Citizenship | Playing for Time

Oh Happy Day… page 194

20 Jan 2021 2 Comments

Day 311 – 01/20/2021

There’s such a deluge of thoughts and emotions since yesterday it’s hard to hang onto them long enough for posterity. Good things are happening fast, and the first act of our incoming administration last night was a simple, beautiful memorial service for the nation’s COVID dead, numbering more than 400,000 now. The healing we need is under way. We’re home.

Earlier in the day, I watched our new president say his farewells to Wilmington, Delaware, before heading to DC for the inaugural. Joe’s an Irishman who wears his heart on his sleeve, thanks be to god, so I’ll be crying for days now, and for the four years to come, but for all the right reasons. There are still good men. Joe’s the kind of Irishman who’ll cry over a song, a memory, a loss, then turn around and pop you right in the forehead if you need it, so we’re in good hands.

This morning I was up before 6am like it was Christmas, glued to the day’s events. When the helicopter finally left the White House south lawn, carrying the Trumps away for the final time, I dissolved into sobs – it’s been a long five years. The reality show star’s ride down the escalator and the speech that followed confirmed to us where the United States would be in five years’ time if he somehow won… and here we are, finally, kicking all of that to the curb and ready to make America what we wanted to believe she was.

This whole thing is starting to feel real – President-e Biden invited a bipartisan group to attend church with him this morning and I look for Joe’s administration, after the dust settles, to be sweetly boring in all the best ways.

From Minnesota’s Star Tribune:

President-elect Joe Biden is attending church ahead of his inauguration, a traditional step taken ahead of the swearing-in ceremony.

Biden and incoming first lady Jill Biden on Wednesday are attending a service at Washington’s Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. With them are incoming Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff.

At Biden’s invitation, the first couple is joined by a bipartisan group of members of Congress, including all four top-ranking members of congressional leadership.

That includes both Senate leaders, Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Chuck Schumer, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Many presidents have chosen St. John’s Episcopal Church, sometimes called “Church of the Presidents,” for the inaugural day service. Biden is the second Catholic U.S. president, and St. Matthew’s is the seat of the Catholic archbishop of Washington.

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Image by Judy Smith

Progress… page 193

19 Jan 2021 4 Comments

Day 310 – 01/19/2021

Inauguration Eve. The Capitol of the United States of America is a Baghdad Green Zone, locked down as airtight as 25,000 added National Guard can make it, with active-duty soldiers standing ready to back them up. Everything is fencing, concrete, and razor wire, with military personnel fully equipped. If we hadn’t watched the armed insurrection on live TV this might feel like overkill. As it is, we simply hope it’s enough.

The New Yorker released footage in the past 48 hours that’s exceedingly hard to watch – just twelve minutes of the violence and destruction that took place both outside and inside the Capitol over long hours on January 6th. The scenes are straight out of hell itself, shocking and deeply disturbing, beyond anything I’d seen in prior videos. If I’d not made myself look at what happened that day, I’d owe it to my future self to do a forced viewing – there’s never been anything like it in our government. It’s rightfully stomach-turning.

https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/a-reporters-footage-from-inside-the-capitol-siege

Yesterday being MLK Day, there were quotes flowing like a waterfall from Trump admin people and others whose whole lives have been lived in opposition to the things he fought for. They should keep his name out of their mouths forever.

A lot is being desperately put forward from a panicked GOP about unity. Instant unity in the face of one of the greatest upheavals our government has ever gone through – just add water and there ya’ go.

From Twitter: Lindsey Graham saying that the Senate should dismiss the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to allow for “national healing” is like an abusive husband gaslighting his wife for “tearing the family apart” when she finally calls the cops.

Call me old fashioned, but unity does not mean letting the instigators of an attempted coup off the hook. Show us the slightest bit of contrition and “lesson learned” and we MIGHT think about it. But there’s nothing in that mindset I can unify with – that’s a dilemma going forward.

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And so… we go forward anyway, with hope, aware of the harsh realities. Tomorrow is a watershed day – may we all survive it and keep moving. It’s the day we’ve anticipated for five years and we deserve to celebrate it.

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John Pavlovitz on the legacy of Donald J. Trump:

“It’s never been about him. It’s been about your limitless tolerance for his infidelity, his cruelty, his intellectual ignorance, his immorality, his violence, his disrespect for the rule of law, his alliances with dictators—things you once claimed you could never abide in a leader.”

