Month: May 2016

Good morning, y’all. It’s a beautiful day. We had the occasional popups, which I don’t mind. It brings the heat down a little and helps the flowers. The popup showers help keep my water bills down too, and I’m all for that. I was in the Rec room setting out one of the showers when I got a call on my cell phone. I could read the word “Hurricane” on the caller ID, and because I thought it might be a severe weather report, I answered the call.

We have those services in Georgia, where your local town’s weather service will call you when a tornado is advancing on your house. They make calls for all sorts of bad weather, not just tornadoes, so I’m used to getting them. This one was entitled “Hurricane”, so I was intrigued enough to answer. Turns out the call was from the “Hurricane Ministries”. It was my first ever “robo call for Jesus”. I guess they get a lot of people pick up their calls because the word Hurricane takes up most of the screen on caller ID. I know for sure if I had seen the word “Ministry”, I would have never picked up. I’ve got all I can handle right now with our little band of Evangelicals without taking on a new drain of time, energy, and finances. Even though the Hurricane Ministries promised to teach me the path to Salvation in under a minute and a half, and they promised not to ask for any money, I pressed “2” to be added to their “do not call list”. It certainly changes the dynamic if you can sell salvation over a phone line and not have any of the usual overhead to deal with. I’ll have to keep an eye on their Facebook page to see how they do.

Since I’m talking about keeping an eye on things, I didn’t watch the DVR version of the telecast from the Crystal Palace until late Sunday night. Mulva and I discussed the goings on with the “Little Church in the Valley” until it was time for her to head out to evening services. I could tell from the look of amazement on Mulva’s face, when I told her about this week’s service, that she was going to have to get independent confirmation of my report. Mulva didn’t accuse me of backsliding, but her eyebrow was raised to the point of almost leaving her face. I could tell she was going to make some calls to see how much I had embellished the proceedings. I look forward to being vindicated.

Well, I settled into my chair to catch the service from the Crystal Palace, the Reverend Helena Basket presiding. As the choir began to sing “Faith of Our Fathers”, the Reverend appeared as if materializing on the stage. I’m going to need to sneak into Blairsville one day this week and inspect the pulpit area of the church a little closer. There’s got to be a trap door there somewhere that allows the Reverend her magical entrance. I’ll sleep better at night knowing I’ve solved the mystery of her manifestation. There’s way too many logic traps being set up here in our little portion of the hills.

As always, the Reverend was resplendent in her robe and fiery red hair. Her robe was a patch work of many colors that seemed to catch the TV lights and reflect them back into the camera. I thought her robe was way cool, but, I’m sure she’ll probably get some grief from the hardliners that think that black is the only appropriate color for clergy. I think it had about six different colors in it, but there may have been more. It was very distinctive, and as it turns out, part of a theme. Today’s sermon was entitled, “Sold Into Egypt”. The Reverend took the story of Daniel and his brothers as the main topic, and expanded it to give a more current feel. The Reverend Helena Handbasket likened the “99%, the poor and middle class”, to Daniel being sold into slavery by his brothers. The “1%, the greedy, jealous brothers”, were abusing their power and privilege to take advantage of their brothers. The Reverend questioned the 1%’s right to “stack their silver” higher and higher while their brothers were homeless.

In a rare break of religious decorum, the Reverend used a quote from somewhere other than the Bible to drive home her point. The Reverend quoted Andrew Carnegie, who said, “The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.” The Reverend set up the quote by telling the congregation that Carnegie was the richest man of his time. Carnegie had no problem with being prosperous and accumulating riches, he just felt that you shouldn’t try to “take it with you”. The Reverend pointed out that we have the finest public library system in the world because of Carnegie’s belief in helping out his fellow man. The Reverend closed the sermon out with Matthew 19:24, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”, just in case someone had not gotten the point. One of her better sermons, in my opinion.

Well, the altar call and testament of faith were quite tame in comparison to what I had witnessed at the “Little Church in the Valley”. It will be interesting to see if the Reverend feels the need to up her game.

Good morning, y’all. It’s getting warmer, but not intolerable yet. I feel lucky to have been getting enough rain to not have to worry about wildfires. Those poor folks up in Canada have sure been taking a beating. I guess my mind thought that anything that far North was constantly covered in ice and snow, and completely unburnable. Looks like I was wrong yet another time.

I can’t imagine the horror of having a whole city try to evacuate at once. We’ve already seen what the emergency services in Georgia are capable of from the Snowpocalypse of 2014. That was just people trying to get home from work, not evacuate. God help us all if they ever need to evacuate Atlanta. The tragedy would be incalculable.

