Sunday morning thoughts

 Up early on a Sunday morning.  Can't sleep, so coffee and my notepad it is.  I am a list maker and I am going to see how much on my list I can get done today.  I will admit that I put things like "Lunch" and "take a shower" on the list so at the end of the day I am not staring at a long list of unfinished "chores"  My husband says I overload myself and he may be right, but there ARE things that need doing, as well as things I want done, that just don't happen by themselves.

Before Biden was elected, I would open the news on my computer, wondering if the idiot in the White House had managed to start World War III yet. It was NOT for lack of trying  ( Hey Donnie, you FAILED at that task too)  Now I look to see if he has been indicted yet,  It will happen and , please God, that the evidence be truthfully heard and considered.  He and his criminal network will get the justice they deserve, I wonder who will flip on whom.  Rats jumping off a sinking ship. Yes, I am aware there is an element in this country  who, if the Orange Oaf stabbed their mother to death in front of them would support his right to murder her.  I knew a guy who was crazy and was posting on a website we both frequented about how Biden AND Obama and maybe Nancy Pelosi would be hung in the town square.  He was following a certain group  of "Prophecy Ministers" who kept moving the goal posts as the date for their reckoning came and went.  I don't know about YOU, but if my "religion" tells me to hate someone, I think I need to change religions.  This guy was constantly wetting himself, metaphorically speaking, on a page that was meant to discuss the music of ( ironically enough) the band America.  He made outrageous bets   THEN when he lost told everyone that the bet could not stand because Biden cheated.  Huh?  The whole premise of his "Big Lie" is that Biden cheated.  No one- and I mean NO ONE has produced anything like the scale of illegal voting as they are claiming and yet, they now say we must change voting laws to keep it from happening. Why not leave it as it was, you know, if it ain't broke don't fix it; but it is the only way they can see themselves winning in the next go-around.  The idea of actually having a platform that they can point to that would appeal to disenfranchised groups never enters their head.  After all Corporations are people....

If you are not reading the wonderful blog by Heather Cox Richardson "Letters from an American"  you should be,  She talks about a lot of things and brings a sense of history to the proceedings.

Politics and other things that tangle my brain

 Up early, headed into my office.  We are still working a hybrid and I really am looking forward to going IN more often.  My "office" for the past year has been squished into a tiny corner of my kitchen, that I SUPPOSE is supposed to be a dining room, but never has been.  I have always had my computer here.  It's just harder, with paperwork from my office in a plastic rolly-thing taking up pace.  I feel cramped.  Also there is the fact that I am ALWAYS working.  Work STARES at me and I sometimes feel the need to "Catch up" even when I am not on the clock.  I should not do that.  NO ONE should do that.  It gives the impression that you don't have enough work and they can pile on more.  I have enough to do in my 9+ hour day, thankyouverymuch.

I am watching the Republican party implode.  I am no big fan of Liz Cheney, but as I posted on one of the political sites I frequent, even a broken clock is right twice a day.  Cheney believes the lie that Reagan was the best thing that ever happened to this country, going so far as to advance the well believed theory that HE defeated Soviet Communism.  I believe that was Gorbachev -and HIS epiphany came, not in the hallowed halls of our government, but in a grocery store.  He finally saw that the things he believed were not true and it moved him toward glasnost.

But politics and the BS that is being pulled out by Trumplicans- let's face it they are a truth unto themselves here- is startling.  It would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.   They want so desperately to believe that they won, they can't take a step back to see why they lost.  I suppose the party that waves Lee's Battle flag cannot be expected to accept defeat.  I still see Trump as a cancer.  I do not ever say out loud a wish for evil to happen to anyone- those things have a way of rebounding- but I do wish Karma would hurry up.  Karma is, as the saying goes, not a bitch, but a sweet old lady who serves you the same tea you have been giving people for years.  She just needs to hurry up, before we are destroyed by stupidity.

Now, I hear that people think we will go to a single party, which can never be the case.  We need both sides of the political coin to be successful.  As much as I loathe to admit it, sometimes the Conservatives have a point.  My daughter and others of her generation are pushing for a third party, the Green Party has had a lot of success with the young voters.  We need young voters and people to be engaged in the process of governing this county.  We need fewer  Mitch McConnells  and MORE AOCs  This should be a time when they rise to claim their birthright in the governance of our nation.  

Friday

 I was thinking this morning, as I approach my 63 birthday and am heading toward retirement that I am more  Dylan Thomas than Desiderata  ( Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.  Bullshit)

Thomas urged his father to  "not go gentle into that good night".  I am more like that.  I think Gloria Steinem said that as we age, we get more radical and one day the world will be taken over by grey haired ladies.   I kind of like that idea.

Last night, I was in a meeting of an organization I have belonged to and worked HARD for for a long time.  I tried to comment on something the millennial were whining about and got talked down to by the moderator.  It made me re-evaluate my participation in this organization.  Frankly I have become less enchanted with their  approach to their mission and I think the current crop of leadership thinks they know everything.  What's that expression- those who don't' LEARN from history are condemned to repeat it?   About 20 years ago, another organization tried to take over this one and were barely defeated.  The hostile takeover attempt lead to radical change in the way the membership was treated and engaged ( The former Director's attitude to membership was "When I want your opinion I will tell you what it is")  This group looks for direction everywhere but within.  I think it's a mistake, and am tired to death of shoveling sand against the tide.  I will be stepping away, much earlier than planned from this part of  the group.  It will  probably result in them removing me from the rest of my commitments, but at this point it would probably be a relief.

