Some sick dudes were arrested and charged with animal cruelty after pouring lighting fluid on possums and then lighting the poor critters up.  As if this wasn't bad enough, the idiots videotaped it and sent it in to a website. 

The website operators contacted PETA (who I am not known to like, but they did the right thing this time...) and they contacted local authorities.  The little weirdos got arrested and face up to $5000 fines and two years in jail.

I hope the judge and jury throws the book at them.

I am going to have a heart cath tomorrow. I am using my pathetic little laptop to post. Here's to hoping something actually gets stented this time...

Texas cattlemen suffered price decreases when the first case of US mad cow disease was found.  Now, with the second case being traced to Texas, I hope the prices don't hit another rough spot. 

Even as recently as last week, a Houston Chronicle story (behind a subscription to the archive block) talked about the resurgence of cattle rustlers due to the high cost of cattle.  Maybe the high prices will give the ranchers a buffer for any price decrease that may occur. 

A friend, who has been a friend since high school, emailed me and said my reaction to Ron's steadfast and incredible performance on the night we crashed the sailboat is fogging my view of his other less savory behaviors.

No, it is not.  I am very well aware of his less savory personal behaviors; I suffer daily from them.  From his misadventures in Baytown in 1988 (hey, at least that chippy was pretty), to his recent descent into near beastiality with the little idjit from Starbucks, I bear physical scars that will last me the rest of my life.

But I have never let a disease drown me yet.  Like the demons say in Evil Dead 2, "We live. We live still."  I still continue, and have survived all the attacks on my marriage that have come my way. 

Are those the only two little chippies that ever chased Ron?  Hell no.  Will they be the last?  Fuck no.  It seems to be a disease of the restaurant industry that many of the employees hired have no morality or sense of shame.  This time, due to the physical effects Ron himself has felt, I believe it will be the last time.  But I can never know, I can only have faith.

And I have faith in Ron.  I was very impressed with his strength of will and determination.  During the middle of the night, I broke down and cried.  I told him, 'I just want to get back to my kids. Just get me back to my kids.'  After that, he never got out of the water again, despite his injuries, despite his pain.  With that one act, by bringing me safely to shore so I could see my children again, he again became the hero I always saw in him before his first error.

In Heilein's Glory Road, he writes "...She knows that knights errant spend their nights erring..."  Well, I can attest to that.  I can also attest to the bravery and steadfastness in my knight's heart.  Despite temptation (and giving in at points) and my long illness and the stress it causes, he says he has never loved anyone else. Ron has never sought a divorce or a separation.

That night, his strength of will was the only thing that kept the two of us alive through a night when even the Coast Guard could not and would not rescue us.

We have been together since May 28, 1978, when we got together at the Mesquite Ball at Patagonia Union High School.  We were sophomores then, and he was so shy, I had to ask him out.  I remember being very impressed with his strength and his intelligence; but I lost that incredible admiration somewhere, probably due to his later behavior. 

Yet he has brought it all back; he has impressed me beyond admiration.  I saw his injuries, I was there, in the boat and saw what pain he was in.  But he brought me back to my girls, and nothing and no one (especially no cheap little chippies), will ever take that away again.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  But I know that today, and always, I found my knight in shining armor and no erring on his part will tarnish the brightness of his shield.  (Of course, I will take every bit of erring out of his hide, but that is another bedtime fable...)