The snow is melted

It is still dark on this late November Saturday. My coffee is hot. Music gently plays in the background. 

I got a work email last evening informing me we are finally approved on a chunk of new business I’ve been chasing for nearly a year. It will be about $4 million in sales. I was so thrilled I even sent a text to my boss at 8:30 ladt night. He was pretty happy too. 

I’m not sure what tasks the wife has planned for today. There is no end of stuff that needs done, the question is what are her priorities?

Have a great day.

Friday Thoughts

His place is back along a tree line overlooking a ravine and small stream. The undergrowth is of typical Hoosier variety; mulberry. sassafras, wild blackberries. At first, he had few neighbors and it was not unusual to see tracks of deer, of fox, of the omnipresent squirrels in the winter snow. Over time, there came more neighbors, and I was saddened, but not surprised, when bulldozers cleared a large swath of trees nearby. This part of Hamilton County is among the fastest growing areas in the country.

I used to visit him every week, then once a month. Now, I talk with him a handful of times a year. It is not fair of me. He got me through the most depressing and darkest times of my life. When I said I could not go on, he told me "Not today, things will get better. Not today." 

I smile when I think about how he wrestled with his little sister laughing and shouting, his older sister supervising with a wry grin. There are the ball games, the soccer games, school plays. All fictitious memories that never happened. The baseball and pleather glove I gave him lie unused. The ball rotted away a few years ago. The glove lies cracked and faded. On each visit I think of him as he would be, growing older, playing, going to school, not how he is, a little baby boy who lived but a day.

I will go visit him Monday to celebrate a bittersweet birthday. Tuesday is a black anniversary I will try unsuccessfully to forget.  

Next Friday I will go down and put a little metal Santa Claus next to his grave as I do every year. 

And life goes on, the way of the Lord mysterious. 

Snow, snow, snow

 Imagine my shock to find the ground covered in fresh snow this morning. The driveway snd  pavement are clear, it was too warm to stick to concrete. There is not a lot of the white stuff, enough to cover the leaves still on the front lawn. It must have snowed a lot, the ground has to be warm. Temperatures hit seventy Fahrenheit on Tuesday. We have not seen sub-freezing in weeks, if at all this season. 

I’m tempted to break out the snow song from the movie White Christmas, but I’ll refrain. 

It is beginning to look..,

Temperatures hit the upper sixties yesterday. It was spectacular weather for a mid November day. The weather quacks were warning the spate of nice weather is about to change with wind, rain, and even snow in the forecast. With that in mind I knocked off work a bit early to get the outside Christmas  decorations on the house. My neighbors across the street had the same idea. 

I’m skeptical about snow sticking on the ground Thursday. It has been so warm I just don’t see it. There are still flowers blooming in the pot on the porch! 

I know, it would be weird to discover the weather forecast is wrong!

I wanted all of these bleeping trees

I came home from the doctor yesterday morning and decided to rake some leaves since I took 1/2 day vacation. 

I raked the entire front yard. 

The front lawn is covered in new fresh leaves this morning.  *#%@&$.

Start the day off right

Happy Monday. I’m off in a bit to the eye doctor again. I’ll let you know, but I suspect I am going to have to have surgery. The gel separation is worse and I can only see about 50% in my right eye. Maybe not, I did not sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night and my medical degree is non-existent. 

Edit: i am going back under the knife in a few weeks. Oh, and I thought I attached this song this morning. 

As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly

Cappy says we cannot go into the holiday season before the WKRP turkey drop and he is right. Thanksgiving is an artificial construct, the date has changed often in our nation’s history including when FDR fiddled around with the official date. 

Here’s the thing. We are having our family Thanksgiving today. Two-thirds of my kids and their related offspring and significant others will be on hand at the old homestead to feast and enjoy one another’s company. I will be tired and stressed to make sure everything is finished on time and fit to eat. It is just after 5:00 AM and I’m already plotting the cooking schedule. 

It will be without remorse when I drag out the Christmas decorations next weekend.

The turkeys have dropped. 

What?

I love Christmas and everything about it. We decorate the house inside and out. I enjoy the music, the food, spending time with family. Most of all I love Christmas movies - the classics, the Hallmark ones, the cartoons, the newer flicks. 

Last night the wife and I went to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is terrific. It may be in my top three favorite Christmas movies ever. 

So I looked up some reviews when I got home to see if my opinion was valid or if I was high on seasonal endorphins. Most people agreed it was pretty good. One person gave it a 1 out of 10. Their reason? I’ll have to paraphrase, “I went to see a Christmas movie, instead I got a religious lesson. The whole thing was about church and the birth of Jesus.” 

Sometimes words fail me. 

How long until baseball starts?

I started working a part time job at 13. I saved every penny and my first purchase was a stereo. My brother sold me a pair of speakers on credit and I was in business. I next bought a turntable and the world of music was opened to me. 

My first records were the popular tunes of the day. Soon I delved into Zepplin, Yes, Blue Oyster Cult, Jethro Tull, and  the Stones. Sure, I played my parents Herb Albert albums. I lived to hear music. 

Now for a lot of people that passion led to learning to play an instrument, alas I lacked that talent. What I could do was lay on the floor between the speakers and hear each instrument individually. I could pick out the bass, the drums, the rhythm guitar from the whole of the song. I would listen to a song over and over studying the parts that made up the whole. 

I could slip on my what was then very good Koss headphones and go into an almost trance. 

A couple of years later I added two more speakers. I had two Utah speakers with 12” woofers and two Pioneer speakers with 10” woofers in my little 8x10 bedroom. When mom and dad were at work I could literally shake the windows in our modest pre-fab National Home. I’m sure the neighbors loved me. 

I tell you this because it is Friday and that means Friday music. So for little 100 pound teen me, lying perfectly still in complete concentration I give you this:

Not hers

 The wife and I went to Subway for lunch yesterday. 

This is how they identified my sandwich vs hers.

I found it amusing. 

We have seen some much needed rain in the past 24 hours. One result is the leaves finally are falling. Right now my front yard is ankle deep with wet leaves. I hope I can get some of them cleaned up over the weekend.. 

We are hosting an early thanksgiving dinner Sunday. Turkey and the works is on the menu. The kids have other plans on actual Thanksgiving, so this is the only available weekend. 

I had hoped to start dragging Christmas decorations out, this weekend but that will have to wait. I  suspect between the leaves and dinner there is not enough time. 

Humping extra hard on hump day

I’m up and at it early this morning. There is no particular reason, I woke around 3:30AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. I dozed a bit and finally got up just shy of 5:00. So it goes. 

I have plenty to do. I have a couple of conference calls today. I have a bunch of studying on tap. One of my colleagues is leaving the company (a better opportunity, so good for him) and I picked up half of his accounts. So a busier job is a good thing. Transitioning accounts is always tricky, especially this time of year when the holidays and end of year vacations makes customer visits difficult to arrange. 

It will all work out. 

Not one mention of the weather

Little things amuse me. You might have concluded I was late getting a blog post up yesterday. Nope I scheduled it to go live at 11:11AM on purpose. 

Or you might not care at all and mutter under your breath “Joe, you narcissistic jerk, I didn’t even notice you did not post until late.” Valid point indeed. 

I raked up a couple of bags of leaves from the front yard before I realized the wind was just blowing more all over the portion I had just cleaned. I went inside to watch an old episode of Emergency! Instead. 

We had pork chops, baked spuds, and green beans for dinner last night. 

Frankly, I don’t know why you would care about any of this. 

Veteran’s Day

 

For the millions who served to make us free.

Fun for everyone

 

“New Oldsmobiles are in early this year.”

One more thing

I intended to be done with politics for a while. Instead I have one more thing to say to those who think they are about to be “killed”. If you have a position on abortion and feel like you are not being heard, then you should take up the issue with your state legislature and governor. 

Abortion (I refuse to call it women’s health) is a state issue just like the requirements to get a drivers license or if you can carry a gun. You may not like it, but that is the way it is.

Frankly, abortion was a losing platform for the Democrats because someone in Michigan cares nothing about the laws in Alabama. 

PS I guess i have two things. How do you Democrats now feel  about eliminating the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court? 

Yesh, that’s what I thought.

Here, I will tell you

Democrats and liberals are in total meltdown over the election. “How can this happen? “They ask. 

I will tell you. 

Trump is a horrible human being. If the Republican Party ran anyone else I would have voted for him/her. But I voted policy not personality. 

If you want to know when my vote for Trump was solidified, it was the ridiculous convictions over the payoffs to Stormy Daniels. If a reasonable person were to ignore the name Trump, you would agree the whole thing was Banana Republic-type bull. 

Quit demonizing people who disagree with you on policy. Anyone to the right of Mao isn’t Hitler. I am sick of being called a racist. To show how silly this plan of attack has become, Latinos were called racist because they failed to vote for Kamala. Seriously. I heard a nitwit on TV actually say "a majority of Americans have rejected democracy." That very well may be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Failure to toe the Democrat talking points does not make one a fascist. 

