This was like "refrigerator day" when you eat all the leftovers or maybe it's like a jumble sale when you sell all the leftover stuff. It started for me at 2:15 AM when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. So -- why worry? Use the time! The cats had the same thought and after scarfing down some food, ran wild around the house. Why go outside? It's dark out there.
By 6AM I'd used up all my ideas and the cats were back asleep. I followed suit, only to be wakened by shouted obscenities. Went to the window just in time to see a well-built young man leap over my neighbor's fence across the alley. More shouting next door. Storming back and forth.
But I did go back to sleep for a while. Woke again to sheriff and deputies in the alley. Now they're talking. Glints of the pouring bright sun off handcuffs. Behind backs. Much talk. Much walking from one house to another. Hours.
Unassignable blame. Two disorderly conduct tickets. The two belligerents, who had seemed so big and tough, were feet shorter than the sheriff and deputies. At least a hundred pounds lighter. I couldn't tell them apart: jeans, t-shirts and ball caps. Examples of the American problem: young men, unhinged, idle, enraged.
It was all about the usual noise, which I ignore as much as I can. Pounding music.
So I decide it's time to go talk to my neighbor. We haven't talked for a long time. One woman, problematic, has left. The new one is from Oregon, named "Summer Rain." I quite like her. Dave, the main man, is aging, just like me. We're about the same age. He's raising mushrooms and has some extra at the moment.
He also loves fishing and brought home a nice big specimen to his "man cave". Filleted it, went to the home trailer for a moment, came back to find an empty plate and a big fat cat. It was the Mooch, the satellite tomcat who is probably the father of the last litter of five kittens. They have been dying, one by one, plus their mother. Two are left of each, babies and moms. They seem to starve and have trouble breathing, until one morning they're stiff and cold with gaping mouths.
Then there's the news, which doesn't bear repeating. Maddow helps. But another conversation with a formerly respected person reveals another fan for Trump. I don't get it. I don't get a lot of what goes on, even though I'm no mushroom. Maybe I'm a bit of a satellite cat.
The sheriff came over to touch base -- we had never met. He remembered about my shoulder, which is still why I wake up at 2AM. He hates weeds, he tells me. Uh Oh. My grass is tall . . . His current problem is that everyone has a gripe and everyone wants it fixed, but no one will go to court and involve a judge or jury. They won't accept subpoenas, are horrified by the idea of contempt of court -- except for the other guy. What I know from my "rule of law" days is that pretty soon one can't help resenting the complainants. Not the belligerents.
Tonight the Governor of Montana is supposed to be interviewed by Maddow, but the show is not "on" yet. I watch a replay -- it has been seen on the East Coast already. Every time we come to one of these delays, I fear it's because there's been foul play. It's not an unjustified fear in a country where school shootings are so common.
We've all gone nuts. Not a hard case to make. The Mooch is grinning, fat with fish. His days may be numbered.
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