Which Reminds Me

Anyway, it was merely coincidence that had Stephanie sitting at our table, and the fact that she was good friends with Patricia Sarravia. But there was nothing personal that I would want to discuss with her. She was very busy playing politics so, yes, I really could not explain to her right then anything that about what that did or did not mean to me. Yes, I remember that Raymond and some other people were at another table making a lot of noise but really Raymond was a rather dim bulb if you ask me.

Which Reminds Me

The Wilsons lived in El Salvador for one year, when I was maybe 10 years old, and I remember we were at their house one time for maybe a birthday party, because they had two daughters near our age, and I may not remember this very well, but I am thinking that Mr. Wilson stood me on a chair and said something about how he wanted to be my representative. Which was weird. Yes, what was that supposed to mean? How did I answer that other than maybe laugh? I did feel uneasy. I was only maybe 10 or 11 years old at the time so no valid contract could have been established by that. And what could be the effect of that other than to make his two daughters utterly loathe me and enable them to come to my house and smash all my toys? And do you really think I am so stupid that I would put any faith in the dreary Wilson bombers? The Bible says that there is a mountain that will fill the whole earth but I tend to think that Everett is not the name or the place. It is not really about that. That Wilson thing didn't mean very much to me. Personally, I would not want myself and my personal effects to be represented by those heavy-handed, ham-handed political people who are basically only looking to build on their own political capital at my expense. They never really do anything to help us. I can't even remember what exactly was said by whom but of course those crazy people would probably read into that much more than I could ever imagine possible.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that I only tolerated those drearily obnoxious people, meaning Nelson and Regina Gonzalez, who were always so haughtily strutting themselves around here in Florida, so why would I want to go all the way to Texas to see their boring faces all over again. I really couldn't care less whatever happens to them. Maybe the AG could mail those Gonzalez fairy-fags a ticket to outer Siberia, but that would be such a mean thing for me to say, and then I would be the only one punished for all the dirty tricks they played on me behind my back, so obviously I never said that.

Which Reminds Me

Debbie Lange was a childhood friend who I had not since since age 12. When I returned to California during college I once visited her and almost the only thing that she said was to remark about how short I am. You see, she is very tall now and takes dancing lessons, which is a shocking thing to hear. Since when do we care about dancing? I haven't seen or heard from her since that one time.

Which Reminds Me

Ah yes, now I remember, you were talking about Edgar Allan Poe and making some points about how you are discontinuing that poet model due to an excessively introspective tendency to obsess on topics of a dark and occult nature. What does that have to do with me? I am not aware of myself being related to Poe. I don't know anything about that. We all read Poe's short stories as required reading in high school and they are dark and spooky but yet he contributed something to literature that is considered valuable by scholars even 200 years later so we really can't say that he didn't deserve to live or whatever was the point that you were trying to make about Poe. What? Poe ate too much? I couldn't quite understand what are these points you were making about Poe. So you are saying that we should look to fill a job position, not to be a Poe or a poet or a Po-ate? Ok, fine. So you think that I am too introspective? Well, if you are one of those boring Hondurans you really wouldn't understand. I could try to explain but you would only be confused.

Which Reminds Me

Someone was asking me if I remembered Ronald Aguilera. I vaguely remember the name as being someone who was attending our college. I remember seeing him maybe once or twice, mainly I remember that he performed in the talent show with Sharon Whetstone, who was his fiancee at the time, a duet by Sonny and Cher, "I Got You Babe." However, I never really had any personal contact with him so there is nothing else that I can tell you about him. You told me that he was from Honduras. Oh, I didn't know that. Although I recognize the name, I couldn't care less about these boring people. Ok, basically, I thought the Ronald was maybe a blithering idiot, but that wouldn't be a nice thing for me to say about anybody. I won't really need this Honduran scum for anything.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, personally I wouldn't base all my theology on a fictional story written by Salarrué even though he is a very famous author in El Salvador. Sometimes it is better not to put a famous author's personal foibles under a microscope lest you find an unpleasantly unexpected surprise. I mean, another well-known short story he wrote tells of a Mayan Indian crucified, literally, physically, as the Black Christ, but that is also a fictional tale, although who can say whether there was some kernel of truth about that somewhere in the distant past on which to base a fictional piece, not to mention the Catholic relics of Guatemala, but we are Protestants so we don't pay too much attention to that. That said, there is no reason to imagine that we ever had access to the Family Feud records of the Bueno family until you recently started playing them online. Oh, I didn't know that. It is my opinion that you cannot use a fictional story to convict me of a fictional crime so just breaking records will not solve this problem. That would be wrong. That just won't fly in a court of law, one would think. We knew that they had previously lived many years in Chile but they had not discussed with us the border conflicts of 19th century Argentina and its variant street language permutations. So obviously it really wasn't about them. I don't even remember what it was about other than the beautiful scenery enjoyed on a nature hike.

