Court Time

 Thursday... and I have to work.  There's a 40% chance of rain and we are, for all intents and purposes, mid-week, so I'm expecting our customer count to be really low.  Traditionally, this is also vacation season.  Families are supposed to be spending time together at the shore, or in the mountains, most of them wasting their hard earned dollars on things that are touristy in nature.

The angelfish that was sick, died yesterday, so now I'm down to two.  He lived a long times (3 years), and got to be quite large, 5.5 inches from the tip of his top fin to the tip of his bottom fin.  I'd say he probably had a fairly good life as far as fish go; they don't remember much.  By now, all the other fish in the tank have forgotten him.

Lily, too, is getting old.  She sleeps a lot. She'll be 10 years old in 2 weeks.  My aim is to spoil her for the rest of her years.  

After all of the hoopla of having The Body Under Ice getting turned into an audiobook, the bold email about it being available for distribution, I can't find it anywhere.  I've emailed Findaway Books since this is not what they advertised.  Their response was to start an internal inquiry.  If I don't hear back from them soon, I'll see if I can make it available on Audible.

And, of course, this is going to be a very popular place this afternoon.

Donnie J Trumpbag will be making an appearance here this afternoon.  He'll be getting fingerprinted and a mug shot will be taken.  He's desperately going to try and get a copy of that picture for his adorning fans.  In case you haven't noticed, his messaging has begun to change, he's now saying telling his cult that he's being persecuted for them.  His cultists love this shit.  They will send him more money which he will used for his defense fund.  He will use them to full extent of their stupidity.

And Mikey, I'm a rather spineless individual, Pence spoke out yesterday against Trump... for the first time.  A lot of people were commenting about that on social media, as if he'd actually grown a set of cojones.  Is this going to help him in his run for Republican nomination?  Not one bit.  He's spent 4 years kissing Trump's ass and then after Jan 6 demurely rejected any form of mild criticism.  Did this dunce truly believe Trump was going to let him ever be president?  Still, we need to remember that ever attack on Trump by a Republican, no matter how small the arrow, is still damaging.  The hard core cult will remain, but others will slowly peel themselves away.  Does this mean they're going to vote for Biden?  Nope, they're going to sit on their vote this elections cycle.

We've Been Waiting A Long Time For This

 Weather was nice yesterday.  Temps were what I consider mild, low 80's (F).  My Central Air rarely runs.  I checked my electric bill and my monthly charges are less than my monthly budget, and summer is the time when I use the most electricity because of the Central Air, so this is a bit of a win / win situation.

I got a lot accomplished yesterday:  dumbbell workout and a 14 mile ride in San Remo.

One of my big angelfish is very sick.  I put him in a smaller tank so the rest of the fish wouldn't pick at him.  Now, he's in a corner of the tank... and he's upside down.  This is not good.

The owner of the house next door took me for a tour yesterday.  I praised what his crews had done, which was difficult for me because I hate to lie.  The workmanship is sloppy, except for the tile in the kitchen, which is nice.  Except for the white trim, everything is in shades of gray.  He asked me what I'd ask for it, so I gave him a low number $165,000, mostly because I know that the 40 + year old roof is still going to need to be replaced, and it only has a partial basement.  He told me he was going to ask $190,000.  There's a good possibility he'll get what he wants.  

Here's another pic of my roses.

And, of course, late yesterday afternoon the sun came out and filled so many American hearts with glowing justice.  I was in the kitchen when the first notification The Guardian came through on my watch, and then another notification, and the vibrations continued, the NYT, the Washington Post, the BBC, Le Monde, Al Jazeera; notifications from newsgroups I wasn't even subscribed to:  Donald Trump had just been indicted for January 6.  So many of us have been waiting for such a very long time for this.  

On an even brighter note, there are 6 more indictments to come.  Many think one of those 6 will Rudy Giuliani, however, if his attorneys are to be believed, he didn't receive a target letter.  That would lead to the inference that he flipped and worked out some sort of plea deal.  

Jack Smith promised a speedy trial, normally that means within 70 days.  The judge assigned is an Obama appointee who has little patience for the nonsense Trump's legal team will try to foist on her. I'm hoping hearings will start in late November, early December.  

