Raw Milk

 We had rain overnight.  It was good, especially since there was only supposed to be a 60% chance of rain yesterday.  Any and every rain drop is welcome.  Today, our temps are expected to climb up into the mid 50s (F).  While that's not unusual for this time of year, what is unusual is that we've only had one day in which temps have dropped below freezing.  Over the past few years, we've been heading into the end of November with a really nice cold snap.  Thanks to Climate Change, that may not happen this year.

Much was accomplished yesterday.  I am pleased.  Hopefully, today will be just as good.  There are only 2 mandatory chores that need to be done.

Things that were done yesterday included a trip to the Orange retailer to pick up 6 more bags of topsoil and some bricks.  Howie seems like digging at one area of the fence, the bricks will put an end to it.  I had him out leash training, that went well.  I picked up 2 new pair of work pants from Community Aid.  The cuffs will need to be hemmed because, as I've said before, I have little legs.  Some weight training was done.  Some cleaning.  I have about 12,000 pages left in the first draft to finish; I'm pleased with that.

The leaves on my gingko are still in the process of turning yellow.  This morning, as I went to take a picture of it through the bedroom window, I noticed that high up in the branches was a bird's nest.  Can you see it?

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As expected, the Orange Anus continued to shock the world yesterday with his continuing nomination of completely unqualified people for cabinet positions.  Hopefully, some of the Republican Senators who handle the confirmation process will grow a pair and keep people like Gaetz, and Kennedy out of the administration.  One of Kennedy's pet projects is to bring back raw milk.  For those who don't know, milk is pasteurized to kill all those nasty little microbes in it that will make you sick with silly little things like dysentery.  Just because it doesn't make cows sick, doesn't mean your belly is going to handle those bacteria.  He will also be in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, unlike in Europe and most of the rest of the world where Health Care is free, Americans should expect their costs to go up and benefits to go down.  Oh, and he is an anti-vaxer.  This means there will probably be a rather entertaining war between him and Big Pharma.

As for Gaetz?  Well, I guess we'll all get to see if Trump gets to put a pedophile in his cabinet.  

Well, Shit!

 Well, shit.  And everything had been looking so good.

When I finally got up this morning, the temp outside was already in the 60s (F).  There were other times I got up to check for updates, but the final one, where I threw back the bed linens around 0730 was the "well, shit," one.  Our temps today are predicted to go up into the low 80s (F).  That's very warm for November.  Next week, if the forecasters are correct, we'll barely make it out of the 50s (F).  That's more normal.  

I get to work this afternoon.  That will be interesting.  My recommendation is that if you're planning on any home improvements, get them done now before the pricing goes through the roof.  It will.  Billionaire corporations will be unchallenged.  If you think your grocery bill is expensive now, just wait, you, too will be saying "well, shit," not that a lot of you aren't saying it right now.

So, what went so horribly wrong?  I thought women were going to save the day, and women voted for the Orange Anus in large numbers.  Oh, and as for me calling him the Orange Anus?  I thought I'd soon be able to stop all of that nonsense.  Well, shit.

Of course, many, many people are trying to figure out just what went wrong?  How could a convicted felon be elected president of the United States?  Personally, I think gender had a very major role in who people voted for, not so much race, but rather the fact the Harris is a woman.  I've worked with women for years, had bosses that were women, and when they want to, women can be very catty.  It takes time for them to build up their trust.

But the main reason we now have Trump's Orange Ass in the White House again is that 10 million fewer people voted for Harris than Biden.  So, this is on all of you who stayed home.  And Trump rewards those who vote for him, and he now has almost complete immunity, so if he uses his Executive powers to make Drag illegal nationwide, then it will be an enforceable crime.  Same sex marriage will be gone in the wink of an eye.  Oh, and you'd better get used to losing some of those pronouns that indicate you're diversity.    You will be he or she, and nothing else. Bible studies in all classrooms?  That's a definite.  Oh, and don't think prices are going to go down, he's already promised billionaires and corporations he's going to try and push through another tax cut for them and guess who's going to pay for that?

