Waiting…

I could never be these guys, always waiting...

I’ve never been a patient person.  I hate waiting.  Always have, although I was not born premature.  I think that was the last time I waiting until I was supposed to.

This edginess of mine drives my wife nuts, as she is a very methodical person, patient to a fault.  She would rather wait until everything is exactly right and in place before moving ahead; I’m comfortable with charging on if we’re 80-90% complete, or sure of what we’re doing, confident that I can repair/fix/change whatever isn’t right as we go along.  The old joke I used to tell when we ran the ice cream parlor is that if Mona had her way, waiting until everything was “just right,” we’d be holding our grand opening in two weeks.  And I told this joke well into our second decade of business.  And it was still funny, because it’s true.

Anyway, I’m “on hold” now because of the heat.  If you live in the western US, you know that Oregon is under this “heat dome” where we’re getting Las Vegas temperatures without the glamorous shows nor the buffets.  It was 110° in Warren yesterday (hotter in Portland, of course), and we’re expecting 115° today.  Hell, it was 95° in Seaside on the coast on Sunday, and it NEVER gets hot out there because of the cool breezes blowing off the Pacific.  We used to laugh at the tourists who would come out to the coast to cool off when temps hit 90° or above in Portland; dressed in flip-flops, tank-tops, and short-shorts, they’d walk around with their arms wrapped around themselves trying to keep warm, wondering “WTH is going on?”  It was the only time I regretted selling ice cream and not owning the sweatshirt shop down the street.

Anyway, I’m waiting to do all my outdoor projects until the heat dies down (in a day or two, promise!), and frankly, it’s not as tough as all that.  I think this is because I’ve been “waiting” on a lot of things lately…

I’m waiting for Oregon to reopen due to COVID.  It’s supposed to happen either (a) when we reach that magical 70% vaccinated threshold, or on June 30^th, whichever comes first.  It’ll be June 30^th, because while we’re close, we have plenty of “my body, my choice (this time)” people who would not get the vaccine if you paid them, and yes, we tried that.  Here in Columbia County, we’re at a paltry 42% it’s better in the zip code where we live, thank you); an island surrounded by both metro counties and coastal communities in the 50s and 60s.  At least we’re not Malheur County (28%) nor the 97712 zip code in Deschutes County (a whopping 9.3%).  Jeebus.

I’m waiting for the Democrats to do something good again.  Sure, Biden started like a house afire, but how could he not, reversing many of the Executive Orders of the Previous Guy and pushing through a stimulus package that gave some average Americans (for once) some relief.  But voting rights, infrastructure, etc., etc.; that “progressive package” we’ve all known and loved and waited for for so long is at a standstill.  It’s not the heat; but something that burns even hotter – Mitch McConnel and his GOP stonewallers, reminding us that only one party is allowed to skip the bipartisan gambit and push ahead with whatever-in-hell they want (pretty sure it’s in the Constitution).  And the press helps them with this bullshit, but that’s another story.

Speaking of bullshit, I’m waiting for more arrests in the January 6^th insurrection, and I don’t mean just the folks who went inside.  Rounding up the organizers would be a nice touch, don’t you think?  You don’t think it was organized?  They had T-shirts printed up with the date and the event.  In advance.

And speaking of arrests, it’s now being said that criminal charges may be filed THIS WEEK against the Trump Organization.  According to the Manhattan D.A.’s office, it’s related to tax-related conduct, more specifically, “…possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct" at the Trump Organization, including tax and insurance fraud and falsification of business records.  Remember when Trump bragged about not paying taxes?  “That makes me smart,” he said, smirkingly.  It’s well past time to wipe that smirk from his face.  The rest of the family, too, as well as Roger Stone, et al.

