John McCain doesn't look well

And he isn't always coherent.

This is very scary. I wasn't too worried about a McCain presidency. He seemed like a bright and honorable man and who could be worse than Bush?

Maybe Sarah?

the truth about Palin

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/12/palin/


But I loved the SNL segment last Saturday! Tina was born to be Sarah!

Frog"s midnight snack

Last week I took the dogs out later than usual. I had been transfixed by a disturbing and lovely movie on DVD, "American Crime".
So it was nearly midnight when we went walkies.
Now there are things I could worry about in this neighborhood at night. There are gang members, drug users and sellers, pimps, johns, prostitutes. I've met them all but always had civil encounters. Drunks are sometimes a problem, but my littlest dog Sookie can handle that.
There are often moose. Bears are a distinct possibility, but I've never run into them here in Midtown.
I am afraid of some of my neighbors.
I moved into this condo thinking about snow removal and roof repair. There are some elderly condo board members who have been here more than 30 years and long for the good old days. They regarded me, at 54, as a dangerous youngster. A dog playing frisbee on the lovely and rarely used grounds is an abomination.
My next door neighbor Mary is one of these people.
So we had a nice walk. I saw a huge earthworm on the sidewalk and thought how much FrogBob would enjoy it. (FrogBob is a wonderful animal but insists on live food.) So I scooped it up carefully in one hand (slightly yeechy) and held the leashes in the other as we headed for home.
My elderly neighbor was in her carport. I couldn't imagine what she was doing up so late and she was calling "Karen!" which isn't my name.
She asked me if I was "in the book". I tried to explain that I didn't have a landline, realized that she didn't understand, and said
"no".
She asked me for my number. I found a pen in my pocket and tried to juggle one large and angry worm and two little dogs (Sookie was threatening Mary with dismemberment) while I wrote my name and number on an envelope.
I never thought to ask her why she needed my number, Couldn't be anything good.
FrogBob did enjoy the worm.

horrible things in the garden

Its official. We had two days of summer - when summer is defined as a day when the temperature reached or exceeded 70 degrees F.

And it has rained. And rained.

Usually the gardens can count on endless sunshine, warmth, and few bugs. Too little rain, so watering is important.

When I lived in Juneau there were slugs. Huge, colorful characters. Juneau is Pacific Northwest rainforest, complete with banana slugs and other large and alarming creatures.

Most years in Anchorage, I have seen two or three slugs a season and ignored them. They were welcome to a bit of the garden.

This year, my little walled garden is dank with mold and moss and slimy with slugs. Hundreds of them. They ate the dahlias right down to the ground - no small feat when you think how fast dahlias grow around here.

And now they are breeding. Like most invertebrate sex, this is complicated and I'm not sure I understand it. I do know they are true hermaphrodites, and I find them linked together at two orifices. I don't dare look closer. The thought of another generation next summer alarms me, so I have been hunting them (easier now that they are two by two) and dropping them in a tub of salt.

This is uncharacteristic. I like invertebrates in general. Echinoderms are my favorites in the world, of course. I remember the movie Microcosmos featured sex between two slugs or snails that moved me to tears. I have just stuck that disc in the DVD player to try to recapture my usual tolerant self.

I'm just cranky because there was no summer.

Sarah!

There was the excitement of the announcement, the ambivalence, and then the hurtful nature of the press. Alaska bashing. New ways to trivialize women.

I didn't vote for Sarah, and I won't be voting for McCain-Palin. This is a small state (in population, not area). We meet our governors at the airport and picnics and (unless the governor is Murkowski) we get to know and like them. Talk to them.

Sarah is smart, tough and thrilling. I trust her, I admire her. Don't underestimate a woman who shoots, fishes, flies, and raises five children. Maybe running the PTA is adequate training for running the world. No one has tried it before. This is the first lactating vice-presidential candidate we are talking about.

Maureen Dowd was snarkier than usual today. I resented her characterization of Alaska as an "overgrown igloo" and Sarah as a "Cinderella chick flick".

The most painful parts of this are statements like "she is a hero because she gave birth to Down's syndrome child". That is little Trig they are talking about, and we are very protective and proud of him here. Not because his mother didn't abort. She never described the experience in those terms. Sarah and the First Dude presented him proudly and spoke candidly about the prenatal diagnosis and their efforts to come to terms with it. They never presented their experience in political terms.

I am horrified at the implication that a feminist pro-choice Democrat would automatically abort in those circumstances, Someone like me. If I had been lucky enough to be pregnant at 44, or any other time, and learned that the baby had Down's, I never would have considered abortion. There's nothing wrong with people with Down's. Trig is a beautiful baby and an Alaskan. He is not a pro-life icon and Sarah has never suggested that.

Now I am unexpectedly excited about the Republican convention. I am even distracted from "Nixonland".

conventions and history

I am watching the convention with interest, but it moves rather slowly. Worse than the Olympics.

So I sit in front of the television with "Nixonland" in my lap. Still convinced that Nixon is the story (and the horror) of my lifetime. I find, reading this, that I had forgotten a surprising number of details.

And its a big book - big enough to get me through both conventions.

relax - mouse is dead

My new snake is, like my Sunshine corn snake, a stray. Adopted from the pound. This probably happens only in Alaska, since we have no snakes living here. Its just like Alaskans to rescue any snake they find and deliver it to the animal shelter.

She's a california king, not quite full grown, plump and mild mannered. I don't need another snake, but she is so lovely and so easy to handle I couldn't resist.

I have spent much of the weekend in various pet stores buying snake equipment of various kinds. And observing other pet freaks. I had a long talk with a man buying tropical fish. He said he hand-fed his fish and they would come to rest in his hand. He was bursting with excitement over the new fish in his plastic bag,

It seems odd, compared to the relationships we have with our dogs, How could I be so attached to my reptiles? They react to me, but I don't think they know me. But they are lovely and silent. I look forward to seeing them every morning and after work every day. I look forward to feeding them and cleaning cages each weekend. Apparently humans are wired to love fish, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates (when we are not eating them),

My frog is singing, a loud, plangent sound. I love him too.