Inauguration 2021

I feel as if I've been simultaneously holding my breath and screaming for years.

Today I took the day off and celebrated inauguration day by waking up in the middle of the night to watch the former president fly away to his lair. 

Together, mrguy and I watched the inauguration. 

I exhaled, grabbed a fistful of herbs from the aku room and now I'm celebrating by making stock.

Let us pray.

Eggs

Back in the day, my mom would draw an X on a hard boiled egg so that we'd know which ones are raw and which ones are hard boiled. I have carried on the tradition in my own home until recently, when I've used them to share my disgruntlement and make mrguy laugh.

Here are a few from the lockdown and windup to the election. Which shells would you want to crack first?

Really, Birx? What do they have on you that you would stand in front of us every day and lie?

My Pillow guy gives me a cramp

In general, although there have been some bright spots.

Co-conspirators, apologists, rapists, and the guy my family believes because they think he's dreamy.

Susan Collins. The next time I hear someone on the Left getting excited about one of her whimperings I am going to punch something.

Same with Mitt. Stop crowning him with laurels when he does one thing you like. He's not your guy, and Louisville Grand Jury you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Haven't heard anything about Steven Miller in a while, and I do hope that he suffers for a long time. Dr. Conley, you are a tool of Satan. 

And other eggs to come, I'm sure, after Trump somehow manages to "win" the election. His desperation is frightening right now.

Hard Working Joe

In political news, "Hard Working Joe" of political work glove fame, has been using his campaign fund as a slush fund. And not in just a "I forgot to put the money back in that pot over there when I borrowed it" kind of way, but a "I falsified documents to cover it up" kind of way.

Oh Joe.

Graft. It's what's for dinner.

Politics and Phytobezoars

This post is woefully outdated, but I couldn't let it, half-written, go to waste.

Today is my last day of staycation. I should do this more often. I attended a four-day German genealogy conference, binge-watched the current season of Real Housewives of New York, made soup and lasagne, planted some new things in the garden, continued my work on cleaning out the Etsy closet, worked on the excel doc of the family vacation duties (mom day concierge, mom night concierge, cooking, cleaning) and had a great heart-to-heart with the oldest neph. I did not talk to the mama, except once.

Last week's German genealogy conference led to some awesome discoveries. I found my 5th great grandmother's death record, and did some research on her surname. It's so uncommon that only one fellow can really be her father. I still need to prove it by finding her birth record, with the help of a researcher. The putative dad is a guy who wrote many books  under at least 13 pseudonyms. Even though he is primarily known by one name, that name is so rare that I wonder if he invented it. Could one of the other names be his real name? Since I first wrote this post I have found traces of his great grandson who, in 1905, asked in German genealogy periodicals for help tracing the mystery man's origins. I'm not the only one who couldn't figure this out.

The day I was writing this post I paused to have coffee and discuss the state of world affairs with mrguy. He said that perhaps the body politic would surround the current occupant of the White House and eject him like a hair ball. Which led to a discussion of hair balls in general, and my love of the fact that there was a hair ball oracle in Huck Finn. Which is now un-love, after looking it up and reading some of the passages.

On to happier things. Turns out that hairballs are a type of phytobezoar. I love this name. Did you know that there are experiments with treating human phytobezoars with Diet Coke? 

Well now you do.

The Weekend

[Note: written earlier this week but posted this weekend]
 
I was so excited about this weekend. Sure, I spent Thursday night sleeping at my mom's and getting up no fewer than 4 times in the middle of the night. Sure, as she was winding down for the evening she was watching Fox News full blast in the other room and I had to listen to MTV's only Republican VJ ever, Kennedy, who is now a Fox News talking head, and her this shy of Coulterian dramatic retelling of how crazy the Democratic party is. Oy. But I was looking forward to a weekend that had a blank calendar. Butno. No. No. No. Fate had other ideas.

I got the call that our beloved caregiver had to go to the ER on Friday so I closed the old laptop and hurried over to take care of the mama. I am happy to report that our caregiver "only" has pneumonia. And because I wasn't out of town or something I could fill in her shifts Saturday day, Sunday night and I'm already on the schedule for tonight so she can rest. We were so worried about her.

Whew.

January 2019 was the four year mark of us kids all recognizing at the same time that Mom had a real problem and we needed to address it.

And then about a billion other things happened that led to here.

