Remember Bill Clinton? He was a president that a lot of people hated. They didn't trust anything that came out of his mouth, even before he said it. They believed he was leading the country in the wrong direction, and they eagerly ate up any information, real or imagined, that might discredit him. They spent immense public resources trying unsuccessfully to prove that he had committed a crime that would force him from office.

I know how those people felt.

This new president we have is keeping me from watching the news. I can't stand to look at his face or listen to his voice. I'm predisposed to doubt his motives, even when he does something I agree with (which isn't often). I think he's less interested in my well-being, and the country's, and the planet's, than he is in the friends who put money in his pockets.

At last, I can identify with the Clinton-haters. I have the same irrational hatred of Bush that they had of his predecessor. I have the same drive to find a way to get rid of him that I read about and scorned when it was happening to Clinton. The difference, of course, is that I'm right and those other people were wrong.

As I was walking to my car this morning, preparing for a thrilling sortie to the bank and the post office, I stood transfixed for several minutes, my eyes trained on the baby red-shouldered hawk who, with his parents, were taking off from their nest at the top of a eucalyptus tree near the front of my driveway. They flew in ever-widening circles, these two magnificent birds and their offspring.

Being smaller, the baby had to flap its wings more often. It's a lighter color, at least from underneath (which is the only perspective I had), with dark bands at the end of its wings. It flew with an assurance that said it already knew it had nothing to fear from any other creatures. It certainly has nothing to fear from me; all I want to do is watch.

Here's some advice for the weeds in my garden. If you want to live, grow near the blackberries. I am not sticking my hand in there again. Because, ow!