I have
forgotten how to write poetry
I wish I could just
open my mind and write something
with wild abandon
like I did as a young girl
not caring
if anyone read it
or liked it
or it moved anyone
or stayed in someone's heart.
I think too much about
symbolism
alliteration
and lack of punctuation
But sometimes
I can still write.
I am watching the hearings, like any good American should be, with a mix of awe and disgust. Holy moly! The mindset of the Former Guy and his minions is mind-blowing. The lack of understanding of the Constitution and how elections work is astonishing. It's a lot to unpack.
Trump knew he lost, but since "loser" is the biggest insult his daddy-kins could throw at him, he could not- WOULD NOT- accept public defeat. He tried six ways from Sunday to do what has always worked in business for him- suing- and filling the courts with faulty lawsuits to stall the inevitable. When THAT didn't work, the wanna-be soldier turned to violence. I bet he got his jollies watching his militia trying to break into the chambers on January 6, since he could not live out his fantasy of standing on the Capitol steps and making a "stirring speech" and perhaps standing on the Senate Floor doing the same thing.
He knew he lost, he knows he lost and still is making bank from his sucker supporters with his Big Lie. Everyone around him, even slimeball Steve Bannon and Wack-a-doodle Michael Flynn know it. I particularly love that Flynn took the 5th on EVERYHTING ( probably including what day of the week it was, but they didn't show that) Honestly, does he understand that the 5th is almost a confession of the knowledge that he did something.. criminal? Thy have the good on you, sometimes confession is good for the soul and remorse and a request for rehabilitation goes a long way in the sentencing phase.
I wonder what that former Trumper who lost everything will be sentenced with. Wanna bet he will have a book deal- written by a ghost writer or an "As-told-to, since I doubt he could string two sentences together. Trump loves the uneducated, they are his easiest marks.
There are those in Trump World ( and they actually call it that in his inner circle apparently) who believe Trump will be president again. The trump people are starting to float the idea that he didn't understand the laws and he was getting bad advice from alternate lawyers. THERE alone is reason he should never be near nuclear codes again. Trump himself seems to believe that he has some kind of immunity and his history of not being prosecuted for his crimes seems to bear out the reasoning. I can ONLY hope that the DOJ is working on an ironclad case, waiting to spring the trap until the January 6th Commission has all the facts out in the public eye.
I remain hopeful and will be sitting glued to the tv next week.
it's Friday, right?
I am heading out to 29 to spend time with the boys. My phone isn't working in the house, so we got a "spare" as I am traveling alone and if it's the phone and not the cell towers, as I suspect it is, then I don't want to be on the road without a phone.
Funny I used to do this run all the time when I was younger and cell phones were not a thing AND there were less people on the road to boot, Now I would not dream of it.
Retirement is weird. My body is still on my "work clock" so I wake up at 6. I tell myself I can sleep longer, but that usually is only about 7 am then I am up. I have been getting up early as long as I can remember. I wonder if I am a "morning person" by biology or by training. I do enjoy a quiet peaceful morning. I am looking forward, sort of, to the move to 29 where mornings are quiet. I am hoping to put a picnic table on the patio to have coffee and maybe read or write in the morning air before it gets too hot to do so.
I am retired. Someone told me I will be even busier in retirement than I was when I was working. I would like a rest, even for a bit, but life has been pulling me in a thousand different directions. The new type of stress is insane. I am hopeful all the crazy , horrible things that happened in the past three weeks resolve ( it looks promising) and I can just breathe.
So far, I have signed up for an online class in something I was always interested in but never had the time for. It's via the library and I think I can just take it at my own pace. or not.
I belong to a group that reviews books and I inadvertently signed up for TWO of them at the same time. I also have to finish a library book that is due back in two weeks that I can't read on my Kindle. There MAY be a way to get it to my tablet, if I can FIND my tablet. It may be in storage.
Chris and I need to go thru the stuff we have in storage. We are planning a garage sale in August or September. Watch this space. We brought home a lot of things from Anna's that we need to determine what to do with. UGH. A lot of emotions go with that.
