November 30

Ah, the last day of November and the stretch run to our season of overindulgence, a.k.a. Christmas.

On the political front I found this Atlantic article this morning which lays out the implications for the current administration of the latest guilty plea from #45's former personal lawyer. Not pretty for what it says about him, his sycophants, and for us as a political society.

One of the Google alerts I have followed for a few years now is one on "heatwaves." As I read the headlines over the last couple of days about brutal heatwaves hitting Australia accompanied by bushfires I had a gut reaction: these heatwaves seem to come earlier in their spring than before just as the heatwaves north of the equator are marching north earlier in the year. Like I say, it is a gut reaction and I don't have any hard evidence that the perception matches reality. It seems to me that no matter what #45 believes (or doesn't believe) climate change is smacking us in the face at every opportunity.

I am glad to see this story. I have never been a great fan of Bruce Rauner but living in Indiana I couldn't vote against him. For any who don't know he is the lame duck governor of Illinois. I think urban agriculture should be encouraged in every way possible.

So #45 is a fraud. What else is new?? As I wrote above, that he is in the White House says nothing good about us.

November 28

It is very cold and we have had snow flurries but nothing much more. Over the next few days the temps should rise into the high 30s and 40s so much of what we have should melt. I hope the ice under the snow goes away. It was difficult getting the trash tote out to the street.

The first seed catalog came yesterday. It has a couple of interesting items I will keep in mind as I plan: a gorgeous sunflower and spectacular nasturtium. I went through my seed box and tossed everything that was either acquired in 2017 or earlier and/or I didn't want to plant this year. Final result: 6 seed packets. Mom laughed when I told her what they were because 2 are for the cats: catnip and cat grass. For the rest one packet each of blackeyed susan vine, calendula, malabar spinach and perpetual spinach. I have never had much luck starting herbs from seed so I will get those from the garden shops and the farm market when it opens. If something catches my eye I might give it a try.

November 29

We had a light covering of new snow overnight but nothing frozen. The temperatures, as I said above, should make short work of getting rid of it and, hopefully, some of the ice. If I can get into the shed, a big if, I will get the salt and help things along.

I found this on Medium this morning. I generally read between 80 and 100 books each year--everything he says is pretty well on the money. I learned a while back to not worry about finishing a book that simply doesn't work for me and not feel guilty about it. I have a number of books I am reading currently and I pull them up (they are on my iPad) every now and then to read another chapter or so. I have old favorites that have stood the test of (my) time well and I go back to them every now and then. I have started books I wanted to revisit but found I couldn't get into them even thou I really liked them once upon a time. I have two main activities: needlework (with several projects in varying stages of getting done) and reading. And I now have the time to indulge both.

Winter seems to have hit with a vengeance. We got several inches of heavy, wet snow yesterday that came after heavy rains from late evening Sunday through most of the night. Last night we had lows going below 20F which froze the slush beneath the surface. We just finished chipping away that mess on the car. We have light snow now but of the light, fluffy kind. Thankfully we have nothing to take us outside until Friday. We didn't have internet service for at least 5 hours yesterday morning. I say "at least" because it was out when we woke at 4am and didn't come on until just after 9am. Also had two brown outs that lasted long enough for us to wonder if we should go for the candles and lanterns. At least the power came back quickly leaving us with the chore of resetting our clocks and the microwave clock. Mom napped while I brought out one of my needlework projects but it brought home, yet again, how dependent we are on the technology. Thankfully our cell phones functioned throughout.

When we visited my brother and his family for Mom's birthday I promised my niece I would try to root some rosemary cuttings for her. She said she wanted to grow rosemary. I don't think they will have time to root before Christmas but sometime over the next two or three months I should have at least one good plant for her.

I love Wolfe Richter's title here: "After wasting $14 billion in share-buybacks GM prepares for carmageddon..." I read that the current of the occupant of the White House isn't amused. The story is still developing since today the plant closing count is at 8. Yesterday it was at five but today's tally includes plants outside North America. The company seems to be betting heavily on the electronic vehicle market and the foreign market given the drop in sales of internal combustion models and in the U.S. According to YAHOO news #45 is so pissed he is talking about cutting all subsidies including those for the electronic vehicles. Good step toward getting rid of the Corporate Welfare system.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving--that commercial holiday that gets smashed between the commercial giants Halloween and Christmas. That comment probably tells you all you need to know about how I celebrate it. But a couple of blogs has me rethinking the attitude.

The first is from Interweave and the second from 5 Acres and a Dream. Neither one involves shopping or stuffing your face till you burst. We should shift the focus to interacting with family and friends and to our own personal accomplishments and what makes us happy. And perhaps we should not make it a "national" holiday that touts a false history dominated by one of our many groups at the expense of others.

We normally don't shop on Black Friday but decided to do so today because we needed a some groceries and thought it would be good to combine errands. I have two new cross-stitch projects that I needed embroidery floss for. Wouldn't you know it--I have seven bobbin boxes of DMC floss and didn't have almost 20 of the colors called for. The trip to Walgreens for a couple of our daily supplements we were nearly out of went smoothly, as in "hardly anyone else in the store." The grocery store was more crowded than usual but we went through in good time. We scratch the trip to the home improvement/hardware store when we didn't see a single empty parking from the street. I have never seen it that crowded. We found a good parking space at Michaels which was also very crowded. I have never seen so many crafters in that store at one time. Usually we are among, perhaps, half a dozen customers. We did make it through in good time but the experience has confirmed our usual practice: no shopping of any kind on Black Friday.

Hello, again. Autumn is still here but it is the blah of late autumn not the bright colorful early autumn. Winter is just around the corner but it is the yuck of just cold enough and just wet enough to make things slippery but not pretty and white. Good thing I can stay in and ignore it.

Infidel753 had a good post and one I agree with heartily. I have wholeheartedly detested politics as it has become (maybe always been) where the candidates/parties/interested groups and individuals engage in scurrilous character assassination and then expect everyone to make nice after. I also detest the notion that "bipartisanship" means one side surrenders its values and goals to the other which makes no compromise whatsoever. And when they don't accuse them of "partisanship." The Repthuglicans are masters of that game.

It has become evident that Christianists aren't the only religious thugs out there. I have seen several reports of disruptive ultra-Orthodox behavior over the last few years. I get really sick of a$$holes who think their religious "purity" trumps decent behavior.

I don't know how many stories I have seen about cutting the use of disposables. This one focuses on coffee cups and our modern penchant for walking (or driving, or...) with a paper or single use cup in hand (the "adult sippy cups"). While the author's advice (just stop, sit, enjoy) is good, as long as we are addicted to "multi-tasking" it won't happen. As he writes we have to change ourselves as well as what we use.

We had a bit more of an adventure than expected. We had all of the fixings for Thanksgiving dinner except for the pumpkin pie and the whipped cream. Mom could fix it but we decided to buy store bought and went to a little bakery that had been refurbished. We found the pie, some dinner rolls and a nice frosted raison bread. So all we had to get was the whipped cream. We went to the closest grocery but it was closed because their computers were down. We drove over to the next closest grocery but it was also closed because their computers were down. That isn't really surprise us because the stores are both owned by the same company though operating under different names. We finally got the whipped cream and (unintended) some French vanilla ice cream at the local Target which has a grocery section and whose computers are working. The episode illustrates my frequent observation that the technology is nice but when it fails you are as screwed to the extent you depend on it and have no backups. These stores are totally dependent on their computers. None of their product has price tags on the individual items. They need their computers for the price. Their inventory is on computer and often orders for them. The computers are programmed to tally the items and figure the tax on the taxable items and then figure what change is due if cash is used or complete the purchase with whatever credit the customer uses. Without the computers they are dead in the water.

Bill McKibben has a good article in the New Yorker. It doesn't have much that is new on the climate front but confirms that the deleterious effects of climate change are happening faster than originally. He makes another point that has been in my mind over the last few years: large numbers of people are going to have to move and we aren't prepared for that migration.

Little waves of snow keep moving through but it doesn't last long or leave much behind. The ground is too warm yet and the air temps don't stay below freezing long enough.

I have said before how disenchanted I am with the commercialized "holiday" season. I dislike Christianists who insist on putting "Christ back in Christmas" and protest people saying "Happy Holidays" when in fact Christ left Christmas when it became a retail extravaganza. They seem to think they are the only group that has an end of the year holiday season which is both rude and self-centered. But most of all I resent the focus on gift giving. Among certain members of our family the focus was on the monetary value of the gifts and whether one person got a more expensive gift than another. I think these people have the right idea. Spend time not money. Spend it with family, with friends, with yourself.