Which Reminds Me

Speaking of Honduras, there is a story by the famous author from El Salvador, called Salarrué, in which he sort of disses Honduras. In the story, a man and his son go to great efforts to bring a record player to a house deep in the jungles of Honduras. A robber or band of robbers comes along and they kill the man and his son and then the robber plays the records on the record player, perhaps a wind-up Victrola type of record player, and the sound of the music is streaming through the depths of the Honduran jungle, and that is basically the entire plot of that story, but the story is artfully told if you can read Spanish. Added to that, he sort of puns the name of the country, Honduras, which is also a Spanish word meaning "depths." But I never noticed that story during high school. Only more recently did I notice that. Yes, I suppose that could be interpreted to describe Honduras as a sort of bottomless pit, a Spanish abyss of sorts, because, yes, sometimes there is no justice and perhaps there never will be enough answers to satisfy the Honduran demands for satisfaction, whatever that meant. Where does that stop? Enough. It was a tragedy but that was almost 50 years ago. And the Apostle Paul had some negative things to say about the Cretans who were described by him as deceitful, but that is in the Bible perhaps for a reason. Why was there a weeklong war over a soccer game? And all those people who died in the Soccer War, where is the justice? Sometimes there just are no answers to these deeply imponderable questions. And if you have so much faith in God, why would you be asking me? Go home to Honduras and figure it out for yourself.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it does seem rather strange that these high-powered political women of the United States should have such a vested interest in identifying themselves with the street slang interests of Chile. I mean, really, it is just regional slang thing that I would imagine is mostly likely not admitted into the Royal Academy of the really official Spanish language. I was young and naive when I first encountered this phenomena, so I always kept quiet about that, but now that I am older and can see a fuller picture of that, and even yet I do not really identify myself with either of those Southern Cone countries. These language mistakes could easily happen to anyone navigating the cross-cultural language frontiers, so you really should not get so overwrought about nothing much. In fact, I am fairly certain that other people have already trod this path before me.

It logically follows that you would next be intending to make some political points about the war that occurred between Honduras and El Salvador during the time that we were living in El Salvador. That was 1969, the summer before sixth grade. El Salvador attacked Honduras because of a soccer game. They may have lost the soccer game but even so they gained some territory at least for a while, until the international arbitrators reviewed the country's boundaries. So that means that you only care about Honduras. You don't really sympathize with the interests of El Salvador in having to give it all back however many years later.

But that doesn't really compare to my situation because in my case you are the Honduran attackers who took everything that didn't belong to you and now you expect me to run around screaming and crying about losing some game of Sorry or whatever when actually you are the ones who are guilty of something, perhaps more than we know. I am just saying. But, yes, I know that you don't like to listen to boring pedantic patronizing sermons so I will just ignore your nonsense whenever possible. Who knows? Maybe someday you will repent of something and also explain to us what you did. Ok, so you spiked the punch bowl and then you try to make me feel guilty about that. Huh?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how is it that while suing people, no one has arrested the trashy foul-mouthed Noel to ask where he got this idea of slandering me so cruelly? Nobody cares about their nasty attitude. Where did Noel get the idea that a mountain is not really a mountain? The Bible says to let your yes be yes and your no be no. So why is nobody giving this nasty Noel his share of the well-deserved thrashing? Because obviously I was just talking about the beautiful scenery and all of these stupid boys are running like idiots, and there goes fat empty-headed Rhina Sanchez marching off in some other direction, as if the whole world has to stop now to babysit the stupid Sanchez family.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, where do I go to sue the government for sending all these dreary Italian people to harass me throughout high school and beyond? But I am nobody important. I have no hope of exacting even a slight apology from them. That would be so unpatriotic of me to even suggest such a thing. The government always wins no matter how they abuse and harass the poor little citizen nobodies such as myself. Collateral damage it is called in war, but even in regular life things can go wrong.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is sad to see those French-fried idiots building fairy castles in their dreams. Annoyingly sad, actually. But time is short. Very soon they will have passed on to their self-appointed French Canadian hell. And what would a French Canadian hell be without an English fairy flittering about as bait to be taunted and maligned and ridiculed by them? Britannic Stephanie would seem the more logical choice for the role of English fairy but as she perhaps disqualified herself early in the running, although I would only be guessing to speculate on such a thing, you are perhaps still casting about for a more unfettered candidate for this fairy role. I don't what you would expect me to say about that. I certainly didn't ask for that but we don't always get what we want in this lifetime.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I noticed that you often comment on some documents which you describe as lists of names many of which are not spelled correctly. What are these lists? I never saw them so have no idea what you are talking about in reference to that. Santa Claus is often described as checking his list to find out who has been naughty or nice but somehow I think that is not what you are talking about.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, not meaning to disappoint George, but there seems to be some confusion on the point of fairies. Actually, no, I am not a fairy and I do not take my orders from the Bush family, of whom nothing is known other than whatever we see in the media. There is no way on earth that I would ever consent to hold hands with your Bush fairy-fag Machelle, thus to find myself stuck hanging on the gallows with some people I would rather avoid. School is over now and there is no reason to go around killing people I can barely remember, so there is a limit to how far that line of networking will take you. Sorry but even the presidency does not qualify you to a fairy key with which to steal my inheritance for whatever that may or may not be worth. Piracy is illegal now and even the high presidency does not relieve you of the burden of doing the right thing or rather not doing the wrong thing if you really ever had any values and are not just into this game for whatever you can gain for yourself at the expense of the little people such as myself.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do remember while reading great-grandmother's diaries, seeing only a handful of references to me, including something about us, my sister and I, always being accompanied by our maid. That was in 1970, when we were in the U.S. on furlough, and she is referring to that Mexican woman who had come to the United States to visit us because she had been our maid during the year that we lived in Guadalajara while my parents were in language school. Sometimes these Mexicans are like leaches that attach themselves and it is hard to shake them off. At the same time she rhapsodizes on the subject of the Butterfield cousins. The Mexican maid is described as have played at the game table with them. But anyway, really, who cares what the diaries say? She led a simple life and we understand that. But she has been dead for quite a while now and there was no law requiring me to fund the Mexican maid's reentry to the United States. As far as I am concerned, these people are just on their own. All I am going to say is that they should not be expecting me to fund that. It's just a game they play hoping that they can use us for their own advantage without ever giving us a break.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do remember that little sister was running around the house singing a song from some television commercial, "Bebetina Bebetina Bebetina, de su niño es el hada madrina," although that wasn't a reason to fight about something. It was just a song that was stuck in her little head at the time. Yes, I suppose that someone overheard that.