I have always been a busy person. I am not sure I know, or want to know, how to slow down. Time will tell
In the play "Wicked" the Wizard says something to the effect of "where I come from, we believe all sorts of things that aren't true. We call it 'history'"
As a child in the 60's I was taught a sanitized version of historical events. Mostly American history was taught from the perspective of older white males. Sure they threw in a woman, occasionally ( see "wives of Presidents") or a Woman of Color ( see "Sacajawea") but usually those women were shaded with the benefit of their contributions to the male of the species. We did learn to realize that slavery was "bad" -just not the details. They sugarcoated the fact that the Founding Fathers HAD slaves, if we discovered it on our own, we were told it was "legal at the time" so it should not be held against them.
I was reading an article about Thomas Jefferson, who by modern standards ( and probably by standards of his day) was a real piece of work. I remember JFK saying something about him when speaking to a room full of brilliant people ( I can't recall the occasion) but he said something like "This is the most brilliant assembly in this room, except when Thomas Jefferson dined alone" Hogwash. JFK was a student of history, I wonder how much history was destroyed in an effort to whitewash the Founding Fathers for future generations. Based on what we were taught, probably a lot.
Things I know about Jefferson could fill a thimble. I know he owned slaves and what he did to Sally Hemmings should be considered a crime. I LOVE how the current battle cry of the extreme far right is to accuse someone of pedophilia when all else fails. JEFFERSON, their shining star was a pedo. Sally was a CHILD when he took possession of her and by the accounts of HER son, Madison Hemmings, impregnated her by the time she was sixteen. Jefferson ALSO thought that Lewis and Clark should be looking for mastodons, which he believed still existed in the West. Right.
To quote Pappy Boyington "Show me a hero, I'll show you a bum" No one is perfect and the fact that we are taught that they are is our shame.
Texas wants to call slavery "involuntary relocation" WHAT THE EVERLASTING FUCK???? Next they will be dragging out the "happy darkies" motif. The idea that African slaves were somehow stupid and enjoyed what the white men did is so reprehensible I can't even begin to address it.
I read an article in which the writer pointed out that the Framers were writing laws that would make THEIR lives better. True dat. I don't see that women or slaves or people who did not own land made out any better than they had before. Abigail Adams pleaded with John to "remember the ladies" but he ignored her. He was a real jerk too, as far as I can tell. The fact that he and Jefferson had beef does not improve my opinion of either of them.
In his interview with the January 6 Commission, Rusty Bowers stated that he felt the Constitution was "divinely inspired" which made him turn down Trump's insistence that he commit a crime. Something good came of that.
AS I watch the hearings, I am struck by how close we came to installing Trump as a dictator. We don't need elections, just put the Trump family in charge. There are people who are decrying that there is no cross examination of witnesses. This is NOT a trial, not yet anyway that is the DOJ's job. This just gets the facts out into the light of day. His base is having trouble with facts, not that this should come as a surprise. His base has been fed a constant stream of misinformation since he rode the golden escalator to declare his candidacy. I truly believe this was a scam so he could make cash and then withdraw, but either his ego or a deal with Putin to release him from his massive debt ( which if I recall is coming due soon) got into the mix and we got screwed. The problem is that there are people who still think Trump will save this country, even though it is massively apparent he tried to destroy it on January 6. It is my hope, that as the net begins to fall on his inner circle, they rat him out to save themselves ala John Dean during the Watergate hearings. They are probably as loyal to him as he is to them.
How did I spend the 4th, you ask. In Urgent Care and Emergency with my husband. He had been having chest pains and we thought it might be a good idea to get it checked out before it got bad. We both figured it would be a few hours. NOPE. It turned into a nine hour odyssey at Kaiser. ( Not to self, when going to Urgent care, bring the charger and a backup battery, they really should invest in those charge port things they have at Central Library)
Chris had several blood tests, a cat scan, TWO EKGs and a chest x-ray. The diagnosis? Not a heart attack, not blood clots. They don't know what is IS , but are sure what it isn't. I suppose it makes me feel somewhat better, but the helpless feeling is not one I want to repeat any time soon. He needs to talk to his primary doctor.
