Aside from staying up all night watching televangelists and their various hairdoos, it is fun to get up early while on vacation and watch C-SPAN. One, yes I am that boring or weird or whatever you wish to call me, and two I seem not to be living up to my bitch session decrying politics and my aversion to them. Now I will say it is much more fun to watch Congressmen or Senators go at it but they're on vacation, so I was left with an interview with Jack Germond, an old-fashioned journalist if there ever was one. I thought he was dead, in fact, so it was good to seem him again.

I was most amused by a caller from Little Rock who was flabbergasted that Germond stated his atheism outright and was not in the least shy about it. Apparently the woman had never met an atheist before in her life and was shocked that he could even appear on TV. "I pay for my TV!" she shouted. "The last thing I want to see on it is some athiest! Why don't you only put on people I agree with." While that's not an exact quote, it is close enough.

Incredible.

It is great when summer has settled in like it does in August. The plants seem less frantic in their growth: most of them have giant leaves, dappling the sunlight on the ground. It is a good thing to take walks on summer mornings and note how settled everything seems to be.

Lucky for the plants they don't really know that it is going to freeze in about a month and end their complacency.

I had a dream that my dad was still alive but suffering from the first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. I don't know if that is good or bad: a long suffering bout with cancer when you are far too young or a long lingering death by losing your mind.

I thought I had forgotten what his voice sounded like.