Dear Madame Zoltar

Hello my lovers and haters!  How are you?  Although our temperatures have been a bit on the cool side lately, I'm not complaining.  Even when it rains cats and dogs, I take great solace in the fact that at least it's not s-word.  It's not unheard of in May. but it's a rare occurrence.  I remember one.  Everything had melted away by the following day.  Hopefully, we'll be s-word free for the rest of the season.  I would suggest Poor Richard's Almanac, but that's like throwing darts at a board, especially since Mother Nature has gone insane from all the pollutants that we've rammed down her throat.

Well, the weather being topsy-turvy might as well match the rest of the world.  Black is white and white is black, maybe  I'm so encouraged when I see passers-by who return my smile.  The vast majority don't.  It seems as if people are hurt or angry, or both.  I swear I used to get a better return just 10, or even 5, years ago.   I'm not counting the people who are head bowed, fully absorbed by the "toy" in their hands.  Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel as comfortable out in the world as I once did.  Just the other day, I was in line at the Post Office and I watched a man come in and set a box underneath a counter, next to a woman who was writing something.  The man left.  I looked at the box.  I'm sorry, but I thought of the possibility of terrorism.

I asked the man in line behind me if he had seen the man put down the box and leave.  The woman standing next to the box overheard me and said (in a beautiful Jamaican accent), "The box belongs to a friend of mine.  I'm watching it for him while he gets more."  Better safe than sorry, I say.  But has the war on terrorism made our nation paranoid and/or hyper-vigilant?  I so long for the simpler, friendlier times of my youth.  Today, the same things that allow people to make friends globally, also allows terrorists to carry out their murders.  I'm sorry, but I have no solution for terrorism, abroad or at home.  I never expected my adulthood to be spent at war.  Why don't the "vast majority" of Muslims do something to police their own radicals?

Why, indeed.  War has plagued mankind for as long as we can remember, from battling tribes to nuclear confrontation.  For some reason, some of us can't live in peace with others.  I suggest that a few nations be ceded to the hawks amongst us so they can live and kill in peace.  The rest of us can live in the "Peace Nations," where we get along with each other and try to help each other.  My Lord, please, if only it was that easy.

Mr. OrbsCorbs insisted that I publish this: Steve Batie, of "HouseWorks" fame, has retired: http://journalstar.com/lifestyles/home-and-garden/houseworks-it-s-been-a-pleasure-for-years/article_de5fb6db-1aba-5037-95a1-8bb23755a96e.html  Mr. OrbsCorbs asks that there be public mourning and gnashing of teeth.

Thank you all my dears and honeybees for reading my blog this week.  Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to look me over.  I love each and every one of my visitors.

How do you "gnash" teeth?  Ask madamezoltar@jtirregulars.com

I'm so glad that we're finally seeing spring.  Everything is blooming everywhere.  There are explosions of color all over the place.  Enjoy your coming week.  Smile.  Smile.  Smile.