The Gift that Keeps on Giving

 I slept in this morning which is becoming a Friday morning trend.  And I didn't stay up late.  Just played a little of Assassin's Creed Odyssey.  What can I say, I like looking like a Greek god.  Island hopping from Mykonos, to Lesbos, to Kefalonia is fun!  

Yesterday was slow at work.  There was a meeting of the Fun Committee, on which I do not sit, but my connections tell me their plans for creating fun in the store.  A holiday / Christmas part is in store for us, the first since Covid.  Once again, everyone in the store will be gifted with a hoodie or a sweatshirt.  I say again because they have become the standard holiday gifts for employees.  You have no idea how many hoodies and sweatshirts I have that are emblazoned with the orange retailers logo.  I told one of my connections that this year a large can of mixed nuts might be nice.  The committee nixed the nuts and went for the outerwear.

That loud shrieking nose you heard yesterday afternoon was me getting my monthly email from PP&L, my electric supplier.  There was a large increase in my monthly budget.  Big Time.  One of the problems with being on a budget plan is simply paying the balance without checking the bill itself.  Yesterday, for the first in months, I looked at my bill.  The dramatic increase was because of the KW I used this past summer, after I installed the new, little A/C unit in the computer room / gym   It might be little, but it sure as hell sucks up the energy.  That's the last summer for that sucker.

This song was released a year ago, but has started to get a lot of airplay quite recently.  Grab your tissues.

Yesterday the Republicans, who may end up with a five seat majority laid their plans for when they take control:  investigations and possible impeachments.  Totally lost on them was the fact that there was no 'red tsunami' because of Trump, and because of this rhetoric.  One can only ask if they are really that stupid, and the obvious answer is yes.  They are going to beat themselves into a bloody pulp.  Good.

In Central PA:  Josh Shapiro won the governorship by 14%.  The last time that happened was in 1946.  John Fetterman won his Senate race by close to 5%.  Because of this the PA House is almost ensured to turn Blue.  Democrats owe a lot of this to Donald Trump.  It turns out that for Centrists and Liberals, he is the gift that keeps on giving.

And, finally, Nancy is retiring.  Some people liked her, others didn't.  She became the most powerful woman in United States history.  She set a path and stuck to it.  Without her Democrats will have no saint.  Some Republicans might cheer, but our loss is their loss as well, a loss they will never understand.

Burning Bridges

 Hello Tuesday!

Yesterday was... well, let's just say I spent over 5 hours sitting at the flooring desk.  I set up 2 customers to have their floors measured, one for carpet the other for viny, as well as a blind installation.  I was busy in the early afternoon, but as the hours wore on everything pretty much came to a boring stop.  The flooring specialist who handed in his two-week notice has decided that he's not going to work those 2 weeks and has been a no call, no show for several days.  Idiot.  He's going to get a 'non rehire' termination.  This is called burning your bridges.

The new wall clock I ordered will be arriving tomorrow.  I will need to zip over to the store later this afternoon to get some stronger mounting screws since this clock weighs more than the old clock.  I will also probably pull out my stud-finder.  While I'm there, I'll be picking up Biggie's refill prescription for Gabapentin.

Speaking of Biggie, I've cut back his dosage of Carprofen to just one tablet per day, half in the morning and half in the evening.  Like us humans moving the aging process, his stiffness is not constant, some days sitting down for him is difficult, other days he has no problem.

Something odd happened yesterday while I was on the treadmill.  I don't know if it was because I was hustling along at swift 3.5 mph, or something caused the problem, but my Garmin recorded me going up 44 sets of stairs and down 67.  Very intersting.

Nancy Pelosi is most likely going to land in Taiwan this evening.  This is pissing off the Xi, who desperately wants to pull a Putin and invade the island.  Surprisingly, a number of Republicans are supportive of her visit, in fact, I do believe she invited several to join her as she thumbs her nose at Xi.

Also impressive was the Biden administration taking out the leader of Al Qaeda.  Even Fox News gave him a thumbs up on that one.

And people are waiting to find out what Sinema says of the Schumer / Manchin bill.  I understand that Manchin, himself, is in communication with her.  Now, what do you think he's saying?  Possibly "now is not the time to burn your bridges, Toots?"  She is up for re-election in 2024.  Or maybe something like "you have no idea how much fun there is in kicking Mitch McConnell in his nuts."  We don't know.  I do know that if she crouches down and shit on this bill, she'll be putting herself on the Republican side of a very deep ravine.

