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.

The Winds of Change? (post COVID)

Which direction you wanna go?

Events over the last few days make me remember the classic Buffalo Springfield hit, For What it’s Worth…

There's something happening here.
But what it is ain't exactly clear.

With COVID vaccines on the rise and cases on the decline, folks are looking ahead to that magic moment when things are “back to normal” (full disclosure – we’re nowhere near that yet, so keep your shirts on).  The thing is, there are two camps – the “back” camp and the “how about we try to make things a little better now that we know stuff” camp.

We now know that, yes, you CAN have a large part of your staff work successfully at home.  Bonus:  many employees LOVE this and can get more work done or do better at home that at the office, what we call a win-win situation.  Who could have known?

We now know that those individuals who work for companies that must have in-person employees (service jobs, hospitals, restaurants, etc.) are very concerned about staying safe (not sick with COVID) and making a decent wage.  Many employers have experienced labor shortages as they try to reopen, but are amazed to find those shortages disappear when they offer a living wage and/or insist that all employees are vaccinated.  It’s better for both employees and the company.  Who could have known?

We now know that people LOVE to vote by mail, and that more people actually vote when you make it easier to vote.  Who could have known?

And so on.

A year ago, I cringed when I kept hearing people yip about “getting back to normal” (one has to remember that the former guy was in charge and things were anything but “normal”), and I continually offered the option that maybe, just maybe, we could put on our progressive hats and try to think about ways to make things better.  There are so many damn problems we need to deal with – infrastructure, climate change, income inequality, and so on, and it seems like only half of the country is offering solutions and/or partial solutions to these issues.

The other half just wants to “go back to normal.”

Well, guess what?

I am starting to see real rebellion in doing just that.

And it’s gratifying.

Slowly but surely, we lurch forward.  We always do.  This decade isn’t like the 1980s, which wasn’t like the 1950s, and so on.  Much of the draconian discussion about “going back” is getting the blowback it deserves.  One thing I haven’t mentioned is the “get the kids back to school” argument.  Seems like most everyone is insistent in reopening schools whether it’s safe or not (it might have more to do with Mom or Dad wanting to get back to work vs. getting the best education for Johnny or Jennifer), but there’s actually some who see the benefits of remote learning (like working from home; some can, some can’t).  I know I was born 60 years too soon, as I would LOVE to learn at home via a computer.  In elementary school I did a lot of “remote” learning – I was sick part of the time and in two grades I finished the coursework early, so was assigned extra “independent work” to do at home/library; and I LOVED IT.  And there’s evidence that some kids thrive in the new environment.

So, the next time someone suggests we’re closer to “getting back to normal,” tell them, “Gosh, I hope not.”

It can be so much better if we make it so.  So, make it so.

Guns ‘n’ Motives

Let me start by saying I haven’t written much about guns or gun violence.  Twice, to be exact, both in 2015 (October and December) and one of those was more about hate than about guns.  This time, I am writing about guns.

As I’ve said previously, I have no use for guns.  Never owned one.  Never will.  Can’t shoot ‘em straight if I did (I have an eye defect that inhibits my ability to sight the target, and I proved I’m awful about this once when I did a radio story about the local ROTC Turkey Shoot and they foolishly let me try to hit the target for the story and even though they showed me how to do it I wound up hitting the target…in the next booth over).

A gun, whatever the type – handgun, rifle, AR-15, has one and only one purpose – to maim or kill whatever is being shot at.  Period.  Any other “weapon” is similar to this, though there are many tools that have other primary purposes that are used as weapons, too.  Knives, hammers, hands, feet, and so on.

Again, a gun is a weapon designed to main or kill.  You might say, “No, I use it for defense” and my response is “So you use it for defense, in case your home or your family is attacked, and the purpose of this defense is to…do what, exactly?  Maim or kill whoever is attacking, I assume.”  You might “I use it for target practice” and I would respond “Yes, so you can shoot more accurately, so when the time comes to use the gun to maim or kill you can more accurately hit your target.”  Do you want to practice hitting a target?  Play darts, or play lawn darts (oh, wait, that’s outlawed). 

Some folks hunt.  Yup.  Many friends (and some relatives) do this.  I understand completely.  Of course, they hunt animals, not humans, but again, they use whatever weapon they use to maim or kill their prey.  Can’t deny that.  Bow & arrow serves the same purpose and is much more of a challenge (I knew a guy in Idaho who was more successful getting his elk/deer this way).

But when the national discussion turns to gun violence, we never get to talk about guns.  And that’s on purpose.

The first tactic is to delay the conversation, partly to defuse the emotion that comes right after yet again another mass shooting.  “It’s too soon,” they say, and what they really mean is “Is never soon enough for you?” because they never wish to discuss it.

Then, when there is “conversation” it’s merely one side throwing out words and statistics and the other side responding with the same.  But as you surely know by now, you can make statistics say whatever you want.

And they do.

Recently, the old “hammers kill more people than rifles” argument has been circulating, and you know what?  It’s true.  It’s cherry-picking the data, of course, but it leaves the impression that guns are not the problem.  And that’s wrong.  Here’s the data:

Now, you see that there are separate categories for handguns, rifles, shotguns, and firearms (not specified).  Why?  Why would these be separate categories?  One reason could be because combining all of them together makes the chart look like this: 

All firearms are now shown to be TEN TIMES more lethal than the next highest category (knives/cutting devices).  Draw your own conclusions.

