Dear Madrone,
      I have a friend, well actually, my neighbor's daughter's cousin's sister, who is moping around the house and no one knows what to do about it, she won't listen to us, so maybe you caj help.  Here's the deal.  This person, a lovely person, everyone agrees, was, shall we say, involved with a guy, who, long story short, is a d##K, pardon my French.   It turns out he was a bully and a cheat, which, to those of us who knew even the littlest bit about him was not a surprise, but no one can ever talk sense to a person who is not in the mood to hear it.  Luckily, in our opinions, she gave him the heave-ho. So he promptly takes up with the other woman and parades said woman around.   Even though she knows he's a palooka, our friend is still pining for this jamoke.   Is there any way we can cheer her up?

Concerned friend,
Jackson Heights.

Dear Concerned
        In answer to the question you asked. No, All actual cheering up has to be done by the sad person themselves.
God bless,
Donna

Dear Friend.
       In answer to the question you are actually asking, which is, how can we make things better for her instead of worse. I have two thoughts. One is running the guy down isn't going to do much good because she loved him and you don't want  to keep harping on  her bad taste in guys.  So you can't go that route.  Second is, she already did what she needed to do, she dumped the guy, so what she is suffering is residual pain, just like when you cut yourself and all the pus and dead cells (yes, I went to school once AND paid attention in class, so what, don't give me gas about it. )form a little net to make all the bleeding stop. Eventually it dissolves and maybe there is a scar, maybe not, but life goes on pretty well. Sometimes lesson learned, like you never try to cut the pit out of that avocado with a sharp knife pointed at your palm again, and sometimes, you forget what you learned and you end up back in the ER.  No one can teach these lessons to other people though, you can just be hold their hand while they learn them.

God bless,
Donna

I now explain to you the election so far. You're welcome America

Dear  America, 

I can’t tell you how many people have come to me saying, Madrone, Madrone, what is going on with the crazy election this year.  What’s with all the yelling and screaming and what difference does it make anyway. Should I care?  And who do you recommend I vote for if I do decide to a. care and b. vote.
Well first, whoa, no way am I telling anyone who to vote for, that’s nuts. Why would I do that? I’m not crazy.  And I certainly am not going to tell you who I’m going to vote for, none of your beeswax, missy.

I will break it down for you, if you want, and you can do what you want with the information.

First on the Republican side-

There’s that Governor from one of those states that begins with a vowel, what’s his name.  He seems nice enough. But I can’t think of a word he’s said one way or the other, so that tells you something right there.

And there is a doctor who is quiet and black.  And he said he tried to stab his own mother once, so I don’t like that, because what kind of a person stabs their own mother.  And even if they did, who goes around bragging about it? On the other hand, that might be a good skill for a president, what do I know.

Then there are those two Spanish fellas, one is tiny and cute enough, and goes by his given name. The other one is bigger and somewhat scary looking, with a pointed nose, but I wouldn’t hold that against him you can’t help your nose, it’s a family thing, good for him. But his real name is Rafael and he goes by Ted, so I don’t like that. I mean, is he not proud of who he is? My grandfather would only vote for people whose names ended in a vowel BTW.  That’s one way to decide.

Then there is the one from the Bush family.  All I can say is that three guys from one family is a lot when you consider how many people have NO presidents in their family.  I’m just saying.

And the last one is the guy from NYC who comes from money and thinks who he is.  

On the Democratic side,

There is an old lady and an old man. The old lady looks better for her age,  The old guy, I don’t know, I hope he’s taking his pills.   Young people seem to like the old guy, because he wants to give them stuff. The old lady is like now, now, vegetables before dessert, that’s the rules, nag nag, so no wonder she’s up against it.  

SO there you are.  Take your pick. As my mother would say, , bunch of idiots. But they are our idiots.  

God Bless, Donna