Gotcha Anniversary and More

The odometer on my 2014 Subaru Forrester turned over 100,000 miles (160,934 km) this week. There are a few small areas of light rust that will probably be full-blown rust spots in a few years. I don't have plans to address them, but I may rethink that. I don't usually purchase extended warranties, but I made an exception for this car. The warranty is a lifetime warranty and has more than paid for itself already. 

I've never been one for flashy, expensive cars. My only desire is that they roll me safely and relatively comfortably from place to place. My Forrester is my first vehicle with a temperature and directional gauge, so I'm living large. It's been a good car for me. 

Last week, we celebrated Oscar and Rudy's first anniversary with us. They have fully wormed their way into our hearts and are enjoying family status. Their antics have us smiling and laughing at them throughout the day. We can't understand how anyone could abandon them the way they did by moving away and leaving the pups to roam free and fend for themselves. They're such resilient boys. We've never had a more talkative pup than Rudy, and I don't think I've ever had a more loyal pup than Oscar—he doesn't like to let me out of his sight. They both enjoy watching TV shows with nature settings, especially Rudy.

Here's a link to the Rochester Humane Society Facebook page where we adopted Oscar and Rudy. It's my favorite stop online for all of the happy adoption stories they post throughout the week. I wish we could adopt them all.

We had a scare last week when a neighbor's dog broke free from their yard's invisible fence and attacked Oscar. It all happened so fast and was unexpected, as we've literally walked past their home hundreds of times over the years with all of our pups, and never had any problems. Oscar is still wearing his cone for a few more days, but he's doing well. Mochi's owners didn't hesitate to offer to cover the cost of Oscar's vet bills. They're good people.

My riding and walking activities are progressing well, as I'm showing steady improvement in stamina with both. I'm still using a golf cart for golfing, but I plan to discontinue that soon (I still struggle walking downhill). I had my fastest walk of the year this morning, covering 5.78 miles (9.3 km) in 1:24:00 for an average pace of 14:32 per mile. I managed a pace of 13:50 for my 4th mile. This effort puts me well within the range of speed I had before my surgery. It's been a lot of work to get to this point, and for a while, somewhat all-consuming. I'm pleased and grateful for my progress.

I received a complimentary book in the mail a few days ago, a book that I was a minor contributor to. The author is a writer for the NYT and National Geographic, and like me, is also a cluster headache sufferer. He made a request to a forum a few years ago that I'm an occasional participant in, looking for personal accounts of how these headaches impact our lives and how we manage them when they appear. We spoke on the phone once or twice and exchanged some emails about my experiences with a condition I've had to contend with since my senior year of high school. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I hope to do so this coming week. 

We finally made it back to Cruise Night a couple of nights ago with Mark and Becky. It's been years since we attended the annual event, which is part of Lakeville's Panoprog (Panorama of Progress) celebrations. I'm glad we made it, as it also gave us a chance to check out our friend Dhruv's band, Five Day Forecast, who were playing a gig there at an outdoor venue at a downtown bar. 

I worry that we're becoming desensitized to the inhumaneness of Trump's administration, and I fear that our mainstream media outlets are both failing us and becoming obsolete. People have confined themselves to media outlets that tell them what they want to hear, leaving many woefully ignorant about what is actually happening. The Big Beautiful Bill, recently signed into law with no support from Democrats, is a prime example. The bill will strip healthcare from tens of millions of people and defund programs designed to help the most vulnerable, to provide substantial tax savings for the wealthiest among us. 

The bill allocates an obscene amount of funding for Trump's unmasked and unidentified thugs to assault and haul people away with little to no due process, all in the name of preventing illegal immigration. However, many of the people they're targeting are here legally. Trump and those he's placed in charge of these unlawful practices say they're going after the "worst of the worst," but there's no truth in that. They're primarily targeting people with no criminal record who are appearing in court for scheduled hearings on their immigration status; they're going after day laborers as they congregate at places like Home Depot looking for work; they're handcuffing parents as they attend their children's graduation ceremonies at school—all regular activities of law-abiding people trying to live their lives. And they're arresting and spiriting away people who have served in our armed forces who are here legally.

This is fascism.

The part of this that troubles me greatly is that it's Christians at the forefront of this harsh treatment of the immigrants among us. They should be the last people to involve themselves in this cruelty, but they're cheering it on. Evidently, the latter verses from Matthew 25 are missing from Trump's bible. 

Letters From an American

That's all I've got.