AN OPEN LETTER TO BLACK AMERICANS

It was time, and past time, for America to elect a black President. Had the right man been running, I would have voted for him. I believe that the election of such a man could have gone a long way toward healing many of the hurts that still plague this nation. When Barack Hussein Obama announced his candidacy, hope rose in the hearts of black Americans. That's understandable. He looked so good, like the answer to prayers. He's charismatic, delivers a speech remarkably well, as long as his teleprompter is working, and it usually does. He spoke eloquently of "hope and change." He promised to right the wrongs done to the down-trodden (presumably meaning blacks) over the years. He promised to share the wealth, to give everyone "a piece of the pie." Most important of all to a lot of people, he was black. I overheard one very young woman say, "Well, I voted for him. He's cute and he's black and that's all I needed to know." However, I also heard one older, more experienced black man say, "He's just an empty suit. He talks, but he doesn't say anything."

Yes, it's easy to see why the black community would vote for him, at least at first glance. However, let's dig a little deeper, let's examine the hope that was in the hearts of the voters, and let's take a look at what they got.

They thought they were electing one of their own. A black man, a brother, someone who understands, who was a part of their struggle over the years. Well, he's black, I suppose, at least partly. Never mind that his mother was lily-white, and apparently was a woman of unusual social and political proclivities. His father did have black skin, but he was a Kenyan, not an American black. So what we actually got was a half-blood Kenyan, someone who has absolutely no knowledge of what it means to grow up black in America. We needed a man who was a child in America in the forties and fifties, who might have grown up in Birmingham or Atlanta, who experienced segregation and separate water fountains, who personally remembers Selma, who might have been among the first students to integrate a school. We needed a man who knows what it feels like to hear his father addressed as "boy." We needed a man who slept on a pew in an AME church, with his head on his grandma's shoulder while his mama sang in the choir, and where the pastor preached love and forbearance and the promises of God.

Instead, we got a man who grew up in Indonesia, far removed from America, who was educated in Muslim schools, who still thinks the Muslim call to prayer is "one of the most beautiful sounds on earth." This man's black grandma, presumably, was still somewhere in Kenya, living in poverty and in the fear that dominates most Muslim societies, particularly for women. Little is known about his contact with his black family, but it appears that it was limited to a few visits. His white grandma wasn't beside him in church, either; instead, she and his grandpa were busy consorting with known Socialists, Marxists and two-bit terrorists. His mother deposited him with her parents at some point and left him, so we can imagine that he sat in their living room and absorbed a boatload of Marxist ideology.

His mother split with his Kenyan Muslim father, and later took up with an Indonesian Muslim. (There's just something about those Muslim men, apparently, to some women.) Little Barack was adopted by this man, and became "Barry Soetoro". He attended a Muslim school, registered as a Muslim. As nearly as can be determined, his Christian experience consists of listening to the rants of Jeremiah Wright, and that took place in the last twenty years or so, as he was being groomed for the political role he was to assume. His handlers obviously knew that an outright Muslim wouldn't be elected President of the United States, at least not yet. Still, his early background appears to be primarily Muslim, and as my own grandma used to quote, "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree."

So, to my black friends I would say - I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you were misled, sorry that the man you thought you were getting wasn't who you hoped he would be. I can understand why you voted for him, I really can. You had high hopes, and who can blame you? Now, as for those few of my white friends who voted for him, I have to say - I don't understand. I guess your daddy was a Democrat or something, and you just can't make the break.

So, we've got him for another two and a half years, and then we get another chance! That's the good news. This IS still America, at least for now. We don't have a dictator-for-life. Every four years, we get another chance, and if necessary, we can right a wrong. We and our children and grandchildren are going to spend a lot of years paying for this particular wrong, but at least we can start over and try to correct some of the democracy-threatening, Constitution-smothering, Socialist disasters he has created.

