Monday--

I haven't had much to say lately and have been avoiding the "news" like it was a plague. Actually, perhaps it is--a mind numbing plague of inaccuracies, outright lies, and fluff. The election is a farce and every time I see Trump's orange countenance I quickly shift to something else. I think too many people think like my long-deceased and longer-ex husband did too often--do something even if it is wrong and if it is different all the better. Unfortunately, all we have is the illusion of different and the choice between wrong and wronger. I will be so glad when the election is over and I can figure out how to survive which ever of the two evils gets to park their ass on the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office.

I have been watching the shadow of the house creep up the fence. It was at the bottom a month ago and by equinox will be brushing the top. After that the gardens will be in shadow except for brief periods in the morning and evening when the corners will get direct sun and the rest strong reflections off the white fence. I have peppers out there yet as well as another cutting or two of peppermint, spearmint and lemon balm. I need to water because we got no rain yesterday and expect none for the next week.

Peter Van Buren posted an interesting article at Tomdispatch today. I agree with every bit of it. I remember talking to a young woman co-worker who was thinking of taking a job in Chicago and hesitated after 9/11 for fear she would be caught in another attack on some iconic tall building. I told her she had a better chance of being shot down on the street than dying in a similar attack. She gave me a look of total incomprehension. I have been amazed at the interviews with "people on the street" who meekly accepted every pat-down, bag inspection or restriction and new metal detector at the gates of sporting arenas with the bland "well, if it makes us safer I'm all for it" statement. No one bothered to ask if the measure really made us safer.

And here is another commentary I agree with entirely from Ray Williams at Psychology Today. I had to call the tech support for one of the two sources I go to for e-books because my latest purchase hadn't downloaded properly. The person I talked to was surprised I has some 500+ books listed. "I read a bit," I told her. That is five years worth of purchases and doesn't include the two dozen (and counting) I have from the other source and the probably equal number of physical books I bought over the same time frame. And those books cover a wide range of topics. I can't understand people who a) don't read, b) are proud they don't read, c) are ignorant of basic facts and d) are proud of that as well. We used to watch hours of news shows before the repetition and superficial coverage irritated us. Then we cut our viewing to the morning local (a.k.a., Chicago) and the so-called national news morning and evening. Then we cut out the national broadcast because the local had the same items presented the same way. A few months ago we went even further and cut it to half an hour morning and evening. Now our latest satirical joke is to ask "which three minutes of news do you want to watch--morning or evening?" We find the on line sources have more complete coverage and we can ignore Trump's orange self-satisfied face and the Kardashian (or other such) fluff. That has done wonders for our blood pressures and moods.

Ah,--a problem I can sympathize with. We have simplified our shopping considerably but we still take a good bit of time because we are label readers. By reading the labels we have winnowed down the choices to many fewer options: no highly processed foods, no anti-bacterial soaps, few canned goods (unless we have canned them ourselves, and as few GMO products as possible.