The TV images from Canada are so disturbing that it’s hard to look. What really pulled at my heartstrings was the fellow that watched his house burn down on his phone. He had one of those security systems that let you see inside your house via the internet. He actually watched the inside of his house and all of his belongings be consumed by fire. That is, until the cameras didn’t work anymore.

Well, while we’re talking about disturbing images, I need to get back to Sunday’s service at the “Little Church in the Valley”. Over the years, I’ve seen some pretty wild things go on at the altar call and testament of faith. I’ve seen people so dispossessed of themselves that they ripped off all of their clothes. I’ve seen people so “spirit filled” that they went into a catatonic state for hours and lay stiff as a board on the church floor. I’ve seen people speak in “Tongues” and I’ve seen people “heal” one another by the laying of hands. I have never seen an eight year old swing a six foot timber rattler by his tail like he was trying to throw a lasso. Not until this Sunday. The fact that Devin, son of the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread, was able to place the rattler back into the box without incident should go down as one of the miracles of our time.

Now, I don’t use the word miracle lightly. I’m probably more judicious in my use of the term than the Catholic church when they’re proposing someone for sainthood. I just happen to witness something that seemed physically impossible to the logical mind. If they hadn’t pumped that rattler full of sedatives before the testament of faith, then that was one wrought up rattler in the box. I can’t imagine anyone being foolish enough to tempt fate by bringing out the rattler for a second performance.

As I mentioned before, Bubba Hoakum is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. In fact, it has been said that Bubba is, “one fry short of a Happy Meal.” I can only imagine that Bubba felt compelled to act as he did because of the recognition that little Devin’s performance had shocked the congregation. I surmise that the congregation was given an awareness that jettisoning the Right Reverend might be a hasty move.

To the surprise of all, Bubba flew from his perch in the choir to the box housing the timber rattler in front of the altar. Without giving it a second thought, or perhaps the first thought, Bubba reached in and pulled the rattler out of his hideaway. Holding the snake behind its head in his right hand, Bubba carried the snake aloft while Bubba did his version of the “Tap Dance for Jesus”. I must admit, Bubba had moves, but Bubba must have recognized that this was no ordinary dance off. After a couple of minutes of spinning and stomping, Bubba stomped loudly several times to get the congregation’s full attention on him. Well, unless you’ve seen pictures of those crazy snake handlers in India, you’ll never guess what happened next. Bubba brought the snake around in front of him, and then kissed him full on the lips. It might be sacreligious to ask if there was any tongue, but if so, I think it was just the rattler.

Afterwards, Bubba was shaking like a dog trying to pass a peach pit. The sweat was pouring off of him like a ditch digger in the Amazon. He passed the snake up around his head one more time as if to say, “see, look what I did”, and then put the snake back in his box. I don’t know much, but I do know I don’t want to be the next guy to open that box. I think the Right Reverend figured that out, too. He did a cute little trick with a copperhead in one hand and a water moccasin in the other, but didn’t go near the rattler box. I guess he figured the “Little Church in the Valley” had run through its allotment of miracles for the day.

As is my custom, I snuck out of the church before I had to shake hands at the door. I drove home back to TackyTwo trying to analyze what I had seen. If somebody hadn’t dosed the rattler with gasoline to make him drunk, then I’ve been present for an event that will be told for generations. The fact that no one had to go to the emergency room bolsters the convictions of the faithful. It sure plants a seed of doubt in us infidels.

More later.

Good morning, y’all. Another gorgeous day here in the mountains. It feels so good that I decided to push my morning constitutional to two laps around the grounds here at TackyToo. I try to remember,”it ain’t the distance, but the consistency”, but it’s hard with our hectic lifestyle. It’d be great if you could just have one long walk count for a week’s worth of inactivity, but it doesn’t work that way, at least for me.

These claims we see on the TV of a “minute workout”, just don’t seem to square with a thousand years or so of training information. As near as I can tell, without buying the program, the “minute workout” consists of running your guts out at top speed for a minute. Then you’re done for the day, go eat a pizza. At the risk of stroke, or heart attack, the “minute workout” fulfills the time allotment most of us want to devote to daily exercise. I just can’t see how it can be doing that much good. Particularly at the risk of aneurysm or worse. If I can find a way to get the program without paying for it, I might follow up further. Otherwise I’ll just do the tried and true, “slow and easy wins the race”.