Which Reminds Me

Ah yes, there we see Grace prattling on about the "New Morality," which she describes as superseding the "old morality." Oh, really? And where did she get that idea? There is something wrong with this picture but time is short and nobody is going to reward me for tackling that prickly issue so I will just ignore your stupid commentary about control freaks.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is sad that you are sometimes severely judged from day one because of the reporter who came before you even though you cannot remember what her name was, just that people never said anything nice about her, just that her appearance was shall we say slovenly, and had evidently done a very lousy job so obviously you could only do better than she, and all her sources are calling you with crazy stuff and you just want to hang up the phone or at least be able to tell them that they do not pay your salary and what makes them think that you were supposed to be their mouthpiece when actually they never have any facts or real story ideas to offer, just some weird opinions about how much they hate them, nothing printable, but then you learn that your editor wants you to take them seriously, which is actually ridiculous, so you really can't say what you really think about anything, and you have to use at least something of that, because your editor has a different idea about things, so ultimately the only thing that really matters is the paycheck at the end of the week, because otherwise you have no control. It's just a job.

So just because the trend in journalism has been to abandon objectivity generally speaking, that does not mean that is a good thing. But I digress.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, sometimes I wonder how my life might have been different, so much better, if I had actually attended that summer journalism camp in Washington, D.C., to which I had been accepted. But I didn't go because, I don't know, it seemed too expensive or complicated to get there or something. I might have needed to quit my job to be there for, how long, maybe six weeks, and then what? But it is too late now to beat on that point more than twenty years late. Coulda shoulda woulda. If only. Hmmm...

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I know, aren't we all sick and tired of hearing about all this Confederate Kinsey slop dished out by Henry and Shirley, some boring persons who are from maybe some village in Panama? I heard that but I cannot add much to that. Who am I to question their special Confederated deal with the locals? It is not my place to say. When they came to be teachers at the MK school, I was already gone to the high school so I never really had that much contact with them, and I don't think that I was missing anything important. They really don't have that much authority that they should be allowed to go around killing people such as poor little me. That was rude.

Which Reminds Me

You were asking me if David is the Antichrist but I really am not qualified to answer such a question.

The only thing that I know is that there is nothing that I can do about that even if it were true. When I was working at SFNN, Rick Hayden mentioned to us that his wife's name is Sue Klein, a district attorney in Palm Beach County, but the name did not ring a bell with me at the time. Believe it or not, I really did not remember that the daughter of Uncle Winfred had married into the Klein family, although they are divorced now. Although we had once visited Uncle Winfred in the Dallas area, and were introduced to Beverley and Richard, I had not remembered later what their names were, just that they were there at the time, they did not sit down at the lunch table with us, they were in another room talking to themselves. So the name of Klein did not ring a bell with me in that regard, so it gets very annoying to later notice that all these people have been playing games over my head when I was never planning to go there and was not aware of any agreement in regards to my not being allowed to live in California even though this is supposedly a free and Democratic nation where you can live wherever you want. There is no law requiring me to live in Texas or not, or any other state such as New York for that matter. I cannot imagine there being anything of significance that I would need to discuss with them about that or anything else. They are just some distant cousins or in-law cousins of whom there is really nothing to say, just boring persons living their humdrum lives undeserving of so much public attention. We were never that close.

Which Reminds Me

If you really want the blow by blow account of the W.R. Grace spectacle you will need to check in with Boaz Dvir, and also the mastermind of it all, Rick. I was taken out and reassigned shortly after the introductories and really don't remember very much about that. It was all mainly Rick's game, not mine. Rick likes to talk about how his name is spelled with an 'e,' or was it an 'a,' in a particular town of Germany, so maybe you could start there. I am not very informed and wasn't paying attention to that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I see the eternal ying-yang of music, the Greek Maria Callas vs. the Roman Catholic Mariah Carey. Both are amazing voices in terms of vocals. Ok, so that's nice. Even so, I have no connection whatever to Venezuela so this is not my problem. Truth be told, I am really not interested in watching this drama that is of no interest to me so I will be flipping the TV switch and turning that off so that I can get something else done. We have seen this Dueling Divas theme recur many times before throughout the history of mankind so there is really nothing new to say about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it will be very hard for you to win this game when you only care about the idiotic blatherings of stupid Bruce Blockhead, who lives in Tucson area if I am not mistaken, and also his trashy wife. Bruce Blockhead of Arizona has taken up himself to bully me into submission to little sister even though he has no paperwork to prove that he has any defensible position. I need a few moments of solitude without little sister screaming and throwing things all over the place which is a very good reason to lock her out for a few minutes. Has Bruce Blockhead so easily forgotten how she put a bowl of water over the door to his room so that when he retired to his room he would get doused on the head, not to mention some other pranks, all belonging to her. So what is all this nonsense about little sister being an only child? What am I, the dog? Your head is full of nothing but Judy and Stephanie and other nonsense. But it is so much easier for you to manage little sister, who will automatically agree to any scheme you may devise that might damage me. You can always use that to lead her around by that ring in her nose. But I digress.

