Havre Daily News
Montana Woman

For permission to publish my weekly/monthly column, View from the North 40, or to reproduce any website content, written or graphic, contact:
Pam Burke (that's me) at saddlesore(at)hwy2(dot)com, or (406) 265-7338.

Just so you know, I hate cold weather.

When the last cold snap hit and held so long I couldn't remember the last time the temperature went above freezing, I reached my winter-tolerance breaking point.

And then it turned minus-37 degrees.

Seriously?! I was incredulous. At 37 degrees below zero we were, officially, 69 whole degrees below freezing, you know, the point at which fluids freeze. Fluids like water ... and blood. A point which seems significant.

Could I get any crabbier?

I swear it took me a full 20 minutes to get dressed in all my layers and winter survival wear to go do chores that morning. OK, well, technically five of those minutes were spent complaining, so 15 --- well, 10 minutes if you factor out time wasted dragging my feet.

Still though, I spent 10 minutes whining my way into what was, essentially, a Carhartt-tan, Pillsbury dough-boy costume with a Frosty the Snowman scarf pulled up to my eyeballs, all before I realized I needed to rustle up warmer mittens than my usual polar fleeces.

Desperate to keep from having to backtrack even one level down from the degree of winter layering I had attained before overheating in the search for hand protection, I remembered seeing a pair of leather outer-shell mittens among my husband's winter accessories. Score.

Leather shell to cut the cold. Polar fleece liner to make me cozy. Oh yeah, this would complete the survival ensemble.

I slipped a leather mitten over my left polar-fleeced hand (mmm, toasty) and then ... what the --- what is going on with this right one? I just couldn't figure out how to get my hand crammed into the thing, and the effort was starting to make me sweat.

Sweat? Sweat! I can't sweat. Sweat is a fluid. It definitely will freeze --- on my face --- out there in the arctic wastes.

Then it occurred to me that this was not a pair of mittens as most of us know them to be. They were both left-handers. Both of them --- because my husband only has a left hand. No right hand, no right glove. Great. Just great. What about MY right hand?

I most definitely got crabbier, and it occurred to me that people should know this one truth: Never, and I really mean never, marry a one-armed guy. Seriously. One-armed guys are defective, and that can get you killed.

Stop gasping with embarrassed horror.

Everybody's always all "oh, he can do anything, and he built that airplane, and he can even tie his own shoes." Yeah, yeah, he does it all single-handedly, too. He's Mr. Handi-capable, alright.

What do you know.

Ever seen him clap? Totally worthless. Just the sound of air swishing. You know those big sandwiches packed with everything that, even after you squish them, you can barely stuff into your mouth? He has to cut them in half. Wimp.

The whole tying his shoes with one hand thing? Cheap party trick. In one day you could train a monkey to do it. I even figured it out in a week, so whatever.

And now look, his defectiveness could cause vital parts of me to freeze off. I could die from his one-handed-ness. I could be out there with my right hand frozen to a pitchfork, the sweat on my brow crystallizing across my face like hoarfrost run amok until I could no longer see or breathe, and the iciness would spread until my whole body was frozen solid.

Then he'd be all, like, "Honey, I can't carry you to the house. I just got this one arm, and I'm pretty sure you're wa-ay over my weight limit. Wait --- ha ha, I guess you're not going anywhere frozen solid like that are ya. Can you hear me in there? Don't worry. I'll go get the forklift and haul you back to the shop. Should just take an hour or so for the stove to thaw you, well, after I get it fired up." Yeah, at the speed of one hand. Thanks.

And the trouble doesn't stop with the wrong-handed mittens. I couldn't borrow his coat if I were dying either. Right sleeve is sewn shut. The selfish --- hold it, what was I talking about, y'know, before the part about being crabby?

Oh, yeah. I got the mitten on and did the chores just fine. Then right after I got my own warmer hand wear the weather warmed up. And now I'm happier.

The end.

(All's well that ends ... well, with all your limbs intact at www.viewfromthenorth40.com.)

The big scientific breakthrough this week is, apparently, the love child of electronics and biology: a computer that mimics the brain of a cat.

The Associated Press, in the article "IBM computer simulates cat's cerebral cortex," assures us that this research isn't intended to create a future race of robo-cats.

But I don't know. I can imagine a robo-cat tipping the arms race heavily in our favor.

Cats can slink into any place undetected, and they are, as a species, prone to multiple personality disorder. Doesn't this sound like the perfect stealth assassin to you?

