My love affair with N. Idaho has faded. Cheap land is not worth the political climate. This is what Sarah Palin calls “real America,” a chunk of nation so backwards they think a right-of-center pol like Obama is a socialist. As a heavily-armed pacifist, I spend too much time at the local shooting range. I park next to the truck with the extra-large window decal exclaming “Obama, change for the worse.” My daughter’s civics teacher is a teabagger (and no, not the good type; she believes in the tea party movement and all of its contradictions). My neighbor asks me how I like the peace and quiet, or more specifically, how wonderful it is without blacks or Mexicans. Sorry, but I want a bit or variety, a little color in my vanilla landscape. So my love affair with N. Idaho has faded.

I look forward to battling mildew and the salt air rather than closed minds. Sure, I’ll have to give up my 30-round magazines and assault-rifle sleekness, but California is where I want to be. Hello Redwoods, goodbye bigotry.

I completed my Saeco Aroma espresso upgrade this week, adding a frothing pitcher, steel tamper, non-pressurized portafilter and the cutest little red knock box from Seattle Coffee Gear.

For the past three days, I have been able to make espressos strong enough to double as paint remover, so it has definitely been worth it. I may have to work on my tamping technique, however. Per Seattle Coffee Gear’s instructional video, I should be using 30 pounds of pressure. So far, I have been pressing down on the tamper while jumping up and down, applying the full 250 pounds of me as pressure. The result is an almost pitch-black brew for the first ounce, dark brown for the second ounce, and the equivalent of the first ounce using the pressurized portafilter for the third ounce.

Vally, Jennie and I may have ulcers by the end of the month, but I’m definitely extracting the full flavour of the coffee now.

The only part I’ve had problems with is the knock box. It is small, red and adorable, but it was definitely not designed for six double shots every day. By the time I am finished making espresso, I’ve also made an incredible mess of splashes and puck pieces all around the knock box.

Next week I’ll try frothing.

WTF Democrats? Health care should be simple. We have a majority in the House and Senate, and a Democrat in the White House. We easily won the Presidential elections less than a year ago. By Republican standards, we have a mandate to do whatever the fuck we want. Why, then, are we constrained by the Republicans and their obstructionist practices? Screaming loudly and making shit up does not constitute valid opposition. If it did, we could replace the entire Republican party with a pack of chimpanzees (Seqways optional). We would get a lot more done, and I am pretty sure a lot less shit would get flung.

You are wasting our majority and any chance at real reform. Compromise with the self-branded “party of no” does not do anything other than prove that we are not serious about reform. Really, are we trying to pass reform, or is this all just posturing to try to appease those of us in the party who hoped for change? It’s starting to feel like Max Baucus and the rest of the insurance company shills are the only ones who have a voice in this. Let’s ignore the birthers, baggers and bitters and just reform health care. No compromise, no consensus building, just fix it. And when you’re done, maybe pull your collective head out of your collective ass and drop this anti-Acorn nonsense. Surely there’s a Dem somewhere between the White House, Senate and House with a spine.

I pour a tall shot,
three ounces of Tarantula,
then cut a thick wedge of lime.

Giving it a lick,
the base of my hand is prepared
for the requisite salt dash.

All is ready now:
My salted hand, a shot, and lime.
I pause and take a quick breath.

When I was younger,
the shot would have been Cuervo Gold
or something equally harsh.

I am older now,
and have learned that a tequila
needn’t be a punishment.

Lips to salted hand,
I lick, anticipating now
the mix of flavours coming.

The shot glass tipped back,
tequila spreads across my tongue
and then I swallow slowly.

Biting the lime wedge,
my center fills with spreading warmth
and I prepare the next shot.

the boy has swine flu
vomit on his sheets today
parenting is great
—

the girl has it too
which end is exploding now?
working from home sucks

I have a human office-mate for the first time in 8 years. She isn’t much noisier than the fish, so I think I’ll keep her for a bit.

She’s Italian, so far hasn’t complained about the mess, is in no way associated with the mafia and has a high tolerance for bad jokes. I think she’ll go far. Her obsession with Vampires (sparkly Twilight types, that is) may be a bit much, although so far she hasn’t put up any Edward or Bella posters.