On a brighter note, my gingko has finally started to turn golden.

Moving Back to Normal

 Well, we had rain... lots of rain.  Torrential downpours.  Our current temp is 69 (F).  The prediction is for it to hit the mid 80s (F), and it's possible that we may get more showers.  Same old, same old for tomorrow.  In fact, I stepped outside and it's drizzling now.  And on Friday, Debby's supposed to arrive.  The predictions so far are for about 2 inches of rain.  After that, everything will be green again and mowing will once again commence.

I checked in the basement this morning and there was no water.  Not only did we have heavy rain, we had wind.  I lost a branch from my gingko tree.  It looked odd, whipping back and forth in the wind. 

And for those interested, I have begun the puppy search.  Living here in Central PA, as Maddie will tell you, we're very close to Lancaster country where there innumerable numbers of puppy mills.  I bought Lily from one of them that seemed rather reputable, and she had problems with socialization.  They're all located on farms, and the owners are breeding a number of different breeds. They're less expensive, and they're AKC registered, but there's so much inbreeding it's ridiculous.  So, this time I'm probably going to be driving a couple of hours.  We are moving back to normal.

Last night this happened!

I saw snippets and pieces.  What joy!  As someone pointed out, there wasn't a silly hat, no weird costumes, and no vulgar signs.  It's my understanding that the Main Stream Media news shows (except possibly Fox Entertainment) aired the entire 80 minute celebration in its entirety.  There was no "wanna be a billionaire" ego on stage, just two people who came from the middle-class.  When they say that in America, anyone can grow up to be president, this is what they mean.  

My brother told me he thinks millions will vote for Trump because they're so opposed to a Madam President.  I told him he's wrong.  Republicans totally underestimate how much the Spawn of Satan is hated in this country.  Those who don't want a Madam President will sit this one out, believing that in four years they'll be able to put a man back in the White House.  The Orange Anus is a cancer, and only the stupid will infect themselves with cancer.

Gingko Gender

 Sunday's weather is a repeat of yesterday's weather, and it will carry on for the rest of the week and maybe into the following week.  I'm reading that the current weather patterns are the result of El Nino, that could be.  With climate change, El Nino may become more of a presence, rather than showing up every few years to bring warm weather to the east coast.

Retail was slow yesterday.  When sales are down on a weekend management wants to blame sports.  Yesterday Penn State played, so everybody stayed home, however the pattern of lower sales doesn't only happen during football season.  During the summer they blamed it on Phillies baseball.  The truth is that they're trying to look for a rational explanation.  The fact that some retailers might have priced themselves out of competition in their desperate search for that 5% growth is never going to occur to them, mostly because upper management is conservative... and, how could conservatives ever be wrong?

I do get to work today.  I will let you know if it's slow or not.

This morning, I went out and took a pic looking up through my gingko.  The leaves are turning yellow fast.  Soon they'll fall, all at once.  Seriously.  It takes an hour or so, but they all fall at one time. It's as though it's shrugging off a summer coat that's no longer stylish.  Oh, and actually, this gingko is a female.  How do I know?  Male gingkoes have balls.

And since it's Sunday, I thought I'd muse about religion just the slightest bit.  Right now, among certain groups, Christian Nationalism is strong, but only certain groups.  Individuals like Mike Johnson, the newly elected Speaker of the House is a Christian Nationalist.  These people desperately want to force the United States into a theocracy, and I don't doubt that if they feel they need to go to war to do this, then that will be their choice.  Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with this chain of thought, the foremost in my mind is that Christians going to war to push Christianity never really win.  Don't believe me?  Lets look Christianity's biggest and baddest attempt to push the religion, the Holy Crusades.  They were going to drive the Muslims, the Moors, the infidels, the heretics, in fact they were going to drive everyone who wasn't a Christian out of the Middle East.  Well, all you have to do is look at the Middle East to see how unsuccessful that was.  Of course, the fact that they've always been losers when it comes to war is never, ever going to occur to them, because that would mean they're wrong, and their faith will not let that happen.