Which Reminds Me

When I was planning to go to Virginia, I remember that someone gave me a phone number to call of someone who had been there earlier and had a great job typing things, telling me that I should call them also, so when I went to Virginia I called the phone number but never got an answer. No one answered the phone so that never amounted to anything. The phone number had been given to me by someone who was a friend of what-was-her-name from Miami, Jeannie?, who later started her own foster home there in Miami. She had formerly worked at Life Publishers and was also a friend of Bobby. But that was a whole different story. So anyway, her references were not helpful to me but it was nice of her to offer to help, even though it was just a phone number to nowhere.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how well I recall RJ and Deloris who formerly attended our church but are now passed away and gone to be with Jesus, which is good because, anyway, they had so many personal problems and we could not help them with that.

Which Reminds Me

Oh, yes, now I remember, someone, maybe the Pope, was reminding me that he is the one who occupies the chair of Saint Peter and holds the Keys of Heaven. So obviously based on that we would all need to check in with them now and then, even though we can't always agree on every little point. Who are we to argue with Jesus who said of Peter that on this rock he would build his church? Without the Keys, we are just in a holding pattern without being able to make any progress to the next thing, not being able to loose or bind things on earth as it is in heaven. Yes, I get that, but I don't see what specific thing you are asking me to do about that in regards to land reform. Who would think of writing a book about land reform in Ohio? Not me. Ohio is really not my problem.

Which Reminds Me

Why do you begrudge Teen Challenge its portion of donor monies to fulfill its role in the attempted reform of hardened criminals and drug addicts? You, too, are just another parachurch ministry competing alike with so many others for surplus dollars of charitable and philanthropic interests. We may pity the filthy wicked people who require the services of Teen Challenge and yet it is good that there is such an organization to do that job that nobody else wants to do. You certainly wouldn't want to do that, obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Roman, Greek, Russian, Coptic, Dutch Reformed — what are these but the invisible Church of Christ, the hands of Jesus extended to minister salvation and healing to all the world. Which of these ethnically constituted churches would kill its own people and thus extinguish its own purpose for existing? But of course we are Protestants so we like to flatter ourselves on having a wider idea of the church as ministering to all ethnicities, not excluding any. Whatever happens in terms of racial strife and conflict, ultimately Jesus wins at the end, although the end is not yet, so why should we trouble ourselves in regards to matters that do not belong to us, matters that are the concern of nations and governments?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I get the idea that the Cranford brothers are married to ethnics. Ok, fine, whatever. I really never met them, don't know anything about them one way or another, just want to get my check in the mail without so much hassle, hope they are saved but have to trust that someone will explain the way of salvation to them, couldn't care less who gets the land and the rock crushing operation, not planning to go there any time soon, possibly never will contact or call them, preferring to avoid the potential flea infestation. Enough said about that.

Which Reminds Me

Ok, so you won. You own us lock, stock and barrel. You can shoot us like fish in a barrel. So how does that make you feel, to be a slave holder, to trot us around like pet animals?

Which Reminds Me

I really don't need to retell the story of Grandpa Calkins, about how after his mother died, his father placed he and his two younger brothers in an orphanage in Pasadena, while he went and got his life back together, because perhaps he felt that he could not care for them properly without their mother, where grandpa spent a few years, I am not sure how many, until he was old enough to work. But you already knew that.

Which Reminds Me

So you are saying that if I pay you, that you will under contract deliver to me God's blessings. But if I am a penniless beggar God cannot love me. You are saying that God will not help me if I do not have $10 in my pocket. What is wrong with this picture? What did blind Bartimaeus do to deserve his sight? He was just there on the side of the road making noise. What did the woman with the issue do to deserve a healing? She wasn't exactly following the rules and yet she did get her healing. So I fail to see why I should depend on some hostile Michigan riff-raff to do something. I think that Jesus can hear me praying with or without you. If you are not going to help me, well, tough luck. You'll just have to get it from someone else, not me. Besides which, I don't think that I need Michigan for anything.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I suppose that John and Bob may still be irritated with my mother about all those opinionated things she was saying about how they should spend their money or not. John Bueno was saying online that he resents that his vast and expansive vision of benevolent institutionalization should ever be questioned by any practical thought of budget limitations which my mother may have posed. My mother was the field bookkeeper. While working at Life Publishers, she was in charge of data processing and would print out the monthly financial statements while questioning loudly all kinds of numerical discrepancies on the spreadsheet which I cannot possibly recall at this late date, which probably did nothing to discourage the conspirators. I wasn't paying attention to that. But I suppose that you will want to make some snarky point about how my mother is not the certifiable public accountant on staff. That was Carmelo's job. And who was fired from their accounts receivable job for double booking? Not my mom. Who is going to care now about Pam's double dealings when it just wasn't that important. Often people who stage hostile conflicts at work get fired because they don't have the requisite power level and so no one will have their back. Thus Pam was powerless to effect any meaningful change there because she was near the bottom of the food chain.

That said, John Cote or someone mentioned that during their meeting Bob Hoskins said something about how they were planning to set me up. So that means that all the jokes will be on me. I will be the butt of all their backhand jokes. I will be set up for a fall. The crushing of me is a prelude to the grand entrance of the elect predestined bearcat queen of TV land. Then they can all sit back in their comfortable houses with their families laughing at me while I go running around like a chicken with my head cut off looking for the money, thus possibly at least partially reenacting a role previously played by my Dad's cousin Susie, possibly something observed by the snarky little cousins who also probably didn't know what happened. Very few did.