Another argument making the rounds again is the fact that in Switzerland, every male citizen 21 and older is MANDATED to have guns at home, so why not do this in America?  And yes, this is a true (as far as it goes) statement, because of the Swiss Army’s rules regarding their militia.  So if that’s true, why this chart?

 

Note that Switzerland is here along with damn near every other country having low death rates.  The answer, of course, is that while the Swiss have plenty of guns at home, they HAVE NO AMMO.  Big dif.

But it’s these “facts” and “statistics” that continue to muddy the waters when it comes to discussing guns and gun violence, as does the tired drumbeat of “SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS.”  The facts are that weaponry is far different now than in 1791, and the amendment calls for a “well-regulated” militia.

Consider that we’ve changed voting laws considerably since then – in 1791 only white males who owned property could vote.  And the militia only had three types of weapons: single-shot rifles, swords, and cannons.

It seems that when it comes to voting, certain factions wish to make it harder to register and harder to vote.  That same faction wishes to make it EASIER to own a gun.  Seems weird.

Another analogy:  when it comes to abortion, certain factions wish to make it harder to get one.  That same faction wishes to make it EASIER to own a gun.  Seems weirder.  Especially since those who really want to reduce the number of abortions know that reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies is a far better method.  Increase the public’s knowledge, sex education, access to pregnancy prevention like pills and condoms, and other methods help reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions.  And it’s those same steps that certain factions wish to reduce or eliminate.  The very things that could achieve the supposedly “goal” of reducing abortion are tossed aside in favor of outright restriction.  But the very things that might achieve the goal of reduced gun violence (background checks, liability insurance, banning assault weapons, invest in better gun technology, and eliminate restrictions on gun violence research, for example) are never considered in favor of…the idea that more guns are the solution.

Seems weird.

Anyway, we’re going to have that “conversation” again and I know how it will turn out because it ALWAYS turns out that way.  Still, here is a page with some wonderful charts to use when having that conversation.  Good luck.

Calculating Medical Odds (and ends)

Not just because I play, poker, but overall, I consider myself a pretty good judge of risk. Working in Marketing Research taught me a lot about statistics, probability, and so on. It helps on the felt and in life. And when it comes to my medical history, I’m beating all sorts of odds. For example, I finally had a chance to sit down (via video) with my doctor about my test results (that I wrote about here), and I received a copy of the results.

 

What I can tell you is this – if I had any less cancer, I wouldn’t have cancer. 

When they do during a biopsy is gather samples from various places on the prostate, and then test each one. My results showed cancer cells in only ONE of the six areas, and on only ONE of the samples in that area. Then, they look at “how cancerous” that sample area was (using something called a Gleason Score) and determine the overall risk. My Gleason Score was the lowest it could be and still be called “cancerous.” 

So it’s no wonder my doc said “low risk,” though it should be “low/low/low risk.” 

If my prostate was a hand in poker, it would be like holding pocket Aces against my opponent’s 8-3 off-suit, and the flop comes A-9-3. I am a heavy favorite to win it all. 

Of course, I use this hand as an example because it’s EXACTLY the hand I wound up losing in the final stages of a tournament a few months ago (yeah, I still remember). I was up against a LAG (loose-aggressive player for those of you who don’t know the poker lingo), the type of guy who’ll play any two cards and bet big just to scare you. In this hand, he raised things up, and as I had a great starting hand, I just called. The flop gave him a tiny pair of threes compared to my three Aces, and I sandbagged the hand by checking, knowing that he’d try to bluff a big hand. Sure enough, he shoves all in and I snap-called. 

And the turn card was another three. 

And the river…the fourth three. 

Grrrrrr… 

That’s a “less than one percent chance” coming through against me, and yet that’s TWICE as likely as me getting cancer and succumbing to it in the next ten years. So yeah, I like my chances.

 

Even better, consider this – I live in Oregon, currently one of the worst states in the US in the rate of vaccinating its citizens with the COVID vaccines. Worse yet, I live in Columbia County, the WORST county in the state for vaccination rates. 

And yet, today I received my first shot of Moderna. As did Mona. AT THE SAME TIME. 

Just last week when I received my various emails and notifications from the state and county health offices about what was available, getting an appointment was a crapshoot (and I lost, though I am happy to say my 78-year-old neighbor got in for his first shot). This week? Piece of cake. Getting the shot was easy, too. And we’ve set up a time for the second dose. 

I plan on being around here for a long, long time. I like my odds.

Testing, 1, 2, 3…4…5…

I put off writing about this for a while, partly because I wanted to see how it all turned out.  Turns out the ending isn’t exactly what I hoped for, but it’s still a good story and parts of it are funny and there’s a moral or two at the end, so…here goes.

First, let’s get the shitty part of the story over with.  The ending.  And that is…I have “low risk” prostate cancer.

I knew something was wrong; that’s why all the tests, five in all (hence, the title).  I wasn’t worried too much then, and I’m still not all that worried.  My doctor and I have a strategy (active surveillance), and I plan to be here for a long time.  Chill.

So, how’d this come about?