Well, because of my extra lap, I cut my time a little closer than usual. I decided to attend church at the “Little Church in the Valley” this week. Partly because of my lack of time, and mostly because of the rumors I’ve been hearing. The Right Reverend Dale E. Bread has gotten himself sideways with the Elders again. It looks like the Right Reverend is on the way out. I absolutely hate it, in one regard. If the Right Reverend and the Bread brood totally move out of TackyToo, then I’m happy. I get to rent the trailer right away. Hopefully, to someone who is less trouble and more reliable with their rent check. If the Breads don’t move, then at some point Mulva’s Christian charity is going to kick in and I’m going to be on the hook for the rent and utilities again. I hate it when history repeats itself. Evolution says we’re supposed to be smart and learn from our mistakes. Supplementing a “serial philanderer” doesn’t seem like the smart bet to me, and, I am all about evolving.

Well, there wasn’t much evolving going on when I pulled into the parking lot of the “Little Church in the Valley”. I could hear Bubba Hoakum leading the choir in a hearty rendition of “Up From The Grave He Arose”, from out in the parking lot. As I took my seat, I wondered if the choice of hymns was Bubba’s subliminal message to all that he felt like he had been put down long enough, and now Bubba was about to arise. You don’t have to be inside of the Vatican to have high level intrigue and strategies. Bubba’s belief that it was time for him to claim his birthright had been stated to one all. Probably even to the the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread. What Bubba didn’t realize was that it didn’t matter what his lineage was, he would never be elevated to Pastor. Even in an interim basis. As kind and as good a soul as Bubba is, his die is already cast. He “didn’t have all that God gave him”, as Granny Waller used to say. No one felt that they could trust Bubba to give directions on how to get to the Walmart, let alone the Pearly Gates.

The Right Reverend Dale E. Bread brought a stick of dynamite to a house full of matches when he delivered his sermon, “Are You Willing To Face Your Past?” Cloaked within the sermon was the directive that “he who is without sin should cast the first stone”. It appeared that the Right Reverend was going to paint all of the congregation as sinners and then hope to receive the forgiveness card. I’d say that had a snowball’s chance in Hell, but stranger things have happened. Like what happened next.

Just when the altar call was made, little Devin Bread, the eldest of the Bread brood, broke for the altar and began contorting as if possessed by a Mexican jumping bean. The contortions played second fiddle to the glossolalia that followed. Now, to my untrained ear it sounded like a bunch of Spanish words mixed in with a lot of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednegos. Like I said, I have an untrained ear when it comes to Tongues. I can speak with a little more authority about snakes. I’m sure you’re not supposed to take a six foot timber rattler and swing it by its tail around and around your head like a whirligig. Little Devin seemed charmed though, or truly possessed by spirit. Based on my run ins with the little monster, I suspect it was the work of Beelzebub, but perhaps I judge too harshly.

More later.

Good morning, y’all. A beautiful day here in the mountains. A little chilly at first light, a little windy, but all and all, a perfect day. I think it just made a 10 on the Whiz O Meter because one of the weather drones thinks he saw a cloud on the radar. To my mind, cloudy or not, it was an 11. I’ll take another 365 just like it, if you please.

Well, it was so perfect that Mulva and I looked for something new to do with our perfect day. We settled on driving to Gainesville to see the Walking Tour of the Solar System. For all of you asking, “what”?, “huh”?, let me assure you, it is a real thing. To quote directly from the webpage, “This 1.8-mile Scale Model 1:2,000,000,000 Walking Tour of Our Solar System (one of only five in the United States) takes visitors from the sun at the Southeast corner of the Historic Downtown Square (near the courthouse) and ends just past the tennis courts and American flag, where you will come to Pluto and Alpha Centauri.” Let me say that it is an interesting way to walk around downtown Gainesville, and the price is right. I suspect that it is a big boon to the little shops that thrive on the foot traffic that the attraction brings in.

I was enjoying one of those little enterprises, a little cupcake place called the “Cupcake Diva”, when I witnessed what I consider to be a crime. A man was dragging a little boy by his arm, wrenching the arm back and forth as he tried to get the little boy to “straighten up and fly right”. I had no idea what the infraction was, but the altercation ended when the man, I will presume the dad, smacked the boy across the face. The boy collapsed in a heap and just sobbed. The man seemed to become aware of where he was, and what he had done. Several people jumping up out of their chairs and heading towards the man probably put the man on notice as well. I allowed a young woman to fulfill the “Bud” role of explaining to the man what a lowlife SOB he was. She was far more articulate than I would have been.

