Just a little more than usual
I’ve always tried to minimize my online footprint, which is most likely futile. As it is, I use the texting app on my phone, along with email, a weekly Zoom session with family, and an occasional Facetime chat. That’s enough of a cyber plunge.
No X, Instagram, TikTok, or anything else of that nature.
This time around, it’s a trip we took as a family in the summer of 1964, when we drove from our home in central Massachusetts to Sycamore, IL.
There were seven of us– Mom and Dad, my two brothers and two sisters, the youngest of which was less than a year old. I was 10. We were riding in a maroon 1960 Pontiac Catalina station wagon, a boat-like vehicle with few modern safety features– if there were seatbelts, they weren’t used, and there might have been a padded dashboard. The speed limit on I-90 was at least 70 MPH most of the way.
I forget where we stayed the first night, probably somewhere in Ohio, but I do remember seeing Lake Erie for the first time. My Dad pointed it out by saying something like, “Look over there. See that blue that looks like sky? That’s actually water.” Or something like that. It was an amazing sight.
I don’t remember everything about our stay at our aunt and uncle’s place, mostly bits and pieces. I do remember a thunderstorm that forced us to sleep on the living room floor one night (we had been sleeping in a screened-in portion of an outbuilding on the property). We got to meet some folks on my uncle’s side of the family, connections we’d have for the rest of our lives. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and took in a Yankees-White Sox game at Comiskey Park. Whitey Ford was on the mound, and I think both Mantle and Maris were playing.
I remember, on the way home, stopping at Niagara Falls and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. And I also recall that by the time we got to Cooperstown, we were all getting tired and cranky from sitting in a confined space for extended periods of time.
When school started back up, it was the experience I shared with the class when we talked about What We Did This Summer.
The language uttered, the vehemence and frustration boiling over—these are the by-products of Trump 2.0. Coarse, guttural, raw emotion. Trump has given all of us permission to be some worse version of ourselves. He brings it out in us.
The trouble is that he enjoys this. He loves seeing people lose their cool. He chalks it up as a victory, somehow. It’s what he lives for—besides stealing undeserved honors and making people pay ridiculous sums in obeisance or to grease the skids. He doesn’t know much, but he knows at least three words in Latin: quid pro quo.
FIFA manufactures a sham peace prize just for him, figuring it will serve as a binky, I guess. The actual winner of the Noble (sic) Peace Prize acknowledges that she’s OK with sharing the honor, so the Nobel Committee has to spell out that such a thing is neither allowed nor proper.
Hey America! Are we bursting with pride yet? MAGA, are you seeing this, taking it all in?
You’d probably vote for him again, wouldn’t you?
Just about any flavor of Pop Corners, an Oatmeal Raisin Clif Bar, Smartfood White Cheddar popcorn, regular popped corn with a bit of salt, an apple, cheese and crackers, a bowl of cereal. Maybe a small piece of dark chocolate for dessert…
It’s been upgrade time lately, with regard to new laptops, which both my wife and I use for different reasons. Since Microsoft has stopped their service on Windows 10, and my machine was not equipped for the upgrade to 11, I looked for and found a replacement on Amazon—an Acer Aspire 3. Nothing fancy, but faster, with more RAM and decent storage.
My wife had found a nice Lenovo Yoga at Best Buy but returned it a couple days ago because of some driver glitch involving the touch pad and touch screen.
I have become cognizant of a difference in build quality between the Acer and Lenovo machines—materials-wise, sound-wise, keyboard design, etc. The Lenovo, sadly, would have been a nice one to hold onto, but apparently my wife’s wasn’t the first one to have these driver issues.
The Aspire will work for me, since I basically use it for writing and watching woodturning videos on YouTube, though the sound is, in a relative way, pathetic, compared to the Dell Inspiron I had been using for the previous 7 or 8 years.
My wife is still looking, though she might have found something at Staples. It’s a different Lenovo model, so we’ll see what happens.
Until it happens, we dread it and think it can’t happen. The shooting in Minneapolis a couple days ago has triggered unrest and righteous anger, but it has also focused attention on the thing we feared perhaps more than anything—ICE agents killing someone and being shielded from facing any kind of consequences. As if it is always going to be the victim’s(s’) fault.