So that was scary. I can't have those dreary people managing anything to do with me when they have done such a lousy job of managing their own personal affairs. If I am to be represented by anyone, it won't be them.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it seems that we will need to be doing something to differentiate the Samuel R's from the Samuel J's, inevitably dispatching the R's to a separate and meaningless existence as far as we are concerned. Not even Illinois wants to hear from you. Yes, certainly just one middle initial can make a very big difference. Just look at all these scandalous Double U movies now in theaters everywhere. No, actually don't watch that. It's not worth anything. It's just a lot of hype about nothing much. So Samuel R's, do not cut in lines where you don't belong. You might learn that you really didn't need that headache. Life is too short.

Which Reminds Me

Samuel Longwell's networking efforts in San Francisco caused a lot of trouble it would seem. But don't confuse him with Samuel R. Longwell of San Francisco. He was Samuel J. Longwell from Illinois, although he was apparently living in Los Angeles during the events of 1950. His wife was Caila Fausett, not to be confused with the famous Fawcett actress of Hollywood fame, and Samuel and Caila had three children.

Which Reminds Me

To stop this speeding train, which has long since run itself off the tracks, we will need some brakes. Even some 'frenos' (brakes in Spanish) would be helpful. But no phrenologist will be admitted. Phrenologists need not apply. Just judging from the size of someone's skull or nose or skin color proves nothing. In this point we tend to agree with Martin Luther King Jr. that ultimately you will be judged by the content of your character, not by superficial appearances. That said, we desperately need some brakes and/or breaks.

Which Reminds Me

Since you ask, we will say only that no, at this house we don't pay the extra money necessary to have Jim's face piped in directly, so we are not following that. If there were some important reason to be following that that would be one thing, but it is only Jim. We never attended North Central so Jim is not our problem. I never contributed one dime, not even a penny, to Jim's bottom line so why all this silly chatter about my money? If it is really my money, why can't I just turn off the faucet when I am sick and tired of hearing about old news?

Which Reminds Me

Oh, yes, now I remember, the pope or some other Roman Catholic was talking about how they want to war against the Freemasons and the Emerson-styled Unitarians who fail to identify with them. Well, now, there's a problem. For one thing, to work with you I would have to war against my own grandfather who was at least a card-carrying dues-paying Freemason even if not practicing. I don't necessarily recommend that and yet where is a Mason jar when you need one for canning jams and jellies? There might be some reason why those people persist in preserving these odd associations even if I really don't know very much about that one way or another. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we could all get saved and get along be reading off the same page? But of course Utopia is yet unachievable at this late date in history, sad to say. And I don't necessarily see what is so much better about your unicorn alternative. A true hope would have no strings whatever attached to the Hoskins family. Who said I want their stupid money? Lies, lies, it's all just a pack of lies.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I seem to remember that years ago at Vida Publishers there was a huge conflict in which a confrontation occurred involving Bob and also maybe Pam, John, Sue, in regards to his shuffling of monies from one fund to another. I was already gone by that time although I have before and since heard some rumors of dubious value about that, nothing that I can conscientiously repeat online. I really have no idea what that was about. There was a clash of financial philosophies perhaps but not necessarily something that I would be able to discuss intelligently. Wouldn't I just look ridiculous hobnobbing with those idiots? If there was anything that needed to be said about that I can be ably represented my mother who probably knows more about that than I. Bob can always my mother if he wants additional comments.

As for the flap about David, well, I can't say that he didn't bring it all upon himself without any help from me. I wasn't there at the time so I don't quite see what happened or why, never mind about the idiotic rantings of Sherry.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, we hear that Bob is in his counting house counting out his money, which is the only thing that old money bags really cares about. Of course we all need our share of money. It doesn't belong only to Bob. And anyway his literary career is certainly nothing to boast of. We would say that all his books are actually fundraising blurbs written by some PR flack in Arizona, but we don't want to add fuel to that fire. That would just be such a mean thing for us to say when we really don't understand what all these knee jerks are reacting to in the first place.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I remember that our high school biology teacher was Francis Schaeffer and our English teacher was Frances Marken, not to be confused with San Francisco, or for that matter the Order of the Franciscans, or even my old Francie doll from childhood. What that has to do with the price of tea in China I have no idea.

Which Reminds Me

Although my grandfather and also a cousin were named Ralph, yet I was never hugely fond of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Certainly Emerson was one of the great literary minds of American in the 19th century, so much of his writing is so purely brilliant, and yet we notice that his logic has some rather serious flaws in certain places. So we cannot put undue emphasis on the ramblings of Emerson. Certainly, some portions of his writings should be required reading for high school students everywhere, and yet other passages are rather dry or not so useful in the scheme of things. Anyway, just to ramble on about nature is a rare thing that perhaps no one could do so well as Emerson. Most of us have to get jobs and pay the rent.

Which Reminds Me

Oh yes, now I remember, some British people were talking about how they are going to crush America's fairy machine. You overestimate my familiarity with that. I wasn't sure what you were talking about. I was no fairy. I was no Rose. How rude of you to do exactly what you deplore. So you really don't make any sense, do you? One turn of the screw cancels out something you just said to the contrary and after a while nobody knows what really happened. And here I am picking up the pieces of what someone else did unbeknownst to me. Life just isn't fair, is it? Hmmm....

Which Reminds Me

I do not recall myself ever being hugely committed to the Church of JIM. I wonder what smart alecky whiner came up with that appellation. I might have seen Jim's face a few times but I never had any binding legal and/or contractual obligation to go there, never submitted any commentary on issues of blackmail and never contributed a dime to that, so it is hard for me to understand all this hubbub about nothing much. Jim wasn't my problem.

