I suppose I should start with the party last night. I decided to combine my two favorite costumes (from when I was a puppy) into one silly legend (now that I'm a puppy.) I went trick-or-treating (in my case, "Death or Candy!") most often, as either the Lone Ranger or the Devil. I went in both cases several different times. (The neighbors forgave me. They didn't give me any bleedin' CANDY, but they forgave me.....) I was never a super-hero (except when I was the Lone Ranger or the Devil). I did dress up as the Green Hornet one time, but otherwise I was never once Superman or Batman or Spiderman or Catwoman. I have no idea why. MEANWHILE: last night I had a red mask, red cowboy hat, red revolvers, red holsters, red buckskin costume, and a red tail sticking out of my my.......er.......pants. I was a huge hit. (To be honest, most of the people at the party were drinking.) Now you might wonder if I'm too old to go to Halloween parties. But I personally say (and almost half of my multiple personalities agree with me...) that you're never too old to eat large quantities of free food or drink large quantities of free beer. And for that matter, I'm probably about 7 years younger than Johnny Depp, and HE does Halloween for a living....... Where was I? Oh, yes, random memories. I once dressed up in a suit and tie, and a monster mask, as a "respectable monster." (I had to explain the concept of my costume to at least half the houses I extorted candy from. This lowered my opinion of at least half the people in at least half the houses.) My "respectable monster" was a smashing success. Or maybe it wasn't. How the hell do I know? I do know that NOWDAYS I would never dream of wearing a suit or a tie, unless I happen to be having lunch with Queen Elizabeth or Christina Aguilera. And even then I tend to whine like a weasel in a wok.......
Possibly I have more Halloween memories, or possibly (it could happen!) I'm saving some new ones tomorrow night. Any road, HAPPY HALLOWEEN to all the Poetic Skies members!

Well, here in Kansas City (the Rome of the West), I helped as recently as yesterday to toss our Mayor out the door, down the hill, and into posterity. (I can't remember who I voted FOR, since I only vote AGAINST, of course.) I wanted to put him in an iron maiden and roll him down the world's biggest gravel hill into the world's sharpest cactus, but common sense prevailed, and my iron maiden was lost in a tragic mining accident, anyway. Otherwise, I've been shoveling blizzards some days and cursing global warming other days. Not doing very much writing fit for public reading, unfortunately. I've been doing a lot of recent reading myself, though: a biography of C.S. Lewis, then re-reading "The Screwtape Letters", then a couple of very odd science fiction books (one about robots who created their own Pope), and currently a book about Hannibal. Nothing cheers me up in these treacherous modern times like reading about how the ancient Romans lost over 45,000 legionaires in one day at the slaughterhouse known as the Battle of Cannae. I've been doing some walking on nice days, watching the Spring just starting to spring, but then again there's a snowstorm predicted for Thursday: the best-laid plans of mice and robins. I've also been pretending to work, and they've been pretending to pay me, but the less said about THAT the better. I paid my income taxes, and it felt like the I.R.S. had put ME in an iron maiden. Other than that, my life is its usual same-old same-old. So far.....

It occurs to me that there is a long list of things I haven't done--not that I want to, because I never would, but it DOES seem to keep me out of touch with my own culture. I've never, NEVER, done the following:
Been to a Starbucks (though I have been to local coffee houses)
Bought, sold, or bid on an item on eBay
Watched a video on YouTube
Watched even one episode of any of the so-called "reality" TV shows (except for sports, news, and "Jeopardy!", which don't count, since they actually are real)
Texted while driving
Texted
Tweeted
Been to a Tea Party (though I have been to many cocktail parties)
Watched one minute of a soccer match
Cared about the private lives of celebrities
Watched "The Grammy Awards" show
Watched most awards shows(though I do watch part of the "Emmies" and "Oscars" some years)

"I am noted for being as clean as the rain is long. In fact, not only do I give my snow-white kittens and snow-white puppies snow-white baths in snow-white tubs of snow-white milk, I even put my snow-white amoebas on snow-white microscope slides!"-----Professor Feather T. Barnswallow

I found this in "Harper's Magazine." The Nazis blockaded Leningrad from September 1941 to January 1944, and more than a million people are estimated to have died from starvation and bombardment during the siege. These recipes were found in a letter written during the siege, in 1942, just some of the desperate measures people were driven to in order to survive.

