The Body in 4/4 Time

 So our real feel temp yesterday was 113 (F).  Today will be a repeat.  How hot was it?  A cheap hose I bought from the orange retailer I work for ruptured because the water inside got too hot.  I'm guessing I lost about 100 gallons, almost 400 liters, before I went to leave Howie out and discovered I had a small pond in my backyard.

Needing milk, I  ventured outside around 1 in the afternoon and, if the thermometer in my car is correct, the drive to my local Giant supermarket was done 98 (F) heat.  If the forecasters are correct, today is going to be even warmer.  I am scheduled to work this afternoon, so, once again I'll be driving around in the danger zone.  I'm not expecting the store to be busy, so basically, I'll be getting paid to sit my butt down at the flooring desk, and, get my steps in.

My left knee's been a bit rusty over the past few days, so my trainer and I've decided to cut back on the squats and the leg extensions.  I don't think there's anything actually wrong with it, just a little old age and a little arthritic inflammation.  Just one of the normal aches and pains we feel as we get older.  So, for the next week or so I'm going to be focusing on strength training for my upper body.  

And since The Body in 4/4 Time is now available for purchase, it's time to reveal the book cover.  My cover artist, Cori, has once again done a brilliant job.  Originally, I thought that perhaps the musical notes should be swirling up and off the sheet of music.  She smiled, nodded several times, and then said "no."  As always, she was right.

Of course, Orangie's politicized state fair is still failing to draw crowds.  As a reminder, everything he touches dies.  This includes the Republican party, The Heritage Foundation, and all of those businesses he and his spawn have ventured into.  They think they're immune.  They are not.  He and his cultists have punch drunk on his ephemeral grasp on power they fail to understand they are living in a land of delusion.  They are too busy dancing around with their hands in the air singing, "look at how rich we are, look at how rich we are," to even begin to understand that, just like our outside temps, the anger against them is constantly rising.  These people have never had a good grasp on reality.  Self-awareness has never, ever been one of their strong points.

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.

Sewage

Good morning people!  We have shower and thunderstorms on the way.  Predictions are that we may get a half inch of rain, possibly more until this storm system has passed us by.  Outside temps are in the upper 60s (F).  They'll get a few degrees warmer.  Our expected high is in the mid 70s (F).  There is, however, a thick blanket of humidity lying over all of Central PA.  This means we'll all be suffering from the sticky-ickies until this system moves off the eastern seaboard.

Yesterday was a sludge... literally, and it was in the aisle right behind my desk at the orange home improvement retailer I work for.  There is a problem with the waste water line running from the restrooms to the sewer line outside the building.  Approximately four weeks ago the pipe ruptured and, as time went on, became more and more clogged.  Yesterday, the stoppage was complete and we had to deal with raw sewage bubbling up from 3 access drains in the aisle behind my desk.  Because of the severity of the issue, it has been escalated to a Divisional level.  This is not a job for Roto-Rooter.  Of course, there were a number of associates who want the store be shut down until the problem is fixed.  These people simply don't understand that if corporate decides to do that, some will be assigned temporarily to other stores, and those that aren't will have to use their personal or vacation time if they want to be paid.  Even our acting store manager was advocating this.  I sat there listening to him and thinking that this man will never be a store manager.  Corporate wants problem solvers in management positions, they do not want non-thinkers.  Instead of looking for ways to solve this serious issue, he's simply throwing his hands up in the air in defeat.

So, I got the cover art for The Body in 4/4 Time yesterday, and, as usual, here's a tease.

A new poll by Franklin & Marshall College, a conservative Central PA college, has, as they say, the Orange Anus bleeding away support.  According to their numbers, he has a 29% approval rating.  That, in case you're wondering, is the Republican party of Central Pa, with a few extra idiots thrown into the  mix; people who live for UFC cage matches.

And his screw up of the reflecting pool is still making headlines.  He's blaming everyone except those involved, the contractors he hired, because that would mean he made a bad choice, and we all know that never happens all the time.

Apparently the US and Iran have once again reached a decision to set up the framework for a possible ceasefire.  Basically, this administration wants to repeat everything that was done previously.  The sticking point is, again, Israel, or, perhaps I should say Netanyahu's refusal to stop a war.  In case you haven't realized it yet, conservatives are the cause of most of the evil in this world.