I once had a Christmas dinner with Jim but I later forgot all about him. It just wasn't that important.

Which Reminds Me

Another solution might be to muzzle Anne from Canada. Since when do we care about her stupid angry moods? Anne is always angry with me no matter even though I really don't care about that. She never seems to understand anything, perhaps because she gets all her twisted information from Susie which is always bad news for me. Susie is such a depressing, dreary person who is always critical of me. I don't care if I never see her again. I don't know why I ever thought she was a friend of mine.

Which Reminds Me

Why all this muttering about suspected Nazis? I don't know any personally but you could always arrest Bob or David and then figure out later if they are guilty of something, but then of course this is America where one is presumed innocent until the courts of law say otherwise. So that really wouldn't work, now, would it? So I don't know what you expect me to do or say about that. The law must be eternally vigilant about these matters, certainly. No one can argue with the law, even when they seem to be killing innocent civilians such as myself. Collaterals damages would seem inevitable in these cases.

Which Reminds Me

Who shot Samuel Longwell? Or did he die of natural causes? Now there is a burning question that I cannot answer for you. All this muttering about hot guns does not help matters, but still I just have no idea.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, we are sometimes asked to take care of my sister's dog Jessica whenever they are out of town. I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Which Reminds Me

The Bible, in Deuteronomy 25:4, tells us: "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." The yoked ox needs to be fed and well cared for so that it can go around and around in circles, activating the gears that crush the sugar cane until it is reduced to molasses, brown sugar, etc. Yes, we certainly must not deny the wages and good and improved working conditions due to these lowly hired sugar workers who need to feed their children and take care of themselves. However, when it comes to gas and oil, I have a different role above that of an ox, one that just any old brute creature could never really understand. I don't even understand it all myself so how can I tell you where I have not yet been? We will need more than just brute force of clueless Southern Kinsey-styled blunderers to crush our way through this mess. We will need a gear, a mechanism, a brain that knows what it is talking about, which is something the you really would not be able to provide judging from your self-evidently ridiculous efforts thus far. Why do I have to explain this?

Which Reminds Me

When I was in third grade, my little sister decided to go home after school with one of her first grade friends. I was appalled at her callous disregard of the need to notify our parents before running off somewhere. We are supposed to go home on the school bus where our parents are expecting us get off the bus and walk home at a time certain. But little sister has a complete disregard of these proprieties so I had a choice. I could get on the bus and go home by myself and leave little 6-year-old sister to hang by herself or I could insist on going along with her so that she will not get lost or if something bad happen then maybe I could remember our home telephone number. I don't remember why I thought I could help with that for some reason so I went with her. But I am older and wiser now.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I would ask if you too were friends of Susie and Sam at CBC and then I remember that I really don't know them anymore. They have thrown themselves to the antagonists' side, the better to insult me and treat me like garbage, so it's almost like we never knew them. Now that Susie is married to Buzz, no one wants to go there to be insulted. I have better things to do than to seek out their multiplied insults. Better to leave Buzz's brain remain a hollowed empty shell, thus denying additional fuel to those buzzing bees, because I already have enough problems to dig myself out of without adding insult to injury.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, what are all these dreary Bay Area people screaming about anyway? They never tell us anything or do anything helpful, they just sit there in their Bay Area houses plotting and scheming all kinds of mean and nasty pranks to pull on us. And then they are surprised when we are not amused. How stupid do you think we are anyway? I am so not amused. College pranks are only funny one time and then after that it just gets very annoying. Ok, fine. Whatever. If anyone should know about annoying that would be me, the target of pranksters everywhere for some unknown reason, because anyway nobody has taken the time to learn how to appreciate my unique talents. Probably, I am not whatever you expected. Whatever you expected: NOT. You expected a racist: NOT. You expected a clone of ——: NOT. It is not what it seems. Now there's a widget that makes sense to me.

Which Reminds Me

I wasn't even born yet when my parents were assistants to Pastor Scratch at the church in Redding so obviously all these obnoxious clues about that fall on deaf ears with me. There is just nothing that I can tell you about Redding because, as I said, I wasn't even born yet.

Which Reminds Me

Sorry, but I cannot possibly consider evacuating my own head in favor of some vacuous Baker bimbo flower child, the one with a high degree in what, maybe underwater basketweaving. Well, there is evidently a whole lot of underwater basketweaving going on, but I will be evacuating the planet shortly, one way or another, so in the long run it won't really matter who gets what. What really matters is how to graciously evacuate without starting a war, and also mainly salvation. If you can get saved, well, that is always a good thing. I think that is what matters in the long run because life is short and you just don't know what the future holds. To prepare to meet your Maker is an awesome task the importance of which that few have appreciated in the past but perhaps some adjustments can be made to improve the salvation numbers. Beyond that, well, I must defer judgment to the authorities because, truth be told, I have a hard time understanding why these people are so defensive, as if I were attacking them. I wasn't even thinking about them at all. I really don't care what they do with their money.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I can't say that I haven't wondered whether Laura's overnight guest ever married her or was her name Abishag? I don't have time to check up on all these matters. I just want to get out of here as quickly as possible because these people are getting weirder and weirder all the time.

