What a service technician told my neighbor, which I can't quite believe:

Tiny as this backwater town is, it was fully wired for fibre optic cable a few years ago. A neighbor who just bought a house on our block knows a phone company technician who told her that since she has a router and a wall plug for a modem, she doesn't need to pay for isp service at all; that in fact she doesn't even need a modem due to the fibre optic cable. Supposedly she can just plug a modem cord into the jack with the other end plugged into her computer. Or something. I don't quite entirely follow.

This sounds fishy and even possibly illegal if true. But he works for the phone company and claims to know. Couldn't he turn her in for theft of service or something if they parted ways? I want to warn her but don't want to sound like the ignoramus I am either. I just don't trust people who try to tell somebody how to do something for 'free'. This town is tiny and remote, but I know in L.A. they had people who went around with devices that could tell whether tv cable was being piggybacked illegally.

At least I've learned long ago to either carry a tiny wrist strap 'purselet' or

something small like a multi-pocket camera case and long enough strap I can sling it across my body. I'm bad to go off and leave things, especially a regular purse which I don't like anyway. Just around town, what do I need one for?

Sometimes the pot that simmers longest boils over suddenly.

Hadn't thought of that - thanks.

Probably will do so. It's silly to go to too much trouble with locks around here because burglaries are very rare, and if somebody wanted in the house however, they'd just break the window. The main problems come for responsible if forgetful owners who don't want to add damage to their pain. I lock the door more as a matter of formality than anything else. Most people don't even bother. In almost 9 years here, I've only read about 2 burglaries and they were of businesses with attractive drugs such as a vet's office. That one was extra sad because it was the vet's grandson. Didn't do him any good, though. Judge threw the book at him because he had a long record of various scrapes with the law. Bad street drugs flow like water here, and the fact that there's almost no other crime attached makes me pretty sure the police are in on it. They don't want to provoke citizen complaints or federal interest. I suppose most of their customers make their $ to buy by dealing too.

Speaking of dogs,

until my 16-yr-old chows died, I fastened a key to their collars. With such heavy coats nobody could see it, and nobody was going to bother them anyway!

Two short coated dogs now, though.

(sigh) If you don't want to wind up like me....

Do leave a house key with a very trusted friend who's relatively easy to locate on short notice. Knowing how and where burglars usually look for outdoor keys, I thought I was being smart over a year ago when I buried mine in a secluded corner of the garden, inside 2 different glass jars and wrapped first in saran wrap, then tin foil, then newspaper. Even put a big rock over the burial spot. I would've noticed if the area had ever been disturbed and was positive that key was safely awaiting the day I'd need it - which turned out to be last Wednesday.

Only the key was NOWHERE to be found. I had to dig halfway to China, and after I gave up on that, I had to break into my own house by removing a screen and finding an unlocked window. There are 21 but fortunately only 11 downstairs and I got lucky on the third. But it was still hard work for an old lady. I'm very glad the unlocked window turned out to be hidden by the lattice and shrubbery around my front porch because if the neighbors, who know me well, might've seen me and one could well be nasty enough to call the cops just for the hell of it.

Us or them?

Much as I'd like to drop-kick them off the edge of the earth, the sad fact remains that we can't break up the country w/o creating even greater problems. The south needs us more than we need them, but we still need them. Or their territory anyway. I hope you and I (and many others) live to see more of those old bastards just die out and solve the problem for us. SOME of their kids aren't quite as bad.

'They' don't love America at all. Not in the least.

Proof, America consists of other people too, and they do everything possible to lay economic and social slavery on us. We don't feel the 'love'.

England IS the problem, first and foremost!

One of the worst imperialists until the recent past, and still at it anywhere they get a shot, from all appearances.

I'd strongly advise against your visiting Dublin and declaring Deare Olde England 'not the problem' in front of people who suffered over 800 years of invasion and slavery at the hands of the world's FORMER master of the seas. What they did to the Irish - who never invaded anyone btw - rivals what the US did to its imported labor.

One other thing they'd better prepare themselves for next: Wales will break off too at long last. The REPUBLIC of Ireland has long had supporters there; it's where my own most recent ancestors fled one jump ahead of John Bull after Dev (in concert with England) had our national saint Michael Collins assassinated. What's that, you say? You thought the national saint was named Patrick? He's just #2.

'England not the problem', my royal Irish arse!

We are indeed known by our enemies.

I've always been leery of people said not to have an enemy in the world. If you walk and live as you should, you'll have more than enough of them. Beautiful thing I've discovered over time, however, is that even when you feel surrounded and beset by overwhelming numbers, you also have friends, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

How many people are beloved so dearly by others whose lives they've touched though never met, folks who TRULY would take a bullet for them w/o question and count it an honor? Precious few, I'll bet. The love overcomes the hate. And that's one major reason some sad souls do hate President Obama - because they know nobody would love them like that.

And yet we're only reflecting the love that's shown us by one willing to suffer much, yes risking his own life, to make the world better for all.