Merli

The outside time was 40 (F)  when I got up this morning.  Supposedly we're going to warm up into the low 70s (F) today.  That may happen.  They're calling for possible showers this evening, and then the cold front finally arrives.  While none of our predicted cold temps are down in the 30s (F), if things play out the way they're predicting, night time lows in the 40s (F) will now be standard.  So, a month after its official start, Autumn has finally arrived.

I worked yesterday.  Mondays are usually fairly busy because most of our contractors come in and make their purchases for the week.  This means most departments hit their Monday forecast.  Flooring was no exception.  I got 2 measures, one for carpet and one for vinyl planks.  The customer having the vinyl planks installed said she was hoping the install would be completed by Thanksgiving.  It will probably be done by then, but I did caution her to no rule out the possibility of delays. 

Today's going to be laundry day and bread day.  Oh, and a bike ride is scheduled for this afternoon.  While I was at work yesterday, cousin stopped in.  He's four years younger than me, but looks 4 years older.  He was surprised when I told him how much I work out.  This is why I can pass for someone younger.  To be honest, I do enjoy the reactions I get from people when I tell them how old I am.

I've been watching Merli Sapere Aude on Netflix, with English subtitles, of course.  Even though it's 4 years old, it's still quite timely.  Interestingly enough, I can still understand some of what they're saying and that after over half a century since my last Spanish class.  Perhaps it's time for a refresher.

And a day doesn't seem to pass without a new atrocity from Orangie's administration.  It is constant, and seems to be never ending.  And each day I'm surprised at just how far out of touch with the American people these desperate conservatives are; they are delusional.  Take the partial destruction of the East Wing of the White House so Orangie can build a ballroom/convention center.  The only ones who want this addition to the White House is the party of selfishness and greed, they are also the only ones happy to see the destruction of American History in order to make a buck, and it really is all about the bucks.  Honestly, the party in power does not understand that they are the Titanic sailing in iceberg filled waters, and instead of having lookouts on the mast, they're all down in the lobby playing Duck, Duck, Goose.

Stating Facts

 There is the possibility we might have rain today.  The sky is overcast and the temps are supposed to climb all the way up to 80 (F).  Yesterday, our thermometers hit the upper 80s (F) and you would have thought we were in a screaming heat wave the way people were reacting.  Crimany!  You'd think they were going to start melting the second they hit the parking lot.  My Central Air did kick on a bit, but only for a few minutes.  

I did have an elderly woman with serious arthritis as a customer yesterday.  She was going to live with her son and was having new carpeting put into her bedroom.   She was paying for her room and he was paying for the rest of the house.  This is going to be a bit of a complicated installation since they both want their carpet installed on the same day.  I felt bad for her.  She was fine once she was sitting in the chair, but I had to lift her up into a standing position after she'd chosen her carpet.  That was a first for me, getting up close and personal with a stranger.

And, if any of you are wondering what I do when the days are slow and boring, besides wandering the store and getting thousands of steps in, I work on the next book.  I take notes.  Sometimes they're random points that I feel are going to need to fill in gaps, and sometimes it's who sections of chapters.  This is what I did yesterday.

I guess most of you have heard that a small, submersible (read minisub) has disappeared while taking wealthy tourists down to see the Titanic.  One of the was billionaire Hadish HamishHis stepson sent out his "Thoughts and Prayers," which surprised me, since I only thought Republicans did that when there was a school shooting.

And for those keeping score.  I was banned from Twitter for making a comment that went against their rules.  And what was it that I said that was so terrible.  Well, it was in regard to Marjorie Taylor Green.  A few day ago, after she spit one of her standard lies, I typed:  "Some day someone's going to punch her in the mouth."  That comment broke Twitter's rules and, of course, I chose not to retract it because in my mind I was merely stating a fact.  She has Tweeted far worse things than that, but than she's on Elon's friend list.

South of the Border

Well, the boarder is down, and what a challenge it was.  My house was built in 1905 and back then ceilings were high.  That's right, I have 10' ceilings on the first floor (ground floor for some of you) and the only way to strip off the border was to straddle a 4' ladder, steamer plate in one hand, plastic scrapper in the other.  And that was after I moved all of the furniture to the center of the room.  Once I got the rhythm going it was like peeling a banana, except for the south wall.  The west, north, and east walls were easy, but that south wall was a bitch.  Way back when, that was the first wall to be bordered, enthusiasm was high and the pre-pasted paper was allowed to soak longer in the water before being applied.  This meant a longer drying time, thus giving the paste a longer period to soak into the plaster wall.  Where the rest came off in strips, on the south wall it was steam, scrap, and then steam, scrap.

In the picture above you can see the pastel peach color the walls were originally, and what 17 years of time did to that color.  You can also see a bit of the border which I really, really did like at the time.  You can also see a bit of the rag-rolled ceiling which a friend and I put up while working out way through a case of beer, pausing occasionally to watch "Titanic" which I had playing on the TV.  The whole room is changing.  It's about time.