This administration and the media who support it are an ugly stain, a stunning, aberrant departure from sanity and good judgment. They instill fear, they are driven by the worst of intentions, and are doing their utmost to cast a pall over the nation.
There is no joy in Mudville. Nothing but a call to resist, and most likely a call to arms. I hate going there, but when insufficiently trained bigots and lemmings fueled by a big payday are handed weapons and unleashed on citizens trying to go about their day, it can’t be long until things get out of hand.
Nice going, MAGA faithful. Did you think it would get this bad? It’s likely to get much worse.
Oh, that’s right. You apparently are loving this.
Nothing is jumping out at me except the first baseball glove I ever had. My Uncle Freddie gave it to me and I used it from Little League all the way up to when I tried out for the high school team. I eventually got a new one because it was too small and used hard over the years.
I really can’t think of anything else, besides “souvenirs” I would take home from trips to different places– a rock, a pine cone, a shell, or something like that.
Given the current goings on in America, I’d say to be an engaged citizen. I know how all this feels to me, and it doesn’t feel right. We’re being “led” by a cornered rat, a lying, self-absorbed, incompetent, immature, shallow, vengeful, and angry old man. And the people around him are awful for similar and different reasons.
Interesting time to be alive, to put it mildly.
Once most people reach the age of cognition, maybe they hope to stick around for as long as possible. My thoughts largely reflect this desire– as long as I’m able to fend for myself and not become a major burden to anyone. Quality of life has become a cliched catchphrase, but it does matter when one is talking about living a long time.
There is a difference between maintaining a certain vitality and merely existing, though in each case there may still be a drive to stay alive. Some people have a death wish and sometimes that wish is granted, but by and large, I believe folks prefer to not just survive but to live a long, satisfying life. Love, laughter, a certain autonomy, living free of strife and sickness and oppression, maybe even leaving their mark, leaving some sort of legacy. Or at least being missed when they’re gone.
James Carville thinks that the operation in Venezuela is more distraction from the Epstein files. He’s most likely on to something. Rachel Maddow theorizes that this operation paves the way to use some normally judiciously-used federal statute to deport U.S. citizens of Venezuelan descent, and perhaps from other places as well. She’s most likely on to something, too. Jon Stewart posits that the recent action in Venezuela is just the latest shot across the bow from a President who plans on using the military as he pleases, as if it is his own personal army.
Whatever just unfolded in Venezuela, under the pretense of removing an illegitimate leader and drug kingpin, is perhaps all these things, and more—a thirst for oil, a distraction from a scandal that seems unlikely to go away, and an excuse for deporting more dark-skinned people.
So this is what America First looks like– a Stephen Miller wet dream come to fruition, an ill-advised, American-backed coup, with the “assurance” that we will run Venezuela for the time being.
In what universe does this kind of thinking fly?
Trump just says stuff, most likely at the behest of somebody, and then leaves it to people like Miller, Rubio and… Hegseth? to work things out. I think Mr. Carville, Mr. Stewart, and Ms. Maddow are all barking up the right tree—all of this is a continued effort to shift attention away from the lowering boom of Epstein files and Jack Smith’s investigation, along with groundwork for ethnic cleansing and authoritarian aspirations. Imagine that.
And one more thing: the highly praised special forces success in extracting Maduro and his wife might be likened to walking into a daughter’s bedroom and stealing a couple figures out of a doll house. The whole scene reeks of someone bringing a nuclear bomb to a 5th-grade shoving match. Definitely not anything to be proud of, or impressed by, as if the efficiency of the operation is the only takeaway here. We’re looking at a military apparently ready to do a rogue leader’s bidding, warming up for further “acquisitions.”
And they probably already have some deal worked out with Maduro to make it look like he’s in big trouble. Maybe he and his wife will enjoy a little R&R with Ms. Maxwell. Or they’ll find a place for Nicolas in Trump’s Cabinet. Ooh, how about the FDA?
3 Cents' 