January 29

I think we got a lot more snow than the forecasters predicted: 6+ inches rather than 3. Now we have the cold--and I do mean cold. Brookfield and Lincoln Park zoos in Chicago are closing early today and will remain closed tomorrow because of it. That is a very rare occurrence. We are hibernating.

I found this bit of flabbergasting story. I wonder how many state Republican parties will go along with cancelling primaries and caucuses giving their support to the incumbent. And for the national committee to announce support for him before the primaries/caucuses and before he is nominated? It has become a Bizarro World in American politics. I thought the essence of democracy was the people decide but evidently not in Bizarro America.

I mentioned a couple of times that commenters I read wrote that the notion of the wall was a "3rd century solution" to a 21st century problem. The 21st century migrations do resemble the migrations of the past but we can let that pass for now. A clip of comments by #45 on the wall showed him bleating that the Wall would be nothing like a "medieval" wall. I wonder who told him about that criticism because we have been told often he doesn't read. Too bad the comments haven't, so far, moved him off his position toward something reasonable.

So some idiot politicians, including #45, are proposing that public schools offer "elective" "Bible literacy classes." I don't see why public schools, at taxpayer expense, should duplicate the work of churches and Sunday Schools. As far as #45 and his support goes, this says all that needs to be said.

Monday January 28

Snowy today--they predict between 3 and 5 inches on top of what we already have. The high today should hit the mid 30s but the wind will be brisk so it will feel colder. The next three days will be brutally cold before the temperatures moderate to more normal levels. Good days to hibernate.

This boggled my mind this morning. I tried to imagine what the supermarkets here would look like without the fresh meat, fish, and deli counters. I came up with Aldi and convenience stores neither of which we patronize. I can't imagine the store being open only four days a week either. I wonder if the economy is much worse than anyone at the much higher levels of the ladder want to acknowledge. That is something I have wondered for some time.

Helen at Margaret and Helen is on a good rant. And, yes, it is incredibly difficult to talk about #45 (and politics generally) without swearing a blue streak.

Tom Englehardt has a good guest post by William Astore. Unfortunately, I don't see things changing for the more hopeful any time soon. Too many people in the military and politics locked into a counterproductive mindset, too much money sloshing around, and too many people/companies/industries profit from it.

Saturday January 26

The cold continues and will for the next 10 days at least. The only odd day where the temperature will get near freezing is Monday with is supposed to come with heavy snowfall. We got about half an inch of new snow over last night and have bright sun right now.

Well, the government is back open--for the next three weeks at least. I wouldn't place any bets on what comes after that. One of my friends who was furloughed for 35 days is happy to be going back to work but is not looking forward to the possibility that the whole thing will be repeated in February. She also had a cute graphic that asked what people would miss most about 2918. Seventy percent said "a functioning government." I am not so sure we had a functioning government for any of the time #45 has been in office. She also wondered which furloughed and unpaid workers he talked to because she didn't know any who supported his stand.

Karoli Kuns explains exactly why we are interested in "regime change" in Venezuela: oil. As if we didn't know that already. I am just surprised that Bolton was so honest about it. I surely wish he wouldn't make it sound like a noble venture by trotting out words like "freedom."

We made an impromptu decision to go out to pay our rent and do our grocery shopping a couple of days ahead of plan. It is cold but it is also sunny and the roads seemed pretty well cleared. Unfortunately, the office closed at noon and we were well after that getting there. The supermarket was packed. Another customer, like us planning ahead to heavy snow predicted for Monday, remarked on the crowd as did the cashier who checked us out. Evidently we were not the only ones taking advantage of the sun and clear roads. We won't have to get any groceries for at least 10 days.

A last observation on the last 35 days: Growing up the threat of strikes, unemployment, and such were always in the back of our minds. Dad was a trucker and we knew several men who worked in the steel mills. That pattern continued in my adult years. So many people I knew or was related to were in industries prone to periodic shutdowns. The smart ones saved like mad and paid down any debts while building a stock of food and other necessaries to ride out the bad times which came all too frequently. I found several bloggers who are government employees. Some followed the pattern I described: save heroically, have deep supplies, have no or very low debt. Some followed what some financial writers say is the current pattern: heavy debt, little savings, living paycheck to paycheck. The first group weren't happy with the shutdown and most were highly critical of the Republicans and the President. None supported his damned wall. They, however, will recover fairly quickly. For the second group the effects will be more long lasting because it takes three months to recover from one missed paycheck according to one set of stats I read. We should view all jobs the same way we saw work on trucks and in the steel mills in my younger days as something that can disappear suddenly and people should take steps to ride out the disruptions. Time to put away the soap box.

Good Morning on this bitterly cold January 25th. The Weather Channel puts the temp at 1F with wind chill at -18F. Over the next couple of days the daily highs are not expected to get out of the teens. Thankfully we don't have to go out in it. The next ten days are going to be brutal. This might end any chance my strawberries have of surviving in the gardens. Oh, well, this is a bit of a transition year for me and my gardens. I will be using more transplants from local shops and the farm market (when it opens). And not a lot of planning so almost everything will be a surprise.

I just saw a news snippet of Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, saying he simply "didn't understand" why federal workers who haven't been paid in a month are lining up at food pantries and why they didn't get loans to cover their bills since the back pay was "federally guaranteed." I found this longer account on Salon. I don't think I have ever seen a bunch of politicians so divorced from everyday reality and so totally clueless about how those lower on the economic pyramid live. I won't link to any of the coverage of #45's daughter-in-law's comments telling her audience how she understands the pain of those not getting paid for working or not able to work because of the shut down but it is only a "little pain" for "the good of the country." I find it amazing how those not experiencing any pain at all can dismiss the pain others feel. We are being governed by psychopaths.

Tuesday January 22

I am still alive, still reading but not saying much because there isn't much to say--especially about the political impasse. My last post was on the 4th of this month and it seems like nothing much has changed except to become more frayed, tattered, and dusty.

The impasse continues. One commentator said of #45's ego stroking wall that it was a "3rd century solution to a 21st century problem." Well, as I remember my history it didn't work in the third century, nor did the Great Wall of China work to keep out the Mongols who, after conquering China in 1279, ruled as the Yuan dynasty till 1368. And the wall didn't keep out the Manchu who ruled as the Qing dynasty from 1636 to 1912. But, further, immigration is a perennial problem not just one for the 21st century. We obviously haven't come up with any new ways of handling it.

I saw a couple of glimmerings of possibilities. One was a bill put forth in the Senate, I think, which would end shutdowns as a weapon because any time a political impasse over budgetary bills occurred in the future all funding would continue under the last budget until the impasse ended. The bill did call for staged reductions in spending the longer the impasse continued. The measure hasn't a snowball's chance in hell. It is too reasonable.

I get totally annoyed with those who say the Democrats should just give the man-baby his wall and then get on with things. Why annoyed? First, #45 is behaving like a 2-bit thug who goes to a shop owner and promises not to break the windows if given a certain sum of money every month. That is called extortion. Second, Mr. Art-Of-The-Deal President is a notoriously untrustworthy "negotiator." He has a history of agreeing to something and then going back on the agreement. Opening the government by giving him his "wall" on the promise of "negotiations" on immigration is a sucker play. And I put the word "negotiator" and "negotiations" in quotation marks because his doesn't negotiate--he bullies. Everyone knows the only way to end bullying is to stand up to the bully. And, third, "getting on with things" will simply mean getting on to the next policy impasse. Lather, rinse, and repeat. I am tired of the repeat.

Another commentator made a more extensive comment on #45 and the country's standing world wide. He is not only an unreliable negotiator at home he is also unreliable in negotiations with foreign leaders. They know they can't rely on him to keep his word and, worse, they can't trust him to keep agreements, even long standing agreements and treaties, negotiated under past administrations. The man-baby is a cheap conman and the whole country is being painted with the same brush.

Meanwhile, here I have made some progress. I finished one crochet table cloth and a doily. I have almost finished a second doily and decided what pattern to follow for a second table cloth. My seed order from Baker Creek arrived with the two types of cucumber seeds and the snake beans, which are a really new item this year for me. I am planning of the bean for the flowers which should be spectacular if all goes well. They sent me some black Russian tomato seeds so I think I will adjust my plans to include them. I had planned to not plant any tomatoes or peppers. My rosemary transplants are doing well including the smallest which finally decided to live. Sometime next month I will see about transplanting them in more permanent pots--if I can open the shed door to find them.