Bigsis and I wonder how much longer we'll be doing this. We've had a blessedly steady six months, and the mama's health has held steady. Her mental health is pretty steady, also, but a little more unfiltered. But I love her, and I cherish the time we have, even if sometimes it's totally weird and if navigating her through her world and protecting her from it and it from her is awkward as hell. Pictured: mom starting to agitate about how she doesn't like the bread in the dining room in the community where she lives.

Womens' March...To The ER

Saturday was filled with unknowns, but I'd decided to go to the Women's March. I didn't have a plan or a hat or playmates, but I figured that I'd head down there and meet new people at the event.

I was lacing up my shoes when the phone rang, and it was the Wellness Office at the mama's complex. Uh oh.

Let me just say that everything is fine. Everything. But we had a hell of a day.

The mama's eye burst a capillary, we think. I've had it happen, and my dad used to carry an eye patch in his glove compartment because it happened to him so regularly and is so scary to look at. For those who are interested, once it does happen, you're more likely to have it happen again in the same capillary if you sneeze too hard or exert too much effort (say, in the bathroom).

But because she's got glaucoma we had to have it checked out because bloody sclera could be indicative of something more serious. So I put on a different shirt, drank some coffee, and drove over to take the mama and her caregiver to the ER, where we spent 5.5 happy hours.

Anyone who has been in the ER knows what a scene it can be. There was the lady having a psychic break. Not sure what she was in for, but her psychosis probably wasn't helping. There was the rock musician in town on tour who said he had been jumped by someone who had beaten him with the butt of a pistol (but who actually looked like he'd gone through the windshield of a car). There were a bunch of quiet people, almost all African American or Pacific Islander, some college town ladies who for sure didn't vote for Trump, and a giant television in the waiting room blaring Fox News. So unfair.

Next to us was a woman who was coughing like crazy. She was also speaking to her relative on the phone in a deep Southern accent. And when one relative would conclude a call, she'd move on to calling another one. She was both conversing with these people and giving them a running commentary of everything on television and in the room. She liked Donald's hair "they colored it different, and it looks like they're parting it now. It looks much better"..."What? I think she's funny. I like her sense of humor but it's her lifestyle I can't stand. She's a degenerate. No, I don't think she ever dated Ellen." "It's on whatever channels you have, there. You can see it on *your* tv if you want." "Ronnie's an alcoholic." 

This woman's psychic presence was enormous, and her physical presence was, as well, so it was really difficult to ignore her. I wanted to tell her to get off the phone, but was worried about how I could do this without completely causing a scene and embarrassing my mom. Luckily the mama's hearing is so bad that she was missing most of this. She'd wake up, say something snarky about being cured and wanting to go home, and then go back to sleep.

After a while we were treated to a live broadcast of the President speaking to the CIA. And after about 3 hours in the ER I was a little cranky, so this happened:

I was really unhappy at this point, but there were people in there with much worse problems than my sweet mama, so I didn't think it was worth saying anything. Yes, it took less time when we were in the ER last time, but she'd broken her hip, I reminded her.

Anyhoo, I started posting some of this to Facebook, and a friend asked why I hadn't changed the channel. Right. Why hadn't I? Because my mom watches Fox? She was asleep. So I asked the guy at the desk if he had the remote. He couldn't find it, so I started pushing all of the buttons on the tv. Then people started heckling me to get the remote, so I went back to the desk and found it on the desk. "Is *this* the remote?" I asked, pointedly. Then I shut off the tv from across the room. The guy at the desk asked politely if I could turn it back on, just to a different channel, and I was a bit stumped. An API guy who seemed like he was in pain said quietly "Anything but news." The lady on the phone was literally still talking to her relative in Alabama about whether Ronnie had found a church to go to since the funeral and calling out "Channel 5!! Channel 5!!" I said "No!" and she said "It's not news!! Let me see, what day is it?" Someone suggested PBS, and it was a blessed relief. They were promoting a program that was literally images of the Sonoran desert and classical music. It could not have been more soothing at that moment. People thanked me. Arkansas lady said "No words, only music". A different desk guy came by to retrieve the remote. Eventually Arkansas got a room and our long national nightmare was over.

But we still had a few hours to go. At one point I had to move the car for the third time and  desk guy (#2) let me back into the curtained area where the mama was going to be seen. "You're the PBS lady!!" he said. "When you did that, the whole room changed."

It took some prompting from people on FB, but I helped people after all, it seems.

And the mama's doing fine.

The Republicans Are Awake

Oh vacation!

