Primary This

Today is supposed to be nice.  Humidity is supposed to be low.  Temps should only climb into the low 80s (F), and forecasters are calling plenty of sunshine.   Tomorrow's supposed to be, probably, not so nice.  For those who are paying attention to such things, we have only a little over a month left of summer.  Then it will be onto autumn.  We here in Central PA know that the first few weeks of autumn can be just as bad as the dog days of late July.

Yesterday was a meh Tuesday.  I did get a nice bicycle ride in along a canal in France.  Very nice scenery.  But other than that nothing really happened.  No yard cleanup was done because we had a lot of rain on Sunday night and all those branches and limbs still waiting to be cut and chipped needed to dry off.  

I did talk to my dentists office about the insurance not covering the upcoming procedure and was told not to worry, I have no more out-of-pocket charges coming up.  I don't understand how this all works, because in America dental and health care are so terribly complicated.  Your dentist will charge you $500 for a procedure and bill that amount to the insurance company knowing they're going to have to adjust that cost down.  They do this because the insurance company needs to see a higher charge in order to compensate.  

I started a replay of Balder's Gate 3, not because I enjoyed beating the game.  Nope, I made bad choices, like having 2 wizards on my first play through which doomed any chance of winning the 2nd last Boss fight.  Now I'm a Paladin and I can melee with the best.  Good Stuff.  I'm sure Sixpence would love this game because, if you play your cards right there some hot M/M sex.

So, several states had primaries yesterday.  Mike Lindell lost badly and is refusing to concede because in his mind losing by 54,000 votes can only mean voter fraud, or as he is saying voter anomalies.  Francesca Hong lost a tight race in Wisconsin and unlike Mike Lindell gracefully conceded.  She will work with Crowley to insure Wisconsin gets a Democratic governor.  This is a good thing.  In Connecticut,  Democrats saw a generational shift with Luke Bronin beating long time incumbent John Larson.  

Did I mention that Mike Lindell lost?  Truthfully, that man needs to be institutionalized.

Finally, one of those left onboard the decoy Air Force One was our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.  I wonder what he thinks knowing that the asshole he works for sees him as expendable.  Orangie took several close allies along with him into the catering truck.  No word yet if they celebrated his thinking they were important enough by enjoying a smorgasbord.

At the 2 Paths in the Yellow Wood

Our 3 day heat wave starts today.  Daily highs are predicted to breach the 100 (F) degree mark.  That's toasty.  For those living in the scorch zone, make sure you stay hydrated.  This is not the day to start digging that swimming pool in your backyard.  This means you should limit what you do outside, no matter what your age.  Dehydration can be  a killer.

Yesterday was definitely the meh day of the week.  I could have done much more but I went to my local Giant supermarket in the morning.  One of the unnecessities that I purchased was a frozen Tombstone pizza (supreme) which Howie and I shared.  It was all downhill from then on.  Unfortunately, Howie is always up for a quick snoozer.  All you have to do is say the word nap.  So, that's what I did yesterday.  Ten minutes here.  Ten minutes there.  One would have thought that all of that napping might have ruined getting a good night's sleep, but no.  I got a full 7+ hours of deep sleep with plenty of REM, at least according to my Garmin watch.  Mostly, I'm blaming the chaotic times we're living in.  We are constantly being bombarded that fritters away at our brains, ruining our normal sleep habits until there's nothing left for us to do but nap away the day and sleep away the night.

As I'd said earlier, I've been playing around making little videos to announce The Body in 4/4 Time.  I'm somewhat pleased with this one.  Those who know their Robert Frost will find this familiar.  It's a very good way to talk about a broken heart.

Of course, our failing Supreme Court released the rest of their decisions for this year.  They saved birthright citizenship,   With his 91 paged dissent, Clarence Thomas, black man, proved he has the heart and soul of Ku Klux Klansman.  No matter how much he hates minorities, he, himself, will never be white.  He is a traitor to the constitution.  So is Sammy Alito, a man who is himself a birthright citizen.  The attempt to destroy the 14th amendment is based purely on racism.  Social Media was filled with vile Republicans denouncing this decision, some calling for the sterilization of immigrants.  One said women should not be allowed in this country because they might have a brown baby.  One woman shrieked about Haitians giving birth to over 60,000 babies.  And these people call themselves Christians.  They are a scourge upon this country.

Project Hail Mary

 We are under a freeze warning, though in my neck of the woods the temps stayed above freezing.  There wasn't even a slight glazing of frost on the cars when I woke up this morning.  Today does start a rebound in temps, and soon they will be back in the upper 60s (F) and low 70s (F).  for all intents and purposes, I do believe spring has sprung.

