Tasty

 Now, isn't this exciting, the weekend has arrived with all of its coolness, ie the temp outside was 52 (F) when I got up this morning.  In fact, looking at the long-range forecast, most nights the mercury will be dropping.  For those of you who don't know, that's a reference to when they used mercury in thermometers to tell the temperature.  Even those thermometers you put in your mouth.  That's right, before digital thermometers, we had to put thin, glass tubes into our mouths to see if we were running a fever, and, a long, long time ago, when I was a child, those thermometers had mercury inside them.  You know what I'm talking about, the heavy metal, shiny, very poisonous mercury.  Those were the dark ages of modern medicine.  During the time of Covid, the great orange retailer I work for gave all associates a digital thermometer.  I have no idea what I did with mine, probably threw it away.  Taking my temperature so many times a day was truly a pain.

I made homemade ice cream on Wednesday.  French Vanilla.  Or, as some say, Custard, since it's lots of eggs, sugar, and cream.  Believe me when I tell you, this stuff goes straight to your arteries.  Of course, if you've ever had homemade French Vanilla (Custard) ice cream, warnings are useless as it is tasty as Hell.

Of course, Ronnie DeSantis was trafficking in humans yesterday because he's a smart ass.  He sent them top Martha's Vinyard.  Ronnie is trying to make points with the MAGA base.  He was rewarded by seeing them shriek with joy.  They saw this as an attack on the liberals, especially those who live on Martha's Vinyard, like Alan Dershowitz.  Remember Al?  He's the screaming liberal who defended Trump during his 2nd impeachment.  And Al's not alone.  What those foolish MAGA brains fail to understand that Martha's Vinyard represents wealth more so than it does Liberalism.  But then Ronnie's more interested in making points with the MAGA base rather than making points with wealthy, conservative donors.

And Trump's personal judge Cannon appointed a Special Master.  By now, most Americans with a brain understand she's been bought and paid for by Trump.  While certain % of Republicans are happy with her decisions, many also realize she's doing more to damage their midterm chances.

 

For the Vampires of Wall Street

 Well, let's all say hello to a slow, holiday Sunday morning.  One of the dogs is still in bed.  The other, Lily, has relocated down to the sofa, which is pretty much the same thing.  Oh, wait, Biggie just got up, time to get him outside for his morning pee, and then it will be med time.  He's taken to liking his gabapentin smothered in ketchup.  Yummy.

If you were betting, we were going to get rain yesterday, you'd have lost.  All of the storms were way to our south.  Temp wise, if we hit 90 (F) we were lucky, and today's temps are predicted to be a few degrees lower.  0% chance of rain.  We have pretty much the same forecast for tomorrow as well, of course tomorrow I work so I'm neither celebrating, nor concerned.

As for working on the 4th of July?  Foot traffic will be mild in the morning and early afternoon; customers showing up because they believe we're going to having big sales.  Wrong.  That'll never happen, except for our appliances.  We're having a Red, White, and Blue sale, though I suspect the end result is going to be leaving corporate bluer than anything else.  Prices are constantly being changed upward.  The prices are not being cause by any supply chain issues either.  Nope.  They are all based on corporate's need to hit a 5% growth this year in order to satisfy the vampires of Wall Street.  Will prices go back down?  Possibly, but not much.  You see Americans are slowly getting used to paying more and being victimized by Big Business.

For a change, I thought I'd post a picture of Mercury.  This is the most complete shot we have our tiny brother spinning so closely to the sun.

Of course, there are lots of whispers saying Trump is going to announce his plan to run for president in 2024 this weekend... though others say it won't happen until the beginning of August.  I'm betting he'll try to grab the spotlight sooner rather than later.  Some say he's doing this so soon because he believes the DOJ will not indict a running candidate.  He's wrong, though I'm sure his sycophantic advisors are telling him otherwise.  Anyway, I say more power to him.  DeSantis also has his eye on that prize, as does Mike Pence, who's too dumb to know better.  Hold onto your hats, we're going to have ring side seats to a MAGA slugfest, just make sure you don't sit too closely, though if you do wear rain gear to protect yourself from the blood splatters.

Taking the temps

 And so today I reach the end of my 4 day work week as many of you begin yours.  Ain't life odd sometimes?  My lunch / dinner is cooking in a small crockpot: chicken, with olives, tomatoes and basil.  I threw in a handful of white grapes to give it a bit of pizazz.  And yes, if you're wondering, I cook my lunch everyday, and always with fresh vegetables.  