Again to my black friends - I would hope that you will start now, and find a man who really is what you hoped Barack Obama was. Find a man with a personal knowledge of the black experience in America. We don't need a hatred-spewing, pot-boiler of a man like Jesse Jackson or Jeremiah Wright, or a bitter zealot like Louis Farrakhan. We need a good and godly man, with solid political and administrative experience, someone who has actually held a job, one with great responsibility, and proven himself worthy. We need a man who loves America in spite of her faults, and who will work to rebuild her into the great nation she can and should be. Present such a man (or woman) and they will be elected. Black, white, brown or green, it doesn't matter. Color is not the issue. It's just as wrong to vote FOR a person because of their color as it is to vote AGAINST a person because of their color. What matters is WHO they are, and what they believe in, and that they have a positive vision for this country, this democracy, this America of ours. That's what matters!

IF YOU WORK THE SYSTEM, THE SYSTEM WORKS

In the last post, I said I'd tell you about someone who found out the system isn't as broken as we might think. Here goes:

Several years ago, I had an acquaintance who had serious health problems, no education, no job, not much going for her. She was a severe diabetic and couldn't have held a steady job if she had found one. When she was feeling up to it, she cleaned motel rooms for minimum wage.

She would run out of her glucose monitoring strips, and out of insulin, and her blood sugar would rise to life-threatening levels. At that point, she would appear in the ED at the hospital where I work, and would usually go into ICU for a couple of days, then another week or so in general care. During the last phase, she would attend classes in our diabetic clinic and would be sent home with a supply of strips and insulin.

Since this hospital receives no government assistance, it does not provide ongoing free care. The care she was given during her admissions was not intended to be free, but she would be admitted nevertheless, because that's the law. She was ill, and could not be turned away. She was admitted, with the hospital knowing full well they would eat the bill. The end result of all this was a bill totaling over $200,000. She volunteered this information to me one day, so that's how I know.

I asked her if she had ever considered going to Parkland's free diabetic clinic. She replied that she called once, but they gave her an appointment about six months down the line, and she got sick and went to our hospital before that time arrived. She said she would like to get in the clinic, but just couldn't wait that long.

I suggested to her that she wait until she knew her sugar was rising, then pack a lunch and a good book and go to Parkland's ED. I told her she would have to wait, but it would be worth it, because that would put her on the fast track for their clinic. I could tell she wasn't buying it, so I dragged out some bigger guns. I told her that many hospitals were struggling financially because of unpaid bills like hers, and that if it continued, there might come a day when we would no longer be there for her! She said she'd think about it.

Well, just under a year later, I encountered her one day and she was just joyful, gave me a big hug and thanked me over and over. It seems she had followed my suggestion, and went to Parkland's ED one morning. She waited all day, but was finally seen in the late evening. They treated her rising sugar levels on the spot (not severe enough for hospitalization), gave her strips and insulin, and made an appointment for her for the next week with the diabetic clinic. Through the clinic, she was given strips and insulin as needed, she received laser surgery on her diabetes-damaged eyes which halted the advancing damage, her ulcerated feet were treated and healed, and she was put on medication to help her neuropathy. She had a hot-button number to call if she was in distress.

Naturally, she was just elated, and for the first time, had real hope. Because Parkland is tax-supported, they can offer these things. She just needed to position herself to receive them.

The point here is simple. Healthcare is available, if you do your part first. Someone just looking at her pre-Parkland situation might conclude that our health care system was letting this woman down, but that would not be true. It is true that she can't just waltz into a private endocrinologist's office at her convenience, and be given everything she needs, all the time, with no requirements on her. For that matter, neither can I. In order to do that, I have to do something first. I have to hold a job that provides insurance, or I must pay the premiums on private insurance. If I don't - or can't - do that, then I would need to go to Parkland. I am able to hold a job, so I have insurance. She was not able, so her responsibility was to play by the rules and make herself available to the Parkland system.