Karma is a Bitch

Well, we have another sunny day ahead of us here in Central PA.  Our high temp should be floating just around the 90 (F) mark, meaning it's going to be hot enough to make things slightly uncomfortable for some.  As long as the humidity stays low, this is not a bad temp.  The long range forecast implies humidity will not be rising.  This is a good thing.  However, the lack of rain means I'll need to be watering my garden daily.

Things I did do yesterday:  move an old wheelbarrow that I'm going to turn into a raised flower bed - things need to be above ground to keep Howie from peeing on them.  Also, the idea is to make the space around the raised bed veggies as happy a place as possible for the bees and other buzzy things needed to pollinize.

 A very decent bike ride in Corsica. I like riding in Italy.  I should really visit.

 I'm still editing through the book.  My cover artist is in the process of moving.  She's saying another 2 weeks maybe.  This is probably a good thing as I'm still finding bits and pieces that I feel need to be changed.  At the same time, I want to put this baby to bed.  I have a bunch of notes on the next book, and I can't wait to start, but I have rule:  never start the actual writing until the last book is published.

And you know, Karma is a real bitch.

As Six and others pointed out, the Asshole held what was supposed to be a roundtable meeting in Wisconsin yesterday but which was ostensibly nothing more than a mini-rally.  He sat through the entire event and then needed assistance taking the one step down off of the stage.  Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me as if his administration suddenly seems to be ramping up not only his vanity projects, but the 2025 Project as well.  One would almost think they understand how fast time is running out for them.  Could this be why Republicans in both Congress and the Senate are beginning to break from him?

And I'm going to wonder how they're going to handle the June 14 birthday celebration.  I'm suspecting the entire event will be televised with him rambling for an hour and a half sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office.  I'm also willing to be that the only network to carry that event will be Fox News.

The Sound of Murder

Good morning world!  Right now, the temp here in Central PA is 32, but not around my house.  How do I know?  Water that isn't frozen in my backyard.  So, the temp might be cold somewhere else, but not here.  As a precautionary measure, I covered my 2 tomato plants last evening.  This morning they're looking fine.  Hopefully, that will be the last time our temps get that cold, at least until autumn has us in its sights.

Work yesterday was blah.  Slow.  I purportedly made a mistake in a blind install.  Our customer order specialist claimed that I sold a blind that was only 9 inches wide.  It was actually supposed to be 70 inches wide.  You can't design a blind that is less than 14 inches because there's not enough room in the headrail for the string mechanism.  If you try to, the system generates an error.  So, something, somewhere happened.

Since this is Tuesday, I'm not scheduled.  That's fine with me.  I have a bike ride scheduled for this afternoon.   That, too, is good.  I want to work on my Blender.  That's the software that let's you create your own 2D animations.  Why, you might ask?  Because I'm wanting to do something akin to this for The Body in 4:4 Time.  Can you hear it?  The 4:4 time?  That's the sound of murder.

And the bag of Orange shit who managed to get elected was in Virginia last night.  He's not happy.  The fact that Virginians are voting today as to whether on not they should redistrict has him rankled.  It was fine for Republicans to gerrymander in Texas, and Missouri, and Ohio, but the fact that Virginia wants to do the same to help Democrats is unpatriotic.  Both Orangie and the Republican party know that America is on the cusp of a Blue Tsunami and that scares the bejesus out of them.  The truly terrible thing for them about the midterms is that if they had for just a few moments put their selfishness and greed aside and put some sort of restraints on the Orange Anus this would most likely not be a problem for them.  However, they are the party of selfishness and greed.  There was no way they could stop feeding their craven desire for power.  The America of their dreams would have a permanent Republican, authoritarian government.  They never cared what other Americans wanted.  America was great... until the Republicans got the Orange Anus in the White House, now it will take decades to recover.

Melania Tries to Jump Ship

Our outside temps are in the mid 40s (F), and they're supposed to be climbing into the mid 70s (F).  They chill off a bit overnight, but after tomorrow they're going to be climbing again.  Forecasters are saying we'll be have several days where they climb into the upper 80s (F)  It's way too early in the season for that too happen.  Our window A/C unit sales are going to go through the roof.

And yesterday was a good day, at least as far as accomplishments go.  Sadly, I did have to spend the afternoon sitting at the flooring desk getting paid to basically do nothing.  No customers.  No sales.  My supervisors did come over to piss and moan about how all she gets is disrespect from management.  I know that she had been counselled about her rather authoritarian approach to her position.  Like too many other people, however, she did not prioritized those sessions and invest them into her own style of management. Now she will nurture her anger for years to come.

