Familiar bird songs as dawn approaches. Spring peepers signaling this annual emergence from dormancy. Creation stretches and yawns. A familiar, welcome rhythm. Time to plant. Time to clean. Time to open windows, to inhale and exhale.

For the longest time, Fall was my favorite season. Not sure why, because Winter is always on deck. Maybe it was the aroma of burning leaves.

Currently, there really isn’t much that’s honorable or lofty about the U.S. We certainly are not God’s gift to the world. We have issues.

Inspired in part by a pretentious and contentious credo known as Manifest Destiny, expanded by eminent domain and the removal of indigenous people who live on parcels of land called reservations and whose main source of livelihood is casinos. Developed and enriched via a process of espionage and stealing of trade secrets not unlike what we accuse China of doing.

We are currently “led” by a gigantic gas bag with a penchant for getting even and a heart twelve sizes too small. Regardless of how well your investments are doing, this is America in retrograde. In a tailspin. The other shoe has dropped, the curtain has been pulled back.

We can be better than this.

I detest the political scene. I’m tired of adults acting like children. Our nation is being challenged by a whole gaggle of ugly people with whom I feel no kinship, for whom there is no respect. Where did these people come from? What were they doing before they arrived in the Trump orbit?

Trump himself is the king of cold, a dispenser of venom who seems to enjoy provocation and eliciting anger and hate, going after the ACA again (where’s his plan?), writing letters to broadcasting executives containing names of people he thinks shouldn’t be interviewed. Is this even happening? Right before our eyes we’re seeing someone who thinks it’s within his purview to censure the networks.

What is going on, beside the fact that Trump continues his victory lap after the Mueller report findings and is feeling particularly empowered at the moment? He should probably tone it down a bit.

Here’s what I don’t understand: the Republicans, ie Trump, Huckabee-Sanders, Fox News and the rest, are all gloating, predictably giddy over the Mueller report. But why are they also vindictive, demanding apologies, and considering their own Special Counsel? This is what always happens- the spiral of revenge and retribution takes over, and there’s never a point where anyone leaves well enough alone. A simple “I told you so” would be sufficient. Unsatisfying and aggravating, but sufficient. But now the mess just gets messier, and Trump does what he does best- plays the victim, looks for pity, doubles down, goes after the fake news and ACA- again- and in general acts like the dick he’s always been.

And besides, who’s to say what’s being withheld from public view re the Mueller report? The public apparently can never know the whole story, but why is that? The report gets handed to an Attorney General who writes a 19-page missive on why the Mueller report was a bad idea, and then he’s the one who gets to decide what info gets released. Isn’t that special.

This demand for apologies is ridiculous. There was good reason to start an investigation: the President fired James Comey. He raised suspicion. How can you let something like that go uninvestigated?

Then again, how much of an elected official’s day is spent in pursuits of vanity? Blame this one, bad-mouth that one. Make accusations, jump on the bandwagon of some empty cause, and totally ignore responsibilities for governance and passage of meaningful legislation.

Ooh, a squirrel!

On Day 675, the Mueller report was wrapped up. It’s now been delivered to the Attorney General. Hopes of it ever being shared in total with the public are next to nil. Already we know that there apparently was no collusion, so we’ll never hear the end of that.

But the report stops short of exonerating Trump on obstruction of justice charges. Nothing will come of that, either. So it looks like things are working out exactly the way I thought they would- no surprises, just the knowledge that more than half the country will have to learn to live with this asshole for, most likely, another 5 years or so. And suffer his insufferable supporters. Pure ugliness.

It’s amazing what people will overlook if their pocketbooks are healthy. It’s hard to believe that there would be enough people willing to re-elect him. But they’re a gullible lot, convinced that the Democrats will drive us into the dreaded Socialism abyss. News flash: we’re already there. And chances are they wouldn’t have it any other way.

So is it really always about the economy, stupid?

Do we give a pass to idiots and clowns and evil geniuses as long as things are humming economically? I saw an opinion piece yesterday that suggested a Trump landslide in 2020 as long as the economy is still strong. Geezus. Our god must be the belly.

Trump is putty in somebody’s hands. He’s good for business, somehow. And as long as business is good, everything must be ok. Right? I wonder what folks will think about gas at $4 a gallon.

This country is resting on a straw man’s shoulders.

What is it about a snow day? I remember as a kid the sheer joy of knowing I didn’t have to go to school.

I never gave much thought to Mom’s perspective, who may have relished the quiet time of a normal day, the six or so hours when her five kids and husband would be off her radar and she’d have the house to herself.

From my point of view, it was a day to enjoy the snow, a day away from the “rigors” of school work and teachers and tests and whatever else was a part of that routine. Maybe it was just the different routine that made it fun.

Nah. It was not having to go to school.

Haven’t lately been following the news re the circus on Pennsylvania Avenue. As a function of really-wanting- something-so-it’s-not-going-to-happen, Trump will somehow survive all the attacks, because he’s immune and every bit the teflon man that people claimed Bill Clinton was. And he’s got the Fox News propaganda machine and other ruthless people around him who are mystifyingly loyal.

I wonder what they actually think of Trump- if they respect him, or even like him. Or is it more that he is just malleable, a dim-witted and willing mouthpiece for their agenda? Imagine the death grip being applied so as to hold onto power.

So, Bryce Harper. $330 million man. Some will say, “Good for him.” Others might say, “Are you f@*$!&g kidding me?!” That has to be more than the GDP of several small countries. I wonder what it means for ticket prices. Do these players feel any pressure, any sense of obligation or loyalty, or are they more like cats that come back to the same house mainly because someone keeps putting a dish of food out for them?

It’s difficult to tell where the sour grapes and envy end and offense begins. The intangibles, what his holy presence means in the clubhouse, what he translates to in ticket sales- all meh. No one needs that much money.

Mr. Harper should bat 1.000, hit 100 home runs every season, sing the national anthem on occasion, and be willing to play every position. It’s difficult not to question the excess. Baseball has gone the way of polo and fox hunts.

It’s telling what makes the cut as lead story on the evening news. Until the dueling headlines of Michael Cohen on Capitol Hill and Trump’s meeting in Hanoi with his good buddy and ol’ pal Kim Jong Un, we were treated to Robert Kraft and R. Kelly sex scandals as “breaking news.”

One might reasonably think that there is more newsworthy stuff to lead with. But the networks do their demographic studies, and this is what we want to see, apparently, along with an endless parade of pharmaceutical advertisements for drugs and their interminable lists of cringe-worthy side effects.