Back in November, I had an “incident.”  Those of you who have known me for a while know I’ve always had a small bladder problem (in that I have a small bladder).  This problem escalated when my prostate grew, as is common in most older men.  I’m always careful when we leave the house to “go before we go,” but in this case we hadn’t been on the road but five minutes when the urge came a callin’ and…I didn’t make it.  Hurt like hell, too.  And an hour later the same urgency hit, and this time, there was blood in my urine.

I’m not a paranoid guy, but I know when I should call the doctor, and this was one of those times.  He listened to the story and said it could be this or that, but to be sure I should see a specialist.

Flounder, Doctor, Newman, Camera, TV

One of these guys is my urologist, Dr. Woldrich.  He’s a brilliant man, with impeccable professional credentials and a very interesting background (volunteer work in foreign lands, etc.).  I am happy to say I feel that I am in good hands, except for the fact that I know where those hands are going.

Fellow poker players – remember back in 2003, how exciting it was to watch the World Series of Poker and FINALLY be able to see the players’ hole cards thanks to the new technology of the “lipstick” camera.  Naturally, technology has evolved and cameras are smaller than ever.  Back in 2010 I had a colonoscopy so I know about camera up my whosits, but until now I’ve never had one up my whatsits.  That was a new one on me (or, rather, in me), and by the way, numbing jel my ass.

And it didn’t work on my ass, either.

Painful as it was, it was necessary.  Thanks to the “Four Ms” (the Marvels of Modern Medicine, and Medicare), we were able to rule out so many different possibilities.  Still, we didn’t know what caused the initial problem until this last test, a prostate biopsy.  Several samples were taken, and a few were cancerous.  Not many, and it doesn’t appear to be aggressive, or spread anywhere else.  Chances something bad will happen are just 1 in a 100.  With active surveillance, we’ll keep testing and watching and if things go south, change our strategy.

The morals of this story are simple.  First: get checked, dammit.  My dad had esophageal cancer, and died from it.  He should have seen a doctor long before he did, but kept putting it off and putting it off.  When he finally saw someone, it was too late.

The other moral is that I realize, as you should, too, that health care is very expensive.  I shudder to think what I would have had to choke up if Medicare did not cover all of this.  Worse yet, there’s a moment when I realize that at certain times in my life I would have had to be like my dad and put off seeing someone simply because I couldn’t afford it. (Full disclosure: He could have, so that wasn’t the excuse.  Just stubborn).

The good news is that I’ve healed from this last procedure, and “all systems are normal.”  The plumbing for all functions is working normally, thank you, and I know Dr. Woldrich will ensure that I’ll be able to know whether I’m coming or going for a long time to come.

300

"Championship Bowling" host Fred Wolf
often said, "If you can do it with a
pencil, you can do it with a bowling ball." 
I can assure you that you cannot write
with a bowling ball.  Nor can you do
some other things I can't talk about
here, because this is a family blog.

I've hit 300!

Today marks the 301^st post on the “WannaBet” blog, something I started on a lark nearly 10 years ago.  This blog has come a long way since then.  As have I. 

Since all communication has purpose, the purpose of the blog back then was to go hand-in-hand with the release of my first ebook about Poker.  “All the trades” said that in order to promote your wares, “ya gotta have a blog,” so I did.  I wasn’t hard to convince, since I like to write.  Always have, though I haven’t always put myself out there.

Those of you who knew me back when might recall that I was a very shy individual until about 8^th grade when I did something very stupid; I ran for class Vice President.  Really, I did, even though
(a) those things are always popularity contests, not actually about who has the best “platform” or “ideas”,
(b) I knew this, and
(c) I was very very unpopular.  

Why yes, it was a disaster, and you’d think that would have shut me up and locked me into a deep dungeon for years.  It almost did, but then I got the idea to run for homeroom president in 9^th grade and actually won.  How could this happen?  Well, I was only president for the first semester, because I agreed to share the position with another non-cool-kid and we basically split the cool-kids vote so that we’d win each time.  We were math people and we could add – we knew there were more uncool kids than cool kids in our homeroom, and cool kids don’t do math.

But it wasn’t until I found out about radio in high school that I really came out of my shell.  I still wasn’t cool, but I didn’t feel bad about myself anymore.  Hell, I even tried out for a class play my senior year, and that was something else (and I got a part, though not the one I tried out for).  Acting was different than radio because in radio NO ONE SEES YOU and yet you still can communicate with the audience.  As an actor, everyone sees you.  Still, I didn’t wet myself, so it turned out OK.

I never set the radio world on fire, but being in the industry (briefly the first time) gave me more confidence, something I lacked in spades.  I matured enough to get a job, start a career, get married*, the whole nine yards.  One thing I began to do in my off-hours of work (where ever I worked, in a variety of jobs) was write.  Writing was like radio in that you could communicate but people didn’t see you (so you could really put yourself out there without fear).  Of course, few people (if any) saw any of what I wrote, but it felt good in a way that I didn’t understand back then.  Call it cathartic if you will, but writing filled a need I didn’t know I had.

At some point my writing “skills” tiptoed into my work.  I decided my memos at the bank no longer had to be boring, so I spiced ‘em up so that people would actually READ them (isn’t that the point?).  I wrote about my memos back in 2016 in this post here if you’re interested, my point being that I had learned that the idea of writing was to communicate EFFECTIVELY (even if it pissed off the brass at the bank).  I endeavored to improve my writing skills, and broaden I wrote about.

From the bank to the university to being back in radio to marketing research, I wrote all sorts of stuff.  Newsletters, memos, reports; and in each one I tried to use my “voice” – speaking plainly, with a dash of humor, always trying to effectively get my point across.  I thought I succeeded well enough.

But one day…I was facing complete unemployment, wondering what in hell I’d do for a living, having gone through several “careers” and facing another 15-20 years of my life before I could hope to retire.  The answer?  WRITING!  I did a bunch of freelance work, was a reporter for a weekly paper in Boise, and discovered two things:
(1) I loved to write, and
(2) there was no way in hell I could make enough money by writing alone.  

Fate stepped in with a full-time job at the marketing research center, and then the big change in life running the ice cream parlor, but all the time I kept writing.

Not me.

In the last ten years, most of that writing has appeared here.  Yes, I’m still trying to write a great novel (sometime soon I’ll tell you about attempt #3).  The blog serves me as an outlet for some of my anger and frustration.  I try not to be an angry old man yelling at clouds.  Early on I used my blog as a megaphone to push for online poker in the US (which dried up about the same time I wrote the poker books and started the blog, ironically).  Sheldon Adelson was my big adversary then; later on, it was “the former guy” aka the Orange Menace who incurred much of my wrath.  There’s been humor, and whimsy, but mainly WannaBet was a mirror on how I felt that day, that week.  There have been a few good times and a lot of struggles.  Things are looking up now, and hopefully I’ll share more mirth here sooner rather than later.

There have been noticeable gaps when I didn’t post anything for months (in a couple of cases, more than a year).  I’ve still been writing – mostly online screeds or diatribes on social media (and all those attempts at novel writing).  I realize now that the former was time wasted, as I was actually trying to convince folks on the other side of their folly using logic.  Yeah, pretty stupid, I know.  You know how that turned out.  The tinfoil anti-antifa crowd distains things like facts and evidence and lives for the slightly off-key music that echoes inside their tiny heads.  I wrote a shitload of words, all for naught.  I won’t make that mistake again, partly because I have a block list that spans a couple of pages now.  Better for my blood pressure, too.

So here I am babbling about, but that’s the great thing about this blog.  It’s free and you, the reader, are always as free to reject what is written, just as I am free to write whatever I please.  I do aim to please, but sometimes my aim is off.  Like being drunk in front of one of those tiny urinals.

Thank you for bearing with me these last 300 posts, and a warning:  There will no doubt be more.

 

* yeah, sometime I’ll talk about my dating prowess (or lack thereof), but I’ll have to be very very drunk to get that started.  Don’t hold your breath.

Snow Day

It’s a snow day today here in Warren.  That’s uncommon, sort of.  I mean, it snows, but usually not often and usually not much.  But when it does…well, it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

I’m no stranger to snow, having lived in Michigan for my first 35 years.  When we moved out west in ’85 we experienced a completely different type of four seasons.  Our first stop was Eugene, where it was wet, wet, wet, and then completely dry in the summer.  We wondered about winter, and came to understand a grim reality in the fall when I asked a local about the lane dividers in the highway.  We were used to the recessed reflectors, imbedded recessed into the road – these were bumps that stuck out a good inch above the surface.

“What happens when the plows come through during winter storms?” I asked.

“What plows?” was the response.

Sure enough, we got a paralyzing snow storm that winter.  All of about 3/4^th of an inch, enough to completely shut down everything.  The plan for snow removal is simple – wait until it gets warmer, which it usually does soon enough.

Our next stop was Boise, where it snows but not as often as you might think (it’s very dry there).  The mountains get a lot of snow, of course, so there’s equipment available for when it does snow, and we experienced a couple of good-sized dumps both times we lived here in the 80s and again later in the 90s.

Living in Louisiana for two years meant no snow, but people still drove like shit there.  Just sayin’.

Now back in Oregon, we lived in Seaside, on the coast, for 18 years.  When we moved there, we asked how often it snowed, and we were told, “about once every 10 years and it never sticks.”

Bullshit.  It snowed 13 of the 18 years we lived there, and twice the snow (a good 3-4 inches) stuck around for 3-4 days before yielding to the rains.  Naturally, everything shuts down tighter than a Republican budget.

When we moved more inland two years ago, we thought we had it all figured out.  About snow, that is.  The Portland metro area gets one or two snowfalls that “matter” every year, it seems, and sometimes they’re similar to the blizzards of my Michigan youth.  But until today we’ve been spared.  It snowed not at all our first winter here, a little last year, and up until today we were 0-for-everything.

You may ask – if we’re so far north (and we are), why hardly any snow?  We normally experience temps in the 40s, and upper 30s at night, so it’s hardly ever cold enough to snow.  Rain, sure, we’re famous for it.  But we need some sort of polar event to make it cold enough to get measurable snow.  And we’ve got that now – a hard easterly wind is blowing cold in the valley, and we won’t see the upside of 30° for a few days.

So far, we’ve got about three inches, with anywhere from 4-10 more expected over the next couple of days.  That’s enough to close government offices and the schools, which is a pity, because some of the elementary schools JUST OPENED YESTERDAY.  One FB friend with two kids is pissed as hell, and I can’t blame her.  She’s had her two daughters under foot for almost a year, and she got ONE DAY OF FREEDOM.

I’ve been happy to see the roads are almost empty, which is a good thing, because while we do have some transplants from snowier climates, no one seems to remember how to drive in this shit, and there’s always accidents galore.  The empty roads do allow for my neighbor taking advantage of the big hill on our street with her two dogs.  That looked like fun!

Wheeeeeee!

As for us, we’re inside staying warm, thinking about how just Wednesday I was contemplating mowing the lawn (really) and we were planning the garden for this summer.  I finished making the new garden beds earlier this week, and we moved them inside the garden area just yesterday (I have yet to dig up the sod underneath so they’re not in their permanent spots yet).  You can see the diff between the old ones (grey) and the new ones (cedarish-yellow).  Sigh.

Empty and waiting...

It could be worse – just 30 minutes south of here the temps are such that it’s not snow, but freezing rain, and more of that crap is expected – maybe a half-inch.  That will make the roads impossible and it’s already had an effect on the power grid – several outages have been reported and I’m certain more are on the way.

Speaking of power, that’s the only downside to the snowfall here.  Our solar panels are covered, and we’ll have to wait for the snow to melt before they will be functioning again (no, you don’t scrape ‘em off – damages the surface).  So that’s a pisser.

Otherwise, it’s pretty to look at, though it can go from “pretty” to “shitty” quickly.

I did live in Michigan, after all.

A Dull and Exciting Week

It’s hard to put into words exactly what this past week has been like, but I’ll try. 

I slept well.

I read a novel.  This means I read less in the newspapers.

Along with the better half, I started planning “Garden 2021” – this included ordering a shitload of seeds, buying some new garden beds (for expansion), and making other plans.  We did all that even as snowflakes dotted the front lawn (it didn’t stick).

We watched some old movies (streaming).  This meant I watched less TV news.

I read tweets and FB posts about friends with medical issues, and showed my sympathy and empathy.  The good news is all but one is doing well (the other, sadly succumbed to COVID).  There was far less arguing about the election; who won, who was lying, stuff like that.

I read other tweets and posts about a variety of issues; good stuff, mostly.  Jokes about men and women, stories about snow and summer vacations, new hobbies like watercolors and playing the guitar, and more Bernie memes than you can shake a stick at with mittens on.

In short, it was almost a normal week.

We haven’t had one of those for a long, long time.

Of course, we’re certainly nowhere near “back to normal.”  We learned we won’t come up for the COVID vaccine here in Oregon until late March…or later, depending on supplies (several counties are already out of all vaccines).  We commiserated with neighbors (at a distance, of course), on how long we’ve had to go without being able to sit in a restaurant and have a bit to eat.  We groused as to how our book supply is getting low again, unable to frequent the many library book sales we used to go to throughout the year (OK, only one of us is grousing, and it’s me).

But things are different.  There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, or so it feels like.

Sure, there’s still some carryover from 2020 and the Trump era.  The GOP is the GOP, so of course they’ll do what they always have done lately.  The folks who bitched in October that Biden hadn’t done anything in 47 years are now complaining that he’s doing too much.  Debt and deficit are real things again, and everything must be examined with a “how will we pay for it?” whine of despair.  There are some new BSC folks who actually got elected in heavily Republican districts and they’re making their BSC-selves heard loud and clear.  Of course, the idea that the GOP looks down or even askew on these “fine people” is ridiculous.  Republicans don’t resign over little things like insurrection, racist comments, or death threats.   The last two GOP Senators that I can recall resigning over scandal were John Ensign and Bob Packwood – sex, and sex.  Nothing coming close to traitorous activity.  

Speaking of which, there’s impeachment.  Again.  Like Lucy and the football, we all know how this will turn out, despite what McConnell might have once said, despite the mounting evidence, despite everything.  Some of the Senators who sat and found Bill Clinton guilty of lying about a blowjob will once again give the Orange Foolius a pass on his crimes.  And for the record, let me make this perfectly clear - here's the difference between now and then:

Clinton lied and the damage done was a stained dress.

Trump lied and the damage done was an insurrection where there was damage and destruction and people died – and democracy almost did.

Only one of these is seen by the GOP as worthy of a "guilty" verdict.

So it is with Republicans.  Sex is bad; sedition, not so much.  But their shenanigans are old hat.  I’m trying to look forward, move on.  I realize that “unity” won’t really happen until those responsible are brought to justice, but until the other side sees this as well, we might as all hope for unicorns and rainbows.  We might look forward to 2022 teaching them a lesson, but jeebus, if 2020 didn’t do the trick, what will?

Until then, I’m out in the garden, snow and all.

Reflection Day, 2020

In the Exinger household, tomorrow is “Reflection Day.”  It’s a holiday we created a number of years ago because, well, why not?  Traditions have to start sometime.

We’ve modified it over the years.  In the beginning we used to take breakfast as a time to look back, lunch as a time to enjoy today, and the evening meal (or tons of snacks) to look forward to the coming new year.  At some point we learned about the “Happiness Jar” concept (also known as “Good Things” or “Memories” jars), so we just that right after breakfast (we still do tons of snacks at night, but this way there’s more room on the table for the snacks).

