Joy

 Good Morning People!  Outside, the temp is a comfortable 63 and the sun is supposed to shine all day.  We have the same forecast for tomorrow, too.  In fact, the forecast for the next 3 days is nice.  Tomorrow I'm going to wack weeds and mow grass. We're not supposed to get any rain again until Saturday, when we're supposed to get another drenching. 

I talked to my friend Justin about coming to trim back the holly bush I have out front.  Because he's 6 feet, 6 inches, he'll be able to cut back the top and I will not climb up on a ladder.  A word of advice to everyone out there, make sure you have at least one tall friend.

I drove down to Lebanon yesterday to go over my bloodwork with my new primary care physician, Dr. Rai, pronounced rye.  He's a very nice gent in in mid-40s.  That's a good thing.  I'm tired of having my doctors retire on me.  As for my bloodwork, I'd already looked at the results.  He asked if I wanted to continue with testing my PSA and I told him I didn't think it was necessary.  The big bugaboo was my blood sugar.  It's high... sort of... 138.  This has always been an issue.  I am not overly concerned.  It's a genetic thing.  My sister's is diabetic.  She laughed at that number, telling me, "that's low."  Since this is a "been there, done that," situation, I know how to get my sugar back to acceptable levels:  less grazing, more exercise.  What joy.

Besides the doctor's visit, yesterday was a necessary day away from news and social media.  I played video games and watched TV.  There is so much bad going on in the world right now, breaking away for a day was such a joy.

The oregano I have growing on the windowsill has teeny, tiny flowers.

And, of course, the shit show is continuing.  The fact that states are going to be activating their National Guard troops for this weekend should tell you they know that a very unpopular president is doing something vast numbers of people don't like.  Protests are planned throughout  the  country for  this  weekend.  Rain is predicted for the Washington DC area, so it's quite possible Mother Nature is going to rain on Orangie's parade.  

Are we heading into another Dark Ages?  Maybe a different variant of those old Dark Ages.  Too many Americans are rushing headfirst into selfishness and greed.  They have been taught that credit is the answer to being able to afford everything they want.  Inflation is going to be a ballbreaker.  Too many want an authoritarian government without understanding that for the vast majority, such a life would be totally unacceptable.  As I've said before, I feel we are approaching  an inflection point.  There may be a serious loss of life.  Will society collapse?  Certain aspects will struggle.  Mostly, however, it will be geographical here in the states, and those areas loving their Republican authoritarianism the most will also suffer the most.  They are simply not prepared.  For them, these Dark Ages will be black, and somehow that gives me joy.

This is Not Normal

 Okay, so our outside temp is 43 (F) and the forecast is for partly sunny skies this afternoon.  Yesterday's weather was pretty spot on to what had been predicted, so I'm guessing today's going to be a repeat, though only a bit warmer.

Sor some reason, yesterday was almost a meh kind of day.  I didn't seem to have much of a desire to do anything, though things were accomplished.  No workout, but the aquarium in the living room was cleaned, and I hung to old shutters on the front fence to protect the grape vine I planted last year.  This necessary since Howie loves to chew on both sticks, and vines, and even roots.  The shutters do not help with the curb appeal, but they do the job.  I'm more interested in functionality rather than impressing those few who walk by with their dogs.

One thing I did yesterday was thin out my oregano seedlings.  I had quite a few old glass candle holders sitting on a shelf down in the basement and decided to repurpose them as planters.  I'm hoping to keep one or two plants per glass.  They should look quite nice on the window sill once they're fully grown, and harvesting fresh oregano will be so easy.

And, for those of you who haven't been paying attention, Chuck Schumer and 8 other Democrats caved yesterday, voting to legitimize the Orange Anus's budget.  Chuck's excuse was that Orangie was already doing dirty deeds to as many Federal agencies as possible, and shutting down the government would not stop him.  So, instead of putting up roadblocks, Chuck legitimized Orangie's destruction.  Obviously, Chuck thinks he's dealing with "business, as usual," even though absolutely nothing is usual about what Orangie is doing.  Chuck in in his 70s, and has just made term limitations more relevant.  I get this feeling that Chuck doesn't want to upset the apple cart, when history has shown that Orangie is weak, and tends to fall apart when he has to deal with pushback.  Someone needs to pull Chuck aside and tell him to resign, the same way he did with Biden.  Chuck simply doesn't understand that this is not normal.