Mean People

Two days ago I fell asleep at the wheel of my car and crashed into a mailbox. I lived and my brand new car sustained damages in the thousands. The mailbox died and had to be replaced. To that end, I gave the owner of the mailbox my name, address and phone number which I watched her enter into her cell phone, and promised to replace it.

The next day my husband spent five hours doing so, first going to the crime scene to assess the situation, then going to the Home Depot half an hour's drive away where he spent $100 on a new mailbox and post, and stick-on numbers for the box. He then returned to the crime scene and, using his post-hole digger, installed the new mailbox, making sure it was to local code. The outside temperature was 87 degrees that day.

I could have left -- my car still drove -- without giving the lady my name or phone number, leaving her broken mailbox on the ground. After all, I was incredibly traumatized and confused by the whole incident and was anxious to get home, crawl into bed and weep hysterically. But I didn't. 

Have we gotten a thank you call or text from either her or her wife, the two ladies of the house? No. Draw your own conclusions regarding Americans, Mainers or lesbians. I have. 

Toughing Out My Cat's Ninth Life

Living with an old cat is not any more fun than living with an old anything, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. Take, for example, my dryer. It no longer dries the clothes the first time I ask. I have to go back to it and rearrange the load, then ask nicely and set the dial for another whole cycle. Who knows why, maybe it's just sick and tired of the whole wash-rinse-spin thing. 

We ditched our old toaster a few weeks ago for only toasting one side of the bread at a time. Ditto our electric coffeepot, which refused to keep the coffee hot once it was brewed.

Old clothes are annoying, what with the stains and rips and the not fitting anymore. Out they go in the trash, or maybe to Goodwill if there is anything left to recommend them.

Parents of course get better treatment, either moving to in an in-law suite if their kids are nice or an assisted living facility if they are not.

Humans cannot abide living with old things, but when it comes to our pets that's a different story, much worse than wet clothes or demanding parents. For example, my 19-year-old Maine Coon Lurch is in his ninth life.  he has been disintegrating before my very eyes for the last year. Once weighing in at 16.5 pounds, he's down to about ten, and all bones.

Lurch is 75% deaf, 50% blind and 100% demented. Still, we feed him and give him fresh water and change the litter and brush his lackluster fur and try to play with him and cuddle him, although he has no interest in much beyond treats and sleeping. He also likes to go outside and sit on the deck and stare into space. Usually he comes right back inside, but today, in a hot 85 degrees, he has wandered off, causing me to cancel all plans so I can stay home and hop from window to window looking out for him.

Since he is deaf, calling out his name is useless. There is simply nothing I can do but wait, which is the worst possible tool in the Doing Department. Sadly this is not my first rodeo so I know how it will end. I just don't want it to be today.

Asleep At The Wheel Wake-up Call

Yesterday at about 2 pm I was driving my month-old beautiful Audi A3 home from a gym workout when I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up to a mailbox crashing into my windshield. It was shocking and dreamlike. Nobody was killed and I did not die, but somebody might have. The car jolted to a stop less than an inch away from a tree.

Now I keep thinking of what might have been. I could have killed a mother wheeling her baby in a carriage. Or an elderly couple out for a walk. Or a cute little doggie. Or a jogger. Or maybe two or three joggers. Or myself. 

Instead I broke somebody's mailbox. 

Instead of sitting at my kitchen table writing this I could be on life-support in an ICU. Paralyzed. A vegetable for the rest of my life. Instead I am awaiting for the body shop to call and give me an estimate for the damage. I am also depressed, alarmed, sobered, scared, tearful and stunned. After driving for 64 years without ever having an accident, I can't say that anymore.

Moral of the story: If you are very tired, don't drive. Also, if you are alive today, thank your lucky stars.

Fat and Skinny Had A Race

Modern life is so confusing. Electronic devices speak to us in many different languages and accents, men wear dresses and call themselves women despite having a penis, and women who menstruate lop off their breasts, grow beards and swear they are guys. 

