Clean Carpets and Dirty Politics

 

With something on my schedule every day this week, it flew by, but not everything was social or fun. One day was devoted to getting my house ready for the carpet cleaners to come the next day. In recent years I’ve scheduled them to come the day after my monthly house cleaning day so I could get the cleaning service girl to help me stack and move furniture around, but one thing after another got in the way of that plan this year and I couldn’t keep putting it off. Boy, have their prices have gone up in the decade I’ve been using the company. They started out at $20 a room and now it’s $50. I suppose that’s to be expected but the rub comes from the fact that pension and Social Security checks have stayed the same. And young people wonder why old people start letting house maintenance go by the wayside.

This week also included Red Hat Society Wednesday and we had our second meeting at the brand new senior living complex, a very elegant and accommodating place but I was ready to dance on a table top when a vote was taken on staying there, or not. It was ten to one to go back to our old meeting place in the community room above a supermarket in the tourist town near where my husband grew up. I wasn't the only one who missed getting a Starbucks on the way up and a few groceries after the meeting. We also had a good time discussing tee-shirt designs. We’re all having trouble finding purple clothing so we’re looking into the idea of getting purple tee-shirts with the Red Hat Chapter’s name on the front and something like, “Wild and Crazy” on the back with a line crossing out the ‘wild’ part. We kicked around other ideas that had us laughing and talking about the last time we felt “Sassy and Bad Assy.” By the next meeting we should have some design options to vote on. 

Ohmygod, do I dare bring up the presidential election? I can’t take it anymore! I'm angry and disgusted over all things Trump related. He doesn’t have the temperament, knowledge-base, judgement, character or personal ethics to be the leader of the free world. Never before in my entire voting life have I ever feared that if “my guy” didn’t win that the country would be in extreme peril. I blame the obstructionists who have dominated Washington D.C. in recent years for bringing us to this point. There is no excuse, for example, for the Senate not to give Obama’s nomination for the Supreme Court---Merrick Garland---an up or down vote. That vote has been blocked for over a year now when the average length of time for a justice vote is 75 days. Mitch McConnell and his band of cohorts are no better than welfare queens; they collect a paycheck but refuse to do their jobs. People are rightly fed up with government, but the solution isn’t to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.

And now Trump is saying he’ll implement a nationwide Stop-and-Frisk policy as a solution to big city crime when a 9½ week federal trial in 2013 has already ruled that it’s unconstitutional. And from the other side of his mouth he supports the NRA’s push to make open carry legal in every state. How’s that going to work out? Stop and frisk the blacks for guns but let the whites keep right on walking with their AK-47’s slung over their shoulders? How’s that going to play in Peoria? 

For all Trump’s claims about loving America he sure doesn’t respect our Constitution. How many times has he promised to take free speech away from the media if he’s elected? Once is scary, Hitler-like enough but he keeps beating that drum. Presidents don’t get to cherry pick the Constitution like it’s an assortment of decadent desserts on a cart. Trump also has no grasp of American history. If he did he couldn’t stand on a stage and claim, “African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before, ever, ever, ever!” Worse than during slavery? Worse than during the 100 years of Jim Crow laws and segregation?

And his running mate, Mike Pence, believes all schools should teach Creationism, says condoms are “too modern” and that the government should pay for gay conversion therapy. In other words, he’s a liberal’s nightmare. I need to quit writing before I bust a blood vessel in my head. It’s enough to say that I both dread the outcome of election and wish it could be over with tomorrow. The drama of this election makes me feel like barfing the way the dog did on the carpeting ten minutes after it had been cleaned. ©