Old Nancy

 Well, I'm up early and it's a cool 15 (F) outside.  For you Celsius people, that's -9.44.  When it's this cold, I wait by the door when the dogs go out to do their business, rather than let them wait on the back porch.

And I am up early, the crack of dawn is still a few hours away.  And it isn't because my new chair is arriving today.  Nope.  I'm in the final pages, of the final draft, of The Body in Repose.  In a rather literal way, I'm having a baby without all the mess.  Instead of the birth canal, there is my printer.  Size wise, this one is slightly larger than average, right now a bit over 80,000 words.  And really what I'm waiting for is my readers and editors to give it the once over.  Will it be a yeah, or a nay?  One thing I have noticed is that my two wine drinking protagonists, Eli and Max, tend to imbibe more the closer they get to reaching the denouement.  

In other bits and pieces, I did bake blueberry muffins yesterday, from scratch.  And in case you're wondering, they are tasty as hell.  Believe me, it's all of the brown sugar and butter.

Oh, and I saw that Nancy Pelosi is going to run for re-election.  Now, don't get me wrong, but Nancy is old.  Old Congressmen, like Republicans, rarely compromise.  Old Congressmen are in love with the power their time in office lets them wield.  And, while I like Nancy, she is old.  She needs to step aside and let a little new blood take the reins.  If Nancy really wants to make a difference at her age, she needs to retire to The Villages and raise a lot of havoc with all of the old, conservative Republicans living there.

State of the Union Tingler

Okay, so here it is Tuesday and it's snowing outside.  No one seems to know who much we're going to get.  In the hills of Schuykill County they're saying up to 6 inches.  From what I can tell, I'm in the 1 - 3 inch geographic location.  Don't forget, I was supposed to get abut 6 inches from the last storm and ended up with about 2 inches of heavy slush.
And in the continuing "Drama of the Desk," I have to tell you I got an email from Cymax asking me where I got the information saying the desk would be unpacked.  So, I sent them the link to their page on Amazon...  They also said they have notified their delivery agents that the desk needs to be unpacked.
Okay, and now for some fun.  Nancy sent the Idiot Jerk in the White House an invitation to give his State of the Union speech in the House of Representatives.  He accepted, of course.  He's is not one to shy away from a camera.  Well, we all know he's going to stand there and do what he always does:  lie.  The minute he starts talking the falsehoods will fall from his lips.  I have a very simple solution, though.  He needs to be connected to a lie detector.  You know?  Wired for truth?  Except instead of having a professional stand shaking his head, or even a little buzzer that will sound every time he deviates from honesty, I recommend they wire the seats of the Republicans in the audience.  Every time the Idiot Jerk lies, a jolt of electricity will shoot up into the ass of a loyal party member... on a random basis.  This way none of them will know who's going to get shocked yet.  Think of it as the political version of "The Tingler."  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here's the trailer.

Can I get a voice count of how many would like to see the Republican seats get wired?

Books Are the Order of the Day

Thursday, and I'm the only flooring specialist on the schedule today.  This means if you want to buy anything after 4:30 PM you're going to be dealing with the aisle maintenance people.
How about little old Nancy Pelosi shoving her shiny, little pump up the Idiot Jerk's ass yesterday?  Security, you know?  "Let's hold off on the State of the Union," she said, twisting her sharp, tiny heel to the left.  Kristjen N from Homeland Security fired back saying "no, no, no," without understanding how much she sounded like Mr. Bill.... remember Mr. Bill?

Mike Pence's wife got a job at a phony Christian School where the focus is on Passing Judgement.  I checked, she does have experience teaching art... in elementary school so it's not like this was just a blatant political move to shore up the Crazy Christian base.  But let's be honest here, the only voters Pence can count on when he runs for President are the Crazy Christians.  Funny, isn't it?  This is a group so craven for power, for the ability to Pass Judgement, they don't realize they are sinning themselves straight to hell.  No one said they were smart since they evidently seem to be following the playbook they stole from "Mr. Bill's Almost Devout" book on Theology.

I was talking to Cori yesterday about the artwork for the next book.  She did the cover for "The Body on the Lawn."  To be honest, she wasn't that impressed about that one, though everybody seemed to like it.  She said "It's just some woman standing in front of a Cadillac."  "Oh," she said, I get to play around with a little more joie de mort."  I had printed off a number of pictures and given them to her, like this one:

It's actually not as large as it seems in the pictures.  The first time I stood in front of it I had to pause because I thought it was going to be gigantic.  It isn't.  And in spite of the low hum of voices, I have to say the mood around the display is very quite, people feel muted in the presence of something so great.  Quiet rules constantly... except for that afternoon during the Tour de France when something... unpleasant... took place on the staircase leading down from Winged Victory.

