The Expendables.

 Today's supposed to be nice.  Our outside temp is in the mid 70s (F), humidity is low, and there's only a 1% chance of rain.  The long range forecast is extending this forecast for the next 15 days.  That's fine with me, by then we'll be at the end of August, with only 3 weeks left until Autumn arrives.  

Of course, I'll have another birthday in the fall and I'm fine with that.  Honestly, I don't mind the aging bit, I just hope I don't simply fall to pieces when I hit my upper 90s.  There are times when I will sit and look around the house and realize that everything I have will be gone, that does bring on occasional moments of melancholy.  And then I'll wonder where I'll be; in a senior facility?  My mom was in a very nice senior facility.  She wanted them to cater to her more than they did, and so was not happy, of course, my mom desperately wanted to be a matriarch and that never happened.

Yesterday I once again added my phone number to the state "no spam calls" registry.  I get at least one scam call daily, on some days I'll get 3 or 4.  This should eliminate most of those calls.  In France they're passing a law to make scam calls illegal and Morocco, of all places, is complaining.  Evidently over 50,000 Moroccans work in call centers.  Damn!  I'm sorry, but having a job where you're required to harass millions and millions of people is not what I'd call an acceptable career.

And yesterday was Howie's birthday.  As always, we had cake and ice cream (vanilla cake and vanilla ice cream).  He ate the ice cream (French Vanilla) but totally ignored the cake.  Perhaps the butter creme frosting did not meet with his approval.

He also got a toy, a stuffed chicken.  He loves that!!!

And of course, the big news story was lying Karoline Leavitt is quitting.,.. in 2 weeks.  While many want to think this is because she  came to her senses, they are wrong.  Lying Leavitt would eat flaming shit balls if she thought such a feat would make her important.  What's more likely is that when Orangie abandoned his by sneaking away in a catering truck, he not only left her behind, but he took his most favorite of assistants Natalie Harp.  Don't know who Nat is?  She's the blonde bimbette who is constantly by his side.  Nat's known for carrying a portable printer so she can print of newspaper headlines and articles.  She's also unofficially known to be Orangie's diaper girl.  When he shits in his pants, she wipes his ass and puts him in a fresh diaper.  Basically, he chose an ass wiper rather than an ass kisser to save when he fled Turkey.

And, because his administration is like a sieve unable to keep leakers in line, the threat that sent him cowering among the pre-cooked meatloaf and lasagna, was reported to him by the Israelis who wanted to insure America continues to war with Iran.  The CIA is now confirming that this was a low level threat.

I'm betting Orangie's decision to only save Harp and Hegseth is rattling around like a rabid rat in a rusty cage among those he chose to sacrifice.  Now Stevie Miller, Scottie Bessent, and Marco Rubio know just how expendable they are.

What's in a Noem... I mean Name

 So, it appears that the weekend is going to start off with springtime temperatures with daily highs only reaching up into the mid 80s (F).  That will change as we move into the week, but even then our high temps are only predicted to be in very low 90s (F).  The chance of rain is minimal at best.  If our highs were higher, I'd say this was a normal August, but they're not.  This is good for my electric bill just like last year's cold winter was bad for my gas bill.

Yesterday was mostly unproductive.  I did some chores, only one load of laundry.  I feel I should have done more.  However over 1000 new words were added to the new book, so writing wise, yesterday was good.  I finished the chapter "If you hum a few bars," and moved into the next chapter "reel to reel."  Remember, this is a musical mystery, and I can tell you there will be an "intermezzo time" next up on the writing agenda.  I am trying to keep a good balance going between two stories, one of Eli's mother, who died when he was five, and, of course, the murder mystery.  The idea of having a musical code which needs to be deciphered has been replaced with something more... interesting.

I am scheduled to work today.  

I also tried to find the clip from South Park where Kristi Noem's face falls off, sadly, the only clip I could find was her recruitment video, the one where she shoots the puppies, so consider that a cautionary warning.