Winter has finally arrived here with temperatures most day more normal for January. We had a stretch of warmer than normal weather which had us wondering if winter was going to ignore us this year. With snow on the ground and temps in the 20s we have no doubt now.

January 2

Bill Schneider at NBC is right on with his commentary on the federal government shutdown: it is amazing how "normal" the tactic has become. And how callous some of us have become to the effects the shutdown has on ordinary Americans. The man-baby in the White House simply dismisses any concern for furloughed workers because either (he claims) they are mostly Democrats (and hence, I guess, not deserving of sympathy) or they (with no evidence) support his actions.

January 3

As a sign of how right Schneider's thoughts are (see above) about the shutdown the fact that the "negotiations" yesterday produced no movement at all is that there has been very little coverage in the media. I put the word in quotes because, with #45, there is no such thing as negotiation. There is simply bluster, threats, bullying, and broken agreements. It is interesting to see how impotent he is when all of his tactics fail to produce his desired result. I won't bother linking because what little coverage there is isn't very informative. As I read this piece at the Political Wire I had to ask, in answer to Pelosi's question of how many times must they say no, since when has the man-baby every understood the word. Certainly never when he was groping a woman he wanted to grope, and never in any of his business "deals."

January 4

Have a good laugh with this one. Nice bit of satire.

Happy New Year!!! 💕

I hope 2019 will be better than 2018 though on some levels I don't expect that hope to be fulfilled. Politically the new year begins much as the last one did. In spite of the election we have a Senate even more Repthuglican Republican than last year. I struck that because I hope that some of the new faces in the Senate will be far less thuggish and far more moderate than those they replaced and far more interested in negotiating. One hopeful sign is that the House is dominated by Democrats. But then we still have that narcissist man-baby in the White House. On a sour note the government is shut down. I have a friend who is a government employee on furlough--for the third time in a year. Man-baby and his enablers seem to be one trick ponies. What pisses me off is they aren't going without paychecks. That is partly a Constitutional issue but Congress should pass a law in the next session which would mandate a freeze of Congressional pay during any future shutdowns. It wouldn't take effect until 2021 but better late than never.

Economically, on our individual levels here, we are on doing OK. For the rest of the economy I am not so sure. I hear a bit about more store closings and more workers out of jobs. The man-baby just signed an executive order rescinding the meager increase federal employees were supposed to get this year pleading the poverty of the federal government. The government is too poor to give workers a minuscule raise but can come up with $5billion for that totally useless bit of (his)ego massage on the southern border??? Excuse me but I almost lost my breakfast writing that.

Internationally, I have to wonder if we have any allies left and, if we do, why man-baby hasn't alienated them yet. Oh, I just remembered: Israel and Saudi Arabia. They haven't been alienated because he gives Netanyahu everything he wants and refused to call out the Saudi government and crown prince on the Khashoggi murder.

It is time to get serious about the gardens. I should get my seed order(s) sent in by next week. I don't intend to buy much. Instead I will be looking at what is available locally in flowers and herbs. Those will be my focus this year. Tomatoes and peppers are out because they simply haven't done well over the last three or four years. We have had more days each year over 90 (or so it seems in my memory) and my space concentrates heat so that the temperature there even on a 85F day will top out above 95. They don't set blossoms well and don't produce well if they don't. The space is too limited to devote any of it to something that doesn't produce either beauty or utility for us.

Last year was a good year for needlework: two crochet blankets, a lap afghan, a couple of sets of embroidered pillow cases, a couple of new table scarves embroidered and with crochet lace, several doilies. This year I have a new scrap buster afghan started, a cross-stitch tablecloth progressing well, a crochet table cloth that needs only one more row of motifs and the edging to be finished. I found my tatting shuttles and needles so I can start relearning what little of tatting I knew and then go from there. The needlework is a nice way to unwind and, unlike the busyness in our nation's capital, I actually have something to show for it.