Imagine robo-cat, R2D8, trotting jauntily down a street in an unnamed foreign country, looking like a common house cat on its morning walk-about. It stops at the corner of a deli shop alongside a particular alley, seemingly to clean its paws in a ray of warm afternoon sun.

Pretty kitty, purr, purr, puuurrr---

A woman across the street screams "Where's my baby!" Everyone looks her way --- the signal for action.

R2D8 disappears down the alley at a dead run. it jumps and banks off the lid of a dumpster, catapulting skyward where its rapier claws slice into a bed sheet drying on a clothes line.

R2D8 shreds its way up the sheet and tightrope walks along the clothes line to the roof top. It hunkers down onto the roof for a moment to reconnoiter. Satisfied that it's not been seen and that its target's domicile is only eight roofs away, R2D8's whiskers twitch with anticipation.

It's on the move. Closes in fast. Gets lucky. A slat from the ventilation grid is already missing. R2D8 slicks itself down with cat spit and, with a twist of its head and shift of its shoulders and hips, shimmies through the one-inch opening and makes its way to the main level of the palatial home.

It detects the target speaking to his bodyguard in the office down the hallway but is discovered on its way to the killing by an unsuspecting maid who picks up the pretty kitty kitty to save it from harm. R2D8 blinks the killer-mode look from its eyes and flashes the maid its specially programmed sweet-faced squint, pressing its little feline-like body to the maid's bosom and purring to lull her into vulnerability.

The maid scratches the kitty's jaw and her heart melts when it licks her hand --- her grandmother told her once that cats only lick people they love --- but the two men walk out of the office and scare the poor thing into hiding.

The maid doesn't say anything about the cat, hoping to find it later, take it home as a companion.

R2D8, hiding under a small sofa in the hallway, takes a moment to scrape the human essence from its tongue onto the wall. It's disgusted that after taking the time to clean its food before eating it, it was forced to change its plans, again.

The maid gone, R2D8 fixates its attention onto the target in the doorway. It shuffles its feet in anticipation and streaks across the short expanse toward the target's doom, but the bodyguard, acting on instinct, throws out a foot to block the cat's charge.

He's good, but not good enough. He should've pulled a weapon.

R2D8, killer extraordinaire, rampages up the guard's body like a Tasmanian Devil in a tornado. It launches from the top of his now lifeless and falling corpse onto its target where it administers the coup de grace --- efficiently, mercilessly.

Mission accomplished, R2D8 quietly waltzes out the service entrance on the heals of a delivery boy to disappear into the city, leaving only the dismembered bodies and a trail of cat hair as clues to unravel this bloody mystery.

It could happen.

Then again, the researchers had to use a supercomputer equal to about 147,000 household computers to simulate a cat's thought processes. They claimed success after the supercomputed cat brain identified several well-known business logos. Right.

Because, y'know, it's just like a cat to wake up from sleep mode to chase thoughts of business logos across the motherboard.

(Can you could dangle thoughts from a string at www.viewfromthenorth40.com?)

When the provocative Associated Press headline reads: "Mother pleads guilty to drunken breast-feeding," you just have to ask: How drunk do you have to be to try feeding a breast?

Besides that, what does a breast eat? I can't imagine. And please tell me she was using a spoon. Maybe a plastic spork would be acceptable, but if she tried this stunt with a fork --- dang --- arrest her once more for the rest of us.

Now, normally, I would be all about turning this into a Pamville News article and making up my own story, but I couldn't resist reading the actual article. I mean, really, you have to admit that the title is very enticing, in a manner of speaking.

So when the article begins with this dateline: "GRAND FORKS, N.D. --- ," I have to fight the red-blooded-Montanan urge to say, "Oh yeah. That explains a lot." Because it turns out that this is serious stuff.

A 26-year-old mother was arrested when police officers responding to a disturbance call witnessed the woman, obviously inebriated, breast feeding her 6-week-old infant. The woman has pleaded guilty to child neglect and could be sentenced to as much as five years in prison.

I don't want to think of the legal and moral implications of either the woman's actions or the court's conviction. Debate that amongst yourselves. Instead, I want to focus on where the most need exists: the child.

I would like to say to the little infant: Don't think of this as a tragic way to begin your life, think of this as an opportunity.

It's an opportunity for personal growth, to overcome early setbacks and hardships, to become a better person.

It's an opportunity for personal challenge. You could one day help those who suffer from similar circumstance.