Yesterday was definitely a meh day.  I did do some few things, but mostly I napped.  A small ache at the back of my jaw has turned out to be a minor case of swollen gland and sore throat.  I don't doubt this is why I felt so nappy yesterday.  Not that I'm still not feeling nappy.  Also, you must remember that when you hit a certain age, brief naps can sometimes be essential. 

Because of this nappiness, the cardio I had scheduled for yesterday was moved to Saturday.  Feeling less nappy today, I will probably do that this afternoon since I have to work Saturday afternoon and I like doing my cardio in the afternoon.  I like doing my weight workouts in the morning, so I will have no problem doing the weight thing on Saturday.

And I went to see The Hail Mary Project last evening.  We haven't had a Feel Good movie in soooo long, and it does make you happy.  Ryan Gosling does a spectacular job: he makes you laugh, he makes you cry a bit; he makes you want to be his friend.  He's a science guy who loves being a science guy, not only that, he's an educator.  If he loves anything more than science, he loves teaching.  He has a rapport with hungry, young minds.  We need more teaches like him.  There are also, for those of you who like to look for them, a ton of easter eggs in this movie, including a great tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And I did go to the movie feeling fairly certain that the Orange Anus was going to TACO.  And, at 6:59, sitting in my seat waiting for the movie to start, I got the notification on my watch.  It's TACO Tuesday.  The world knows he's a gutless, sack of shit.  One of the first things I saw when I left the theater was a comment asking how many oil futures were sold 15 minutes before TACO time, because after he caved, oil futures went through the roof, again.  This happens every time he TACOs.  It's called market manipulation.  

And he unconditionally accepted the Iranian plan.  Even Fox Entertainment was critical of that.  He's basically giving the Iranians the bank.  He's trying to spin it as though it's another Big Beautiful Bill.  It's not.  This is not going to help him in the polls, in fact, I don't doubt it will cause his approval rating to drop even farther.  One thing that's important is that once again most of the Republicans in the House and Senate said absolutely nothing.  If they spoke out against this insanity the MAGA cultists would damn them to Hell.  Staying silent is preferable to them.  They already know they've lost a vast majority of Independent voters.  They would rather ride this clown car straight to Hell rather than publicly admit that they were terribly wrong.

Invection Point Dead Ahead

We have 41 (F) degrees outside and drizzles.  Though we haven't hit our high for today, I can tell that temp is right around the corner.  Next we will have the chills, followed by some snow showers as temps begin to drop.  So, what happened to the warming trend that began the week?  My guess is that sucker went south as a cold air mass pushed in from Canada.  This is how winter goes.  The good news is that we're almost 1/3 of the way through the season.  Even better news is that in about 8 weeks we'll be nearly halfway to aphelion.

Yesterday turned into my standard Tuesday.  I had a bike ride scheduled, and that didn't happen.  I was sluggish all day.  This doesn't mean I didn't get anything accomplished.  Nope.  Chores were done.  The problem was that every hour or so, I felt as though I should take a mini-nap.  I think part of the problem was that I started off early, a little after 0515.  Obviously, 5 hours of sleep doesn't work.

I did bake a bacon, Swiss cheese, and mushroom quiche for dinner. Can we talk about tasty?

And I did some writing.  I'm figuring I have about 4 more chapters to go before the first draft is completed.  I'm at that mental moment when I'm telling myself I need to wrap things up in order to begin book number 10.  I do have a working title that's just waiting for a decent story:  The Body in the Words.

I went to see Greenland Migration last night.  I streamed the first one, so I thought I might as well continue the series by buying a ticket for part 2.  I should have waited.  Gerard Butler is fine in the lead, and for the first 40 minutes or so everything is fine, but then they science gets short shrift.  In the first film, the comet that hits earth was supposed to be a planet killer, but many of the buildings in London are still standing, and there are quite a few people who survived the even without being in an underground shelter.  The impact crater is in the south of France, the entire eastern half of the United States is gone, but London still stands.  If you're interested, wait until it's on Netflix.

One thing I didn't do that much of yesterday, was follow the evil antics of Orangie and his minions.  This administration resonates with evil intent.  I can honestly say I never believed there would be a point in my life where I saw such a vile minority group wield such hatred against America.  They despise harmony.  I wonder what went wrong with these people to have such bitter minds.  These billionaires who want to rule the world?  They are not kind people.  In fact, one might wonder if they are indeed some broken mutation, their genetic degradation forged forged in the fires of selfishness and greed.  What's even more amazing is that so many of these people claim to be Christians without understand that with the compassion of Christ they are anything but... Christian.  To be Woke is to have compassion, to have consideration, and these people have none of those attributes.  They do not understand that they have set their sights on an invection point that will begin their own demise.

Howie's Vet Visit

 It did rain again last night.  Every drop helps.  The outside temp is in the upper 40s (F) and is only expected to climb a few degrees higher.  According to the forecast, at least some amount of rain should be falling over the next three days.  I hope they're right.

