Going all Godfather II on your ass, Columbia!

A few days ago, after Trump said he was sending Columbian criminal illegals in the US back to their home country, the Columbian government stated that it would NOT accept any of their own illegals.

But just today, Columbia "miraculously" announced that it would be sending its country's Presidential Plane to pick up its illegals!: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5107740-colombia-presidential-plane-honduras-us-deportation-flights/

Reminds me of the early scene in Godfather II with Michael Corleone and the creepy Senator. After the Senator rejected Corleone's request for Las Vegas permissions, and then personally dissed him, Corleone upped the ante: Not only would the Senator grant the request, but he would also personally pay for the license fees.

That's exactly what just happened with Columbia. And they're now sending their own "Presidential Plane" to pick up their own punks.

YOU GO, TRUMP!

Jacqueline du Pré: Mendelssohn - Song without words Op.109

George Jones: This Wanting You (1999, from the "Cold Hard Truth" CD)

I almost wish that I could lose my mind sometime
Then maybe I'd be free of memories you left behind
With every single thought I hate to face the truth
It's never ending always there, this wanting you

Will I go through my life with only one desire?
Other arms have held me close but they can't kill the fire
This flame inside my heart has never burnt so blue
It's never ending always there, this wanting you

You're in my mind all the time, how long will it last?
Why can't I leave our love in peace, it's buried in the past
You let go so long ago but I still can't turn loose
Oh, it's never ending it's always there, this wanting you
It's never ending always there, this wanting you

Joan Crawford and husband Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Shot by Steichen, August 1931.

 

Kiss: Goin' Blind (1974)

As a young girl, I first thought these song lyrics were poetry (and they still are):
KISS: Goin' Blind
Bay City Rollers: Inside a Broken Dream
John Lennon: God/Working Class Hero



And I know how it's to be
There is nothing more for you and I
Some are young, and some are free
But I think I'm goin' blind

'Cause I think I'm goin' blind
And I know how it's to be, yeah

Little lady, can't you see?
You're so young and so much different than I
I'm ninety-three, you're sixteen
Can't you see I'm goin' blind?

'Cause I think I'm goin' blind
And I know how it's to be, yeah

You're much younger, can't you see?
There is nothing more for you and I
I'm ninety-three, you're sixteen
And I think I'm goin' blind

Love It or Leave It

I'm bisexual myself. And I'm not a Christian (though I was baptized as a baby, and then later "saved" in junior high). But one thing I really dislike is actual Christian denominations like the Episcopalians allowing Marxist activists like the so-called "bishop" Mariann Edgar Budde to preach trans-gender and illegal immigrant ideology at a church service supposedly welcoming the new President of the United States.

If the "bishop" does not agree with Christian teachings, then she should leave the church.

Here are some very precise Bible verses about homosexuality. I don't agree with most of them, but then---as stated above---I'm bisexual and also not a Christian. If "Bishop" Budde professes to be pro-gay and pro-trans-gender and pro-illegal-immigrant, then perhaps she should leave the church if she can't follow its precepts. Re gay in the Bible:

Leviticus 18:22 ~ You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13 ~ If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Jude 1:7 ~ Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Romans 1:26-28 ~ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Genesis 2:24 - Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Mark 10:6-9 ~ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Timothy 1:8-11  - Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

Third-World Country Austin, 2025

I had a back license plate stolen over the weekend. Not the front one, though, with the same numbers. After I reported the theft to the police, I was told to go get new plates ASAP, because "Officers WILL approach you with guns drawn" if they still spotted the old plate in front! OK, OK!

Austin is today a mess of highway loops and incomprehensible driving directions from Google! The "Tax Assessor" office where I needed to go to get new plates required me to drive, according to Google directions, first on W. Anderson, which then turned into E. Anderson, and while I was on E. Anderson, I then needed to make a "hard left" on E. Anderson (really? I thought I was already on it?)/Ed Bluestein. The last time I felt this tense was back in late 2019, when I had to take 4 cats, at two different times, to the "Emancipet" office to get fixed---which was located in the same horrible tangle of highway loops and mangled online driving instrux.

In anticipation of what I knew was going to be a huge hassle, I took the whole afternoon off work. Which lessened the stress, since I had all the time in the world...

I did find the office with not too much trouble (only a couple of wrong exits and re-driving up and down side roads of I-35 and taking U-turn exits for 15 or so mins).

