Of monks, fleas and Alan Greenspan

The situation in Burma is dire, with the military government suppressing dissent by disappearing the country’s saffron-robed monks.

In the United States, appearances are less dire but the Patriot Act still stands, and now through an act of Congress, Verizon won’t have to pay the piper for ratting on its paying customers.

I am concerned that Alan Greenspan seems to have no knowledge of the extent of “billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars” gone missing in Iraq.

The world is roiling with troubles and all I can think about is fleas.

Yes, reader, abandon your admiring thoughts of me and my charming family. We have fleas. When you have fleas, and I hope you never will, you can think of little else.

How we got fleas is still up in the air, or dancing on the carpet.

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Swing sets and missiles

The guy on the radio was scary.

“Attention homeowners! Important! Secure all outdoor furniture! Remember: a hurricane can turn a swing set into a missile!”

Turn a swing set into a missile? Hey, if it’s 1961, and you’re four years old, and you live near Melbourne, FL, and your dad works at Cape Canaveral… what could possibly be cooler than that?

So, every morning during hurricane season, my preschooler self would scamper across the terrazzo floor to the sliding glass doors that opened onto our flat, sandy backyard. Eager with anticipation, I’d open the blinds to check—but darn, every time, my swing set would still be a swing set, not the sleek rocketship I’d imagined a sudden storm might somehow have transformed it into overnight.

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