SPRING CLEANING IN LATE AUGUST -- PART 1

AS A SINGLE CANADIAN MALE, EVERY YEAR BY AUGUST MY THOUGHTS START TURNING TO SPRING CLEANING.

Whether it's because there's a young lady I want to impress with my domestic capabilities, or my kids are whining about the mess or simply because humans can only exist in SO much filth, I launch into cleaning mode.

And with only three days left in my two weeks of vacation, my attention first turned to my fans. No, not all of you people, all 3.6 of you. I mean my fans, which keep me cool during the warm summer weeks between mid-June and late August.

I do have an air conditioner, but I haven't cleaned out the filter in years. That's my next project. No, my focus fell upon the beautiful big floor fan I go to bed with every night in my bedroom. I couldn't see her any more for all the dust on her.

I neglected to take a before shot, so here's a shot of another, smaller fan I must clean before September. I'm not sure if you can see all the dust on the blades and on the blade cover. Well, my floor fan was much dirtier.
So I took Florence, my bedroom fan, outside and disassembled her. I didn't want all that dust to get in my apartment and it was a gorgeous, hot day. So here she is, with her cover off and all ready for some TLC.

Yes, that is dust. She's a bit of a dirty girl.

You can see my dirty lawn chair, my tools and the pail of hot, warm water. I needed to be soft and gentle but still restore her to her normal self.

Oh, and here's her cover. We'll address a specific situation regarding her in Part 2.

Anyway, I first took my broom to her and swept off as much dust and dirt and stuff as I could. Then I started washing her with soapy, hot water. And I had forgotten how breathtakingly beautiful she actually is.

So the rest of Florence's story will follow in Part 2. But while I was out on my exceedingly scenic ground-floor concrete patio, I noticed there were a few spider webs on my windows.

Actually, it was like the movie Arachnaphobia.

Oh, and just as an aside? Going back before the spider segue? This is a clump of dust from Florence. I know it's out of focus. Give me a break.

So anyway, I used my broom and my wet cloth and I destroyed all those spider webs, as the following pictures illustrate.

Generally, I value spiders. They're perfect predators. But these guys have to go. And one of them was fleeing along the wall below. I know the spider is not, in fact, where I say it is. It's a bit below the No. 1 and to the right.

Just believe me when I tell you, it's there.

GRAVITY

WIDE OPEN SPACES, BEAUTIFUL PLACES

Sometimes, it's best to shut up and just look around you.

Beyond the beheadings, the invasions, the gas prices, the politicians.

Beyond the cluster-fuck of calamity that humanity has at least partly become.

This is one of those times.

There is beauty still all around us.

Say what you need to say. Say what you need to say.

The Lunatic Fringe is alive and well (UPDATED)...

TO SUPPOSEDLY WRAP THIS UP ON SUNDAY, AUG. 10:

I salute the people in the pic above, who showed up Saturday to safeguard the family of Tim McLean, the young man who was killed and beheaded on a bus.

As it turns out -- and why should anybody REALLY be surprised -- the wacko, anti-homophobic so-called religious idiots from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas were nowhere to be found.

After all their chest-thumping about their plans to protest this kid's funeral to press their point that Canada was being punished by God for its permissive laws that actually legalized homosexuality, they stayed away.

Maybe in fear they turned back to look at Kansas and they were turned into stone by God somewhere in the Canadian Shield after they had snuck across the border?

Maybe He didn't part the Red River and they got eaten by catfish?

Maybe He purposely gave them the wrong directions to Winnipeg and they're up on the shores of Hudson Bay being eyed as prey by polar bears and being eaten alive by swarms of foot-long mosquitoes?

Or maybe they just showed their true colours and decided they wanted to save their own skins and didn't want themselves to be "beheaded" by the mass of mindful people who showed up to protect McLean's family?

THESE PEOPLE ABOVE ARE WHAT TRUE HUMANITY IS ALL ABOUT.

These Westboro Wackos are the real crazy cannibals in this whole thing, far worse than the very tortured soul who immigrated to Canada from China and who's accused of beheading this young man.

He is mentally ill, obviously, and has severe emotional problems that caused him to do this. But these religious zealots are much worse -- they're just morally bankrupt and supposedly of sound minds and hearts.

It was gruesome, gross, repugnant.

But it's real and it's where we seem to be at now where people like this, who are far worse than any Muslim fundamental groups, can figure they are so blindly right that they can do take their twisted beliefs and terrorize a family and a country that is reeling.

I can't believe stuff like this can happen. It boggles the mind. Our tiny brains, as proven by this Westboro group, were never intended to have to cope with the light-speed changes that our planet is going through now.

It's unbelievable. But it's all true. And that's scary.