Obama may not be mean, but I guess that I am.

There is an old joke about a cat on the roof that is about breaking bad news slowly and easily. In our case, the bad news is that Spike, our beloved cat, is dying. He showed up, uninvited, almost nine years ago to the day and stole our hearts.

The day after he showed up, Michele took him to the vet because he was pretty much blind. Our vet was on vacation and the substitute vet – because Spike was FIV (kitty AIDS) and going blind – suggested we euthanize him. When our regular vet got back, we went for a second opinion and she said That's a great cat, I'm not going to put him down. We liked that answer much better.

For the last nine years, Spike has been a huge presence in our life. Way out of proportion to his ten pounds. He has been a constant source of joy and love. He is now down to just under six pounds and shriveling and contracting before our eyes. He is still a love.

The other day, Michele came home from a visit with her family. While she was there, somehow, the subject of Obama came up – unusual because they are pretty conservative – and her mother said that Obama seems mean.
That surprises me because it is about the last attribute I would give to Obama. Cocky? Sometimes. Stubborn? Maybe. But, mean? Not in anything that I have seen. Maybe I am self-selecting away from stuff that would show his meanness, but I don’t think so.
Anyway, here is a bit of Obama being cocky, but not mean.

green. But only at this time of year, when the grasses are so green they look fake and the Oaks are leafing out with, psychedelic, leaves. 

The picture above was taken on the way to the Carrizo Plain. The picture below was taken about 25 feet off of 280 between Sandhill and Alpine. Four miles from my home. Two hundred miles apart in the Coast Range.    

When I walked up to the field to take the picture, above, I scared a bunch of
horses so much that one fell over as it tried to run away. It sort of
scared me – I had never actually seen a horse fall over before, except
in the movies – and, for a moment, I imagined that the horse was hurt.
Then he/she/or it jumped up and came over to investigate.

And I began to realize that the horses were what was happening and to take pictures of something else was foolish.