Arizona Now Hiring!

Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer announced that we’d build our own wall along the Mexico border and I wish to see a materials cost list so that I can donate bags of concrete or a roll of concertina wire or something tangibly understandable.

After all, stemming the flow of 40,000 illegals a month isn’t plugging the hole in the dyke with one’s finger, it’s as if a dam completely crumbled and the Fed doesn’t give a tinker’s damn.

The FCO (Federal Community Organizer) in Washington recently spoke of his pride in the progress the Fed has made during his administration while Arizona’s economy has continued to receive a financial drubbing less severe than the punishment meted to a birthday pinata.

I don’t think 5 miles of help in the span of the FCO’s White House residency is anything to brag about.

Illegals come here to work and labor costs to build a wall probably exceed materials costs, so let‘s empower and employ that willing, ready workforce. .

With chain gangs of work-hungry criminals building the wall, we can create jobs for Americans doling-out sleeping bags, refilling canteens, making sandwiches, treating blisters, sharpening shovels, maintaining power equipment, supervising the construction, and overseeing the chain gangs.

Nature's Hand and Faces

Rain riveting the ribbed, metal Quonset serving as an emergency room was so deafening that the MD and I sought shelter in the back of a double-roofed field (‘cracker box’) ambulance.

We left the doors open to watch the road, the storm, and to let the smoke escape, smoke from local greenery we had rolled in a yellow Zig-Zag and incinerated.

A med battalion jeep carrying a litter, a man and someone on the litter fought gravity, sliding and swerving up the sloppily mudded hill toward us, flashing its brights.

The doc, jeep driver, G.I. boyfriend and I got the soaked canvas litter cradling the very pregnant woman into the Quonset just as the storm blew out our electricity.

Each of us dedicated one hand to holding a candle, while our free hands served to deliver the baby girl without complication or incident.

Ten minutes later in the flickering glow of four candlepower, two medics a doc and a new father stood with silent, streaking tears at the miracle of such an innocent’s birth in the fury of a paralyzing monsoon, less than 10 miles from the DMZ.

The Majuscule H of Shame

The scarlet letter on my forehead is a majuscule at the beginning of 'Hypocrisy.'

News analysts were blaring from the car stereo on my homeward commute, illustrating how the decline of oil barrel prices doesn't reflect a fair deceleration of per-gallon prices at the gas pumps.how the decline of oil barrel prices doesn't reflect a fair deceleration of per-gallon prices at the gas pumps.


The Starbucks clerk working the drive-thru asked if I wanted a receipt for my $4.65 hazelnut latte and I declined, opting to ask for the balance of the prepaid Starbucks card I keep in easy reach of the drivers' seats in each of my cars.

Tuning my ears' attention back to the radio, I grumbled, "No shit, Sherlock!," (maybe even aloud) to my feelings about the weekly gutting of my wallet at the gas pumps for two cars and motorcycle.

I remember my disgust at the time I correctly predicted gas prices would never creep below the 2-dollar mark again, and now, I feel dread I'll never see another gallon of gas below three bucks.

Grabbing the paper cup almost too hot to handle gave me clarity and, after some quick math, I realized I'm spending $29.76 per gallon for the lattes I occasionally can't seem to drive without, yet, which seem to accompany reasonable thinking.

Irretractable

A month after Memorial Day weekend, it was in her second sweep of the condo that Lana found something the police had missed : a small sticky-note on the partially obscured side of the refrigerator.

The investigator thought "S note" likely meant "suicide," but her subsequent, frantic searches hadn’t turned-up a suicide note or the merest hint or crumb trail toward the shadow of a clue about her missing sister.

Gibson turned out to be an attorney who had a generic, store-bought will with nothing out of the ordinary.

The lady at the Humane Society had been kind enough to look-up the records listing Jana’s reason for leaving her cat of 12 years as, “Found animal starving in neighborhood,” not adopted but destroyed which only brought on more crying jags from Lana for Jana.

Jana seemed moody and withdrawn before disappearing and--after analyzing the sticky note-- police surmised that she may have taken her life in the ocean, reasoning that no bank transactions occurred, no travel could be linked to timing in the vanishing of the early-30s executive assistant and, frankly, the woman didn’t have a reason or enough liquidity of assets to drop out of view, society or even life.

A razor-sharp knife separated the skin from the flesh of the overripe mango, hitting the cutting board with a loud rap as Jana contemplated how long she could hide-out in Belize, after purchasing a no-questions-asked passport and citizenship from that government with money she’d embezzled from L.A.’s most accomplished and unsuspected cocaine importer.

I'll Be Back to Join You, Jack

Dan’s discerning eye for naked, natural beauty took great care to select one long, unblemished, mahogany plank.

In spare time over three months, Dan kept me from severing my fingers as I sawed and sanded and sanded, and I finally convinced the skilled wood crafter to do the finishing work so I wouldn’t bungle the final aspects of bringing out all the beauty of the grain in the mahogany’s staining and lacquering.

As the sun set on Thursday the 19th, Spring had clothed Kentucky oaks and maples with the vibrance of new leaves, and it was the perfect time on a perfect evening to transfer my brother’s ashes from a plastic rectangle into the handcrafted mahogany box, topped simply with a pewter cross I found in New Orleans during the HoW trip.

I wood-glued the top, and gently waxed away my fingerprints, avoiding teardrop strikes.

Intent on his task, the grave digger didn’t see me 30 yards away, leaning against the hood of the oversized SUV, as he lifted a square, green mat and dropped the box to the bottom of the hole dug earlier by a tall auger, poised at-the-ready for the next someone’s loved one.

He shoveled and I wept and drove, neither of us wanting to look up or back.

Playing a Round with Joanie's Not Fair Game

After 26 golf lessons and countless trips hitting balls at the range, Joanie had fulfilled her end of the bargain and was now playing her first 9 holes with Eddie on a sweltering day.

Midway through the round, Joanie’s ball was at the lake’s edge, and Eddie watched from the green.

Two shots and three putts later, Eddie sizzled with such impatience that he putted-out and walked to her bag, grabbing the folded pink towel to swab sweat from his neck, never taking his eyes from his hopelessly inept wife.

A gutteral animal-like sound emerged from him as Eddie felt and smelled something ghastly, warm and gooey that he had just spread all over himself, and he ran to the lake cussing a blue streak with overtones of purple and evil-black trimmed in murderous fringe.

Joanie screamed after him, “Well there was duck poo next to my ball and I used the towel ’cuz I didn’t want it on my club,” as, an instant later, she burst into shrieking, oxygen-robbing laughter that doubled her over, breasts to thighs.

He might have forgiven her, except for the Facebook photo of him, on all fours in deep mud, head completely submerged in the lake, derriere in the air, splashing water over his neck and shoulders.

Taking Good Care

The tea was infused with a lavender tint as the boiling water seeped into the purple flowers at the bottom of the cup.

Gary called Tom’s cell he knew would be off and left the message, “I’ll be out for awhile but you've got to be at my house precisely at noon!”

Gary added sugar, finished his tea, rinsed and put away the cup.

Just before 10 a.m., he glanced at the pictures atop of the piano as he stretched out on the living room floor wearing the smile of a contentment he hadn’t known.

The door was ajar when Tom found Gary’s stiffening body curled up with Janice’s framed picture curled into the crook of his elbow.

The digitalis was so effective that there was never an autopsy, and Janice’s claim on Gary’s new insurance policy was paid without regard to the suicide clause.