 Screaming and crying over the election makes you look beyond silly. No one lost a single right on Wednesday they had on Tuesday. The constant hyperbole is exhausting. I don't think some of you liberals understand what "literally" means. Literally, no one is literally killing you. The whole thing makes you look unserious and I won't vote for unserious people.

The Democratic party could not provide a definition of a woman until they nominated one for President. See above about unserious people. Women have worked too hard to suddenly have to fend off mentally ill people in the restroom or on the playing field. 

Reasonable people can disagree. I was embarrassed by the events of January 6, but it wasn't an insurrection and the "worst event since the Civil War" pundits made it out to be. It was a bunch of idiots protesting. It was only slightly worse than the protests from the left when Trump was inaugurated in 2017.  The events were nothing compared to the riots in the wake of George Floyd. 

I voted my best interest. Lowering the rate of inflation does not mean prices are going down, it means they aren’t rising as fast. Anyone who can promise to help relieve the price increases at the grocery and gas pump gets my vote. And no, "price gouging" is not the problem. That claim seems like Harris had no idea what to do.

My vote against Harris had nothing to do with the color of her skin or that she was a woman. I don't care about those things. It was 100% about policy. Bidenomics caused inflation. History shows Keynesian economic policies are a failure every time they are tried. Evidence suggests aggressive government spending actually helped extend the Great Depression. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act did nothing but increase spending and thus increase inflation.

I have been to Mexico. Not “vacation” Mexico, the real poverty stricken Mexico  I understand why those people want a better life they can find here. That does not mean we should not have secure borders. Protecting our borders is the responsibility of the government and the Democrats are derelict in that duty. Harris was in charge of the border and did nothing. In fact one of Biden’s very first actions upon taking office was to reduce enforcement of border controls.. 

The Vice President's failure to articulate a policy outside of abortion made it seem like she had no policy at all, and her one-time utterance that she would do nothing different than Biden, well, his unpopularity pretty much sums it up. 

We can start with that list. I will sum it up with a quote from a Democrat advisor: "Its the economy, stupid."

The bottom line is it was an election, not the apocalypse. Life goes on.  Had Kamala won I would be disappointed, but I wouldn’t waste a moment crying about it. 

It takes Congress to get a lot of the stuff done and it remains pretty much split 50/50. Relax Democrats, you will be fine. No one is going to put you in concentration camps. After all, only one political party in this country has ever resorted to that…

And the last and final point is that I’m not the only one who thinks this way. You have to face that the vast majority of voters rejected your politics. Not much else needs to be said. Except any time you can make Nancy Pelosi cry with the sadz it is a glorious day.

Maybe if she stood for something, anything …

 

Okay, I waited a day to gloat.  Ha! No, I didn’t. 

I have to say the liberals are having a collective meltdown of epic proportions. 

It is and always will be about “the economy, stupid,”

Want my advice? Perhaps it is not a winning policy to label 50% of the country racists, fascist, Nazis, and garbage merely because they disagree on some policy questions.

Where the Democrats are today

Look at that, three posts today

And my first one was the best and now it is buried, dang it.

Stay Classy, Kamala

 Harris never said a word of substance during her campaign. I should not be surprised Kamala Harris is a no-show when it comes time to concede, to thank her supporters, to address the nation. 

It reaffirms my opinion of that vapid, empty, and probably not nearly as smart as she believes herself to be presidential candidate . 

It is 10:30 AM EST and all we have from the Democrat candidate is bupkis.

At what point does this become election denial?  Asking for a friend…

What Gives?

I keep clicking that box on my computer screen that says “accept all cookies” but not a one has appeared at my door. 

By now I should have dozens of chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar, or snickerdoodle cookies piled on the counter. 

I think I’m being scammed. 

Duty Done

I went to vote around 10AM. For the first time in a while there was a line.  I suppose It took around 45 minutes to wait and vote.

I get you want to make sure and vote wisely. One woman was standing at voting machine #2 when I came in. I waited. Showed ID and waited. I finally voted. The process once I got inside took about 20 minutes. The SAME woman was still standing at machine #2 when I left. 

Sheesh. 

Suck it up and do it

Go vote. 

It is perfectly acceptable to vote in your own best interests.

No, I’ll not wear the silly sticker after. 

I’ll say this, I got a text at 11PM last night. It was from the campaign of Mike Braun who is running for governor of Indiana. It ticked me off to no end. I’m sick of election texts anyway and sending one at bedtime is a jerk move. I was going to vote for him because he is marginally better than the alternative. I may vote for the democrat out of spite. 