The past two days have been fairly quiet and nice. Then horrible world events happened, and how there is a Republican confab at the end of the dining table. I will be taking refuge in Nature now.

Tonight is our night to cook.

We will be making this:

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

Newt is calling for a new House Un-American Activities Committee.
Trump is calling for surveillance of mosques. 
We have a Democratic filibuster on firearms today. 

Welcome to the Hindenburg, Republicans. Next stop, Manchester NJ.

And In Local Politics...

It's Tuesday night and I'm watching the city council meeting on channel twenty-something.

Our youngest cat, inches away from the tv, seems to be obsessed with public commentary on seeking bids for the building of a gender-specific restroom in one of our firehouses. 

Her commentary as a local resident involves pawing the image of our obstreperous vice mayor.

I agree with Youngest Cat. These people are nuts.

A Last Election Note

Joe the plumber, like Willie Horton before him, will soon be a person we only discuss every four years in the fall.

Last week while driving past a famous sex novelty store in the big city we saw this marquee and paused just long enough in the intersection to snap this photo...

Election Bunker in Action, Part 2

I can't believe that I woke up and it's still true.

Yes, the potholder candidate went down in flames. But the biggest carbuncle on the flank of our city council got enough votes to last for another four years. His anti-yoga mailer (I'm not kidding), intended to harm one of the other candidates, did not work. That candidate got the most votes.

In other political news, The Sun has scrapped its "Page 3 Girl" today for Barack Obama.

Election Bunker in Action, Part 1

In 2004, mr middleguysis ate a record number of slices of pizza, perhaps as many as ten, in protest of the unfolding election returns. I think this year he might be able to eat more lightly. And this may be the first time in years that I've been asleep at a reasonable hour knowing what happened.

Regardless of whether you're happy about how things turn out today, one thing we can all get behind is how many people went to the polls and voted. Here's how I saw it...

I was out there at 7:30 this morning. I was so excited to see that I had to stand in line. I remarked on the turnout to a poll worker, and she told me that during the February primary only 140 people in my precinct voted...shocking!

I don't know about you, but I like to vote. Let's keep it up, people! That's how we change the world.

Potholders

This morning mrguy took me to Carrows to help feed my cold the egg breakfast it desired. We returned to find our mailbox full of rain-soaked campaign mailers. Why couldn't the mail carrier get them all into the box?

I felt one of the envelopes, a puffy envelope marked "a gift for you"...

Yes!!!!


I am now the proud owner of a potholder from city council member M., up for reelection. His potholder wins my affection, but not my vote. I'm no fool.

"Hardworking Joe C.," however, totally got my attention a few years ago by sending us gardening gloves emblazoned with his motto. How funny!

Back to the potholders, though. I wanted to know more about the tradition of the campaign potholder. From info on the Internet it appears that Gerald Ford gave out promotional potholders when running for Congress. Calvin Coolidge may have also used the promotional potholder. And Magi claims to have started the political potholder trade.

There is little hope that city council member M. will not be re-elected. That may be sad, but I'll buoy myself with the thought that the next time his term is up, there may be a potholder in it for the guy family.

Josephine the Plumber

On the way home to watch the debate with mrguy, I was stuck in traffic behind a woman whose car had a Yes on 8 (restore marriage) bumper sticker. She was weaving in and out of her lane, while text messaging at the wheel. Then she brushed her teeth.

Once ensconced in the happy Guy home, I heard a lot about Joe the Plumber.

I'd much rather talk about Josephine the plumber. She was my favorite advertising character in the day. In commercials she talked out of the side of her mouth, wore lipstick, and taught you how to get stains out of your sink with Comet.

7 years ago I saw her (the actress Jane Withers) at an event in LA. She looked amazing. She was wearing a bright colored blazer and her hair was in a bouffant. She reminded me of my favorite co-workers from the diner, out for a night on the town.

If they'd been movie stars.

Election Bunker 2008

'Tis the season. It's the happiest time in a boy's life: Election Bunker 2008.

During the season mrguy settles into a steady diet of debates, monologging, anticipation and then (at least for the last long 8 years) disbelief. Me too, although I don't get quite as into it as mrguy.

I am hoping that this season doesn't bring us the same cycle of disappointment.

I was looking forward to a fair-ish fight and good debates by strong thinkers. Now I'm thrown for a loop with McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as vp running mate. She's a better fit to be his *constituent*, than to be his running mate.

With the wealth of talented Republican women in the US, I'm shocked by the choice.

Woe-mentum

[redacted version]