And finally, I’m waiting for stuff in the garden to ripen.  That’s an annual event, of course, but this year it takes on a bit more trepidation.  It’s the first year for all of our berry bushes to bear fruit, and so far, it’s a gusher.  Two pints of Loganberries so far; another two pints of Olallieberries today, and the Marionberries…another couple of weeks, but we have twice as many plants, so we’ll be rolling in them.  I hope.  We’ve harvested a ton of lettuce, bunches of carrots (more to go), radishes, and three pints of peas with the other half of the bed ready by the end of the week.  Still to mature - two kinds of apples, some pears, corn, green beans, acorn squash, butternut squash, cukes, melons, pepper, and of course, zucchini (we planted half the crop we did last year just so we wouldn’t have them coming out of our ears).  On the other hand, we planted MORE tomatoes because you cannot have too many tomatoes.

Oh, and I’m waiting for a new freezer to put it all in. 

When’s it coming? 

In two weeks.  Seriously.

I can’t wait.

Details, details, (lack of) details

Before we begin, it’s worth noting that this blog is almost 10 years old, or, in other words, it’s lasted almost 10 years longer than Donald Trump’s blog (which was shut down yesterday).

Now, I can’t begin to tell you if I’ve sputtered more nonsense in my 10 years than he has in the last, oh, 6 weeks or so, but I doubt it.  If you somehow missed the latest, the “rumor” is that Donnie the terrible expects to be reinstated sometime in August.

Yeah, reinstated.  As President.  Of these United States.

Republicans, marching in the same direction

Before you go running to your local constitutional scholar to see just how this might play out (hint – it doesn’t; that’s not how this works, that’s not how any of this works), consider playing this fun game:  next time you see a Trumpkin post malarkey like this, ASK THEM.  Ask them, exactly, where in the US Constitution it says that a candidate who lost due to “fraud” (be sure to include the quotation marks) gets to be reinstated once the “fraud” is “proven” in “court.”  Ask them what proof is needed, which court decides, etc., etc.  Ask for lots of details.

You won’t get any, of course.

Conservatives have been horrible of late in providing details for…well, actually, for damn near anything.  They make claims, they make statements, and something is missing.  Details.

For example, many Republican-controlled legislatures are passing outrageous “voter protection” bills that do nothing of the kind.  What they actually do is make it very hard (for some people) to vote.  The GOPers say it’s to stop fraud at the polls, but when you ask them exactly how much fraud occurred in 2020, they mumble and stutter and then point to the lack of confidence the “voting public” (their side) has in the results (because of all the lies they told their side about why they lost). 

“Critical Race Theory” is being debated in many states by all the conservatives, but…do they even know what that means?  When I ask that question on the social medias, I get:

• “I ain’t doing your homework,”
• “Google it,”
• “It’s just another bad liberal idea, like all of them,” and
• [crickets].

(For a good overview, see here; for an interesting analysis, go here.)

Side note – this reminds me of a pro-Biden post I commented on last week, where a Trumpkin posted “This story is factually inaccurate and wrong.”  I asked what, specifically, was inaccurate and got a Sarah Palin-like response:  “All of it.”

You see, if Neo-Con-jobs would actually pay attention to the details, they might actually be able to think about the things they’re saying and the claims they’re making and realize it can be one way or the other way, but it can’t be both.

One example is the January 6^th insurrection.  More than 70% of Republicans say Antifa and/or was responsible, yet, also, too, more than 70% say there should NOT be an investigation and we should move on.  Wouldn’t they WANT to have PROOF that the nasty Antifa crowd should be answerable for all that death and damage?  And yet…

How about this one?  Fans of the Orange Blob want Trump to get credit for rushing the COVID vaccines through, but…they also say, ”I won’t take the vaccine because it was rushed.”

Oh, by the way, they STILL think Obama was born in Kenya.  Still.

And don’t forget that “Unemployment benefits are too generous” and simultaneously “The economy is overheating so much that inflation is going to kill us all.”

I mean, sure, it makes your head hurt, but all of this bullshit does affect our social discourse.  How can you reason with people who blurt out any string of words whether there’s any truth to them or not?  How can you possibly negotiate with anyone like that?

I know Joe means well, but as he would say: “C’mon, man.”

Times a wastin’ – let’s move forward without the bastards.