My sister had a little yellow chihuahua named Smiley.

He was an unobtrusive reasonably well mannered inclusion to their family and I always liked the little animal because of his timid nature and subsequent avoidance.

They had a number of these dogs including a large frankenstein version with a big head they called "Dude" and some other little sweet dogs that were lap pets of a sort ...

One day Smiley fell upon tragedy and was dragged off into the night kicking and screaming by a hungry coyote.

They heard him yelping off into the distance and it is the general consensus that he likely was consumed by the much larger canine then pooped out some 6 hours later.

Alas, poor Smiley, I knew him Horatio.

Needless to say something of a war ensued with coyotes meeting their own unfortunate ends at the barrel of a rifle. And now we have coyote mating season. It is said to pose a threat for pets. Given the fate of poor Smiley I can certainly see why.

It is said that coyotes typically mate in the winter and the season for this lasts til early March whereby they'll whelp pups about two months later.

State wildlife officials intimate that coyotes can become more aggressive toward dogs during this time of year. I personally don't see how the aggression could "increase" ... I think it's simply redirected. They are just looking for other animals upon which to prey, be they dogs, cats, mice, human toddlers on golf greens ... whatever.

It is thought that playing music may actually spook prowling coyotes and the free range companion animal is a natural target. Those suggestions for handling coyote encounters include acting a little aggressive towards them. Don't run, back away from them.

The threat imposed by these wild canines will end toward the end of March. Poor Smiley didn't have the benefit of light nor the protection of humans. He wandered out into his own yard at night after being let out to relieve himself.

Little do we know the consequences of our actions in some cases like the nocturnal coyote out for a nice meal of defenseless chihuahua.
 

Back in my youth there was Mrs Martha Robinson. She was my homeroom teacher and taught me two years of English at Horace O'Bryant Junior High School in Key West Florida.

She had a keen interest in literature and poetry in particular resulting in my total immersion in various examples of each.

One of those poets we studied was Lord Byron.

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron lived from January 22, 1788 through April 19, 1824 and was known as Lord Byron.

He was an English poet, nobleman and politician who became a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence BUT in the context of 8th grade English literature he was first and foremost a leading figure in the Romantic movement in literature of his era.

He was worldly and socialized with Percy Bysshe Shelley and was known as something of a womanizer who sired a number of illegitemate children.

He was known for his literary skills not for his carousing and in the summation of him and his I can only say that our paths crossed through many books of literture as my life progressed beyond that cesspool which was public education despite those stellar efforts at my redemption by Mrs Robinson.
 

Darkness

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

George Gordon, Lord Byron
July 1816

HIPAA: Acronym that stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a US law designed to provide privacy standards to protect patients' medical records and other health information provided to health plans, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers.

Developed by the Department of Health and Human Services, these new standards provide patients with access to their medical records and more control over how their personal health information is used and disclosed.

They represent a uniform, federal floor of privacy protections for consumers across the country. State laws providing additional protections to consumers are not affected by this new rule. HIPAA took effect on April 14, 2003.

Khagendra Thapa Magar October 4, 1992 - January 17, 2020

My stature has always been 'above and beyond' ...

I'm somewhat taller and a lot broader than most others on the planet.

This is due to the fact that I was a victim of childhood obesity long before it became a national tragedy.

You might say that I brought it all on to the rest of you.

This situation has been a constant torment in my life. It's one with which I've come to grips in a variety of ways including, but not limited to:

• compliance with my prescription drugs,
• learning insights into general health,
• losing body fat as well as I can over the years, and of late,
• blowing $700 on a cavitation machine

The sum total of this is less girth, the same height, and a more 'normalized' stature in general.

Others have their own crosses to bear in the way of stature, genetics, and environment ... nature vs nurture.

The Nepali recognized by Guinness World Records as being the shortest man in the world passed yesterday due to complications of pneumonia in a hospital in Pokhara Nepal.

Khagendra Thapa Magar, a primordial dwarf, was 27 years old, measured 2 ft 2 in, and was a smoker.

It is said that he was a palm sized infant. His stature permitted travel around the world and television spots in Europe.

He charmed most everyone with whom he came into contact with his smiling and accommodating nature. Of late, he had been in and out of hospitals for pulmonary issues.

Personally, I've seen him pose in many photographs including one with the tallest man in the world.
 

My religion has evolved during my lifetime.

I suppose I began as a Baptist because my earliest memories of Sunday and church involved the Baptist faith and I consider this the result of my blessed Mother who considered her faith an important aspect of who she was and we were typically scrubbed and dressed up each Sunday for services of one kind or another ... or both.

Later we worshipped in Methodist churches and I view this primarily a function of what was near, usual, and customary in the homelands of my father but steady through it all was my mother's unwavering faith to keep us in there and trying to do the right thing.

Nowadays, I have rejected dominational religion altogether and indeed, some of the apologists like Washington Street United Methodist Church in Columbia South Carolina who embrace abomination and discard the authoritative scripture coming from the very word of God and biblical canon itself.

So now I consider myself a Christian. I do not subscribe to any denominations as they are "that which separates" theology and as such are devisive and subjects faith more and more to the traditions of men and less those communications set forth by The Almighty in the Holy Bible.

Today is National Religious Freedom Day. It is held in commemoration of the Virginia General Assembly's adoption of Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786.

That statute became the underlying foundation for the First Amendment of the US Constitution and led to freedom of religion for all Americans citizens.

Religious Freedom Day has been officially proclaimed each January 16 since 1993 by the President of the US.
 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16 Holy Bible King James Version