Which Reminds Me

I seem to remember noticing that Dr. Riffle, whose money was taken by Samuel Longwell, belonged to an unusual sort-of-Catholic cult based in Turloch which is difficult to learn very much about. This is a free country so we really cannot say very much about that irrelevant point. Nevertheless, we do not wish our own church affiliations to get confused with Dr. Riffle's. We have our own interests to defend and therefore must needs drop Dr. Riffle from our records of church membership. Which doesn't mean that we would not sell him something of a public nature, but our family membership is a private thing not for sale to outsiders, which is a rude thing to say to someone after having pitched to him your private securities. Yes, looks like things got messy.

Which Reminds Me

I remember hearing a very learned person talking about how the Spanish language is maybe 40 percent rooted in the Arabic. Thus we see that the word "el" which means a deity or Lord in the Hebrew or Arabic Semitic languages, in Spanish is a simple but indispensable article of speech. How can we indicate the thing without the preceding article? Yes, I always find it interesting to read about these interesting language things. If I could do college over again perhaps linguistics would have been a college major to consider, but never mind. I am fluent in two languages so I am able to appreciate some of these language anomalies even just from general reading, unlike you who have only one language to speak of. Oh, the language jokes that we used to tell, not that one, but the other ones that were all about the occasionally awkward and humorous moments that sometimes arise when one is learning a new language and is grasping for the right word and somehow comes up with the wrong word, or at least one that is misunderstood by the hearer. Strange how we no longer tell or even remember those funny language jokes that we used to tell. With all these dreary Coneheads running around randomly shooting at people, it becomes dangerous to even open one's mouth in regards to these matters. And why are we allowing them to do that? Do they imagine that this is the Faulklands Island War and that they are just going to evict us from our houses with so little resistance from the mightiest country on the planet? What is an army for if these wimpy Coneheads can just trample underfoot we, the citizens of the United States of America? I feel like the Apostle Paul when I  tell you that some people pay big money for their U.S. citizenship but mine is a natural born thing. Either way, a U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen. But of course the Apostle Paul was Roman citizen, which was the superpower of his day, a providential circumstance.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I too have been known to eat at the Olive Garden restaurant on occasion. The food is delicious but we rarely drive all the way over there because it is somewhat expensive.

Which Reminds Me

This domineering attitude of the Scandinavian may seem a small matter to you who are not affected, but to me it means that they are going to kill me, which is a very scary thing. And they are not even embarrassed and will plainly say they are going to kill me yet they think by their much caution in not saying that I will not notice this and thus not think to escape to some other church denomination not so dominated by dreary Swedish and/or Irish murderers. If I were younger and had plenty of money and could think of somewhere else to go I might be tempted to do that, because really a church administrated by the Swedish is such a complete disaster for me.

Which Reminds Me

You were telling me about your anti-violence policy, how that means that the Norman English of southern England who with violence conquered England along with William the Conqueror are now being beaten down the better to elevate the Scandinavian blondes of northern England. So typical of Vikings to forget about their own violent conquests. Or whatever that meant. But we all digress.

Which Reminds Me

You were saying that you think that the Calkins or Caulkers were the shipbuilders who helped to engineer the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and that perhaps helps to explain why we are so much loathed by them. I would be interested to see the documentation on that point. You say that perhaps we could offer some assistance to you in barricading against the Spanish onslaught. I am saying I really don't see how I can help you with that when I am already too vulnerable to Spanish attack. Our very own government does nothing to help or protect us from these Porto Rican bulldogs, in fact is itself engineering our defeat in spite of anything we might do right. Our very own government is currently obsessed with the browning of America. If the people are running the show and the people are mostly black or brown, obviously we will always be in the minority. Anyway, we never did have any thought of dominating in terms of numbers, Duh, the numbers game is only one game, not really the whole enchilada, nor what I care about. Just to be a common garden-variety brown-noser seems to me no great aspiration.

Which Reminds Me

How many times do I have to explain that I am not a Tudor, not descended from the Tudor line, not a Tudor pretender to the throne. Someone has concocted a strange theory about that because my father has a cousin named Elizabeth, although she is likewise not a Tudor, and because my ancestors, the Stricklands, might have been acquainted with the Tudors in ancient times in merry old England, possibly even entertaining the Tudors on occasion at their castle, having arrived in England with William the Conqueror, and who knows what else. You wish to see me recreate the temper tantrums of the Tudor Queen whom you imagine lashing out in anger against the Spanish when actually it was the Spanish who sent their galleons to be smashed on the coast of England. Who knew that the weather would not cooperate?

You wish to show that the Tudor Queen, stripped of her crown, her power, her money, is nothing, just a flesh-and-blood mortal who quickly withers and fades as the grass. Yes, this point would seem obvious enough already without a need for further emphasis and reenactments.

Which Reminsd Me

OK, so you just spent 20-30 years dismantling my brain and my life and for no good reason, just because some annoying people want to make some cheapskate points all at my expense, as if I even know what they are talking about. How many times do I have to say, "Oh, I didn't know that," before you figure out that you are barking up the wrong tree? Where do I get off this merry-go-round? I just want to stop the bus and get off and go home. I want to be in control of my own life. I keep trying to fire them and you keep giving them back the power that they actually don't deserve. All they do is squander time and resources on silly points that don't really matter. Time is short. I just want to do my own thing. "Do your own thing." Isn't that a worthy goal for one who came of age in the 1970s?

Which Reminds Me

The diaries of great-grandmother and/or recent genealogy research reveal that she had some distant cousin or relation by the name of Whetstone, from Pennsylvania perhaps, but I cannot recall what the connection was or why I should care about.

