Grand Central Station Busy Around Here

I’ve been planning my bedroom and bath redecorating project since January when I wore out the internet shopping for a quilt and shower curtain to establish a color palette. I wanted a girlie, beach cottage theme which probably has you wondering why I’m now the proud owner of newly painted gray walls, white ceilings and freshly steam-cleaned gray carpeting. The answer would be that I like starting with a neutral foundation that lends itself to making changes down the road should I get tired of living with the pale coral and soft aqua accents I’ll be living with for a while. Those are not colors I’ve ever had before and, believe me, it was hard not to go full out with pale pink and burgundy cabbage roses with moss green accents that I lived with for years (in my pre-husband life) and I still adore that combination.

My redecorating project was a long time in the thinking stage because I wanted to get a new mattress and bed and the harsh winter and bad roads kept me from shopping. And it was also hard to justify getting rid of my old mattress that still has a lot of life in it. But the bottom line is it’s too heavy for me to lift to make properly since my issue with my elbow that resulted in a life-time weight restriction on what I can lift unless I want to risk an elbow replacement surgery. I’ll bet I’m the only mattress shopper who had to act out putting bedding on a mattress before ordering one. Not being able to make a proper bed, I think, is contributing to my restless sleep. And I hate the way cleaning service girls don’t have a clue how to make a hospital corner. I’m so old that all females had to learn how to make them to get out of high school. I doubt schools even teach ‘domestic engineering’ anymore aka home economics.

Figuring out a schedule for painting, carpet cleaning, pickup on the old twin mattresses and bed frames, delivery on a new full-size bed and finally delivery on the mattress was driving me crazy. No matter how I shook it up, I figured there would be a few nights of me fighting the dog for the couch. Stay tuned half the swap-out is completed and the rest should occur over the coming week. In the meantime, the bathroom is almost finished. I still have some artwork to go up. The photo at the top is a preview of my big reveal when the whole project is finished. I love that shower curtain!

Monday I woke up with an Ambien hangover which has never happened with that drug. Or maybe it was a hard-work hangover because the day before I wore myself out washing windows and mini-blinds and polishing furniture. But I had places to go and things to do and one of those things was to have brunch with my Gathering Girls friends. It was the day after St. Patrick’s Day and I was lucky to score a great corn beef sandwich. When I got home---after a detour to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy sheets and towels---I got a call from one of my friends. She was crying because she’d lost a diamond and sapphire ring she’d paid $1,500 for, but more importantly it had a great deal of sentimental value. She called the restaurant. They did a search around our table and out where she parked. She searched inside her car and around her house. A few hours later she called back. The ring was sitting in a soap dish in her guest bathroom. She figured she hadn't even worn the ring to brunch. Haven’t we all been there with something we thought we lost? I’m just glad it wasn't me, this time, who had to call all my friends back and own up to having a senior moment. 

Now a warning to Trump supporters: Stop reading here unless you have an answer to what you think he had to gain by bad-mouthing John McCain in a series of tweets this past weekend? Did he think we’d be so outraged over his treatment of a guy who’s been died since August that we’d be distracted from the fact that the terrorist who killed fifty people at two mosques in New Zealand wrote in his manifest that President Trump's White Nationalism was an inspiration to him? I feel badly for McCain’s family. At least McCain’s daughter had a good come back: "No one will ever love you the way they loved my father....”

Trump also spent time twitter-ranting about GM and Saturday Night Live---that’s what keeps him up in the night? Forty-nine tweets over the weekend from his presidential account but no mention of the disastrous bomb cyclone that raged across the Midwest leaving behind devastating floods. No compassion for American still in peril. But he did tweet several times to his fans to put pressure on FOX News to bring back pundit Jeanine Pirro who’d been suspended for making Islamophobia remarks plus he whined-tweeted about Hillary, Steele, McCabe, Amar Ilham, Weissmann, various republicans and the country of France. Okay, rant off. In truth I’ve cut the time I usually spend on politics in half this past month or two. But I fear I may have to redecorate my entire house to stay sane between now and the next election. And should he get re-elected? I'm going to invest in a barf-bag factory. ©

