Post-skunking, the dog is asleep here in the basement with me, exhausted but otherwise okay. The spraying was unpleasant, but it could have been much worse; it seems that the bugger only got the side of the poor beagle’s face, although his harness was drenched with spray and needed to be tossed outdoors. The dog still stinks somewhat, though, so we will probably need to re-apply the hydrogen peroxide remedy later this afternoon.

Tonight’s lesson, boys and girls:

When the geriatric dog suddenly comes up off the floor like a rocket and runs over to the screen door, fur a-bristling, and howling like a banshee, don’t simply shine a flashlight around the yard and assume the source of the to-do is gone and then allow aforementioned howling beagle to go outside to transact the usual business.

Because if you do, aforementioned beagle will transact business and then rouse a really surprised and subsequently hacked-off skunk from its nocturnal nosings at the edge of the bushes in the yard. Aforementioned hacked-off skunk will then direct a shot of something very effective as a deterrent in the direction of aforementioned beagle, who will then slink off in an embarrassed fashion towards the patio while his idiotic dad will call into the house for a very large can of tomato soup, as well as a Google search for ‘Dog Skunk Odor Remover.’

Aforementioned idiotic dad will then spend his Saturday evening massaging a recommended mixture of peroxide, baking soda and dish soap into aforementioned beagle’s fur while aforementioned beagle registers his extreme displeasure with the entire world by delivering ‘if looks could kill’ glances at the idiotic dad and attempting to jump out of the tub and rub his stinky cheek on the living room rug.

He’s resting comfortably under his blankie in the living room floor, thank you very much. He got a caught a glancing blow and there’s still some stink on the cheek, but otherwise, I guess I can recommend the peroxide remedy.

I can also recommend shutting the patio door and closing the blinds and telling the dog to mind his own business.

As opposed to the other course of action.

And then there’s bulldozing the library as a solution to life’s problems.

According to Cicada Mania, cicadas in southern Ohio and Indiana, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Long Island ….. still nothing in Washtenaw.

The weather’s supposed to warm up significantly this coming week, though (apparently it will be over 90 by Wednesday, yuck), so we’ll see.

Amazing (at least to those of us like me who have not yet figured out that phones are more than phones) but true.

Goodspeed is signing off. Too bad. I’m not alone, I know, in saying that I’ll miss his blog.

….. would Jennifer Granholm fall (for nine minutes) for a radio “morning crew” stunt in which the person supposedly on the other end of the line was Ahnold Schwarzenegger but really wasn’t. [Courtesy whatevs.]

No strange critter sightings today, but it was mordantly amusing (then completely irritating, then vaguely humiliating) to stand waiting for over 15 minutes for a Link bus to come by. They’re supposed to come by “every 8 to 10 minutes,” which is never true, but this was ridiculous. After a certain juncture you feel like a fool standing there waiting, but you’ve already waited so long that walking away seems like even more of a chore than it seemed to begin with. At least the main AATA buses don’t make promises they don’t keep.

Ann Arbor didn’t make the first wave of Cool Cities grants; Ypsilanti, however, did.

Hearty congratulations, Ypsi.

Stolen from I Love Books:

• Ambrose Bierce: The Devil’s Dictionary [1911]
• Greil Marcus: Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock’N’Roll Music [1975]
• David Nasaw: The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst [2000]
• Claire Tomalin: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self [2002]
• Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass [1855, 1856, 1860 …. ]

This is not the same thing as listing “my 5 favorite books.” I wouldn’t even try to do that.

Picking only five was way harder than I thought it’d be.

They were in the back of the bus this afternoon, two off-duty AATA drivers, exchanging war stories about belligerent passengers, snotty passengers, or moronic passengers who ring the stop bell and then change their minds at the last possible second as the bus is pulling over for the stop, but mostly shaking their heads and moaning about those young-uns of the latter day. They are dads and both have what sound like teenage daughters at home. “At home, it’s ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, ma’am,’ but you don’t know what’s going on when they get together with their little friends.”