My sister called yesterday to ask if I'd seen that the new guy in charge of the IRS is now the old guy, Billy Long, after 2 months.  I hadn't.  Scottie Bessent is now in charge of the IRS.  Billy, who was approved by the Senate, now has to be approved to be the Ambassador to Iceland.  That sounds like a demotion to me.  Perhaps Billy's bribe to the Orange Anus just wasn't big enough for the job he got.  There's also the possibility that Billy just wasn't corrupt enough to suit Orangie... nah, it probably has to do with the fact that he goes by Billy.  Let's be honest.  Billy is not a brass knuckle kind of name.  Nope, it's more of a stealing one of grannies checks and forging her signature kind of name.  Not that Scottie's a much better name, but Scottie's a super billionaire and in Orangie's book, that puts him near the top of the "Billionaires I want to be friends with" list.

Credit Dilemma

 By the time I left work yesterday the wind had picked up and was busy blowing away the warm weekend weather and leaving space for cooler temps to rush in, and rush they did.  When I got up this morning our temps were hovering in the mid 50s (F) and the skies are overcast.  The temps might make it up to 70 (F) if we're lucky, and the cloudy skies will remain as rain will be moving into the area for the next few days.  If the long range forecast is correct, our temps will not rise above 75 (F) for the next 2 weeks.  So, is summer going to be cool?   We shall have to wait and see.

The flooring department was busy yesterday.  Two big ticket installations were processed, one of which was mine for over $10,000.  Wowza!  My customer put that charge on 2 different credit cards, something I'd never do.   There was an actual sale going on when she was measured which would have reduced this cost by almost $1000, but she chose to wait, possibly because she knew she was going to be putting it on 2 separate cards.  I feel bad when I see people doing things like this since it tells me they're not balancing things well as they go through life.

My new printer arrives today.  I'm excited.  I'm going to be moving some things around in the writing room.

I gave Howie a walnut this morning.  He played with it for a long time but never ate it.  I also took a picture of him out walking by one of my Itoh peonies.  I'm glad he stayed red, I was concerned he might end up a yellow lab.

I watched a clip of Scottie Bessent on some talky show yesterday attempting to blow off America's downgrade by Moody's.  Scottie's not too happy.  The words he was spitting out didn't come close to matching the look on his face.  This downgrade happened on his watch and he knows in the end, unless we get an upgrade shortly, he will be blamed.  He's learning that you can not run the country as if it were a business.  Because of that downgrade the stock market is going to drop today.   This is the Republicans fault.  They are the reason the country is so deep in debt.  In a way, they're like my customer who wants that carpet so bad she's going to put the total cost on 2 credit cards.  Orangie wants a tax break, and so they're going to borrow more money in order to give it to him.

On Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis:  Prostate cancer is one of the most curable forms of cancer.  It is very slow moving.  For his cancer to have reached this stage, metastasizing and into his bones, quite likely he's known about it for quite some time.  In fact, this may be the real reason he dropped out of the presidential race.  It is a sad day.  He's given a lot for this country, and I feel bad that he has to suffer towards the end of his days.

Selfie #4

 It looks like there is another nice day in store for Central PA with temps in the upper 70s and clear sunny skies, and of course I do have to work today.  I am off tomorrow and the forecast is for overcast skies and rain.  In fact, the next few days rain is expected daily.  I suppose this has something to do with that rainy weather pattern that's going to be soaking the southeast moving north as it moves out over the Atlantic Ocean.

And I did work yesterday.  It was slow.  I did, however, get a measure.  An older woman's middle-aged son brought her in for a measure.  They picked out an nice middle of the road carpet for the master bedroom, and a cheap carpet of the rest of the bedrooms.  Now, when I say cheap, I mean cheap; $9.90 a square yard.  In fact, this carpet was so cheap we don't install it.  This led to a dilemma, with him telling her that it taken her so long to pick out the carpet.  When he went to pick out another carpet that was of similar color, she turned to me and said, "he can be suck a prick."  My personal opinion is that he's a bit frothy in the brain.

