October 29

It has been dreary yesterday and today with rain and chilly temps. I got a couple of items pulled from the garden and some more on my list along with some rearranging of the containers. It hasn't been dry enough for long enough to completely dry out the cement so I will have a bit of sweeping to do hopefully before snow falls. None is in the forecast for the near future and we haven't had another frost yet. I want to see what seeds are in my ca    che but I don't think I will place any orders for the spring--just rely in the local nurseries for plants and the seeds on hand.

The little clinic we went to for our covid vaccination back in March just opened up appointments for the boosters early this week and we got our slots for yesterday afternoon. Since they had all three vaccine types we didn't have to think about mixing or matching. We just matched what we had already. Interesting--there was no delay for appointments and no packed waiting room this time. Another interesting change--we had less reaction to the vaccine. Last time we had a sore arm and a bit of heat at the injection site. This time less soreness and only for a couple of hours and no warmth at the site.

Annoyances:

1) Several pundits spent their time on the morning talk/news shows arguing that the Democrats should just accept the "bipartisan" infrastructure deal because "something is better than nothing." The whole process leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The original package was $6 trillion which was then shaved to $3.5 trillion and now shaved again to $1.85 trillion--maybe. I say that because the key senators haven't yet agreed. To be fair, the only part of the reconciliation bill already produced has been an "outline." And as they say the devil, and any angels there might be, is in the details of the language. Isn't 50% of something better than 100% of nothing, you ask. Well, Joe Manchin supposedly told Bernie Sanders that he would be quite comfortable with $0 for that bill. I have always said that the old notion of something being better depends on whether the something is distinguishable from nothing and the trajectory of the negotiations is tending towards the indistinguishable.

2) Another aspect of this process that offends me is the whole process that has pushed the so-called "hard" infrastructure into one bill while relegating the "soft" (human) aspects into another which some people are trying to whittle down to nothing. It seems to me that the bridges, roads, broadband, etc., that people need to work and function is much more important than the people, the individuals, that will use that hard infrastructure.

3) I have seen, more frequently than I like to think, an ad insisting that the proposed tax increases (which are now in limbo, I think) would cripple our businesses especially with respect to overseas competition (a.k.a. China). The spokesman insists that we can't let our politicians continue to devastate business as they did when "they" sent our manufacturing and its jobs overseas. Point: the biggest factor sending manufacturing and jobs beyond our borders was the drive for profits. Decisions on that came from the CEOs, CFOs, stockholders not the politicians. The worst you can say about the politicians was they did nothing to stop the process.

4) Talking about the supply chain situation Yves Smith asks "Will the Supply Chain Crisis Lead to More Onshoring?" Spoiler alert: not likely.

 October 26

Sunny but cool today. I got out on the patio and pulled the marigolds which looked very sad. We haven't had a frost yet but they obviously don't like how chilly the nights have been. They also didn't like the wet weather of the last several days. We had rain, sometimes heavy, for three days from late Saturday through late yesterday. The soil in the pots I emptied was very wet. I still have the geranium, the sunpatiens, and the last dahlia to pull soon.

The covid boosters are rolling out. The clinic where we got our vaccinations back in March sent an e-mail telling us we could get our appointments. Mom called and set us up for Thursday. They have all three booster varieties--Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J. We got the J&J vaccine originally so we are staying with the J&J for the booster.

This post on TomDispatch this morning makes one ask if Jan 6 was a dress rehearsal. A supposed quote from Benjamin Franklin has made the rounds over the past months. Asked what kind of government we were setting up he allegedly replied "A republic, if you can keep it." Keeping it requires people have faith in the system and I wonder how many of us have that faith any more.

October 27

I didn't get back to post this yesterday--obviously. I don't know yet what the weather will be because the sun isn't yet up. I take the weather forecasts with a big dose of salt.

Well when the sun came up we saw frost on cars, roofs and grass.

I haven't had much to say about the politics because the whole mess makes me feel we are on a treadmill--getting no where not very fast. The notion that they are "close" to an agreement on that very stripped down reconciliation bill is getting to be as much of a joke as the Former Guy's "infrastructure week." Given the lack of movement the various poll results that show broad dissatisfaction with President Biden, dissatisfaction with and lack of trust in the election process, and a feeling that the economy isn't really as good as the so-called experts say it is.

On that last point--we did our shopping on Sunday morning. We don't usually shop on Sunday but we normally do shop early. We like to avoid crowds (even before the pandemic) and were surprised at the number of shoppers also out. Most of them had heavily loaded carts. Hadn't seen that since the first three or four months of the pandemic. We needed dish soap and saw big gaps on the shelves with signs limiting individual customers to two items posted. More big gaps in the juice aisle in the cat food. At times over the last year we have noted bare shelves for certain brands of cat food but never were two major brands almost completely missing. Stopping to fill up the gas tank our total $30+--one third more than we have ever paid before with our current car. The "experts" tell us that the shortages and the inflation we see are only temporary. I don't know about the shortages but I have never seen price increases that were ever temporary.

 October 23

Labor shortage or employers not wanting to pay? I thought it hypocritical when all of the powers that be hailed as heroes the medical personnel, the retail clerks and such who showed up to work throughout the pandemic but have now decried the lazy wretches who don't want to work. When I was young I absorbed the message "If you work hard you will succeed." After years of working and succeeding--sort of--I realized the old strategy wasn't working. But I didn't abandon it; I simply shifted the goals. Later I had to recognize that working hard simply let me stay in place and a tenuous place it was. Over the last 20 years the old mantra completely broke down. Instead of working hard to make a living we are working ourselves to death without ever making a living. A large number of us are experiencing the industrial economy's version of a subsistence economy and it isn't at all satisfying.

David Kaiser asks "does democracy depend on literacy?" He makes an interesting point about the inability of modern Americans to  engage in real intelligible debate on complex issues. In a world of sound bites and tweets who spends much time in critical reading on our modern problems. Using that term, "critical," and I remember a piece on the controversy over "critical race theory" which noted that many people hear the word and think it is a negative evaluation of our institutions and people. One of the people interviewed accused the reporter of "telling lies about my ancestry." 

Charles Hugh Smith just coined a new mash-up word: kleptocrapocracy. It goes along nicely with Yves Smith's notion of "crapification." In other words, what isn't stolen is going to shit rapidly.

 October 22

OMG--two thirds through October and it has been a month since I last posted anything. Though Autumn can be a pretty time and the cooler temperatures are a definite relief after this Summer's heat, it is also a depressing time. The days are shorter and darkness comes sooner and lingers longer--or so it seems. It has been busy with appointments with eye doctors and trips to pick up glasses (mine haven't come yet), the cats are due for their vet visit, and Mom finally had appointments with an audiologist and was fitted for hearing aids. She is amazed by what she hasn't been hearing.

Autumn is the mirror image of Spring in the gardens. In Spring we wait for the shadow of the house to recede so the fence can reflect heat and light onto the containers which happens increasingly after the Vernal Equinox. Then we wait for the soil to thaw completely and warm up to planting. And finally we plant. Before we get things growing the space is bleak and depressing. In Autumn it is reversed. The sun travels up the fence until the space is shaded most of the day. The plants that don't like shade are first to droop followed by those who don't like the lower nighttime temperatures. I have already removed three. We have had unusual rains lately so I detached the hose and put it away for the winter. I am looking at the roses wondering if I will try to keep them. They have suffered from recurring infestation of mosaic. The spray I have been using has helped but applying the spray with the rains we have had would have been useless. A couple of other plant I plan to protect for the winter. I have a small straw bale for that purpose. The end of the season will find the gardens almost as bleak and depressing as early Spring.

I finally finished the crochet tablecloth--after nearly 10 months. That includes the the time I lost because I had to pull everything out because of a major, catastrophic, pattern busting mistake. However, I persisted and the finished piece is now on the table. My major aim was to use up as much of my stash of crochet thread as possible. It was a mix of reclaimed thread from a bedspread project I never finished, partial balls from long ago projects, and a couple of balls of new thread. Not all were the same color but I decided that the final effect of white/ecru/cream was attractive and won't dye it. I have also finished two cross stitched table toppers and a table scarf.