wags her tail each time the fallen birds moves.  She watches until the bird flies away, then settles herself back on the bed.  As if to say, "Well folks, I saved another one."

 The silly little hummingbird

North Korea has detonated yet another nuclear weapon underground.  A very frightening thing indeed given the evil and unstable nature of their leader.  Makes you think even more carefully about how to cast your vote in our upcoming election.

More and more pregnant women in the US and US territories are infected with the Zika virus, known to cause severe birth defects.  And what is our Congress doing about it?  Can't they, just this once introduce a bill that contains only the provisions about Zika funding?  Apparently not.  One party keeps adding amendments to a Zika funding bill that would de-fund Planned Parenthood and/or strip most of the Affordable Care Act, making passage of a bill less and less likely.  So our elected leaders are willing to put more and more women at risk, not to mention adding additional costs to our health care system.  Makes you think even more carefully about how to cast your vote in our upcoming election.

[BTW:  PLEASE contact your own Senators and Representatives, telling them you want a clean bill passed for Zika funding.  And asking them what specific measures they are taking to ensure passage of a Zika funding bill while they are in this short session.  You can find the contact information for Senators here or your Representative here.]

Our quote today comes from the late Russian painter, Elena Gorokhova whom seems to know a bit about American politics.

The rules are simple: they lie to us,

We know they're lying,

They know we know they're lying,

But they keep lying to us,

And we keep pretending to believe them.

So once again, I implore you to think even more carefully about how you will cast your vote.  Don't throw your vote away this very crucial time in our history.

HAVE A MOST WONDERFUL WEEKEND, EVERYONE

CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS