Wednesday--

Another very warm day coming today. The lavender needs a bit more time in the dryer before grinding. I don't like to leave the dehydrator operating overnight. Call me over cautious but the thought of something going wrong (overheating and causing a fire, perhaps) is unappealing especially when we are asleep. The lows overnight were at the same level as the highs normally are. But I also saw a story about an early snow in parts of the Montana mountains which got 10 or so inches of snow.

Ah, yes--another story from the dark corners of the "ownership" (as in "you're on your own") society. The story brings back memories from almost thirty years ago my (then) husband and I were on the fringes of a "caregiving" saga. We weren't the primary caregivers being over a thousand miles away. As relatives we did get phone calls from caseworkers who had suggestions about "affordable" living arrangements that would provide the round-the-clock care his mother needed. They were so indignant that we couldn't, somehow-possibly-maybe, come up with the equivalent of twice our combined monthly earnings to pay for that "affordable" arrangement. The worst of the situation fell on a cousin with whom she lived and who (with his wife) tried desperately to deal with her care to the detriment of his marriage, his and his wife's health, their jobs, and their children's welfare. In the end, stretched nearly to breaking, they refused to take her back after the last crisis landed her in the hospital. She remained in the hospital for several months until the social workers finally found a facility that would provide a barely adequate level of care and took all of her social security, all of her meager savings, and medicare to do it. The author is right: no one gives a rat's ass about care givers. I would amend: perhaps those on the fringe of the problem and are frustrated they and guilty they can't afford to do more than give moral support and, often metaphorical, shoulders to cry on.

Thursday--

Finished off the lavender yesterday. I don't have anything planned unless the weather clears enough for me to cut the lemon balm. We did get some rain overnight so I don't have to water anything.

Another reason why I am not following the media on the election. Listening to the news coverage last night where Trump called for removing the military budget from the sequester and increasing it massively I nearly exploded with profanity. We spend (and have for decades) more than the next ten highest spending nations on our military. And for what?? Every election cycle we are told how under funded, staffed and armed our military is. Where has the money been going? Why hasn't the "greatest" military since the Romans romped across the Mediterranean world (hyperbole and sarcasm intended) not been able to bring closure tenth rate wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why has everything we have done with our military from the Atlantic coast of North Africa to the Indus River resulted in continuing chaos? Perhaps because we have fighting the wrong enemy with the wrong weapons? This is a continuation of the "War on Terror" and IS/al Qaeda/al Nusra/Boko Haram et al. are simply the shifting face of a technique/strategy/tactic. Terror isn't a person or group of people that can be fought and defeated militarily--a fact we haven't learned in fifteen gods-damned years. I feel like I am watching that scene in Independence Day where, after the first nuclear weapons fail to destroy the alien ship, the Secretary of Defence protests against the President calling off the rest of the attack: another attack group "might have better luck." It isn't a matter of "luck." It is a matter of intelligently recognizing your strategy and weapons are accomplishing the desired ends and creatively thinking about better strategies. (And, by the way, Matt Lauer deserves every bit of criticism he is getting.)