The Dears

We frequently see deer loping around here where we live. Early on, Toren learned, when saying goodbye to friends and family at night, to say, "Bye! Be careful deers!" because it's a very real concern. You might be driving around a dark, foggy corner and hit a deer in the road.

Two days ago, Toren and I were out playing in the open area near the neighbors' house when I heard a thudding sound behind me. I had been standing, listening to a frog creak and crick, and wondered what in the heck this new thumping sound was. I turned around, and there was a stag wandering about a few yards away. We were all mutually alarmed by each others' prescence and he pranced away across the road. We watched him bound off, first that way, then changing his mind and coming back across the road and disappearing.

Toren loves watching the deer. Then and there he decided he wants to dress as a "reindeer" next Halloween. Among Toren's other favorite animals are horses and donkeys. Yesterday he, Olivia, and the new kitty stood at a window and watched the arrival of the dark-eyed juncoes, the little winter birds so common here. Olivia watched a funny little male pecking at a weed gone to seed and named him "Daisy," unaware of gender or appropriate names. She made me smile, wanting to go outside and hold Daisy and bring him inside for some food.

After a moment Toren began pointing and saying, "A horse, Olivia! A horse over there!" I knew it was much more likely to be a deer, and sure enough, it was. A tiny doe stood cropping the short new growth of greenery across the drive. We watched it for a few minutes and exclaimed over it. Then I sneaked out the door, video camera in hand, and of course the kids followed. I wouldn't mind being a wildlife photographer. I've always been a Marty Stouffer fan.

I got within several yards of the doe and kept filming as the children, barefoot, and coatless, Olivia without pants, crept after the deer on tiptoe, hands held up and out to balance them in a classic cartoon-creeping fashion. The doe watched for a moment and trotted up the hill and across an opening, looking over her shoulder from time to time to watch these strange, blonde-haired pixies following her. Olivia began running bare-legged across the grassy hill after it, calling "Come back! I want to talk to you!" and such things and I laughed out loud. Toren wasn't sure what to do, so he kept his usual protocol: when all else is mystifying, imitate Olivia. It made for a cute video - them in the foreground, the deer bounding away up the hill in the background.

The kids looked a bit out of place, what without pants and shoes, and I lead them back into the house. Olivia bucked and pranced on all fours back to the house. "Eeyah," Toren said adamantly, "Deers talk. They say, 'Hello!'"

New Fall Line-Up

The New Fall Line-up

Isn't this time of the year supposed to be all about the new fall line-up on television? I've been watching the ol' boob tube, particularly the political coverage, and is it just me, or do you, too, feel like you've seen it all somewhere before? I think we're being duped. I think they're showing re-runs. I've got photographic proof. Be prepared. These photos (and the cheap shots they inspired) may shock, if not mock, some of you.


Our unnamed sources have tracked down photos of presidential hopefuls and their knee-deep veeps -- photos they never wanted you, the voters, to see!

Whether you're a proponent of Obama-nation or a McCainiac, Biden your time 'til the election, or a Palin-drone who doesn't know whether you're coming or going, these photos will have you thinking about your candidate in a whole new light. Do you know the true identity of John McCain? Joe Biden? The rest of the cast?

Look out below!


You know them as Barack Obama and Joseph Biden. These faces look familiar enough.

Supposedly Biden was surprised to be chosen as Obama's running mate. I think not. I think the plot has been in the works for a long time. Just look at who appears in the photo below!




It's Biden advising young Barry just prior to Obama's election as Sophomore Class Hall Monitor. Let's listen in.

"Young man! You are not going to that Black Panther concert tonight, and that's final! Oh, it's a party, is it? Whatever it is, you're not going. Raising children without a mother is hard enough!"

"But Mr. D! The world don't move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you may not be right for some…It don't matter what you got – not a lot? So what! I'll have his, and he'll have yours, and you'll have mine!"

You know how you can see someone on camera, and in real life, you don't recognize them? Well, you know what John McCain and his wife Cindy look like on stage.

And here's what they looked like the rest of the time.

Coincidence? No, reruns!

"Green Acres is the place to be – farm livin' is the life for me! Land spreadin' out so far and wide! Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside!"

It's good for oil drillin', just like our neighbors the Clampetts did!

See the similarities? John McCain:

And now, the picture-perfectly patriot maverick Oliver Wendell Douglas:

Cindy McCain:

Lisa Douglas:

"I just adore a penthouse view!"

Yes, Palin's up-do is reminiscent of Lisa Douglas' of Green Acres, and, like Eva Gabor, it seems she'd gladly wear a dead wolf around her neck, but Cindy McCain already imitated that look, if not the fur. Palin's hair looks perhaps even more like someone else's…Charlotte Rae's?

They're both the grass-roots family type (though I doubt anyone would bother to make a nasty video with a Charlotte Rae look-alike. SNORT!)

One more family photo op to throw in:

Charlotte Rae: "Hey, I'm in the wrong family photo! And my teenage girl did what!?!"

Dana Plato: "It was called "Playboy!" I thought it was a family-oriented children's publication, you know, like Highlights!"

Todd Bridges: "I know I have a Band-Aid on my finger, but my college roommate had nothing to do with it!"

Gary Coleman: "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

or as he was quoted later,

"A riot is the language of the unheard."***

*** One blog I came across attributes the above quote to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. However, the quote actually seems to come from Martin Luther King, Jr. and was quoted in a different context by Wright in sermons. MLK also gives us the following quotes:

"A lie cannot live."

"A man can't ride your back unless it's bent."

"A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan."

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

Those all are Martin Luther King, Jr.

And harkening back upon those (perhaps) subconscious baby-boomer collective memories, we have the First American Family, the Petries, from the Dick Van Dyke Show, who look strangely familiar this fall…

They're the Petries of the New Millenium! Of course you can trust them!

Is it possible to go to the polls, and under "Party," be registered as "Conscientious Objector?" Right after elections, don't all those promises the candidates give go right out the Oval Office window? Can't we all watch sitcom re-runs instead of the debates and speeches, and have the candidates donate all the money they would have spent on speech-writing, grandstanding, and mud-slinging on paying down the national deficit? That might make them seem just a little more heroic and public-service minded, if you ask me. Can I still vote for Arnold Ziffel, the pig?

Not appearing in the final episode of this election: Ralph "The Handyman" Nader.

One last quote. "Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." *Big Smile*

That, too, is Martin Luther King, Jr. If you want me, I'll be kicking back watching reruns and grandstanding and basking in my own delusions of grandeur in the form of silly, small-circulation blogs. There is nothing new under the sun.

Ha! The caterpillar fooled A E I O and U!

What? Only one post so far?

I'm new to this particular venue. Don't worry. Stay tuned for further developments.

I must crawl out of my cocoon slowly and allow my crumpled wings to dry safely before I can really take a flight of fancy.