On the bright side, I did get a decent workout in yesterday morning.

On an even brighter side, my first editor has returned his copy of The Body in 4:4 Time with his notes and criticisms.  He did add that this is his favorite book so far.  As expected, I suggested we get together for lunch so he can shower me with praise in order to do a deeper dive into his opinions.  He does think that some of my chapter titles aren't musical enough, or not apropos to the chapters themselves, so here's a pic of some them.  You may want to save this for future reference.

And the cringe level posting by the Orange Anus continued last evening when he posted an actual video of a woman being beaten to death with a hammer on his Truth Social account.  Was this because Melanoma gave a speech in which she spent 6 minutes trying to tell the world that she and Orangie weren't introduced by Jeffy Epstein, and that she was never, ever an escort.  This denial caused many people to post pictures and videos of her and Ghislaine Maxwell, and Jeffy, and, of course, the Orange Anus.  

The video might also have been a continuation of the hate he was throwing at his one time MAGA influencers, like Joe Rogan, and Meg Kelly, and Tuck Carlson, who, among many others, decided to start aiming spitballs of shit in his direction.  They're claiming this was not what they voted for, well, that's a lie, they all did want an authoritarian government, except not the one we have.  

Or maybe it's because military personnel who have survived the attack on Kuwait have begun speaking out.  They're calling both Hegseth and Orangie liars to their faces.  These victims of Orangie's idiocy are telling the world that they were completely unprepared for any sort of drone attack, that there was no warning system in place.  

Oh, and word has just come out that inflation roared last month.  This should have been expected.

Buried Alive

 Surprisingly, our morning temp is above freezing.  That's right, so I'll take 34 (F) for the win.  This afternoon we will see temps in the 40s (F).  Of course, beginning Saturday afternoon they're going to crater.  I've looking at a number of forecasts for the upcoming storm and while Central PA is going to be getting snow, apparently the heaviest is going to be falling to the south of us.  We might get a total of 8 inches till the whole thing ends late Sunday night.  The kid inside me wishes that we'd get 18.

Yesterday was productive.  I got a nice workout in.  Cleaned the aquariums.  Worked on my foreign language skills.  Fun stuff.  

I finished the Tick, Tock, Pop intermezzo chapter in the book.  That's the last one that deals with the events happening in 1983.  I've got three more chapters to go.  Right now I'm working on a chapter called Lullaby, and for those who've read any of my books, this is the chapter when the dots come together.  That sounds mysterious, but if you know, you know.

My nephew's wife was whining on Facebook yesterday about how much their insurance premiums have suddenly gone up.  She has a Crohn's disease, a pre-existing condition.  When the Republicans let the ACA expire (Obama Care), they eliminated the restriction keeping insurance companies from raising the premiums on individuals with pre-existing conditions.  She's a Republican.  She voted for Trump.  When I read her complaints, I laughed.  

Here's a pic of this morning's sunrise.

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral argument regarding Orangie's ability to fire Linda Cook from the Fed. They did not seem to impressed with Orangie's attorneys.  This is a good thing.  However, they have still not released their opinion on his ability to set tariffs.  I'm reminded of how much they delayed when it came to releasing their opinion on presidential immunity.  They ended up giving him basically unlimited power.  I have this sinking feeling that they're going to do the same thing with tariffs, not so much because he was in the wrong, but because the country would go through horrendous financial chaos should the government have to pay those tariffs back.  This entire shit show belongs to the Republicans.  They have dug themselves into a terribly deep hole, and they just keep digging.  They know that if they stop digging the walls are going to cave in on them.  Unfortunately, they can only dig so deep before the walls cave in.  Either way, they are going to be buried alive.

Sword of Truth

 Today's weather will be a mixture of sun and clouds with our temps climbing into the low 80s (F).  We're on track to have pretty much the same mix of sun and clouds tomorrow, however there will be the added risk that rain will start to fall.  While the forecasters are unsure as to how high that risk will be, I'd recommend that you take an umbrella with you if you go out.  I have one, but mostly it stays at home.  I learned a long time ago that I'm not made of sugar, so I'm not going to melt if I get a little wet.

