ROUNDABOUTS noon on a spring day is the perfect time to sit in the yard with an electronic book.
If the natives have nothing to celebrate, which happens often enough, you’ll find a smooth calm. The air will be cool. The sky will be blue. The breeze will be blowing stiff enough to wiggle the wind chimes hanging in the nearby veranda.
Bottle brush
At this hour the hummingbirds will be dining about the bottle-brush tree and so will butterflies. Sparrows will be chirping.
I’ll be sitting in a mesh chair next to the glass-top table, and I’ll be shaded from the sun, which grows a bit brutal in spring, by the big brown umbrella. It’s a good mix altogether.
Two things might disturb this scene. One is that I doze off, which is common, no matter how engaging the book. This does not affect the calm. It simply renders it moot for moments.
The other is that a freight train will blow by, but this lasts no longer than 60 seconds, and the calm returns. The butterflies and hummingbirds don’t seem to notice.
Even on a calm spring midday, I like the passing train especially since it’s brief. It sounds of vagabonds, a life that appealed back when I was very young.
This midday peace is broken when my child bride comes out of the house and says she’s ready to go to the restaurant.
I AM BIG on border walls. We have one here at the Hacienda. It separates us from the sex motel next door.
Walls create happy neighbors.
Stepping out to the terraza this morning — it was 48 degrees! — I snapped this photo to illustrate the difference between the two worlds of Hacienda and, well, you know.
When the motel was constructed almost a decade ago, I had this section of wall raised about a foot so folks in the motel rooms could not peer directly into our yard.
But we still can peer directly into their rooms.
You’re also looking at our two border guards, which are yuge!* The nopal and the bougainvillea, both of which I planted when they were little pups out of pots.
The sex motel manager recently asked if I would mind if they cut the bougainvillea on their side of the wall. I cannot imagine why they would want to do that. It’s quite pretty.
I replied yes. What they do on their side of the wall is their own business, not mine.
What I am particularly pleased about this morning is the temperature of 48 degrees Fahrenheit.
It makes me happy to be alive.
That and other factors too, of course. Like the V-formation of white egrets that just flew overhead.
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* Tip of the sombrero to the Blond Bomber in the Oval Office for adding this spelling variation to the language.
I OFTEN refer to the capital city that sits down the mountain, about 40 minutes from here on a smooth four-laner.
We drive there at least once a week, almost exclusively for shopping. My mountaintop’s shopping is restricted mostly to tacos, tires and rebozos.
My first eight months in Mexico were spent in the capital city where I studied Spanish at a language school while living two months over a garage. I then spent another six months just walking around and living in a rented house.
I didn’t much like the town. Before moving there I read online that it was similar to the American Midwest, sorta dull. It was to Mexico what Topeka or Omaha are to America.
One day I took at bus up the mountain to visit the ancient and very different town where I’ve been a long time now. I liked it. I moved here. Been here ever since. Gonna die here.
However, in the past 17 years, the capital city has improved immensely. I would not mind living there now. I might even prefer it, but I’m not going to move.
Recently, an online piece from two years ago was brought to my attention by the inimitable Jennifer Rose. It describes our capital city in an admirable and accurate way.
Take a look. There are also great photos. The author, Stephenie Harris, claims it’s the most beautiful city in Mexico that nobody visits. And she says why she thinks that is the case.
I’m a fence-straddler on this contentious topic. Not being a Christian, I have no religious issue with it. Like many people, abortion has been a part of my life.
My first wife got pregnant unexpectedly. It was before we married. We were young and shocked. Rather quickly she found an abortion doctor. This was before Roe versus Wade.
It was illegal.
I, however, was troubled and nixed it.
We married, and my life sailed in a direction it would have not sailed otherwise. I still feel the effects.
An unexpected pregnancy for young people is like a 10-ton boulder rolling down the mountain straight at you.
You can dodge it with an abortion. Or you can stand still, wide-eyed, and see what happens.
I support abortion rights when done early, and the fetus is just a nub. Where it gets troubling is when it’s done later and the fetus is a formed child.
Early, yes. Late, no. If you drag your feet making a decision, tough luck. Be decisive.
There’s lots of hubbub about Planned Parenthood, which is an abortion provider, and nothing more. Its supporters say it’s about women’s health. That’s baloney.
A reporter recently phoned Planned Parenthood facilities in various states to ask what prenatal services were provided. The answers were all the same. No prenatal services offered.
Planned Parenthood is an abortion mill, period. And given the strong emotions on the subject in many quarters, it should not be receiving taxpayer money.
Let the customers pay.
If you get pregnant unexpectedly, decide what you want to do with no dilly-dallying, and make an appointment with a doctor who provides the service. It’s legal.