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And we know this to be true:

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On the home front, yesterday was the first day in three weeks that I’ve felt “normal.” No coughing fits, no gagging, no body aches, no chills, no sweats, and only a little exhausted. Progress is a beautiful thing.

Image by Judy Smith

I love sunshine… page 187

12 Jan 2021 Leave a comment

Day 303 – 01/12/2021

We have a sunny Tuesday morning in progress, with a high this afternoon in the low 50s, so Kim will be playing PickleBall after lunch. Happy day for him – he turns into a coil-spring when he can’t get out and move.

Not sure what I’ll end up doing today, but if I turn my head slightly to the left I can see several available options, just in my line of sight. Much time will undoubtedly be taken up with, or at least wrapped in, thoughts that never stop.

Six days after MAGA’s failed coup against democratic government, my outrage has only increased. The images, the stupidity, the deaths, the destruction, the total lack of comprehension of what makes us America, the entrenched idea that if you’re white in this country and you ever lose a single thing you BY GOD GET IT BACK IMMEDIATELY!

The terrorists’ representatives in Congress, whose own lives were on the line last Wednesday, are continuing the mantra: The GOP doesn’t lose elections unless we get something very wrong, so we’re saying something’s very wrong and we will reverse this outcome we don’t like, even if it costs us our way of life.

More MAGAs and Qs and general fuck-ups are threatening open assault on all 50 statehouses in the country, and plotting to disrupt Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris’s inauguration.

**“Antifa” has also taken a shit in the hall…**

And all of the above is sanctioned by a “man” who’s never been told no, never had to lose much that mattered to him, always had a parachute – ’til now. At this juncture, he seems willing to sacrifice everything in his frantic attempt to avoid being outed as a fraud, an abject idiot, a traitor to the United States of America, and a sociopath who has so far allowed almost 400,000 Americans to die on his watch..

What none of the above people comprehend is that on the profound moral questions in American politics — union vs treason, democracy vs autocracy — there is no middle ground. They’ve sacrificed truth for their cause and don’t seem to realize yet that they’re holding nothing but sawdust.

The good news on a sunny morning is that Rita and I are both feeling better, starting to come up out of the odd haze that is apparently COVID-19. She’s a couple of days ahead of me so she’s been my beacon of hope for better days all along, and once I get past the weak and shaky stage and lose the cough, I’ll claim my win.

Image by Judy Smith

“Well-intentioned suggestions”… page 186b

11 Jan 2021 2 Comments

My friend Randy Mathews graciously said yes to my request to share a piece of his writing here. He says it all so well:

If you’re still a fervent supporter of our president after all that’s happened this week, you might be feeling a little heat right now. That’s understandable. But there are things you could do to help turn down the temperature. Here are a few well-intentioned suggestions:

1. Instead of promoting ridiculous assertions that there were radical leftist infiltrators from Antifa or BLM or the freaking Girl Scouts among that crowd who encouraged the violence and mayhem, try this instead: “Yes, those were loyal MAGA Trump supporters, and I don’t condone their actions.”

2. Rather than insisting Trump had nothing to do with the riots, and that he was trying his best to maintain order and civility, maybe listen to his rally speech one more time, watch the reaction of the crowd to what he said, and then follow them as they move, en masse, directly to the U.S. Capitol. Then ponder whether that constituted an obvious cause and effect – a clear call to action and an immediate response.

3. Instead of vehemently defending this awful man, how about conceding that he’s not especially truthful? He told the rally crowd to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, and said “I’ll be right there with you.” Of course he wasn’t right there with them. He sent them on their way, and then retired to the White House to watch the chaos he orchestrated play out on live TV.

He also lied yesterday, when he claimed he immediately deployed the National Guard to assist the besieged Capitol police. No, he didn’t. Everyone in the chain of command, and every person with direct knowledge of how things actually went down, has disputed that claim. The man is a pathological liar. Admitting that would go a long way.

4. Stop making excuses for the rioters. Stop calling them patriots and freedom fighters. Admit that what they did was dangerous, reckless and illegal. These people entered the U.S. Capitol illegally after forcing their way past uniformed police officers, damaged and destroyed federal property, threatened and assaulted officers who tried to stop them, desecrated the seat of our democracy by waving Confederate battle flags – a literal symbol of the most notorious attempt to overthrow the U.S. government in our nation’s history – ransacked offices, stole official correspondence and other documents, and even urinated on the carpet in a Congressman’s office. They were thugs, hoodlums and criminals. They were domestic terrorists. Conceding they weren’t there with good intentions would be a great start.

