Yesterday, A Political Rant

I saw this clip on YouTube yesterday. I am not at all endorsing Chris Christie. Honestly, I think that anything he says against the Trumps could just as easily be said about him. It didn't surprise me that they used to be friends. I doubt they still are. What surprises me is that he said it out loud, and in place where the MAGA crowd will be listening. I hope some of them will listen, and that some of them are my family. I wonder how many thousands of dollars my octogenarian aunts have wasted on these people. Not that it really is my concern, but it does make me angry that my aunt couldn't afford to have her air conditioner repaired because she sent a donation to build the wall. They live in Alabama. Air conditioning is essential.

I was going to write about this yesterday, but I wanted to run some errands and get out of the house for a but by the time I returned home the news had broken that Trump had been indicted. It's about time. 

So now we are going into another election cycle and it feels that we have been in one continually since 2015. Trump has been at the top of every news report since he floated down the fake gold escalator.

Wednesday

I found my old diary this week. I began blogging there in 1998, shortly after the platform opened. I poured my heart out there about my divorce, my son’s first deployment, and my cancer diagnosis. Then in a night, it was gone. Someone hacked the platform and my diary was deleted forever, or so I was told. I continued blogging there until I changed to Blogger. I have often been sad about the loss of those posts. But something strange has been happening. The old platform closed down for a long time, but then re-opened in 2018. When it reopened, I reclaimed my diary but did little with it. Some of the posts from 2004 have reappeared. I wonder if I ignore it for another 10 years if I won’t be able to recover all 6 years that were lost.

I have been questioning the validity of keeping the diary and the posts on this one. You see, I started the diaries as a place to express all of the things that were by necessity being swept under my rug. I could not express the emotions I was feeling about my divorce because I had children watching, I could not work through the emotions of a deployment and cancer treatments because of the same reasons. And everyone swallows their emotions at work, because its work and you can’t say what is on your mind there. The posts were a way of getting it all off my chest, and I did gripe quite a lot. The thought has come to me that getting it all off my chest may just be an excuse for cluttering the universe with things I should just let pass. All of the griping achieved little. I wonder if it was really as mentally healthy as I once imagined it to be. Something to contemplate as I continue to complain.

Just a thought, what do you think is the future of blogging in general? Do you feel that it is a platform that will still be available in the future? Just thinking.

It Is Finally Spring

 

We are finally getting spring in the valley. We wore hats and jackets through the end of April. It was more than just a little annoying. We would get a day or two that approached 70 F (21 C) and I would think it as safe to clean and put away all my jackets and woolens, and then the temps would drop again, and we’d be closing all the windows and bundling up to go outside again. Then we had a few days of the depths of deep summer where the temps were in the high 90’s (35 C) and it was only early May.  Karen was so upset by it she bought a window unit air conditioner. A couple of years ago we had a week of temperatures hovering around 115 F (46 C). It was during the Covid shutdown, so there were no cooling stations, the library and theaters were closed. And with no AC, it was hell, and took it’s toll on all of us. We all fear that happening again. But responding to that fear by getting AC, while it seems logical, only adds to the global warming that caused the problem in the first place. I warned both Karen and Ken that we shouldn’t use it unless the temps start wandering into the 90’s again, but they didn’t listen. They kept it on while the temps dropped into the 80’s (27 C) which resulted in a ginormous electric bill. Karen wasn’t happy that I refused to offer extra rent money to help cover it. But I did warn them and was over ruled when they made the decision to keep it on. If we are to have more extreme weather this summer, I will help, but temps in the 80’s can be dealt with using fans.

Summer is fast approaching, and we have a lot to look forward too. Karen is leaving on Monday to visit our other sister, Brenda. She just moved to a small town in South Carolina to be near her son. Karen and Nora will be there for a few days. Then at the end of July Karen and Ken will be camping with our friend Jeanine. I won’t be going with them because all three of my children, my grandson and my son-in-law will be here visiting me. We do not have the space in this house for everyone, but will rent an AirBnB to all stay together. I have decided on Tacoma as it will give us both the Mountains and the ocean to enjoy, as well as shops, museums, pubs and restaurants.  Then the first week of August, Karen and Nora will be visiting Atlanta. I could go with them, but I am declining to save my money to visit my oldest son, Tim in the fall. He hopes to be engaged to a woman named Emily by then. Of course, I have already cyber-stalked her and she seems like a lovely person. If the do marry, I will be gaining a new grandson. He is 12 years old, and his name is Nathan. Ken is planning a trip to Connecticut to visit with his daughters and grandkids in the fall too. I think that we will probably all end up back on the east coast sometime in the next couple of years, just maybe not all in the same house. Even though I love the PNW, I’d would go already if Karen and Ken weren’t dependent on the rent and food I provide to survive right now. I pay a third of the rent and buy well over half of the food. But living here is extraordinarily expensive. None of us can afford to live on our own here. But I would do alright by myself in the South. 

So much has happened since I last wrote in December. It is hard to think what I need to update. I feel bad about my inconsistency and neglect of this blog. It has it’s base in depression and anxiety. But it has also been hampered by computer access issues. My good computer died on me more than a year ago. I have an ACER laptop, but it is like all ACER’s I’ve owned, a piece of garbage. I’ve been trying to get by with a second hand IPad. I should just buy another computer, but I have been burned so many times. Even the name brand HP’s and Lenovo’s have disappointed. And the one MAC I’ve used was not much better.  I have found a keyboard and a set-up that is making the IPad work better for me now. I have every hope that it will make blogging much easier, and more consistent going forward. 

I hope you enjoy the pictures I am posting. I took all of them myself. The natural beauty of the PNW makes it so easy to get a beautiful picture. 

I need to go get dinner started now. Fried Chicken, salad and some garlic bread for tonight. I’m actually looking forward to cooking it.