Vivian Swift's Blog, page 6

Unless You’ve Got Something Good to Say About About Koreans or Corgis, Don’t Bother Me.

*******When I first learned that my blog was being attacked by an IP in Lativa I was insulted. Weren’t Latvians supposed to be cool? Didn’t they all wear Grateful Dead T-shirts to the medal ceremony when they won the bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics in Seoul?

Nope. That was Lithuania. 

So, anyway, somebody in Latvia has been bombarding my blog site for a few weeks, hundreds of times a day, trying to get “in” so, on Friday, WordPress had to lock my blog for its own protection until I updated the software. So I did and for now, the problem is solved. For now. I’m sure the Latvians are updating their malware as we speak.

So, in the future, if you can’t find me here, assume that it’s because of Latvians. 

And now for our regularly-schedule visit.*******

The COVID pandemic turns one year old on March 11 and I still haven’t processed how much life has changed, and how it will ever be normal again. Lordy, it’s been a tough year.

However, on the good side, Ruch Limbaugh died and is still dead.

 

I was in California on March 11, 2020, when I heard that the World Health Organization had declared that the spread of the corona virus had become a global pandemic, and I thought, Well, shit, I hope it will be over by the time I go see BTS  in May.

I got a lot of things wrong in 2020, but the one thing that I got right was when, in January, I predicted that 2020 was going to be the Year of BTS. I figured that if I, who had not been much interested in pop music for a decade and certainly was not into music made by Koreans had become a fan, then it meant that no one was safe from these guys.

And it turns out that in 2020, BTS became the best-selling musicians in the world. Here’s the BBC:

Billboard:

Forbes:

It’s the first time that non-English-speaking performers have topped the list, which for example usually looks like this:

This is a big deal. Because it’s Korea, of all places, and if you think racism isn’t a factor in repressing the careers of Asian artists, all you have to do is look at this tweet from a Forbes music journalist:

Hugh McIntyre is only in his 30s.  I’ve been around since 1956, so I’m not shocked at all about  how stupid people can be. 

I’m bringing you this update on current musical trends because I want you all, Dear Readers, to be up on the latest in pop culture and its attendant shift in the nexus of contemporary civilization. Also, this Sunday night you can watch the Grammies to see what happens when BTS is the first Asian group to be up for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. It will be historic.

You might be signing up for Korean lessons some day soon.

Also, I’ve been spending a considerable amount of time on the internet lately, looking at photos of Corgis and reading Corgi blogs. 

I’ve been around since 1956 and I’ve never had a Corgi. I think I might need a Corgi in my life. Does anyone know, first hand, if they are good with cats?

OK, so now all of you are caught up with the news here in VivianWorld. Let’s see what’s been going on outside of Corgis and BTS, shall we?

 

 

*** I had to look this up. It’s true that Kanye West sells items like this with holes in them, what he calls “ripped homeless sweaters”, but they only cost $2,243. And a retailer who sells these things has assured us that they are worth every penny:

Yeah, it’s all pretty funny.

But this isn’t:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is how Donald Trump, who is still banned by Twitter, tries to tweet, and this is what he really put out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, how’s the insurrection thing going?

Remember her?

She’s got a new scam going:

 

 

 

I got news for all those fuck-wad “patriots” who rioted at the Capitol on January 6, 2021:

 

 

That includes those terrorists who are posing as Republicans in congress:

Lauren Bobert is the asshole who represents Colorado’s Third congressional district. 

 

That’s the news for now. 

And now, to get us in the weekend mood:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been around since 1956, so I find this funny:

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. If there are Latvians getting you down in the dumps, remember the wisdom of the Trash Pandas:

 

Takers of Dumb Risks, Seekers of Cheap Thrills, I Salute You.

This is a photograph of a Mercedes SUV stuck on top of a pile of snow, taken by me (yours truly) at 4:40 PM on March 3, 2021 here on the north shore of Long Island. I was driving my car on Stoneytown Road in Plandome Manor and I had to pull over, and stop laughing, to get this shot. I mean, it’s not every day you see an $80,000 – $109,000 car in this kind of compromising position.

Now, some people might have indulged in a moment of glee that some Gold Coast Karen had got her GLS-class luxury ride in a predicament, but not me. Yes, I was laughing, but I was laughing because it’s been a long pandemic and an even longer Trumpocracy and I had almost given up on finding anything delightful or inspiring about the human race, but this sight, here, renewed my faith in the wonder of people and I was full of mirth and delight.