I remember when the Marshal Tucker band articulated their thoughts on the subject in a song a long time ago:

“I can’t stand to see a grown man
Hit a little kid
Or get cussed out for somethin’
Not even knowin’ what he did”

The singer of the song filled it with so much emotion that you knew he knew what he was talking about. I can relate, and those strong feeling don’t go away with age.

If I get this worked up about what some people “lovingly” refer to as “corporal punishment”, you can imagine my thoughts on the continual cesspool of Penn State. There was more confirmation that came out this week that Joe Paterno, the patron saint of all things football at Penn State, was aware back in the ’70’s that his assistant was abusing children. The pedophile, Jerry Sandusky, was not charged until 2011. Paterno allowed Sandusky forty years of abusing children with impunity.

There are no good ways to spin this story. There is no amount of psychological, sociological, whatever theories that can excuse the abuse of children by an adult. If I was a believer in the hereafter, I would have to believe that there is a special spot in Hell reserved for these people. Close by to the pedophiles room is the room reserved for the people who allowed the pedophiles to flourish. I guess in honor of all of his accomplishments, we’ll call this the “Paterno Room”. When the news came out that at least six assistants knew about the abuse, but nothing was done, it sealed the deal for me as to whether or not Paterno was involved. Despite all of the denials that his family has put up, the only way a story like this can be hidden is if the controller of everything at Penn State wants it to stay hidden. That power rested solely with Joe Paterno.

I am willing to believe in Hell for the solace of knowing that Paterno is roasting there for eternity. Won’t we all sleep better at night thinking that Satan is giving Paterno a poke in the nether regions with his pitchfork?

Good morning, y’all. Well the temperatures are climbing back up a little bit closer to normal. In spite of the recent weather switcheroo, we didn’t have any bad storms to speak of. I’m seeing on the news that Tornado Alley was struck real hard in the last couple of days. It looks like the Alley has gotten wider over the years. There’s some real impressive storms coming out of Colorado now. I don’t remember Colorado being in the Alley before. Of course we’re getting more tornadoes in Alabama and Georgia too, so I’m guessing climate change has something to do with it. I’ll just mention it now before science gets outlawed by the Trump administration.

Well, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”, so Mulva and I headed off to Walmart for our weekly/daily visit. I say weekly/daily because weekly is all I can handle, while Mulva goes daily. Sometimes Mulva will go twice a day if she forgets something, or if someone asks her to pick up something for them. Only,”if it’s convenient”, of course. One thing Mulva truly loves to do is shop for others. She could be one of those professional shoppers for people who can’t go for themselves, or don’t have the inclination to rub elbows with the hoi polloi. She’d do it for free, which is about all folks around here can afford to pay. “Service to others” is high on Mulva’s list of Christian attributes, I just wish it paid better.

Anyway, we got to Walmart and headed off in different directions, as usual. In addition to our Date night movie, I wanted to see if there were any documentaries on music worth seeing. I’m still feeling a little stung about my ignorance of Link Wray, and I’m curious as to what else I’ve missed. I picked up a documentary called, “A Drummer’s Dream”. I don’t know any of the people in it, so that’s a good sign, I guess. I need to learn more about people that real musicians think are cool, instead of just sticking to my own narrow spectrum. I’ll give it a shot and report back. For $1.99 I’m bound to learn something.

I had to dig a little deeper in my pocket, and the movie bin, to come up with this week’s selection. It’s called, “Things We Lost In The Fire”. It stars Halle Berry and Benicio del Toro. Benicio del Toro is also appearing in a popular commercial now where he gets confused by some fans with Antonio Banderas. Big difference, one can act, the other, not so much. As it turns out, the one that can act was in this flick. Good thing too. Halle Berry needed all the help she could get from a professional to keep the story on track. Halle plays the very happily married mother of two whose only gripe in life is that her husband’s friend is a junkie. The husband dies and then we watch how Halle responds to her loss. Not well at times, and not believable most times. 

I guess that’s the director’s job, to keep it “real”. In my humble opinion, the director seemed to lose control at different times. For one, the run length. It was two hours long, and felt it. For another, the relationship between the characters. They go from abject hatred to “sleep with me platonically”. Sure, happens all of the time. But then after Benicio’s character sleeps with Halle, she gets all bent out of shape because her kids are responding to him. She kicks Benicio out, and surprise surprise, he returns to heroin. More flotsam and jetsam that we have to swim through until the director ties it all up with a big bow. Not “happily ever after”, just “functional ever after”.