The nice leisurely , post-visit lunch we had planned turned into a drive thru meal, just in time for the neighborhood to become a war zone. Gunshots and Cherry bombs. Happy FREAKING 4th. Because Chris was not feeling well - and frankly neither am I , asthma ( probably induced by a series of stressors that I am slowly releasing) we skipped the parade. My beloved Adam Schiff DID ride in the parade. I get all fangirl and yell his name, so maybe that was for the best. I have met him a few times. He is the real deal, unlike many of the politicians I have encountered in my job (I am looking at several seriously unctuous former Mayors )
Today I plan to make a bowl of popcorn and watch the hearings I have missed, since I was working. I watched Watergate, Iran Contra and now this. The marked difference is that people who follow the Former Guy in cult-like obedience will not hear the truth, since it is counter to their programming. At least in Watergate, once the truth was in the air, people saw Nixon for who he was. The current Republican Party is not that honorable and seems to think that Trump World is the way of the future. I wonder if Pence's Conversion Therapy camps can be somehow repurposed to deprogram the Trump Cult. It's a thought.
Speaking of Pence, he's no hero. He did his job, mostly to stay of of legal trouble. His former boss tried to have the mob murder him and he still licks his boots. Shows you who HE is, doesn't it? Cassidy Hutchinson is more a hero than he is, putting the truth out there. Hopefully the "vanity Video project" that the Former Guy and his family contracted will show the truth in stark detail. Wanna BET he tried to sue the videographer, claiming the film is HIS? Also, wanna bet he has yet to pay the guy a dime?
Still I woke up this morning at 6 am. My retirement started today for real. I wonder how long it will take ME to deprogram a lifetime of "early to bed early to rise"?
My Ass.
Seriously. MY ASS. The "Supreme" Cabal that passes for the highest law of the land has done the bidding of their Evangelical Masters and removed bodily autonomy from more than HALF the population.
And we are supposed to Lie down and take it. AS IF
My Fourth great-grandfather ( that would be my great-great great-great grandfather) was a Lieutenant In the 1st Company, 2nd Battalion of Philadelphia County in the Revolutionary War . This makes me, for good or ill, a Daughter of the American Revolution. Now that I am retired I may look into it, but as I recall, they have a racist history, so while the historic connection to the past might be neat, I don't think a membership in the association would be worthwhile. It goes without saying that the blood of warriors is part of my DNA, people who realized it was better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
I just can't believe we have to do this all over again. I try to remain optimistic that Congress will act on the will of MOST of the people, who support a woman's right to choose.
The Cabal will not stop here, they will go after all the other things that they don't like. We need to stand in the fire NOW.
I see the Former Guy is thinking of declaring his candidacy. Oh, decisions, decisions. "Shall I try to avoid indictment buy declaring my candidacy and claiming that this is political and they are trying to stop me from being president." OR "should I continue to rile up my base and get those pensioners to continue to send me money until the last possible second so I can flee the country? I'm sure Vlad will let me into Russia if I ask nicely and maybe give him Melania" He really needs "a good f-ing lawyer" who will explain to him that he no longer is President and even as such NO ONE is above the law. The DOJ is gathering evidence and the IDIOT had his vanity project, the filmmaker following him all over the place, that is probably akin to the Nixon tapes. I remain hopeful.
My little town is having a parade, but I think I'll pass this year. Just not feeling like dragging myself and my folding chairs out on Foothill Bl this year. I have been having asthma issues and I am wiped out by them. Better today than yesterday, as the meds have finally kicked in, but ugh.
This 4th, I will stay in and quietly reflect on the health of my beloved country. It is not "My country, right or wrong" it is "what the hell is WRONG with our country???" I may binge watch the hearings ( I missed them because I was working) I will reflect on that another time, but I WILL say this; If you want to declare that someone is lying, go to the Committee, place YOUR hand on the Bible you claim to revere and swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Remember there IS a penalty for lying to Congress ( and I HOPE the Justices who did will face that penalty as well)