LEATHER-BELT SOUP: It's better to use undied belts. Cut the belts into small pieces, then rinse them in water and let soak. After boiling, season with nettle, salt-bush, chickweed, or other herbs. It's good to add a little bit of vinegar.

SOUP FROM PETS AND DOMESTICATED ANIMALS: Meat is ranked in the following order: dog, guinea pig, cat, rat. Gut the carcass, wash well and place in cold water. Add salt. Cook for one to three hours. For aroma: bay leaf, pepper, any sort of herbs, and, if available, grain.

(Sounds yummy, doesn't it? I think I still prefer tacos..........)

(editor's note: Yeah, I was shocked, too.........)

I won't bother to do the usual cliche' rant of how Valentine's Day is a phoney holiday that exists to increase the profits of the card companies, candy companies, jewelry companies, and other nefarious enterprises. No, I want to talk about how my father always buys my mother a flowering plant (never cut flowers) on February 12th. Yes, 12th. My mother was brought up Baptist and converted to a Catholic before she married my father. And February 12th is the anniversary of her being baptized into the Catholic Church. This, to them, is as unique and special as their wedding anniversary. It is real, it counts, it MATTERS. It has nothing to do with Hallmark and herd animals. Nothing to do with forced expectations or conformity. Everything to do with love.

Announcing my latest and greatest invention: STILETTO SNOW TIRES!! Available in an assortment of sexy black colors and sexy towering heights. Also practical, because stilettos really GRIP the ice and snow (among other things.............) Free igloo with every purchase, free polar bear with every LARGE purchase.

When I was a pup I always used to take the little plastic monkeys from my Barrell O' Monkeys and hang them on the Christmas tree with the other ornaments. My parents would try to stop me, but I would persevere, daring Santa Claus, the fates, and my parents (in approximately that order). I also invented a game to toss the monkeys at the tree from a distance, to try to hook their arms over a twig. I can't remember my scoring system, though. When I was a freshman in highschool I spent Christmas day in the hospital with pneumonia in both lungs (and, it felt like, many other organs.) This wasn't nearly as much fun as it sounds like. I got out of the hospital in time for New Year's but of course I was too week to pay much attention to anything. A few years ago Christmas was very warm, and I spent the afternoon playing whiffle ball with my niece Virginia and nephew Paul, and throwing the football around with them, and proving to them that I could work a hula-hoop twice as good as the two of them combined. (It's still not saying much..........) This year? I'm scheduled to have all 7 nieces and nephews IF the weather co-operates. But at the moment we're having rain changing to sleet and freezing rain and the snow is coming in later tonight, maybe 6 inches or more. Right now it looks iffy...........

My nephew Eddie is only four and a half years old, but already he is discerning enough to realize that his Uncle Kevin is a fount of wisdom. (Also a fount of sillyness, but never mind that now.) We were talking the other day, and he mentioned that he wished the weather would warm up so we could go back to the zoo. (I'd taken Eddie and his brother and sister to the zoo a few times last summer and early fall.) I told him that even with a heat wave, most of the zoo would be closed until the spring, the entire African and Australian exhibits, the major bulk of the zoo. Of course, there is good news, because in the spring we'll be getting a new polar bear exhibit. The polar bear is my third favorite animal, behind the noble elephant and the fearsome wolf, and ahead of the wily coyote and the leprous leopard. So I began to wax eloquent. I told Eddie it would be really fun to watch the polar bear swim around in its pool, watching through the glass to see it underwater. Eddie's eyes shone in anticipation. "Plus," I continued, "they'll probably let you feed the bear." "We can feed the bear?" Eddie asked his wise old parakeet of an uncle. "Yes, you should always feed the bears," I told him. "They'll probably have seals for sale to feed him." "The bear wil eat the seal?" Eddie asked, with a pondering expression on his little face. "Well, if the seal ate the BEAR it would be like the Chiefs beating a REAL football team, which we know is impossible. Any road, the seals probably taste just fine as they are, but of course we would pour barbecue sauce on OUR seal. After all, in Kansas City we put barbecue sauce on everything; we even pour it in our orange juice." Eddie gave me a kind of LOOK, since I've mentioned this theory to him on five or seventy occasions. He himself never puts barbecue sauce on ANYTHING, and I sometimes wonder if he is some kind of St. Louis "pod nephew". I went back to the seal. "Of course, seals are heavy, and I think it would take both of us to lift it to toss it to the polar bear. And we also need to think of a name for our seal." "A name for our seal?" Eddie asked his wise old albatross of an uncle. "Of course, I'm sure that seals cost a lot of money, and we should name it before we feed it to the polar bear, after spending all that money on it. By the way, how much do YOU have?" At that point the conversation devolved, as my conversations tend to do, to an attempt by me to borrow money at favorable interest rates...........