5. Reevaluate whether what happened on Wednesday was an isolated, spontaneous event or if it’s worth considering that it was actually the inevitable outcome of a president’s incendiary rhetoric. Then consider whether you are still so eager to throw your support behind someone like that. People died on Wednesday because your president incited an armed insurrection, a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol during a joint session of Congress. Your president, sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, is absolutely culpable here. In fact, he arguably bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for what happened. Maybe it’s time to admit that he’s not really worth your loyalty or your devotion.

Just give these suggestions some thought. Those of us who have spent months if not years decrying Trump’s never-ending incendiary language, blatant lies and hateful personal attacks have worried things could eventually reach a boiling point. Wednesday’s horrible events were shocking, but they should not have been a surprise. And while there is support for censure, impeachment, and even invoking the 25th Amendment, it’s probable he’ll still be president until his successor Joe Biden is sworn in. It’s a frightening possibility that there could be more violence between now and then. No one really knows what Trump or all his angry, devoted followers are truly capable of.

Now is the time to reflect on your allegiance to this man, and to give serious consideration to whether you have cast your lot with someone who is not deserving of your support. We who all along have seen him for what he truly is will be waiting for you. But make no mistake – we’re not interested in meeting in the middle. In this case, things are pretty black and white. You either see that or you don’t.

Randy Mathews – 01/08/2021

Image by Judy Smith

There’s still truth… page 186

11 Jan 2021 Leave a comment

Day 302 – 01/11/2021

Took a news break for most of the weekend and that was a good decision – insurrection, sedition, and treason take time to process. It’s a lot to absorb and new information comes out every hour.

If people were angered by the street riots in 2020 and blamed it on everyone but the actual instigators of the violence… but those same people see the attempted coup at the Capitol as noble and right… then we come from two separate tribes. In which case it’s fine if we never run into each other again in this life – we don’t speak the same language. A friend shared this four years ago, and if I change Clinton to Biden it all still applies.

Qanon made their practice strikes against statehouses around the country with January 6th in mind, saw that they weren’t being stopped because they were 99% white male, and declared the coup on our Capitol a GO. It was very much an inside job, with maps and directions provided for finding hidden offices within the complex. Some carried zip-tie handcuffs and were calling for Mike Pence’s head as they burst through the doors. Nobody was arrested for the plot to kidnap and murder Michigan’s governor, so hey, carte blanche! Let’s do what we came here to do! People died that day, including a young policeman who was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. Another was beaten with an American flag… and a third was thrown over a railing in the Capitol. How’s that Blue Lives Matter thing workin’, I wonder. Democracy didn’t die, not that day, not any day soon because America fought back, but we’ll have to keep doing that – the terrorists are plotting additional attacks for the 17th and the 20th and beyond. Anybody awake yet?

The war is far from over but people more interested in immunity are already pushing for unity. You don’t make common cause with traitors, sorry.

These are not the heroes we’ve been waiting for, these misguided, low-information, absurdly outfitted white men who smeared feces in the Capitol hallways, urinated on carpets, and tore hell out of everything they could get their hands on. They aren’t brave, they aren’t abused, and they aren’t right. They’re just white. And the world has always belonged to them, damn it, and they’ve had all they want of this equality idea, so women and children stand back! Their leader could tell them anything at this point and they’d charge forward again. They’re a dangerous mob looking for direction.

Important note to self on a Monday morning:

Image by Judy Smith

Addendum… page 184b

07 Jan 2021 Leave a comment

From my dear friend Philip Grecian on the disintegrating loyalty to Donald Trump among the ranks:

“Yes, Pence filled in where Trump wouldn’t…making decisions (it was Pence who called in the National Guard) and issuing orders. This does not mean that he would make a good president one day. It simply means that he did what a reasonably sane person with a position of authority would do under the circumstances.

