Venezuela??

 I’ve got a cold. Pam got it last week right after Christmas. Now it’s my turn. It’s not horrible but for the past two nights sleep has been rough. This morning I woke up around 4:30, stumbled downstairs with a killer sore throat, then opened my computer to news that my country had attacked Venezuela and captured its leader. What the actual hell? 

I should point out that it is a terrible idea to read the news when you feel like crap. You need to be at the top of your game to tackle the news anymore. I probably should have waited until I had a good breakfast, took a shower and done my exercises…but that ship has sailed. Instead, I was confronted with this bizarre news after only one sip of coffee with a throat that felt like it was lined with cayenne pepper.

What do I even know about Venezuela? Let’s see…I know that it used to be one of the richest countries in Central and South America before they decided to try a Cuba-styled communist/authoriarian government under Hugo Chavez. To the surprise of absolutely no one who isn’t a tenured professor or a journalist, Venezuela is now a financial and human rights basket case despite the fact that they have the largest known oil reserves on the planet. That’s really really hard to do! The current dictator is Nicolas Maduro, a dude who somehow has managed to be even more incompetent and anti-democratic than Chavez. 

Also…Venezuela produces a ton of really great baseball players.

Like most other South American and Central American nations, Venezuela produces tons of drugs. The climate is perfect for it, I’m told. Most of the drugs are smuggled into and consumed by us…the United States of America, since we can’t seem to get enough drugs no matter where they come from.

So now we have apparently attacked the capital with aircraft and managed to snatch Maduro and his wife, who have been flown here to stand trial for a 2020 narco-terrorism charge filed in New York. Details on just how our military managed this remarkable feat remain hidden at this hour. What also remains unclear is what vital national interests of the United States is in play here which would justify a military intervention. I mean if its drugs…we could have done the same thing to Mexico, Columbia, Nicaragua etc etc…

But our President is Donald Trump. Trying to figure out his motivations is like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in the dark. It might just be the baseball thing. Maybe Trump is fed up with the ever increasing number of Venezuelans in the big leagues? Or it could be another in a long line of wag the dog military operations that presidents with sagging approval numbers have engaged in for the past hundred years or so.

But…it’s early. As I type these words this particular adventure is mere hours old. By the time most of you read this there will have been several more social media posts from the President with more details. No matter what the reasoning proves to be—we are once again involving ourselves in what used to be called..war…with another country. This is almost always bad news for everyone.

The Battle Begins…

 

So, I got Pam the BirdBuddy for Christmas. We’ve had the same bird feeder on our deck for the past fifteen years or so and we love it because squirrels cannot get to the birdseed no matter how hard they try, often with hilarious results. This new fangled solar powered gizmo has the advantage of being connected to the internet and comes equipped with a camera and microphone which captures up close and personal photographs of the little guys. She hung this thing after dark last night and this morning we were notified by the device that we had our first customer who is pictured above. When he first landed he gave it many side eyes, making sure it wasn’t some sort of sadistic trap, but once satisfied of its benign intent, began engorging himself with not one but seven seeds before flying off.

But there’s a problem. I can see it plain as day. What I can’t believe is that the manufacturers of the BirdBuddy didn’t notice. This thing might as well have a giant sign hanging off it screaming—All Squirrels Welcomed Here!! It might as well have been named SquirrelBuddy.

I am now on the horns of a dilemma. Should I try to rig up some kind of anti-squirrel contraption to add to the thing ala Wiley Coyote? Or do I rely on my trusty BB gun to punish any tree rat who comes near? I mean thats all well and good but I can’t sit upstairs at the back window all day like that sniper in the church tower in Saving Private Ryan, quoting scripture while picking them off one by one. I’ve got a life to live. But the thought that a tribe of filthy squirrels will be feasting on the ill-designed BirdBuddy, robbing our beautiful birds of their rightful rewards infuriates me. 

I will keep you all posted on developements in what I’m sure will be the ongoing battle of 2026.

