As much griping and handwringing as there is over the political wranglings and worthiness of the World Cup host, one can expect this to be a grand spectacle with great play and unexpected results. The competition itself will take over and people will stop and gaze in wonder at the beautiful game.

Or not. Who knows? If one’s identity and life are so interwoven with a game played by grown men and big boys treated as gods, well, that is what it is.

And what’s up with Jon Hamm- can he not get a part in a movie anymore? Advertising really is part of the hype machine, nothing more than contrived debauchery.

Maher and Colbert and others seem buoyed by the results of the recent midterm elections, i.e. America isn’t as crazy and doomed as people claimed or feared. I think they’re premature in their assessments, because that’s what I do and who I am.

If Trump recedes, and the MAGA crowd along with him, I will be elated beyond words and the first to admit the error of my judgment. But I have this feeling that the crazies and itchy trigger fingers will still have a moment, especially if Trump is brought to trial in any of the pending legal cases in which he’s involved. And let’s not forget the clones who remain in or were recently elected to Congress.

I just don’t see this being clean and neat. We’re still in the woods.

It’s like we all know what Trump is up to, and the chances of stopping him are mixed, at best. I don’t see him being removed from the scene, which is what we need. We need him to fade into the woodwork, either with jail time until he’s too old to run again, or by being marginalized and finally recognized by the Base as the windbag and toxic slug he’s always been.

The goons and hoodlums are ready to pounce. Imagine elected representatives like MTG, Matt Gaetz, Rand Paul, Jim Jordan, and the rest—with Kevin McCarthy at the helm!—having a turn as the majority in the House. The next two years are gonna be a mess, just more outlandish, partisan wrangling and yelling, the same tired rhetoric, the same vengeful feel. Such a waste of time and oxygen.

Plenty of fodder for the networks, though. They shouldn’t have any trouble finding something to exploit and cover to death.

Network news really is a hype machine. Every story is delivered breathlessly, especially the weather. I guess I’d be excited, too, by the possibility of five feet of snow coming my way. Look out, Buffalo and Watertown. Lake effect is gonna do its thing. I know they’re used to a lot of snow in that neck of the woods, but five feet sounds like it might be more than even they can handle. The way things are developing, one might wonder if winter is coming early and will be over early. Seems like that often happens when the big storms arrive so soon in the season. Oh, predictions are down to four feet this morning. That’s more like it.

Speaking of Lake Effect… Kari refuses to concede. Of course. Should we be expecting anything more, or less, from the person who prefers to be filmed as if through a sheet of plastic wrap?

Kevin McCarthy got quickly around to diminishing Nancy Pelosi’s time as Speaker. As if it were a reign of terror. Hopefully you’ll be learning that karma is a bitch, Kevin.

I could make a vow, try to do my part in not getting caught in the hubbub over Trump running again. But it’s really difficult not to say things about this. It’s so obviously a ploy, a calculated effort to stay ahead of the authorities.

Why are we indulging him? It’s plain to see that, for him, it’s all a game of survival. Just another reality show he gets to foist on a weary nation. It’s staying one step ahead of the jailer.

He is beyond repair. He craves and needs attention. Attention is his crack. That’s it. There’s nothing more, folks. He’s not a patriot. He’s an angry juvenile who happens to live in America and has fleeced it for a nice living, but he really doesn’t care about the country or the people living in it.

What is truly flabbergasting is that there are so many still willing to indulge him, who treat him like a god, like he’s doing something worth paying attention to. He is, quite simply, wasting our time. We should be mad as hell about this and swear off of him. For good. It’d be a game changer if his trusty Base began seeing things this way.

Members of the Republican party who can effect outcomes need to step up and find someone else to be the nominee in 2024. It’d be the most discouraging and depraved thing ever, to see Trump—with all the baggage he’s carrying?!—still standing, still a person of consequence, as the next presidential election comes around.

The 76-year old glutton and empty vessel appears to have maddeningly good stamina, and he’s trying to wear us down. We can’t let him do that, because he offers not one thing that we need.

