Just a little more than usual
The top of my bureau; under the bed; getting rid of books I don’t use anymore; taking the time on bad weather days to sort through boxes we’ve been taking with us since we moved the first time; refraining from using any horizontal surface as potential storage for stuff that should be hung up, or given or thrown away.
In a less concrete sense, jettisoning anger and my ever-present tendency toward cynicism.
The thought of Donald Trump standing with his hand on a Bible taking the oath of office for a second time is… depressing. Ugh. I wish I could think of a more forceful word, but it’s not coming.
After the last go ’round with him behind the wheel, how can we possibly be here again, and with a bit more of a mandate to boot?
There are, already and unsurprisingly, indications that he’s back-peddling on the whole “price of eggs” schtick, not to mention his obviously unserious yet dangerous gaggle of nominees for important jobs in his administration.
As Ms. Maddow put it the other night, the transition has been outright “shambolic,” which, as it turns out, is an actual word for disorganized and mismanaged. Let’s throw chaotic in there, because that’s what we’re gonna get.
Four years of chaos, dullness, and ineptitude. Comin’ right up!
Someone else’s dog. There’s a part of me that would love to have a friendly pooch around, but we’ve gotten used to coming and going without having the worry of finding a kennel or paying for food and vet care.
In the animal kingdom writ large, I’d have to say just about any bird. Flying of course comes naturally to them, but my landbound soul is envious. I often find myself wondering what it would be like to join them, whenever I see one riding the thermals or just moving from tree to tree.
So, federal aid to California is contingent on… what? Having to disown its blueness? Wildfire relief withheld from suffering citizens because Congress is controlled by Republicans who detest the whole Hollywood vibe and Gov. Newsom’s attitude?
Yes, please tie the release of aid to the debt ceiling somehow. That’d be big of you. And it sheds glaring light on your massive dysfunction besides!
Mike Johnson may be walking a tightrope, but in the end, will he have the courage to sway hearts and minds and offer what’s needed to give the people of greater LA at least a bit of hope? Some of the fire victims may very well be entitled cake-eaters and bleeding heart liberals who built their gaudy habitats in the wrong places, but that’s beside the point in these days of unfathomable loss and bewilderment and not knowing which way to turn for help.
I’m glad the DOJ has released the report from Jack Smith. We need to trust that it will be archived and preserved, and thus available to read for ourselves or at least accurately reported and sufficiently shared.
In one sense, it’s not enough for Smith and his staff to have worked for over two years only to be stymied by the long “tradition” of not prosecuting a sitting President or President-elect. But this report will, hopefully, expose Trump for who he is and what he tried to do, as well as magnify the irony and the travesty of re-electing a person so lacking in scruples, intellect, and competence.
Smith may be a marked man going forward, but he should be able to sleep at night knowing he did his job. And well. In this unsettling reality where up is down, the true patriot may be the one punished, while the real scoundrel gets to loiter in the White House for another four years, unbothered by conscience, where he can tend to the only thing he’s ever been good at: making a mess of things.
Email and texting, and these often only in response– trying to avoid welding myself to my devices.
Placing orders and occasionally leaving a review on Amazon.
And writing here in WordPress.
I love it. I’m becoming more of a Saquon Barkley fan every day, especially after he “broke bettors’ hearts” and slid on what most likely would have been a sure touchdown against the Packers yesterday, toward the end of the game.
He’s a mature enough player to have assessed the situation and not rubbed it in the Packers’ faces. But more than that, I prefer to believe there’s a pretty good chance he didn’t give a flying you-know-what about all the people who had money on him to score a touchdown.
This is as it most certainly should be.
Such undue influence by people who don’t matter should never have a chance to find its way into any athletic contest. The fact that Barkley slid instead of scored need not even be newsworthy beyond a reflection of the man’s professionalism and situational awareness. The fact that he disappointed bettors isn’t really a headline, beyond the fact that various media made it so, though it is icing on the cake, somehow.
Ooh… now that I think about it, could he instead have been trying to preserve the point spread…?!
Anyway, this is what people get for wagering and parlaying in the first place. It’s the chance they take—that athletes have integrity and give no thought to anyone who has money on a game, as if all these “adventurous” risk-takers who are so willing to part with their cash are somehow becoming stakeholders.
The NFL is aligning itself with an enterprise, a habit– an addiction– that got Pete Rose banned from baseball for life. But they’re the NFL and they apparently can do whatever they want.
Unconditional discharge. Unscathed except for the stain of “convicted felon” haunting him for the rest of his days. And if he wins an appeal, even that unwanted label might go away. Rarely has such a heel so often ended up smelling like a rose. But who really didn’t think that this would be how things worked out?
I imagine, though, that Trump tries not to spend a lot of time thinking about the distinction Judge Merchan made, which hopefully landed to rattle around in Trump’s unremarkable brain: the difference between and respect or lack thereof for the office and the officeholder.
That burn should be the least Trump has to live with for the rest of his offensive life.
I have to go with the bus trip from MA to NM in 1968, when I was 14, with a group of fellow Boy Scouts and adult leaders, to Philmont Scout Ranch.
We were gone for almost a month. Along the way, we stayed at military facilities– Carlisle Barracks, Air Force bases in Ohio, Texas, and South Dakota, maybe a couple more; YMCAs in St. Louis, MO, Cheyenne, WY and Chicago, IL, and a hotel on the Canadian side at Niagara Falls, with supper overlooking the Falls in one of those high rise restaurants.
I look back on this every now and then and think how amazing it was, that we got to see so much of the country while probably not fully appreciating the opportunity or giving it sufficient thought at the time.
It included my first visit to Gettysburg, a place a quarter century later where we’d be living for four years. It included visits to the top of the Gateway Arch, the Truman Library, a ride on the cog railway to the summit of PIkes Peak; Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug, various other places and landmarks along the way, and lots of hours on a Wilson Bus Lines bus traveling through various topographies and locales and getting a sense for how big and varied the American landscape was.
And of course the hiking in the southern Rockies for eight or ten days– can’t remember exactly how long we were on the trail, anymore.
I usually don’t eat anything this early, around 5:30am, though I always have my cold brew close at hand. But I can see myself enjoying cold pizza, an Oatmeal Raisin Cliff Bar, maybe a few apple slices, some pomegranate seeds– or whatever they’re called. Certainly a nice helping of white cheddar popcorn, or even the leftover unadorned popcorn from last night.
If it was later in the day, I might give in and enjoy a couple dark chocolate covered wafers we can only find at Aldi. Maybe a coffee protein shake, another marginally healthy portion of white cheddar popcorn, a couple slices of toasted cardamom bread with butter, a mixed berry vanilla yogurt with almonds and pumpkin seeds mixed in, a banana with almond butter, a few crackers with almond butter, maybe a slice of homemade wheat bread with almond butter, and a packet of Bel Vita orange cranberry breakfast thins… cookies… biscuits… whatever they’re called.
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