BITS AND PIECES

True Love Wins Out:  Big arms swept around her suddenly and firm lips came down upon hers and Barbara knew that never in all her gay, spoiled life that Adela Ash had been kissed like that.
-- from "Cornflower-blue" by Phyllis A. Whitney (Street & Smith's Love Story Magazine, October 20, 1934)

I've Been Reading:  End of a J.D. was a Gold Medal mystery by Robert Terrall under his "John Gonzales" pseudonym was an interesting, fast-moving, sexy, wacky book that read like a second-tier Richard S. Prather novel.  Hunting Lost Mines by Helicopter was a 1965 nonfiction book by Erle Stanley Gardner which took Gardner and friend to the sometimes deadly Superstition Mountains in search of the Lost Dutchman Mine and others.  The lore and history recounted made this one of the most interesting of Gardner's travel books, marred mainly by Gardner's effusive praise of his companions:  the "experienced" this, the "most experienced" that, the "best"cook, the "most capable" pilot, and so one.  Sheesh!  Didn't the guy travel with at least one run-of-the-mill ordinary noob?  I also read four mediocre Marvel graphic novels:  Doctor Strange:  The Way of the Weird, scripted by Jason Aaron (decent by confusingly intricate artwork by Chris Bachala); Guardians of the Galaxy:  New Guard, Vol. 1: Emperor Quill, scripted by Brian Michael Bendis (some humor, meh lot); and two volumes of Spider-Gwen, Vol. 0:  Most Wanted? and Vol. 2:  Weapon of Choice, both scripted by Jason Latour, with art I really didn't care for by Robbi Rodiguez.  I'm currently reading another ESG travel book, Drifting Down the Delta, and Donald E. Westlake's The Comedy Is Finished.

A Loyal Cat:  Most mornings, we drive Jack to his bus stop because his folks have to be at work early.  Usually there is a little girl -- seven- or eight-years-old, maybe -- waiting for her bus.  Almost always we see her with her tiger cat, sometimes the cat is there and sometimes it crosses the street from her house to be with her.  I think it's protecting her.  Once the bus picks her up, her cat crosses the street again to home.  I like that.  I can't say why, but I like that.

Soccer Coach-in-Chief?:  My daughter's father-in-law happens to be a high-powered lawyer (one of the good ones) in Washington, D.C., currently working at the White House.  Two of Jessamyn's nephews were playing against each other in a youth soccer game the other week and their father, Dan, was giving a play-by-play over the phone to his father.  Jessamyn's father-in-law dotes on his grandchildren and was giving them soccer tips when another voice came on the phone to give some POTUS soccer tips.  Say what you will about Donald Trump (and I have and I will), it's kind of cool to get soccer tips from the President of the United States.  I don't know if his tip were any good -- I have a feeling that tip #1 was "Lock her up!" and tip # 2 involved calling the referee for making "Fake calls!")  I'm dreaming of an alternate universe where the president ONLY tweets soccer tips.

Florida Leads the Way:  A seventh-grade female student at a Miami charter school had a funny feeling about a particularly skeezy math teacher so she Googled him.  Turns out the guy had a history of inappropriate behavior toward female students, in one case keeping a lock of hair and a used tissue from one student and telling another that he loved her.  The Miami charter student posted her findings on snapchat and with days, the teacher was fired.  Other female students at the school said the teacher made them feel uncomfortable.  The big question is how the heck did this man get a job at the charter school when a simple Google search should have raised serious questions?  The school principal "responded to an email from one concerned parent with sarcasm and a poop emoji."  The princila later said he probably should have Googled the teacher, but since the teacher came from another charter school, he assumed the man was okay.  Isn't is fun when a seventh-grader has to do a job that a responsible adult would not?

Go Figure:  O.J. Simpson's book publisher says he did it.  "No!" said nobody.

Jessica Jones, Season 2:  Dark, really dark.

A Headline: On msn.com:  "Did Blake dump Gwen?  What's really going on."  Who the hell is Blake?  And who the hell is Gwen?  And does this mean that I am completely out of touch or does this mean that I actually have a life?

The Week in Trump:  The president is trying to put the kibosh on an interview with porn star and possible threat Stormy Daniels scheduled to air on 60 Minutes.  It has been revealed that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen used a Trump business letterhead in his Stormy Daniels arrangements.  Cohen complained to friends that he had not been reimbursed for the $130,000 payoff to Stormy Daniels.Trump lawyers managed to gain a temporary restraining order against Daniels from an arbitration judge in a run-around without the knowledge of Daniels or her lawyer.  Trump seems to be flirting with becoming president for life after china's lead.  Trump is also parroting Phillipine strongman Duarte in wanting to give death sentences to drug pushers.  Trump claims sole credit for the "success" of the Winter Olympics.  Trump blindsided everyone -- including his advisers -- by agreeing to meet with Kin Jun Un.  He also tweeted that Representative Maxine Waters should take an I.Q. test.  And he dissed Oprah...and Chuck Todd...and Elizabeth Warren...and Jeff Sessions...and the Oscars.  Commenting on the revolving door of presidential aides, Trump (in an amazing display of team morale building -- not!) said that there were others we wanted to get rid of.  While pushing his insane tariffs which will have a disastrous effect on our economy.  Robert Mueller is zeroing in a meeting the Erik Prince (Trump supporter and adviser and brother to Education Secretary Betsy deVos) took with in the Seychelles with the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates and a Russian banker with close ties to Putin and whose bank controls a $10 billion fund that is currently under U.S. sanction.  Putin, by the way, praised Trump this week and said that the American political system was "eating itself."Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg, after going on numerous political talk shows drunkenly defying a subpoena from Mueller, has agreed to honor the subpoena; Nunberg, who previously said he hated Trump, now says that the Mueller probe is not a witch hunt.  Putin announced a new type of nuclear missile that can evade and interception; he backed this up with an animation of a missile hitting **sigh** Florida.  Ivanka's business dealings are under investigation by the FBI; add that Jarod's demotion and investigations into his business dealings and you can understand why Trump reportedly asked Chief of Staff General to fire the two of them.

Did I cover everything that happened this week?  Probably not.

And how was your week?