Throughout the year we write little notes and stick them in the Cookie Jar by the front door.  These notes occur every time we complete a project or do something “good” worth remembering.  At the end of the year, we can read ‘em all and reflect on just how much we accomplished the previous year, and then we look forward to doing more, different things in the year to come.  And eat snacks.

Even though 2020 was a total clusterfuck of a shitstorm year, I am looking forward to reading all those notes tomorrow.  I took a peek earlier today (because I was adding two notes), and there’s a LOT of stuff in there.  Of course, one of the notes I added today was “SURVIVED COVID” (I feel fine right now and we’re not leaving the house for a few days, so this should remain an accomplishment.  I hope.)

The thing is there’s plenty more notes in there.  I can recall a few of them (my writing accomplishments, including this blog, for one).  There’s all the work we did in the garden, the fact that I lost more weight (down to 188 now – I haven’t weighed that “much” since 10^th grade), and some other projects we completed in and out of the house. 

Part of the fun in opening up the jar is to discover all of the activities over the last year that we can’t remember.  That’s why we do it.  It helps so that we can “give ourselves credit” for these accomplishments, and it spurs us on to do more. 

COVID notwithstanding, for us it was a good year.  And things are looking brighter for next year – Biden and Harris take office in about three weeks, the vaccine is underway (but too slowly, thanks to you-know-who), and eventually the stain of Trumpism will wear off some (though sadly, not completely). 

I hope that you and yours can also reflect on the past, take the good from it where you can, and everyone – let’s ALL have a much better 2021.

Worst Christmas Ever? That was 20 years ago…

I hope everyone survived their holiday.  I realize that 2020’s version is one for everyone’s record books, but I do hope that you were able to celebrate whatever you celebrate however you celebrate it to the best of your abilities, given the circumstances.

Checking social media yesterday and today, I noted that very few had anything negative to say about it; most everyone took the limitations in stride and did the best they could.  I saw many happy faces, and that’s a good thing.

This was certainly not our worse Christmas.  There were many others that linger as memories best forgotten.  In our first ten years of marriage our families were not large but they were all in Michigan and all grandparents were still living, meaning that there were “command performances” every holiday and you were expected to put in an appearance at every event and this means eating, too.  So yes, that means a holiday meal AT EVERY LOCATION.  If you ever saw the movie “Four Christmases” you get the idea what we went through, though to be honest Thanksgiving was worse because this meant four big meals IN ONE DAY.  We were able to spread Christmas over two days (Christmas Eve and Christmas).

But that wasn’t the worst.

When we moved out west in 1985, we were separated from family for the holidays for the first time ever; in this way we actually became pioneers as everyone else (except my brother) ventured from Michigan eventually.  This meant we were dependent on shipping gifts via USPS and UPS (we weren’t so lazy that we had to rely on FedEx for overnight shipping), and whatever long-distance services we had at whatever location we were living at at the time.  I think Mona’s folks came to see us once when we lived in Boise, and my parents came to Louisiana one year (on their way to New Orleans for a UM bowl game), and there was one year we went back over the holidays which taught us never to travel by air during the holidays.

But that wasn’t the worst.

No, the worst Christmas was twenty years ago, in December 2000, as we started our new (and grandest) adventure – moving from Boise to Seaside, Oregon to take over an ice cream and candy parlor.

Christmas was on a Monday.  We spent the entire weekend before Christmas packing everything up and then loading it into a big U-Haul truck on Christmas Day.  And I mean EVERYTHING.  We cooked dinner (warmed up leftovers from Chinese the night before) on a camp stove and slept in our sleeping bags on the floor.  On Tuesday, breakfast was something cold (cereal, probably) and coffee from the camp stove, then we hooked up the car trailer, loaded one of our two cars onto the trailer, and took the other car to the Title Company to sign away the house we sold a month before.  Coming back to the now-empty house, we loaded the rest of everything and our suitcases...and our three dogs…into the car, and we took off for Seaside (well, one dog wanted to ride with me in the truck, so Mona and the two bigger dogs rode in the Corolla).

Through rain and wind (especially going through the Coastal Range where for the first time we experienced the phenomenon of rain and fog…at the same time), we drove on.  Nearly eleven hours later we made it to Seaside and our first home – the local Comfort Inn where we booked a room for the five of us.  The only memorable event at the hotel was Heidi (alpha dog) learning that the toilet is NOT a water dish.

On Wednesday, we headed for the bank to sign for the loan to buy the business.  On Thursday we headed back to the bank to sign for the loan to buy a house (one we picked out after looking a month earlier for all of four hours).  Then to the Title Company there to sign, and finally, on Friday, we could move into the house.

We spent the next three weeks cleaning and fixing up the shop and converting it into “Zinger’s Ice Cream Parlor and Sweets” (we didn’t make our own ice cream at first…that came later, when things really went to shit).  It’s a tale I’ve told many times though never on this blog.

Short version is that sales weren’t what we expected given the shop’s track record, plus there was more competition in town every year we operated the shop, and in 2003 we had our worst year ever by far…and learned TWO MORE SHOPS were planning to open in 2004.  What to do?  Because we also had issues all summer with our ice cream supplier (Tillamook), we though that one way we could (a) stand out from the crowd and (b) eliminate those issues was to make our own.  That meant going back to the bank for more money (and we were close to paying off the original loan) and even more work for us (we had to re-reconfigure the shop to accommodate the ice cream making equipment).  THAT’S even a longer story, but as you might have guessed, it turned out well.  We ran “Zinger’s Homemade Ice Cream” until selling it in Fall, 2018.