Yesterday was... sort of fun, sort of meh, sort of maybe I should just take a nap.  This is how most Tuesday's are turning out after I work the weekend and Monday.  It's not that I'm tired, it's just that everything seems to be a chore.  Adding to that is the fact that I didn't sleep that well Monday night.  My Garmin watch, which tracks my sleep indicated that I had slept poorly, and that my body battery hadn't replenished nearly enough, and that it was going to be a ho-hum kind of day.

I got my water bill yesterday.  That little leak I had in the bathroom wasted around 700 gallons.  That will give you an idea as to how bad it was.

Howie did have his first Vet visit yesterday and it went well.  He has a slight entropy on his right eye, that means the eyelashes on his bottom eye are sort of turning in and scratching his eye.  It's not serious.  In fact, his new vet said that it's quite probably the issue will fix itself as he gets older and his head grows   Stat wise, he weighs 30 pounds, or 13.5 kg.  His final weight will be around 80 pounds, or 36 kg.  She recommended that he go from puppy chow to large adult dog food, so a bag has been ordered from Chewy.  Here's a blurry pic from the Vet.

And if you haven't been paying attention, Social Conservatives are furious over Trump's choice to have Kennedy run the Department of Health.  He's pro abortion.  I suppose he feels that he's not going to need anymore Evangelical votes.  And Dr. Oz to handle Medicare and Medicaid?  Seniors prepare to pay more for your health care.  And for those who don't understand, those tax dollars which should be going to benefit Americans, will be used to offset another big tax break for billionaires.

There are joyous things happening if you look for him.  Yesterday the Orange Anus and Elonia were down in Texas to watch one of Elonia's rockets launch and... it exploded.  This is what's called symbolism, or, possibly foreshadowing.  Maybe it's a combination of both.  

Elonia slashed the workforce at Zitter, the dying social media platform, because he needed those dollars to help pay off that $40 billion dollar loan he took out to buy it.  Stupidly, he's going to try and do the same thing with the American economy.  He and Orangie have about the same IQ, a little below average, and that shared stupidity will come back to haunt them.

Tuesday

 We gained an extra hour of sleep this morning, for those of you desperately feeling the need for an extra hour.  It really is just a transitory hour, since we will lose it in the spring.  The temp was 38 (F) when Howie went out for his morning pee.  The day's supposed to be cool, with a high in the low 60s (F).  It will be warming up. No rain is in the forecast.  That's not a good thing.  We're very dry here, and I don't doubt there will soon be daily warnings about starting fires outside.

I bought a child gate yesterday to keep Howie from going upstairs while I was at work because he could up the steps but couldn't come down the stairs.  As I should have expected, no sooner did I have the gate set up, when he climbed the stairs, and then promptly came down... without falling.  No problem.  I can use it to keep his inquiring nose away from so many other places in the house.  For him, everything is a chew toy.  

Yesterday work was slow.  The next two months are going to be chaotic for our closing specialist.  The aisle associate who works that shift, who covers his lunch, and has a lift equipment license to bring down pallets of flooring, is having one of his knees replaced.  There is no temporary associate assigned to replace him.  And, when he does return in about 2 months, kneeling is not going to be much of an option.

And on Tuesday, we will be electing a new president.  Everyone is on edge.  They know about 70 million people have already voted, but they don't know who they've voted for, and so there is so much speculation about gender, and age.  Polls are constantly being adjusted.  Main Stream Media is desperately trying to create a horse race.  And everybody is throwing their opinion around like it actually has some sort of merit.  Well, last evening all our questions were answered.  Here, for you purveyors of polls, is the most accurate one I could find.

And, even though there are hints of positivity regarding the Harris campaign, and they might be true, now is not the time for us to take our foot off the gas.  The last time we did that we ended up with a moral degenerate as president.  And after he lost to Biden, we had to deal with another four years of unadulterated bullshit.  Out job is not to simply win the presidency.  Nope.  Our job is to annihilate the Republican party.  The only way they will learn is to put through the meat grinder of reality.  A slap on their hands will never been enough.  They've been slapped before, and it has never worked.  They need a severe kick to the nuts, and then when they're down they need to be stomped until every little Jim Jordan, and Scott Perry, and Rick Scott are nothing more than smears of the pavement of a bad memory.  Trump needs to be humiliated so badly he becomes not only an embarrassment to the GOP, he needs to become the laughing stock of the world.  His Karma approaches.

Laughable

 So, here it is Tuesday, though I thought it was Wednesday until I looked at my work calendar on the refrigerator.  This week is out of sync because I didn't work Monday, so in my mind Sunday would have been my Monday.  It seems as though it's not the days of the week I remember as much as the days days that I either work or don't work.

