.

And speaking of guns and gardens ….

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

A family staying at a Sugar Land motel got something unexpected at check in; grandma found a gun under a pillow.

And how did it get there?

Drury Inn Regional Manager Brian Collins said they learned the gun belongs to a previous guest who is registered as a handgun owner and when the staff went to prepare the room, it was overlooked.

Granny ain’t too happy about this turn of events.

Perronne can’t help but get emotional remembering how her granddaughters were playing beside her just minutes before [she found the gun]. “It didn’t, it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen. Thank God it didn’t happen to us,” Perronne said.

And the cops were called and through amazing police skills determined —

Sugar Land police were called to the hotel and after looking over the gun, they determined it was a loaded 40-caliber handgun.

“Okay,” Juanita reacts with some amount of wonder, “this is Texas.  The gun is to be expected.  However, the fact that they don’t fluff the pillows between guests falls short of the normal standards of gracious hospitality you find in Sugar Land.”

The owner of the hotel says  —

“Housekeeping should be more consistent in checking the rooms and the beds, and I hope nothing like this has to happen again,” Frugia said.

“Honey, if I were you, I wouldn’t sit on the bedspread at the Drury Hotel in Sugar Land,” Juanita says.

.

Juanita was at Whole Foods yesterday and a magazine at the check out stand caught her eye —

“Garden and Gun.  Whoa, that just kinda made me stand there for a second with that feeling brought to you by the letters W,T, and F.”

“I blinked and looked at it again, hoping that my brain would synapse and I would come to some manner of deep union to the transcendental relationship of gardens and guns that the presentation of the cover teasingly hinted was somewhat ironic and minimally disturbing with the artistic juxtaposition of the jaggedly cut seeping juices and the calm flowing on the seminal hues of the sky and nurture with the ecclesiastical  …..  OH CRAP, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!”

“I dared to look a little closer and saw the entire title is “Garden and Gun: Soul of the New South.  Soul?  New?  When did this happen and why wasn’t I notified?  I think I’m in charge of these things.”

“Tell me something, is ‘The Secret South’ announced on the cover a place where we shoot things in our garden?  And how secret can it be if it’s on a magazine cover.”

“Apparently, this is a real magazine where they take themselves very seriously,” she reports after much investigation and a google search.

She started to buy it because she didn’t think anybody at the beauty salon would believe her, but that’s what camera phones are for.

“So, now you don’t have to stand there with total bumfuddlement at Whole Foods when you see this at the check out stand,” Juanita says, “because I’ve already done that for you.  It’s just another of the free friendly services we offer here.”

.

It appears that Mike Huckabee has endorsed a lady who just might be a little titched.  Bless her heart.  And bless his heart, too, because it’s not the first time his judgment has been two clicks off center.

“The Republicans are picking some real kooky folks to carry their banner.  And, boy howdy, they’ve got a doozy this time,” Juanita reports.

This should be a banner day for Karen Diebel. The Winter Park city commissioner, a candidate in the GOP’s primary to take on Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.), scored the endorsement of Mike Huckabee, building on endorsements that have kept her visible as former Ruth’s Chris Steak House CEO Craig Miller unloads his war chest. Cue: the mysterious release of a 2007 police report that was filed after Diebel called 911 with worries about a snake found in her pool.

The police report said that in her calls, Diebel said that the snake incident was connected to her elected position and that she also worried that her home and land-line phone were being monitored and that her personal computer and work laptop had been hacked.

“But, the actual police report, which can be read here, is a delight,” Juanita says.  “A few glasses of wine and with a paranoia appetizer.”

“She thinks people are tapping her home phone and putting friendly snakes in her swimming pool,” Juanita says.  “Maybe it was the wine and few too many X-Files reruns.”

“Or, maybe it’s because she’s a Republican.  That stuff can make you crazy.”

.

Although Juanita protests that Liberals are good at shooting themsleves in the foot, conservatives  have about the same aim.

With tomorrow’s Nevada primary coming up, it’s worth looking back on the many gaffes and errors of former state GOP chair Sue Lowden, whose once-mighty Senate campaign has fallen behind Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle. Simply put, the chickens have come home to roost for what may be one of the worst-run Senate primary campaigns of this cycle.