I worked a full shift yesterday, being that it was Sunday.  In spite of business being slow, I sold 2 measures, which gives me 3 for the week.  As far as measures go, last week I was better than gold.  I failed everything else, no credit cards, no leads, and my sales were in the toilet.  This happens.  Up until yesterday business in the store had been good, but yesterday there were not a lot of customers.  Blame it on football.  This is always a seasonal thing, especially if the Pittsburgh Steelers or Philadelphia Eagles are playing... Philly especially.

The new book is coming along fine.  Technically challenging, creating music without the sound, especially when some of the songs are over 45 years old.  And, as always, I like to tease things.  So, here's a question.  Does one of the regular characters who happens to have an inoperable bullet lodged in his brain and an uncanny ability to dance, dance to this song?  And if this character does, how does one write it down?  Dear me... screaming guitars!

And, for those like me who missed it, the Republican National Committee had a convention yesterday.  Charlie Kirk's memorial service was more memorable for the politics rather than a celebration of Kirk's life.  If you still want to remember everything it shouldn't have been, you can still purchase your Charlie Kirk Memorial Service souvenirs.  Yepper, the grift of selling merch had a definite presence.  Bibles, crosses, pamphlets, brochures, programs.  You know, you won't know the songs if you don't buy a program, or the acts, and there was a lot of political acting and posturing.  An associate at work was watching it on her computer and I, as usual, made a comment she didn't approve of.  In case you were wondering, she is a white Christian who always wears her Pinocchio cross.  She's also a big Joel Osteen fan, and once, when I pointed out his greed, she walked away.  Truth can be a terrible sword.

You'll notice that I didn't bring up the pyrotechnics.  Let's be honest, nothing sets off off the somber tones of a funeral than fire shooting out of the stage...  or wait, maybe that was a preview of Hell.

And just a reminder.  The Rapture happens tomorrow.

Groyper War!!

 Our high temps for the next 3 days are going to be in the Upper 80s (F), noticed I capitalized the U, since we are about a week away from the official start of Autumn.  There is also a slim chance we might get a passing shower or two, but that is slim, as in it's probably not going to happen.  Most of my lawn is still rather brown, except for a small strip in the median between my front sidewalk and the street.  I'm not going to get out the lawnmower just to cut it back.  This late in the year it can just grow  wild.

Yesterday was a good day, many things were done.  The painting of the bathroom continues.  A large shelving unit was moved, the window was cleaned well for the first time in about 3 years.  I've decided on a natural stone tile for behind the mirror; I will be doing the tiling myself.

Also, a number of words were written.  Calliope Jones has finally made an appearance.  One of the original backup singers with Grantham Pass, she has worked very hard to ensure she will never be in the background again.  She also has a problem with red headed men, so there will undoubtedly be friction between her and Max (oh, joy!).

And I hired an online trainer.  A gent named Dante.  An hour after I hired him, I received a welcoming video, this is, no doubt, standard procedure.  We have a scheduled meeting on Tuesday morning.  Here's a screenshot of his profile. Clicken to embiggen.

And even though we all should have been expecting something like this knowing the anger and hatred the right wing embraces, the knowledge that Charlie Kirk's suspected assassin is a Groyper did come as a bit of a surprise.  I am not up to date on the slang used by right-wingers and neo Nazis, but this article from Vanity Fair helps, especially in regard to engravings on the bullet casings.  Tyler Robinson appears to have been a follower of the self-proclaimed Nazi Nick Fuentes.  Do you all remember Nick?  He's dined with Orangie at Mar a Lago.  He also got into some serious trouble when he said "your body, my choice."  In fact, that got him doxed by a number of people.

Evidently Nicky has (had) a problem with Charlie, reportedly saying he wasn't extreme enough.  Even more important is the fact that Laura Loomer was with the Nicky Fuentes crowd; Tyler Robinson was a follower of both.  Since the middle of July, Laura has been posting a number of hate comments about Charlie.  Since one of the bullets in the suspected shooter's gun took out Charlie's carotid artery, she has changed her tune.

Last evening, wearing more make-up than Orangie, released a statement saying his death was a Battle Cry.  It seems as though she's planning on taking on his mantle and will continue to spew anger and hatred, albeit with blonde highlights.  Will she direct her revenge at Nicky Fuentes?  I would hope so.

