Author Archives: Mark P

We voted

Posted on by

Early voting in Georgia opened last Monday, October 17. Leah and I voted on Thursday.

leahvoted

markvotedAccording to the Atlanta TV news, early voting locations in the Atlanta metro area had waits of up to three hours. We didn’t have to wait at all. I was surprised that our residence had been updated. I updated my address when I got a new driver’s license about a month ago. We updated Leah’s voting registration address when we changed her driver’s license address on the day before voter registration closed. Finally, something worked the way it’s supposed to.

There was a slow but steady stream of voters when we were there. They were all old. We did our civic duty and voted for the sane candidate for President. I regret to say that I strongly suspect that our votes were cancelled multiple times while we were there. For some reason that I cannot fathom, it seems that old, white people in Georgia support Trump, even those who are not wealthy.

I heard one of them when I took Lucy to the vet on Monday. An elderly white man was explaining to another old white man in a voice somewhat louder than conversational that Hillary Clinton should be in jail, and so should Bill. I don’t know whether the recipient of this sentiment agreed or was simply trying not to rile him, like you might act around a wild animal. I did not take the open seat beside the Trump supporter. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to engage him or not, but settled on not.

On Friday night we saw a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that said, “Gun owners support Trump.” Now the fact that Trump is a pathological liar does not necessarily indicate that Trump supporters are also liars, but, if you read that statement to mean that all gun owners support Trump, then that statement is demonstrably not true. We own guns, and we do not support Trump: QED. If it means that some gun owners support Trump, it is true, but only trivially so.

I also regret to say that it’s not only old, white people. Leah and I went to the Dark Side of the Moon bar again on Tuesday for jazz night. There were several open seats at the bar beside me. A youngish (to me) woman sat next to me. We generally ignored each other for a while, but she seemed interested in starting a conversation, so we did. We talked for a while, learning that she was not as young as she looked — 50, with grandchildren. After a while, she dared to venture into politics. She said she was a lifelong Republican, but just couldn’t decide who to vote for. She was concerned that Hillary Clinton would take her guns away from her. I assured her that she would not. She solicited my opinion, so I told her that she should do what she thought she should do, but that I recommended that she should vote for Hillary.

Despite that, we left on good terms.

I cannot conceive of any sane black person or Hispanic, or woman voting for Trump, and Georgia has a fair number of all of these. Of course, I cannot conceive of any sane person of any ethnicity voting for Trump, but that is probably a failure of my own imagination. Despite all that, I expect Georgia to go for Trump. If it does, I will be ashamed of my state.

Dogs

Posted on by

It’s mostly quiet on the dog front, except for the mock growls when Sam and Zeke want to play, which is every time I take the dogs out.

facechewing

Lucy doesn’t join in their doggie games. She just tries to keep out of their way.

It’s like this from early in the morning. Sam usually wakes up before us and comes into the bedroom to see whether we’re up. We can hear his nails clicking on the floor. Then I see his nose at the edge of the mattress. I usually reach over to scratch his ears a little bit.

Zeke comes in after we get up; he likes to sleep late, just like us. And then Sam starts chewing on Zeke’s cheek. They will continue a little mini-play-fight until I break it up.

I keep them apart on our walks until we reach the turnaround. Then I let them go at it for a while. The longer they play, the rougher and more excited they get. It’s usually Sam diving in to nip at Zeke, but occasionally Zeke runs after him with his jaws wide and teeth bared. I would not like to see that coming at me.

I have mentioned before that I think a dog’s world is different from ours. They have the additional dimension provided by a sense of smell much more sensitive than ours. It’s a minor struggle to keep them moving on our walk when they really want to stop and smell the roses, or whatever it is that attracts their attention.

dogs_sniffing

The only real dog news is that Lucy scared us with an eye problem Tuesday. Right after lunch Leah noticed that one of Lucy’s eyes was cloudy.

lucy_badeye

It was odd because we were almost certain it was not that way Monday. I was pretty sure it wasn’t that way earlier on Tuesday. I took her to the vet Tuesday afternoon. The vet diagnosed it as an eye irritation, either from sticking something into her eye or possibly from dust, pollen or some other foreign object. She said two weeks of multiple daily applications of an eye ointment should do the trick.