There's a steady breeze shaking the branches of the river birch outside my window, and you'd think the leaves would be ripping themselves off since we've had some cold mornings, but nope.  Temps are predicted to climb up into the mid to upper 50s (F) again today.  While our overnight temps can drop down into the low 30s (F), our daily highs are always in the mid 50s (F).  This is a nice autumn.

The cabinet doors got their first coat of paint yesterday.  One more before they get hung, and then a 3rd around the top and on the front just to add a bit of toughness.  Remember, paint is a finish and needs to be treated like one.  The more coats, the more durable it is.  That's a problem with those "one coat" paints people use because they're too lazy to do 2 coats.  One coat is easier to scratch off.  

Nestled in among the leaves, here's another rose from my garden.

And yesterday something laughable happened; the Supreme Court decided they were going to follow a code of ethics followed by lower courts.  While many applauded this, there is one tiny little fly in the ointment:  they're going to police themselves.  We know how well that's gone so far, what with Clarence Thomas accepting every bribe tax free donation and grift gift his Sugar Daddy teases him with, only a fool would think he's going to stop or even try to change.  I'm not alone in thinking that this Band-Aid is going to be ripped off the first time Clarence gets an offer. 

It's also rather laughable that the news media is attempting to make something newsworthy about Halley and DeSantis are probably going to be the last 2 candidates standing, other than the Spawn of Satan, Donald Trump.  I really do with they'd begin putting Democracy first, rather than clicks on the internet.  I also find it laughable that they're treating the Orange Anus as a legitimate candidate.  You'd think they'd realize that by doing so enables his cult.

Mediterranean

 Well, it's Tuesday and finally I'm back to my old schedule of 4 sequential days off.  Now I can finally get back into my normal routines.  

Outside the temps are a cool 35 (F), though they're expected to climb up into the low 70s (F).  There was frost on the car windows but none on the grass, so does anybody know if that's considered the "first frost?"  I don't think so.  If it is, then we will get an Indian Summer this week with the temps expected to climb up into the high 70s (F), possibly even reaching into the low 80s (F).  That'll be nice.

The dishwasher Jon and I carried out to my driveway?  Well, I pushed it out the the curb when I got home from work since it's garbage day and, quite magically, it disappeared overnight.

I signed up for the Mediterranean diet on line basically because I was hoping to grow my list of recipes.  While I wouldn't say it's completely bogus and therefore a waste of $$$, I will admit that it's geared more towards selling you supplements like alfalfa sprouts and beauty collogen than anything else.  I already take a collogen supplement, and I can tell you, theirs is much more expensive.   The recipes are okay.  I was hoping for more actual Mediterranean (Italian and Greek) dishes and that didn't happen.  It seems as though whomever put it together thought that the only thing needed to make it Mediterranean was to add olive oil.  As a result, I'll be cancelling it shortly.  This spicy shrimp and rice dish I threw together is more Mediterranean then what they're offering.

The Republicans came back yesterday and are, I suppose, going to vote sometime today on the 9 8 candidates vying for Speakership.  Will one of them get elected?   Hhhmmm, probably not.  There are too many factions fighting for control of the party.  One interesting thing that I did see was that whomever they finally choose will need to have the blessing of the Orange Anus.  I keep wondering, how can they be so delusional.  He lost the popular vote, and that's before he staged an insurrection, before there were 91 indictments against him, before his cracker jack team of attorneys started flipping for the prosecution.  He is Obi Wan and will never, ever be their only hope.

Prime Time

 Tuesday morning and I slept in because when the alarm woke me up, I turned it off, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  What did finally rouse me into full wakefulness was the thought that I was going to be late for work.  That and the dogs pawing at me to let me know they had to go 'potty outside.'  The thought of being late for work was something I could ignore, the 'potty outside' could not.

Outside, the sky is overcast.  We have a 60% chance of rain today.  We had a lot of rain last summer, this year we may see a repeat.  Even so, I still need to water the veggies and the flowers, which happens daily.  I might swing over to the store this morning and pick up a few more herbs.  I already have rosemary, which is actually a shrub, but I want to get some coriander (which, for those of you who don't know, is also chamomile).

I snapped this picture of Lily yesterday, isn't she the perfect little lady?  You can see a fragment of one of her bones tucked safely into the little bookcase.  Now you have to admit, she is so ready for prime time.

For those who didn't hear, and this news shouldn't be surprising at all, Fox News is not going to be airing the January 6 prime time hearings.  I do believe I might have mentioned earlier that they were never going to participate directly; that would be like waving their shitty underwear in public.  I didn't see if OneNews is going to carry the hearings or not.  For those who haven't heard, MAGAs are switching to OneNews because... well, their lord and savior, Donald Trump, no longer likes Fox.  Many Americans now realize that Fox News has turned into the National Enquirer of cable news networks.  This should have been expected.  Rupert Murdoch and his spawn will always fall back on that open thing that made them rich:  tabloid news.