Unwanted Gifts and it's Mueller Time

Time is passing by so fast. It’s hard to believe that December is almost half over and I just went to my second holiday party of the season. The gods of Michigan Snow are being kind to little old me who has lost her stomach for driving in Winter Wonderlands. The temperatures are bone-chilling cold, the landscape is covered with snow but the roads are down to bare asphalt. The worst place I have to drive is on my own driveway that, for reasons I can’t explain, is the only one on the entire cul-de-sac that is still snow covered. Not a lot of snow, just enough to make going to the mailbox akin to standing at the top of a ski slope wondering if you’ll make it to the bottom without falling. I put on my boots with ice fishing cleats attached and I use my husband’s old, four-footed cane for the trek. I also go to the mailbox in the late afternoon when people are coming home from work. In case I do fall, I figure I won’t have to lay there long before someone would drive by and take pity on me. My momma didn’t raise any fools. 

My second Christmas party of the season took place out in the boondocks which means the weather often prevents me from going but this year when twenty of my Red Hat Society sisters gathered at an upscale restaurant to order off the menu, I was one of them. This group, without exception, always orders dessert at parties so it gets pricey. I could not believe they have desserts listed for as high as $9.50. Still, we all went home with a box with half our entrées inside and the taste of brownie, hot fudge sundaes or crème brulee on our lips.

We do a $10 gift exchange that are distributed using the Right/Left game so you don’t know who will end up with what you bring. Two other groups I belong to have the bring-only-consumable-goods  gift rule and I’ve suggested that rule to the Red Hatters. We’re all in our 70s and 80s and who needs more jewelry, scarves, candles or décor do-dads, but the suggestion falls on deaf ears. This group likes bling. Wouldn’t you know it, the gift I got at the party was a watch with exchangeable bands that I’ll never wear. “You spent more than $10 on this,” I said as I thanked the woman who bought it. She smiled and said, “I just buy what I like and I don’t care about the price.” I spent July e-Baying collectible watches out of the house and I’d re-gift this one if I could, but I can’t think of anyone who'd wear it. Google priced it at $25. For a fleeting moment it made me feel cheap for only spending $11 on my $10 exchange gift. I’m thinking of wrapping the watch back up and leaving somewhere for a stranger to find. Well, except I couldn't leave it at an airport, school, mall or theater where someone would call the bomb squad about a ticking box.

Even with consumable gifts you don’t always welcome the gift you get. Last year a diabetic got a box of chocolates in an exchange and at my Gathering Girls party I went to recently I gave an assortment of teas along with a King Arthur gingerbread cake and cookie mix arranged in a cute snowman box and the next day I got a text asking me if I had the original tea boxes and receipts. Unfortunately, the recipient doesn’t drink tea. At that party we used the stealing game to distribute gifts but our game ended before she got a chance to ‘steal’ a gift she liked better than the one she opened. Oh, well, her family does a gag gifts exchange---things like toilet bowl brushes---so hopefully, she can re-gift the tea. If not, Goodwill probably benefits after the holidays from a lot of gifts that missed their marks. Even Donald Trump Jr. was joking on TV recently that his father re-gifts to him a lot of monogrammed gifts that are given to the president.

Change of topic: I probably shouldn’t bring this up but I feel like we’re getting early Christmas gifts with the high profile sentences and pleas that came out of the courts lately. (Spoiler Alert: Trump supporters should probably quit reading here.) So far the Mueller investigation has brought 36 indictments and he’s getting closer and closer to wrapping things up. To see some of the president’s lies and cover-ups finally being exposed in the courts gives me joy. Trump’s fall from grace, I predict, will be swift once all the redacted areas in the court filings get revealed over the next six months of trials and additional indictments. I personally think Donald Jr. is going to go down hard with some prison time and his father will stand by while the bus he’ll throw junior under runs over him. And the only reason Ivanka and Jared haven’t been charged in an emolument clause case is because they aren’t getting salaries while working in the White House. But I think the domino's of justice will eventually take them down, too. If you think I’m wrong about all this, don’t tell me until after the holidays. Let me live in my cocoon of believing the Rule of Law is coming back to the White House. Do I want to see Mr. Trump get impeached? That’s a question with a complicated answer but the bottom line is, we need to wait until enough wrong doing has been proven in court that even the hardcore Republicans in the Senate are calling for his head. Now, if you ask me if he deserves to be impeached my answer would be a resounding “HELL, YES!”  ©

The Political Post

It’s been a long time since I’ve dedicated an entire post to politics. I think I’ve only done it twice---after the school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut and after the White Nationalists torch-lite rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today will be full-blown political rant, this time against Mr. Trump. So, be forewarned if you’re a supporter of the president you might want to skip this blog post and come back Saturday when I’ll be back to writing about the benign minutia of living in my widow’s world. 

