First, thank you for making our Houston Food Bank fundraiser such a rousing success. We raised more than $3,100. Our readers and friends are the best even if Della Street is trying to hog the credit. Let’s say thanks with a cat meme:

It’s been a difficult week. I don’t have the all-out Saturday Odds & Sods spirit so I’m going to do something a bit different. I feel like a pitcher who gave it his all in his last start but has no stuff in his next outing. In short, I have that ennui that the late Ashley Morris warned us about:

One reason for my ennui is Hurricane Harvey. Everyone who lives in New Orleans long enough has ties to Houston. Plus, the people of Houston helped us in innumerable ways after and during Katrina and the federal flood as my friend Clancy DuBos pointed out in the Gambit Tabloid. It’s dispiriting to see people evacuated from their homes by helicopter and boat. It makes me queasy and gives me a sinking feeling. Pun intended; it always is. I’m not sure if one should call it PTSD or survivor’s guilt but I got it bad and that ain’t good.

The other thing on my mind is Oscar’s health. There has been a recent influx of street cats in our neighborhood, which has resulted in Oscar marking his territory inside the house. Marking is, of course, a polite term for peeing. The good news is that he only marks in one place and on towels we’ve provided. We took him to the vet last week and none of our worst case scenarios materialized. It’s all in his pretty big-eyed head. So, our vet gave him what we like to call kitty Prozac.

The jury is still out as to whether the  kitty Prozac will work because Della freaked out for the first five days after Oscar returned home from 2 hours at the vet; something that had never happened with our past cats. Catblogging fans know that Oscar and Della are besties. In fact, our running joke is that she’s Oscar’s cat. The good news is that she’s back to normal. The bad news is that we’re starting from square one with Oscar and his meds. Hopefully, we can teach this old cat some new tricks. It would be nice not to feel like a combination geriatric cat nurse and laundryman. In short, I am worn the fuck out by the situation. Thanks for listening, y’all.

This week’s theme song is a no-brainer, a good thing since my little gray cells are frazzled. Stormy Weather was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1933.  Here are versions by two of my favorite divas.

This week’s edition eschews links to long form articles and if you think I’m eschewing up, what can I tell you? It’s going to be a bit more like a First Draft Potpourri post only without the smelly stuff. Btw, potpourri is one of those words I cannot spell without thinking about it. I guess that makes me a piss pourri poor excuse for a writer…

Holy Freudian Slip, Batman: A certain president* neglected to use his spell checker whilst tweeting. I reckoned he might delete it so I took a screen shot:

Trump *is* a heel who thinks that healing Texas will be fast and easy. It will not and cannot be. Recovery is a long slog. In fact, help will be needed in Southeast Texas long after the teevee cameras are gone and Trump is removed from office. Believe me.

In other Insult Comedian news, he “pledged” a million bucks to Harvey relief efforts. I hope he actually pays: he pledged 2 million bucks to Superstorm Sandy relief and never paid up.

I suspect the relief agencies will be singing this song as they wait and wait and wait for Trump’s check:

Silly Bare Naked Canadians.

Tweets Of The Week: They both come from First Drafters or is that Draftees? I’m not quite sure which.

https://twitter.com/scoutprime/status/902237220681207808

Scout appears to have streamlined her twitter account so the picture is gone with the wind. It’s a photo of a woman holding a sign saying Our Fate Is Your Fate, which became the title of the First Draft anthology.

The next tweet comes from lil’ ole me on a windy day in New Orleans:

It's windy enough Uptown to blow off the dead nutria atop Trump's head.

— Shecky (@Adrastosno) August 30, 2017

Let’s play some music before shutting things down.

Saturday Classic: The Band by The Band sounds like it should be a debut album. It’s their second record. Hardcore fans call it The Brown Album. Boring title notwithstanding, it’s a great album.

I hope everyone has a labor free Labor Day weekend. Even though I hate the heat, I will be marching (sweating is more like it) with the Krewe of Spank in the Southern Decadence parade tomorrow. There may even be some biblebangers protesting since it’s a gay thing. They’ll leave me alone, I’ll be wielding my Spank paddle. In fact, we’ll have a bunch of them. Thwack.

That’s it for this week. I’ll give Oscar the last word with a re-meming of the fundraiser picture. I hope the dear boy is feeling better soon.