I was driving along in my pickup today, and got to thinking about loss, and not just losing things but giving things up, existentially cleaning house, if you will. It has been a season of such for me, and the life around me. Let’s see if I can list a few examples:

• I’ve lost a little weight. About 15 pounds, maybe a tad more. On a diet, you know. And swimming. Exercise is good, I’m sure, though the last few days it’s been hard to swim without thinking of the people in New Orleans wading through that stew of pollution.
• Happy has been blowing coat, losing some of her hair, getting ready to put on a new one for the colder part of the year. She’s OK; maybe needs a little protein in her diet, I think. (That photo of Happy looks crappy, because it’s hard to get her to hold still, and my photoshop is on der fritz. I had to use Microsoft Photo Editor. Imagine my dismay.)
• Speaking of dogs, I lost mine. Not used to being alone yet. And the dogs lost and suffering in the hurricane area are really hard to look at. I wish I had the means to go down there and save them all and give them tummy rubs and cookies. What? I mean it.
• I appear to be losing one of my neighbors here in the condos. Now this is good news. Oh yeah. God bless her, this woman is a screaming banshee. I’ve heard people use the F word in every sentence before, and I’m not a stick up the butt prude. Usually, it’s comedians, and I can take it for a while because it’s funny. This lady is not funny. She does this despite the fact that children are in the area, and can really hear her – including her own kids. She likes to take her phone out on her balcony and really get verbal with somebody, about how much her life sucks and her boyfriend and her children. Or something. She’s loud but not exactly clear; barely coherent. And sometimes she and the boyfriend have loud arguments, late at night. It’s not cool, and in dense condominium situations, we shouldn’t put up with it. So I’m glad she’s going. I hope she finds some contentment, or at least housing with a few hundreds yards of desert around it.

“Brownie, yer doin’ a heckuva job.”

That’s what the Compounder in Chief said to the Director of FEMA, after the latter proved it was a good thing they fired him from his horse judging job, before somebody got hurt.

I hope you will take a moment to read the New Orleans newpaper’s Open Letter to the President. This blog joins them in their indignation, and their call for the firing of FEMA director Michael Brown.

Well hey, I was watching CNN tonight and Aaron Brown was interviewing 3 young guys who forged press passes and drove into New Orleans. They drove right up to the convention center and started ferrying people out in a car. I think they said it was a Hyundai. Said they couldn’t figure out why the government couldn’t get in there. Said they people weren’t trapped by the water, but by red tape.

Can somebody explain to me why Tom Delay is still in office? The man is just repulsive. What a bag of wind. He’s blaming the local governments for the slow Federal response. Wow! The locals? Who were demanding help long before it came. Who cried and begged while the feds were doing photo ops and press conferences. It was their fault. Oh.

Think the next polls will show Bush’s approval rating below 30%? Yeah. And I wonder what ever happened to that guy who used to leave me comments, singing Bush’s praise.

I think you should go to this page in the Writer’s Almanac archive and read today’s poem, called What Happened When Bobby Jack Cockrum Tried To Bring Home A Pit Bulldog or What His Daddy Said To Him that Day, by David Lee.  It’s cool, pretty funny, regardless of what you think about pit bulls.

(Personally, I love dogs – all dogs – and as much as I believe there are no bad ones, I wouldn’t have a pit bull around my little nephew. Sorry, but that’s just life in the real world. When it comes to gambling, I never bet more than I can afford to lose.)

Enjoy the poem.

In case you’re surfing and not catching the news, Chief Justice William Rehnquist is dead.  Agree with his politics or not, you have to admit it shows a lot of tenacity to stay on the job at age 80, fighting a terrible disease.