Today the mercury is supposed to climb up to 94 (F).  I don't know if anyone says that anymore, but that used to be a rather common phrase.  There was a time when people used mercury in thermometers, even the ones in stuck beneath your tongue to take your temperature.  Once, when I wasn't feeling well at school, I bit one and broke it; the school nurse was not pleased and had me spit out the pieces.  Now, just sit back and imagine that, me, with mercury in my mouth and having to spit it out.  For those who don't know, mercury is poisonous.  And we used it in thermometers.

For those who don't know, the Tour de France in now racing it's way through France.  Interestingly, I learned about the big crash on Day 1 from people at work coming up to the Flooring Desk and asking if I had heard about it.  Two associates gathered around as I pulled up the videos on my PC.  Until I began talking about the race, and watching it, they wouldn't have given the Tour a wit of thought.  The crash everyone was talking about was caused by a fan, shoving a sign bearing the name of her town out into the peloton.  her stupidity raise the temps of  the Tour's racing officials and now they're going to sue her ass.  More power to them.

And a Republican committee in Michigan rebuked The Other Guy and his Big Lie.   That's right, they found no fraud, saying he lost fair and square, not that the truth is going to sit easy with his base, or that they'll even consider it.  Nope.  Their hatred is hot.  The truth is Republicans have always been rotten losers.  Always.  This is why 'voter fraud' has been their favorite whine for years.  It's easier for them to believe that then the fact that Americans really don't like either them, or their politcs.

Old Dave

Yesterday our scheduling was a bit off, we only had one mainline cashier for 4 hours in the morning - when that happens either my mid-head cashier or I will open up a register.  Yesterday morning we switched off, he spent time checking out customers and then I would do a 30 minute shift.  We are always prompted to ask if the customer is going to put their purchase on a store credit - always.  So I asked this customer and his response was, "no, old Dave," (we have our names on our aprons).  My response was "well, I'm not really that old," and he actually said "well, you evidently didn't look in the mirror this morning before you left the house."
Is that an insult or not?
Now I could have been a smart ass, but I need to be kind - customer service you know?  So, I overlooked his ignorance figuring he was probably a Trumplodite.  Why would you even say something like that to a stranger?  Call them old?  I'm not as young as this guy was (probably mid-30's) and I'm not as old as my Mom (she's 83). True, I suppose I could be classified as an 'early senior.'  I'm too young to retire.  But I wouldn't qualify myself as being old.

And though I may have looked like this in my youth, I didn't pose for the sculptor

I'm not easily offended, so this guy didn't offend me.  I suspect this may have been his way of making a joke.  Or perhaps in his ignorance he called everybody older than himself 'old.'  The most perplexing thing for me, however, was that he said anything at all. Maybe I'm finding this so confusing because I really am 'old Dave,' or it could be I just don't want to admit to myself there really are utter assholes like this guy in the world.

Disney's War

I saw this yesterday on the NBC news page and got a laugh.  Evidently some crazy in Texas has accused Disney of declaring war on Christianity.  Oh, and it isn't just Disney, this wacko lists a whole slew of companies because they stood up to the hate bill in Georgia.  Some crazy named Saenz, who's president of something called Texas Values.  I checked out the home page and the comments are all negative, especially in regard to what he calls "freedom."
Anyway, I got to thinking this was exactly the same thing that happened 2,000 years ago when Christianity was growing out of its underground religion status.  Back then the gods were really old, having been around for what?  About 3,000 years.  I'm sure the priests of Zeus said the very same thing, "there's a war against the gods!"  And they persecuted Christians; threw them into arenas to be slaughtered by gladiators because they represented a change to the status quo.  Society was changing.  Society is always going to change, there's no stopping it.  Religions come and go.  They stick around for as long as they are able to adapt.  If they can't evolve with every thing else, they slowly disappear.  Me?  I've always had a fondness for the gods, especially Mercury.

Dashing, isn't he?  Wouldn't you like him to chase you down the street?  I actually touched him once on one of my walks through the Louvre.  

Anyway, will groups like Texas Values, and idiots like Saenz ever understand Disney is not at war with them?  Of course not.  Their beliefs are too rigid.  Their is no room in their faith for adaptability.

Inevitably they will die off.  It's called evolution.