“It appears now that this is the end of Trumpism. Thank heaven. Oh, there will be hangers-on who sit outside in their trailer parks drinking Budweiser and raging about the gummint… but we’ve always had them. For a brief, horrible, five years or so, they had some power and made our lives hell. There will always be people who make our lives hell. Until the day we die and it no longer matters. But these people are quickly losing their national influence. We’ll be dealing with them awhile longer… and we may be hearing from them again in 2024. But for now they’ve been weakened… For now, even many of their supporters have seen who they really are. For now, they will be fragmented. We can help the process by seeing to it that the Cruzes and Giulianis and Millers… and Trumps… are never again in a position to try to bring the country down. And then wait for the next monster to come slouching toward Bethlehem.”

I hope Phil’s right. But the venom hasn’t drained out of this crowd yet and they’re wallowing in the mud of their loss, halted mid-tantrum with no place to go. Thinking, feeling human beings want this over with. Done. But never forgotten, ever, or America will head right back to kakistocracy because it’s the path of least resistance – you don’t even have to think, and after a while you apparently don’t feel much of anything, either.

And now Congress is adjourned until after the inauguration, so who’s watching the baby while they’re away? Dozens of legislators called for Donald Trump’s immediate removal from office… and then went home. Somebody has to be the GOAT who gets him out of our house before he kills us all. If the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution isn’t utilized to accomplish that, then it’s just taking up space in a musty old document and might as well be jettisoned because unless we’re idiots the country will never reach the point of needing it again. OMG, what am I saying… ? Yeah. Better keep it.

And now it’s time to use it.

Image by Judy Smith

Insurrection… page 184

07 Jan 2021 2 Comments

Day 298 – 01/07/2021

My overriding emotion this morning on awakening to the reality of yesterday’s chaos is one of sadness – the inconceivable has happened in our nation’s Capitol and life in the United States is broken. Those who know Donald Trump told us in 2016 that the story would end this way – and the one prediction yet to manifest itself is that he will trigger a thermonuclear device on his way out the door. Anybody know where those codes are?

Reports say four people died in yesterday’s terrorist attack on our Capitol, same number as when Benghazi happened – there will be endless probes, hearings, and recriminations, right? Lumpy will sit for eleven straight hours of testimony before this is over, right? Justice will prevail after the great unwashed stormed the barricades, scaled the walls, shattered historic windows, smeared blood on statuary, urinated liberally everywhere, ripped nameplates off the walls, sat in personal offices and at the dais of the Senate with their feet up, taking photos of paperwork, walking away with items, fomenting insurrection with every act, right? Justice will prevail. I guess the Capitol police and reinforcements were saving their rubber bullets and tear gas in case any Black people showed up – in fact, had this event had a color key the Black version would have looked like this:

For the people inside, the roar of the mob came first, then the sounds of doors and windows being breached. A few highlights of the day:

**How it started… with Chamber assistants bringing the Electoral College ballot boxes. Staff had the presence of mind to grab the boxes when the mob broke through.**

**Just an ordinary Wednesday in America.** **Little troll behind Wolfman Jack has already been fired. Wore his work badge to the riot.**

**That’s a big hammer, son, whatcha’ got in mind??**

**Close your eyes for naptime, kids, it’ll be over soon.**

**Democratic representatives comfort each other.**

**I also saw confederate flags yesterday – explain that, America.**

**If these are your heroes, unfriend me, unfollow me, block me out of your life – I don’t know you.**

On another note, remember COVID? Almost 4,000 people died in this country yesterday as a result of it. My test came back negative, but since I still feel like dog shit and have all the symptoms of the virus I’m gonna stay right here ’til morale improves. Sense of smell and taste are gone and the sweats and body aches are like a rollercoaster ride. Maybe the swab has to actually tickle your brain in order to get the goods, who knows? It’s a plus if I don’t have it, especially for Kim since there’s no way not to expose him – in which case, this feels like something that needs its own vaccine.

**But that was a bridge too far for survivalists.**

Meanwhile, the Flight Attendants’ Union says their employees will not staff planes on which the terrorists from the unmasked superspreader try to fly home. Good luck on the DC streets, MFs.

Image by Judy Smith

Tuesday’s connected to the… page 166

15 Dec 2020 2 Comments

Day 275 – 12/15/2020

It was just as cold early this morning as yesterday, but Kim geared up and went walking anyway, bringing back this totally #lfk pic snapped in South Park, and a bagel. Quiet morning… he’s been playing guitar for the last hour or so… I’m spaced off reading and drinking coffee. It’s a Tuesday in December, pre-Christmas, pre-New Year’s, pre-resolution, a gray, cold, breezy day that calls for telling myself “Nothing’s really going to happen today, so just roll with it some more.”

