Stamford Bits and Pieces...New Recycling Rules and The Dog Run Opens!!

Imagine my surprise when I started to plow through the paper this weekend and came across this little piece of great news: One Bin Recycling begins Today!!
According to the Stamford Advocate, Stamford is finally, finally, trying out a new and obviously better, sub-contractor for the recycling fiasco that has been in place here for years. I don't really care about what bin I put paper in, but I do want to be able to recycle paper every week...and I want to recycle all plastics, not just 1's and 2's. I can't figure why the city that works can't manage to invest in the infrastructure to run their own recycling, but I know that I don't know enough about the local unions and CT state cronyism to comment. All I can say is that I've felt really guilty for not keeping all plastics and dragging them up to the transfer station for recycling, but it's truly all I can do to keep things going here at the level that I have...which, is wild and overgrown with not enough outside help.

The plastic problem in the ocean is real, and no matter your political persuasion, you can't deny an actual continent as large as Texas of plastic that you can see with your eyes, much less the parts you can't see; like the liquefied plastic that the algae is eating, which is then eaten by tiny fish and down the chain to...us! Worried about Chinese plastic additives in your dog's food? Have you wondered what that wild caught fish that you're ponying up extra bucks for has been eating out there in the polluted seas? This is serious, folks, lets get on board with recycling plastics and letting the city government know that we appreciate it!

Of course, we were supposed to get a notice on this, but we haven't. That's par for the course around here. I'll take whatever I can get at this point; explaining the situation to people who don't live here is pretty funny: you cant put anything but ones or twos, metal and glass in the blue bins, and if they are in any sort of bag, forget it. All bags must be removed or they wont take it. Bins bust be by the road and if they are too far back, then forget it, cardboard must be flat and tied with a string. Tape might be suspect, so don't even chance it. Next thing you know, it rains and you're dealing with taped up pulp for another week. Mixed paper was only once a month, you you end up with bags and bags of it, and if it snows or rains, well, its heavy. They still come for it supposedly. I dunno...There is no way to fit the amount of mixed paper that comes to a normal household into the gray bin, and otherwise you have to use paper bags. If they are in plastic, it had better be puled down so it only covers the bottom of the bag, or they might not take it! The worst is that they toss the bins back wherever and if its raining, up here, the bins float down the street! Im sure that downtown has their own problems, but from up here, one wonders why the contractor that was awarded that contract was allowed to continue this long.
Here are the new guidelines that are supposed to be left in our bins this week. Of course, its supposed to rain on my recycling day, so I'm printing it out.

And if you haven't seen this, its worth 10 minutes of your time. It will spur you on to get more serious about recycling:




Here is something else that really made me happy this week. After wandering around on the outside of the fence with Lola for weeks waiting for the grass to "set," I'm happy to say that the new dog run has opened!
We will definitely be down there, as long as its kept clean. It's right on the Highway, in Courtland Park, right off of exit 9, I think, and it's not a terrible location, considering that it was good enough for the city to have us doing T-ball there when Will was 7 or so. There are fumes for sure and it would have been nice to not have a park there at all, but I would prefer to use that public space for dogs and an adult or two than kids playing sports. Also, every community fought having a dog park in their backyard so vehemently, that we never would have seen this day...believe me, it was a long process! Here is the scary Google map (because Google is watching you all the time!) and here is the site map. I hope that it works out OK...it depends on the crowd and the dogs. More on that as it happens....

There is much more locally but its a nice, non raining day and I may just pile Spike and Lola, and Puppy in the car and go and check out the new park....

RIP Sandy Girl....May 18, 1995-May 11, 2009

The day I got the tiny Sandy Girl Brown, I put her in the stroller with Will and he smiled and squealed. I guess that Will was almost one, and Sandy was maybe 5 or 6 weeks old. She was the happiest, most loving dog, with her ears always perking up and her tail going nonstop. She was chihuahua all the way, serious when it counted but pretty happy go lucky most of the time.



Coco was already the senior dog and they made quite a pair, with crazy Jess screeching on the side and taking off into the night. I don't even remember who all else I had by then, but Sandy blended in naturally as the middle child who was always needy and wanting love and attention; she was a love sponge.

I named her after one of my very favorite Springsteen Songs, which I sang to her every time I bathed her (the dogs all used to have songs for the tub.) We played it today when we laid her to rest, in a deep hole beside the house, with a Flying Dragon tree planted over her body and a temporary stone, marked with Sharpie:





Even in her old age, having trouble walking, and with her heart and kidneys failing, she remained the happiest one in the pack...deaf and mostly blind, she could still smell a Chinese rib across the house, and she would stagger over for a piece; Sandy always was a food dog and had been pretty fat for most of her life. In the past weeks, knowing that she was at the end, I was able to give her alot of rib and Beggin' Strips, and all that stuff that I consider junk food for dogs. I took her up into my bed yesterday and she was so happy there. She had a whole Beggin' Strip at bedtime and as I went upstairs I heard her snapping at Spike to get away from her treat. She was a tough old broad to the end....the vet thinks that she didn't suffer from my explanation of how she looked when I found her in the morning. It was probably a stroke...her heart was going...