In those ice cream years some Christmases were pretty good, some not so, but none can compare to the one we spent as domestic stevedores sleeping on the floor of an empty house.  And certainly 2020, while challenging, was no 2000.

Part Two of Four Freedoms, Revisited

Yesterday we revisited two of Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” (from his 1941 SOTU speech).  I was of the opinion that with the first two – freedom of speech and freedom of worship – we’re doing OK.  But, boy, the other two…

FREEDOM FROM WANT – Well now that everyone is getting an additional $600, we’re all good, right?

Obviously, I’m kidding.

Even before COVID, the gap between “those with lots of money” and “those with hardly any” was getting larger and larger.  And one of the major reasons for this was the very people who Roosevelt thought should be making that gap go in the opposite direction – the Federal government.  Thanks to two huge tax cuts for the über wealthy and corporations (Bush in 2001 and 2013, Trump in 2017), average Americans are picking up the tab for the super-rich.  Meanwhile, the minimum wage has remained stagnant at the Federal level.

Some states have decided to do something about that, as many have decided to raise the minimum to $10 or more, with some headed to the “magic” amount of $15/hour (that’s a whopping annual salary of $30K).  Strangely enough, if you overlay a map of those states who either have a minimum wage STILL at 7.25 OR LOWER (looking at you, Georgia) with a map of Trump states, it…looks pretty much the same.  OK, not so strange.

So it was bad before, but now, in 2020 thanks to COVID, it’s dire.  More people out of work or at jobs below what they used to be making.  People still working but fewer hours.  Millions scheduled to “face the music” with evictions come January.  And Trump’s latest action is sure to help put food on the table – an Executive Order “prohibiting new federal buildings from being built in anything other than Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, or Art Deco styles.”

25^th Amendment Now, please.

 

FREEDOM FROM FEAR – Jeebus, isn’t the above enough?

Nope.  Tack on some of this:

• Hacking of government networks by Russia
• Right-wing extremists planning massive “Civil War” protesting the election
• Shortages at food banks
• Economic insecurity
• Global warming
• Hiccups with the Presidential transistion
• COVID
• Vaccine distribution problems
• Murder hornets

You get the idea.  The thing is, every one of those things above is bad, and MADE WORSE by the Trump Administration.  How can one man fuck up so much?

And how can so many gullible fools* continue to support him and send him money?

Worse yet, Trump revels in fear and chaos.  Remember the caravans?  Ebola?  Mexican immigrants who simultaneously will rape and murder us and then take our jobs?  He did nothing but campaign on a message of FEAR FEAR FEAR and the “comforting” thought that “I alone can fix it.”  A man rife with a history of failure and bankruptcies, here to save the world.  Right.

And now, when Americans are just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when the new administration is only a month away from taking the oath of office and the vaccine for the coronavirus is being distributed and people are talking about “getting back to normal,” the moron-in-chief is seriously considering a coup d'état to remain in power.  And the Republican Party is complicit.  They’ve done nothing to put America at ease about this situation; offering passive words of “oh, it’ll be fine” but none of them actually standing up to the Orange Clown and saying, “ENOUGH.  Pack your shit and leave.”

The transition of power, when it’s vitally needed to secure proper distribution of the vaccine, to secure our borders (real and online), to put America back together, is compromised and held hostage by a party who is far more interested in remaining in power than in actually doing anything for the average American.

And the vote in Georgia’s runoff elections, which will decide the makeup of the Senate and perhaps the direction the country will go in for the next two years, is expected to be very, very close.

No wonder people are scared.

 

* Yes, gullible fools.  They’re sending their money to someone who supposedly is one of the richest men in the world.  Think hard about that.

FDR’s Four Freedoms, Revisited

It’s been nearly 80 years since FDR made his infamous “Four Freedoms” speech (his 1941 SOTU).  You may recall that Roosevelt listed four “freedoms" - 

• Freedom of speech,
• Freedom of worship,
• Freedom from want, and
• Freedom from fear.

Let’s take ‘em one at a time – we’ll do the first two in this post. 

FREEDOM OF SPEECH – I would say we’ve got this, but there are many who would disagree.  Problem is, they really don’t understand the communicative process, and they also confuse this with the First Amendment, which merely prohibits the government’s restrictions on speech. 

You can say whatever you want to say.  Period.  Well, OK, there are a few restrictions (see: fire in a crowded theater).  But what’s not covered here is private entities restricting what goes on within those private entities.  If you want to rant about subject “A” and write a 1000-word essay for your local paper’s “Letters to The Editor” and there’s a 500-word limit, guess what’s going to happen? 

Now, take this concept to social media.  Remember those agreements you (mindlessly) clicked “OK” to when you signed up?  Same issue – when you break your “terms of service” your speech might become restricted.  YOU AGREED TO THE RULES.  Break ‘em and pay the consequences.

And that’s the other part about “Freedom of Speech” that people gripe about but don’t comprehend.  You say what you want, and others are free to do likewise.  And if there are consequences for your speech, so be it.  You say racist things and it gets captured on TikTok and your employer finds out about it…well, unless you’re in law enforcement, there’s a good chance you’ll face some disciplinary action for that speech.

Hope it was worth it.

FREEDOM OF WORSHIP – Here again I think we’re doing OK (like a heathen would know this, right?).  Back in the day, our Founding Fathers whipped up that First Amendment to protect this freedom and the one mentioned above:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Of course, the concern then was the ability to practice any Protestant religion of your choosing, Jews and Catholics were not much of a concern and few worried about Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. But today folks are free to worship however they please, or, as I am thankful for, to not worship at all.

But, here again some folks feel persecuted (and they always use that word, having the previous religious context as if that adds some weight).  Thanks to COVID some services are limited in size, or they’re online only, and other restrictions may apply.  There have been lawsuits galore and much misplaced anger because of these restrictions which are merely intended to keep people safe and alive.

You know what people used to do when they felt like their religious liberty was at risk?  THEY MOVED.  Packed it all up and went…well, surprise!  They moved here to America. 

If you feel like you’re not getting to practice your religion as intended (and you’re not since I don’t see anyone doing the burnt offering thing), perhaps you’d better pack the U-Haul and move to one of the Dakotas or Florida, where you’re free to cluster as tight as you want indoors and sing and move about with total abandon.  Knock yourself out.

Literally.

 

These two Freedoms are doing pretty well – next time we’ll discuss the other two, which are taking quite a beating.  Stay safe and well.

 

Why I am (still) Concerned About COVID

As you know, we’ve crossed the 200K threshold.  That’s right – at least 200,000 people have died from COVID-19.  That’s a helluva landmark, and we’ll discuss that in a moment, but first, I wanted to explain why I am concerned about the virus.

Truth is, I’ve always been concerned.  When we first started to hear stories from Wuhan last January about how everyone was locked up inside and there were deaths-a-plenty, I was concerned (OK, spooked – there were some really eerie images floating around then).  China seems far away, but here in Oregon a flight to Wuhan is shorter than, say, Athens, Greece. 

Later, when the first cases arrived on the US mainland, they were in Washington (state), which of course borders us.  So naturally I was concerned.  Then more and more reports of the virus, and soon it was March and the US was reporting a thousand cases a day, then two thousand, then four thousand, then lots more.  When we had 20,000 cases in one day and states starting taking action to limit the spread of the virus (masks, stay-at-home, closing schools, etc.), I really became concerned.

It seems so quaint now.  There we were, hunkered down, seeing somewhere between 20-40,000 cases a day, and one-to-two-thousand deaths daily, and many or us were worried.  But soon the cases declined and the President set up a commission and pretty soon everyone clamored to reopen and get the economy moving again.

And the virus, which never really left and barely abated, ramped up feverously (that’s the only pun I will use here).

Now, nearly seven million cases later, we ‘re at that “200,000 dead” mark. 

My concern has always been not catching COVID, because if I do, I have a 90% chance of living through it.  To you, that may not sound bad, but as a poker player I can attest to the number of times I’ve been a 9-to-1 favorite headed into the river card, knowing my opponent needs that lucky break to bust me, and…bang.  He hits it.  In regular poker, all that means is I lose the hand and the money invested in that hand.  In tournament poker, if I’m “all in” and I lose, I lose it all, and I’m out of the game.

Life is like tournament poker, except here there are no “rebuys.”  When you’re out, you’re out.

I don’t want to be out.  Not yet.

And hey, we haven’t even begun to discuss what happens when you catch COVID and survive yet suffer lasting damage to lungs, immune system, etc.  I don’t want any of that shit, either.

So I remain concerned.  And amazed, because it’s been nearly a year and there still is absolutely NO NATIONAL PLAN dealing with this virus.  No mandatory mask rule, no…nothing.  In fact, just the opposite.  There’s outright distain from doing anything about it; it’s all about reopening schools, football, and the economy.  Sure, they bailed out a bunch of corporations and gave suffering individuals a paltry $1200 each and some unemployment benefit boosts (temporary fixes, of course, and full disclosure: We never received our $1200 CARES checks and yes I wrote my congressperson about it), but the focus has never been about slowing or stopping the virus.

It’s as if they were completely unprepared for this and have no idea how to combat it.  And that’s because they were and are.

Back near the end of March, when deaths numbered just over 4,000 TOTAL, our fearless leader said, “It’s a horrible number [but] if we have between 100,000 and 200,000 (deaths), we all together have done a very good job.”

Now we have more than 200,000 dead. 

Hint:  You have not done a very good job.

I am still concerned.

BTW, to show I’m not blowing smoke about that 90%-to-the-good” idea, here’s a recent poker hand in a tournament I was playing (one of those short-handed games).  We’re down to me and one other player.  I catch the magic hand – pocket aces – and I raise.  My opponent calls.  I was 87% assured of winning the hand.

The flop is garbage – a possible low straight, sure, but when my opponent checks, I make a pot-size bet.  He raises!  Obviously, he’s either (a) got it, or (b) making some sort of bluff.  I just call.  At this point I am a 97% favorite.

The turn card is a king, giving him a pair, but…he checks.  I make another pot-size bet and he goes ALL IN.  I call, because I believe I am still the favorite (and I am, statistically – now just 88% ).  He needs one of the last two kings in the deck to win, or one of the three 8s.  You know what happened.  

King.

I am dead.