The 2020 election has been certified by the votes of the electoral college, but unlike in any presidential race that I know of, other than Bush/Gore, that fact hasn’t settled the matter. While we wait and hope civil war won’t break out, I’m trying hard to peer through the windows on the other side and arrive at some state of comprehension. As usual, my Twitter friends are helping with that…

The Proud Boys were out on Saturday night, terrorizing Washington, D.C., but they met with a police force determined to protect the city, raising the obvious question, “What are the Proud Boys proud of? Being Meal-Team Six in skirts?”

**His mama must be proud, but what time does he have to be home before she locks the basement entrance?** **That catchy motto clearly means with EACH OTHER.**

Then there’s this. People really believe these things and it takes my breath away…

So yeah, I wouldn’t want Uncle Joe either if I thought he was all about THAT shit. A serious problem I see in all this is that the average American can’t define and delineate among the concepts of communism, socialism, fascism, and capitalism. It’s a fuzzy jumble in their brains and “the only possible right answer is capitalism, so just shut up about the rest and stop scaring us. Give us what we think we want.” Fortunately, it looks like they won’t get that, but we do know one thing…

All I want today is peace – from the knowledge that the nation is righting its course, the people I love are safe and well, and the future still holds possibilities for healing. That would be entirely enough for now.

Image by Judy Smith

Moody Blues… page 147

23 Nov 2020 2 Comments

Day 253 – 11/23/2020

Everything from the sublime to the ridiculous makes me cry now. For months into the pandemic I couldn’t keep my head corralled long enough to read a book, and since I got back to it every one I’ve picked up has made me shed good tears, from Alice McDermott’s After This, to Barlow Adams’ Appalachian Alchemy, to the book I finished today The World Without You by Joshua Henkin, which had me sobbing more than once. Even when I have trouble sticking with them, I can’t imagine a world without all the books we want to read – they’re the best thing for taking us from here to there, and I have a big need for that.

It feels all wrong for this to be Thanksgiving week when it should still be summer. Since we’ve never made a big deal of holidays beyond our first Christmas together, the solitude of this holiday season will affect us less than most. And they’re 24-hour days like any other – they pass. Blessings on them all, I malign no traditions.

At least once a week someone asks on Facebook or Twitter “Do you personally know anyone who’s died from COVID?” Rod A, who was a year behind me all the way through school, died a few months ago, and last night I was notified that Loren D, a friend from another lifetime, had died of the virus in Hutchinson’s Stormont-Vail Hospital. There have been friends of friends, parents of friends, but these two I knew well. The longer it’s allowed to rage uncontrolled the more people we’re going to lose and my sense is that it will become real to every one of us before it’s over.

Wet out this morning and just above freezing. There are days when the gray skies put me under. Hope this won’t be one of them.

Image by Judy Smith

Feeling it… page 141

17 Nov 2020 4 Comments

Day 247 – 11/17/2020

Emerging into the sunlight today, thankful for hot water and long showers. And Asian food. And people walking dogs in the sunshine. This epoch, with its endless hours available for thinking, is bringing it home for me in so many ways… and one semi-detached observation is that I’m clearly not evolving upward for the long haul, so I have to fix that ASAP.

That’s not even the half of it. I’ve “dialed” a wood-encased crank phone on the wall – our ring was one long, three shorts. My playlist back in the day, before transistors and recorders, came from Les Paul & Mary Ford 45rpms spun on a 32-volt player because we had to generate our own electricity on the farm via a windmill and a wall of batteries until rural electrification finally came along and changed everything. Our tiny black & white TV didn’t show up ’til I was in 6th grade and we had one channel, mostly snow, and a max of three channels in the end. Out there in the country, we didn’t know steps were for counting – they just got us from here to there while we blew the stink off. I see food as legitimate art, but nobody told us we were supposed to be documenting it in photos, so the world missed seeing some killer hotdogs and salmon cakes.

It isn’t that I’m feeling old, just succumbing to road-weariness. We have the great relief that Joseph Biden has been elected president of the U.S., balanced by the fact that DJT intends to follow the norms in the same manner he has from the start, which is to say not at all. So the news is good, but everything continues unresolved. In the meantime, nobody seems to be on the job at the White House, nor in any way managing the COVID pandemic while it rages and replicates by the hour. That’s the only reality that matters right now – until we tame the virus, all else suffers. The virus doesn’t move, we move it… and that’s the rub.