I don't know about you, but, as I told a friend last evening, I'm enjoying the Hell out of this.  Judgement is coming not only for Trump, but for the Republican party as well.

Hailey's Running

 Tuesday, my day off, and I'm going to enjoy it.

I'm scheduled to work over 25 hours this week.  (Bit of a heavy sigh).  I do enjoy the days that I don't go into work.  However, I also don't mind going in and sitting at the flooring desk for a couple of hours a week.  Full time is considered 30 hours a week or more and 25 + is too close to that, if you know what I mean.

I've talked before about how the big orange retailer I work for gives bonuses out to employees through what they call Success Sharing.  Those checks are dependent upon how closely each store's sales come to either hitting their forecast, or at least coming close.  As far as I know, they're still doing Success Sharing this year, though checks are going to be minimal.  This is because corporate built a forecast last year based on three years of pandemic sales.  Ouch.  Prior to Covid, we never hit $1 million a week in sales.  During Covid that changed.  Sales went though the roof.  Over the past year they have dropped off drastically, to pre-Covid figures.  In order to compensate the stockholder's greed, they raised prices.  That didn't help. Only 3 stores out of 27 came close to hitting their forecast.  For 2023 the forecast has been lowered to a more realistic figure, however that is not going to fix the sales for 2022, which means our Success Sharing checks are going to be as dismal as the sales they were based upon.

My angelfish laid eggs again.  This is the third time and they did what they did the previous two times.  Ate them.  They are not known to be good parents.  Here's a blurry picture I took of them last evening, before the feasting started.

And, Nikki Hailey announced her candidacy for President this morning. This is how the Republican blood bath begins.  This is going to get nasty.  His MAGA base is going to bluntly tell America what they really think about women, that they need to leave politics to the men.  I'm wondering how long it will be before Trump calls her a two-bit whore, or something similar.  I wonder how she's going to deal with the fact that many MAGA brains will say she slept her way into that position.

Word has also come out that those UFO's we've been shooting down are far less sophisticated than the Chinese balloon which started this mess.  Oh, and they were smaller.  Normally, the Republicans would make hay out of this, however, with Nikki's announcement they'll be focusing on their civil war instead.

Voting by Mail

 Hello to Friday.  This is my almost Hump Day, since I only work 4 days this week.  Monday begins another 3 days off, which I will enjoy.  I will be hanging a tapestry, and cleaning the aquarium.

Speaking of my aquarium, the angelfish laid another clutch (I think that's what it's called) of eggs.  This time they were on the heater.  They hovered over them for a few days, and then they were gone, all of them.  Food no doubt.  They're fish.  Everything is instinctual.

I'm still waiting for the phone call letting me know about my cortisone shot.  I hope it happens soon.  Though I do have to admit things are slowly improving, the same way they did 6 years ago, though back then I walked with a cane.  Where I was waking up every 2 hours to sit against heating pad for 45 minutes, I'm now either sleeping through the entire night or getting up once for a twenty minute heat therapy session.

Last night I woke up around midnight, and though I probably didn't need it, enjoyed a session while I sat at the computer filling out my ballot for November's election.  One thing I find tremendous about voting by mail is the fact that I can research the candidates on my computer.  Too often when you step into the voting booth, you look at all of the names and say to yourself "who the hell are all these people."  When you have 4 Democrats running for 1 position, you want to make sure you chose the most qualified, right?  I wouldn't be surprised if this was another major reason Republicans hate mail-in voting; you can research the candidates and make an educated decision, rather than chose the most attractive candidate, or the one who's name sounds familiar.

For example, this year one of the candidates for a judgeship was endorsed by some 'right to life' group.  This judge, a woman, did not get my vote.

Here's a catchy little tune from The Wombats.  Could these lyrics show up in my next book?

Speaking of books, I'm moving on to Chapter 23 of The Body in Repose, which means there are about 11 or 12 more to go, and then there will be a bit of rewrite before I unleash this thing upon my readers.  And, as usual, my mind has already begun moving to the next.  I had wanted to send Eli and Max to Pamplona and bullfights, and toreadors, but then...  this picture jostled into the front of my mind: red woolen gloves, fingertips, ice, blowing snow and snow mobiles on Mackinac Island.  Could all of this be inching me towards The Body Under Ice?

