Catching up (and some ranting)

It has been so freakin’ BUSY! I’m sorry for the “lite” posting, but when I do have some time, summer tempts me to spend it elsewhere than the computer.

While articles are being written, doors are also being painted, junk heaps reduced, and projects planned.

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I even (I blush to admit) spent time last week prepping artwork to submit to the county fair.

I grew up in an urban/suburban area. Although we had a county fair, my friends and I went strictly for the carnival rides (14 consecutive go-rounds on the Tilt-A-Whirl — whoopee!). No one I knew, not even their mothers, canned or quilted or raised 4H hogs. If I had known somebody who did any of the above, I’d probably have denied it. Heck, I was uncool enough just as I was! Admitting that I knew somebody in 4H would (I was sure then) have caused their truly, deeply foul uncoolness cooties to jump off them and infest me. Even after I got past that stage, I still thought county fairs were relics of some quaint past.

Now here I am, in a place where the county fair is the big cultural event of the year and everybody I know — even the cool kids! — enters something. Flowers or jams or crafts or critters or woodworking. Something. Even the “furriners” get in on the act. One New York Jewish import I know (a rare bird in these parts) even entered her collection of antique Mahjong sets and won some giant herkin’ Special Judge’s Award ribbon about two feet across.

So this year, under intense pressure from a friend who shall be known only as the Dahlia Queen, I’m submitting pastels and pencil drawings.

One day last week when I wasn’t blogging I was cannibalizing picture frames from garage sales past and making my artwork presentable for judging.

I don’t know what I’ll do with all the ribbons I’m bound to win. 😉 But last year the Dahlia Queen tells me she won not only ribbons, but a whole $1.67 in prizes for her flowers. So my future as an artist is surely going to be grand.

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Speaking of growing up where concrete was more plentiful than amber waves of grain … I’ve mentioned before that while nature can be beautiful yada yada (and I never want to go back into the traffic-jam hell of metro areas) I fundamentally don’t approve of it.

Nature, as I’ve noted before, is always either too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, incorrigibly dirty and filled with things that’ll kill you without a second thought.

One thing that puzzles me is how people decide which parts of nature they wax poetic over and which parts are icky.

Yesterday a handyman was helping with some deconstruction on the house when a humongous spider came zipping out of the woodwork. Maybe a wolf spider. Maybe a giant house spider. In any case, one of those three-inch wide guys that you don’t want to meet even though they’re harmless.

The handyman, who’s pretty unflappable, flew off his ladder backwards. His girlfriend, helping with the cleanup, nearly jumped a six-foot fence. The spider quickly went to ground somewhere, but left chests thumping all around.

This morning as I was putting the dogs back in the vehicle after a woods walk, a big black-and-white butterfly nearly flew in through the window of the XTerra. It gave me the creepy crawlies and I was glad when it veered off.

Now I know we’re supposed to get all lyrical about butterflies. But why? If a giant spider dashing down a wall causes grown men to panic, why are we supposed to get sentimental about equally big bugs that fly right into our faces?

I feel the same way about hummingbirds. They’re not insects, but I’m quite sure in their dreams they want to be mosquitoes. Very large, very aggressive mosquitoes.

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Above all, lately, I’ve been wanting to avoid bad news. Some of it, I simply could not bear. I didn’t blog about baby Bou Bou, that innocent victim of the drug war, police thuggery, incompetence, and lies because I couldn’t stand to.

I read his mother’s Salon article and wanted to throttle and stomp the uncaring beasts who would nearly kill a child over $50 worth of drugs. I wanted to see the entire SWAT team — and the “authorities” who sent them — on trial for attempted murder after reading WeaponsMan’s detailed account of all the different varieties of malfeasance and neglect they committed.

Every member of that team who walked past toys then claimed they had no clue that children might be in the house should be held personally responsible. Personally. Responsible. The unthinking, uncaring goon who tossed that grenade into a baby’s crib should spend the rest of his life in bondage. He should have to pay every dime of that child’s endless medical care and punitive damages on top of that. He should never, ever, as long as he lives, be in any position of trust. He should never have a moment’s peace. Or be accepted into decent human company.

Even the news that baby Bou Bou was out of the hospital and recovering doesn’t help. It isn’t “heartwarming” as some have mindbendingly called it.

The only thing that moderates the evil is knowing that, this time, people across the political spectrum, and people not even in the political spectrum, were outraged. The outrage over the outrage committed against the innocent Phonesavanh family in the name of Authoritah takes us one moment closer — oh please may it do so — to the day We the People cease to be subjected to the constant depredations of brutes hired and equipped with our own tax money and sent out to prey on us at will.

But I wasn’t part of that public outrage. I couldn’t bear to write about it.

I tell myself that looking away doesn’t make evil go away. Sometimes, though, looking away, at least for a while, is the only way to stay sane.

I do not want to feel the helpless rage I feel. I’d rather put artwork in the county fair and ask why butterflies are more politically correct than spiders.

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Although I’m not usually big on holidays (except Thanksgiving), I wanted to write something for Independence Day. Or barring that, to find wonderful writings by other people to post. But I looked around the ‘Net and was disappointed.

Only one “classic” piece stood out. It was as great as it was years ago when Kevin Wilmeth first wrote it. But Joel got to it first. So I had nothing to blog (and instead had a poem with a Friday deadline before me).

Still, Kevin’s piece is as magnificently true on July 6 or July 7 as it is on the Fourth. So if you didn’t catch it when Joel linked it, catch it now and be of good cheer.