Rejecting Republicans

 Hello, Standard Time!  I hope everybody enjoyed their extra hour of sleep this morning.  I got up at my standard time, which meant I didn't really gain an hour, it was just an hour earlier.  Now I have an extra hour to get things done before I go to work.  Sadly, the daylight will continue to shrink for another month and a half, give or take a day, so it doesn't matter if it's Daylight Saving Time or Standard Time, it will still be dark when I leave work.

Work was slow yesterday, I suspect many people wanted to staying to preparing to watch the Phillies lose.  I'm not a big fan, but his morning when I got up (at my standard time) I thought of Anne Marie. She was a huge Phillie fan, so I'm fairly certain she would be rattling the rafters with her above average vocabulary.

Outside, the weather is warm and very humid.  We've been having showers on and off.  There's an 80% chance of rain today, and so far we've hit that percentage 100%.  That's a win, win for the forecasters.

In the front yard, my gingko is fully yellow.  Those leaves will probably hang on until Tuesday, when the temperature drops, and then they'll fall like a golden shower... wait, that phrase might be a little too graphic visually, so how about if I say they will fall like yellow rain?

The midterms are approaching.  I find it fascinating that over 1 million people have already voted by mail in Pennsylvania.  This means it's going to take a while to get all of our votes counted.  From what I'm seeing, 70% of those are Democratic.  This is what Republicans hate.  They also hate early voting.  They have this belief that only patriotic Americans will vote, no matter how difficult they make it.  These beliefs not only hurt many different voters, most especially senior citizens, a group tending to be conservative.  Of course, you know Republicans will blame the Democrats if their senior citizen votes decline.  They are the party of blame.

We do need to steel ourselves because, should they lose on Tuesday, they will turn into the party of rage.  They, like their orange assed savior will be very upset that American has rejected them.

Centrist

 Oh, my... that WD hard drive of mine that's been slowly dying passed into the nether world of paperweight status yesterday.  This was to be expected.  While I didn't save everything that was on it, what died with it was expendable.  The oldest file I transferred was dated from August, 2008, which means that drive survived for over 12 years.  In hardware terms, that's fairly old.

I did go for a ride in Bavaria yesterday through what appeared to be apple orchards, very nice scenery.  I plan on going for another ride today if I get the time.  My copy of Assassin's Creed, Valhalla will be arriving sometime this afternoon.  Good thing I decided to take a day off, isn't it?  While I can load it into my Xbox, I'm still anticipating the purchase of my Xbox Series X, on which the game will play stupendously.

Oh, and there are some chores I need to do around the house... a couple of loads of laundry.  Sometime this morning I will be priming sections of the upstairs hallway for painting.  Depending upon when the game arrives, I might even begin painting.  There's also a little table I'm working on, trying to make it stylishly chic.  

And, of course, the Republicans are steaming angry.  They were the same after the older Bush lost because they believed they were going to run the country forever.  If you look at the election results, the country is divided: half conservative and half liberal.  The best place to meet is in the center.  In fact, we are very Centrist.  Both sides need to work together for the country to succeed.  This was always the way up until Reagan's landslide.  From then on the Conservatives refused to cooperate.  Instead they looked for another Reagan.  When the only thing to show up was a wanna be tinfoil dictator, they jumped on board his train.  The crazier he gets, the worse they look.  While they're sticking with his legal challenges, the undercurrents are rippling with concern that he's beginning to ruin their Brand.  Even Fox News has had enough.  Yesterday they went so far as to cut away from Kelly the Liar's press conference saying her accusations were false and unfounded.  Ouch!

And for those who've never seen this, my gingko has turned to gold.

The Great State of Pennsylvania (especially Philly)!