Lowden shot to national fame in April, when she was caught on tape telling people to barter with their doctors in order to lower health care costs.

“Yeah, they even went so far as to ban people in chicken suits from the polls, which I still think is unconstitutional,” Juanita says.

Lowden is now running 10 points behind the field.

So, the Teabagger candidate will win another GOP primary and then get their limp soggy bags handed to them in November,” Juanita grins.

“And chicken’s awaiting their fate as currency at the doctor’s office are breathing a lot easier today.”

.

“Okay, so I’m a liberal,” Juanita starts this Monday morning as she pours her coffee and adjusts her glasses on top of her head.  She really doesn’t need glasses, but if you had a pair of pink rhinestone glasses, you’d wear them, too.

“But, it continues to bother me why liberals, who aren’t even ideologically supposed to have guns, keep shooting themselves in the foot.”

She speaks of this news article she’s put on the snack room door for reading —

GOP Consultant in Arizona Pulls Strings to Get Green Party on Texas Ballot

AUSTIN – The liberal Green Party’s uphill battle to get on the Texas ballot this fall has been fueled by a surprising benefactor: an out-of-state Republican consultant with a history of helping conservative causes and GOP candidates.

If the state validates the petitions the consultant arranged for the party – for free – a Green Party slate could drain support from Democrat Bill White in his bid to oust Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

What’s unknown is who paid for the previously undisclosed arrangement, pieced together by The Dallas Morning News. Green Party officials said they don’t know who funded the effort. The Perry campaign denied any involvement. And Arizona Republican operative Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive, refused to say.

“Ya know, we liberals are the only people on the planet who would welcome a Trojan horse into our sunrooms and offer it an arugula and edamame sandwich,” she shakes her head, dislodging her glasses and setting them on her work station.

“Good Lord, please explain to me how liberals will benefit with 4 more years of Rick Perry?  No, no, better yet, explain to me how anybody benefits from 4 more years of Rick Perry, except for Rick Perry and big insurance.”

“Lookie here, Bill White is not near as liberal as I want him to be.  He’s not even in the liberal zip code.  I admit that.  However, he’s better than Rick Perry every minute of the day,” she gets agreement nods from everyone in the room, except Thelma, who thinks Rick Perry just might be Jesus in a cowboy hat, fringe vest, and prissy pants.

“I may be a liberal sell out, but I am not a tool of an Arizona Republican,” she stomps, “Arizona!  Can you believe that?”

“So the first time a liberal looks down their nose at me, I’m gonna suggest that from now on, they need to stop shotting themselves in the foot with a gun and start hitting themsleves in the head with a hammer because they are tools, dammit.”

She means it.  She doesn’t take off her glasses unless she means it.

.

“I suspect that Barack Obama has been taken off BP’s Christmas card list,” Juanita laughs.

“I don’t have a problem with BP fulfilling its legal obligations,” Obama said. “What I don’t want to hear is when they’re spending that kind of money on their shareholders and spending that kind of money on TV advertising that they’re nickel and diming fishermen or small businesses here in the Gulf who are having a hard time.”

The President said that government officials were making sure that claims were processed correctly, and “that BP is not lawyering up, essentially, when it comes to these claims.”

“Lawyering up is exactly what they are planning to do.  That’s why they want all the lawsuits over this filed in Texas courts.  Texas, who is not getting any of this sludge on our beaches, is BP’s first choice for the lawsuits because Texas just dead solid perfect flat out kiss on the mouth loves big bidness.  Hell, Hon, we sacrifice one moderate judge a year to The Big Bidness Gods.  We have a big ceremony and everything.”

“My bet?  They will lawyer-up, a dozen guys will get obscenely rich, everyone else will get obscenely screwed, they will go out of business, and re-open a month later with a clean slate and a dirty record.  That’s my bet.”

Mississippi MENSA Meeting

“And, as icing on the cake, Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour will pronounce that justice was done and Jesus loves you,” Juanita says.  “Because you cannot trust your lying eyes.”

Haley Barbour is one of Juanita’s least favorite people.  “He’s a creepy guy who you just know sits around in his underpants, eating Fritoes, and hollering at the teevee,” she suspects.  “I’d be willing to bet my best pair of pink boots on it.”