I know how that SUV got stuck atop this pile of snow, its front wheels hanging uselessly in mid-air as its undercarriage is fixed at the apex of a frosty isosceles. (The tow truck showed up seconds after I snapped this pic.)

We’ve had snow, a lot of snow, on the ground here on the north shore of Long Island since the blizzard of February 1, which has been refreshened by picturesque snow dumps every five days or so. It’s been a very scenic Winter.

However, this past week, it’s been sunny and warmer, and things have begun to thaw out and the streets are clearing and some yards are even snow-free; the only remaining signs of Winter are the huuuuuge mounds of snow that were snow-plowed there on every street corner.

So, you’re in your Mercedes, and you’re about to make a right turn onto Cardinal Road, and you see a big pile of snow jutting out into the roadbed, and instead of making your way around it like you’ve been doing since February 1, you say to yourself, “Fuck it. I’m gonna see what five thousand pounds (2500 kilos) of luxury German engineering can do!”, and you gun it, straight into that pile of snow, that beautiful, slushy, smash-worthy pile of old snow.

Sadly, you’ve forgotten one thing. Sure, lately, it’s been sunny and in the 40s (degrees F; that’s 5 degrees C), but today is the first day of a brutal cold snap, and what was mere slush 24 hours ago is, in fact, today, a rock-hard pile of ice. 

And thus, your magnificent piece of Teutonic manufacture doesn’t get you through the snow; it has  enough powerful momentum to get you up the glacier-like incline but, because of the laws of physics and common sense, the front wheels lose purchase for the down-side and fate leaves you there, up in the air, stranded, to contemplate the life decisions that brought you to this stand-still. (You can’t see in the angle of my photo that the back wheels are also dangling a few inches above the asphalt.)

I, for one, applaud you, you hapless driver of Mercedes GLS-class SUV. You saw a chance, a chance to have a moment — a fleeting instant, a blink-of-an-eye millisecond — of fun in this sad and awful world (in the form of a pile of snow v. Stuttgart’s finest) and you went for it.

OK, things turned out to be not as fun as you expected, but there’s a German word for that (of course there’s a German word for that, the German language being rich in describing subtle shades of disappointment): Verschlimmbesserung, so it’s not as if you’ve been any more of a sad-sack than all those whose vast experience of let-downs provided the etymology for Verschlimmbesserung.

Take heart, dear driver, as I do, in your derring-do, your quest to feel larger and more alive, to break free from the dull constraints of pandemic routine, the maddening mediocrity of middle age (because no one young drives a Mercedes SUV), and the soul-robbing conformity of traffic laws.

You remind me what it is to feel alive.

No, not the feeling of the fruitless spinning of wheels, not the embarrassment of hoisting yourself onto your own literal or metaphoric iceberg, not the painful expense of rectifying a lapse in judgement.

The feeling of being truly alive is about feeling awake and welcoming to the possibilities of every moment, to leaping into the unknown, to surprising yourself with your own audaciousness.

Whoever you are, yon driver of that Mercedes GLS-class SUV on Cardinal Road, I want to be your new best friend.

Better yet, I want to make better friends with that part of me who would be stupid enough to plow my car into a pile of snow for chance to be in the middle of sparkly, shiny, ice-crystal smithereens. 

Let’s live it up while we can.

With this in mind, maybe this week’s news won’t seem so depressingly idiotic. Maybe we’ll even have a laugh at the lunacy.

Let’s test this theory, starting with the annual American conservative gathering-of-the-morons:

 

Conservatives, including evangelicals, lined up to get their photo taken with a golden statue of a calf Trump:

 

I’ll transcribe the caption for you: The statue that is turning heads at CPAC is really just an appetizer for the real thing, though. It’s the fiberglass mold of the stainless steel sculpture that Tommy Zagan (the artist) has stored in Tampa Florida. Making that statue cast him his life savings of $50,000. He apparently wants to sell that one for more the $1 million, but if he can’t, he wants it to go in the Trump Presidential Library. “It is museum-quality, and that’s the one I’m eventually hoping to get in the Trump library,” Zegan told CNN. “It’s is literally priceless.” [Even though Zegan has actually put a price on it.]

Zegan told Politico that the fiberglass was made in Mexico over a period of six months in the resort town of Rosario. He then took it to Tampa, Florida where it was painted in chrome, and then got a U-Haul to transport it to CPAC. “If someone offered me $100,00 I’d take it,” Zegan said.

P.S. Turns out, the statue was actually made in China. don’t tell the raid anti-China CPACers.

Speaking of morons, let’s see who the FBI has arrested lately for the insurrection of January 6:

Speaking of morons, let’s see what’s been happening in the Republican party:

 

FYI: Steve Scalise is the representative of Louisiana’s 1st congressional district:

 

The Republicans are suing in the Supreme Court to overturn voting rights in Arizona:

 

Speaking of morons, let’s see what’s news in TrumpWorld:

It can happen! Arrests can be made!!

 

 

 

And then this happened, and the Republicans were shitting themselves over “cancel culture”:

The fine print says: “If I Ran The Zoo”, “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street”, “On Beyond Zebra”, and “McElliot’s Pool” were among the six Dr. Seuss books that his estate said “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

To own the libs, Don Jr. put out a photo of him and one of his spawn reading Cat in the Hat in defiance (Cat in the Hat is not one of the six books being put on the out-of-print list):

And everyone noticed that he was holding the book strangely…to cover up the fact that it’s a Spanish version of Cat in the Hat.

Other conservatives got on board, trying to slam-dunk on “cancel culture”:

Hey, guys? You know that “cancel culture” you’re bitching about?

 

Here’s a look at why the Seuss estate wants to “cancel” some of Dr. Seuss’s old books:

So that’s all the news I’ve got for you. So, now for something completely different:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This really happened, at London Euston station:

The tabby was spotted on an Avanti West Coast train, sitting atop the 125 m[h Pendolino service at 8:30PM on March 3. The train was due to leave for Manchester at 9PM. Passengers were put on a replacement train, as staff took this one out of service to try and coax the cat down. In total it took two and a half hours to coax the cat down to safety away from the 25,000-volt lines which power trains.

That’s all the cat news I have for you this week. But please enjoy these snippets about another furry delight, the American Trash Panda:

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. Go do something ridiculous, out of character, and pointless, and please have a ball while doing it. And then, tell us all about it.

XXOO

 

It’s Not You. It’s Not Me. It’s HER.

This came up on the inter webs a little too late last week for me to include it in my Feb. 19 round-up of Ted Cruz’s Excellent Adventure in Cancun but, luckily, this story has legs and he’s still getting shit for his shameful abandonment of his constituents during Texas’s sub-freezing weather catastrophe and for being, in general, an all-around anti-American neo-Nazi dickhead, so — enjoy!

It has come to my attention this past week that Mother Nature wants me dead. As I am past my re-productive years, I am useless to the biological mandate and, as such, The Evolutionary Imperative wants me to shuffle off to Buffalo ASAP. I got a reminder of that when, lately, I began waking up every morning with a number of little aches and pains. 

At first I thought that I’d slept funny, or maybe I wasn’t getting enough exercise. It’s been cold and snowy and I haven’t been running 5 miles every day as usual, so maybe it was time to brave the 23-degree wind chills and get back on track. 

So I did, and I still had to hobble out of bed each morning. The only thing that made me feel better was to do the stretching exercises that I normally reserve for a cool-down after my runs. So now I’m doing those stretching exercises first thing in the morning, just to be able to walk down a flight of stairs to give the cats breakfast.

I also have to do them both before and after my runs.

And that’s how I came to understand that this is what it is to age. Don’t take it personally, it’s not you getting slower, fatter, dumber, more achy. It’s AGE. Age is Mother Nature’s way of letting you know that your time is up. The more you can’t take that hint, the more you ignore Her, the more She will keep dropping bigger and bigger nudges until you get it, and do the decent thing, and die. 

Thus (yes, I wrote thus, to show how serious I am about this), coping with aging isn’t static. You have to keep upping the amount of time you spend fending off entropy. Those two minutes of limbering-up exercises that were OK on Monday won’t cut it on Friday. By Friday, your metabolism has slowed down even more — there goes that dark chocolate Milky Way bar you used to be able to have after lunch. The wrinkles on your face hang around all the time — there goes the myth of “laugh lines” and welcome to a new routine of moisturizing.  As for gliding to and fro with supernatural ease, you’ll have to double the amount of effort you make just in order to stay in the same lane that you were on Monday, that is, in the Not-Dead-Yet place (meaning, feeling good enough to think that, if the opportunity arose, you still had a shot at boinking Idris Elba).

And then, by the next Friday, you’ll have to double that. And so it goes. And goes. Until you give up. And die. However, now that I am informed, I will do whatever it takes to stave off the forces of nature that want to make life fattening, fatiguing, debilitating, and demoralizing.

