"Bob! We have SQUIRRELS!"
     Sorry - TV flashback.  You know - to that commercial in which the woman opened her basement door and immediately screamed, "Bob! We have TELEMARKETERS!"
     No, wait - I mean "Bob!  We have RATS!"  
     Honest mistake.
     Anyway, we have SQUIRRELS.  I watched at least 9 (NINE!) of them running back and forth between the bushes, the trees, and the wood fence near the northeast corner of our lot yesterday and today exactly as if they were players in some wild French bedroom farce.
     All while a 10th (TENTH!) squirrel stood on the patio just outside my back door with a "What - ME a squirrel??" look on his face exactly as if he were auditioning to play OJ Simpson in straight-to-video movie.
     Amazingly, I hear some people actually have to go to Las Vegas to enjoy such fine entertainment.....
 

     I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about India.
     About that billionth baby they say was born there on Thursday.
     About how approximately 42,000 babies are born in India every day (including Sundays and, presumably, Christmas and the birthday of The Pill).
     Meaning that, since little Astha was born Thursday morning, some 168,000 more Indians have popped into existence.
     And I had nothing to do with that.
     Honest.
     You can take my word for it, or you can start running the DNA tests at your convenience.
     Remarkable, I know - but true: Things - even thousands of things - are out there happening every day - every minute - and I have nothing to do with them.
     I didn't start them.
     I don't supervise them.
     I don't even have to jot a quick "OK" on any documents related to them, just so they're proper, legal, or official.
     Amazing...
     Simply amazing....
     So - if you're having a bad day - if something untoward has happened in your lifetime - if you ever meet an Indian you don't like - don't blame me.
     It's simply not my department.
     I'm simply out of the loop.
     Amazing - but true!
     I swear.
 

     Although many U.S. servicemen during the Vietnam War served in-country for months at a time, only a handful were ever incontinent.

     My best feline bud is currently curled up on the red towel we have for him on the blue recliner in front of the living room TV.  He is on his left side, facing the TV.  He has given me another evil look through half-opened eyes just now when I went to check on his whereabouts.  
     Although I love my cat and want to believe the evil in his eyes is no more than a passing disappointment in my not being small and edible, I find myself wondering if it might not be something more.
     Try as I might, I cannot completely shake the suspicion that my dear little self-propelled furball might be responsible for at least a few of those recent births in India....
 

     As I may have mentioned, my wife is going to France this summer.
     So I've been helping her prepare for her trip.
     You know - tolerating her asking me again and again "What time does the train to Calais leave?" in a language I don't understand.
     Reminding her again and again of the diseases spread by organ grinder's monkeys.
     Yesterday I told her a new cautionary tale.
     "I had a friend in high school who went to Paris.  He was very disappointed by Notre Dame.  Very disappointed.  Seems the hunchback was on break the entire ten minutes he was there."
     My wife, for her part, has been trying to educate me with what she has learned from the French teacher she is going with.
     "Did you know that French grocery store cashiers and baggers don't ask 'Paper or plastic'?"
     "Oh? What do they ask?"
     "'Alligator or silk?'"

     If she comes back with the odor of snails on her breath, I'm calling the lawyers....
 

     Our back yard bush is blooming!  Our back yard bush is blooming!  SEE??