Rate This

Well, it's Thursday and I get to go back to work for a day... and then I'm off a day.  Back for 2 and then off for 2.  I don't mind a schedule like this.  In three weeks I am schedule for 40 hours, but so far it's been split up and there's nothing wrong with that.
Late last night, around 0100, Big Seig woke me up by barking.  He was downstairs by the back door.  He needed to go potty.  Some people might find this irritating, not me.  He's a big dog.  I would rather have to get up and let him out than find a puddle or a pile waiting for me in the morning.  He got 2 biscuits.  He loves his biscuits.
Nobody I know watched the Idiot Jerk in the White House the other night.  Being the curious type, I decided to check the ratings to see how well he did with the American public.  Between 40 and 41 million people watched his address.  Fox News, that cable network dedicated to white Republicans had the highest ratings - 8.2 million.  Of course, if you look at the total ratings for CNN and MSNBC the Fox rating is the low number on the ladder.  CBS had the highest ratings for a network channel because a lot of people turned in to watch NCIS and got the Idiot Jerk instead.  The funny thing, and what everybody is talking about, is that the Democratic response got higher ratings.  That's right, more American voters tuned in to watch Chuck and Nancy.  Over 29% of Americans were more interested in the Democratic response.  What makes this even more spectacular is that immediately after his speech, those 8.2 million white Republicans who had tuned into Fox News didn't stick around.  Nope, they chose to turn off Chuck and Nancy.  All they want is the swill the Idiot Jerk feeds them.  This means the 29% who watched the rebuttal does not include those Fox viewers who changed channels.  Oh, dear me, this does not bode well for the Republicans especially when rumor has it this was really supposed to be his 2020 campaign kick-off.  Oh... shit!  My money says he slammed his hands down and stormed out of that meeting yesterday, not because Nancy said"no," more likely it was because a little bug in his ear told him the Democrats had hit a field goal in the ratings game.  Like all Republicans, instead of learning a lesson and moving on, the Idiot Jerk is going to kick this dead horse until it's no longer recognizable.
The desk I'm getting has a small display / bookcase on the visitor side.  I've been thinking of using it to display some of my porcelain.  My colletction is mostly Von Schierholz from Bavaria.  They survived World War I, but the second World War saw them falling into the hands of the Communists.  As a result they went from making fine porcelain to making dinnerware.  Here's is some of my collection. 

All of this was handmade.  I'm thinking maybe the green egg from 1898.

The syringe is loaded.

Someone ate a stick of butter.  It wasn't me.  The empty butter dish was found lying on the kitchen floor... licked clean.  I checked both dogs for butter breath... no luck, only the lingering scent of Gravy Bones biscuits.  Unsolvable?  Most likely.  Neither is about to point the paw at the guilty party.  Good thing I have 2 other sticks in the fridge, otherwise I'd be in a butter free zone.
I did sleep late this morning.  I turned off the 0500 alarm as it started buzzing on the dresser.  There was no need to get up for work.  Sleeping in is good, I told myself.  I'm still in the recovery stage.  A bit about sore throats, bacterial vs viral.  Let's use Strep throat as an example.  With Strep, you are contagious for quite some time after symptoms show up which is why you want to have it treated with antibiotics as soon as possible.  Strep is considered a very contagious bacterial infection.  A viral infection, like what I had, is usually only contagious during the incubation period, they are sneaky that way.  The average person will recover from both Strep throat and a viral sore throat on their own, Strep taking usually 3-5 days.  Within 24 hours after taking an antibiotic the contagion level of a person with Strep drops drastically, to almost zero which is why it needs to be medicated as soon as possible.  The co-worker who shows up with Strep is a volcano of infection, where as someone like me?  I was just a nuisance because of my whining and complaining...
In 4 days the Democrats take control of the House.  From what I've been reading, the Idiot Jerk is totally unprepared.  What's so surprising about that?  Not much.  He's always been more of a wanna be pseudo-business man then anything else.  He points fingers and blames, cites statistics no one can verify.  Democrats are responsible for 2 children dying because they didn't give him what he wants, a wall.  He is a fat, ugly man with the maturity level of a twelve year old.  He epitomizes the Republican thought process using his Twitter account to supplicate his base.  The Idiot Jerk doesn't understand that Pelosi is going to say "we are not going to give you what you want just to satisfy the 31% of Americans who kiss you ass."  Well, she may not exactly use those words.  However, that is what he's doing, giving a minority group of racists what they want.  The fact that those swing states which helped him get is electoral victory have swung back to favoring Democrats is beyond his comprehension.  He is a lot like a bacterial infection, contagious until the antibiotic hits.  His brain is way to self-centered to even consider what's going to happen in 4 days.  Prepare yourselves.  Nancy Pelosi is going to be a double shot of penicillin in his ass and his disease will start exploding out of every single orifice.  It will be ugly.
 

My Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and things started moving
The meds in my throat are now really quite soothing
The snake with twelve squeakers is waiting in silence
With the red rubber chicken, they're timing their entrance,
And Biggie and Lily will have such a day
With a new duck and rooster, they'll pull and they'll play
And I will be reading and watching the tube
As the Idiot Jerk becomes more of a boob
Oh wait, that's the wrong word, cause boobs can be nice
I should ask for Coulter's or Limbaugh's advice
Cause they know the hate words that scathe and that burn,
They use them to make the Idiot's brain churn
We all need a wall, they scream and they shout
What are you?  a fuckhead?  How can you have doubts?
"I'll shut down the government," he shouts out with glee
"This shutdown is mine as you sucker's can see!"
And Nancy and Chuck just sit there and smile
For just like in scrabble the proof's in the tiles
They're spelling impeachment, oh yes, that word fits
While Mueller's indictments give the Idiot Jerk shits
Our future looks brighter with each passing day
And like Biggie and Lily, we'll soon get to play.

Camp Paradise

Camp Paradise is back.  That's the Chaturbate site with the naked, blond Russian chicks who for some reason find my blog interesting.  I should thank them for being loyal readers, so here goes  "Hi!  Naked, Blond Russian Chicks crawling across the bed!  I'm glad you like my blog!"
Do you think the exclamation marks were too much?
And here's some breaking new!  Kathie Lee is leaving what ever the hell that morning shit show is she hosts.  It's a rather sad day in America when that headline gets as much attention as the "Chuck and Nancy Show," which premiered yesterday.  I didn't catch the entire episode, just a small clip where the Idiot Jerk kept repeating "Chuck, I need 10 votes.  You got to guarantee me 10 votes."  Of course Nancy kept interrupting with "We start with the White House."  She did that on purpose, you know, patiently goading the Idiot Jerk over and over again.  I'm sure his supporters must have been freaking out.  How could she treat this moral degenerate in such a way!  Didn't she know he was sent by Satan God?
And, of course, there were the private comments in which words like 'skunk' and 'tinkle' were bandied about.  How infuriating that must be for the Idiot Jerk, knowing men... and women (especially women) are laughing at him.  My money says he regretted skipping his daily session of Camp Paradise in order for him to guest on the "Chuck and Nancy show."

"See Chuck.  See Chuck smile.  Smile Chuck, smile."  Did you notice how Pence just sat there while Schumer sat there and smiled, not nodding, barely turning his head from side to side, like a statue?  Doesn't he remind of Norman Bates in the last scene of Psycho?  I didn't blow up the picture to check, but can anybody tell me if there's a fly on his nose.  Or maybe he too is thinking Camp Paradise would have been the better option.

Nancy... Let it go

Tuesday... I think.  Yesterday the store was so slow.  Black Friday cometh.  Customers are waiting for special deals... surprise, they're already here.  Appliances aren't going to get any cheaper.  We're not Walmart, or Target.  What you see is what you get.  Oh, sure, they're filling the aisles up with all sorts of... junk.  This is the time of year we sell Keurigs, and toasters, and irons.  Friday morning there are going to be big fluffy teddy bears, and rocking horses...  yeah, pink and blue rocking horses for all those conservatives who only want to use two colors to define gender.  And people will buy this stuff for presents.  For those who don't know, the new definition of 'present' is:  something you will use a few times before it either breaks or you realize you will never use it again... ever.
Biggie is not too happy with the diet thing.  Ah, well, this is how it goes.
And what about that Goshn guy from Nissan?  Arrested for failing to report 44.(some number) in income.  What the hell is it with these rich people?  We're not talking about a couple of bucks here.  My money says he read "The Art of the Deal," at some point and thought corruption was a good idea.
Then there's Nancy Pelosi, a 78 year old woman in a bit of a power struggle to be Speaker of the House.  Remember when she said "This is just going to be a transitional position for me."  Well, that was horse shit.  Power, you know?  The most corrupting force in the Universe.  Nancy needs to let go.  Older is not so much wiser as it is unyielding.  She has lost the flexibility to unite a younger more diverse base.  Nancy needs to just "Let it Go."  There's a new princess waiting in the wings.