Why Is It ...

… that old people always want to remind you how much harder they worked in their day but get annoyed when I remind them that in their day soda had cocaine in it.

… that whatever life throws at me, I duck and let it hit someone else.

… that there are times when I love doing a random act of kindness, like keeping my mouth shut for example!

… that I need to remind myself to normalize throwing lamps at people who need to lighten up

… that when people tell me I have a crazy sense of humor I always says, “Thanks. I would have been lobotomized in the 1940s!”

… that I’d like to thank my bestie for being friends with me; it’s a baffling decision but Thanks!

… that when someone tells me that swearing is unattractive, I say, “I wasn’t trying to attract you, now fuck off.”

… that I have days when I wonder if I sit in rice if it will fix me.

… that y’all need  to realize you don’t want to break anyone’s heart because they just have the one. Go for the bones, cuz there’s like 206 of them.

Bobservations

The other morning I was in our home office and Carlos came in to ask a question:

“I need a word that starts with letter ‘B’ for an acronym we’re trying to create.”

“A ‘B’ word? Any ‘B’ word?”

“Yes—”

“Box, boxer, boxing, butter, biscuit, baker, bowling, ball, basketball, bruise, big, back, backwards, babbling, Babel, basement, baby, babysitter, back, backhand, backache, Bug, Bat, Bus, Bun, Bin, Boon, Bliss, Beard, Bread, Brain, Bugle, Beauty, Brave, Baggage, Budget, boredom—

“STOP!!!”

“Bureaucracy, Ban, Buy, Bear—”

“BOB!!!!”

“Yeah! Bob, and beach and …”

I could have gone on and on but finally I said,

“Believe.”

“Yes. That’s it.

Best be.

This Tuxedo says is from September 2021 …

But by all means, sit by and do nothing and let it happen, or … CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!

It appears that the massive crowds expected at Melanie: From Whore House to White House never appeared. It its third weekend it suffered a 62% drop in attendance and puts the “film” on a path toward grossing $15.4 million in total, nowhere near the $40 million that Jeff Bezos’ Amazon spent to acquire it and an additional $35 million to promote it.

Amazon MGM swears that Melanie: From Whore House to White House will muster strong numbers on streaming to make up for its poor box office showing but they have no plans for a release date as yet.

Movie-speak for no one will see this.

By now, you’ve all heard about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie from her home in Arizona. Sad; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone and I hope they find her alive and everything ends well.

But … cases like these infuriate me because all the media hype surrounding the case has made its way into every single news program mostly because Nancy Guthrie is Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother.

And because she’s white. It isn’t lost on me, nor should it be on anyone, that when a women of color goers missing, you barely get a blurb on the news before it moves to the back page.

If it’s a trans woman you get almost zero news reporting, and the same goes for missing or murdered  indigenous women.

I wish the media would treat all missing persons stories the same and not continually give precedence to white women and young white girls, while ignoring any and every other woman that is taken.

Anderson Cooper is leaving 60 Minutes after turning down an offer from CBS News—formerly the Columbia Broadcasting System but now called Complete Bull Shit—to renew his contract. Cooper, a longtime Husband-In-My-Head, has been a correspondent with 60 Minutes for nearly two decades and was reportedly on Complete Bull Shit News MAGAt-editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’ short list to anchor the Complete Bull Shit Evening News, but he not only rebuffed Weiss’ attempts to recruit him, but he also walked away from 60 Minutes.

Excellent job, sir.

Orlando is about to take a long-anticipated step at demolishing the former Pulse nightclub to make way for a permanent memorial honoring the 49 people killed there in 2016.

Some signage will be saved and become part of the memorial, and the current shrine along S. Orange Avenue will be partially closed during the work, though a small area will stay open so visitors can still leave flowers and other tributes.

Never forget. 

Kunal Nayyar of “Big Bang Theory” has been quietly paying medical bills for random families in need:

“Money has given me greater freedom and the greatest gift is the ability to give back, to change people’s lives … [but] what I really love to do is go on GoFundMe at night and just pay random families’ medical bills. That’s my masked vigilante thing! So, no, money doesn’t feel like a burden. It feels like a grace from the universe.”