Before you leave, yes, I do know that he has a title that should go in front of his surname but he’s done so many things to dishonor the office of the presidency that I don't use the title when I speak or write about him. Maybe it’s because I’m old enough to remember as far back as the Eisenhower administration that I can’t understand how Trump’s fans can overlook his total lack of presidential decorum. Maybe it’s because I remember not so long ago when parents told their children to study hard and one day they, too, could grow up to be the president that I can’t understand how his fans can overlook his playground bullying, lying and lack of interest in studying the material needed to make good decisions. Please don’t feel the need to explain your support, just come back in a few days and I promise I’ll have my rant put back in the closet like a party dress that’s seen better days. 

To anyone still reading I want to say up front that I think Trump has turned the White House into a snake pit and breeding ground for evil that---by design or incompetency---is working towards destroying the very foundation of our nation. Under the gun is: 1) our Forth Estate, the freedom of the press; 2) our three branches of government that are supposed be autonomous to act as checks and balances; 3) respect for Truth and due process; 4) respect for following proper protocol and vetting when hiring and firing people to work in the White House, the Cabinet, the intelligence community and the Judicial branch; 5) respect for academia, science and the environment---rolling back regulations that are keeping our water and air clean is nothing short of scandalous; and last but not least 6) he’s costing us the respect of our allies and friends around the world. If I wanted to name a seventh thing Trump is doing to destroy the country I’d name the fact that he’s added twenty-one TRILLION dollars to the national debt, and don't get me started on what he's doing to our national parks system.

Everything Trump does is about him, his ego and his self-grandiose. And the 93 million dollar (now postponed) parade he wanted is a prime example of that. He wants to be dictator-in-chief instead of president. He’s divisive. He’s mean-spirited. He spends way too much time on Twitter picking fights with random people he nicknames whack jobs, slime balls, low-life’s, rat, low IQ’s, dogs, enemies of the people, dumb, liberal clowns---the list has grown to 487 people, places and things Trump has insulted and you can find the complete list at The New York Times here.

But his supporters would say, “He’s bringing in more jobs.” True or not, other candidates in the field who ran could have done the same and without the daily drama. His supporters would say he gave us a tax break. Thank you very much but I’d rather have that nineteen bucks used to help the poor and elderly. His supporters would say he’s doing something about illegal immigrants. What a nasty joke that is! If he really wanted to do something to stop illegal immigration he’d support one of the E-Verify bills floating around effectively drying up the job market that is drawing people across our southern border. What we don’t need is Trump’s inhumane program of separating babies from their mothers. How is it not kidnapping to keep babies under five in this country while deporting their mothers back to Central America? Yes, the administration is doing that and one judge ordered a plane---mid flight---to turn around and bring a mother back thanks to a lawyer from the ACLU.

In the personal blogs community, writing about Trump's failures is akin to touching the third rail. Mostly we resist the temptation to do so because we know it will offend roughly 30% of the population who holds Trump up as a savior while roughly 45% think he’s the anti-Christ and 25% are pretending to be ostriches with their heads buried in the sand. I did so today not because of anything new he’s done but because to continue to ignore “the elephant in the room” is not representing my life as it truly is---meaning I spend a lot of time following the national news. I always have. It’s a facet of my personality. I say in the introduction at the top of my blog, “I am a woman searching for contentment, friends and a voice in my restless world.” I usually write about the first two things but right now I’d burst at the seams if I couldn’t express how utterly disgusted I am with our so-called president.

If anyone is still reading, I know the odds are high that I'm preaching to the choir, so to speak, and that's okay. Maybe if we "preachers" and "choirs" get loud enough the ostriches will hear us and pick a side. It's our best hope for adding enough pressure on the House and Senate to get them to fulfill their duties to protect our Republic from presidential over-reaches. ©

NOTE: This was written before Paul Manafort's conviction came in and before Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to various charges, two of which implicate Trump in campaign finance violations. It's been a busy news day.