Nothing to see here, move along, move along. The ICEholes didn’t get Miss Mia Sopaipilla.
However, she was plucked from beneath the rumpled comforter in our bed, unceremoniously stuffed into a carrier, and whisked away via Scary Noisy Rattlebox to the vet yesterday for a vaccination, a mani-pedi, and a quick looksee because — like so many of us — Miss Mia is Of a Certain Age. In this case, 19, which means she’s pushing 90 in our years.
Ninety. Holy hell. I’m neither half as spry nor a quarter as cute as she is, and I’m barely 72. She’s got more hair, too, though our whiskers are about the same shade of white.
Mia’s no longer the champion jumper she once was, but then neither am I. Since breaking that second ankle I hop onto and off of things about as well as Mr. Hilltop in “Young Frankenstein.”
But she’s only on the one medication — methimazole, for an overactive thyroid — whereas I would be on an even half-dozen if I could get any of the fun ones without risking a longish stretch in the cage myself.
As we rolled into the parking lot I noticed one vehicle with a Trump sticker, and once inside I glanced around, trying to I.D. the owner. But I didn’t see anyone with an ailing turkey buzzard, desert warthog, or vampire bat, so I couldn’t in good conscience slip the doc a double sawski and recommend a candidate for euthanasia.
“Oh, sure, you’re all about a rabies vaccination for your three-legged pit bull but the rest of us should be ‘free’ to croak of the COVID Measles,” I mumbled to no one in particular.
Miss Mia just rolled her lovely green eyes, which is her way of saying: “Can we get on with it, please? You may win the war of words in here, but you’re gonna lose the fight in the parking lot afterwards, and I want to get home to finish my nap without a side trip to the ER and/or jail.”
Mad Blog Media 
I keep wondering if someone will rip down the big RESIST sign Meena put up in the front yard. Been up a couple weeks now without someone putting buckshot through it.
Sometimes it is better to sneak across no-man’s land rather than fire a shot, recalling that movie Joyeux Noël. At least then the cat gets home alive.
A little over a week ago (while I was in a temporary reprieve from this raging snot-fest) a fellow gun guy and I (I’m on the executive board of an 1,100 member gun club) sat down over coffee with two of the local Moms Demand Action folks, one of whom lost a son to gunshots. We had a cordial, hour long conversation at a local coffee house and exchanged some commonalities as well as policy ideas. It helped that one of the Moms recognized me from our exchange of comments on a variety of issues in the local fish wrapper. So we knew each other a little even if we had never met in person.
Maybe sitting down at a table is what it takes. But you gotta get to that table. My fear is without a little effort to tone down the nastiness, we really are on a road to ruin. And damned if I want to lose my Socialist Security check if the nation falls apart.
I’ve seen that look before. I call it the “pillar of salt” look. Perhaps the Medusa stare would be more accurate? If you don’t do what I ask right now, I will take you down to the ground. As in a 150 pounds of ground round.