Accident or on purpose? Two killed by a bomb explosion in Poland. Circumstances are sketchy. Feels like a page taken from a very old playbook.

Trump is advised to not make any announcements until after the Georgia run-off, but he goes ahead and throws his hat in the ring for 2024. Of course he does.

It has to be as much about avoiding prosecution as it is about sour grapes over getting crushed in 2020. I know it was pretty much a foregone conclusion, but it still causes a sick feeling. He just won’t go away. Will his base ever start fighting the impulse to keep feeding someone who is so blindingly selfish?

There’s talk of better candidates emerging. I’ll believe that when I see it. The Base will do what they can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

If the numbers hold, Kari Lake has lost her bid for Governor of Arizona. This is great news, especially since Lake is just another denier and a creepy smooth talker out of whose mouth comes pretty much nothing but snark and venom. We really don’t need more snark and venom.

Sounds like Trump might be eyeing her for a running mate. She doesn’t seem like she’d be a good running mate, a good fit. Imagine the two of them as the Republican ticket in 2024? Yeah, neither can I, and so can’t an increasing number of Republicans who have had enough of this wearied refrain about stolen elections and whatever other bile they keep spewing.

How have we put up with such inane, useless though inflammatory rhetoric for so long? It’s counterproductive, to say the very least. It doesn’t lead anywhere.

The Governor’s race may end up going to a recount, which is both predictable and infuriating, but hopefully the results of that will not change the current standings.

We had to put our dog down a few years back. She was a little mutt—a Lhasa Apso/Jack Russell Terrier mix who was with us for maybe a dozen years. It all unfolded rather suddenly and took the air out of the room for a bit. I cried some tears of regret and sadness because I felt like it was my fault- I dismissed some warning signs prior to the day we took her to the vet for the last time. The ride home from there was predictably quiet. We told our kids, who were all grown and moved out but still surprised and saddened by the news.

I had no inclination to share my feelings in any kind of public way. If it came up in conversation, I would acknowledge how surprisingly intense the feelings were over losing a pet, an animal. But in the end, it was an animal, and not a child, or a close friend. We moved on with little lingering grief or regret.

We have a tendency to project when it comes to pets—we attribute human characteristics to animals who convey loyalty mainly because we give them attention, a roof over their heads and food and water in their bowls. We want them to be magical beasts, sent from heaven at some critical moment, who offer up quizzical or knowing looks. Who seem, to many, more like seers and sages than they deserve credit for.

We buy into and support the multi-billion dollar industry that has arisen around pet food and toys and vet care and which preys on the human soft spot for something cute and furry. It’s not much of a stretch to think that dogs and cats get treated better than humans. They are the cause du jour, the focus of painfully sappy commercials, near and dear to many a heart, but I wonder why. People will say it’s because animals can’t advocate for themselves, but I think it has more to do with the fact that humans are a more complicated and unpredictable species who are just too difficult to work with, and aren’t as good at returning the love. Dogs and cats are just easier, in so many ways.

As much hate as Trump is getting at the moment from those who created the monster in the first place, would it surprise anyone if all that negativity just magically dissipates, and Trump goes ahead with his plan to announce something big in the coming days?

Wow, that was quite the run-on sentence. An homage to the man himself, I guess.

Trump isn’t going away. He’s not going anywhere, unless Republicans can grow a spine and stick to their current script, which is sounding like strong dis-ease with the blowhard from Queens.

We’ve enjoyed a stretch of mild days for the last week or so. I’m not complaining—it’s given us time to pull weeds and annuals that inevitably succumbed to a couple of frosty nights. We put things away, cleaned things up. We’ve had some days to prep for whatever kind of winter might be in store for us this time around, sort of the human equivalent of squirrels finding places to bury their food supply.

And the foliage this Fall was eye-popping for a few days. Magical, like a box of Trix. Or Fruit Loops, or whatever the current multi-colored cereal is.