Something else I find very confusing is this: It's very "In" to be obese and call yourself "curvy" or "plus-size" and pose half-naked on TikTok in your underwear exposing your grossly sagging stomachs and elephantine legs, and get lots of comments like, "You go girl!" and "You are beautiful!"

At the same time, it's very "In" to take Ozempic or Wegovy or Zepbound or Mounjaro or any of the other GLP-1 weight-loss injections or pills even if you are already thin, just to lose a few pounds. This is applauded as a sign you are taking care of yourself and looking your best.

This is like saying it's great to be smart and it's also great to be stupid. Which is not possible, and I'm guessing you know which is better.

Maine's Art Desert

Move to Maine if you like to ski, kayak, swim, sail or hike and eat lobster. You'll have a ball. Do not move to Maine if you are an art lover. You will be disappointed.

The museums, a paltry few, all show the work of the same artists ad nauseam: Winslow Homer, Alex Katz and anyone named Wyeth.

They move the paintings in their collections from room to room. They rearrange the groupings. But believe me, if you've seen them once you've seen them all.

Forget seeing a real-live Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh, Rothko, Kahlo, O'Keefe, Vermeer, Degas, Monet, Manet, Turner or anyone long-dead. Not even a Hockney!

Oh wait -- forgive me. There is a Picasso at the Portland Museum of Art. Small, but nice. I've seen it 100 times in the past 17 years and I always like it.

The (Poor) Nanny

Recently I attended a political fundraiser held at the private home of a neighbor. His property boasts an enormous lawn overlooking the Casco Bay, with beautiful landscaping all around and a stunning water view. The guests numbered about 75, most of whom gathered around a groaning board full of luscious foods and a bar serving beer and wine. The weather was perfect and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Except for one person, an attractive woman in her late 30s or early 40s who stood well apart from the crowd, nursing a glass of white wine.

Naturally I went over to speak to her, having been that loner myself at some parties in the past. It turned out she was the nanny to two young children, ages six and eight, who were present. Also in attendance were the children's parents, grandparents, an uncle and an adult cousin. Yet for some reason that escapes me, the nanny was brought along to keep an eye on the children. 

And so she did. In fact, that's all she did. As the rambunctious youngsters ran around the vast property, she tailed them like a hired private eye while their numerous family members were busy drinking, talking, eating and yukking it up with the other guests.

I hope that nanny was being paid handsomely. Very handsomely. And I also hope that when those kids grow up, they'll love their nanny more than their shithead parents.

America's Hitler

Adolf Hitler is the worst bad boy that ever was. If you want to insult someone, just say they are like Hitler -- it'll drive them crazy.  He was responsible for the death of millions upon millions of innocent people, and destroyed the reputation of Germany and all Germans forever. They are all still trying to live it down and insist they had no part in his terrible reign.

So it will be some day with Barack Obama, who in a 2008 campaign speech vowed to "fundamentally transform the United States of America," sowing the seeds for the destructive ideologies that are quickly overtaking what we know as the Democratic Party.

According to multiple recent surveys, most Democrats agree with the principles of the DSA, a group that is reproducing like bunnies, with 250 chapters nationwide. Here's what they want:

Tax the rich until there are no more rich

Universal health care and rent control, i.e. sick people living in government-run squalor

No aid to Israel

Free food in government-run groceries, i.e. waiting in line for potatoes and rice is always nice

Abolish ICE, police and the prison system

Abolish the Senate

Abolish our country's borders, everyone is welcome

Amnesty for all illegal immigrants who are already here

A 32-hour work week (if you want to work, but no need really)

Just like Dr. Anthony Fauci is finally being held responsible for the COVID-19 debacle four years later, so Obama will eventually face the music on the unraveling of the United States. I can't wait.

Social Media Explained

Exactly what is the reason for the existence and continuing explosion of  "social media"? It's simple. While nobody wants to die, at the same time they know they eventually will and so are desperate to figure out what to do with their Life. They're simply looking for answers. 

The invention of the Internet, the engine of social media, has enabled a certain subset of human beings to spill their guts to millions of strangers who are bored with their own lives and eager to hear about someone else's, hoping to feel better about themselves in comparison or at least get some helpful hints. This subset has been identified as Influencers. 