The film won no Academy nominations, and shouldn’t have. It appears to have lost a lot of money for the investors. Maybe the disconnect was between the female director and female lead. Who knows. It’s for sure Benicio Del Toro played his heart out. It’s a shame all of the other pieces of the puzzle weren’t there.

I woke up Mulva and sent her back over to Number Two. I needed to watch a Zombie movie or two to get this one out of my head. Maybe the thing that should have been lost in the fire was the master for this movie.

Good morning, y’all. Well, we’ve had a dramatic change of wind direction bringing some much cooler temps to our area. To me, it is an unexpected pleasure. I know a lot of other folks are complaining about just having put their Winter clothes up, but I think they should just toughen up for a couple of days. The cool winds won’t last long, and then they’ll be done until November. I think we can adjust for a couple of days until the wind shifts back to the West.

Speaking of the wind shifting, I started thinking about all of the things that come our way as a result of the air currents. Certainly the rain would be the top thing on our mind. Next would be the seeds and pollen that travel without borders on the back of the winds. I guess we could call the allergies that result from those pollens a, “possible side effect”, like they do in the drug commercials. We see the pollen, so we know that there is a potential for an allergic outbreak. We just don’t know if it’s the pollen that effects us the most. Should I be more concerned about putting on a mask than writing “wash me” on the trunk of my car?

Fortunately the government tracks all that stuff for us now, and we can look at the government charts to see which pollens are effecting us the most. The question is whether you’ll already be wheezing before the government can produce the charts. Pollen is a pollutant that we can see. How about the noxious gasses that we don’t see until they get so thick they’re visible? Wearing a mask won’t help with those pollutants, and some may be so deadly we don’t have time to put on a mask anyway. I’ve long complained about Georgia Power and their coal burning plants being responsible for making the “Smokey Mountains, smokey”. There is something worse, though.

We just passed the thirtieth anniversary of Chernobyl on April 26th. If you are unfamiliar with the disaster, here is a quote from Wikipedia: “The Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and casualties. It is one of only two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011. The struggle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. During the accident itself, 31 people died, and long-term effects such as cancers are still being investigated.”

The cleanup involved volunteers who knew they were committing suicide for the promise of the government taking care of their families, forever. Shortly after the accident, the nearby town of Pripyat was evacuated, and the 53,000 residents disbursed through Ukraine. The rest of the Soviet citizenry remained in the dark about the accident until April 28th, when radiation levels set off alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, over 620 miles away. The Soviet government was then forced to go public with the accident. Ten days after the accident, the Soviet government expanded the evacuation area to a 20 mile radius of Chernobyl. This “dead zone” is still in place today.

How does Chernobyl play into my dissertation on shifting winds? Well, in a couple of ways. First off, it was the wind that carried the radioactive fallout to Sweden where the unsafe levels set off alarms alerting the rest of the world to the problem. Secondly, and this one is the most important, we have a propensity in the United States for building nuclear power plants to the Southwest of large population centers. The wind pattern in the United States is predominantly from the South and West. In Georgia, our two nuclear pants are located at Baxley and Augusta. Not good for Augusta, or anywhere in South Carolina, but at least they’re not Southwest of Atlanta. We have to go to Alabama to find a nuclear power plant Southwest of Atlanta. Alabama also has a number of plants that are West and Northwest of Atlanta. As we all know, the wind shifts. Currently it’s coming from the Northwest.

At the risk of being too tacky, Alabama, nuclear power? Even if they brought all of the physicists in from other states, you know that there’s got to be some locals working in maintenance, right? We’ve all seen “Silkwood”, we know how these things can go. One really bad hangover can lead to a nuclear meltdown. A nuclear meltdown leads to a scorched earth and deformities in births in humans and animals for generations. Can we really let Phyllis from Mulga have this type of responsibility? I certainly hope not.

Good morning, y’all. While we’re waiting for the next “popup shower”, it’s gotten a little colder here in the mountains. Not cold mind you, just more pleasant in my mind. This is the kind of weather I could go out and plow the South 40 in. That is, if we had a South 40, and if I remember how to plow. “Gee” means go left, and “haw” means to go right, as I recall. Making the wrong call to the mule is a mistake you’d correct pretty quickly if your first direction was wrong.

Speaking of changing direction, The Cruz has decided to take his bat and ball and go home. You might say that The Cruz got thumped in the Bible belt with his loss to The Donald in the Indiana primary. The thumper got thumped, I like that. The fact that The Cruz was rejected by the folks most like him is doubly rewarding for me. Indiana folks are the most Evangelical group as a whole that the candidates are supposed to face. Something like 31 percent of the white population considers themselves Evangelical. Make no mistake, Indiana is a white state, with 87% of the population being of the pale persuasion. There are lots of Klan members to spread the love around. They just spread the love to The Donald, and not to The Cruz. That should give us something to watch out for in the general election. 