Once I found the building: The parking lot was full. I circled endlessly for another 15 or mins trying to find a spot. Honked once at a mom who got into her car with her young kid and then didn't leave soon enough. (I'm obnoxious, I know. I sat there for a VERY long time with my blinker on, trying to get her parking spot---to no avail.)

Once I managed to park and actually get into the building: I electronically registered my entry at a kiosk (was informed I was 63rd in line), took my ticket, and then had a seat.

It was 1:53pm. And I had forgotten to bring my phone with me. Or a book. Nothing. I was left to my own resources. I'm usually a quite tense, impatient person, but this time, I knew right off that none of my impatience would influence anything! (Isn't that always the case, though?) So I sat. And practiced some Zen-like qualities that I'd only read about in the past. I gazed at the big electronic board announcing your number and took heart as my number dwindled from 50, 20, 10 digits away. I smiled at nearby babies and toddlers acting up. I tried to get a glimpse of other people's numbers to make myself feel better. I envied the people near me who had a phone (or laptop) with them and had something to entertain them. SERENITY NOW!

95% of the people waiting around me were non-English-speaking Hispanics. Trying to get some sort of documentation upon the Trump election? I have no idea. The waiting area was a writhing mass of non-US, non-English-speaking Hispanic humanity. The woman across from me with her baby had a Honduras passport sitting out beside her. The 3 or 4 guys around me all had their Central American passports sitting out. Looking around, I saw, in the crowd of 500 or so, maybe 10 white (whoops: European-American) people. Maybe 20 black people. A couple of Asians, a couple of Middle-Easterners.

Last time I went to this same office (upon the sale of my car in 2007), it was located on a placid street, and I waited about 20 minutes to take care of business. It's since become a heaving, chaotic Ellis Island.

After arriving near 2pm, my number finally got called around 3:45pm. My actual agent was great; took care of my plate issue right away, within 10 mins. The only good part of the whole experience.

Overall: My god, what a stressful, tedious, wasted afternoon. Why, in the United States, does anyone have to wait nearly 2 hours to get a license plate? We're not Russia, we're not some Third-World country. Texas has banned "Sanctuary Cities," but it seems like Austin still is one, given the majority of visitors at this office. If Austin can't handle the influx of illegals in the past 10 years, and refuses to deport them, then at least it should open more "Tax Assessor" offices across town to accommodate legal citizens of the town who need services. (No money to open more such offices? Then stop giving tax money to fund "local art" and DEI initiatives, etc.! I don't give a shit about "local art" or DEI when I have to drive around for 15 mins trying to find a parking spot at my local Tax office and then have to wait for 2 hours.)

PROVIDE BASIC SERVICES FIRST.

President Trump Dances with Sword at Inaugural Ball

My President!
The past 4 years have been an insane, dystopian, Orwellian nightmare! 

(NO! 2 + 2 does NOT equal 5!!)
BREAK LOOSE, MAN! On behalf of all of us.

TRUMP: Hold On, I'm Coming

TRUMP: Spirit in the Sky

"We're not going to take it any more." Donald Trump 1/19/25.

1/19/25: YMCA Trump Pre-Inauguration Rally

Trump's been playing this song at his rallies since 2016.

License-Plate Theft + Some Weird Austin PD DEI

I live and park in an apartment complex; and I work from home, so I don't drive my car every day.

Today (Sunday), I went to the grocery store, and when I wheeled my cart to the parking lot to load groceries in the trunk of my car, I noticed that my car's back license plate was completely gone! Screws and all. I hadn't driven since the Thursday before (and I assume the plate was there on that day---though whenever I get in my car, I just get in---I never go 'round back to check on anything).

I immediately reported the theft to the Austin PD (3-1-1). The 3-1-1 operator was cool, said an officer would get back to me within 6 hours. (An officer got back to me within 20 minutes.) So now I have to drive around without a back plate, feeling creepy, until I can get to the office next week that issues you new plates.

Thanks for adding crap to my everyday life, Stupid Thief. Hours of tediousness trying to get new plates. And then, if you actually commit a crime, having to prove that my plate was reported stolen on such-and-such date prior to your whatever idiotic crime. Ugh.

One odd thing when I first called 3-1-1, though: After I spoke to the operator about my license-plate problem, the very next question was: "Do you feel you've been discriminated against because of your race or gender or sexual identity?" WTF?! Please! I just reported a license-plate theft. When you're the victim of any crime---petty as mine was, or much larger---does it matter what color or gender you are? Why in the world was that stupid DEI question asked?

