I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Author: Sheila Morris

  • the hideout – revisited on Friday the 13th., 2023

    the hideout – revisited on Friday the 13th., 2023


    On Friday the 13th. of July, 2018, I posted this piece. Time passes, moments are fleeting, but these thoughts hang around while the wind blows a winter’s chill that moves the tall naked sticks that once were trees outside my window this afternoon. I needed a bit of fun, a bit of cheer. Maybe you do, too. Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when Pretty and I were just a couple of cowpokes in the Wyoming summer...

    Alas, Pretty and Number One Son Drew are winging their way toward Las Vegas on this Friday the 13th. and all of us at Casita de Cardinal will be happy to know they have landed safely tonight. Charly, Spike and I were quite the forlorn threesome when Pretty and her suitcase rolled out of the house this morning. Luckily, I have had an epic Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Semifinal match that lasted over 6 hours to keep my mind occupied today, but tennis has not been a source of comfort for Charly and Spike, I’m afraid. Sigh. Oh, well, it is Friday the 13th.

    In times like these, I often resort to pictures of previous places I have been that make me happy to revisit. One such place was on a trip Pretty and I took 9 years ago with two of our favorite friends, Linda and Beth, to a dude ranch called the Hideout in Shell, Wyoming. Yeehaw. We cowboy.

    Beth (l.) gets credit for planning the adventures

    Pretty embraced the concept…

    Linda (l.) and a wannabe cowgirl Kristi the Kid from Scotland

    another wannabe cowgirl (me) on the left with

    real cowgirl Linda and guide Stewart on the trail

    my horse the oversized Wapiti who was wonderful,

    but oh, so very WIDE…ouch, my aching butt

    this cowgirl needed lots of breaks

    this cowgirl didn’t ever need a break

    the views on the trail were almost as gorgeous as the smiles

    BUT as fate would have it, I was happiest when I was playing Scrabble…

    …and Wapiti was in the pasture having fun with the other horses

    I hope all of my friends in cyberspace have a safe Friday the 13th., a great weekend and wonderful memories of your own Hideouts when you need them.

    ********************

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.

     

     

     

  • Cardinal Cat Cafe

    Cardinal Cat Cafe


    “Hey, come look in the carport. You have a visitor – it’s a new cat I don’t recognize, and it’s sitting next to the food bowls. Come see if this cat is one of your regulars at the Cat Cafe,” Pretty laughed as she called to me from the kitchen one morning this week. “Sheila’s Cat Cafe. Come on down. Everyone’s welcome.” Pretty continued chuckling to herself as I walked through the kitchen to peep through the back door. Hahaha, I thought. Very funny.

    Hm. Nope…definitely not a cat I knew.

    “Well,” I turned to Pretty. “I will not feed this cat. This cat wasn’t one of Carport Kitty’s friends. You realize the only reason I fed the other two cats is because they came to pay their respects after CPK passed. I refuse to become the old lesbian cat lady that lives on Cardinal.”

    Pretty shook her head and said with measured mirth, “That ship sailed months ago. It is what it is, Naynay. Seems to me we need to call our carport feeding bowls Sheila’s Cat Cafe.”

    Somehow that both annoyed and made me smile, too. I mulled things over. “Okay, okay. But let’s call it the Cardinal Cat Cafe. I like the alliteration better.” And therein lay the beginning of the next cat saga which now included a third unnamed cat who felt a menu of Meow Mix as an entree plus Temptations for dessert was delightful.

    Tux and Belli wait to place their order

    Help Wanted

    *******************

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.

  • 1/6 two year anniversary

    1/6 two year anniversary


    “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived,

    but if faced with courage,

    need not be lived again.” —Maya Angelou

    Today, January 6th., is our day to remember the wrenching pain of watching the vicious attack on the US Capitol two years ago, to know that day cannot be unlived and must not be erased from our memories but instead a reminder to face with courage every opportunity we are given to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

  • Bervin’s grandmother’s advice to K McCarthy

    Bervin’s grandmother’s advice to K McCarthy


    A petite Black woman presiding over the sixth ballot to determine the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives hammered the gavel to close the count results late yesterday afternoon with GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy unable to secure the magic number (218) to win the position.