Talking about watching out for stuff, I love the fact that sometimes the TV crew is right where you want them to be when some historic meltdown occurs. I guess the truth is, the camera is supposed to be there, it’s just serendipitous that a meltdown occurs. An example would be when Jimmy Swaggart lost it when apologizing to his wife, family and congregation for chasing hookers. In the case of The Cruz, the camera was rolling for another blah, blah, blah, “vote for me” prior to the Indiana polls closing. What transpired was the desperation of a man who suddenly realized that his wife Heidi was not the prophet they thought she was. Heidi had had “a visitation” from the Lord telling her that her husband was a lock in 2016. Heidi was now standing next to her husband looking forlorn as her husband floundered in front of the national media. The Cruz felt compelled to let the audience know that being anointed by the Lord was not enough. The Cruz was fighting a bigger fight against a bigger foe than the Lord could handle, The Donald.

“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.” “Donald Trump is a serial philanderer and he boasts about it.” “This is not a secret, he is proud of being a serial philanderer.”  “If anyone has seen the movie ‘Back to the Future II’, the screenwriter says that he based the character Biff Tannen on Donald Trump, the caricature of a braggadocious, arrogant buffoon…We are looking, potentially, at the Biff Tannen presidency,”

Well, now you’ve got my interest. What would a Biff Tannen presidency look like, and would it be any worse than an Elmer Gantry presidency? I guess we’ll never know as The Cruz has officially dropped out of the race. The Donald bid him a fond farewell with this Tweet, “That was an impressive meltdown… Desperate but impressive. Reminded me of my 3 year old coming off a sugar high.”  I hate to agree with The Donald on anything, but the comparison to a three year old and a sugar high is pretty accurate. I guess “firing all of your guns at once”, and finding out that they were filled with blanks, pushed The Cruz over the edge. It was a fitting final memory for his campaign.

Another fitting final memory was the look on Carly Fiorina’s face as she watched The Cruz implode. You could just see the wheels a turning. I’m thinking she was talking to herself, like, “I know the plan was to ride his coattails into the White House and then wait for an appropriate time to slip him the belladonna nightcap in his grape juice.” “Now what am I supposed to do, suck up again to The Donald?”. “Well, ok, a girl has got to do what a girl has to do to bust through these glass ceilings”. 

Of course I’m just imaging this thought process as Carly’s face gave nothing away. Her face looked normal, like she’d just eaten a bowl of sauerkraut that had been marinated in lemons and buttermilk. No tells there for you poker players.

Good morning, y’all. We’ve been getting these little one cloud rainstorms. I think the weather drones at the Whiz O Meter call them “popup showers”. It’s kind of their catchall phrase for “it might rain, it might not”. Kind of a prediction ambiguity, in my mind. Predicting popup showers is almost as decisive as predicting that the temperature will get into the 80’s, after a week of 80 degree days. They’re not climbing very far out the limb here.

I tell you somebody who doesn’t mind climbing out on a limb, and then sawing it off behind himself, is lyin’ Ted Cruz. It seems The Cruz has pushed the crazy meter so far to the right that he’s getting all of the media attention currently. I guess it could be the new “presidential” acting Donald Trump, but I don’t think so. Even when The Donald is acting “presidential” he says enough stupid stuff to fill the headlines. I think The Cruz has upped his media game to the point that the major news services feel like they need to stay on his coattails, lest they miss something major. The Cruz is so volatile now he just might set himself on fire or something. The extra coverage just brings up more wacky stuff that might have gotten missed if the news people weren’t 24X7. For example, Bruce Jenner’s trip to the bathroom.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I have all sorts of issues with the conversion of Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner. These issues are more about a terrific athlete, one who could have beaten me at each and every event, then deciding later in life that he should have been playing for the girl’s team. That’s disturbing to me. Whether or not he feels his gender assignment was right or not is a personal issue, in my opinion, and should have been handled that way. The fact that he has the world’s most aggressive agent promoting his change, and consequently the news coverage, is just tacky. Not quite as tacky as the Kardashian kids, but still real tacky. The firestorm was released when the Kardashian media machine released a video of Bruce going in the women’s restroom, in a Trump Tower, no less. Enter Ted Cruz.