The logic of some people purely baffles me. Just how, EXACTLY, do the revelations of David Letterman cheating on his (then) girlfriend somehow rehabilitate Sarah Palin from being an idiot?

Why all the fuss about the garbage barge Rush Limbaugh trying to become a minority owner in the semi-pro football team, the St. Louis Rams? (St. Louis, of course, is a semi-pro town.......) After all, Rush weighs as much as any two offensive linemen put together, so what's the big deal? (And quite frankly, it might be good for Rush to experience life as a minority.)

Because of our extraordinarily cool summer, we here in Kansas City were scheduled to have a first-rate autumn. And we might be having exactly that, but it's hard to tell. I'm pretty sure that the trees would look beautiful in bright sunlight, but all the October days so far have either been cloudy or drizzly or rainy or all of the above. I'm thinking I might have to start walking around town while lugging around my portable spotlight.

WHY do we need a 101 minute movie version of the childrens' book "Where The Wild Things Are" ????? I freely admit that I'm not a big fan of the book. Never was. The only Sendak book I ever liked was "Pierre", because I identified so strongly with the protagonist. And the book was almost all pictures, with a scattered sentence or two here or there. Yet the movie was supposedly Sendak's idea! (Whereas I'm sure Dr. Seuss would've BANNED any attempt to make a live-action "Grinch" or "Cat in the Hat".) Supposedly Sendak told the director to create his own movie. Then why not JUST let him create his own movie, with no involvement by Sendak? Because the book is pre-positioned, pre-sold. Just like "Random Romantic Sandra Bullock Comedy--Part Six". (Check your coat and brain at the door.) Now, I admit that "Where The Wild Things Are" might not be quite as terrible as the commercials make it seem. Yet I would rather forgive John Elway for existing in the first place than ever to WATCH the damn thing.

I've always enjoyed talking to the animals. I don't mean taking things to extremes like Dr. Doolittle, nor do I mean normal everyday type things, such as "Good doggie" or "Nice kitty" or "Dammit, stop humping my leg!" The other day I was taking a walk and noticed a huge dog in the yard I was approaching. It was obviously part mastiff, although it must have had a few other breeds in there, because it was put together very oddly. Its ears didn't match its face, its tail didn't match its legs, its legs didn't match much of anything. Then my attention was diverted by a sign on a telephone pole announcing a lost cat. I looked at the dog and said, "I'll bet you ATE that cat!" The dog never made a sound, neither a bark nor a growl nor a yelp of gladsome tidings. What he did was SMILE......I swear that that expression on his face MUST'VE been a self-satisfied smile. That's what set me off, of course. Otherwise I'd've been off on my merry way. But that smile.....It made me continue our little chat. "Yeah, I bet you've eaten LOTS of cats!" I told the dog, who neither confirmed nor denied this. "Probably eat hamsters for appetizers." (And so forth, in this vein.) What I hadn't realized was that the dog's owner had come up the sidewalk behind me. The dog ran to greet him. The man made no comment. (I think if he'd have said, "Talking to DOGS????" in even a very sneery voice, it might have been less embarrassing.) I turned and walked away, with a VERY red face, and a fervent hope that the man had no friends he could tell about me.......

