Because I don't want to bore you with the list of fanged, multi-legged, prickly, stinger-equipped, bug-eyed, slithering, creeping, crawling, venomous varmints we encounter pretty much every day and/or night around here, I have decided to simply provide a "VARMINT LIST UPON REQUEST." Just let me know if you want the list, and I will send it to you personally. Oh and I can also provide lists of yucky humans I have encountered; just give a holler if you are interested in that sort of thing. Meanwhile, back at the homestead, Kip and I continue to work on our cabin. We are not giving the almighty swamp cooler any breaks. It runs and runs. If it stops, then we run...to the coast. You might be aware of the recent trend? The one the weather services have dubbed a "Heat Wave?" In L.A., a reading of 95 is hotter than usual for this time of year. Here, they say a reading of 110 degrees at 11 a.m. is unusually hot. I thought, when I heard of this looming Heat Wave, how could five or ten degrees make much of a difference? It has been going up to at least 100 by 10 a.m. pretty much every day anyhow. Well, the big difference seems to manifest itself at night. Before the Heat Wave we sat on our porch of an evening and watched the lights of the marine base twinkle in the breeze. Sometimes we saw heat lightning or a shard of cosmic debris (AKA a falling star). Now it is more like sitting in a dry sauna. And the formerly tepid breeze is a hot wind--like when you open the oven in the middle of baking cookies and you get that blast of heat?Only this wind doesn't smell like cookies. It's not bad, but it's not cookies. We spent three and a half years in northern New Mexico having this hazy idea about what might or might not go on up at the national laboratory in Los Alamos. Here, they "tell it like it is. We don't have to wonder what is going on because we see and hear on a regular basis that which goes on in and around the "Marine Combat Center" int he vicinity of "Dirty Deuce Nine." (That is what the high school kids here call their hometown.) Flashes in the sky at night, loud hill-shaking booms and blasts in the morning, puffs of smoke (or is it dust?) in the distance...and, judging from the way the town is riddled with "Combat Barber," "Marine Stylings by Judi," and "Stud Haircut" places, the explosions work best when EVERYONE in the vicinity has short hair. (Oh and nicely groomed nails. Can't swing a cat without hitting a nail parlor. You will not be at a loss if you are hiking around Joshua Tree National Park and you break a nail.) As it happened, we met one of these short-haired Marines at the bar the other night. He and another fellow were enjoying their martinis, and, because the bar is pretty small and they had never seen us in there before, they started chatting with us. The martini-sipping Marine had a European accent that I could not place. Was it German? Swiss? Turns out the fella is Dutch. His name is Aslan, "like the lion." At some point Aslan began explaining the gun laws in the Netherlands. I think it was after we had finished discussing the pot laws. "Two things are never gonna go away. That is drugs and prostitution. Might as well legalize both and make some money for the state." He switched his martini for a beer. The Netherlands' gun laws are so strict that if you have a gun and you also have ammunition, they have to be stored separately in your home and they have to be locked in safes. It all made a lot of sense to us. Then the Marine's buddy said, gesturing toward Aslan with his thumb,"this cat was a Royal Dutch Marine for seven years. Then he came here and he's been a U.S. Marine for 17 years." We mentioned the explosions and how we were um, aware of the presence of the military here. "yeah, this cat (Army guy again) is in charge of all that. He's a Gunnery Sergeant." What was fascinating was that every time he was referred to as "this cat," Aslan would let out a little high-pitched "meow!" You have to understand that this was not a small person. Not someone you'd saunter up to and say "hey, you have something on your shirt!" and then flick them on the chin when they looked. By this time he had moved on to red wine and gave no indication that the alcohol was having any effect whatsoever. I mean, Kip and I were wondering. The guy was big, yes, but he had to be getting a little tipsy. No sign of one iota of intoxication. Was he going to go out to the testing range and blow some shit up the next morning to clear his head? Smart money would be on YES. And now I have a question for you: do you think it's good policy for the U.S. Marines to give control over all the gunpowder and explosive weaponry to someone who comes from a European country where they VERY strictly control the use, possession, and storage of guns? And, by the way, you might not be surprised to learn that the local July 4th fireworks display was one of the finest and most elaborate I have ever seen. (And I grew up in D.C.) LATE-BREAKING P.S. WITH WHICH SOME OF YOU MIGHT DISAGREE AND I AM SORRY IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY PROFANITY BUT SOMETIMES NOTHING ELSE WORKS. I am, as I hope all of you are, disgusted by the verdict in The Trayvon Martin case. It has changed everything because it is clear that EVEN THOUGH (get over it tea-baggers) THE PRESIDENT IS BLACK—nothing has changed. This verdict is a summation of the hate that has been brewing in folks who can't handle the fact that an African American was elected and, in fact, re-elected. So quit saying that we are post-racial. This white man (yes I said white) Zimmerman got away with murdering a black child. For now. Are people UPSET? Why, yes they are. Last night we went to the grocery store. Two African-American "youths" were walking to their car. One of them yelled "FUCK ZIMMERMAN! YES! I SAID IT! FUCK ZIMMERMAN!" Kip and I yelled back: Yes. Fuck Zimmerman. And his mama. It is not just a bad verdict—it is a prison sentence to free young black men. Those guys walking out of the grocery store are now shackled prey, not only to insane racists with guns, but also they are (STILL) prey-for-the-picking to the cops and the courts. OK, I am done—for the moment. Here's a damn poem and a damn song. I copied this poem from a website so the formatting might be off, but the message is on. JIM CROW CARS If within the cruel Southland you have chanced to take a ride, You the Jim Crow cars have noticed, how they crush a Negro's pride, How he pays a first class passage and a second class receives, Gets the worst accommodations ev'ry friend of truth believes. 'Tis the rule that all conductors, in the service of the train, Practice gross discriminations on the Negro—such is plain— If a drunkard is a white man, at his mercy Negroes are, Legalized humiliation is the Negro Jim Crow car. 'Tis a license given white men, they may go just where they please, In the white man's car or Negro's will they move with perfect ease, If complaint is made by Negroes the conductor will go out Till the whites are through carousing, then he shows himself about. They will often raise a riot, butcher up the Negroes there, Unmolested will they quarrel, use their pistols,rant and swear, They will smoke among the ladies though offensive the cigar; 'Tis the place to drink their whiskey, in the Negro Jim Crow car. If a Negro shows resistance to his treatment by a tough, At some station he's arrested for the same, though not enough, He is thrashed or lynched or tortured as will please the demon's rage, Mobbed, of course, by 'unknown parties,' thus is closed the darkened page. If a lunatic is carried, white or black, it is the same, Or a criminal is taken to the prison-house in shame, In the Negro car he's ushered with the sheriff at his side, Out of deference for white men in their car he scorns to ride. We despise a Negro's manhood, says the Southland, and expect, All supremacy for white men—black men's rights we'll not protect, This the Negro bears with patience for the nation bows to might, Wrong has borne aloft its colors disregarding what is right. This is called a Christian nation, but we fail to understand, How the teachings of the Bible can with such a system band; Purest love that knows no evil can alone the story tell, How to banish such abuses, how to treat a neighbor well. Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer