The Mourning Period and my Door Decor

I'm sitting here wondering whether or not to write about the elephant in the room---the election. More precisely whether or not by the time this post goes live will everyone have beaten that poor elephant to death and are ready to move on. As I write this three days before it will get published I'm not ready to move on and the few people I've talked to about it are also still in the early stages of grief over the way the election turned out. But what can we do except to (sooner or later) move on to acceptance? It's not as if we're going to storm the capital and demand that our way is the only way it could have gone. Democrats believe that our elections are safe from wide-spread fraud. And now that it went DJT's way so does he. What is so hard to make peace with is the fact that so many people could ignore the sick and twisted lack of ethics and morals in a man they just put in charge of our nuclear codes. That fact alone clearly proves the democrats have the moral high ground here. 

The TV commentators are picking away at all the things they think Harris did wrong or didn't do or that Biden did or didn't do and I agree that the biggest mistake of all was that Biden didn't keep his promise to be a one term president. If the party had had a normal primary season it could have made a difference. But beyond that I'm not willing to concede much more wrong doing on Harris's part because what makes me crazy is that with all the finger pointing going on the pundits don't seem to put any blame on the low information voters. And they don't put any blame (or enough blame) on the fact the our soon-to-be president lied at every turn, talked out of both sides of his mouth and took credit for things he didn't do and he made promises that if he keeps are going to bankrupt our country. 

I saw one report published by ABC that said: "…estimates that to deport even one million undocumented immigrants a year would cost over $88 billion dollars annually, for a total of $967.9 billion over more than ten years." And when DJT was asked about the cost he said, "The price tag doesn't matter. We have to do it."  I hope those who voted for him remember that when the price of our food goes sky high because there is no one left to milk the cows or pick the crops on factory farms, and butcher and process beef, pork and chicken in the slaughter houses. We're not going to see the Proud Boys rushing to fill those jobs. And we're not going to see Elon Musk use his own money to foot the deportation bill. He's reportedly the richest man in the world and could afford to do it out of his petty cash account. He's a TJD whisperer now and he's telling 45/47 that all immigrants coming into our country need to have a documented, high IQ. I'll bet the hospitality industry will have a thing or two to say about that. Hotel and restaurant workers don't need to know physics and calculus and between them and the food production industry they employ the lion's share of new immigrants.

Tim Walz made a speech on Friday about taking time to mourn and when we're ready to fight again to jump back in "because there are still plenty of ways to make a difference in our communities." My niece says she's going to start attending school board meetings because five out of the seven recently elected members are MAGA republicans and book banning is a big issue in her district. That's the kind of 'make a difference' kind of fight Walz was talking about. I'm searching for my next cause and I think it will be the ACLU or something to do with the environment. It was a great speech and I would have loved to hear more from him over the next four years. He has that down home, folksy way of comforting people that makes it easy to recognize that what he says is coming from the heart. He cares about people. Harris, too. Her rhetoric is more polished but it's clear her years of public service comes from a place of wanting to help people. DJT never does anything if it doesn't help him.

Door Decor: I have this framed piece of chicken wire that I can hang things on when I'm in the mood to express something. I pin things to it….kind of like posting meme's on a computer only this frame can hang on my apartment door. There are only eight people living on my hall (including me) to see what I post except in the winter time when there are hallway walkers. Two are rabid 45/47 supporters and we've never got in each others faces over politics or had conversations over the issues. I have my Tuesday night 'liberal ladies' dinner for that and people on campus know who we are but we're all very civil to one another. Still, things slip out once in a while like when a republican made comment about shooting Harris and that "bitch" Hillary. And like this noon over lunch when a MAGA person overheard myself and another woman quietly talking about how sad we were over the election and the MAGA fan said, "Be careful what you say. In a few weeks everything will be great again and you'll have to eat your words." How can anyone be so naive?