"A friend isn't there to keep you from falling OFF the cliff. A friend is there to make DAMN sure there's a trampoline at the bottom."-----Professor Feather T. Barnswallow

"The locusts are restless tonight," the Native observed.
"They're CICADAS, dammit!" I shouted, popping the Native into an enormous kettle. There was no water in my kettle, and I had no fire, and the Native was a native of New Hampshire. But STILL!

Which I SUPPOSE is as good a way as any to celebrate your birthday.....Lots of interesting sights along the way, of course. Eggs frying on the sidewalk. Chickens frying on the sidewalk. Dogs, cats, and chimpmunks frying on the sidewalk. I would've been frying on the sidewalk MYSELF if I hadn't had the foresight to wear my thick-soled combat boots.......

"Recently I was at a used book sale (to benefit the worthy charity, 'Paleontologists Without Partners'), and found an old typing instruction booklet, with exercises for beginning typists. These exercises forced the beginning typist to utilize all the various and sundry letters of one various and sundry language (to whit: American). The following caught my eye: 'Jovial Felix danced the mazurka well with quiet Peg.' Two thoughts immediately struck me. First, this sentence must surely rank as one of the worst sentences ever written. Second, this sentence is far better than most sentences in modern novels........"-----Professor Feather T. Barnswallow

Last night was the final episode of my favorite show over the last 8 years, "Scrubs." (Well, PROBABLY the FINAL final.......last year NBC did what THEY thought was the FINAL final, and then ABC was a knight in shining armor and rescued it for one more season. And I heard at least a FEW rumors that it might be back for one more year, although without J.D............) I'm thankful it lasted as long as it did, although both last season and this it was a mid-season replacement, and thus we wuz ROBBED of the episodes we should've been able to see. And when I think of all the absolute dreck on TV these days that's crowding out the .000001% of shows that ARE worth watching........No, no, I mustn't be bitter. And I'll save my rant for those phoney "reality" shows for some other time. (All of them are stupid, of course, like "Dancing With The Has-beens" and "Celebrity Has-been" and "Get Me Out of Here, I'm a Has-been!" But some are raw sewage, like "Fear Factor", "The Bachelorette", or "Joe Millionaire" among MANY others.........But, like I say, I'm saving THAT rant for another time.) Back to "Scrubs": An intelligent and witty show (most sitcoms are neither, of course), with one of the all-time great TV characters in Dr. Cox. He was "House" before "House" was "House", and he did it BETTER. (Although "House" is one of the only OTHER shows I watch that isn't a science documentary, a history documentary, an opera, or Benny Hill..........) The last episode could have had more flashbacks by far (I wonder if there were legal problems because of the network switch........), and, all-told, it didn't rise to the all-time great final episodes of things like "Seinfeld". (Which was the best ever.) But the parade of people in J.D.'s life at the almost-end, and the movies playing of J.D.'s hoped-for future were fine. The last roll-the-credits hugs and bloopers were also fine. I would have liked to have had a collection of clips BEFORE the final episode (which was the case for things like "Seinfeld" and "Friends"), but I suppose you can't have everything. And now I can't have "Scrubs" anymore. Excuse me while I weep................

My first suggestion, of course, was to whack him repeatedly over the head (possibly with The Count........) while counting, until he expired. (Elmo, NOT The Count.) Now may I humbly suggest that we use Elmo as a crash test dummy. On the down side, we wouldn't learn much about either people or cars this way. On the up side, Elmo would be in a LOT of wrecks.....

two weasels playing air hockey
two feral bankers playing Russian roulette
"gnome earplugs for sale: cheap!" (HI, Bridget!)
a suit of armor on a slip-and-slide
the dastardly plots of alternate Wednesdays
when cattle prods go bad
when archbishops go bad
when the buttermilk goes bad
when this top ten list goes bad
AND the number one idea I'll never turn into a story or a poem:
The way a crow shook down on me/a koala bear from a eucalyptus tree

