The Dog Days of Summer

Summer is going full blast here in the Valley of the Sun. The solstice occurred last month and on that day the sun was so far north when it set that it shined into my living room through the French doors to the patio, which only happens for a couple of weeks a year about this time. Now, the sun is starting to recede southward and no longer shines into my living room at sunset. Too bad, I was starting to get used to the room being filled with that nice orange glow.

We managed to get through another Hell On Earth Weekend, which is the weekend closest to July 4th. As I remember a couple of days before the 4th it reached 118 degrees for the high temperature. It's pretty hard to tell people what heat of that kind is like, because unless they've served some time in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia or one of those type of places, they just have no frame of reference for that kind of excess. The old standby description still works: Take a hair dryer, turn it on high, and point it at your face. It feels exactly like that.

I was in a fairly severe automobile accident on the 6th of July. I was coming back from the spay/neuter clinic with 9 bunnies in my car when some asshole who couldn't wait two damned seconds to make sure it was safe, pulled out in front of me from a sidestreet and I slammed into him. It was pretty nightmarish - my beloved Santa Fe was totaled, and had to be towed away. Asshole in the other vehicle was able to drive away, although the police were thoughtful enough to give him a traffic citation on the spot. So I went car shopping today, and bought a new 2011 Hyundai Elantra Touring. It's a nice little car at a good price, and I look forward to picking it up tomorrow. I had no idea being in an accident would be such a mental and physical trauma. I was kind of in shock and pretty scatter-brained for a good 24 hours afterwards, besides being black and blue and banged up. The airbags went off in my car upon impact, and it smashed the carrier in the front seat, carrying a sweet little rabbit named Winston who had come to us all the way from Yuma. Had to sit in a carrier for three hours to get to Phoenix, only to be put in another carrier and then be in a nasty accident. Luckily, neither Winston nor any of the other bunnies were injured.

In national politics, it's been proven once again that it's impossible to over-estimate the stupidity of the average American voter, as a heinous, insidious black hole of ignorance and fakery by the name of Michelle Bachmann befouls the airwaves and news programs at every possible opportunity. There aren't enough bad things I can say about this obnoxious, pasty-faced, simple-minded old scarecrow, so I'm not even going to try. But for some inexplicable reason people listen to her dead-headed stupidity and seem to revel in every twisted, mindless, idiotic pronouncement that comes out of her eternally-flapping mouth.

Her husband is a real piece of work, too. A big, stupid-looking lunkhead, he looks like a fat drag queen who is trying for some reason to pass as straight and clearly failing at it. He runs the family business, a Christian counseling center, and is virulently anti-gay, to the point of trying to foist "reparative therapy" on evil homosexuals. This therapy, also known as "pray away the gay," is used to try to "convert" homosexuals to heterosexuals so they can be in miserable, loveless marriages, go through bitter, acrimonious divorces, beat their beards (I mean, wives), screw up their kids for the rest of eternity, and sneak around behind everyone's back going to gay bars and drag shows. Her husband has "closet case" written all over him, and he must spend a lot of time dressed up in women's clothing and heels, prancing around the house and singing "I Feel Pretty" while Wifey is out on the road spreading her toxic stupidity from coast to coast. It's just a matter of time before Fat Boy gets caught in some airport restroom doing a tap-dance with the person in the stall next to him, but what else can we expect? Being married to Michelle Bachmann must be a truly hideous experience and will twist you so far around you will see the back of your own head.

So, what do we have to look forward as we come into mid-July? For one, the looming debt ceiling deadline is August 2, and the pundits are threatening that financial armageddon is on its way. The Republicans are doing what they always do, demanding tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy people in this country, those who already have so much. Astonishingly, the Repubs refer to these people as "job creators," and are still flogging the long-discredited Reagan-era dead horse of "trickle down economics." Oh, the rich people and corporations are creating jobs alright - in China, India and Indonesia. It's almost as if the Republicans are thumbing their noses at American workers and the 9.2% unemployment we've been enduring for many months now. And lots of people in this country are so dumb they fall for it hook, line and sinker. Sigh.

It's been a pretty exciting couple of weeks, and there have certainly been a few things I could have done without. But, when life tosses you a flaming bag of crap, you just have to deal with it and move on. I keep thinking about the lovely cool weather that is still three months away, and I can't wait to wake up on a nice, chilly, autumn morning and wonder how I ever managed to get through another Arizona summer.