I'm sure there are people who, for whatever reason, don't fit in anywhere. Maybe their income is a little too high for one and a little too low for the other. I don't know, but I do know there are those who fall through the cracks. I believe it's in this area that some tweaking of the system is needed. Identify these folks, determine what the glitch is, and fix it.

Along with that, identify the wasteful spending and plug the leaks. These measures would, in my opinion, go a long way toward fixing our "broken" system. I really don't think it's broken nearly as badly as we're being told. Let's fix the obvious things first, and then we can see if it needs anything more.

HEALTHCARE REFORM REVISITED

Well, it has been about five months since I last posted here, and it would appear things haven't changed much. The battle still rages over that ridiculous monstrosity our President and his Socialist comrades are trying to shove on us. They are employing their usual tactics - throwing up smoke screens, making ridiculous charges, trying to confuse the issue any way they can.

A favorite ploy is to accuse the conservative right of being so stupid that we don't even realize that healthcare reform is needed. This, of course, is utter nonsense. Of course we realize that reform is needed. It's just that we don't believe this bill is the answer. It's too complicated, no one understands it, few on the left have even bothered to read it, and it gives with one hand while taking with the other.

The left always assumes that the right has made an all-encompassing judgment. They never seem to understand that we can acknowledge a problem, but not necessarily fall in love with their solution. Case in point - our president. I have said many times, as have thousands of others, that America had reached a point where we were ready for a black President, that such a choice would go a long way toward healing the hurts that still exist in this country. Silly me - I guess I thought that when such a man was found and elected, he would be an American black, a product of this country. He would naturally have African ancestors, as all American blacks do, just as most of us American whites have European ancestors, but he would be an American born and raised, and would have some sense of what it means to be an American.

As I said - silly me. What did we get? We got a half-blood Kenyan, who spent most of his formative years outside this country, who does not share much of the experiences we all had growing up here, and who apparently does not even share the Judeo-Christian religious beliefs of the majority of our citizens. He says he does, but his actions and words spoken in unguarded moments cast doubt on that.

So, I'm still waiting for that black American President. If the Republicans have any sense at all, they'll find such a man, vet him VERY carefully, be prepared to disclose everything about him down to his shoe size and a copy of his first-grade report card, check his closets for skeletons and shake his tree to see what falls out, then run him against the incumbent in 2012. That should be extremely interesting.

Now, as for the original intent of this entry, to point out some things about healthcare reform. I repeat, we conservatives do see that there's a problem, and we acknowledge that reform is needed. This bill just isn't the answer.

One problem is in wasteful spending. Money is spent where it shouldn't be, which makes it impossible to spend it where it should be spent. Example - when my dad had a knee replacement, Medicare dictated that he was to have a bracing device that would force his leg into straight-leg extension, to be worn for an hour three times a day. It cost $1600 and Medicare paid for it. My dad didn't want it, told the doctor he didn't want it and wouldn't use it. The doctor told him Medicare would consider his treatment incomplete and would pay nothing, if he didn't order the brace. So we brought the thing home and put it in a closet.

My ever-resourceful dad took a large dishtowel, tied a knot in two opposite corners, and tucked large heavy cans of pork-and-beans in the resulting pockets. Sometimes he used 5-lb bags of flour. He then sat in his chair, heel up on an ottoman and hung the dishtowel across his knee. Voila! Straight leg! He could hang the towel there in two seconds, vs the ten minutes it took to strap into the brace, which was very heavy and uncomfortable. If he needed to get up, he just dropped his foot off the ottoman, and his make-shift appliance settled to the floor.

Final note - when cleaning out his home at his death, I found the brace, carried it around in my car trunk for a while, and finally gave it away. I tried to give it back to the rehab center, but they refused, explaining that those braces are "custom-fitted." That's wasteful, any way you slice it, and I suspect something similar happens every day.

