The weather report says we should be getting rain later today and into tonight. I have the chocolate mint and peppermint to grind. I may cut some more herbs to dry but right now my energy is rather low but it is early, the sun isn't yet up and that may change. I found a couple of peppers developing on one of the plants--rather meager production this year. It has been a bad season from the beginning for my peppers. None of the seedlings I started survived to be transplanted so what is in the garden came from the garden shop. Everything else is doing well.

Though I haven't said much about politics I have followed events--as much as I could stomach. So much of it seems to be happening in some Bizarro world (which some of you may recognize from memories of old Superman comics.) The press seems to be obsessed with the alleged hacking by Russians of the 2017 election but I can't get too upset about it. After all, is it any worse than the manipulations by the DNC to ensure Hillary Clinton won and Bernie Sanders lost? Or the efforts of Republicans to disfranchise potential Democratic voters on spurious charges of voter fraud? I say spurious because damned few proven cases have emerged of such fraud. Why are the Russians so much worse than the DNC or the Republicans?

The Republicans in the Senate finally got a "win" on health care. I put that in quotes because their definition of "win" seems to be rather loose. And they got it by violating every rule they once insisted the Democrats abide by. Evidently rules don't matter for them so long as they get what they want when they want it--just like their Peter Pan of a President (as in the boy who never grew up.) Soon after the "win" the Senate voted down the "Repeal and Replace" plan and a new idea took shape: a "skinny repeal." That doesn't involve the thorny issues of Medicaid and other popular parts that depend on the funding provided by the parts they want to get rid of (i.e. the mandate that everyone have insurance and that some employers provide it and the medical device tax.) I feel somewhat like Treebeard in the Two Towers: I'm on no body's side because nobody is on my side. Over the last few years health insurance costs and benefits have recurred frequently here. Mom's insurance has changed and become more expensive and with each increase we actively look at what that means for her finances. We have even contemplated what would happen if at some point she had to let the supplemental insurance she gets by way of her deceased husband's union membership go. Then we would both be solely relying on Medicare. Scary thought that when you think that a $10k medical bill of which we would have to pay $2k would wipe out our meager finances. Another aspect of the Bizarro world where somehow or another the immiseration of large numbers of people is considered a good thing--that is if the narcissistic political idiots even think about that at all. Beyond damning the majority of Americans for not being rich.