It won’t matter, the Republicans have an iron lock on the Statehouse and a lefty governor has zero chance of implementing her agenda. 

Somehow, I find it strangely appropriate that today is Trash Day.  There is a metaphor in there I’m sure. 

Stolen

 

H/T MC

Now it’s in your head

 Flashback to 70s pop

A slice of Saturday

For as long as I can remember whenever I cross a State line. * I lean forward or stick out my arms to be the “first” one in the car across the line.  Of course I know it is goofy. 

The wife and I went on a little road trip yesterday. Living in central Indiana a couple of hours or so in any direction can put you into another state. Yesterday when we crossed back into Hoosierdom I reached out towards the windshield to earn my well deserved victory. The wife looked at me and shook her head.

I laughed. “After all these years you either think ‘He’s so weird’ or ‘that’s one of the many little charming things that makes me love him,’” I told her. 

She didn’t say anything . I laughed and prompted her, “You have lots of charming qualities, Joe.” 

Silence. 

I guess I know where I stand.

*when I cross into Indiana from Illinois on I-74 I always sing the opening lines to Back Home in Indiana. I don’t know why.  I suppose it is more than a quirk. I was weird even as a kid. 

PS try it the next time you cross any State line. Take any victory in life you can get.

A brief excerpt

It was a typical sunny Hawaiian morning. Joan Kowalski sipped black coffee while she skimmed the thick Sunday Honolulu Times. She was casually dressed in slacks and a blouse. An ignored cigarette burned in an ashtray at her elbow. The cigarette produced a trail of blue smoke that waved and curled in the gentle breeze from the open windows. Joan folded the newspaper expertly as she skipped to the jump page to finish an article. Across the enameled kitchen table Paula Jones wore her nightgown and a robe as she absently stirred sugar into her coffee cup while reading a page in a novel. She was hunched forward in concentration. Neither woman spoke. Music played softly on the radio. 

Alice Daughtry walked sleepily into the kitchen and headed straight towards the coffee pot on the stove. “Morning kids,” she mumbled. She was wearing silk pajamas that fit tightly across her large breasts. Alice yawned open-mouthed and stretched her arms above her head. Her top crept up, briefly exposing her flat stomach and navel. Alice rotated her head on her shoulders. Her brown hair was still sleep-tousled. She lit a Lucky Strike and reached for a coffee cup.

The roar of airplanes droned in the distance. Alice cocked her head and stared at the ceiling. “Sounds like the flyboys are at it early this morning.” She filled her cup from the metal percolator. “Edna gets off at eight, I better make another pot of coffee. You know how she is after working the overnight shift.” Edna Faber was their fourth roommate. Alice walked over to the table and poured the last of the pot into Joan and Paula’s cups.

“Huh, those planes seem pretty low,” Paula said. “There is a bunch of them.” She turned towards Alice, “You got in late last night Alice.”

Alice smiled and started to speak when her reply was cut off by distant popping sounds and what sounded like fireworks. “What the heck?” Alice exclaimed. She set the empty pot on the counter.

Joan walked outside barefoot followed by her roommates. Planes circled the distant harbor like flies at a picnic. She could see spurts of smoke and fire to the left around Hickam and more around Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor. The air raid siren up the hill began to wail.

All three women looked at the distant base in awe. None thought to move despite the noise from the sirens blaring throughout Honolulu. The volume of noise grew. Puffs of smoke dotted the air from what Joan supposed were anti-aircraft guns. These made a lighter pop in the sky compared to the deeper thud of the bombs and larger boom of explosions as the torpedoes and bombs began to hit their targets. A buzz of machine guns was barely heard above the cacophony of explosions and the constant howl of the siren. 

The planes circled and dove in succession. The three nurses stood frozen in the yard. Suddenly there was a loud explosion, and a black spout of smoke and flame roiled from the harbor. “We are under attack!” Paula shouted. Her words woke something in Joan and called her to action. She sprinted into the house and pulled on some shoes. Joan immediately started jogging towards the hospital. Paula watched her go and headed into the house to pull on her uniform. Alice asked where she was going. 

“To the hospital, Alice. There are bound to be casualties.”

“But you are not on duty.” Alice whined. Paula gave her a withering look and followed in Joan’s wake.

Don’t fret, it is a first draft of a middle section. I hope to make it better with the inevitable rewrites. 

Pot meet kettle

I saw a campaign ad for Kamala Harris last evening. The spot  claimed “Donald Trump ended Rowe vs Wade.” 

No matter your position on that particular contentious issue, that claim is an out and out bold faced untruth aimed at ignorant voters. 

Yet the press repeatedly paints the Trump campaign as liars.