And most importantly, it's an opportunity for personal gain. It is your blank, signed check. "But, mom, I really want a new bike. I think it'll help me get over this nagging feeling that things haven't been right for me for, like, forever --- like since I was about, oh, 6 weeks old."

It's your lifetime hall pass. "I would've gotten better grades, but I couldn't concentrate. It was like I was drunk or something."

It's your get-out-of-jail-free card. "You can't ground me for that! Who got me started drinking in the first place? By the way, I passed 'Go,' and I want my $200."

And if you should choose to grow into a responsible adult and have children of your own, it's your king of all uphill-both-ways stories. "Hush your crying, little baby. Why, when I was your age, we were so dysfunctional that my mother had to water down my milk with beer. What do you have to cry about? This is the pure stuff."

When your kids get to be teens, you can hit them with this: "Oh, no. You guys aren't going out partying are you? When I was your age, the only kids who drank alcohol were the ones with brain damage from early-infancy alcohol consumption. And when I was really young, it was only the breast-feeding moms. You don't want to be like a brain-damaged person or a mom dumb enough to try feeding a breast, do you?"

(There's always a bright side. Sometimes it's just not very smart at www.viewfromthenorth40.com.)

You know it's going to be a good day for almost everybody when the radio news blares this first thing in the morning: "A drunken man on a flight home from Hong Kong to Los Angeles attacked a flight attendant and then was duct-taped to his seat by the other passengers."

Of course, it's not going to be a good day for that guy -- the duct-taped guy. I mean, can you imagine having to call your wife to bail you out of jail for this? You know that when faced with the wife's cold spousal rage the guy must've tried some lame "a good offense is the best defense" line like, "Hey, get off my case, babe. What happened in Hong Kong stays in Hong Kong. So write the check and let's get on home."

And you also know she was one mad-assed bail bondsman so she must've said, "Right, Einstein. If only this HAD happened in Hong Kong, because what happens during an international flight gets broadcast across every flippin' news outlet on our multi-media planet. So now every smart aleck from here to Podunk, Montana, will be cracking wise over this for weeks. And I am NOT going to be the one getting that tape residue out of those clothes, mister."

On the other hand, the rest of us are going to be having some real fun at this guy's expense. In fact, take a moment to picture him wrapped like a silver mummy and stuck like, well, duct tape to a chair with nothing but some eye-slits and a breathing hole to show us that a real human is struggling and swearing under those silvery layers, because he sounds like this: mmm-nnn rrrr nn-mm-nn-rrrrr!!

Tsk-tsk, that such language.

Do you suppose the other passengers made excuses to walk past his seat so they could "accidentally" bump him just to egg him on? Yeah, I think they did, too.

What's the guy going to do? Get loose? I know a trucker who used duct tape to attach his semitrailer to his truck, and he hauled freight with it that way for a whole year. It's good stuff.

And the American Duct Tape Manufacturers Association must be thrilled with the free publicity because, frankly, this isn't the first time duct tape has come to the rescue during an in-flight scuffle.

The Association probably sponsors training workshops for flight attendants where teams of ex-commandos teach classes like "Efficient Taping for Effective Restraint of Airborne Troublemakers" and "How to Form a Passenger Posse during a Duct Tape-able Emergency."

In the future, Air Marshals will be replaced by elite squads of highly trained duct tape superheroes traveling in pairs under mild-mannered secret identities until the need arises for their superhuman duct taping skills. They will appear as if from nowhere in their stiff, silvery superhero suits to save the day:

As an unruly passenger refuses to place his tray in an upright and locked position and begins to throw a string of "Your Momma" insults at the flight attendant, starting with "Yo' momma is so ugly, she--"

The passenger's tirade is cut short as two previously unnoticed guys in coach whirl into action -- their capes draped stiffly down their backs, their massive fists braced on their lean and powerful hips.

"Don't say another word, scoundrel," advises the head man in silver.

"Who are you, tinsel boy, to say I gotta shut up?"

"I am [pause for effect] the Duct Tape Super Squad's Commander, Scotch Tape. This is my trusty sidekick, Shoe Goo. And you, sir, have the right to remain silent. Anything you are currently holding will be duct taped against you -- because you are a mouthy jerk!"

Then -- zzwoop, zzziip, zwwipe, riiiip -- and, quicker than you can say "Oh my! Commander Scotch, can I have your autograph?!" our superheroes have the scoundrel trussed up like a microwave burrito and secured, with effective and efficient wraps, to his aisle seat.