Reminds me of when I was at the Austin doctor's office a few months ago, with all the rainbow posters and slogans in the examination room: I'm actually bisexual, primarily leaning lesbian. But so what? My female anatomy is exactly the same as that of any other female, straight or gay. When I go to a doctor, I want some professional medical care, not ridiculous social slogans. Same with when I need the police: I want to report a crime---what does my race or gender or sexual identity matter? ENOUGH DEI BS.

Proof That Cats Cuddle (Please!)

A few weeks ago over Christmas, my mother mentioned that I probably never see my 5 cats. (Based on the fact that when she last came to my apartment, a couple of years ago, they all scurried away to hide----not because of her, but because they do that when anyone knocks on the door!)

So I sent her the earlier-posted photo of all 5 of my cats hanging out with me in the living room. She thought it was cute but had to wonder why they didn't cuddle with each other, as dogs always seem to do---and she likes dogs better. Sigh. She always, weirdly, finds something, anything, wrong with the picture. So I then had to send her the above photo, to "prove" that "yes, my cats do indeed cuddle with each other."

p.s. My mother might claim to like dogs better, but... My mother has never had a pet of her own since our 1970s dachshunds Fritz and Hexi died of old age in the early 1980s. And post-1976, when we moved to a rural area outside of Fort Worth, Texas, she wouldn't even allow the dogs in our backyard---instead banishing the duo to a pen OUTSIDE OF the backyard, where they never had any physical interaction with anybody. And the backyard itself was hardly a "garden beautiful" feature that a pet would possibly "mess up"---so why the separate pen?

Near the end of my parents' marriage, my father brought home an unwanted cat that a man from his office had given him. Sure, Dad should have asked Mom first. But he didn't. Just brought the cat home. And he didn't think to purchase a litter box or food or anything. My mother didn't want the cat in the house at all. So the cat was relegated to my bedroom for the night. The next day, we were all going somewhere, so my Mom insisted that the cat be put in the garage. With the garage door raised only a few inches for air. When we got home from wherever, the cat was gone. (Good for you, Cat! Get the hell out of this nasty place!)

I always think of this when I read Ted Hughes's poem "Epiphany" from Birthday Letters. In short: The speaker passes a man on a London street who's selling a fox cub. Hughes feels for the little cub and wants to save it from its fate, but he also thinks of how his wife might react if he brought it home... Ultimately:

I let that fox-cub go. I tossed it back
Into the future
Of a fox-cub in London...
...If I had paid,
If I had paid that pound and turned back
To you, with that armful of fox ---

If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox
Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage ---
I would not have failed the test. Would you have failed it?
But I failed. Our marriage had failed.

George Jones: Hopelessly Yours (1986)

I can't figure out how to pin anything to the top of my Blogger feed.
So I must keep re-posting this GJ song, because I love it so.

It's not a home without cats!

All 5 like to situate themselves facing what I'm doing at the computer.
And then when I go to bed on the couch they're currently sitting on, they face the other way (looking down on where I'm lying).
It's not a home without cats.

For Sandra

I hate bad poetry, and this is a bad poem:

The spirits that moved you
led us both astray

You pass away, and I remain
for the Time being
Cold and harsh and bold --
as you never were

I will grow old (or older)
loving you still
Hopefully alone
For I could never explain
to another remaining
how I love the ghost
of what might have been.

Who/What You Love

It's not what they say, but how they say it. 

The "what" has been said a trillion times before. The "how" is unique to who/what you fall in love with, at a particular time, when you're ripe for just that thing.

And then there's the most important "how they are." Example: I loved how Sandra said things. So interesting and unique to me. I was intrigued by how her mind played on the surface, but on an intellectual level (which I once thought was the "deeper level"), I thought she was completely irrational and nuts. But then there were her art and poetry, which were absolutely profound---she was tapping into serious things that I was not yet capable of reaching.

I miss hearing her voice and hearing her thoughts just on everyday things.

I don't yet know how to explain how much I actually miss her and regret never being able to talk to her again. In May, when I first found out she had died in February, I howled like a fucking dog or wolf or whatever grief-stricken animal. No sound like that had ever come out of my body before. Good enough example? (So sorry I didn't shoot a vid for your entertainment.)