The actor—who played Raj Koothrappali on “Big Bang Theory”—boasts a net worth of $45 million.

Good on him.

This is Hungarian born model Máté Kovács—who apparently also goes by Kovács Máté—but the question is, under either name Would You Hit It?

The Funny Papers

Marc Murphy, Michael de Adder, Nick Anderson, Pedro X Molina, Matt Wuerker, Max Espinoza, Clay Bennett, Dennis Goris, Chris Britt, Bill Bramhall, Gary Huck

Why Is It ...

… that I am as swift as a gazelle … an old one … with arthritis … run over by a Land Rover … seven days ago.

… that I am not weird, but I am simply a Limited Edition. Kidding, I’m weird AF.

… that I don’t have a train of thought … I have seven trains on four tracks that narrowly avoid each other when their paths cross and all the conductors are screaming.

… that people need to remember that I have a soft heart and a savage mouth; I’m like a Hallmark card written by Gordon Ramsay.

… that when people disagree with me I generally say, ‘Nice argument, unfortunately, your mama,’ and then I saunter away.

… there is nothing better than hearing friends say, ‘We never see you around.’ I mean, I know, I make sure of it.

… that when people ask me if I run, I say out of patience , money and good decisions.

… that no one realizes I have three basic moods: IDK, IDC, IDGAF and it’s a daily spin-the wheel situation.

… that when I’m drunk I forget I’m shy and I suddenly become the CEO of Chaos, giving life advice to strangers like I’ve got a PhD in bad choices.

… that the idea that someone looked at a purple onion and named it a red red onion really irks me

…. that I seek restraining orders on anyone not wearing deodorant.

Why Is It ...

… that my idea of time management is hoping that the tomorrow-me is more responsible than the today-me.

… that it’s just me and my ‘I forgot and I don’t remember’ against the world.

… that you need to learn that if you call me and start talking to people in the background, I will hang up.

… that I ignore subtle hints so that maybe you’ll speak up and be direct like an adult.

… that there are three places you can stay for free and they are: in your own lane, out of my business, and over there.

… that today I am choosing kindness but, you know, it’s still early.

… that people need to know that I’m not friendly, but I am cool so you can speak to me but don’t keep talking to me.

… that I like to make sure everybody is as confused as possible when it comes to me.

… that I know I am not the only one who whispers ‘fuck off’ to myself about certain people at least twenty times a day.

… that I am only just now realizing that my spirit animal is that bird that knocks itself unconscious flying into windows.

Why Is It ...

… that when I’m at home, watching the news, I think, ‘Why isn’t there more kindness in the world?’ But when I’m driving I hate every single person on the planet?

… that I like the wrinkles that occur from laughter, but call the ones between my eyebrows , the deep ones, my WTF lines?

… that my ex once said he couldn’t live without me and I just found out he’s still alive; more lies!

… that I’ve never had a windshield wiper setting that truly satisfied me?

… that people don’t understand that I am worth every headache I give?

… that one of my rules is that we can only be friends if you’re kind of a bitch? Not a full on bitch because that’s no fun, and if you’re not a bitch at all, I’ll scare you too much. But halfway bitches? Those are my people.

… that my personality is basically a mix between a needy five-year-old child who cannot control his emotions, a teenage rebel who makes poor life decisions, and an eighty-year-old man who just wants to nap?

… that I get easily annoyed, but I also get pre-annoyed., knowing that someone is going to piss me off?

Room 8

Y’all know I’m an Old Cat Lady but here’s a Cat Tail—see what I did there—that I had never heard before, and it’s pretty cool.

One school day in 1952 a large but rather thin, shorthaired, grey-striped tabby wandered into a sixth-grade classroom of the Elysian Heights Elementary School  in Echo Park, where he jumped up onto the desks and was welcomed by the children.