We need to examine things like that - cut out the waste, trim the fat, ask questions like "Is this necessary? Is it effective?" We should go through the Medicare regulations and look for words like "always" and "must", or "never." Words with absolute connotations are usually a red flag, and bear investigation. My mother taught me - and surely yours did too - to "never say never." Good advice. In my dad's case, you can bet there's a line somewhere that reads something like this: "Rehab following knee replacement surgery must include the use of a custom-fitted brace in order to achieve straight-leg extension. Failure to do so will result in incomplete rehab and therefore will not be reimbursed." There's that "must." Why couldn't it say "Rehab following knee replacement surgery will have as a goal a return to straight-leg extension, and the therapist should employ any reasonable means to achieve that goal. If an appliance is necessary, it will be reimbursed."

Of course, all of this makes too much sense, and therefore would just never work in Washington. In order to pass there, any document must be confusing, obscure, double-tongued, and must have many little loopholes and pockets where pork can be tucked in. I wouldn't be surprised if the brace-makers had a hand in engineering the little requirement that resulted in my dad receiving a brace he didn't want or need.

I just have to say this, though. While the system is broken, it is perhaps not as broken as we are led to believe. In another entry, I'll tell you about a friend who found that out, much to her surprise.

Mike Rogers on Healthcare Bill

This first Youtube clip is interesting. It's Mike Rogers, (R-Michigan), on the new healthcare bill. Hooray for Mr. Rogers, he sees the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NCvNDLfc&feature=player_embedded


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOOfQOwcdBY&NR=1

The second one is just funny. It illustrates the difficulty one encounters when trying to make sense of nonsense, or trying to describe the indescribable. It's a bit like unscrambling eggs. Watch it once, maybe several times (it's very short), and then try to tell someone else what he said. Good luck! By the way, while you're in Youtube, check out some of the links on Mr. Waxman. He's actually pretty articulate. It's just on this preposterous bill that he loses it. I think that's understandable.

One more thing - we are never, EVER, going to get a "real" healthcare plan out of Congress until and unless they are made - forced, if necessary - to place themselves and their families in the hands of whatever solution they concoct. Right now, in the "let them eat cake", protected circumstances in which they dwell, they have nothing to gain by putting forth much energy to craft something other people can live with (literally). Nothing but their hope of reelection next time, but I'm not sure that has dawned on many of them. And even if they're booted out, who cares? They have a generous pension, for life.

Friends, I will be the first to agree that we need healthcare reform. This bill just simply isn't it. It needs to be scrapped, the laws changed so that Congress will have to personally live with whatever they craft, and then they can be given the charge to go out and come up with a plan for the nation as a whole. You can bet they'd come up with spun gold.

Of course, we all know that changing the laws to bring Congress under whatever national healthcare plan we have is not going to happen. To do so, Congress would have to propose the bill, and pass it themselves. Dream on, for therein lies the rub. Right now, Congress is like a six-year-old who is allowed to set his own bedtime, limit his own candy consumption, and stroll through any toy store, taking things off the shelves and never having to pay. Do you think he's going to voluntarily surrender that freedom and place himself under parental control? Ha!

I'm beginning to hold out some real hope that this bill will fail. However, the pork vendors are still at work, so we can't be too sure, not yet. Maybe with the passing of the Bull of the Woods, the climate may change a little bit on Capitol Hill, but I doubt it.We can only hope that there are enough men (and women) who think like Mike Rogers, to keep this travesty from passing.

DON'T TRY TO KID ME, BOYS!

This was sent to me by a friend. Thanks, Kathy. Check it out:


http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2529545/A-bra-for-men-is-the-new-hot-item.html

This is absolutely the silliest thing I've seen yet. I no longer wear the things, since I no longer have anything to put in them, but back in the day, at a hefty 36C, I found them more annoying and confining than anything. I never liked them, and would go without when possible, such as when wearing a sweatshirt.