Which Reminds Me

I can see now that someone is trying to play a very bad joke on me. While the rest of the family has long since kissed and made up with the Riffles, a few of us, at least me, are left on the outside of the deal and our only clues to go on are those few limited documents found at the San Francisco courthouse. You can't really tell from that what really happened before and afterward so wouldn't I just look ridiculous launching into some huge temper tantrum based on that scant and dreary evidence? Thus, I would prefer to withhold comment until someday whenever I hear the complete story told by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Which Reminds Me

Some distant cousin of my grandmother's was known to be an employee of the Johnson family. However, my grandmother voted for Nixon. They were no fans of the Johnson machinery. So how is it that Tricky Dick is now working for the Johnsons, as if they need to be protected from themselves and their own bad attitudes? This does not compute.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, theoretically speaking, I could drive all the way to New York City and find Mark playing piano for a dancer lineup, and there I would find him surrounded by a hundred or more cloned copies of his students Sharon, Debbie, Rose, Lynda, who are the only people he probably remember much of anything about because they were in that class he taught at our college. But I was never in that class so I will always be at a loss to understand what that was about, which is just one of those limitations of human life, that we can never know all about everything. Few are the choices we are given. And if we run out of choices there is just nothing else to be done about that.

Which Reminds Me

You have a strange way of trying to make me feel guilty about things of which I am not aware. How can say something about that when no one will tell me anything. What?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I remember that years ago I had a co-worker named Sebastian, a somewhat rude and boorish person but that is not unusual in co-workers who tend to think only of themselves and their own interests, naturally. I do not wish to say something to or about him. Actually, we are not on speaking terms. Oh, was he from Argentina? I wasn't paying attention to that at the time. He just wasn't that important in my opinion, at least not to me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how sad that there is no profit to be had in filling the shoes of an Irish woman, particularly a very low class, garrulous, violent Irish woman, one who goes around slugging people for the slightest imagined affronts. There is evidently no growing demand on the stage for this stereotypical role of such an Irish woman as that, even if I could with some costuming and strenuous effort perhaps make the attempt to fill some such role, based entirely on superficial appearances, perhaps the theoretically Irish roots of my surname added to freckles and red hair, even though I do not consider myself Irish in the least, although perhaps maybe I do have some Irish ancestral roots, as well as plenty of Scottish and English and Welsh and other parts of Western Europe, but a detailed examination of DNA would be expensive and what would be the point of that, other than to discover some unknown nightmare of remote ancestry?

And as soon as I open my mouth you will know immediately that I cannot speak a word of Gaelic, have no cutesy Irish brogue, have no idea of Ireland and its politics. Honestly, I cannot be expected to represent the grievances of the stereotypical Irish woman, never mind about some unknown person's desire to stage something about that.

Anyway, I heard Libby talking online about how she is planning to escape the negative stereotypes of an Irish woman via marriage to a Spanish or Italian man or some such ethnicity. Her children will have shed the Irish appearance problem and thus she can represent herself as their ethnicity, thus vacating the planet and leaving that other unclaimed redhead fairy to answer her mail. Yes, I can see for myself that Libby is a source of angry tweets but even so I cannot answer her mail. I just have no idea what was going on in her empty head during high school if she is going to be that way. With this scheme in operation it's like I don't exist. I just have to follow the scripting. Thus we learn that Libby cannot escape her angry twitter past using me as her scapegoat when her calling codes are imprinted on her very own face. I am just saying.

Which Reminds Me

My mother is always right when she says that I must do the social correct thing even if it kills me. So I did that when my mother forced me to attend a wedding shower held for Carol (MK-Ecuador) who, incidentally, was only 16 years old when she married Mark. I don't know why I don't remember anything about that. It was probably a matter of a few silly games, refreshments, and mainly watching the bride open many gifts. I seem to remember that her boyfriend might have stopped in for a few minutes. So basically that is all that I can remember about that, just a standard event in the presence of many people I mostly had never met previously and whose names I cannot possibly recall. We had recently moved to the area and we knew very few people at the time. Strange that I should be hearing all these weird messages from Carol just because she married into the Johnson family of whom nothing is known, just that their name is Johnson. (Personally I rather dislike the Johnsons, and the Garlits by extension, maybe because I see that they are hostile to me even though I can't see what their game is, but attending the wedding shower was the socially correct thing for us to do, certainly.)

Which Reminds Me

Which reminds me that if you had been reading the diaries of great-grandmother, you would see how she begins almost every year's diary watching the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena, not on TV but live in person, accompanying the family of my Dad's Uncle Ariel, who live in the Pasadena area to this day. She often goes up there a day or more before the event and then accompanies them to the parade grounds. She describes how they always park their cars at the church there in Pasadena which is apparently so close to the parade route that they can easily walk from there, and then they afterward they go home and play games such as anagrams before and after the parade. Hmmm.... Interesting how Uncle Ariel's family often broadcast warnings that the rest of us are not invited to participate in that. And who said we have to go there with them? This is a free country so if we choose, if we wanted to, we can find our way to the parade route without going through them. I am just saying, actually, we can figure out where Pasadena is on the map and go see the parade without having to check in with Danny boy and company. Because, after all, the parade does not belong to them. It is a public spectacle that belongs to everyone, unlike that other private corporation which is none of my business.

I can't quite recall how to tell that story, or was it a joke, about not letting the birds build a nest in your hair. So, Ok, fine, we should all be able to get along just fine without continual harassment from the private company based in Pasadena. I am just saying.

After dinner, the Mean Go home to play games with themselves because the rest of us just want to go to sleep. We were not expecting to get clobbered by the stupid People of California, but apparently life is not a rose garden for us, only a ruin.