Getting it Right

 Just think, for most of you this is the beginning of your work week.  For me?  This is my Hump Day.

Yesterday was moderately busy in the morning, but slow in the afternoon.  Mother's Day, remember.  One of those holidays blown way out of proportion by Hallmark as a way to increase their revenue.  Not that I'm against having a day to recognize what mother's do, but now every business in the world sees it as a way of making $$$$.  I can remember when a simple card would suffice.  Those days are long gone.

Update on the angelfish eggs.  One is left, the rest have all been... eaten.  They began turning white, which indicates a fungus.  The parent fish are supposed to eat them when this happens to keep the fungus from spreading.  Mine pair didn't.  At least not until about half of them were white.  When I checked the tank this morning, there was a sole egg hanging on the side of the tank.  Of course, I've been educating myself on breeding angelfish and one sentence gets repeated over and over again:  it may take them several attempts to get the process right.  Just like people, except, from my working in retail I can tell you that some never get it right.

Playing Assassin's Creed, Valhalla, I was surprised at the depiction of so many Roman ruins left in the UK circa 875 AD.  For some reason, I had always thought there were nothing but wood structures and forts.  I was wrong.  They have uncovered the remains of Roman baths in York.  London, itself, was large enough to have a colosseum made of brick and stone that could seat 6,000.  This was not some tiny out of the way colony.  Here's some more info at Historic UK.

Remains of the London Colosseum

I saw this on NBC news yesterday, Larry Hogan, on Meet the Press, has said the GOP has turned into a circular firing squad.  Funny, eh?  This is because over the years, the Republicans have been constantly backing themselves into a tighter and tighter corner.  They celebrated Loser #45, without knowing he is nothing more than the shrieking voice of the minority.  Their numbers decrease.  They are aiming at every one who doesn't kiss his ass.  Oh, well.

And, finally, Scotland seems to be once again moving towards independence from the UK.  Good for them!

Eggs, and other things

So, they drew my blood yesterday morning.  Only 4 vials.  I guess their wonderment is over, or else my new Dr. didn't feel the need.  Oh, and I didn't have to pee in a little plastic cup.  Crap, and purposely drank 4 cups of black coffee to insure they knew it was 'ground' not instant.

And the weather was fairly nice through out the early morning hours, so my veggies got planted.  I also took a few pictures.  They'll be forthcoming.  Something else took precedence.  Something that momentarily put the brakes on everything.  A 'son of a bitch' moment that sent me upstairs looking for answers on my computer.  And just what was that moment.  This:

My angelfish laid eggs across the back wall of the tank.  Now, if I wanted to I could run out and buy a separate tank, and filter, and heater, and use a turkey baster to move them to the new tank.  If I did that many would survive.  Or, I could let nature run its course.  Most of the fry would become food for the other fish and may 2 or 3 might survive.  I'm opting for the nature route mostly because now that I know I have a breeding pair, I can expect this same thing to occur every 3 - 4 weeks.  That's a lot of baby angelfish.  I will stop by PetSmart after I leave work and pick up some sort of 'fry saver,' to give the babies a fighting chance.

I didn't really pay any attention to what the rabidly raving Republicans were doing yesterday.  Too much other stuff was happening.  I did see Green and Cruz have begun some sort of insanity roadshow.  This is fine.  They will satisfy their every shrinking base.  Come election time the Texas airwaves will be spinning with his adventures in Cancun  during the Great Freeze.  And if that isn't going to be enough, the Texas legislature is working on a little agenda to make the taxpayers pay for fixing a system that killed quite a few of those very same taxpayers over.  And as for Greene?  Everything she says and does is going to bite her in the ass.

Finally, for those of you who don't know, one of my favorite bands of all time, if not the all-time favorite, is Yes.  I had a good time last night watching this classical musician analyzing one of their greatest songs Close to the Edge.  As I said in my comments to him, I've had the pleasure of seeing Yes perform this song 4 times in concert.  Here he is:

And here's a live version from 1972 ( I saw them do this song in San Diego that year).  Oh, and that spangly, gold cape Rick Wakeman wore was about 15 feet long.