On election night when it looked like it was going to he-who-shall-never-be-named-in-this-blog-again's way I posted three vintage postcards which were about Dan Quale but seemed to fit how I was feeling at the time about DJT. (See below.) The day after the election I posted a card of Tammy Fay Baker, also below. Currently on my door is a postcard of a Renoir painting (up above) with the words, "If you can't find me, I'll be in France drinking wine for the next four years." I'm tired of hiding my disdain and feelings from the people I live with! But I do promise to move on in this blog. Next week I plan to walk the hallways and photograph the door decor and write a post about how everyone has embraced fall around here. ©

Until next Wednesday!

The Mahjong Tournament and the Election Results

By the time this is published we should but might not know the winner of our presidential election. I say 'might not' because Trump is planning to gum up the works with charges of fraudulent voting in Republican led states so they won’t have to declaration a winner, and if they can drag it out long enough then it will be up to the party leaders in those states to award the electoral college votes to the candidate of their choice. Same playbook they tried and failed to do with the last election only this time they're operating on steroids with a money infusion from the richest yo-yo in the world---Elon Musk. But with any luck this entire paragraph will get filed in folder labeled "Worried For Nothing!" However, even if a clear winner was declared on Tuesday on election night, I doubt we'll see Trump concede the election and we certainly won't see the end of his drama machine until after January 20th is in the history books and we have a new president installed. God help us if he wins. Edit to add: He did win and I'm sick to my stomach over the fact that I'm living in a country that puts so little value on character that they'd re-elect a scumbag like DJT. 

It's been a busy week with the highlight being my Mahjong Tournament which happened to coincide with UTI which added a level of an anxiety wondering if I could sit for four 30 minute games and then beat out the other tournament players for a choice spot in the restroom line during our five minute breaks in between games. I managed to win the latter race that most people didn't even know we were running but I came out of the tournament with a score of five (and dry underpants). I'd won one game with twenty-five points in round two but prompted lost twenty of my points in round three. No one scored super high. Two tied for first place with 70 points each. Our sister campus took first and third place and one of our ladies placed second.

It was a lot of fun and a lot of work of which I did 97% of since it was my idea and about half the ladies had to be coerced, sweet-talked or strong armed into taking part in it. The only help I had was the day of the tournament with setting up the room and game sets and with registration of the players. Judging by the feedback I got everyone had fun, though. Everyone left smiling, laughing and thanking me and of the twenty in attendance ten went home with a prize that ranged from $15 each to $5. At least four ladies in our Mahjong group offered to chip in for what I spent on the tournament but I turned them all down. "Next time," I told them, "now that everyone has had a taste of what a tournament is all about, we can spread the cost and the work around." But I might not live long enough to see that happen since our sister campus is already talking about hosting our 2nd annual tournament.

I wish I could share some photos of the activities but the continuum care facility hasn't posted any on their Facebook page for me to nab. We all had to  sign a paper when we moved in to give them permission (or not) to post our photos for their marketing Facebook page and so I know those photos are always fair game for me to nab. Others that were taken that day, I don't feel right sharing because a few ladies living here are fearful of Facebook…and email….and computers...and phone calls from numbers they don't recognize. But the picture to the left is of me at the tournament, looking happy it was over and that nothing went wrong. I didn't work in the wedding floral business for twenty years without learning a few things about long-range planning and making a lot of moving parts fit together.

The photo to the right is a sample of some of the documents I had to create for the tournament---score sheets, table rotation cards, name tags, tournament instructions and rules and welcome notes---and the photo to the left below is of the registration table after just about everyone had already checked in and taken their packets. Oops! 

Our CCC's photographer was on site so I didn't bother taking any pictures other than these two. Like so many of the 'jobs' here in independent living, she is self-appointed. She and her roommate/wife are our self-appointed newsletter publishers. They both taught graphic design at a local college and they've spoiled us with a first-class, four-times-a-year newsletters that always include biographies of a few residents.