Now, the teacher wasn't so sure about allowing a cat in a classroom, especially what seemed to be a stray, but when the kids pointed out how skinny he was she allowed them to give him some milk. After recess, when they returned to their room, the cat was asleep on a desk, and some of the children's lunchboxes had been opened and the contents scattered around!

Clearly the cat was hungry and making himself at home. So much so that he followed the kids into the lunchroom where they shared their food with him. He then followed them back to class and fell asleep while they continued their studies, and when he awoke, he went out to the playground and left through the gate. They weren't expecting to see him again.

But the next morning he was back, following the kids into their classroom, and as time went by this became his regular routine … attending class with the kids and then leaving as the day ended. Over the teacher’s objections, the cat was adopted by the students and they decided to name him Room 8.

That was the classroom he liked to frequent so 'Room 8' he became, and he eventually became an unofficial school mascot and could be found patrolling the halls or sleeping on a desk. He still went to lunch with the students and though they weren't supposed to feed him, they did, and he became quite plump.

A student from the sixth grade was appointed 'cat feeder' each year, regarded as a very important position in the school, and Room 8's formal feeding took place in the teachers' room, so the cat feeder was privileged. The school did have one hard and fast rule: 'Don't bother the cat'. If he interfered too much with classroom activities, he would be gently relocated by a 'cat remover'.

No one knew where Room 8 went at night or during school holidays, or even over the course of the summer, though most believed he slept in the nearby hills. One teacher, who was a friend and supporter of Room 8 discovered that he'd been born in 1947, making him about 5 when he first came to the school, and that he was a neighborhood animal who had been ill treated at his home. It seems likely that Room 8 just moved out and into the school, a second home; no one knew where he spent weekends, school holidays and summers, though every September Room 8 would be back, right on schedule, for the start of the new school year.

Soon the local media picked up the story as Room 8's fame had spread beyond Echo Park, and even beyond Los Angeles. He made personal appearances at local cat shows and community groups and was made an honorary member of various organizations. In late 1962 Look magazine ran a three-page spread on him; in 1964 Room 8's pawprints were embedded in wet cement in front of the school where they still exist today; in 1966, his ‘biography’ and there was an article about him the following year in a national publication for elementary-school pupils; and in 1968 he was featured in part of a television documentary. Each year he joined the sixth-grade children for their class photograph, and the honor of holding him went to that year's cat feeder.

At the height of his fame Room 8 was receiving fan mail, sometimes 100 letters a day and in total approximately 10,000 letters were received in his lifetime, from nearly every state and several foreign countries. The fifth- and sixth-grade students became 'cat secretaries', answering each piece of mail by hand and signing it with a rubber-stamp pawprint.

As Room 8 aged, there were some health issues; he began losing some teeth; he was injured in a cat fight in 1963, and then a year later Room 8 contracted pneumonia and nearly died. As he aged he began to accept hospitality from friends and neighbors near the school at night and when school was not in session.

In 1968 a summer school was held at Elysian Heights for the first time for some years and Room 8 attended faithfully every day until he became very ill and had to be taken to the hospital. He died on August 13, 1968, of kidney failure, as happens so often with older cats. He was 21, and in his lifetime had become an important part of the school and the community at large.

Room 8 was given a three-column obituary with accompanying photo in the Los Angeles Times, and his passing was noted by various other publications, including the Christian Science Monitor. He was buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park at Calabasas, with the Nakano family—who’d looked after him at night and on school breaks—laying a wreath of roses and carnations on his grave because he used to love sniffing the flowers in their garden. Students raised money to buy a gravestone for Room 8 and it can still be seen today.

In 1972 former students of the school created the Room 8 Memorial Cat Foundation, a no-kill shelter supported by donations that still exists today. And today, half a century after Room 8 passed, the Elysian Heights School still remembers him with affection and maintains several mementoes of him, including a painting that hangs in the school office, and two paintings in the hall next to a larger version of his memorial medallion. Room 8 is front and center in a mosaic mural in the library, and another mural on the side of the auditorium, and his likeness painted on the outside of a classroom building. The school proudly announces its famous feline with foot-high letters on Echo Park Avenue at its junction with Baxter Street: 'Elysian Heights School. Home of Room 8. School Cat 1952-1968'. And each year, first- and second-grade pupils have the book about Room 8 read to them by their teachers.