Take it to the Limit

 This morning's Central PA temp was 60 (F), that's almost as cool as cucumber!  Temps will be rising though, both today and for the beginning of the week.  By Wednesday we should be topping off with a high around 93 (F) with high humidity.  Thunderstorms are supposed to be hanging around the area, but the chance of us getting a storm is 55%, so I'd say that's iffy.

Yesterday was a good day as far as writing goes.  No workouts were done.  No walking done. But as long as the words are going into the laptop things are good.  One thing that is making this easy is the dealing with the time when Eli's mother was still alive.  I'm old enough to remember what things were like around 40 years ago.  You know?  What songs were playing on the radio.  Here's a bit that may or may not be important to the plot.  One of the biggest hits back then was by a band called The Eagles.  One of their many hits was a song called Take it to the Limit.  Where as an enormous number of pop and rock songs are written in 4/4 time, Take it to the Limit is written in 3/4 time, also known as Waltz Time.  Does Waltz Time come into play in a mystery titled The Body in 4/4 Time?  Stay tuned.  Here's a live version of that song from 1977.

I did work yesterday and actually got 2 measures, neither is going to break the bank for the customers.  One is a small bathroom that'll probably cost around $800, and the other is a single bedroom.  The house is for sale, however there's ink on the bedroom floor and no one is making an offer.  this is a good example of how many people try to get their asking price without fixing anything up before the house goes on the market. The carpet is not going to match the rest of the carpeting in the house.  The seller, himself, wouldn't make an offer, so he's putting in the cheapest carpet we have to try and get his asking price.  I'm hoping he doesn't get it and has to reduce his asking price.

I'm betting Orangie's having wet dreams over his meeting with his Blo Bro Vlad.  This meeting is not a good thing.  Orangie will give away the bank in order to give old Vlad a cuddle or two.  

One thing I do find amazing is that MAGA cultists are truly ignorant of the hate Orangie is generating towards them and their party.  These people are in their own little world, totally clueless.  True, some are beginning to scratch their heads with the Epstein scandal, but many of them are still delusional.  Nothing is going to change that, unless they do manage to start a war and America starts hanging their treasonous asses.

What's in a Noem... I mean Name

 So, it appears that the weekend is going to start off with springtime temperatures with daily highs only reaching up into the mid 80s (F).  That will change as we move into the week, but even then our high temps are only predicted to be in very low 90s (F).  The chance of rain is minimal at best.  If our highs were higher, I'd say this was a normal August, but they're not.  This is good for my electric bill just like last year's cold winter was bad for my gas bill.

Yesterday was mostly unproductive.  I did some chores, only one load of laundry.  I feel I should have done more.  However over 1000 new words were added to the new book, so writing wise, yesterday was good.  I finished the chapter "If you hum a few bars," and moved into the next chapter "reel to reel."  Remember, this is a musical mystery, and I can tell you there will be an "intermezzo time" next up on the writing agenda.  I am trying to keep a good balance going between two stories, one of Eli's mother, who died when he was five, and, of course, the murder mystery.  The idea of having a musical code which needs to be deciphered has been replaced with something more... interesting.

I am scheduled to work today.  

I also tried to find the clip from South Park where Kristi Noem's face falls off, sadly, the only clip I could find was her recruitment video, the one where she shoots the puppies, so consider that a cautionary warning.

My sister called yesterday to ask if I'd seen that the new guy in charge of the IRS is now the old guy, Billy Long, after 2 months.  I hadn't.  Scottie Bessent is now in charge of the IRS.  Billy, who was approved by the Senate, now has to be approved to be the Ambassador to Iceland.  That sounds like a demotion to me.  Perhaps Billy's bribe to the Orange Anus just wasn't big enough for the job he got.  There's also the possibility that Billy just wasn't corrupt enough to suit Orangie... nah, it probably has to do with the fact that he goes by Billy.  Let's be honest.  Billy is not a brass knuckle kind of name.  Nope, it's more of a stealing one of grannies checks and forging her signature kind of name.  Not that Scottie's a much better name, but Scottie's a super billionaire and in Orangie's book, that puts him near the top of the "Billionaires I want to be friends with" list.

Intros & Narrators

 Our morning mid-week temps here in Central PA are still in the mid-60s (F).  Daily highs tomorrow will start climbing back up into the 90s (F).  That's find.  We are in summer, as season where nights are hot and days are hotter.  Friday's high temp should be in the mid-90s (F),but then the cool off begins as we head back down into the 80s (F).  The risk of afternoon and evening thunderstorms seems to be waning a bit.  These are the dog days of summer.