Recruiters for the Duct Tape Super Squad will be coming to your area soon.

I've been trying to explain to my coworkers at the newspaper office that I have a delicately balanced, love-hate kind of relationship with the news. I love the news, well okay, I really do like the news, however, I just want to be friends. Special friends for sure, but nothing intimate, because I hate the anxious twisted-up-inside feeling I get when I read too many news articles -- with "too many" being a term relative to my mental capacity.

My problems are: 1) I am decidedly not smart enough to comprehend "the global picture," the subtle interweaving of disparate events and the ramifications of current actions on future happenings while making estimations of the influence of random occurrences divided by the co-efficient of Y to the Nth degree.

And 2) I am powerless to influence the world. Even some kids have the gumption and charisma to start saving the world -- one hungry, third-world village at a time -- by creating non-profit foundations that deliver quality food and fresh lattes to the needy. How do these kids do that while still struggling with puberty and geometry? I'm an adult, according to my drivers license, and I can't even influence my dog to poop in our 80-acre backyard instead of in my hay corral, right where I walk twice every day, dodging doggy-bombs.

Lacking any reasonable solutions (that don't involve effort) for making myself smarter and more powerful, I carefully monitor my news intake.

Left to my own devices I begin my news-reading experience with the fluffy entertainment pieces as a warm up and then work my way into the hard-hitting articles. When I start to hyperventilate and question my belief in the general decency of mankind and the value of the dollar as a piece of cotton paper with fancy ink, I save myself. ...

I stop reading the articles and only read the headlines, but (and this is important) I imagine what the news is in such a way that I avoid any unpleasant allergic reactions involving news-induced anxiety.

For example, the title below is an actual headline from Reuters.com found April 11, 2008, followed by a sample of the news article I prefer to imagine goes with it:

PAMVILLE -- Democratic presidential primary candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama engaged in a mud-fight this morning.

A heated argument in the Senate Chamber between the two candidates over issues concerning the Iraq War quickly turned ugly as the assembled U.S. Senators egged on the two rivals with loud chants of: "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

An emergency side-conference between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., led to a good, old-fashioned solution to the ruckus. Reid called the senators to order and sent a handful of pages out back of the Pentagon with shovels and a garden hose while Obama and Clinton gathered their peeps to strategize for the fight in this new mud-wrestling venue.

Once the mud pit was waste-deep in goop, the two candidates showed they were game for some real D.C. mud-slinging. During round two, the mud fight almost spilled out into the crowd when President Bush showed up at the private Senate-party, but he brought beer and barbecue, and all was good.

The slimy, skirmish ended with no clear winner as the exhausted and mud-caked candidates hollered from their opposing corners, "I know you are, but what am I?!" "I know YOU are, but what am I?!!"

... Welcome to the Land of Pam where our motto is: "Who needs reality, when we could be having fun."

How excited are we all to be receiving our economic stimulus payments from the Internal Revenue Service? I stand 100 percent in favor of stimulus, and I give the IRS a big "Rock on, dudes!" for stimulating my economy a whole four days ahead of schedule, too. I actually feel more supercharged than the economy, believe it or not.

I know some people might put the bonus money into savings, but, come on, it's called an economic stimulus payment for a reason. If this were a "relationship stimulus disbursement" would anyone say, "Hey, honey, know what I'm thinking?" prompting an exchange of knowing sexy smiles, and then announce, "Yep, and I'm going to file this seductive thought away in the ol' Memory Bank and hope for a big payout in 10 years." Wink, wink.

Uh, NOooo!

Then too, some people will be paying down credit card debt, loans, and mortgages, but -- and they shouldn't have to be learning this lesson from an English major -- those payments do not add money to the local economy. Frankly, it's practically un-American not to support rampant consumerism. Do people not understand what our fearless leader Bush is getting at with this stimulus: Forget paying down -- buy up!

And that's exactly what I did.

I bought another horse. I also got her four days ahead of schedule, thank you very much to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and all his revenue underlings. It was, financially speaking, a totally patriotic and stimulating experience for both me and the local economy.

First of all, I gave a big wad of money to the seller who has kids, a business and a home remodeling project. He probably walked into the house, divvied that money into three piles and then locked himself in the garage to cry because he didn't get to buy a guy-toy for himself.