Just to illustrate how brain-washed we women are, I spent several years, a lot of money and effort and endured a lot of frustration after my surgeries, trying to fake a "chest". First it was just one, in which case I had no choice, obviously. One can't run around one-sided, though I did, at least at home. That was a real bother, over a period of more than twenty years. The fakes never matched up with the real one, and they were heavy, hot and expensive, as much as $300 each. Also, they required constant readjusting. Miserable.

Then several years ago, when the remaining one was removed, I thought I'd find it easier to match up since both were fake, and could go smaller and lighter, with little bags of fluff instead of the heavy silicone things. etc. Well, it didn't work too well. The surgeries weren't identical, so what works on one side doesn't work on the other. "Small and light" is a pipe dream, too. I quickly found that weight helps a lot in keeping things in place, while "light" tends to migrate to astonishing locations. However, weight soon digs the straps into one's shoulders and becomes very uncomfortable. Also, if a heavy fake did manage to escape its holder, it would drop to the floor with a thud. That wouldn't be cool.

A regular bra refuses to stay in place, and is constantly riding up. You must remember, there is no longer anything there to hold it in place. (Those men in the "man bras" are going to have the same problem.) Oh, the specialty shops offer all sorts of contraptions - I call them industrial strength bras. They're equipped with all manner of straps and pulleys, and have snaps, hooks, velcro and laces. There are sewn-in pockets to keep the heavyweights from falling out. For the problem of "riding up", they have a three-inch wide band with a rubberized layer next to your skin, and the whole thing is fitted so tightly that breathing becomes your highest priority and you forget all about the weight of the straps on your shoulders. Naturally, that rubberized part quickly becomes hot and irritating, and blisters are a distinct possibility.

These things wear on one's patience at times, and once in a while, I confess I think "why me?" I don't tarry long at that place, though. Cancer happens, and for some, the outcome is not good. When it happened to me, I was one of the blessed ones. Even though the first one was in a fairly advanced stage, through the hands of a good surgeon, the skill of a good oncologist during a year of treatment, and most of all, the blessings of a loving God in response to the prayers of a whole lot of family and friends, I am now thirty years down the road from that original cancer, with no recurrence. The second one was an incidental, a new occurrence caught in a microscopic stage after an elective surgery done to try to simplify the prosthetic situation. We didn't even know it was there until after the surgery, and Pathology found it. No treatment was needed. Again, God was good. That forces me to ask again, from a different perspective, "why me?"

After that second surgery, I struggled for a few months with this bra and that one, this prosthesis and that, even tried birdseed in a nylon stocking tied to make a small bag (suggested by a friend who knows a female impersonator and that's what he uses!) My birdseed promptly got ants in it, so that didn't work too well.

Believe me, I've tried everything. So, one day as I was pinning, and nipping and tucking, adjusting and sweating, it hit me. Why on earth am I putting myself through this?? I've done nothing wrong, committed no crime or sin, I simply got breast cancer. No fault of mine, I was a random victim. It happens. I am not required to punish myself because of it. I pulled off whatever annoying thing I was working with at the time, stuck it in a drawer, and there it remains, with all the other relics of my attempts to look like I once did. (I threw the birdseed out to the birds, ants and all.)

The best option I've seen so far was discovered by a friend with a similar problem. She just wears a little cotton camisole, pins her little fluffs to it in the appropriate places, and pins the camisole to her panties so it won't shift around or ride up. It works for her. I hate it. First of all, she's thin and I'm not, and I think that makes a difference in how the whole plan works. Also, she's always cold, and I'm always too warm, and that camisole under whatever else I'm wearing doesn't help. Still, as I said, it's the best option so far, and one of these days, maybe if I lose a little weight and cool off some, I might employ it. Or I might not.

