I was always a sucker for a man in a uniform, which certainly explains a lot about my life.  Geez!  I even dated the postman for a while!

A lot of men in uniform are scoundrels as well as heroes, and I surely know whereof I speak.  John McCain was both.  He had a hot temper and he played around.  And he matured to be one of the great statesmen and public servants of our era.

Lots of great pictures of John McCain looking ever so dashing in uniform.

He was a man of great courage and conviction.  Nevertheless, think this picture illustrates both those characteristics best:

Here in the Willamette Valley, at the 45th parallel north, all the tomatoes ripen precisely on August 15.  It is soooo worth the wait.

I know exactly what to do, and I do it three times a day for the short season’s duration. It does not need bacon or lettuce.  Just some really good bread, (This is the only time I ever eat plain white bread.) and lots of mayo.

All the best people document their food.

Last week, Mother celebrated her 95th birthday.  I scanned some pictures, old and new, with Joannie’s help, to commemorate the event.

Here is the house where she was born, upstairs, with her grandmother and Dr. Dicky assisting.

A beautiful, bouncing Choctaw baby.  Her daddy was so proud.  He always called her  “Jo.”  I have no idea why.

A beautiful child in a lovely dress.  They never had much money, but she never knew that.  There was enough for a professional photographer and that dainty dress.  Look at those perfect bangs. She recalls a joyful childhood, especially mischief with her beloved “cousin.”

Here she is, a joyful mother of 19 with her own bouncing baby.  (That would be me.)

And on her 95th birthday in a room-full of flowers.

She was a stern and strict mother. I was never to contradict her or ever, ever embarrass her in public.  I choose to remember all the fun games that young mother made up to play with me.  She gave me lots and lots of advice.  I even take some of it to this day.

Every bedtime and every morning involves rituals:

At night, be sure the doors are locked.  Open the bedroom windows, take the pills.  And in the morning, get out of bed and stand there a minute. Check out which body parts are working well and make the day’s plan accordingly.  Make a conscious decision to be joyful. Go downstairs. Feed he dogs.  Make some strong coffee. Some reports say coffee is bad for you.  Others are contradictory.

This time of year, I walk out back by the alley and pick my raspberries.  A handful to top the yogurt and the rest into the freezer for the long dark winter.

I am not one of those people who believes everything happens for a reason.  I know there is not an intricate plan wherein every hair on my head is counted. A deity would have to subtract the ones that come out on my comb every morning, and I so hope she is busy seeing to headier stuff

I do not believe that something good comes out of every misfortune.

Sometimes things are just one mishap after another.  Sometime things are just one wonderful thing after another.  And sometimes, it takes a while to sort out which is which.

Today I was in an exact place at an exact moment.  I don’t think it was just random.

I never buy anything at IKEA.  I’m never near there at a convenient time.  It’s right next to PDX, but for some reason the people who ask me to pick them up or drop them off want me to do it in the wee hours.  But today, it was midday, and I’ve been telling everyone all week that I was going to IKEA.  So I did.

It was incredibly hot for Portland.  Car thermometer read 97º at 1 p.m.  Still I followed my usual eccentric routine of parking a distance from the store.  I like to walk as much as possible. As I got out of my car, I heard a puppy crying in a car about 30 feet away.  A big, black SUV. Totally closed up.

I peeked in through the black windows and could see a small crate in the back confining a  lovely boxer puppy about five months old, crying and panting.  I looked around and waited a while before dialing 911 and asked for help.  It took dispatch a long time to figure out where I was in this huge parking lot.  She told me to stay on the line. I told her I might have to break out a window.  She said I was certainly protected by our Good Samaritan law if I felt it was necessary.  I went to my car for a tire tool.

Took while for the patrol car to find me, and by that time, I had collected an entourage.  An old woman in a parking lot standing next to a really nice car with a tire tool over her shoulder tends to attract a crowd.

Interesting that no one offered to do the deed for me.  Not the young men.  Not the younger women.

Luckily, for all concerned, the officer arrived just in the nick (0r is it knick) of time. I could have done bodily harm to the owner who a tried to look very unconcerned, responding to the page one of my cohort had called in to the store. He said he’d only been 10 minutes.  We all knew it had been much longer.

I approached the officer and told him I was the one who had reported the offense.  I thanked him for coming and told him I really needed to go because I was so angry I was afraid I might hit the perp. I swear, he smiled just a little as he looked at my weapon and said it was his job and I could go.

Several take-aways from this:

I never buy anything at IKEA.

Animal abuse is everyone’s business.

Do not tick off an old woman with a tire tool.

Sometimes it’s not a coincidence that you are in the right place at the right time.

I did want custody of that puppy.