What a wonderful way to honor and remember him and all he gave to that school and those students over the sixteen years he “went” there and in the years since.

Purr'n'Fur

Candice Payne Is An Angel

I need a palate cleanser after that last story—and no Hot Men today—and then I came across the story of Candice Payne.

Payne, a local real estate broker in Chicago, like everyone in Chicago, was enduring the unbearable cold last week, but unlike most people, she thought about those stuck in the cold, and decided to do something about it.

“It was 50 below, and I knew they were going to be sleeping on ice and I had to do something.”

And so, Candice Payne contacted the Amber Inn in Chicago and paid for 30 rooms to be available to homeless people left out in the cold. She then took to Instagram and asked for volunteers to help transport the homeless to the hotel and soon she had a fleet of cars and drivers willing to help.

She and the drivers went to a tent city, under the expressway and asked as many people as she could to go with her to the Amber Inn. As the news of her mission broke, more and more people began to donate and Payne was able to not only house over 100 people, but she was able to offer them everything toiletries, food, prenatal vitamins, lotions, deodorants and snacks and made care packages to help make the people feel comfortable. Nearby restaurants donated trays of food and what started out as 30 rooms soon doubled to 60; what started out as a one-night stay, with the homeless staying just until Thursday when the temperatures were expected to rise, turned into several days of warmth and food and kindness.

A lot of folks stepped up, but they might not have done so had it not been for Candice Payne and her idea …

“I am a regular person. It all sounded like a rich person did this, but I’m just a little black girl from the South Side. I thought it was unattainable, but after seeing this and seeing people from all around the world, that just tells me that it’s not that unattainable. We can all do this together.”

And seeing what could be done in a short time has inspired Candice Payne to do more …

“This was a temporary fix, and it has inspired me to come up with more of a permanent solution.”

This is how things change, when people who think they can’t help, or think they don’t know how to help, just step up.

Candice Payne is that kind of person.

NYT

The Amazingly Talented and Sweet Anne Marie!

Imagine my surprise to find an early birthday gift waiting for me when I arrived home.

And imagine how surprised I was to find it was from Anne Marie.

And really imagine how surprised I was to find it was one of her handmade knit scarves.

Thanks so much, AM; it's gorgeous, and warm and snuggly. I wrapped it around my neck and wore it out while we were running around Smallville today!

So, so sweet, and so appreciated.

xoxoxo

Good News Friday: Another Athlete Sits Down

Last week the big sports news was about a football player sitting down when Colin Kaepernick chose to sit out the playing of the National Anthem in protest of racial inequality in America. But there was another football player who sat down recently, for an altogether different reason.

Travis Rudolph, a wide receiver for Florida State University, was visiting Montford Middle School in Tallahassee with several of his teammates and, while walking through the cafeteria, he saw a young boy, Bo Paske, sitting alone. Rudolph grabbed a slice of pizza and asked Bo if he could join him.

Bo said, “Sure, why not.”

And so Rudolph sat with Bo, and talked with Bo, and learned that Bo loves Florida State and football; he also learned that Bo suffers from autism, which is why, most days, he eats alone since the other kids won’t share a lunch table with him.

After school that day, Bo told his mother, Leah, that he’d met Travis Rudolph and that Travis ate lunch with him. Leah nearly cried, realizing for that one day she hadn’t needed to worry about Bo eating alone, and she took to Facebook to share Bo’s story and thank Rudolph:

"I'm not sure what exactly made this incredibly kind man share a lunch table with my son, but I'm happy to say it will not soon be forgotten. This is one day I didn't have to worry if my sweet boy ate lunch alone, because he sat across from someone who is a hero in many eyes."