    The 118th. Republican-led Congress that began two days ago has already made history: the last time multiple votes were needed to elect a Speaker was in 1923. That’s right, numbers people. 100 years ago.

    My friend Bervin and I were talking early this morning about the optics of the cluster in the House, and he told me two pieces of advice his African American grandmother gave him when he was a young man – he thought they would work well for McCarthy today when the House convenes for the seventh ballot at noon.

    “If you feel like you’re catching hell, let it go.”

    and then there’s this one

    “When the Devil is coming after you, step aside.”

    Regardless of how today unfolds in the ongoing battle for House Speaker, the American people have had a front row seat in the dismantling of what was once the party of Abraham Lincoln.

    Where to? What next? You got me.

  • human frailty, mendacity, and George Santos – plus pink boxing gloves

    human frailty, mendacity, and George Santos – plus pink boxing gloves


    “We all want life to be simple and our relationships to be enchanted, and then along comes human frailty. Before we know it, all will be lost,” said postmistress Dorcas Lane to Minnie her maid in one of my favorite BBC productions Lark Rise to Candleford when Minnie asked Dorcas what the phrase Happily Ever After means in affairs of the heart. I submit her answer applies equally today to political affairs including, but not limited to, the most recent admission of human frailty by GOP Rep.-elect George Santos from New York.

    I cannot tell a lie, said Santos, as he admitted to lying about a few things in his campaign for serving in Congress for New York’s third congressional district. Hm. Were they little white lies like he really prefers the fresh taste of McDonald’s coffee to the more lauded Starbucks? Or he’s secretly not going to vote for Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker of the House next week when the new Congress is sworn in even though Kevin McCarthy has been mum on the questions regarding Santos. Well, no. Not exactly little white lies from Santos on the campaign trail. Go big, or go home was more his style.

    He lied about having college degrees from Baruch College and New York University – he had neither. He also admitted he lied about working directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs – he had an indirect relationship with them through his company but made misleading statements in his bio. And of course, there’s the whole “Jew-ish” comments by Santos that must leave the Jewish community in his district shaking their heads in awful wonder. To give the devil his due, however, Santos did say he was sorry for his “embellishments.”

    “I’m human, I’m flawed, I’m not perfect,” he said in his explanation for his mendacity, but he also said he wasn’t going to step down.

    Of course, why should he? Santos had the perfect political role model in another New York politician who lied his way into the White House in 2016 but now has been exiled to Florida as seemingly the only consequence of two impeachments in addition to findings of the January 6th. House Committee that laid the blame for an attempted coup of the US Government squarely on his slumping shoulders, yellow-ish complexion and orange hair. Where have you gone, Merrick Garland – our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo woo woo…you who?

    I’ve tried to check out of politics during the holiday season by binging The Great British Baking Show and Wednesday on Netflix instead of my usual nerdy news programs, but last night I made the mistake of checking in with them just in time to see the Santos Song of Shame as performed by the singer himself on national news. On top of that disgraceful dissonance, the guy is gay. Which made a sad song sadder for me personally.

    Truth telling is a lost art easily manipulated by the words we say and the words we don’t. As the year 2022 makes a loud exit, I commit to continue to honestly call it like I see it in 2023 with a more powerful punch than ever because of my renewed belief in Santa.

    Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus – Pretty’s sister Darlene and her partner Dawne gave me a brand new pair of boxing gloves for Christmas! I was overjoyed!

    Darlene asked me if I thought my mother would have permitted boxing gloves in our home when I originally asked Santa for them as a child if they were pink, and Pretty spoke up for me. I doubt it, she said, but she did always love for Sheila to wear pink.

    Happy New Year from Pretty and me – may all your wishes become possibilities, may peace cover the earth, may all those who wander find safe shelter with food to eat and water to drink, may all those who mourn heavy losses be comforted, may the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Hallelujah. Amen.

    *******************

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.