Travelogues and Starbucks

Feast or famine. That’s the way my social life goes. This week was the latter, having had only two thing on my day planner. One was my house cleaner who came to do her monthly magic, and two I went to a travelogue about river cruises in Europe, Asia and South America. Avalon, the company that owns the river ships, has eleven tours and when their very enthusiastic speaker was finished giving her talk even I---the non-traveler---wanted to sign up. They have two sizes of ships. The smaller size holds 126 passengers and the large one hold 160. I want to call them boats because they aren’t tall and stately like the ocean liners and they don’t have on-board entertainment. No pools. No floor shows but the speaker made a point of repeatedly telling everyone that all the beds face windows. (Does that mean passengers are the floor show for people on shore if they don’t close the curtains?). They gave us all a glossy, 260 page book outlining the details of all their tours, the rates and schematics of the ships plus gorgeous, scenic photos---costly, slick printing. I felt guilty taking one since I have no intentions of going on a cruise but they count on word-of-mouth advertising so caulk up this blog entry to me dispensing myself of my self-inflicted guilt.

If I was signing up for one of their tours it wouldn't be on the one the travel escort service that works out of my senior hall is setting up for 2017. They’re doing ‘Amsterdam to Amsterdam’ during tulip time which seems weird considering we have large tulip farms and a tulip festival within a 45 minute drive from my house. They draw in tour buses from all over The States and then some. Another tour  that Avalon offers would be more fascinating to me. It's on the Burmese river named Irrawaddy (see the photo above). Or their trip on the Yangtze River that takes you through China and Tibet. The day trips on land in China are ones my niece recently did and she couldn’t say enough good things about the country and travel there except for maybe the fact that she couldn’t get Wi-Fi in all of China. The Egypt’s Nile River tour would be awesome, too. I just wish I wouldn’t have to get on an airplane to do any of these trips. I’ve flown to Washington D.C., Denver and the Bahamas. I did not enjoy the experiences and that was long ago when airplane seats were bigger, the crazy people all took buses and the flight attendants were from the “coffee, tea or me” era of passenger service.

Speaking of crazy people, I cannot believe that a front-runner for the President of the United States is calling for a boycott of Starbucks because they are using a plain red cup for the holiday season! Not only that he’s talking about not renewing Starbucks leases in his Trump Towers all because some whack-a-do made a video that went viral claiming the all red cups are a war on Christmas. The topic was trending on Twitter and Facebook for several days and late night comedians were having a field day with the controversy. The political debating sites racked up pages of posts about Starbucks’ so-called war on Christmas and YouTube videos on the issue are exploding. Even Bristol Palin weighed in accusing liberals of trying to "make Christians look stupid.” Say what? What is stupid, Bristol, is calling for a boycott because of a plain red cup! I swear I’m going to be so jacked up on caffeine through the holidays that I’ll be talking a mile a minute; this topic made me so mad I vowed I’d stop at Starbucks every time I’m near one. If I was Starbucks, next year I’d use a plain white cup and put a box of color crayons by all their cash registers so people could make up their own designs of whatever won’t offend their tender sensibilities. 

Starbucks is one of the most socially responsible corporations on the face of the earth. They give their full AND part time employees health insurance and reimburse them for college tuition. They practice ethical sourcing for fair-trade coffee and have set up Farmer Support Centers in key coffee growing regions. This year they opened up five “military stores” (and have ten more planned) that are entirely staffed and run by veterans. And contrary to what the boycott rumor mill says, they don’t script their employees on what to say or not say to customers in the way of a holiday greeting other than to “make them feel welcome and glad they came.” Trump, who loves to wave a Bible at his rallies, ought to sit down and read it sometime. Starbucks does not deserve to be used as pandering bait to get votes. Rant off.

If this week was void of things to do then next week will more than make up for it. I have eight things penciled in on my day planer including a tour of the non-public areas of the airport. I’m looking forward to that tour although I’m kind of surprised the TSA allows people into the areas we’ll be going. I guess they don’t think a bunch of elderly widows from a senior hall could be terrorists. And that’s a good bet to take. The most militant thing I’m likely to do is to walk past the ill-informed sign holders in front of Starbucks and say, “Happy Holidays” just because I know it will annoy them.©

2015