I paint my life with broad strokes of leisure and rare strokes of pain. Twice this year I have lost family, hopefully the last for a while. I have been fortunate, I think, in having relatively long-lived and healthy relatives. Before this year, the last loss was my grandfather Al, unrepentant alcoholic and master of profanity, years ago. I have to go back 13 years to Amber for prior death, and to my childhood for all others. Six deaths in over 41 years isn’t so bad, is it?

I said goodbye to my grandfather on Saturday, my last view of him a handful of ashes riding on the wind. Whatever he may have been to others, he was a wonderful grandfather to me, and I always felt loved. If there were faults in the relationship, I would place them fully with me, falling short as a grandchild as I built my own life and family.

It was my grandfather who taught me the peacefulness of cross-country skiing (although constantly stopping to look for birds did not fit in my teenage schemes), who took me for hikes on the mesa, and got me banned from the Getty. I hope I can be as good a grandparent to any future grandchildren of my own when the time comes as he was a grandfather to me. I may be a bit quieter at the Getty, however.

So here are a couple of tips I’ve picked up over the past two days. Hopefully they will help you in your quest to become, every day and in every way, a better you.

1. Avoid the DMV if you have a warrant out for your arrest.
   I had to renew my license this morning (thanks, Idaho, for not sending out renewal notices. Yeah, that policy won’t cause more people to drive around with expired licenses). While paying for my license, several police officers rushed in and grabbed a woman who was taking a test. Hmm . . . so all of the employees are wearing shirts emblazoned with “Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department” and you’ve just given the woman at the counter your license information, yet you’re still surprised when the police show up to arrest you for a Failure To Appear. It’s a puzzler how they figured out where you were, isn’t it?
2. Maybe wait a few months if you were thinking of outing yourself as a Furrie.
   Thanks to a penchant for partying like a panda, this guy is probably not going to reflect well on your newfound hobby. At least he wasn’t banging white bitches screwing the pooch (yes, I updated that after realizing it was malamutes, not samoyeds. You’d think that at least some of the 13 years I spent working in a veterinary hospital would have stuck with me). Um, ick? Yeah, still not a positive furry role model. Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned yiffpile?

Bear with me, as I feel a mental wandering coming on. I promise to avoid discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of the spray and pray, or which photo here makes the best appetite suppressant. Hell, I’ll probably even skip the merits of brain lesions . . .

So, let’s focus on the important stuff, shall we? Birds. It’s hard letting go, but I am trying. I’ve let him loose, he’s come back, and I sent him back into the world yet again. Sure, I have to step out onto the deck every few hours for a feeding, but el birdo is doing quite well outside. Okay, I haven’t a clue how well he’s doing, but he hasn’t been eaten by a cat, so that’s pretty good in my book. Yes, my book is short, and mainly full of pictures.

This:

Has become this:

He still stops by several times a day for some cat food, a mealworm and some seed. Someday he (she?) will realize that I am not a bird, though, and I will finally be free. Sniff!

So, what am I doing now? Working. And listening to Beige Curtains, by Riki Lindhome. And thanking hulu for getting rid of their rtmpe-only streams. Thank you, hulu. Now I can watch an endless stream of crap again. My life is full.

Tomorrow I have to battle the dmv. Apparently, Idaho doesn’t believe in notifying people when their licenses expire. I discovered this while attempting to get past TSA on Friday. They prefer you to have a valid license or some form of current id when you board a plane. Rather an uptight bunch, really. Does having an expired license make you more likely to commit acts of terrorism? Or was it just my muttering of “By Allah’s will, it won’t be a problem much longer” when they pointed out the expired license?

And finally, because I seem to lack a point, here is my explanation of why we have so many Mary Kay Letourneau wannabes these days: Three O’Clock High. More evidence of how us eighties teens fucked up the world. Somehow I missed this movie when it first came out. I think I was doing something stupid like jumping out of airplanes and training to kill Ivan. Poor Ivan, just a faded memory now that we are supposed to hate Muslims rather than Russians. Le sigh . . .

So the bird is back. He’s promised to give freedom another shot once I get back from the funeral, but in the meantime, he wants more mealworms, cat food and other goodies that come to him with no effort other than screaming on his part. Le sigh . . .

I’ll put up his latest picture once I find my usb reader. It’s somewhere here under the 8 inches of books, papers and assorted crap on my desk.