Don’t wait five months and do it. It’s grisly.
Numerous undercover investigations have been done into Planned Parenthood, and what’s been discovered is quite disturbing. You’ll never see these reports in the socialist media like Huffpost, Mother Jones and The New York Times.
Abortion should stay legal for early stage. Illegal in the late stage.* To outlaw it altogether will just return us to the days of blood-soaked butchery in back alleys.
Outlawing all abortions is like outlawing drug use. It just creates worse problems. Use common sense.
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* Being an anti-government guy, I find even this troubling.
(Note: Later in my first marriage, we had another child, another accident. Ian Lee was born prematurely and with two club feet. He died three days later. After that, I got a vasectomy. I was 24 and out of the procreation game. My daughter recently turned 51 and lives in Athens, Georgia, with her husband. She is thick as thieves with her mother and has little to do with me. Irony.)
Healthcare reform. Grade of D. Going along with Paul Ryan’s dusting off his crappy, old proposal was a rookie move. Back to the drawing board, Don. Jeez.
Muslim Brotherhood. Grade of F. Going wishy-washy on the terrorist designation is ridiculous and dangerous. I mean, really. They’re Mohammedans.
Pipelines. Grade of A+. Opening the Dakota and Keystone pipelines is great. Jobs. Energy. What’s not to like?
Israel. Grade of A+. Supporting the sole democracy in the Middle East, a place where women walk free, unmasked and heavily armed is the proverbial no-brainer, just the opposite of Weepy Barry’s abominable stance.
Supreme Court. Grade of A+. Nomination of Neil Gorsuch is excellent. May other nominations be of equal caliber.
Terrorist nations. Grade of A. Beefing up security regarding visitors from known terror nations is common sense. That hippie judges are blocking it is absurd.
Border wall. Grade of A. He’ll get an A+ when the wall is complete. All nations should protect their borders.
Federal regulations. Grade of A+. Trump has ordered that for every new federal regulation, two existing ones must be eliminated. It’s difficult to praise this too much.
Hiring freeze. Grade of A+. Trump has put a freeze on hiring new civilian federal employees. There are some exceptions. This will slow governmental bloat.
Blocking Hillary. Grade of double-A+. Keeping the Clintons from returning to the White House may be Trump’s greatest accomplishment of all.
Bonus grade
11. Shock value. Triple-A-Plus. The Trump presidency has leftists in a state of perpetual horror. You can hardly put a high enough value on that. We’ve never seen their favored epithets of racist and sexist regurgitated so frequently.
I WAS A newspaperman for about 30 years before I retired at age 55 in late 1999. I never called myself a journalist, and I’ve never taken even one journalism course.
I’ve also been a taxi driver, a loan shark and a repo man.
But it was newspapering that I was best at.
There’s a link in the right-side column that takes you to Newspaper Days, a description of my decades in that world. It was a profession I fell into, just one more path in a life that’s been almost entirely haphazard.
Take a look if you have some spare moments. It’s a quick tour through exotic places like San Juan and New Orleans, and even haircuts in the Virgin Islands.
You’ll also encounter mangy dogs, suicides, alcoholism, unionism, motorcycles, political correctness, feminist zealotry, homosexuality, paste pots and old typewriters.
On the left is Rosa DeLauro, a U.S. representative from Connecticut.* Can you guess which party she belongs to?
On the right is Tomi Lahren. She is not a politician. She is a well-known television political commentator. Can you guess which party she belongs to?
DeLauro came to my attention yesterday due to a speech she made Friday during the debate on the ObamaCare replacement. Here is a short excerpt of her rant.
The ObamaCare replacement, something abysmal from Paul Ryan, was pulled at the last moment, thank God, but that’s not the theme of today’s post.
The theme is that these photos illustrate beautifully — literally in Lahren’s case — the difference between today’s Republican and Democrat parties.
Tip of the sombrero to The Gateway Pundit for bringing this to my attention.
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* Click on DeLauro’s photo to get the full impact, to see her in all her wacky splendor. She’s 73 years old, the Woodstock Generation! She could strut the streets of San Miguel de Allende, and no one would even notice.
Being single doesn’t hold much appeal, and now that I’m considerably older, it holds even less.
Actually, I loathe being single. Maybe I subconsciously married someone 16 years my junior to virtually guarantee that I’ll sail off into the ether before she does.
She goes to the gym three evenings a week. During those times, when I walk through the bedroom, the above is what I see, and I imagine it as a permanent scene. Grim.
AS LEFTISTS continue to swoon, roll their eyeballs and riot in the streets over the presidency of Donald Trump, let us pause and gaze back at the Barry Obama years.
A tip of the sombrero to The Beltway Times for bringing this video to my attention.