Even though I did work yesterday, it was a short day.  Usually I work 7.5 hours, but yesterday I was only scheduled for 6.  That hour and a half difference is so nice, I might have to change my availability, at lest for the summer.

I'm playing a French game right now, Clair Obscur; Expedition 33 and last night one of the main characters died.  I have never played a game in which this has happened, companions have died, but never one of the main characters.  Complicating things even more, a new character was introduced, an individual who was part of the first expedition, Expedition 0, 67 years earlier, and this character hasn't aged.  You also find out that there are other members of that first expedition alive, some who will let everyone else die in order to remain young.  This may go down as one of my all time favorite games!

And, from time to time I attempt to take a selfie with Howie.  Here's selfie #4.

So, I see the Orange Anus caved on the tariffs again.  Main stream media isn't putting it that way, though, they're saying that there appears to be a mutual agreement between the China and the United States.  Did anyone of them say that on the first day, the Chinese walked out after about 15 minutes?  I don't think so.  Well, they did.  I heard that they went into the talks and asked for 2 things:  respect, and a pause in the tariffs while negotiations were in progress and Orangie's team said no.  So they walked.  Realizing that this was going to make Bessent and his team look like the biggest douchebags in history, yesterday Scottie and his team caved.  The Chinese are respected and the tariffs are paused for another 90 day.  One really needs to check to see which Republicans snapped up stocks on Friday, because now Wall Street is doing firecrackers!

Thunderbolts (and Bob)

 Hello sunshine, my old friend... well, for today and tomorrow at least.  The rains are going will return on Friday and, if the long range forecast is correct, next week will be another wet one.  We have bourgeoning flora everywhere.  I will need to mow my lawn today, otherwise I will have a field.

I got a nice band/dumbbell workout in yesterday.  I increased the weight on my bands to 50 lbs.  Nice.

My neighbor's son returned from college yesterday; he goes to Temple University in Philadelphia.  When the house was rehabbed, the contractor drywalled the attic, however there was only one electrical outlet and no heat.  Still, they decided it would make a great bedroom for him.  There was an additional problem in that the roof has a steep pitch which decreased the amount of actual living space; he's over 6 feet tall.  Last evening they moved his furniture down into an empty bedroom on the 2nd floor (1st floor for my European readers).  There was a lot of angry cursing, swearing, and bangings late into the early morning hours.  

And last evening, before I had to listen to my neighbors, I went to see Thunderbolts.  A while back I'd heard that Marvel Studios was going to be taking a much darker approach to their films after they realized they had a hit on their hands with Wandavision.  The mood is not darker, superheroes without the glitz.  The move was smart, dealing with suppression and repression.  These heroes are not super, they have problems which are prioritized, and at times, the movie is very dark.  I can see Florence Pugh getting a nomination, her performance is that good.

Of course, Prime Minister Carney from Canada had an uncomfortable sit down with the Orange Anus yesterday, he did not try and hide his distaste.  Surrounded by the press, Orange stayed true to form, at one point beginning to ramble about Obama building his library in Chicago and how badly it was going.  This as an almost 5 minute demonstration on how Orangie's mind wanders.  Wisely, Carney chose to give his public comments back at the Canadian embassy, rather than stand next to Orangie in some tackily gold drenched briefing room.

In other shades of this shit show, Scotty Bessent admitted that there were no negotiations going on with China on the tariffs.  Intermediaries for both countries are supposed to meet in Switzerland next week.  First it was 90 trade deals in 90 days, now it's 17 or 18 countries they are supposedly negotiating with, however they're keeping the names of those countries secret, which means Orangie is probably giving away the store to the Saudis and the Ruskies.

Finally, a bit of humor.  Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, who's far more ruthless than she is smart, sent a letter to Harvard University.  They edited it for her and posted their correction on social media.