Who wants curtains?

Posted on by

I have mentioned before that we can look out towards the east from our bed. This was what woke us up Tuesday morning.

sunrise_11oct16

Fewer clouds Friday morning.

sunrise14oct16_1

A few minutes later the sun peeked above the horizon.

sunrise_14oct16_2

Leah worries that bare windows will make it feel cold in the bedroom once winter gets here. That’s probably true, but I would hate to miss sunrises like these. In the summer, the sun is well up by the time these photos were shot. Fortunately, the sun rises further towards the north in the summer, so it doesn’t shine directly into the window and our eyes.

A few shots at the bar

Posted on by

I mentioned in an earlier post that Leah and I have visited a few bars on Broad Street in downtown Rome lately, which is a new thing for us. One we visited is the Dark Side of the Moon, which is associated with a cafe called Harvest Moon. They have a regular Tuesday night jazz session. Last Tuesday was our third visit to that bar.

This shows a little of Broad Street, plus the bar.

on_the_street

The people at the right of the image in a sidewalk seating area are facing the jazz band.

This is the band.

theband

The saxophonist is good, but then so are the rest. This band is known as Pollard Greens. Here’s a YouTube video of the group. We think they sound better in person; we are certain that they are louder in person.

One of the bar tenders said the same group performs every Tuesday, but not necessarily all of them show up every time.

On our first visit we sat at the end of the bar near the band. This time we were near the opposite end, but the sound was still so loud we couldn’t hear each other talk. This is a shot down the bar towards the band.

downthebar

Can you see the band? Neither could we.

The bar swaps a set of 12 regional beers every week. Leah’s beer is the dark one, Burnt Hickory Big Shanty. (The brewery is in the town of Kennesaw, which at one time was known as Big Shanty. It is probably best known for two things. The first was the Great Locomotive Chase during the Southern War to Preserve Slavery. The second was when the town passed an ordinance requiring every resident to have a firearm.)

My beer is the closer one, but I can’t remember the name. On our first visit, I got a mild beer that suited my taste reasonably well. That experience has not been repeated.

This is a bar, so, of course, they offer a variety of drinks.

thebottles

One thing I have learned, or at least have had reinforced, is that there really aren’t too many beers that I actually like. Maybe there’s someone else who feels kind of like me at XKCD:

Of course there are a few beers that I do like, but I just can’t get into bitter.

 

Not rolling downhill

Posted on by

I came across this on my Friday morning dog walk down the mountain.

dungbeetle

It’s a dung beetle, deltochilum gibbosum, the humpback dung beetle, if my identification is correct. I might have noticed the beetle by itself, but what caught my attention from a distance was a moving ball of what appears to be dog poop. It’s possible, in fact probable, that I know the source. The ball was probably slightly more than an inch in diameter.

The beetle had made it about a quarter of the way across Fouche Gap Road. I usually help living things cross the road (turtles, crawfish, snakes), but in this case I felt I just had to let the beetle take its chances. I didn’t see any sign of it when we came back up the mountain, so maybe it was lucky.

I had never seen a dung beetle at work before this, although Walter Reeves, a gardening expert in Georgia, says they are probably in back yards here in Georgia. This link leads to a question that someone submitted to Reeves about using dung beetles to clean up dog droppings in his yard.

I handle that problem by trying to make sure the dogs leave their droppings in the weeds in unpopulated areas along the road. That way they join the rest of the droppings left by the mammal population around here. I think it’s reasonably acceptable in the ecological sense, although I suggest that you watch your step if you walk in the weeds along Fouche Gap Road.

Zeke and Sam are good about not messing up their own territory. Lucy, on the other hand, doesn’t give a …