I get my second "Fauci-ouchie" today. I am saddened but not shocked at the number of people who are not going to get it because they believe the LIES that this is a mind-control drug or they are implanting microchips to track you ( this said, absent of irony, by people who WILLINGLY carry a tacking device with them at all times, even into the bathroom)  I am looking forward to being vaccinated and gathering together with my like minded friends who actually looked at the SCIENCE  NOT the SCIENCE FICTION ( seriously a lot of the things I am reading are the stuff of Dystopian Fiction)

I see that Caitlyn Jenner is running for governor.  She really IS delusional.  Does she really think she will be the one Republicans rally behind?  OY

Poem

 It IS after all, poetry month

What depression tastes like

 

 

It rhymes with silver

It rhymes with orange

You sit

Clutching

A cup of coffee

Gone unredeemably cold

It seems like years

But it’s only been minutes

Since the cliché sun

Broke through the cliché clouds

And the wooden birds

Sang.

Tuesday 4/20

 There will be a LOT of  chatter in memes today that it is not ONLY "Taco Tuesday" but "4/20" as well, a day for some odd reason is celebrated for smoking pot.  I've got nothing against pot, mind you.  I DID come of age in the 1970s and well all that came with that.   I don't smoke now- asthma and lack of interest- but those who enjoy the herb should be able to do so.

I am postulating who might be behind the image of the Demon Weed:

I think the Tobacco industry has a lot to do with it, as if somehow, people smoking cannabis would siphon away cigarette smokers.  It is possible the alcohol folks too, but people have a tendency to have something along with the smoke. 

Maybe Big Pharma, as medical marijuana and the benefits of THC are coming more and more to the forefront.  It didn't work for me, I just felt "high" and in pain versus just in pain, but a lot of people report positive findings

Maybe the "for Profit "jail and the legal system.  By criminalizing it, we can throw more people in jail and reap the benefits of incarcerating people.

Maybe all of the above have a hand in it.

President Biden ( I STILL take pleasure in saying and typing those words)  has vowed to decriminalize it.  He's got a fight on his hands, but my money is on Joe.  

In the words of Elliot Mintz, introducing the file "Reefer Madness" on PBS all those years ago  "smoke if ya got 'em"

Monday

How does the weekend- I had a three day one, due to my work schedule- disappear so fast.  I worked on my kitchen ( I may have tossed out too many containers as I appear to have more tops than bottoms but no matter.)  I will SLOWLY begin restocking my containers, as these snap together so lids and bottoms are all in one place.  Gonna TRY anyway.

Tiny things to write about:

"Your father is retiring. Write a limerick about him"

hmmm

There once was a cook named Bob

For whom cooking was more than a job

He taught me to cook

With a word and a look 

And thinking of him, I'll try not to sob

That was kind of fun.

I am fretting about the news these days and I know I shouldn't   Seriously how can the Dereck Chauvin case play out? HE murdered that man in broad daylight with the whole world watching.  He died in police custody, begging for help and they ignored his distress.   He was cuffed and in restraints.  Geez, if he had been a white guy they would have brought him a Perrier.

The racists running the new Trumpian branch of the Republican Party are scary.  I wonder if we ever will get to the place where ideas are discussed in a thoughtful manner, what is best for ALL of us, not just the rich and powerful who want to remain there by pushing us all down.  

I see it locally.  I just voted in my Neighborhood Council election and I was HORRIFIED to see the grade school behavior of some business owners in this community.  Thanks for the warning, y'all  Watching you snipe at one another instead of support and discuss what is best for the neighborhood in general really made voting against some of these people a snap.  I personally would never run for the NC and there ARE a few good souls who mean what they say and are not just in it to advance whatever THEY want for them.  I've been to their meetings. I've been to Wrestling matches with more decorum

I get my last shot this Friday.  I am looking forward to being done with this.

Sunday morning meanderings

 I SHOULD be working on my kitchen reorganization project.    I have far too many mismatched and frankly OLD food storage containers and I am moving toward having ONE kind and NOT a bunch of containers that used to hold something else ( potato salad container, I'm looking at YOU)  So I pulled it all out and then needed coffee.

Anyone want to help me get organized?  

These days, I am scattered in brain and action.  It's a symptom of the anxiety and just general chaos in the world.   Do you remember in "Get Smart" the 'bad Guys" were Kaos?  They were apparently "bent on World domination"  It's taken almost 60 years, but by Jove, they've done it.

I'm not talking about my kitchen floor.

I woke up last night, the end of  the Prednisone attacks on my sleep pattern, thinking about a nuresey rhyme I learned as a child

"For want of a nail

a shoe was lost

For want of a shoe

a horse was lost

For want of a horse,

a rider was lost

for want of a rider

a battle was lost

For want of a battle,

A war was lost

and all for the want of a horse-shoe nail"

Small things make a difference. I often wonder, if Beau Biden had not died, for instance, would Joe have run instead of Hilary? Where would we be as a nation if we had elected him then?  So many in this country were afraid of "emotional women" they elected a paranoid, raving conman who, as my Dad used to say "promised them the moon until the sun came up"  It will be a long road, fixing that damage, if we can.

Still I have hope and lots of it. I saw young people getting involved in politics.  I see them standing to make this world a better place and for every Kyle Rittenhouse, we have a Greta Thunberg.

I am reading Dan' Rather's excellent collection of essays called "What Unites us".  I may need to buy a copy, there is so much that he says that give me pause.  I subscribe to his email project "Steady"  as well as Heather Cox Richardson, whose brilliant sense of history and the political climate give me both hope and despair, sometimes in the same sentence. 

It's also Poetry Month, and as we approach the Bard's Birth and Death day, I will be trying to read more poetry.  I love the deceptively simple brilliance of Mary Oliver and I will try to take smallish bites of Walt Whitman.  As I get older, I have less patience for long long poems, but if I just take him a section at a time, I MIGHT get through some of  "Leaves of Grass"

Anything to avoid the food container pile on the floor...