For now, I'll continue to do as I've done for the past six years or so. Go without. So sue me. I have no gripe, no complaint, no whine. I have only gratitude that I've been given these last thirty years, and with God's approval perhaps a few more. Without those years, I probably would have seen only two of my ten grandchildren, and perhaps only one, if the disease had moved rapidly. If I look a little funny, I really don't care. Well, that's not entirely true. I do care, a little bit, but not enough to make me put up with the discomfort and inconvenience of trying to simulate what is no longer there. Okay, that's not completely true, either. I do have this new bra, which shows a bit of promise, but I don't care enough to make trying it out a priority. I've had it for two weeks and haven't worn it yet.

Now, to speak to the original point of this whole thing - who on earth do the makers of those "man bras" think they're kidding? And who do the wearers think they're fooling? “They’re not interested in cross-dressing, they just find wearing a bra relaxes them.” Oh, please. Give me a break. Come on, girls - just how "relaxed" does your bra make you feel? What's the first garment you shed when you get home, after you get your blouse off? Right! Please don't try to convince me that there's anything remotely "relaxing" about wearing a bra! That dog won't hunt, it really won't.

Apparently this phenomenon originated in Japan. I suppose the men will be mincing around in kimonos next, wearing big black wigs with knitting needles stuck in them, and trying to convince the world that they feel "more relaxed." Come on, Japan, admit it. You've got the same problems we have, yours are just still in the closet. Sorry, but all the well-worded advertising hype in the world isn't going to hide the truth.

A woman with two mastectomies is never going to look perfectly natural, and a man wearing a bra is never going to look relaxed. It's a law of nature, like gravity. And as we all know, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

NANNY, NANNY HAS MADE A BOO-BOO

Dear Reader...

Please take a minute to follow this link:

http://townhall.com/columnists/TerryJeffrey/2009/07/08/the_light_bulb_liars

I haven't vetted this article through my usual, trusty Truthorfiction.com. The reasons are: it is from a well-known news-reporting agency, and I have read and confirmed everything in this article before, when doing my own Google searches on the silly little curly light bulbs, and was as astonished then by the contradictions as I am now.

One very official-looking document I read gave detailed instructions for cleaning up a broken fluorescent bulb, part of which is repeated in the attachment here. The one I read went into greater detail with regard to ventilation, using sticky tape to pick up fragments, and using a wet paper towel to wipe over the area. It assumed the break was on a hard surface - (I guess they just don't break over carpet) and then went on to state that the clean-up materials and the broken glass must then be placed in a plastic Ziploc bag, and that bag placed inside another one. I notice this article mentions a glass jar with a metal lid. It is then deemed safe to put it in your garbage, as the double bagging (or the jar) will keep the mercury from escaping into the environment.

Excuse me? Have any of you ever visited the local dump? Well, I have. The garbage is piled into huge hills and dunes, and is continually being pushed around and redistributed by huge, chugging bulldozers. If one of those little double-bagged packages or a glass jar (with a metal lid!) survives being mauled by a bulldozer, then all I can say is, the Ziploc manufacturers are missing a wonderful Kodak moment to use in their ad campaigns. Also, when I die, my kids can save a lot of money by just burying me in a big mayonnaise jar.

Another recommendation is to return the bulbs to the place where you bought them, or to your local Fluorescent Bulb Recycling Center. Well, to the best of my knowledge, we don't have one of those critters around here, so I ran a little test. The last time I visited Lowe's, I walked up to the service desk and spoke to the young man behind the counter. I lied and told him I had a broken fluorescent light bulb in a double plastic bag in my car, and wondered if I could return it there for recycling. He just stared at me, and finally called his manager, who also stared at me and stammered something about "that disposal system has not been set up yet." So - it would appear that if you're planning to break any fluorescent bulbs, you had better wait a year or two.

Now, do I use any fluorescent bulbs at all? Yes, two. The light in my front hall bathroom stays on at all times, simply because I don't like having a whole section of my house in darkness. It is a visible light to anyone passing by, and if I go into the entry for something, that whole three-bedroom section down the front hall is not a dark cave. Also, the lamp beside my chair in the living room remains on. That one lamp illuminates the central core of the house well enough that I could see anyone who might enter, well before they could see me. My house is three rooms wide and three rooms deep, basically a square, so the center does not have windows. A light is a necessary thing for me, since I live alone. I'm not afraid, but I am cautious.