The Cruz wanted his faithful to know that, in a Cruz Presidency, no one was going to be allowed to enter a bathroom that they were not biologically suited for. In front of God and everybody, Cruz opined, “It doesn’t make sense for grown adult men, strangers, to be alone in a restroom with a little girl,” Cruz continued. “This is the height of political correctness. And frankly, the concern is not of the Caitlyn Jenners of the world, but if the law is such that any man, if he feels like it, can go in a woman’s restroom and you can’t ask him to leave, that opens the door for predators.”  Ahhhhh, the predators card. I’m glad Cruz played it.

Parents of children of both sexes are always faced with how to handle the potty breaks of little ones before we feel that they’re safe to go by themselves. Mom could be with the son, or Dad with the daughter. Neither parent wants to be caught in that danger zone of taking the child to the bathroom we are “gender assigned” to, but not the child. Or worse, entering the bathroom that is correct for the child, but not for the parent. Then you’ve got the Cruz dilemma of an adult in the wrong bathroom. As the child gets older, this situation gets more and more awkward until we finally decide they’re ok to go to their own bathroom on their own, while we wait patiently for them to return. Billions of parents handle this issue everyday.

It’s only in Cruz world where we have to presume that a trans person is also a predator. In Cruz world laws must be made to preserve the sanctity of gender specific bathrooms, no matter how broken the plumbing is in the other bathroom. Ironically, I bet The Cruz never asked his wife if she had ever used the Men’s bathroom. Heidi is prone to hearing voices, and I bet at some point in time Heidi heard a voice say, “I’ve got to go now and there is no line at the men’s room”. Maybe not, maybe I judge too harshly.

I am sure that The Cruz wouldn’t know a “predator” if one came up and bit him on the butt. I even offer up proof. Here The Cruz is pictured with a very famous predator:

Good morning, y’all. Threats of thunder storms never materialized. We were left with a bright steamy day in the 80’s. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Summer has arrived. Had to happen sooner or later I guess, I just prefer later. Like I always tell Mulva, she can put on more clothes if the air conditioning gets too cold. Once I get to my underwear, I can’t take off any more clothes to cool down. Compromise isn’t just a word that Ted Cruz can’t pronounce.

Speaking of compromising, I was trying to hit the best of both worlds, so’s to speak, with regard to watching both church services of The Full Gospel Original Church of God this Sunday. I attended the services at “The Little Church In The Valley” in person. After making sure there was not going to be any mayhem as a result of the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread’s philandering ways, I boogied back home to TackyToo.  I needed to attend to the two pork shoulders I had cooking on my Big Green Egg, and to watch the DVR’d telecast from the Crystal Palace. Before settling into the easy chair in the office of the Rec room to watch the recording, I wanted to make sure all was well with my cook. I popped the top on the Egg and gave the shoulders a good basting of my “special sauce” before double checking the temperature. A quick check revealed that I was good for the hour or so it would take to watch the recording of today’s telecast. Like a fine wine, we will serve no pork before its time.

I was kind of surprised that this week’s telecast from Channel 99 in Blairsville started differently than before. They’ve gone all “artsy” with the leadup to the interior shot of the church. Nothing big, just nature scenes of waterfalls and Cardinals building a nest and stuff like that. I think the background music was “Faith of Our Fathers”, but it was all instrumental, so I’ll have to listen closer to confirm. It was a more professional start to the telecast than the shot from the truck showing people streaming in the door. When they cut to the interior shot you felt more calm than previous telecasts. Previously you felt like you were rushing to get into the church before the services started. I’ll have to ask who’s responsible for the change. It’s good psychology.

Well Channel 99 cut to the interior of the church, and then “poof”, there she was, the Reverend Helena Handbasket. She was attired in a navy blue or black robe this Sunday with her customary white sash with gold trim. I’m guessing it was navy blue since I don’t think the Reverend Helena Handbasket holds too strongly to the clergy dressed in black philosophy. I am kind of wondering how many different robes she has, but I guess it only matters to me. Technically, the robes are her “work clothes”, and the female of the species does like to show up to work wearing new outfits. I guess there’s not a lot of room to show her fashion sense in a robe, so she probably feels that mixing the colors is the way to present a fresh look. I suppose there might be a group out there that is attending services just to see what the Reverend will be wearing next, and that’s as good a reason for attending as any other, I guess.

This week’s sermon was, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, which the Reverend Helena Handbasket tried to keep God from being so angry. Upon reflection, the Reverend also tried to make the “sinners” less sinful. I guess the Reverend was giving a little more hope to the “backsliders” than usually comes through in an “Angry God” sermon. I know religions don’t like to compare themselves to other religions, except to point out how they’re better and the other guys are worse. That said, the Catholics have got a good thing going for them with that absolution at the time of death thing. The weekly tuneups are a good idea too. “Confession”, I think they call it .