Nearly a year after her death, I'm slightly removed enough to be curious about my reactions to her:
I loved how she looked.
I loved her art and her poetry.
I loved that we'd once known each other in our 1985 poetry class with David Wevill.
I loved that she found me online years later when I was in NYC and she was in Houston. I'd written a blog post about my '80s poetry class, and she first e-mailed me in 2008 after doing an online search for her name.
When I was in NYC, and she was in Houston, we used to talk for 2-3 hours on the phone nearly every other day.
When it came to real-life, though, things were amiss. We didn't mesh in real life. Though, when I finally spent the night with her in Austin, we DID hold hands while walking her dog Sailor---because there were no street lights at all! It was scary out there! (We slept in the same bed, though didn't have sex. Her dog Sailor was funny---He was on the floor until I got up to go to the bathroom... When I returned, there he was, right next to Sandra in bed---his usual place!)

The above was the last time I ever saw her in person. We argued online for a few years after that, though we both knew "it" was over. In 2018, after 3 years of only brief contact, she told me that she'd had a stroke. Her voice was halting... There were a few attempts at communication, and then she was put away in two different homes and I never heard from her again.

What I thought would happen in our futures: She had a stroke, she'd get over the disability, we'd be in touch again. I had no idea that she'd have a stroke and then DIE.

My god.

In Sandra's Legacy online Obit page, one woman said something like: "I used to carpool with Sandra." I'm here to attest: Sandra was a great artist and poet, not just your carpool buddy!

TV off for a few days, and now... WALKING!

I've been a sluggish ass (or, sitting on my sluggish ass) for the past 4 years or so, ever since getting my work-from-home job right after COVID started in Spring 2020. Since then, I've lost about 15 lbs because there's not the campus cafeteria to eat at (chicken-fried-steak Thursdays!), but my lung capacity has obviously gone all to hell.

I spent time with my Mom at Thanksgiving and Christmas. She lives in an urban neighborhood in my own city of Austin, but with great natural walking trails, so we took walks both times. The November walk was 2 miles or more, the temp about 80, and at the end of it, I was sweating and out of breath and had to recuperate for over 15 minutes once we got home. The December walk was, upon my insistence, only about a mile. The outdoor temp this time was only about 70, so I wasn't as decrepit at the end of it, BUT I was still winded! And my 80+ mother was not! She actually apologized to me for making me walk that far!

How embarrassing! I used to walk a LOT! (Back in high school, back in college, and then in NYC from 2007 thru 2010, and then when I got back to Austin in 2010 and didn't have a car until 2016---I was in great shape for quite a few years!) Obviously, I've deteriorated quite a bit physically if my 80-something mother can out-walk me! That is totally ridiculous.

My meager attempts at getting back to physical reality: I took a mile-long walk on New Year's Eve. And then I took another today on January 2! Whooooo! :)  Seriously---all one needs to do are very simplistic, basic things to feel even a tiny bit better both physically and mentally: Take a 10-minute walk, read a book for a half-hour instead of watching "90-Day Fiance"!

A p.s.: While walking on New Year's Eve, on the way back to my apartment: At the entry point to a narrow walkway, I approached at the very same time as a very large, lumbering woman. She literally backed up to let me pass and made a slightly snide comment: "Well, you're obviously in a bigger hurry than I am!" I tried to make light of it, saying, "Just trying to exercise for the New Year!" But I actually got a slight "thrill" from the comment: Back in the "olden days" I was always noted for my speed in doing things: walking, work, whatever. Sometimes praised, sometimes mocked. Since 2020 or so, I've been an utter slug, accused by no-one of being energetic. This time, I actually LIKED having someone make a snide comment about my speed---even in such a low-level setting! :)

Frank Sinatra: New York, New York

For all of you modern-day Marxists: FUCK YOU and your ideas of DEI mediocrity. 

(Your immigrant parents and grandparents wanted to WORK and fit in to America----
based on MERIT! NOT the current idiotic DEI BS.)

A Minor Revelation

A Sunday ago, I was lying on the couch with a hangover---all day. I felt like doing nothing but lying on my couch and watching TV. Dumb-after-dumb-after-dumb-after-dumb (mainly from TLC and "Sister Wives" and "90-Days"). My own dumbed-down mind.
Channel-surfing, I finally came upon "And the Ship Sails On" and "Ginger and Fred" on TCM. Two latter-day Fellini films. All of a sudden, my mind was engaged.

For the days after, at least, I have turned off my television during the day. And I have tried to READ A BOOK while I was trying to go to sleep at night.

The difference between mass-TV viewing and then a Fellini film! It's not just a pretentious thing to say, "Oh, I like Fellini." Watching his films definitely cleanses the bullshit palate of mass-media. I'd been immersed in mass-media for so long, I'd forgotten what it felt like to experience something meaningful!