Also, if someone develops a fluorescent bulb that will work in my colored landscape lights out back, I'll gladly use them. They come on at dusk and go off at dawn, and I won't mind their two-minute warm-up. There are seven of them, and I wouldn't mind at all having energy-saving (and money-saving!) bulbs in those fixtures. However, to the best of my knowledge so far, such a bulb is not available. If anyone has different information, please let me know.

Though I hate the greenish light the things put out, I'll put up with it in those two continually-burning fixtures. However, for lights that are frequently turned off and back on, the fluorescents are unacceptable. When first turned on, they are very dim, emitting a sickly, pale green light, and they take a good two minutes to achieve their full potential. I'm not about to put up with that. By the time the thing is bright enough to be functional, I'd be turning it off again. Who needs that? Also, most of the lights in this house are on rheostats, or dimmers, and the fluorescents don't work well in them. They whine, buzz, ring, and usually go out. So instead of a nice, subdued, candle-glow light, you have a choice of bright greenish glare (eventually) or nothing. Can you tell I don't like the fluorescents? Any woman who has ever tried on a swimsuit in a department store dressing room will not have a very positive opinion of fluorescents, either.

As usual, government has gone off half-cocked, and mandated a Chicken Little action in response to a report that the sky is falling. Thank you, Al Gore. Wonder what kind of bulbs he uses in that energy-guzzling house of his? http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/gore-bush-houses.htm

Why does government always take an all-or-nothing approach to things, insisting on being our nanny, our policeman, our boss? Why not make both bulbs available, and let people make their own choice? The fluorescents are fine for long-term, continuous use, and the incandescents are much more attractive for short-term, on again-off again use. Mr. Gore might just be surprised how many of us would make good choices. Not all-encompassing choices, perhaps, but enough to make a big difference. Most people would probably weigh the pros and cons of the things, and use them where they can, as I have - or would, if the bulbs I need were available. Why can't we be trusted to make good decisions? Most of us would, I think. Any good parent knows that most children will respond well when given reasonable choices, but will balk and resist when everything is an order, never a request. But no, it has to be a big old hairy law, forcing us to use the bulbs everywhere, whether we like them or not.

Personally, every time I visit the grocery store, I buy a couple of boxes of incandescent bulbs. I now have enough of them stored in my garage to last until I leave this planet, but just in case, I'm still buying them. Who knows? Maybe I can sell them on the black market in a few years and get rich.

Be blessed, my friends.

SPRING SPRANG, AND DEPARTED.

We are now well into July, and this is the first time I've visited the blog since my granddaughter's wedding. I'm glad I have those memories to fall back on, because the yard surely looks different now!

The heat has taken its toll. My pansies are gone, fainted dead away. The snapdragons are all gone as well, as are almost all the dianthus. I'm glad I planted some petunias around and between the cool-weather lovers, since without them there would be almost no color out there. There are a few roses, the crape myrtles are starting to bloom, and the oakleaf hydrangea is fully loaded with reddish-brown blooms. An interesting plant, the oakleaf. The blooms start out snow white, just elongated clusters called pannicles, many reaching over a foot long. Once they're all open, they begin to turn pink. First they're a faint, shell pink, then they darken until they're a russet red. Finally, the red turns into a mahogany brown, and that's how they remain, into the winter. The bush itself is a thick, sturdy, handsome shrub in its own right.

My beloved irises are long since finished, but a few of them are remontants, and will bless me with another show in the fall. The plumeria is fully leafed out, but so far has no flowers. My friend Beverly has a couple, and both of hers are blooming. I think I'll have to go have a chat with mine. There are a few tired roses, borne on heat-wearied bushes. I need to deadhead those bushes, maybe just go on and prune them deeply, and I'll get another flush of blooms in a few weeks.