Sometimes humans have a hard time believing in things we can’t see, hear, smell, touch, or taste, so the pandemic is a true challenge, but it’s out there and it’s having its way with us. Kansas right now is #1 among nine states in rate of case rise. People are dying of an illness they deny exists with their last breath and they don’t stop yelling abusive crap at nurses until they’re intubated. It’s a challenge to deal with that kind of idiocy, but it’s here, it’s real, and are we going to let the experts jump on it before it wipes us out? That’s really the question now.

**Or just ooh & ahh over the cool Christmas bling?**

Image by Judy Smith

Early thoughts…

04 Nov 2020 3 Comments

I’ve been up for a few hours now, long enough to start processing last night’s events and what they’ll mean. My ruminating, reactions, and responses are still all over the place, so for today I’m letting social media friends help me turn it all into words, and there’s no reason to soft-pedal anything at this point – that ship has sailed.

**Langston Hughes, who grew up just down the street from where I live now.**

What’s looking likely is that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will eventually win the White House, Dems will hold the House, the GOP will remain ensconced in the Senate as obstructionists for at least two more years, and the Supreme Court will continue as an enigma unto itself.

But truth learned can’t be buried, not anymore.

Image by Judy Smith

Maintaining… page 131

27 Oct 2020 2 Comments

Day 226 – 10/27/2020

Over the past sixteen years or so I’ve shed a lot of baggage – like the gremlins that wake me in the middle of the night with recriminations over stupid things said or done. That rarely happens anymore and I was struck by this thought just now… “Don’t fret. Let it ALL go. You learned something every single time, right?” And other than the people I love there’s no loss I really fear, so humans have little they can hold as leverage against me. Speaking the truth can get me badly damaged or killed but nobody can cancel my spirit, so on we roll.

A line was crossed last night with Amy Coney Barrett. The GOP hasn’t just poked the bear, they’ve awakened a sleeping giant that they won’t know what to do with. Americans don’t take kindly to, nor easily forgive, fellow Americans who take our earnings, bury our freedoms, and slap us around like punching bags while encouraging us to die in ever greater numbers, and we’re out there by the tens of millions, standing in endless lines, saying exactly that.

Wherever this ends up, nothing in the U.S. will ever be the same again. The year 2020 is the capstone to the preceding four in showing us what we’ve become, and we can’t unsee any of it. People have laid bare their rabid prejudices, their stunted worldview, their willingness to tolerate any amount of ugliness in order to preserve their place in society, and all of that will be a challenge to deal with and put behind us. If the forces of autocracy win out, there’ll be no dealing, we’ll simply be looking for a hiding place.

My mood this morning is fairly toxic. Nothing appeals, nothing’s interesting or compelling, I’m a cipher. Just let it be over – the weight of not knowing is squeezing the stuffing out of me.

NOTES TO SELF:

Image by Judy Smith

That will bring us back to Do (oh-oh-oh)… page 123

19 Oct 2020 5 Comments

Day 220 – 10/19/2020

Yup, rollin’ on into another week. We finally started the fireplace last night – it’s been chilly for enough days that the building is absorbing some of the cold and the fire was soothing. Same this morning – high temp today of 46º, overcast and gray. But then… Mother Kansas takes over again and it’s the ol’ rollercoaster ride:

Over the past couple of weeks I’m sensing a sea change in the country… or I hope that’s what it is. I’m starting to allow a cautious optimism to permeate my thoughts and to maybe, possibly believe that truth and right will win out. It’s hard to get there, though, because for as long as I live – and I’m counting on another 30 years or so – the night of November 8, 2016 will never leave my consciousness. We knew that night what the nation was in for and all of it has come true, so never again will I blindly trust that things will work out for the best no matter what.

But… I’m starting to have hope with something under it and I do know what time it is.

Monday’s MickeyD day and my belly’s starting to tell me about it. So with Taco Tuesday and the big weekend breakfasts, that leaves just three lunches a week to get creative with and the routine, for two non-traditionalists, is comforting and fun. Also we’re lazy, yeah.