No Resolutions

 About this time of year you start to see people posting about everything they accomplished throughout the year and what their New Year’s Resolutions are. I suppose it’s natural and proper to do so. After all, it’s not every day when you go to bed in one year and wake up in another. It feels like a good a time as any to think about such things. My trouble is I hate the word resolution. It’s a name you give for something that most likely will never happen. Congress makes resolutions. The language of Washington is filled with proclamations that use some form of the word resolve, “Resolved, the 119th Congress of the United States does hereby declare that….followed by some lofty promise they have no intention of keeping. So, I never make resolutions. Instead I set goals. What’s the difference? Resolutions are basically positive thoughts. Goals are real and measurable. Here’s an example:

Resolution: I want to be a better listener in 2026.

Goal: Lose fifteen pounds…on January 1st 2025 I weighed 205 pounds. On December 31st 2025 I weighed 190. Killed it!!!

How’d you do with that “better listener” thing?

I’ve been setting goals since my freshman year at UofR. I’ve hit a bunch of them and missed a bunch too, but every goal I set had one thing in common—they were all getable. I never set ridiculous goals. I never write something down like—learn four foreign languages before the end of the year. First of all, I would have no chance and second of all, not something I really want to do in the first place. 

So, what were my goals for 2025? I won’t list them all here because most of them are none of anyone else’s business. Each year I have fitness goals, relationship goals, writing goals, project goals and giving goals. My biggest “get” from 2025 was that I hit my 12,000 pushups goal. Matter of fact I hit all my fitness goals except my weight goal which remains stubbornly unchanged despite all the fitness heroics. But, the point is every goal I set last year was measurable. I nailed two of my giving goals and missed on the third. I totally whiffed on one of my project goals, but hit the other three.

Why set goals at all? Why can’t you just take life as it comes, live life one day at a time, go with the flow? Because sometimes “the flow” drifts towards disaster. Most of the time the proper course in life is against the current. Without a plan, without great intentionality, virtually nothing of value gets done in this world. I would rather attempt great things and fail than drift through living an unexamined and unchallenged life.

Silas’ First Christmas

 Patrick and Sarah left this morning headed home to Nashville. Jon, Kaitlin and Silas will stay for a couple more days before heading back to Columbia. But, Christmas is over for this year. While the memories are fresh, a few observations…

The entire experience is different with a baby in the house, more hectic, more moving parts to deal with. But aside from the more strenuous logistics, having a six month old in the house brings back the magic. It helps that Silas is such a happy, contented and flexible child. He takes very short naps during the day which isn’t optimal…but sleeps 11 hours straight at night which amounts to a godsend for his parents. In the five days he has been here he has endured one 18 person gathering, another 25 person gathering, plus an evening with a babysitter (Bernadette). In each case the little boy was as good as gold. At Aunt Linda’s house we discovered that Silas loves trains! Uncle Bill’s annual train display was the subject of endless fascination.

Watching your grown children parenting like seasoned veterans is an amazing experience. Knowing that this child will always be surrounded by scores of uncles, aunts, and cousins who love him is an invaluable gift he has been given, one that we will never take for granted.

The six of us went to see A Christmas Carol at the Virginia Repertory theater. That timeless story was brought to life beautifully by that company and worth the trip. 

Ready for Christmas

 The week of Christmas is finally here and we are pretty much exhausted. Actually, a more accurate way of expressing this would be…I am tired…Pam is exhausted. 

Over the past two weeks our house has been transformed from one thing to entirely another. The Christmas decorations have gone up, for one thing, and for us that means seven Christmas trees, several garlands, twenty-five snow village houses/stores with all the people and animals who live there, plus scores of wrapped presents under three of the aforementioned seven Christmas trees. But that’s not the half of it…

This will be our grandson’s first Christmas at Lolli and Pops’ house. Accordingly, Pam decided that he would need one of the rooms upstairs converted to an exclusive nursery for him. In addition, his parents would need to be relocated to the bedroom next to this new nursery. In order to accommodate this, Patrick and Sarah’s old room would need to be moved to where my old den used to be, while my den would be relocated to where Kaitlin and Jon’s old room used to be. Somehow Pam had this whole thing pictured in her mind so there was no point in me objecting to any of it. 

The first thing to go was what used to be Pam’s craft room/office. In one afternoon we managed to move all the furniture from all these rooms, reshuffling the decks of what they have all been for the past 28 years. It should be mentioned here that we are both in our 60’s. We still haven’t fully recovered. But when my wife gets a vision in her head, it’s my job to make it happen. The finished product was well worth the effort. We think that everyone will be happy with their new digs. But there is one problem…

Lucy is not amused.

