A Valentine to Discount Tire

Three times in the last decade or so, I asked Discount Tire, on Bel-Red Road in Bellevue, for advice on my tires.  The latest this morning before leaving Saturday for over the pass, over the Blue Mountains, up from Mountain Home into snowy Sun Valley.  Three times I have given them the opportunity to sell me $1,000 or so of rubber. 

Three times they have assured me all was OK. "You're good; drive safely."

No, it's they that are good -- straight shooters -- selling trust before rubber.  I'll never buy tires elsewhere. 

So Why All the Lying?

The columnists and TV commentators keep asking “why all the lying?” “They didn’t need to lie, or did they; what are they hiding?”

Take Flynn. The National Security Adviser-Designee: sure he would talk with foreigners; foreigners would seek him out.  Maybe imprudent, but a crime to talk? So, why the lie?

Or Manafort: already convicted, agreeing to cooperate with the Special Prosecutor, yet he continues to lie.  Why?

Well --

could conspiring with a foreign government to trade help for relief from sanctions,

or

could providing information to assist a foreign government to subvert our democracy –

could these be construed as Treason? 

And the penalty for Treason?  Ask the Rosenbergs. 

So, I’m just asking -- is that why all the lying from these creeps?

Seattle Snow Days

Three, four years since a real snow

for Seattle.

Now fourth day,

10 inches,

more on the way intones Mass.  He knows.

The thing is the silence;

the white noise of the highway stilled. 

Nothing moving,

no deer tracks mar the yard;

just the birds’ frenzy over suet and seed.

My restless mind resents being stilled,

so used to doing,

to gnawing on what next.

Fearful of empty? Maybe.

Slow to settle into the silence.

A walk in the woods with Ann;

wandering, wondering, seeing anew

in black and green

and white,

the deep, white silence of snow in Seattle.