Secondly, I did buy a horse. ... Horse owners understand how this will add to the economy, but people inexperienced in the ways of horse ownership should know the initial purchase is nothing compared to the vet bills, feed, vet bills, tack, vet bills, fencing and vet bills that horse owners spend money on during their horse's lifetime. Shoot, I owned the horse all of two hours and she cost me $15 for a 10-foot board and four nails to raise the low spot in the fence so she wouldn't be tempted to jump out. Granted, the $15 in materials were much cheaper than the $387.23 vet bill for any injuries incurred from a missed jump -- especially if I add another $300 for gas to haul her 10 miles. Still, it's reasonable to calculate that a horse costs $15 per two hours of ownership over its entire life -- totaling approximately twice the average American mortgage.

Thirdly, don't forget the positive economic potential from my own medical bills -- a middle-aged desk jockey buying an unbroke 3-year-old horse? Oh yeah, I'll be stimulating the economy at the doctor's office pretty soon. In fact, I should just make an appointment right now.

Finally, I paid the person who hauled the horse to me for her time and gas expenses by giving her one of my other horses. Financially astute readers are thinking that trading goods and services doesn't add anything to the economy but consider this: the horse I traded is about three times larger than anything the recipient currently owns, so she'll be spending a small fortune for tack. If it weren't already too late, I'd suggest she have her stimulus payment direct deposited into an account at the nearest tack store.

I'm naming my new horse in honor of the purchasing occasion: Economic Stimulus Payment. I think it has a ring to it, like the jingle of change dribbling from my pockets or the "ka-ching" of a cash register. Stimulus and I would appreciate a letter from President Bush thanking us for personally spurring the area's economy to a winning run this troubled economic season.

It rained four-tenths of an inch this weekend. I thank the weather gods for this saving grace, because I've been worried that my mosquitoes would die in our summer heat wave before they got to suck blood and propagate into a gazillion more mosquitoes. I would be so lost without these friends of summer.

I know, I know. Other people are more altruistic about the rain. Certainly, farmers are thrilled to have moisture for their crops so they can feed the world. Wildlife and range managers are relieved to have water for the area's fauna and flora. Everyone is happy about the dust control to reduce air pollution.

But my joy, I know, is entirely selfish -- this dry weather has concerned me to distraction over the well-being of my little buddies. Perhaps one shouldn't get that attached to the wild pesties, but I admire them so for their plucky, little, tenacious attitudes that overcome the vulnerability of their fragile bodies.

Without knowing mosquitoes intimately, who would guess just looking at them, merrily humming around, that they could survive high winds, cold, drought, and so many predators. Well, they even manage to flourish under these hostile conditions. What's not to admire?

Besides, mosquitoes are so charming that one can't help but be enchanted by them. Whenever I'm outside, they fly to me immediately, follow me about the yard and, well, seem to attach themselves to me with a vigor unmatched in human relationships. The way that they cling tooth and nail just to stay with me is, frankly, endearing. Sometimes they come right on into my house to watch TV and hum around the bedroom while we're trying to sleep.

In fact, they're so sociable that their attachment doesn't end with me. They greet my dog, my husband and even our guests with the same enthusiasm. I know, sometimes people who don't live in the area can feel overwhelmed by the mosquitoes' swarm of affection. I'm quite confident though, that they only feel that way because they haven't known my mosquitoes long enough. These guys are so friendly they might just win over my mom -- she has a particular mosquito magnetism, anyway. Perhaps it emanates from her fair skin that practically glows with the flush of blood. Whatever it is, my mosquitoes love my mom -- if you listen closely, I swear you can hear it in their humming frenzy when they sight her: "Oh, she's delicious!" they seem to cry.

As sweet as their affection for us is, it just cannot equal the cute-factor in the way they fly into a frenzied swarm of delight when they see my horses. And my horses obviously enjoy their playtime with the mosquitoes, too. I see the horses running and bucking with the mosquitoes, rolling in the sand pit with them and scraping through the brush with those scrappy little hummers darting through the branches, gleeful with this game of hide and seek.

I have to admit that sometimes when I'm out riding, I get a little jealous of the attraction between my horse and my mosquitoes because the horse obviously thinks more of the mosquitoes than she does of me. I want her to walk and turn and generally act like she's under control, but all she wants to do is toss her head and dance around with her tenacious little friends.

But who could stay mad at mosquitoes? Not even this bit of jealousy dims my affection for the buggers. Every autumn I bid them fond farewell and good luck on surviving the cold. As the frost descends upon us, the falling orange leaves herald the end of mosquito season -- the end of the season of relentless mosquito companionship. Fortunately, for my wild pesty mosquitoes, fall seems so very far away.