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A little of this and that

OK, this is serious, and I’m telling you because I want you to be aware that you, too, might be in scam danger:

The other night I got an email from my credit card company — I have a Chase Bank Southwest Airlines Visa, which I tell you just in case it’s pertinent — asking if I recognized a specific charge, which I did not. I called the number Visa provided and was told the charge was for $84 at a Domino’s Pizza in East Boston.

The guy on the phone said it was flagged because it didn’t look like something I would charge, nor in a place that I might be. I guess Visa tracks me pretty carefully and I don’t mind a bit because it helps them catch stuff like this.

Well, I’ve never eaten a Domino’s pizza. and I figure East Boston is somewhere east of Boston, maybe the Atlantic, I don’t know.

So, the charge was removed, my credit card canceled and now I wait for new ones and I check my card account even more neurotically than I had in the past.

So, how did someone get my card number? They don’t have the card — I have mine, Kathy has hers. Somehow, they got the number. Here’s an odd thing: A few days later, I was talking to Brenda in the library and mentioned this and she said a similar thing had happened to her daughter and it turns out one thing we have in common is the Milford gas station we use. I’ve heard of schmucks being able to insert something into the credit card slots and get numbers, so, maybe …

I don’t mention the name of the station because I think all local stations should now run checks on their card things to see if anything is amiss.

There. End of seriousness.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Clevie spritzo:

* I can hear you thinking, I can hear you anticipating. You’re thinking:

“Oh, boy; oh, boy, they’re coming back. Bette and Tina and Alice and Shane and … oh, I can’t wait.”

Yes, friends, it appears that there is going to be a reboot of “The L Word,” the first television series to portray lesbians in a way that television series have always portrayed people who weren’t lesbians: As people. Period.

I watched the show on VHS, that’s how long ago it aired; I don’t even know what cable channel. I got the tapes from the old video store in Lorden Plaza and eventually discs from Netflix and like most people who watched it, I …

Hated Jenny.

Loved Alice.

Worried about the relationship between Bette and Tina.

Envied Shane.

Couldn’t decide if Helene was kinda cool or just evil, but liked her either way.

Loved Kit but hated her calling Bette “baby girl” as if Bette were still some kid.

Knew that Carmen was going to get dumped by Shane and could never figure out why Carmen didn’t know it.

And could never figure out why Sgt. Marybeth Duffy didn’t just beat the living heck out of everyone. (It was Lucy Lawless who, as Xena, Warrior Princess, beat the living heck out of everyone.)

Favorite character: Marina. Even though she was kind of sneaky. Although, maybe that’s why.

* By the time you read this, the State of the Union (stupidly known as SOTU) might have been given, but think back to last week when you read that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had told Donald Trump, “No!”

Trump wanted to give the SOTU before his government shutdown was over, but Pelosi said, “No!”

At first Trump said, “Oh, yeah? Will too!”

To which Pelosi said, “Will not!”

And Pelosi won.

Donald Trump is lucky that Washington isn’t even more like middle school, otherwise he’d hear:

“Hey, guys, you hear what happened to Donnie? He got dissed by a girl.”

“Whatsa matter, Donnie? She too tough for you? Is Donnie hurt? Is Donnie crying?”

It is like middle school, just not more like it. Lucky Donnie.

* I have a new hero, friends, and her name is Jasmine Paris. I read about her in The Guardian and this is what they had to say, in part:

“The British ultrarunner Jasmin Paris is celebrating after becoming the first woman to win the gruelling 268-mile Montane Spine Race along the Pennine Way. What made the performance even more extraordinary was that she shattered the course record by 12 hours – while also expressing breast milk for her baby at aid stations along the route … she beat all her male and female rivals in completing the course from the Edale in the Peak District to the Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish borders in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds.”

Friends, I wouldn’t have cared if he took her 83 days to do it. Anyone who can even think about running 268 miles — in a race where you have to carry everything you might need and you only rest when you really, really have to — is someone to be admired and, in my case, envied.

And she didn’t neglect her mom’s duty, either. Pumping breast milk during an endurance race? Fantastic, Ms. Paris.

* I like George Will, the conservative columnist, and sometimes even agree with him. Sometimes, too, I can’t understand what the heck he’s saying — can you define “incessantly splenetic presidency” without going to Google? — but that’s my problem, not his.

Anyway, he had this to say in a recent column as he asks us to have some pity for Donald Trump:

“Dislike of him should be tempered by this consideration: He is an almost inexpressibly sad specimen. It must be misery to awaken to another day of being Donald Trump. He seems to have as many friends as his pluperfect self-centeredness allows, and as he has earned in an entirely transactional life.”

OK, OK, let’s all jet down to D.C. and give Donald some positive reinforcement and a participation trophy.

* And I like Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, but c’mon, Sen. Harris, what’s with the dopey slogan?

“Kamala Harris for the people.”

That’s it? That’s the best you’ve got? What’s the message? No one else is? Every candidate for anything would say he or she is for the people, which might mean that a reverse slogan could really grab some attention.

“Joe Schmoe against the people.”

“Paul Mall says people be damned.”

“Jeanne Greene says when I get mine, maybe you’ll get yours.”

Count me in.

* Oh, no. Sports Illustrated has postponed its swimsuit edition from February to May, forcing salivating men to wait three more months to stare goggle-eyed at young women in swimming costumes. How will they ever survive? Thank God for the Internet where they can go goggle-eyed to their hearts’ content.