 Sunday.  My long, long weekend begins.  Today is also my birthday.  That means cake and ice cream this afternoon.  The dogs and I will take a walk this morning.  They love their walks.

Oh, and in case you didn't notice, I got a very nice birthday present yesterday.  I was cutting roller shades for a customer when my watched buzzed with a headline.  Glancing at it, I saw that Joe Biden had won the presidency.  Of course, since I had six more rollers shades to cut, I couldn't go dancing down the aisles.  I had to maintain normal chitchat with the customer, so it wasn't until I was walking back to the flooring desk that I realized there was a tiny tear hanging from the corner of my eye.  I always knew he was going to win, still the truth didn't sink in until I began to see the celebrations springing up all across the country.  After all those days of counting ballots, the great state of Pennsylvania  put Joe over the top. A funny thing about those 5 days in which ballots were being counted:  the state board of elections wanted to begin counting mail in ballots a week early since they knew there were going to be close to 2 million, however, the Republican legislature in the state said "no," that's why it took so long.  Perhaps in their dirty, little hearts they realized the truth.

And while the joy is overflowing, keep in mind, there are still 73 days in which the Idiot Jerk and his party of toadies can wreck havoc, and you can bet his crumby soul he's going to do his damndest... before he heads to Russia.

And on a more somber vote, a letter was posted by our timeclock informing us that one of our associates has Covid.  I suspect it is my Supervisor since he is still on the schedule, yet hasn't shown up for 3 days.  I was told he has a family issue and needs to be off for 2 weeks.  Lucky for me he spent very little time in my department.  Unlucky for the appliance specialists because he spent most of his work hours with them.

The leaves on my gingko tree are turning yellow.  I took a picture.  In a day or two they will all fall off at once... and then I turn them into mulch.

Cracker Soup

Well, it's Sunday... and I get to go back to work.  For 3 days, and then my weekend begins.  My schedule for Thanksgiving week is crappy.  Off on Thanksgiving, working Black Friday and Saturday and then off on Sunday.  Nobody buys flooring on Black Friday.  That doesn't mean we're not going to get bubble-brained morons asking what are 'special' is...  I always point to appliances saying "go buy a $2500 refrigerator, that's where our deals are."  If you're interested in buy a washer, or dryer, now is the best time of the year - all of our others sales are mere shadows of what the discounts are now.
Yesterday morning I walked onto my front porch and saw all the leaves had fallen off my gingko.  Have you any idea how that feels?  Knowing your gingko is naked?  I took pictures hoping to drum up a little sympathy since... well... now it looks so... woody.

I saw where a Class Action suit has been filed against Madonna.  People are fed up with paying good money for a show and having her show up 2 hours late.  Her comment was "the queen is never late."  Someone needs to sit her 61 year old ass down and remind her she's doing 'smaller venue' shows because ticket sales from her last arena tour were... lackluster... yeah, lackluster is a good word for her ticket sales.  Her die-hard fans will always show up, but they're getting older and their patience is beginning to wear thin.
I saw where the Idiot Jerk in the White House went to a college football game in the deeply red south and was... cheered.  At this point in his failing Republican political career this is to be expected.  I know this is going way back, but the same thing happened after Nixon's failed re-election extravaganza.  The Republican Party became highly regionalized.  Only in the deep south, scarlet red and highly Christianized south did they stand of chance of winning elections.  This is happening again.  However, this time they have a problem.  The deep south is diversifying far more quickly than their Conservative white minds can comprehend.  They're going to realize there might not be enough crackers down there to make a decent bowl of soup.
And finally.  A lot of us have experienced the single brain celled antics of troll.  Mildred was right when she pointed out how hysterically this person is in his desperate attempt to be disruptive.  Right now I'm simply deleting the comments.  That's what this person deserves... to be deleted.  If it continues I start moderating the comments.  Eliminating them before they see the light of day is no skin off my back.