Like all dogs, Miss Lucy is a creature of entrenched habits. One of them is her preferred sleeping spot/hangout spot during the day—what was my old den, and her favorite sofa. Well…when she took the tour after all the changes and discovered that her old spot had been moved she absolutely refused to get on that sofa! She looked at me as if I was guilty of some grave betrayal.

Four days…yes, it took her four full days of sniffing it and lots of heavy sighing before she finally hopped up on her own initiative. Even then, her facial expression was, “Ok…but I’m ready to make a break for the rug at the slightest provocation!!”

RIP, Meathead

 Rob Reiner and his wife had their throats slashed by their son yesterday, at least that’s what the news report said when I saw it last night. To hear news like this fifty years ago would have been shocking—Desi Arnaz and wife Lucille Ball were found bludgeoned to death by their son, little Ricky. That headline would have stopped all of America in its tracks. Now we hardly raise our eyebrows. Now it’s just another dysfunctional Hollywood couple with a disturbed son who snapped in the most violent nation on the face of the earth, the United States of America.

For people of a certain age, Rob Reiner will forever be Meathead, the radical hippy son-in-law of Archie Bunker in All in the Family. But he was much more than that. He gave us A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride. For these three films alone he has left a terrific legacy. But now he’s dead and will most likely be remembered more for how he died than how he lived.

I’m one of those people who basically can’t stand Hollywood and Hollywood people. The way I see it, Hollywood is populated by self-obsessed narcissistic weirdos. The only thing worse than a room full of actors and directors is being in a room full of the children produced by these people. These people have basically nothing in common with everybody outside of Hollywood, ie…their customers. In fact, they despise us. See, they are the only people on earth who believe the “right” things, and every time one of them wins an award (at one of their 63 different award shows they throw for themselves) they simply can’t resist lecturing us rubes in the heartland about all of our shortcomings. As far as Rob Reiner goes, much has been made of his politics in the last 24 hours. I simply take it as a fact that any lifelong show business dude will have the political views of a leftist. Who cares? When I think of Rob Reiner I think of those three movies I mentioned and…Meathead. I have nothing against the man. At this moment, after his violent and tragic death at the hands of his own son, the man’s politics is about as irrelevant as it gets.

Of course, because this is 2025 and Donald Trump is in the White House and simply can’t resist inserting his thoughts into everything, the President of the United States offered up this nugget:

I just can’t process what could possibly have been running through his mind when he not only wrote this…but pressed “send”. Can anyone reading this imagine any other President saying anything like this…ever? I mean…even if he truly loathed the guy, why in the name of everything that is holy would he try to make this tragedy all about him?

But, I ask questions that I already know the answers to. At the end of the day there isn’t a thing I can do about it besides being patient waiting for the day when there’s someone in the White House that has enough self awareness to know that not every thought that enters your mind needs a public airing.

Looking for Opportunities

 Last night Pam and I decorated our family Christmas tree. Like always it was a nostalgic journey. There are ornaments from every trip we’ve ever taken together, many from Maine, others that marked accomplishments of one kind or another. We still hang the occasional ornament that the kids made when they were little. Then there are the ones given to us by dear friends. It’s quite the magical experience and brings with it a profound thankfulness for the blessings of life.

Then I wake up this morning and read of a mass killing in Australia and another at Brown University in Rhode Island. The juxtaposition of the two is life as we know it in the 21st century. Honestly life has always been shot through with contradiction from the beginning, where good fortune is mixed with tragedy. It’s just that in 2025 we know about every horrible thing that takes place anywhere on earth minutes after it happens. For me, reading of some horror somewhere makes me at once more thankful for my life and more burdened for others.

At Christmas this burden seems deeper. It’s hard for me to stay in the moment of happiness and gratitude when I imagine what other families are enduring at this hour. Imagine receiving a phone call telling you that your son has been shot dead walking across campus, the pain and anguish you would be thrust into for the rest of your life.

But, that’s someone else’s burden this morning. Today as the snow falls around me I will go to church, enjoy lunch with friends, take a nap and start wrapping presents. But everywhere I go over these next couple of weeks I will pay close attention to those around me. I will look for opportunities to be a blessing to someone. I hope everyone who reads this will do the same.