It has been quite a week- which I know you get tired of hearing, since the Swamp has become stranger with each passing week. Amid the government shutdown, legislators took the weekend off as the Coast Guard prepares to meet a second pay period without….well you know, pay. Maybe they should be authorized to retail […]

We have the second night of The Big Moon down in Culpeper County, one of those remarkable times when the orbital mechanics of our fractious solar system bring our hurtling orbs a little closer together than usual. It is an awesome view from the back deck at Refuge Farm. The pastures are bathed in silver, […]

I have been down in Culpeper for the last two weeks, right across the holidays. The skies have been filled the portents of the season- gray skies and chill rain with the prospect of as much as three inches of the white stuff. In preparation, I ventured to the Safeway and the VABC store, just […]

She’s a grand old flag. A high flying flag. She once belonged to the Clinton campaign- the second one, as I recall. I was working in the building on Glebe Road in the Ballston neighbourhood of Arlington, VA, on the right side of the Potomac. With the exception of a few years downtown, I have […]

I mentioned to a pal that I could not have predicted that each week in The Swamp would get loonier and loonier. I mean really, what are they going to do to top this bizarre week. On the upside, a mega-sized moon and lunar eclipse with be visible all across North America. I am hoping […]

OK, OK, it is the New Year and we have to move on. I am going back to the kitchen and try this recipe. I will always remember a Temporary Alternative Duty assignment that brought me back from Yokosuka to San Diego in a year that seemed like 1980. The first night back in the […]

Gentle Readers, It is still a raw and new experience to append “2019” to these missives from the perpetual Swamp. Thankfully, I am down at the farm, enjoying the buzzards and the cool grey gloom of a brand new year. A reminder for annual planning: don’t attend weddings in Moscow. Screen Shot 2019-01-02 at 10.25.12.png […]

Having a wonderful time! Wish you were here! Copyright 2018 Vic Socotra www.vicsocotra.com

It has been a busy week. Last holiday shopping and shutting down the government. It has been looking tired, and probably needs a break. There were other events in the strife and chaos in The Swamp. Prison Reform and the Farm Bill were passed by the Congress and signed by the President, who in his […]

20 December 2007 The LaPlants entertain at home, in Belgrade, 1946 There are those who feel a fondness for the old Bolshies who terrorized and murdered their people. You hear a lot of that from the Osties, the East Germans who yearn for the good old days when the Stasi- the secret police- recruited your […]