78. Morning Walk

After a good three weeks, I finally went out for a morning walk. All the mowing this summer has taken away the routine from these walks, especially since I have made a mow a two-day job now. I am glad that I was able to see my old ducky friends today and thrill them with some cracked corn. It feels like one of the more worthier things I do with my life. I just wish the city would freshen the pond water. It looks like the pond suffered a massive oil spill. The water looks like it is getting thick enough with polluted crud for anybody to be able to walk on it. Throw a lit match on the water and it might catch fire. How life can thrive on it, I do not know.

On "Animal Farm"

The book was written at the height of the Second World War, and at a time when the pact between Stalin and Hitler had been replaced abruptly by an alliance between Stalin and the British Empire. London was under nazi bombardment, and the original manuscript of the novel had to be rescued from the wreckage of Orwell’s blitzed home in North London.

-- Christopher Hitchens, “On Animal Farm” in Arguably

79. New Weed-Eater

Pop came home yesterday with a new weed-eater or trimmer. Jack really has refused to edge our lawn despite his freely pumping the old man for money. I wonder if he has stopped doing any lawn work altogether, and is now content to live entirely off of Jill's earnings and whatever he can beg off of Pop. I can appreciate that lawn work loses all its charm as you fall deep into your forties.

Pop got the cheapest trimmer that he could find, and it requires running a loooong electrical cord. He said he is going to do it and that he wanted something light-weight. I could not believe that he seriously intends to take on such a heavy chore this late in his life. This morning, I said, if he expects me to take over, he needs to get another trimmer, like the one he used to have. I'm not going to fuck around with that mile-long cord and that plastic toy. But he actually seems earnest about having no other intention than doing the chore himself. I tell him, "If you get a stroke, our life is over." But he still insists on doing it. I say, more power to him, but I do not see how this can end well.

James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini, star of "The Sopranos", died yesterday at fifty-one years of age. Interestingly, details are very scarce. There are some reports that he had a heart attack. He was in Italy to attend a film fest. I cannot help wondering if his heart attack was the result of a hot little affair with a pretty Italian girl. In any case, the Times has a nice piece on the man.

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Asia and Hitler

Why is Asia developing a fascination for Hitler and "Mein Kampf"?

{Christian Science Monitor}

Courtney Stodden

Stodden recently told Celebuzz she got breast implants because she was sick of her bras doing all of the work for her.

-- ONTD

Time

weather

I really don't like those winds. We got an unexpected shower at about six. It didn't last more than five minutes. I didn't mind letting the cats out this evening, because I figured that there was no real chance of a storm. But I wonder.

80. Rapid City Days

Reading a scene in "Shooting Elvis", the first book in the Nina Zero series, about kids in a small town driving in circles and looking to hook up, I am reminded of the evenings I spent doing that very thing with friends in my teenage years, in morbid denial, ridiculously pretending that I belong in these moonlight round-ups with the other all-American kids, as though I had the least chance of getting a girl in my backseat.

I also remember the time, not much later, that I traveled across the country to go to college. I checked in at a hotel in a small town along the way. It was night and I could see that the local kids on the road were playing the same mating ritual. For old time’s sake, I got in my car and joined the circle and rode round and round with them, and just as pointlessly. Unless my memory is playing tricks with me, I think one of the white boys warned me off. He did not really need to do that. There was no unholy danger of gene-mixing happening anytime soon. But I guess it sort of punctuates the point that I did not belong on the mating grounds.

Daily Fun

(by Tina Nicole)

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