No Roaches Monday - Smokin or Otherwise

I looked in the basement, the garage, and my office. There were no roaches to be found.  This is Monday ferchrisakes.  How am I to make it through the day without at least one roach to smoke?  That's what happens when a lifelong habit becomes just another SSDD activity that has no thought invested or planning laid out because I have taken said activity for granted all these years.

Habits, good and bad, need nourishing environments for them to prosper into habits we can depend on.  A habit has to first, be recognized, then nurtured from passing fancy into the life support tool we want them to become.  Their negative or positive effects on us only important as the importance we assign them.

If I think a habit has gotten out of control, I will most likely choose to stop said habit.  If I have no problem with it, I go on my merry way, happy as if I had a brain.  And yes, sometimes a habit can become so onerous as to raise concerns of those around me.  I would be lying if I said none of my habits irritated others.  

My childhood tendency to always ask "why" about anything caused my parents no end of frustration.  Their frustration only fed my new habit of how to irritate parents because they deserve it.  I found I could punish them to the third or fourth "Because I said so" before I had to duck and cover.  Wonderful game that lost its luster when I learned around age eight, there are too many answers to the question "why".  If I wanted an answer, I more often than not, had to find it for myself.

But I digress, and I did it right out of the blocks.

A post that  has a designated time and place in my communiques to the World should be experienced as the rules I have written demand.  No roaches around?  Guess I will have to roll up a couple joints and smoke em just so I can smoke a roach or two on Smokin Roaches Monday.

Damn.  Two joints may be too tough to take just to make two roaches.  .... Hmm     Oh well, its more about the effort than the result.  Right?

Keep it 'tween the ditches ............................................

She Deserves a Safe White Nation - Smokin Roaches Monday

Not sure why this image bothers me so much.  Is it a specific button it punches?  Or is it just the overall disgust I feel when I view it.  So many flash points here, it is tough for me to sort them out.  Regardless, as a white man living in this country, I feel ashamed that idiots of my race insist on restricting their lives and their children's lives to an existence defined by a black or white code.  I guess my main takeaway is that this image hardly helps in making our nation safer.  If anything, it adds to the instability, insecurity, and ingrained prejudices that have always divided us.

 My early military brat years were spent in the protective bubble of a desegregated military world.  I am sure there was racism, but nothing a child of 5 or 6 would notice.  At that age, our experiences come from the Big Picture, not the underlying subtleties of the Real World.

It was in the early 1960's after my father retired from the Air Force and we moved to Tallahassee, Florida that I was rudely brought into the Real World.  I learned Life has a dark ugly side to offset the bright sunny side folks hold near and dear to their hearts.

1963 Tallahassee was a typical segregated southern city of whites and blacks kept apart wherever possible.  I witnessed White on Black violence behind the turned backs of White cops during civil rights marches.  I felt the intense hatred from a crowd in a Black only movie theater I mistakenly walked into.  It was a serious coming of age period.  My education only continued as I grew up in other areas while watching my country transition from Jim Crow to something else.

That "Something Else" was no longer the overt world of Jim Crow and weekly Klan meetings advertised in local gazettes.  Racism had dropped below the Sunny Side's radar where it has been festering for 45-50 years now.  It took Trump to kick the hidden racism into brighter lights with his program of enabling hateful tweets, speeches and rallies.  I guess we should be grateful to Trump for slapping our country with this dose of Reality.  There are Evils out there that will never be conquered.  They will only be beaten back.  And to fall back into a satisfied complacency that the Evil is defeated is just giving  it time to lick its wounds so it can come back stronger and uglier the next time.

Later ....................................................
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Image from "From Open White Supremacy to Stealth" 

Smokin Joe Biden on Smokin Roaches Monday

I have been awake since 2:30 AM.   Not whinin nor braggin, just letting anyone interested know that I enjoyed a good wake n bake just as the Sun poked its lil head up in the East. I had 3 1/2 hours to think about the pros and cons.  I decided the pros outranked the cons.  Attitude adjustments should always be on the table.  Retirement definitely has its perks.

I have been waffling of late over which stellar Democratic candidate I would like to see in the White House instead of Putin's Bitch.  There are so many choices, it is hard for me to nail down one contender who makes me wet like Obama did.   In 2016, Hillary certainly did not make me swoon. But I voted for her because, well, I knew we would be in a world of hurt should The Donald take the helm.  As it turns out he is actually worse than any nightmare scenario I came up with prior to his election.  But I am getting off track ..........

So here I am trying to whittle the Democratic field of candidates down to a more manageable number, say down to two or three with Good ole Joe Biden as the default.  The prime objective for the 2020 election for me is to replace Trump and as many Republicans as possible.  They are nothing now but a gang of chimpanzees hatefully flinging their shit around.  Any notion of legislating and leading from the Right has disappeared completely.  In its place is the new-ish GOP doctrine of just say No, while whining like spoiled little brats.

I decided Mayor Pete was my current favorite after earmarking him six or so months ago as someone to watch..  There was and is no second place yet, but there is always Joe.  Good Ole Reliable Joe Biden had my back.  He would bring some class and ethics back to the Executive Branch.