RIP old girl...She was a very good girl....I'm gonna miss her....

Welcome Bo!

I cant imagine life without dogs; to that end I currently have 6! First Dog Bo officially makes his appearance this Tuesday, a gift from Teddy and Victoria Kennedy. This is the first pet for the Obama family and I, for one, will be following along closely....it is possible after all to be interested in the frivolous details of the real life of a real family while still knowing whats going on in the world!

This wonderful photograph was lifted form the Today Show page and was shot by White House photographer Pete Souza. Visit his site for a look at some of the most fabulous pictures of the First Family that Ive seen so far, along with some of the most incredible photojournalism out there.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Ann Coulter...Fund Raising and Hype...Carville, Clinton, Barak, and Pelosi...The Beat Goes on....

You know the thing about people who abuse and kill animals? Do I have to go into the psychological implications of this? Do we want another psycho in the white house?...As if he has a chance anyway....
This group is really rich...really fine...and the array of interesting tidbits that keep coming out of them are just like little gifts on an otherwise cloudy day.
I probably shouldn't be so empathetic as to think of what it might be like for a dog to travel in a crate on top of a car for 12 hours ,"enjoying the fresh air" to the point where it craps all over the car. It was an Irish Setter no less, and the story seems to indicate that the Romney's left it up there for the whole drive. I don't even go 10 miles with my dogs inside the car without stopping and walking them around a little. Oh, I suppose that if its a long trip, like up to Cape Cod, I might stop just 2 times, but I walk them and give them water. Even when I was a little kid, my Mom was like that, and she is from a farm in the mid-west and from Massachusetts with a hunter/commercial fisherman brother, so its not a cultural animal treatment thing. Its an empathy thing. And what of the hundred kids crammed in that vehicle without a rest stop? Or was it just too much trouble to let the dog out when the kids needed a bathroom break? Did the kids even get a bathroom break before old Mitt had to hose down old Seamus? Sheesh! (and luckily ABC news has provided us with an article that studies what it might be like for a dog on the roof of a car traveling 55 MPH for 12 hours...thanks guys...I'm sure that no animals were harmed in the making of this article...except for the mice used in place of the dog!...Warning: this article made me actually nauseous.)
Is this who should be deciding what to do with any living thing...much less soldier's lives and the care of the citizens of this country??...nope, I think thats pretty much that for Mitt...Bye bye, been good to know ya...and too bad we didn't get to go into the Mormon thing more; I was really looking forward to it.