It's a constant battle to maintain the pond. The sun causes the algae to proliferate unmercifully. I have a UV light set up on one of the water lines, and it kills the algae that's released in the water, but more is growing and setting itself adrift from the matrix on the sides and bottom all the time. The light keeps it under control so the water isn't green, but the box filter catches all the dead algae and about every twenty-four hours, it has to be pulled up, dismantled and washed out. If this isn't done, the main pump can't run, the waterfall stops, and the fish don't get sufficient aeration. Eventually, the pump will burn out, so I'm careful to clean the filter when it's needed.

The sun. Ah, yes, the ever-present, unrelenting, brutal Texas sun. I finally bought a nine-foot-wide beach umbrella, bright blue, and it helps to shade the pond, thereby reducing some of the sun exposure and slowing the algae growth to a small degree. It's a handsome umbrella, quite reasonable at under $100, tilts, and cranks to furl or unfurl it. It has an airvent in the top, with a circle of loose fabric covering the opening. I named it Fatima, because when it's collapsed down, it looks for all the world like a Muslim woman in a burqa.

My dear friend Eloise bought me an early birthday present. It's a bronze fish, poised on his belly, with his head and tail arched into the air. With the aid of a pump in the pond and a line connected to a point beneath him, he spits a jet of water back into the pond, thereby providing additional aeration. He's adorable, and useful as well.

As I said, the yard is looking pretty tired. That goes for the local wildlife too, especially the birds. I've never seen such tacky-looking birds, as the specimens who are haunting my yard these days. Skinny, molting, sad-eyed critters, of a variety that under the best of conditions would not necessarily be called "pretty", and right now, "tacky-looking" is a compliment. Absent tail feathers in most cases, and when they do have one or two, they're bent or broken. The poor things are hot, and they just stride around in the yard, beaks open, tongues protruding, looking frantic.

There are numerous water sources out there, including a very nice birdbath which I wash out daily and refill, and which is filled again at night when the sprinklers run. There's a large flat boulder with a natural depression, and I keep that washed out and filled as well. Then there's the little fountain/waterfall at the pond, and it always draws a crowd. I keep seed out as well, because I know they're just too hot and tired to hunt for food, and there's plenty of water. I don't know what else I can do to help them, but they just look so pitiful. The cardinals, mockingbirds, bluejays, flickers, robins and sparrows all seem to be doing okay. The grackles are a little ragged, but it's those other birds - cowbirds or whatever they are - that seem to be faring the worst. I haven't seen any starlings in a couple of weeks - I wonder where they went? Wherever it is, I hope they stay.

The squirrels haven't been around as much lately, either. They come by early in the morning, eat their fill if there's fresh feed out, or snuffle through the grass if the table has not been set for them yet. They jump up on the big birdbath and get a drink, or sometimes give me a special show when they come to the little tiled birdbath beneath my window. It has a small boulder beside it, so they can perch on the boulder while they drink from the birdbath. This puts them only about five feet away from me, and they can see me, but they don't seem to mind. Occasionally one will jump onto the window ledge just a couple of feet from me, and will peer in at me, or scratch on the glass, as though to say, "Hey, lady! We need groceries out here!" I usually respond to the demand, and the squirrels will skitter up the tree when I open the back door, but I'm barely back in the house when they're in the middle of the offering I've left them, munching seeds and carrying peanuts away to be buried.

I have amazing things that sprout up in my garden, things I never planted, but they're there. I'm picking tomatoes now from a vine I never planted, there is a cornstalk in the rose island, and last year there were peanut vines everywhere, which produced a lot of peanuts, which were in turn harvested by the furry little peanut farmers. My pear tree is drooping with a heavy load of pears, but the squirrels will get most of them. I don't care, I hope they enjoy them.

The Bible says "To everything there is a season." This seems to be the season for being hot, sticky, weary and thirsty, but just think how good that first cool Texas Norther will feel!