Keeping the sinners in the fold as long as possible just makes good business sense. A sinner who gets the impression that they can never be forgiven will quit trying after a while. Or at least I know I would. I’m impressed by the Reverend’s recognition that casting folks into the fiery lake is not going to keep attendance up, or the tithes. The Reverend Helena Handbasket appears to be playing the long game, and I have to admit it it is quite refreshing. Evangelicals are generally a judgmental, “my way or you’re going to Hell way” lot. Who knows what could happen if a little mercy was thrown in the message? I said it before, we might be riding on the crest of the wave here.

Good morning, y’all. We caught some thunderstorms that kind of snuck up on us today. Pretty loud, lots of wind and buckets of rain, for about half and hour. Kind of like how I remember Summer back in my youth. Quick rain storms and then the steam rising off of the streets for an hour or so. In an acknowledgement to the heat and humidity, we turned on the air conditioner for the first time this year. The only question is whether it will now run continuously through October, or if we’ll still get some cooler days. I’m betting on the A.C.

More difficult than the decision to bow down to the cooling Gods, was the decision as to which church to attend this Sunday. I decided to vote my pocketbook, as I always do. I felt like I needed to support the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread and to attend the service at the “Little Church In The Valley”. I didn’t doubt Bubba Hoakum’s account of the details from last Sunday’s service, in fact Mulva and her sources had rounded out the details even further. At issue was whether the Right Reverend would be able to continue his rehabilitation and continue on as the pastor of the smaller congregation.

The Elders had their hands full keeping up with the mushrooming growth of the Reverend Helen Handbasket’s congregation. To begin a new pastor search now for the faithful who had chosen the original church over the Crystal Palace would divert resources away from the juggernaut being built in Blairsville. If the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread could be persuaded to “keep his hands in his pockets”, then the “traditionalists” could continue their worship in the little church that Bubba Hoakum’s great granddaddy founded so long ago. Otherwise, the Elders might decide to just to close the little church, forcing the “traditionalists” to come to town. The other option available to the congregation was a “Foot Washing” Baptist church a mile or so away, but, it’s just not the same. Once you’ve seen someone “tap dance for Jesus”, while holding a six foot timber rattler above his head, conventional services just aren’t the same. 

Well, I set the Big Green Egg up to slow cook two pork shoulders and my DVR to record the services from Blairsville on Channel 99. I figured the pork shoulders would be falling off of the bone by the time I got back from the services at the “Little Church In The Valley”, and then watched the DVR replay of the services from the Crystal Palace. As I write that down it occurs to me I spend a lot of time on the ecclesiastical. No where near as much as Mulva mind you, but an awful lot for a heathen. I have to admit being fascinated with the personalities. I don’t know where else you could watch people so closely and psychoanalyze their inner most feelings. Prison maybe, but if you watch someone too closely in prison it leads to bad things. Getting involved with an unusual personality at church will just be viewed as being “service minded”. Makes it sound like you’re caring, and not just curious.

Anyhow, I got to church in plenty of time to catch any opening fisticuffs. Who knew if Alva Bread, the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread’s wife, or Anita Goodman, the Right Reverend’s current main squeeze, might both be wearing identical jewelry gifted to them by the Right Reverend. By the way, there is a lesson there for the “players” among you. Don’t buy gifts that are BOGO. Act like you’ve got good sense, even if you don’t have a lot of money. The same gift in a different color is still the same gift! The Right Reverend was relying way too much on divine intervention to assume that his wife and his girlfriend were not going to run into each other at some point wearing the same gift. Now we were going to see if the fallout was going to cost the Right Reverend his job.

Well if you’ve never seen two folks whose heads were frozen in place for an hour, let me tell you it’s eery. Alva and Anita stared straight ahead for the whole service. Never left, never right, never even blinked that I could tell. They turned and exited the service via different aisles at the end of the service like two Stepford wives. Truth be told, the service was kind of a let down to the anticipated cat fight. The sermon was about Adam and Eve and the serpent and how the Lord cursed the serpent for his part in the fall of Adam and Eve. The quote from Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”, seemed to hold great meaning for the Right Reverend.

I figured I could talk it over with him later, perhaps over a pulled pork sandwich. I headed back to TackyToo to see how my pork shoulders and the Reverend Helen Handbasket were doing. More later.