Many Influencers are brave and egomaniacal, trolling for accolades and glorification online, sometimes even sharing their deepest, darkest self-loathing thoughts. One popular trend these days involves troubled individuals opting to live as the opposite sex to see if that feels any better. They are called "transgenders," which is a silly term since one cannot change genders. (It's impossible.)

Transgenders are the current darlings of social media. There's no telling how long their reign will last, but eventually a new aberration will come along and grab the spotlight. All it needs is a couple of tweets from the right Influencers to get it going.

And there you have social media.

Art From the Heart

I found my first paying job as a fine artist in the classifieds of The New York Times in 1968. It required me to make the exact same watercolor painting 300 times. They would then be framed by the employer and sold in five and dime stores in the south under the pen name Anne Saville. As I recall it looked something like this, only better:

I forget what the pay was -- something like three bucks each -- but as an already starving artist living in New York City, it was good enough for me. After the first hundred I got a little sick of doing them, but I kept at it since I had signed a contract to deliver all 300 by a certain date. Boy, was I glad when that was over and I was free to paint whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like it.

I assumed all artists must feel that way, but not here in Maine. Many of them, if not most of those who want to earn money that way, paint the same scene over and over again: Casco Bay islands covered with green trees, floating in blue water, underneath a blue sky dotted with white clouds. The tourists like those. I have painted that scene once or twice myself. Here's one of them: 

That was fun, so I did another. That was enough. So I was mystified when I went to my dentist's very upscale office today and saw all the walls hung with like 30 paintings that looked exactly like my description above, except some were at sunrise and some were at sunset and some had dark water and others had whitecaps and some clouds were fluffy and others were flat. All by the same artist. I wondered if that's what she has in her heart, or if it's more connected to what's in her bank account.

Meanwhile, I paint what I feel, which varies from day to day. My latest painting is this:

Beat It, Bambi

Alas, this was not meant to be at my house. 

As a serious animal lover, I cry in a movie when an animal is hurt or killed, even when it says at the end that, "No animals were harmed in the making of this film." I still worry that maybe they were traumatized by the bright lights and the chaos of a movie set. I can't watch those TV commercials about starving dogs or rescue cats; I have to cover my eyes or change the channel. And that scene in The Godfather with the horse's head still haunts me. 

So it's surprising that lately I have considered buying a rifle and staking out my garden and shooting every last deer that dares set hoof on my property. 

For example, take the Hydrangea bush that I planted in my side yard about five years ago. I have nurtured it through harsh droughts and harsher winters, through bleak seasons of no blooms and then finally one or two, until this year when eight glorious white snowballs appeared. I reveled in their beauty, imaging how many there would be next year. One morning I went out to revel some more, only to find them gone. (I realize it's odd to find something gone, but that's what happened.)

I know it was deer because I recognized the bitten-off stems from the Hostas in my front yard every year. Despite sprinkling shavings of Irish Spring soap on them, the deer have somehow feasted heartily on what amounts to my shared hobby with God. Now I hate all the deer, including that little brat Bambi, and although I have never even held a gun I fantasize about blowing their heads off. Is that wrong?

Mountains Out of Mole Hills

Recently a young married couple, the wife three months pregnant, were found hanging from a tree in a forest in northern India. A 73-year-old white woman was stabbed to death in broad daylight outside an upscale shopping mall in California by a young black registered felon who had been released. A 24-year-old Arkansas police officer, out kayaking with his fiancee, drowned while saving her from drowning. In an unrelated and mysterious boating incident, five friends drowned in an Ohio river. 

These are but a tiny fraction of the horrendous things that have happened to other people in the past few days. Meanwhile I have fretted over a sore hangnail, a poor night's sleep, my husband's impending birthday and too much laundry. 

Try as I might, I am unable to put my life in perspective and see how fabulous it truly is. To me, everything bad that comes along is a disaster. I wish I could but have not succeeded thus far. Sadly, the tendency to blow problems way out of proportion is all too common. Everyone should just stop doing it and see their lives instantly improve.