November 10

We have had an unusually warm stretch of days lately--mid-70s to low 80s in November. Very unusual. Right now we have a brisk wind with clouds forming that might give us rain. I finally got out on the patio to detach the hose, drain it, and get it in the shed for the winter. I also swept up a large amount of leaves though now you wouldn't think I had done any of that. This is the time of the year when my gardening zeal flags. The spearmint is still green as is the sage, the mums, the roses (which are still trying to bloom), the lavender, and a couple of other plants. But the woad, madder, and valerian are looking a bit sad. The indigo is long gone along with most of the other plants I had. As I say my enthusiasm and energy have dissipated and I am engaging in indoor pursuits.

I am working on the last motif on the table cloth and have two other projects on the embroidery hoops. I have been playing with my zoom loom and started another pineapple pattern crochet doily. The pineapples are my favorite patterns. I finished another doily I haven't yet blocked and stretched.

Something else that has a dwindling share of my attention is what #45 says or does. Thankfully, I am not and and am not signed up on twitter. Things post election are progressing in much the way I expected. Biden is attending to the business of moving into the Presidency while #45 is waging a legal and PR battle that backfires almost 100%. But the euphoria of having voted the idiot out has given way to anger and frustration that he hasn't shown the dignity and class to actually accept the fact. Well, dignity and class were qualities he never had and so can't show any more than he can show empathy which he also never had. One of the pundits on the morning news/talk shows wondered how much #45 planned to burn down on his way out--how far he would pursue a scorched earth policy. That seems to be on Tom Engelhardt's  mind as well. I expressed the thought that a part of his base were so pissed off with the status quo they simply wanted to burn the place down and voted for the arsonist.

Engelhardt also writes that "when Joe Biden, the definition of an old white man, finally limps into the Oval Office, he’ll represent a return to normalcy in Washington, the retrieval of an America that was. The only problem: the America that was -- if you’ll excuse the repetition of a verb -- was an America in decline, even if its leaders didn’t know it." That is also something I have felt. And it isn't just the last four years with the Arsonist-In-Chief in charge and this year from hell. The best we can hop for, according to Engelhardt, is a gentler slope downward whereas another four years of #45 would have accelerated things. That is a sentiment I have read from other bloggers including one who intended to vote for #45. He felt the decline was inevitable so why postpone it.