I don’t know. Those dads may have had a point, but how much do you want to bet that it’s those same dads (or dads like them) who scream bloody murder at the TV set when the Patriots go into overtime or the Pistons lose an easy free throw? Or who turn red in the face and have veins bulging out in their necks when someone cuts in front of them on 94? Or who threaten to slam their kids into the wall over the slightest provocation?

It’s easy to lay the blame at the feet of the kids, but it all begins with the parents who gave birth to and raised those kids.

Michigan’s full of them.

What was that strange, frightened critter (light brown, about the size of a small dog but very rodent-like, resembling a squirrel on unbelievable doses of steroids) I saw dashing across the north end of central campus this afternoon, stopping and starting and eventually dashing across State under a bush and barely missing being crushed by one of the usual line-up of crazed manic drivers hurtling up the street? Was it a weasel? Hyrax? Marten? Polecat? A giant gopher? An escaped ferret? A capybara?

I have no idea, but it was a sight, that’s for sure.

Almost a month later and still no cicadas ….. A quick check of Cicada Mania shows there have been sightings in Cincinnati and southern Indiana, but nothing here yet.

There is a moderately amusing photo at Cicada Mania of a cicada chasing George W. Bush, though.

Question of the Day while subbing at one of Ann Arbor’s two high schools:

‘Hey, Mr. Sub Man, Sir? What’s a Baroness?’

A story on Michigan Radio a few minutes ago mentioned that this past month was the rainiest May in southeast Michigan on record—8.6 inches (the previous record was apparently 8.4 back in 1943).

It’s sure sunny today, though.

For the time being, anyway. (Always have to throw that disclaimer in.)

Update: According to the Ann Arbor News, May was actually the third-rainiest May in Ann Arbor, based on weather measurements at the North Campus observation site. The record was 10.49 inches in 1943. This May was 7.78. The “rainiest on record” statistic applies to Detroit and Wayne County.

As Steve mentioned, XM Radio had a Memorial Day special on one of its channels in which they played all 253 #1 songs from 1970-1979. It was cheesy, nostalgic fun, a nice escape. Some of the songs I hadn’t heard in years and years and years. We turned on the radio a little late—we came in at late 1972, when Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” was on—but, except for a few breaks here and there, we kept the station tuned to the 1970s all day long, all the way through Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).”

Of course, some songs that you don’t want to get stuck in your head inevitably get lodged there in the process of engaging in an activity like listening to an all-1970s song marathon, and in my case, the horror has been having endless loops of Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died” and the Bee Gees’ “Love You Inside Out” running through my head. Someone please end the agony.

XM also had a special on its “traditional jazz” channel (I love these absurd labels, but that’s a subject for another post) the other day in which they played and dissected Miles Davis’ classic album Kind of Blue. I loved hearing the album, but I think the best tribute would have been to play the CD from end to end—”So What” to “Flamenco Sketches”—without all of the interrupting chatter. Miles’ music speaks for itself. There’s no need to dissect it.

Ann Arbor blogger Edgewise has an interesting self-debate over what is possibly the ultimate bugaboo of politics these days, abortion. He brings up some very good points. My own position has been, as usual, to straddle the fence in the middle. Abortions should be safe and very, very rare, but legal. Alternatives should be easily available, especially easier adoption. (Want to reduce the number of abortions? Let gay and lesbian couples adopt, for example.)

Statistics seem to bear out that the safe, legal and very rare thing works; abortions fell every year in the 1990s under Clinton/Gore and are on the rise again thanks to the Fascist FunDumbMentalists in power now. And there is also statistical evidence from another place, as noted by Edgewise—The Netherlands:

‘Contrary to common belief, legalization of abortion does not necessarily increase abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, has a non-restrictive abortion law, widely accessible contraceptives and free abortion services, and the lowest abortion rate in the world: 5.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year. Barbados, Canada, Tunisia and Turkey have all changed abortion laws to allow for greater access to legal abortion without increasing abortion rates.’

Again, safe, legal and rare = lowest abortion rates in the world. But there’s more to it than that, of course, as he notes:

‘By the way, the Netherlands has universal free prenatal, birthing, and child health care, along with subsidized daycare and a few others measures to increase the viability of alternatives to abortion.’

As usual, human issues are rarely black-and-white, cut-and-dried. Life is simply more complex that ‘Just Say No.’