I went to the zoo Saturday with 4 nieces and nephews (two of each) ranging from the youngest who turns 3 in September to the oldest who turns 14 in August. Both nieces, and my nephews turn 4 and 7 respectively, and hopefully respectfully, in June. (A nice range of them: I can read Dr. Seuss to the little ones, and discuss "Twilight" with Virginia...........) Like every other time I've been to the zoo with kids (except for when I was one myself), they were absolutely FASCINATED by the geese, the ducks, the fish, and the turtles in the ponds and streams of the zoo. Not to mention the squirrels and bunnies. When I was a kid I had me some sense, as I recall, and liked the exotic animals. You know, the way God intended. But my nieces and nephews, and all the other little kids we saw, were so excited by the ordinary animals that I despair for the wildlife. Not that they had anything against the tigers or elephants. (They didn't even really have anything against the two dromedaries who were mating. The zoo doesn't really need to be THAT educational.........) It's just that they found the other animals a lot of fun. Sigh. We rode the tram home to the zoo entrance from the African section, and all the kids on the tram got excited to see a calico cat walking along a stream bed. Now, we'd JUST seen lions a little while ago, and tigers earlier in the day. But that calico cat really got their attention.............And my nephew Eddie wouldn't let me sing. Now, it's true that although I can write fairly good song parodies, when I sing I sound something like Donald Duck gargling with barbed wire. But I always thought nephews were supposed to indulge their uncles........After awhile, he wouldn't even let me whistle or hum. Although I didn't take seriously Eddie's threat to throw me in the seal lion tank if I kept doing it, for some reason I did stop. Of course, I got my revenge later. Spiderman was there for Earth Day festivities, and he was working the crowd of kids. He asked them what other super-heroes they knew about. Of course, the kids were shouting out "Batman" and "Superman" and "The Hulk." (Who I hear is incredible.......) I whispered, "Eddie, yell out 'The Watchmen!" He didn't know who they were, of course, but he admires his uncle so much (except for the singing, whistling, and humming) that he did yell out "The Watchmen!" Eddie is only 3 and 10 months, but can be quite loud. None of the kids knew what he meant. Many of the adults did, however, and some of them gave me a dirty look, assuming correctly that I was the instigator. But I've been given dirty looks by experts............All in all, it was a very fun day, filled with zebras and laughter. I just wish our zoo had bears and wolves. What's a zoo without bears and wolves? We DO have dingos and African wild dogs (not to mention bat-eared foxes), but no bears at all. Oh, well, if we did have them they probably wouldn't let me sing, either........

JUST exactly typical of recent years, the Royals had their opening day cancelled.......on account of SNOW (in Chicago). I used to be a HUGE baseball fan. I read all the biographies of all the great players, I played it, I played dice and later computer versions of it, I saw all the baseball movies (when I was a little kid one of my favorite movies was "The Pride of St. Louis" about Dizzy Dean. Now, I hate St. Louis with a fiery passion, but IF I'd been born several decades sooner than I was, I'd have liked to have lived in St. Louis and watched Dizzy Dean pitch.), and I went to a bunch of games a year. I collected baseball cards, I watched the Ken Burns documentary on "Baseball" (I have it in my collection), and I've spent a few afternoons at the national Negro Leagues Museum here in Kansas City. (Which I'd advise anybody visiting Kansas City to visit, it's a fascinating place.) I suppose I only like old baseball these days, not modern. Baseball actually before my own time. (For that matter, baseball in the 19th century has a certain charm of its own, and I can still read biographies and histories of that era.) That started to change with the strike of 1994, which cancelled the World Series (and, yes, I'm still bitter about that, and if you think it's silly to hold a grudge that long, I'd better not mention that I never could stand that damn Trans-continental Railroad........). The change accelerated because ever since then, my team has had ONE winning season, I think. When your own team can't beat Little Leaguers, it's hard to work up any enthusiasm. And of course the Steroids Era further eroded my interest; people should EARN their home runs. (Not to mention the new ballparks have tiny outfields these days, and even clean players get so many cheap ones it's ridiculous.) Greedy players, greedy owners, an imbecile for the Baseball Commisioner...........all the usual suspects. But this season for the first time since 2003 (the last time the Royals barely had a winning season) I'm actually looking forward to things. Probably by the end of April I'll have tossed them over-board, but that's better than tossing them over-board in spring training, which I've done most years recently.......