When they were doing a photo shoot of the winners and me at the end I hoped I wouldn't embarrass myself before they finished and I could get to the bathroom. I did do an E-Visit with my doctor a few days before the tournament but the medication prescribed didn't help. An hour ago I went to the doctor's office to pee in a cup but it will take 48 hours for them to grow a culture so they can target a medication more precisely. I was hoping to be able to swing around to the drug store to pick it a new prescription on the way home. Boo Hoo! 

But on the good side I finally figured out how to get my face back on my smart watch after the time change. You shouldn't need to go through so much frustration for something as simple as that! It took me deleting and re-installing the app on my phone several times and standing on my head while singing I'm a Little Tea Pot. This watch will take my blood pressure and tell me how many hours I sleep at night vs how many times I get up to pee but it does not like Daylight Savings Time. Go figure!  ©

Until Next Wednesday. 

This Too Shall Pass but Can we Get a Confirmation on That?

 

I’m not sure I can do this anymore. And to make matters worse, I don’t even know what “this” is that I want to stop doing. The pandemic? The loneliness it brings with it? The constant focus on moving related activities? The worrying about the direction our country is going in? The pandemic related weight I’ve gained? The guilt of reading too much thus avoiding other things I should be doing? One thing I am sure of is that I’ve entered into another winter of discontent and by “winter” I’m using the word metaphorically and not referring to the season fast approaching my part of the world.

“When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something--anything--before it is all gone.”

John Steinbeck

 The Winter of Our Discontent

I’ve always loved John Steinbeck’s title, The Winter of Our Discontent. It rolls off your tongue so smoothly and paints an image of bleakness with so little effort. But I don’t like the feeling of living in a winter of discontent. I’ve been restless lately and when I’m feeling this way I ramble-write, not knowing where I’m going to end up but hoping it leads to clarity. And ramble writing usually leads me to rereading a favorite John Steinbeck quote from In Awe of Words: “A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn’t telling or teaching or ordering. Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say—and to feel—‘Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.’”

Steinbeck wasn’t the first to write about the winter of discontent. I’ve never studied Shakespeare but it doesn’t take much research into Steinbeck’s book title to run across a play of Shakespeare’s that starts out: “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York…” spoken by Richard, the future king who was not complaining, as I’ve been doing here, but was rather celebrating the turning point in his family’s fortune. In Steinbeck’s novel, however, the turning point was the opposite---of a family who was once great and went broke thus giving the main character a plot purpose to regain the family riches, power and influence. But the bare bones theme of the book, according to one reviewer, is it's about “the effect of societal pressure.” Geez! There's no maybe about it, that’s the cause of my discontentment right now i.e. there is so much social pressure to do this or don’t do that or to embrace this and reject that. I hate when the world around me seems to view everything in blacks and whites with no grey nuances in between. That's the kind of social pressures that makes my head spin.

“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.”

John Steinbeck

The Winter of Our Discontent

I’ve always loved living in an area of the world where our seasons are so clearly defined. With our winters comes both gentle and harsh storms followed by blinding white beauty blanketing the earth. Our springs warm the earth bringing forth the fragrant flowers and the return of plump robins. Our green, sultry summers with their long, lazy days are followed by cooler falls that turns the landscape into a blazing, artist's palette. A season that after the colors have detached from the trees gives way to brown, bare-bones visas waiting to start the cycle all over again. As humans we adapt. We fail and start over again. We grow stronger again. I may be in another winter of discontentment, but I’ve been here before and fortunately (or unfortunately) this time I’m not alone. The pandemic and the political climate has made strange bedfellows out of a lot of us. No matter who we voted for yesterday we are all deeply invested in the outcome of the election. God help us all if we can't come together when the dust settles, if our winter of discontent turns into a decade of discontent. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen.  ©

My Hodge-Podge Week

GATHERING GIRLS:  Why do all the bloggable things happen in one week? Monday started out with another long brunch with my Gathering Girls pals. And if I haven’t said it before, let me tell you that with the except using the F-word, I’ve never had friends that I’ve felt so completely free to say or do whatever silly or irreverent thing that crosses my mind. To misquote Sally Fields, "We like each other, we really do!” and that’s all the sweeter because we only met three years ago proving old dogs can learn new tricks. Unfortunately, though, our numbers keep dwindling. We started out with seven but Monday only three of us dined together. One was flying out to Arizona, another won't go to restaurants during the pandemic, a third lady was sick and one of our original gal pals had to drop out of our group for health or eye-sight issues---I don't remember which. Call me 'old'. I can take it.