Leah also shared her anxieties in her Facebook post about middle schools and kids with autism, and how she worried for Bo:

"Sometimes I'm grateful for his autism. That may sound like a terrible thing to say, but in some ways I think, I hope, it shields him. He doesn't seem to notice when people stare at him when he flaps his hands. He doesn't seem to notice that he doesn't get invited to birthday parties anymore. And he doesn't seem to mind if he eats lunch alone. It's one of my daily questions for him. Was there a time today you felt sad? Who did you eat lunch with today? Sometimes the answer is a classmate, but most days it's nobody."

But not that day; that day Travis Rudolph decided to sit down, and he made a silent statement, and he made a new friend.

Once the story went viral, as often happens when someone does something kind — which is a whole other story about why we’re shocked by kindness — Travis kept up his friendship with Bo and last week he gave Bo an honorary jersey — one with Travis’s number on it, but with Bo Paske’s name, too — and a pair of tickets to a Florida State game, where Bo and his mother watched Florida State beat Mississippi from the sidelines.

It wasn’t much … a chat over lunch … a free shirt … a football game … but it meant the world to a sixth-grader who often eats alone.

And all it took was for Travis Rudolph to sit down.

6ABC

Time

I Normally Don't Like People, But I'm Making An Exception Today

The funerals are beginning for the victims of last week’s mass murders at Pulse nightclub in Orlando and one sweet thing that resulted was that JetBlue offered free airline travel to family members so they could get to their loved one’s memorials.

That’s sweet; it’s nice. This story, however, kinda restores my faith in people a little bit.

The grandmother of one of the victims — Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo — took JetBlue up on their offer and boarded a flight bound for Orlando. One of the flight attendants posted to Facebook about what happened:

“Today my dear friend Melinda and I had the sad privilege of attending to his grandmother on our flight as she made her journey to Orlando to join her family during this unspeakable time.

Knowing she was making this hard journey alone, JetBlue employees made sure to be at her side every step of the way. Melinda stood quietly by her wheelchair while we waited until it was time to board. Kellie, the gate agent, boarded with her and helped get her settled. Melinda and I gave her a blanket, a pillow, a box of tissues and water so she could be as comfortable as possible. She was understandably distraught, but met us with kindness and gentleness. And gratitude.

But here’s where our flight got truly inspiring. I had the idea to pass around a piece of paper to everyone on board and invite them to sign it for this grieving grandmother. I talked it over with Melinda and she started the process from the back of the plane. As we took beverage orders, we whispered a heads up about the plan as we went.

Halfway through, Melinda called me, “Kel, I think you should start another paper from the front. Folks are writing PARAGRAPHS.” So I did. Then we started one in the middle. Lastly, running out of time on our hour and fifteen minute flight, we handed out pieces of paper to everyone still waiting.

When we gathered them together to present them to her, we didn’t have just a sheet of paper covered in names, which is what I had envisioned. Instead, we had page after page after page after page of long messages offering condolences, peace, love and support. There were even a couple of cash donations, and more than a few tears.

When we landed, I made an announcement that the company had emailed to us earlier in the morning to use as an optional addition to our normal landing announcement, which states “JetBlue stands with Orlando.” Then with her permission and at the request of a couple of passengers, we offered a moment of silence in Omar’s memory.

As we deplaned, EVERY SINGLE PERSON STOPPED TO OFFER HER THEIR CONDOLENCES. Some just said they were sorry, some touched her hand, some hugged her, some cried with her. But every single person stopped to speak to her, and not a single person was impatient at the slower deplaning process.

I am moved to tears yet again as I struggle to put our experience into words. In spite of a few hateful, broken human beings in this world who can all too easily legally get their hands on mass assault weapons – people ARE kind. People DO care. And through our customers’ humanity today, and through the generosity of this wonderful company I am so grateful to work for, I am hopeful that someday soon we can rally together to make the world a safer place for all.

I will never forget today. ‪#‎Orlandoproud”

I can only hope that this feeling of standing together, and working together, and understanding of togetherness, might continue on in the days, weeks and months ahead.

We are all in this together, whatever happens, anywhere; it affects all of us because it could happen to any of us.

Like I said in the post title, I am not much for people — except for a handful — but this might change my mind a little.

For Every Mom