October 22--12 days before this interminable election season ends

Actually it has ended for me because I voted on the first day of early in-person voting in this state. Now all that is left is waiting till the numbers come in.  We are thinking about watching at least the first few minutes of the debate tonight. The debate committee says the microphones for the candidates will be switched off during the two minutes each candidate is to speak uninterrupted. That should be interesting. A reporter covering a #45 rally noted that the 8 seconds the mic failed were the most peaceful he had experienced at #45's super spreader events.

We have had a strange and busy week. Monday as we finished our grocery shopping and filling our gas tank we heard a strange thumping sound from the engine area of the car. Mom decided we would go straight over to our favorite auto repair shop and find out what was going on. Four hours and $350 later we had a new air recycling switch and motor. That pretty much shot the day. Thankfully we didn't have much in the way of groceries that needed immediate refrigeration or freezing. Although she got the call Monday afternoon that her new glasses were in we decided to wait until mine came in to pick them up. My call came Tuesday so that was another trip.

October 23--11 days and no more debates😂

We did suffer through 45 minutes of that "debate." Frankly, neither candidate covered themselves with glory. How much noise can one make and not say anything of real substance? Evidently quite a bit. It was devolving when we bailed and went to bed. They should have cut off the mics more frequently and eliminated the cross-talk entirely. #45 was somewhat better behaved but only if you discounted the persistent lying. The best rejoinder of the night went to Biden when #45 said we just "have to live" with COVID and Biden replied that many of us are dying with it. Although the ersatz president may be right about learning to live with the virus I suspect it will be like living with the seasonal flu: we have vaccines and therapeutics that are somewhat effective. But with effective leadership we certainly wouldn't have the body count we have and are going to have.

It has been a year of firsts. Here is another: the arctic sea ice hasn't begun forming yet for the first time since records have been kept.