When I was a little kid making my First Communion, the teacher of our religion class had all of us write a short paper about our thoughts about it. I suggested that they serve it with hot cocoa. Now, I was NOT trying to be a smart-ass (although within a very few years I had devolved into the dreaded "class clown" type, and I've pretty much been stuck in that mode ever since). I was being serious, and I honestly thought it was a good idea. I wasn't punished, although I was "talked to" (and, for a while there, stared at......) I still think it was a good idea, and if I ever meet the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury I'm going to get THEIR takes on the topic.

(for NON-serious blather, read my Jock Justice story)

I won't bother to do the usual cliche' rant of how Valentine's Day is a phoney holiday that exists to increase the profits of the card companies, candy companies, jewelry companies, and other nefarious enterprises. No, I want to talk about how my father always buys my mother a flowering plant (never cut flowers) on February 12th. Yes, 12th. My mother was brought up Baptist and converted to a Catholic before she married my father. And February 12th is the anniversary of her being baptized into the Catholic Church. This, to them, is as unique and special as their wedding anniversary. It is real, it counts, it MATTERS. It has nothing to do with Hallmark and herd animals. Nothing to do with forced expectations or conformity. Everything to do with love

Hello? Is this the White House? It is? Fine, fine. I never actually talked to a house before....no, Ma'am, I'm sure you ARE very tired of that joke, even though it's only your second week at the switchboard.....Anyway, may I please speak to Obama? No, I may not speak to Obama? May I please speak to Obama's mama? No, I may not speak to Obama's mama.....I may speak to Obama's mama's llama? ALPACA! No, no, Ma'am, I'm not angry at all, I just never could tell the difference between a llama and an alpaca.....you'll connect me to him? Thank you. Hello? Am I speaking to Obama's mama's llama? I am? And may I call you Mister Llama? No, I may not call you Mister Llama.......I may call you Fred? VICUNA! No, no, sorry, Fred, I just never could tell the difference between a llama, an alpaca, and a vicuna.....I see......you're bigger than those other ones.....you're stronger than those other ones......you're faster than those other ones......That kind of makes you a bionic Obama's mama's llama, doesn't it? Well, yes, Fred, that was quite a tongue twister, and I think I sailed through it with flying colors.....Why am I calling? Well, you see, Ellen DeGeneres does have a point. And I'd like to take it away from her.......I see, you don't do that kind of thing. Do you know anybody who might do that kind......no, I don't actually have Tony Soprano's phone number........yes, it was nice talking to you, too, Fred, and remember, we'll always have Argentina.......on account of that whole you being a llama thing.......yes, yes, goodbye to you, too, Fred. [hangs the phone up] Well, HE was no help at all! I wonder if I should try giving a call to Joe Biden's WOMBAT?

I have no time or patience for women who cork tease. After all, cork is a very fine wood (one of our very finest), found in a wide range of quite useful products, so women should never tease cork. And they better stay away from MY bottle! (I hope if anybody chances to read this, that they will have minds as clean as my own, and not think I was making some kind of TYPO.........)
And now that that bit of sillyness is over, I'd like to talk about my passion for ecological fashion. I'm very fond of wearing turtlenecks. No, not the sweaters. It's just that when I kill a turtle I hate to waste any of the parts........

When I was about 10, I was reading "All Creatures Great and Small", the classic about the young animal doctor in rural England of the late 1930's. I'd lost my bookmark, and took the book and flipped open to a page, trying to find my place, when I turned to the page where the vet is getting married. (He'd already met the girl although just recently, the part I was up to.) Now all the surprise was spoiled! I put my book behind the radiator for a few days, hoping to forget the wedding, so when I went back to reading it I could be surprised. (Silly, I know, but you have to remember I was only about 10 years old. Years later, when there was an episode of "Friends" of Joey and Phoebe putting sad books into the freezer, I remembered my book behind the radiator.