Thursday morning

 I know I should write every day and as I wind down toward retirement, I am going to try to do that, to keep my chops up, to keep my brain active to do something.

I have worked steadily since I was 18- I was off for brief periods of time due to illness or childbirth, but I have always worked.  It is going to be weird not to have that thing on my schedule.  People say it will take a while before it really sets in that I am not going to a job.   I have a friend who gave himself a year of doing nothing except what he wanted to do before finding what it was he really wanted to do.  I think that sounds like a fine idea. 

I am not the kind of person to do nothing.  Sure, there are days when lying in bed reading is all I want to do, but then I feel like a slug and start some project.  I am doing little artsy things that I enjoy and I am pretty pleased with the outcome.  I post pictures of them on FB when I hang them- they are door decorations, I just finished one for Valentines Day and I need to get it hung.  It's not anything remarkable, but I like it and one of my neighbors said she likes my decorations so that was nice. 

I am thinking of making Gazpacho for dinner- without the cucumbers Chris hates- in honor of that idiot MTG.  THERE , ladies and gentlemen, is the product of a poor education.  This is what you get when you tell people that their children can't handle the truth of history and tell it like a Disney version of Grimm's Fairy Tales ( read the actual Grimm's Brother in German, you will be horrified)  We need to tell them the truth, so we don't repeat the past.

So, I am looking at recipes and  getting ingredients for a cold soup that might be nice this evening.  it has been typical "winter" weather here, high 70's with clear days.  I await the rains in the end of the month and in March. We have not had much rain and we are in a severe drought.  

I'd better get my tail in gear here.  I have to be "at work" in 1/2 hour  Still working hybrid, part here part there.  We do not have enough space to all go in at once and socially distance.  There IS space in the huge building I work in that is not being used but we can't get access.  I suppose cleaning the areas that are unused on a daily basis is a concern.   that is a rant and a musing for another day.

A poem about my garden (inwhich I try to channel Mary Oliver)

 

My neighbor

waters the weeds

in my garden

The ones the gardener  ignores

and the ones I don't have the time

or the energy to pull

so they grow

around the rocks

and the other plants 

that my neighbor 

and his grey metal can

water gently 

every day.

Almost No one reads these anyway

 Well , there are about three people who check in with me.  Thanks guys!  I suppose I write more for myself, to keep my skills up but it IS discouraging to post and have no one even look at it- there's a counter and it tells me.

Sigh.  

We went to the Getty yesterday.  It was a nice day, perfect weather as we sometimes get in mid Winter around here- in the mid 70's and clear as a bell.  Not too windy.  I always laugh at the houses on the hill, near the Getty.  Big Mansions that cost a pretty penny.  I always wonder f those people know their home is built on a garbage dump.  Yep.  A landfill.   As a kid, I remember the garbage trucks going up that road that now leads to those pricy homes.  I'd be willing to bet it was not mention by the realtors in making the sales pitch.

I always go and look at The Irises- the Van Gogh that usually hangs in the gallery.  It is the prize piece of the collection, purchased in the 90's for an obscene amount of money.  It is beautiful and now encased in glass to keep people from touching it.  It has its own guard who keep people back from it.  Before they put the glass on it, I used to tuck my hand behind my back when I would look at it; the urge to touch it was so strong. The textures and the colors are wonderful to look at.  I have been there once or twice when it was not on display and I was disappointed.  

They had a lot of Gauguin's on display and I really looked a them this time.  There was also an alabaster bust of a woman that was so beautifully done, it was almost as if she could speak.  I think of Michelangelo  who said that he felt he was feeing the subject from the stone when he sculpted.  I like that notion, that art is there, waiting to appear.

Still I am trying to write as often as I can, not just when the spirit moves me.  Writing is a craft that must be practiced or you lose the muscle memory.  I had promised to write every day at one point, but that fell by the wayside as life became overwhelming and I just didn't feel like exploring my mind and putting it to "paper"   As I get ready to retire, I am planning my next move and I hope that daily writing will be part of my journey.  even if it is only for a select few who keep up with me, 

Wondering aloud- Republican Party thoughts

 In no particular order, follow my meandering mind into the rabbit warren that the Rethuglican Party is.

• I see Mike Pence has FIANLLY said something in response to Trump.  Did Casper Milquetoast FINALLY grow a spine, or does the Koch Brothers PAC have their hand up his back?  If I recall correctly, one of the Koch Brothers is dead, so it's only a Koch Brother making that sock puppet move his mouth.  It's a case of too little-too late there Mikey Boy   UNLESS of course he is cooperating with the January 6 Committee- what a DELICIOUS thought THAT is.  Pence knows where the bodies are buried.

• Steve Bannon accused Pence of "ratting Trump out"   Well, I have watched enough mob movies to know that "ratting someone out" means telling the TRUTH on someone to the authorities.  Slips of the tongue are aplenty these days as the truth begins to do its thing.  I find that lies will ultimately crumble.  the truth will always be the truth so it can bide its time.

• Trump admitted in writing and in speeches that he was trying to overturn the election.  Think about that for a minute.   Good   Treason is defined as:

            The offense of betraying one's own country by attempting to overthrow the              government through waging war against the state or materially aiding its enemies.

Do you think this meets the guidelines?  

• If I am reading her correctly, Rona Romney McDaniel believes the insurrection and all that went down on January 6 in the Capitol building was "Legitimate Political Discourse."  So, I guess she would have no problem if a group of  "ordinary citizens" chose to break down the doors and smash windows at her headquarters while she was deciding to whether to pay Trump's legal bills or not.  No problem at all with them  bear-spraying her security team and beating them with anything they found handy?  Just fine with them pooping in the hallways and smearing it all over the walls and her desk?  I wonder if her blood ties to Mitt Romney ( who I am not taking issue with today, since he seems to have his own fence straddling to do in regard to all this) got her the gig in the first place.    