Hmm........... A couple of months ago I noticed Joe didn't seem to have much spark.  Sure he was and is reliable and way more capable than the current POTUS.  But I was not as enthralled as I had been.  And then just, what, last week or so ago, he said in a speech that he would not support legalizing Pot because he was pretty sure it was a gateway drug.  Just "Pretty Sure Joe?

Good Ole reliable Joe Biden is now not even on my list.  He finally blew it for me.  Never mind that the whole "gateway drug" scenario is Bullshit anyway, his behind the times stance on almost anything keeps him from even entertaining the least progressive currents now gaining momentum on the Left.  It is time for Democrats to stop being afraid of the Right.

As the Right careens headlong towards its lunatic fringes, the Left should step off the fence and counter the Right by embracing more of the basic liberalism the Left used to stand for.

Remember ............. Let's work hard to Dump the Right in 2020.  They deserve a good spanking ...... No, they need a good spanking.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ......................................................

Smoking Roaches Monday - Maggie and Sammie

Its been a beautiful morning here on Sam Page Road.  Sun's out, 60 degrees or so and the humidity feels almost non-existent.  I took my dynamic duo, Maggie and Sammie, for some leg stretching over to Mary's Woods across from my place.  Sammie is on loan from my daughter and her SO while they are off gallivanting who knows where.  I don't remember gallivanting so much as they are at their age.  But that is to be expected.  There is a lot I don't remember from 35 years ago.

Once safely cross Sam Page Road, I released both.  Maggie took off into the pucker and Sammie waited patiently for me to throw the Chuckit.  When I Chuckit, Sammie will fetch it at full tilt boogie until he can't run anymore.  His chest heaving hard, he finally collapses at my feet.  The ball from the last Chuckit firmly clamped between intimidating teeth that refuse release until , well, its been 30 minutes since we came back, and that damn ball is still in his mouth. A single minded mutt for sure. He loves his Chuckit.

Like me, Maggie does not understand the concept of Chuckit.  She watches Sammie run himself to exhaustion chasing a stupid ball.

"What a brain dead dog he is", she mutters to herself.  Maggie knows real fun.  She runs and runs, just to run until her eyes cross and her tongue is hanging out with her dog spit tricklin hard off the tip.

Sammie looks at her and thinks, "What a dumb mutt.  She runs and runs and gets nothin done.  Me, I at least bring the ball back every time, never fail, you can depend on me yes-sir-ree-Bob's your uncle."

Anyway, have a great Monday.  Just don't burn your fingers.

Smokin Roaches Monday - Honest Memories

"Two minds processed through chemical blenders attempt to find clarity or even vague translucence to their weak grip on whatever reality is left after dropping three hits of Sunshine acid each."

That was the first line I wrote today for my Smokin Roaches  Monday post for July 29.  I had planned to recount some dumbass drug moment from my past.  But 300 or so words into it, I stopped and read what I had written.  It was garbage.  Not worth the effort to post and maybe not even worthy of being the subject of  a conversation.  Yet here we are.

I constantly have to remind myself as the years stack up, that nothing but reruns of fond memories will often cloud the reality of what comprised my past.  No better example exists than my life under the influence of the many substances I dabbled in.

During the period I was deeply involved in substance abuse, I was sure I was having the time of my life.  What a wonderful world this was to stagger through and hardly remember much of.  Yeah, those were surely good times.  Times not to be forgotten nor remembered either.

What I do remember is performing a self appraisal the summer of 1972 just before sayin fuck this shit and hitch hiking home to Maine to get away from the lifestyle and the idiots I shared it with.  I was into hitting up pharmaceutical Methedrine and back alley Heroin.  I had become weary of the constant drag the drugs had on me and my life.  Every day was an evil cycle of looking for drugs, scoring drugs, doing drugs and coming down off drugs.

I have some regrets in my life.  My time with hard drugs is not one of them.  I did what I did and regretting it now is just wasting some of the time I am running out of.  All I try to do now is remember to not put on my rose colored glasses so often and remember my past with some balance and some honesty.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ..............................................................

Smokin Roaches Monday - Mon, July 22, 2019

When I was an unmarried man of around 22, livin and partying paycheck to paycheck, I decided I would save my roaches and only smoke them on Mondays.  Mondays were the suckiest day of the week and roaches were the suckiest part of a joint.  Maybe dealing with the both of them at the same time made some kind of early 1970s sense.

It was not difficult to justify such actions.  My only responsibilities, showing up at work on time or close and paying my share of the rent, groceries and power.  The rest of my time and energy was generally spent on useless mind numbing endeavors satisfying my self indulgent urges.  Back in the day, no one could numb a mind like I could.

Along came the 1980s.  I woke up one morning and I was a married homeowner with a little shitwiggle scooting around on her bum, pulling cat hair and beating the dog.  Life conspired against me and forced my nose to the grindstone.  Just like that, a fine tradition a decade old disappeared faster than a nickel bag at a keg party, anywhere USA.

It appears I once again have few if any real responsibilities. I can reinstate Roach Monday.  Unless there are any objections, I will officially note that "Smokin Roaches Mondays are now back in business.

Don't burn your fingers ...................................................