Falling Down

 Here in Central PA, our morning has started off fine.  We've got a nice 70 (F) temp for us and sunny skies.  An interesting bit about those sunny skies: I just got a notification that, according to Accuweather, rain is going to be ending soon.  Looking at the skies, I can see that far to the west, near Carlisle, it's very overcast, but here in our little neck of the woods we're all sunshine.

While my transition from Fios to T-Mobile internet had been seamless, yesterday there was a blip.  I had made an appointment to return my router, something they recommend, however when I got to the Verizon store there were 2 people ahead of me who had made no appointments and only one associate was working.  I ended up waiting 40 minutes to process a 3 minute transaction.  That was a bit aggravating.  If they send me an email asking for a review it will be bad.

Today is an anniversary for me.  Ten years ago I had serious back issues.  I was constantly falling down.  L4 an L5 had already fused, and L3 and L4 were in the process of fusing, and my spinal cord was awash in disc jelly. I had to sit on my butt to go open and down the stairs, and when downstairs I relied on a walker that I was crashing on a regular basis.  I was going to have surgery, a laminectomy, but my insurance refused.  So I switched to another specialist who told me to walk, walk, walk.  Ten years ago today was my first day back at work, and though I was using a cane, I was no longer falling down.  For some reason, this is the picture I posted to celebrate that event.

Two funny things:

First, I saw that Orangie's blow bro Vlad said rather tersely that Iran does not have any nuclear weapons. This is because Iran has based their authoritarian government on his and he considers them not only staunch allies, but besties as well.  I don't doubt for a second that this is why Orangie put his 2 week hold on bombing Tehran.  I'd say that Putin is not happy with his puppet.  I would have thought he'd have realized a long time ago that for Orangie ego is far more important than anything else in the world.  I suspect Benny Netanyahu is learning this as I type.

Secondly, and this is a real hoot, I saw that Pakistan has nominated Orangie for the Peace Prize.  Remember that for him everything is transactional so they have to believe he's going to be giving them something in return, like maybe lowering their tariffs.  I'm sure most countries in the world are wondering the same thing.  Sadly for them, he's a liar and a cheat, and no matter what he promised, it will not take effect until after that prize is in his dirty little hands, which will never happen.

Retail

 Well it's Sunday morning, the temp is in the mid 50s (F), and the day is predicted to be nice.  I have a 7 hour shift today, so I'm really too concerned about the weather.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a repeat of today and I only work the late afternoon shift, so I plan to get out my weed wacker.  Tuesday?  My first day off?  Rain is in the forecast.

The store did gangbusters in sails this last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but then sales began slacking off.  I suspect we made plan yesterday because of garden.  This past Wednesday in flooring?  Wow!  Sales were through the roof.  Over $31,000, however only about $6000 was in installations.  A large majority of that was in walk-in sales.  Customers were walking in and buying pallets of vinyl plank flooring.  This was so massively unusual, we flooring specialists put our collective heads together and decided this was the result of the tariffs beginning to show up.  Prices are going to go up, and while they might come down a little once this tariff tax is over, they're never going to come back down to where they are now.

The neighbors were loud again last evening, but only from 10:30 until 11:00, then the music was turned off.  Their kid is home from college, and I guess that Dad goes to bed at 11:00, and there's no consideration for the neighbor. They don't seem to understand I can be just as loud as they are.  This is how it goes.

And my purply bush is blooming again.

Orangie's blow bro Vlad gave a speech last evening, made everybody wait and hour, and then was pretty sour.   I suspect old Vlad is bigly mad.  Europe is uniting in way he never considered.  They talking massive sanctions, which is not what Vlad wants.  He thought his blow bro Orangie would save the day except it turns out Orangie has fumble fingers in his brain.  He ain't got no respect.  Orangie's approval rating is in the toilet, not only in America, but around the world.  Our allies of old ignore his buffoonery.  Sadly, the main stream media, desperate for access to his mental decline, is soft pedaling his dementia.  They're actually lying for him.  Here's an example:  The Washington Post had a headline this morning saying that Orangie's brokered peace deal between India and Pakistan was falling apart.  The funny thing about that peace deal was that both India and Pakistan said the Orangie was not involved, that they had negotiated among themselves.  And now that their peace deal is falling apart, Orangie looks bad because he tried to take credit for it.  Boo Hoo.