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.