My first reaction to this story was that perhaps more stories from mainstream outlets on the effects of climate change might move the political attitudes toward climate change. My second thought was to remember how many stories I have read of military reports which note that climate change will be  (is??) a serious concern for their operations and readiness. Evidently we haven't hit a critical mass of stories the politicos can take seriously. Yet!

We had the first "measurable" snow fall Tuesday. It didn't last long as most of it on the south facing roofs, the south lawns and the cars melted quickly. Today we are getting the second such and it is more substantial. Looks like an inch so far and the weather reporters say it should continue all day. We seem to be in a pattern of every other day pulses. There is something about fresh snow that brightens up an other wise dreary day.

Found this on Tomdispatch this morning. Englehardt is right on the money about #45 and the Media. I would describe it as a match made in hell--our hell because obviously it is heaven for that narcissist and for the Media that depends on his smothering presence.

Thursday Nov 8

Well, most of the election 2018 is over though several tight races remain to be decided. I am gratified that Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa overwhelmingly dumped their Repthuglican politicians. I did see some interesting items yesterday to which I can't link because I didn't note them down at the time. They have been fermenting in my mind since. First the Republican strongholds that elected #45 remain pretty much intact except for the "Blue Wall" he supposedly toppled--a.k.a the midwest. But following the interactive map and looking at the distributions in the individual states I noticed that the national pattern was replicated within states. The Republican strength is in the rural areas and small towns while the Democrat strength is in the urban and suburban areas. In the 2016 election the Republicans peeled off the disaffected suburban voters and large segments of the the Democratic base in minority and female voters were also disaffected and stayed home. But the policies the Republicans pushed over the last two years haven't helped those disaffected voters (or their rural and small town constituents either.) And they were punished for that. Number 45 pushed new trade deals with Mexico and Canada to replace NAFTA but those delivered very little improvement over the old agreement and nothing he couldn't have gotten if we had gone with the Trans-Pacific Partnership which the Republicans opposed because--you know, OBAMA!!

I have ignored most of the prognostication about where the results of this election will lead because, truth be told, no one really knows. Those few I have read expect, like I do, more of what we have had  a lot of sound and fury and not much done.

Monday Nov 12

Oh, well. The entry above got lost in the shuffle. We got our first measurable snow fall. It didn't stay long and didn't require shoveling. We are getting our first stretch of sustained freezing temperatures. The gardens are pretty well done now. The hardiest of the plants (strawberries, thyme, bee balm, a lonely lavender and a couple of thyme have finally succumbed. We woke to frost on our windows for the last several mornings. We got used to frost on roofs of buildings and cars but it hadn't been quite cold enough to do more that fog the windows till now.

I just finished watching an ad that Iceland banned because Greenpeace was one of the producers and Greenpeace is "too political." Nimue Brown links to it and has an excellent criticism of the ban. So why are advertisements that encourage "business as usual" not as political as those which question "business as usual?"

Monday Nov. 5

Well, it is now the day before the vote. We have scoped out our candidates. Have you?

It was a quiet weekend filled with reorganization and cleaning. The reorganization will continue for a while. I just finished putting all my craft/needlework pattern books in the file cabinets where they will be easier to get to. I may have to shift things a bit and move the top drawer down a bit because it is almost heavy enough to tip the cabinet.

I am letting the remaining plants in the gardens go. When the cold finally kills them they will provide ground cover and I can work their remains into the container soil in the spring. So far the only certain notions I have for the spring include NO tomatoes or peppers. They have a spotty record on my patio because it warms up so slowly and then the heat concentrates because of the cement and white fence. I might try some strain of green beans and I definitely want to try a couple of different cucumbers--kinds that can't be found in our markets. The rosemary plants weathered our week away very well. The small one had started to wilt just a bit but has recovered nicely. The hibiscus plants didn't wilt but they are showing a number of yellow leaves. that might be due to the reduced light. All they had was what came in the window. I usually put on the larger grow light and the room light when we are home. I will check on their progress over the next couple of weeks to see if any permanent affects show up. I need to cut them back but don't what to do it while they are stressed.

