I wish to hell I hadn’t read the news today. I ran across a news item out of Massachusetts about a sick son of a bitch who bit a chunk out the upper lip of his girlfriend’s three year old daughter. He also all bit off the child’s ear and bit her less severely over her body. The ear was so severely mangled it can’t be put right.

Do you care if he has mental problems, or “anger management control issues?” I sure as the hell don’t. It seems to me a likely end for the bastard would be to dump him in a pit with a large experienced pissed-off pit bull and then let nature takes it course. There is absolutely no profit or gain in feeding and housing a piece of crap like this guy.

I don’t know about where you are, but here in Friendly Manitoba it is a shinin’ day. The temperature is in the low 80s. The sky is either partly sunny or partly cloudy. I was sitting on the back porch watching the elm trees dance in the brisk breeze. As the passing clouds obscured the sun, the leaves would change from a shining and dazzling shade of green to almost black. The hummingbirds have returned from wherever they winter. Three of them were hovering by the now bloomless lilac bushes, their little wings flapping 90 to nothing as they tried to maintain their position. Sitting in the hedge was a wren looking for lunch or a resting place.

A seriously white young woman with frizzy blonde hair and wearing knee lengths shorts walked by on her way to the mail box. She was walking as though there was a hundred pound weight on her skinny back. On her way back, I noticed she was wearing a pair of those freakin’ butt ugly cat type plastic glasses that were popular 30 or 40 years ago. It made me shudder.

It may come as a shock to some of you, some but not all, I can be an aggravating son of a bitch without trying very hard or going out of my way at all. Kat is probably the calmest and most even tempered woman I have ever met. I have to work hard to disturb her calm. She doesn’t get perturbed with me. I may have heard her speak harshly to one person, not me, in the last year.

Today, she showed me that she does indeed have a temper, a quite expressive temper, and I’m damned happy it wasn’t directed to me. Apparently, the satellite TV provider managed to royally screw up the billing. I don’t know the how of it all and I’m smart enough not to ask any questions, at least right now.

She started out being nice. After all, she is Canadian and Canadians are the masters of nice and polite. Undoubtedly nice was not resolving the problem so she went to firm. When firm didn’t seem to communicate the situation adequately, she forgot about nice and firm and went into chew them up one side, down the other, and sweep them in the dust pan. It was a work of art. I sat here and thought, “You go, girl.” all the while being grateful I wasn’t the recipient.

We’ve been watching at a TV show called Canadian Idol. It is the Canadian version of American Idol, or vice versa. The current crop of contestants is incredibly talented. They are so talented there is virtually no way a judge could easily declare one better than another. I suppose that is why the public renders the verdicts by their votes.

Jaydee Bixby is one of the contestants. This 16 year old kid has it all going for him. He’s a helluva good looking boy with enough charisma to charm his way in and out of damn near everything. He owns the stage and can this guy ever sing. He has a voice that reminds me somewhat of Elvis’s voice before he discovered Twinkies and drugs and that he was all of that. The kid does rockabilly and he does it the way it is meant to be done. I haven’t been so impressed by a young singer since Leanne Rhymes cut her Blue album. She didn’t quite fulfill her destiny. I don’t think there is any doubt Jaydee is going to be a major talent.

The day is wearing on and so am I.

Life is sweet – maybe because I learned Kat has a temper.