• Seeing everyone line up behind Trump, you have to wonder two things.   Are they giving out lobotomy coupons at RNC conventions?  Just  WHAT does Trump have on all these people to make them get down on their knees before him?  Do you really believe that BS or has Trump conned YOU into selling your soul for power he can no longer give without the help of  HIS Master.  

• I LOVE that "W" as I call the second Bush , is giving the maximum allowable donations to all those  with an R after their name who voted for impeachment.  Good for him.  I didn't care for him and I thought Dick Cheney might have been a wee bit too involved in his decisions, but I never thought him evil or intent on destroying our Republic.  

• While I am not a fan of Liz Cheney- I'm a bit too Liberal to go along with the Republican Platform in MOST instances- I admire her and Adam Kinzinger for their willingness to bring truth to the surface.   Why is the Republican Party so afraid of the truth?  I want to know the truth, whatever it is.

• Since he is so "Christian" I wonder if  Trump is familiar with the verse John 8:32 "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free".  Someone needs to tell him it is not "Work makes your free" ("Arbeit" translates to "work" )

You need to know that although I am a FLAMING LIBERAL DEMOCRAT  I do believe that we need to hear the more conservative take on things to make decisions that will be the best for all the people.  HOWEVER  I do NOT believe that banning and burning books- as they are starting to do- is the "solution"   AND when you think the Nazi's deserve a seat at the table, you just lose the argument altogether.

Poem "he waits in the wings"

 Listening to a song

by a singer I had never heard

I kept mishearing her sing

"He wakes on the wind"

in the chorus

I was taken by the imagery

of the spirit she was singing about

who caused her trouble and pain

Waking on the wind

as if the wind would blow the trouble and  grief

swirling around her

and not blow it away

Reading the News

 I gave up reading my local paper during the 2008 recession , when I was given a 10% pay cut and the editor said City employees were overpaid anyway and we should be grateful.  I called them and cancelled my decades long subscription, saying their editor suggested we cut back on our expenditures and , gosh  I realized I didn't need to pay to be insulted every single day.  The then-Mayor suggested things we could do on that extra day off- like "Go to Disneyland" or "volunteer somewhere"   Marie-Antoinette Villaraigosa had no clue.  A lot of people lost their homes- some people for whom both wage-earners were City Employees got a 20 % hit.  Yeah, so no more "Daily News" although I missed the Human Interest column written by  Dennis McCarthy.

I do miss spreading the Sunday paper on the bed and starting with the Comics.  Don't judge me.

Now I get most of my news online and I try to read the Associated Press website, the are the most objective, straight news I can find. 

I subscribe to Dan Rather's blog "steady" and also the brilliant Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American.  She's particularly insightful, given her background as a history professor, she brings it all together in historic context. 

I was thinking about how we got the news when we were kids.    In the evening, we would watch the news on television.  The straight talk from Walter Cronkite.  The final exchange  from Hunter and Brinkley, who would always sign off "Good night Chet" Goodnight David" from their respective studios.  Somewhere in the 70's the news turned to "Happy Anchors" who would cut up and laugh and guffaw while delivering the news.  Don Henley wrote a song about it "Dirty Laundry"   The news became less news and more new-with-opinions.  No filter and frankly the "Happy News anchors" were annoying to me.  I longed for Uncle Walter- as many people called Cronkite- to give us the straight dope.

What passes for news these days is sometimes like talking to a misinformed friend who only wants to present their view of things.  People who, for instance think ANYTHING coming off the Fox Channel -an ENTERTAINMENT CHANNEL- is anything akin to news are sadly mistaken.  I love Rachel Maddow and I often agree with her. Her monologue at the beginning is a mixture of hard news and opinion, but you can TELL the difference, unlike   F-er Carlson and Laura Ingram (the woman is the epitome of the "Bubble headed bleach blonde who comes on at 5") who look straight into the camera and lie; telling you their opinion as if it were fact.

I long for what Sgt Joe Friday used to say  "Just the facts, ma'am"

Ya gotta have faith

 Faith is defined as a noun  "complete trust or confidence in someone or something."     The SECOND meaning is a belief in a god or a religion.

I recently read a meme, posted by someone who I used to know about how Joe Biden  in asking people to have faith in what he was trying to do, was somehow blaspheming.  The post then showed a picture of St Donald of the Grift, talking about worshiping God.  

It got me to thinking about the word and how evangelicals seem to have changed the meaning of the word, that "faith" means only your religion or your belief system.  They seem to think they own the word faith, as if it can only mean the belief in a Christian god.  They get all flibbertigibbet when it is used in its more common meaning- trust in someone or something.

I am sure evangelical heads exploded when George Michael came out with the song "faith"  I wonder if the title made them all squishy in their tingly parts until they actually heard the tune, but as usual, I digress

When someone asks you to have faith in the process, they are not asking you to worship them or the institution that will guide the process; they are asking you to trust the process. (slightly off topic- when someone declares themselves the Chosen one, and says they are the Second coming of God- showing a decided lack of knowledge of who is coming back, in the Christian Doctrine, well, I have a problem with people saying what a great practitioner of the religion said person is)

So, I will hold on to my faith that things will be ok, eventually.  That the balance of the universe will come back to some kind of order.  That criminals will get their just desserts ( what the hell?) and that people who believed in them will be healed.

Ya gotta have faith.