Tuesday Nov. 6

The polls haven't opened yet. (Heh, Heh--it is only 4:30am. Our furry alarm clocks haven't "fallen back" yet.) But that is on our agenda first--even before grocery shopping. I have never been happy with voting against the worst evil because I don't consider a "choice" between bad and worse to be a real choice. However, this year I will do my best to retire as many Republicans as possible.

I found this almost first thing this morning. It is good as far as it goes on explaining why so many over-65 are declaring bankruptcy. The author's expend most of their pixels on the rising medical costs which has been covered so frequently that the only difference from one story to another is the case study to illustrate their point. The barely mention at the end the other side, the static or even reduced income from pensions. Or the fact that any pension that is pegged to the official inflation rate is not keeping up with the real inflation we experience because so many of our normal expenses are not included or are underestimated because of various accounting tricks. I will agree with the quote that we, as a society, are becoming quite "uncaring" about the struggles of the elderly and a whole lot of other people in the lower 80% of our society.

It is now 9:40am and we have finished voting and shopping. I was surprised and pleased that the polling place was very busy. I have never seen such a crowd for any election--presidential or other. The interest is very high and I hope it leads to the kind of changes I would like to see. We had a "balanced budget" amendment on the ballot which I voted no on. Before I would agree to such an amendment I want to see some limitations on what the government can spend our money on. High on that list I want a prohibition on tax and other give-aways to corporations. I am tired of seeing these companies promising a huge amount of jobs for a long period of time and then leaving before fulfilling their part of the bargain but not before raking in tax payer money. I don't want to see a situation where legislators have to cut things like education or health care for pie in the sky promises which are never fulfilled. Otherwise I voted a mix of Democrats with a couple of Libertarians but NO Republicans.

On the whole, I am not holding my breath even if a large number of Republicans are "retired." Tom Engelhardt has a good piece this morning which parallels my thoughts on the probable results of the election.

I think this blog is going to be intermittent for a while. As I have said before I am really tired of the politics and after you have called BS on bulls$*ters a few (hundred? thousand?) times knowing that nothing you think or say will change the situation it is time to focus on something else. A friend mentioned a neuroscientist she knows who told her that people tend to get into ruts, can't find their way out and simply fossilize in place (which sounds too much like dementia to my mind). Everyone needs to shake up their patterns and blow the cobwebs out of their minds.

We spent a week traveling and staying in Denver to meet women I met and grew close to 25 years ago at Colorado State University. We have kept (sporadically) in touch in the intervening time. Seeing them all in person was wonderful and the multi-day trip definitely broke our normal routines. We haven't been away from home often in the past almost 20 years. We are planning on more but much shorter trips next summer.

We boarded the cats with our Vet. They opened a new office with much more space. We wound up getting their yearly shots and regular exam at the same time. The girls were not happy campers. The people we talked to said they were a bit stressed out but had settled down and were eating and drinking normally. They were concerned because these kitties who had been together for nearly a year and getting along well were suddenly hissing at each other. However they have settled down nicely and are back to their normal routines. We won't board them again unless there is some kind of emergency that will take us away for more than three nights.

We traveled interstates all the way to Denver and back. We were surprised that the speed limits were usually 70mph and in some cases 75mph. Only in urban areas did the limit drop to 65 or to 55 in some construction zones. Areas along the way I was familiar with through either living there (Columbia, MO) or frequently visiting (Denver) were unrecognizable due to metastatic growth. And if you are thinking cancer that is exactly what I am thinking. Denver had the worst traffic which was bumper to bumper for over an hour between the east side of the city and the west where our hotel was located. One of the friends I was visiting says the city is a mess suffering the effects of 12k new residents a month.

Colorado had the worst roads and I do mean really bad. We passed one sign telling us the road was rough just before hitting a dip and bump that made us glad we habitually wear our seat belts--otherwise we would have slammed our heads on the roof. One of the big questions on their ballot is a choice between two initiatives with differing plans to fix roads. I wonder how bad the lesser roads are given the state of the interstates.

We noticed that wherever we were the same issues came up and the biggest one was taxes. Everyone wants new tax cuts and/or to protect previous cuts but also wants services restored or expanded. Several of the Republican candidates hoping to unseat incumbent Republicans were promising just that but how thy would do that wasn't explained. And several of the Republican candidates, like Rauner in Illinois seem to have a "Jesus Complex". If they aren't elected (or re-elected) they swear the State is doomed to become hell on earth.

I am going to stop here and hopefully continue later.