Yesterday was a day of massive accomplishments!

I talked to my friend Justin about the holly bush out front; he had just gotten off working the night shift and was in no condition to do any trimming.  So I pulled on my big boy britches and went out and trimmed the bush myself.  An hour later the bush was trimmed back to a normal sized and cleanup was complete.  That was in the  morning. 

In the afternoon I went for a 10.87 mile ride in Corsica, a ride with some decent hills.  During that 50+ minute ride I maintained an average heartrate of 128 beats per minute.  I was very pleased.

As some of you know I will, on occasion, listen to music when I write.  When I do so it's usually just one specific artist that manages to hit one specific note in the theme of the book.  This process is serendipitous.  While writing The Body Under Ice I listened to quite a bit of Spanish guitar music.  For The Body in the Tower it was Fallout Boy.  For The Body in 4/4 Time, what I'm calling a musical mystery, it seems as though I've settled on Bastille.  Here's a song called Intros & Narrators that might help you understand what I'm talking about.

No one should be surprised that Mikey Johnson shut down the House of Representatives a day early, his only other choice would have been to let Congress vote on releasing the Epstein files and that was a vote Republicans would have lost terribly.  A lot of people believe that Republicans are protecting a Pedophile, and they are, but most importantly they are protecting their slim hold on power.  Except for his personal polls, most polling shows his approval rating sitting in the very low 40s.  That number is going to keep on eroding.  Tariffs are kicking in and Americans are going to be paying more, much more for certain products.  And don't doubt that Americans will be paying the difference.  General Motors missed plan by $1 billion and Wall Street will put a stop to that loss very fast.

I saw some clips on Threads last evening where the Orange Anus was speaking at some meeting.  He was talking about cavities in the earth that had oil, and that we had drained, and that we had filled up again.  Total nonsense.  And I'm frightened that it is the likes of Pammy Jo Bondi, and Stevie Miller, and Noem the puppy killer who are actually running the country.  Having Orangie in charge is bad enough, but having losers like this acting as co-dictators is a recipe for total disaster.

The Expendables

 Well the  forecasters were sort of right yesterday, we did have rain in the late afternoon, drizzles and showers throughout the evening.  We have the same forecast for today, and tomorrow, and into the middle of next week.  Will we get rain every day?  I don't doubt it.  Summers are not the same as they were.  We did have a bit of a heat wave in early June, those used to occur in late July and August.  Of course, we're still early into summer so things may change.

Yesterday was one of those, "well, I'm not going to get a lot done today," days, mostly because of my appointment at the VA clinic in Lebanon.  I did have plans for when I left, however there were delays.  My consultation started 20 minutes late and then we spent 15 minutes talking about my bloodwork.  Then it was decided that I should have an EKG since it's been 8 years since I had the last one.  Tomorrow, I'll go in and check out that report.  I also had to sit through a detailed instruction on colonoscopy prep.  Crap, two days before the procedure I need to stop eating everything I normally eat. 

Anyway, I didn't get home until after 3:30 PM, so as far as I was concerned the day was pretty much a waste.  Wait, that's not quite right, I did finish Intermezzo 2 in The Body in 4/4 Time.  That's right, this book will have both chapters and intermezzos.  There's even an Overture.

I did start growing another carrot.  I planted the other one I'd started outside.  Evidently that's what you're supposed to do when it starts growing roots.

And you have to admit that Orangie's failure to deal with Epstein is... remarkable.  That moral degenerate is so desperate he's raised the tariffs on Brazilian exports to 50% in the hopes of getting people to talk about something else.  Lucky for us tariffs and Tacos are synonymous. Previously such an announcement would have sent the Dow plummeting, but not anymore.  Orangie is a now a broken record when it comes to tariffs.  

Remember when Orangie said he was going to get rid FEMA?  That money could best be served in giving himself and other billionaires a tax break.  Well, it seems that Puppy Killer Kristi Noem waited 2 days to activate FEMA's Search and Rescue Team after the horrific flood in Texas.  This is her way of telling those victims "you're on your own, baby!"  Whether they understand it or not, this is what those Texans voted for, of course no one ever told those parents whose children were washed away that their lives had now become expendable.  Surprise! in the eyes of billionaires, everyone who isn't one is expendable.