Ive been receiving alot of emails from different groups and candidates...first, while still reeling from the letter written on behalf of felon Scooter Libby by James Carville and Mary Matalin, about how much they pity his family and whatever...No sooner had I worked myself into a froth over that when I got a Carville email with the subject line "Lemmings," referring to the republicans who are being sent to the slaughter in the November '07 elections. Looking at his lizardly picture and trying to expunge my mind of the image of him and Mary in bed, I was thinking about the Hillary people and anyone else who looks at this guy and thinks that he is really a democrat or someone who maybe has the best interest of this country, and what we supposedly stand for, in mind. What a disgusting way to end the origami fun-filled weekend.
On Monday, Barak wanted to know what inspires me, but attached to my inspiration story getting published on his website was some mention of a donation, and he is not my candidate, so...
Tuesday Bill Clinton wanted to know if I was "Having Fun Yet?" Because presidential campaigns should be fun! So, on the heels of the Sopranos spoof, whats in store? Oops...better chip in to find out. Donate today to see some more of that great film quality work that they put up on YouTube last week....Hilarious!!
Wednesday I was engulfed with fury at MSNBC and all the other major news organizations for giving that psycho Anne Coulter any more time than the initial 15 minutes she deserved so many years ago. Chris Matthews Hardball report was all about the "Smoking Hardball Plaza show" in which Chris wished M-Ann and Elizabeth Edwards had been oil wrestling naked..but more on that later. Oh whatever, more on that now!
I was disgusted by how flirty and slimy the drooling Chris Matthews was with the boyish Ann Coulter, as she tried to justify her continuous shilling for publicity on the back of tragedies that she couldn't possibly understand. Some day it may come to her, and some day she may suddenly see herself as she actually looks, with that horrible snooty tone in her voice and that pseudo-intellectual bullshit ivy league thing; someday she may just realize that it all mean nothing if you are a horrible, cold, person. But Chris Matthews, well hes all over the map, and he is studying himself pretty damned closely all the time. His wife must have kicked him in the balls for that little performance, because he tore out of the gate in the next couple of shows to discredit La Coulter and her way of doing things. I blame MSNBC, Dan Abrams, and Matthews himself for pandering to the lowest common denominator in trying to get ratings. If you want better ratings then get some other sharp, humorous guys on air, who are like Keith Olbermann. Hey, heres an idea, how 'bout Marc Maron? How 'bout even Rosie O'Donnell? How 'bout just about anyone but the same old crap that you've been doing over and over....
By yesterday Michael Moore was shilling for Democracy for America and asking "whats the problem?" ( oh and, go see his movie to find out!!...Im all for that!) If you have to be shown in easy dramatizations and diagrams...The problem?
Well, the problem that us lemmings seem to be unable to inspirationally put into words in all of these emails is that we are in this fucking war until April '08 at the soonest. This is what I'm hearing...and I'm mad. They mean that the pullout wont even start till April '08, realistically. It will then take months and months, and probably years into forever to play out fully.
Is it possible that the republicans, the lying, thieving lot of them, could possibly parlay the clear democratic inaction into so much disgruntled nonsense that they manage a third party switcheroo again? Is it possible that just in the delivery of the news on their intentions in this matter, that they are fucking up yet again?
Well, this is what Ive heard: if we were to go for impeachment, we really don't have the votes, so we would be doing what we are doing with hearings and investigations right now. The impeachment and also the criminal charges come later....yeah, but why all of the CRAP from the likes of Pelosi, who sent me a mail a couple of weeks ago after not blocking the surge that said something like "VICTORY!" in the subject line.
We made a grand statement that day...but for god's sake, why aren't these people screaming this from the rooftops, leaking pictures and video, linking the war and the republican votes FOR THE SURGE to so many ills right here at home?
Jesus, if the health care system is lacking, and we know that the veterans administration is all but unable to handle what they've got coming home now, what will we do in the years to come with all of the surge soldiers who have been thrown on the fire in the interest of a plan which is clearly not working?
How is it that Carville even has a job with Hillary or is even hired as a democratic pundit when he is clearly married to the other party? How come he has access to my email address? If he wasn't such a scary creature I would say to keep an eye out for him to end up as the next Chris Matthews in pundit-land.
It is so disingenuous for these characters to email and continually ask for money while trying to parse the situation in cheery terms. It all looks the same to me and I dont even want to know what they have to say...its all the same and in the end they want more money to do the same. Thats why I am supporting one candidate and my own causes. I wont give any money to the Democratic party, nor will I spread donations around so that our beautiful field can explore itself.
I have an idea. lets all pool our money and hire Pixar (uh-oh, is that Disney?...well, some other big company like that!) to make a film that shows in easy animation with no subterfuge, what is going on in the world and what it means to each of us. No one with a career, ego, or financial stake in any of this should be allowed to participate. The we should pay to place it in all airplanes, at the end of all checkout counters instead of the stupid Swanson cooking tips, and on big screens from Times Square to the Mall of America and back again. The we should merchandise it to MacDonalds and Starbucks...This is gonna take big money; more than Die-Hard 6!...Money talks, and we'll need lots of it folks, but maybe less than Bloomberg would need to win the primary, much less the election. The war will only be won in simple terms with pictures and singalongs....
Oh, and we'll need our own NASCAR team too! But it will have to be cloaked in the movie theme to be allowed into the hallowed halls of the Marlboro team or the Disney team...wouldn't want to make a political statement at a sporting event. The large corporations own that arena...not much of a political statement anyway.


Today I got a mail from what I thought was the Kucinich people asking for a donation in return for an Impeach Cheney cap. But no, it was a donation request that also offered a FREE IMPEACH CHENEY CAP which asks within itself at the People's Email network, or some such, for a donation in order to make caps for people who want them free, and to cover your's...but you don't have to. Heres the problem: besides that I dont wear caps, the thing seems to be purple and it has a pink question mark after the IMPEACH CHENEY part. Purple is a bad choice all around. Im not a hater of purple at all, but it doesn't go with everything and you're not gonna find alot of truckers wearing that particular shade. How bout basic black and let's lose the question mark. How about IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST!!
There you go.

I have alot of pictures of the fantastic origami weekend and also of the more fantastic Gay Pride Parade in NYC, and I will be posting them tonight or tomorrow depending on how my other work goes (and the fact that this Dell's cardreader is now not working, and I just don't have the time to search for the USB for the camera(s) involved.) have I mentioned lately how much I hate Dell, and how sorry I am that I gave them another chance?