Something happy yesterday as I was bopping through my photo cache – a pic of John, taken I know not where nor when, but I love it. That smile turned my okay day stellar.

**John says: Taken April 26, 2013, inside a Lockheed Super Constellation on display at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.**

I’m thinking this might be the weirdest of Halloweirds we’ve experienced, so I’m bracing for the worst while opening a large porthole to the best. Mere days to wait, we hope, as we test our capacity for suspense, stress, and terror. Suck it up, fellow believers, we’re going to make it.

Photo Credits: Kim Smith

Image by Judy Smith

Marking time… page 120

15 Oct 2020 Leave a comment

Day 217 – 10/15/2020

Without specific markers the hours turn into days and the days turn into each other, but yesterday had its share of markers: Kim pedaled to the courthouse before 8am to see if there was a line yet for early voting and picked up an Einstein Bros. bagel for me on the way back. We voted. We had a working lunch on Cielito’s patio with Kevin for our quarterly review. Kim played bluesy guitar most of the afternoon while I read. We watched the first episode of this season’s Amazing Race. Markers.

Today’s been considerably more rudderless, although I did get a confusing Medicare mixup resolved with the stellar help… again… of Kevin’s people. I made Velveeta Mac for lunch because once in a while you have to say yes to the cheese. I looked at the little stack of stuff on my desk and thought about sorting it, but didn’t.

Reposted something sarcastic on Facebook this morning and it occurred to me that one reason I limit my page membership is that I don’t want to asplain things. I have no energy for the comments. When I post something funny from Andy Borowitz NOT THE NEWS and get back a huffy “OMG that isn’t even TRUE!” it gives my day a kick in the shorts it doesn’t need. If you don’t get it, google it, I don’t want to have this discussion.

It’s undoubtedly because I’m getting what’s commonly referred to as old. Susan H. and I compared notes this morning about voting and how long we’ve been doing it. My first time voting was in 1968 – Nixon v Humphrey. As of yesterday I’ve voted for a U.S. presidential candidate a total of 14 times, none so fraught with intensity as this one. THERE’s a marker.

An arresting little “keeper”:

Interesting Times ‘R Us. I hope desperately to avoid the second curse, and I shudder to think what the third might entail in my case. I’m okay with *interesting.*

Image by Judy Smith

Stay in line, America… page 119

14 Oct 2020 2 Comments

Day 216 – 10/14/2020

First day of advance voting here. We ordered mail-in ballots but decided we needed the rush of being there… and that was a great call. It’s a perfect fall morning, little breezy, little cool, sunshine everywhere along with the leaves. The line, distanced and masked, was out the door only about 50 feet when we got there, and the whole thing was a smooth operation – eight voting cubbies on two floors, everything sanitized and in order – and the woman who facilitated our voting process in light of the fact that we have mail-in ballots out there somewhere was amazing – she knows her stuff, and we have no qualms that our votes won’t be counted. When the paper ballots arrive we’ll shred them, and that will be that. And anyone silly enough to think you could get away with voting twice has never met the force of nature that is the County poll worker.

Neither of us has ever been so energized to cast our vote and we’ve been voting since Nixon. And now we wait. We were near this level of urgency in 2016, and we were marinated in the belief/hope that it wouldn’t go south. But it did… so the next three weeks… and hopefully not beyond, please, universe… will be a wonky bundle of angst tied with barbed wire.

We’re so incredibly privileged – we drove three blocks straight south, parked in the courthouse lot, stood in line, signed the required paperwork to keep tabs on our vote, took our time marking our ballots, returned to the car… and by the time we walked back through our door we’d been gone exactly 30 minutes… on a morning so beautiful it could make a grown man cry, on a day when we’re upright and breathing, with eyes and ears to take it all in. Everything about this morning has felt right… make it so, world.

**Beautiful inside too, and a memorable place to fulfill a sacred duty, right, and privilege.**

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Playing for Time

Oh Happy Day… page 194

Progress… page 193

I love sunshine… page 187

“Well-intentioned suggestions”… page 186b

There’s still truth… page 186

Addendum… page 184b

Insurrection… page 184

Tuesday’s connected to the… page 166

Moody Blues… page 147

Feeling it… page 141

Early thoughts…

Maintaining… page 131

That will bring us back to Do (oh-oh-oh)… page 123

Marking time… page 120

Stay in line, America… page 119

Judy Smith

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