Trump: Aiming for icebergs

Where as Captain Edward John Smith tried to avoid sailing the RMS Titanic into an iceberg,  Donald Trump seems to be aiming directly towards as many as he can, playing tag with them in the freezing water of politics.  Because the GOP has spent decades fermenting this hatred of anything and anyone who doesn't bow down to them, they seem to have ceded the Captainship of their party to this lunatic, and he is steering them towards icebergs.  This was apparent yesterday when that horse's ass made personal, derogatory comments about Hilary Clinton.  And, while his Trumplodites are cheering themselves into a frenzy, a majority of American women are asking "what the hell is up with this asshole?"
In fact, more and more, he seems to be making the American voters cringe... except for his Trumplodites, because the Republican party has groomed them for this embarrassing political behavior.  Actually, embarrassment is what half of registered American voters feel about Donald Trump.  That's not the way you win elections, it's the way you lose by a landslide.  This is how you sink a political party.

The fact that the Republican base, many of whom are Trumplodites, is out of control is their own fault.  Instead of offering positive politics, and positive solutions, all they've done is foster hate:  Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi... They failed to realize that at this point in time no one really gives a shit.  They thought they were heading into warmer waters and all they were really doing was heading straight into an iceberg field.  And Donald Trump now seems to be at the wheel, and while the lookouts are shouting warnings his ego is smiling as he orders "full speed ahead."

Oscar Nominations: beating the hell out of snub

So, the Oscar nominations came out yesterday and once again there are a slew of complaints of potential nominees being either overlooked or snubbed.  I always have to laugh at these since most of the whiners simply have problem dealing with the number issues.  There are only so many votes to go around.  Just because your favorite doesn't get enough votes to receive a nomination doesn't mean he was snubbed.  To snub someone to to purposefully stop that person in his tracks because you don't like that person.  By any other name, snubbing is just being rude, or possibly hateful, or maybe viciously angry.  "Lincoln" received twelve nominations, had it only received eleven, with no nod to Spielberg, that would have to be considered a snub.  People need to understand the Academy nominates ten films but only five directors so that means five directors are going to get the shitty end of the stick.  Are they being snubbed?  Hell no, they just got less votes then the five who were nominated.  The truth is people don't want to be considered losers so rather then admit to that they take a bat and beat the hell out of the 'snub.'

One of the biggest and loudest whiners of all time was Leonardo Di Caprio when he failed to get a nomination for "Titanic."  His problem was he believed his own press, that all those millions of people going to see the film did so because of the love story.  This is pure horse shit.  The world loves disasters and Hollywood understands this quite well; they've been making mega bucks off of them for years.  I went to see "Titanic" with a date and I can tell you, walking out of the theater afterwards, we were not having a heart to heart conversation about the love story.  Hell no, we were talking about how neat it was to watch that ship sink.  Of course no one would ever want to admit that, so the love story became the hook.  Watch the movie again and you'll realize how wooden Di Caprio's performance really is.  He didn't get a nomination because the real star of the movie was the Titanic itself, not him.

Clint Eastwood complained that he'd been hobbited by Peter Jackson's win for "Return of the King."  Only a man who talks to chairs would have failed to realize Jackson got the Oscar for directing a 17 hour (if you count the extended version) magnum opus.  Still, for Eastwood it was a snub.  

Last year Meryl Streep won Best Actress and a lot of "people" thought Viola Davis had been snubbed. This is horse shit, too.  These "people" evidently don't know their Oscar History.  Any actor who gives a good performance playing a real person, whether living or dead, is an odds on favorite to have their name called on Oscar Night.  So, if you're an nominated actor up against a Margaret Thatcher or a Truman Capote you might as well go and enjoy the evening for what it is and remember, you're not being snubbed.

My predictions for Oscar night?  Lincoln will get eight, Les Miz will get three and The Avengers will win what ever it's nominated for because it made so much money.

Is the Republican Party dead in the water?

I pretty much think so.  Do a search on "racial tweets?"  Holy crap!  I was stunned when I saw much hate there is in the Republican Party, it's like a cancer in their bones.  Now you have some 34,000 in Texas wanting to secede from the United States.  You do know these are the same people who, back when Bush wanted to go to Iraq, damned every one who disagreed as unpatriotic.  When Obama was elected for his first term, instead of taking a step back and analyzing what had gone wrong and what they needed to do to put themselves on an even keel, the Republicans moved farther to the right.  They just don't seem to understand the electorate moves right down the center line, swaying a little to the right but then back again to the left, but just a little bit.  The electorate knows if they go too far to either left or right this ship is going to capsize.  The Republicans don't understand this at all.

I was going to use a picture of the Titanic but too many people lost their lives with that one, the Yorktown is better, it was dead in the water but survived.  Actually, I believe the Republican Party needs to decided if they're going to be on the Titanic and sink or on the Yorktown and float.  If they're going to float they're going to need to something about the racism.  The only way they're going to win another presidential election is by incorporating blacks or / and Latinos and the racists, well, they'll probably have to find another party.  The GOP might split into two  parts, or three parts: social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and the Tea Party.  In order for the Republicans to put another man in the white house I suspect one of those three groups is going to get the shaft.  I'm betting it's the Social Conservatives.