THE ARGUMENT: Tuesday I had an argument with the dog, both of us speaking at full volume. Here’s the back story: My computer sits around the corner from the laundry room. In addition to what you’ll usually find in a laundry room is the door that leads to the garage and to another door leading outside to the dog’s yard. It’s also where Levi’s water and food dishes sit side-by-side. Yesterday I had my head lost in Facebook and Levi started in on me, acting like he wanted to go outside. Or so I thought. I opened the door to the garage and ordered, “Outside!” He took a leisurely stroll around the car and came straight back inside instead of heading to the outside door. Two minutes later he was begging again with the same results. After the fourth time I yelled at him to go get in his bed and he disobediently ran for the living room couch. And why not. I’ve let him treat the couch like a time-out, no scold zone so many times it’s actually become one. Five minutes later he was back in the laundry room again, this time banging his water dish against the wall and with a demonic look on his face that let me know that he knew my Facebook polluted brain was malfunctioning and not receiving the mental telepathy we usually share. It was so dry my heart sank, knowing he must have been without water all morning long. Levi accepted my apology but he put me on notice that it better not happen again. And don't you dare call the Old People Police! I'll deny the dog neglect ever happened.

HOUSE CLEANERS: Wednesday I lost my cleaning service, or rather I should say they lost me. After my favorite cleaner quit to go back to school the service hasn’t been able to find anyone to replace her who is willing to clean in my neighborhood. If I had a bigger house that took longer than 2 to 2 ½ hours to clean or they had other clients near-by, that might have changed things. But given the fact that they charged me an average of $74 per cleaning and the person who actually does the work only gets $30 of that fee I can see why no one wants to hop on the expressway from their offices to come through the heart of town to get here for a lousy $30 a month. I've all but resigned myself to cleaning my own house again---I did it all but the last 4-5 years of my life, so how hard could it be to get back in the groove?  I'm even warming up to the idea of earmarking the money I'll save for something special for my new home.

PARTY AT THE CCC: Thursday I had to make a $20,000 payment on the unit in the continuum care campus where---with any luck---I’ll be living by this time next year. Their marketing managers usually invent a reason to bring those of us who have already bought into the dream out to the building site around the time when a scheduled payment is due. This time they called their social-distancing party a “Topping Out Celebration.” The construction company brought a large truss up to the sales building and we all got to sign our names on a grid, after which we were supposed to watch a crane haul it up to the third floor roof and ‘top out’ the building. But it was raining so hard they decided to put that part off for later and we ate yummy falls treats instead. If the chef who prepares all the food for these events wasn't so young or me so old, I'd be in lust with the man. The only thing my husband could make was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and even then he go the proportions all wrong. An inch of peanut butter, Don? Really?

THE PORCH CEILING PROJECT: Friday the son-I-wish-I-had came over to paint the ceiling on my porch, to finish off our barter agreement. One of the reasons I can’t wait until after the election is over is because he’s a Trump supporter. I love this guy, have known him since before he got married, had three kids and 12-13 grandkids. We were neighbors for years and he worked for my husband and after my husband’s stroke he helped us more than all my other family and friends put together. I thought I knew him well but Trump has brought a side out of Tim that I’d rather not know about. It makes me sad and we tippy-toe around politics so carefully you’d think current events are freshly laid eggs in a hen house. But his Facebook posts---all I can say is I’m shocked at how much Kool-Aid he’s drank. The election can't come fast enough! No matter which way it turns out the true character of our country will be exposed. God help us all. ©

 Photo at the top was taken on the campus of the CCC.