You in danger, girl

I was struck by this arrangement in someone’s front yard yesterday morning:

That little orange pumpkin looks like it’s in trouble.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: Splashes of color

Ah, we are finally in Autumn. Humidity has crashed and mornings are crisp but not frosty. And, finally, leaves in my part of the People’s Republic have begun to turn.

It’s interesting to me that they seem to be changing color only in patches on trees, not swathes. I don’t recall this pattern in years past, but I find the reds and golds blooming amongst the vibrant green of a tree beautiful.

And that’s today’s gratitude.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

That was just a lie

You know—given the Kleptocrat’s ramping up his lies in the runup to the midterm elections, I’ve been hearing one of the classics in my head for the past few days.

I mean—in between him dozing at meetings in the Oval Office and being unable to complete a thought (or remember the name(s) of the candidate(s) he’s in town to “support”) due to advancing dementia, he just spews porkies about the economy, about how he should have received the Nobel Peace Prize at least eight times, about winning/having won the war in Iran, about the bloody 2020 election, about acing a cognitive test he seems to be required to take every time he sees a doctor, about the qualifications of his new blonde press secretary. His lie-to-breath ratio is rapidly approaching 1:1.

(He did extrude one truthy statement when he told his audience in Alaska that he could say all kinds of stupid things and they’d clap like trained seals [I paraphrase], whereupon they all clapped like trained seals [actual fact].)

So of course the earworm for today is “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog”, sung here buy a guy named Elvis Presley. So, so many truths in these lyrics.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Matters theological

Here’s something for everyone to ponder:

That’s it. That’s the post.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Moving messages

This car has a lot to say:

I think it was in the Whole Foods parking lot, which kind of tracks. My attention was grabbed by the Jesus sticker, on account of it being directed at all the evangelical Christian white nationalists who apparently stopped reading the Bible at Malachi (and then somehow unaccountably picked up again at Revelation).

But—given the attention to running, I thought it especially appropriate that the vehicle is a Honda FIT.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Spreading the word

Okay, I’m not saying that there’s a movement afoot, but I found a second sign for a jumped-up townhouse development in The People’s Republic defaced. And in pretty much the same way that the first one was:

I don’t think the developers much care, so I’d be surprised if they replace the signs. I mean—by the time they notice, they’ll have sold all the units and be moving on to their next cookie-cutter “luxury” project.

Still—I kinda admire the commitment of the graffiti artists.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: Champagne

A small gratitude today.

A small gratitude named Champagne.

I’ve been having some issues with inflammation across what I refer to as the hip delivery system; diagnosed as arthritis and bursitis, it’s literally a pain in the ass. It turns out that any movement you want to make with any part of your body passes somehow through the hips/butt, and you don’t notice it until it’s painful. Also—your body starts to conform to misalignment in order to reduce pain, and trying to reconfigure the muscles to where you should be is also painful.

So I’ve struggled with my morning walks. Saturday was the first time in a few days that I did the circuit, and I was worried that—even after a couple of weeks of PT—I’d have repercussions. I was just about 75% through it when I spotted this guy dancing through the parking lot of a micropark:

Yes, that’s Champagne. Seems like some dogs wear Halloween costumes; Champagne lives the costume.

But he also has the personality behind the coloration—bright, happy, friendly. There were many scritches and a few kisses, which made the entire walk worthwhile. No walk, no Champagne.

And that’s today’s gratitude.

  

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

On a winter's day

So, one standout from this week down the rabbit hole is the Kleptocrat announcing that—along with higher prices on everything—having Iran take out San Diego and Los Angeles would be “a small price to pay”.

I don’t hold with trying to sort out meaning from the elided and jumpy word salads that shambling orange carcass spews out, but I think the object for which the destruction of two large coastal cities that reliably vote Democrat is Iran not having a nuclear weapon, since that’s the pole star he always returns to when he’s floundering for a response to a question on this war. So I’m really confused about how, exactly, Iran would “take out” LA and San Diego, because he’s also told us that the US “obliterated” the Islamic Republic's nuclear capability more than a year ago. And—even if they’re somehow miraculously “two weeks away” from developing another one, I’m not seeing how they’d deliver it across the Pacific Ocean.

But the goobers in Nebraska, where Cadet Bonespurs first invited a country he considers a blood enemy to attack US territory, positively ate it up. So, he’ll repeat it (as he did Wednesday in San Antonio).

And today’s earworm is “California Dreamin’”, of course by The Mamas and the Papas.

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Failure to communicate

Yesterday I made an emergency run to Trader Joe’s after my PT session and getting my Covid shot. I don’t like to go after around 1030 because just the parking lot becomes a war zone the closer you get to noon, but I had absolutely nothing on hand to use to make a salad, so I bit the bullet.

The bag I pulled out of the pile in the car to hold my groceries happened to be one I got from a community-building group I belong to. Here are the two sides:

It was interesting to watch the TJ crew member at the cash register process the text message. Sadly (and I could tell because he was literally moving his lips), he seemed to have trouble with “dismantle”, but I didn’t say anything.

 I mean, he scanned my groceries, packed the bag and wished me a great rest of the day. He did his job.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

The color...

Okay, I just thought this was funny because it is so obviously not a yellow cab:

 

©2026 Bas Bleu