Because I will never give up my hopes of, one day, boinking Idris Elba.

I will never allow myself to turn into Mamie Eisenhower:

Mamie Eisenhower, in 1953. She was 54 years old. This photo frightens me.

Oh, and by the way, last week the fact of my latest birthday, last month, finally hit home and I understand, with every fiber of my being, that I am 65 years old. Fuck.

Thank you to the Dear Readers who sent me birthday wishes. Now you know why I haven’t got back to you yet…it just sunk in. Fuck. 

But I am delighted that I am alive to see the NASA rover Perseverance land on Mars. MARS, people! WE MADE IT!!

For all of you who watched the landing parachute deploy as Perseverance floated to the surface of the Red Planet and said to yourselves, “Hmmmm, that looks like a binary code message to me…” I say YOU ARE AWESOME.

I also think that I need a motto. 

 

Back on Earth, Merrick Garland was affirmed as our new Attorney General, after having his Supreme Court nomination ditched by the Republican Senate when he was nominated by Barack Obama five years ago, and Ruch Limbaugh is still dead and I feel fine:

Our country reached a sad milestone:

 

One year ago, this was the president:

As the House of Representative investigates the insurrection of January 6, 2021, I am stocking up on champagne to celebrate the prosecution of a certain key player: 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of complete fucking idiots:

 

 

 

That’s Philip Grillo, from the borough of Queens, New York. Seriously, are all Republicans shitheads?

Oh, wait…I think I have the answer:

 

Back to Ted News, let’s watch Ted try to rehabilitate himself:

 

 

 

 

 

RAISE THE FUCKING MINIMUM WAGE! Why is there even a debate about this? WHY?!?!

 

 

Fuck South Dakota for sending this guy to the Senate.

 

 

Just remember, whenever you’re having a bad day, that no matter how aggravating it is to be you, at least you’re not John Thune.

 

 

 

What do you call a group of Corgis?

A Cuteness.

 

The latest thing from Japan is — wait for it — bread that looks like hamsters:

Yes, you can eat these, but would you? Peeps already give me the creeps…can I bite the head off of THIS??

Mr. Fluffers is not impressed:

This is a protest I can get behind:

Top Cat is taking me out tonight for Date Night and we’re going for Mexican food, and I don’t care if I have to run 10 miles to burn off the calories because Mexican food is not on my DON’T list:

And now for your weekly Kitty Glow-Ups:

 

 

 

 

 

Shelter Kitty to Hollywood-Ready:

Have a great weekend, everyone. Fight entropy, fight stupidity, fight Covid, fight climate change, fight Republicans, but lay off the penguins unless absolutely necessary.

 

 

Rush Limbaugh is Dead and I Feel Fine.

So, we had this going on in the backyard this week:

 

I have three feeding stations for the backyard birds, including this one under the Pinot-Grigio-O-Meter table. We went through 40 pounds of bird seed this week because it was cold and birds use up a lot of energy to stay warm:

The Cardinals were looking particularly picturesque:

Cardinals are cowards, and they won’t scrum with the Blue Jays, Starlings, Doves, and the teeny brown birds for room at the feeder, so I have a trough for them on our kitchen patio because I have a soft spot for dim-witted birds.

Well, the week started off with an acquittal for Trump which I thought was going to be the biggest story so I harvested plenty of snark for you, but then the Texas Shit Show happened and then Rush Limbaugh died, so we have a LOT of content for you today. 

Let’s get right to it:

What was true for Trump’s first Senate trial is true for his second:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy Pelosi has appointed retired Lt. General Russell Honore, who was the commander of the task force in charge of the military response to Hurricane Katrina with leading an independent investigation into the events and actors of the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Honore has a very active Twitter account and in the past he has been quite outspoken about what he saw on TV that day. Now that he’s in charge of rooting out the truth about the insurrection, I think it’s going to go well for Senator Josh Hawley of  Missouri:

But let’s catch up with what ex-Trumpers have been doing to keep themselves busy lately:

 

Yeah, we have to pay closer attention to these scumbags:

 

 

 

 

 

Here on the north shore of Long Island we got a foot of snow on the ground on February 1, and then we got 4 more inches between February 6 and 8, and today we’re going to add about 8 inches on top of that. So when we heard that Texas has its first snowfall since, oh I don’t know, 1812, it seemed funny:

 

 

But then the power went out, and pipes burst, and people froze in their homes, and hospitals had to evacuate because they had no running water, heat, or electricity, and it wasn’t so funny any more.

 

But let’s be clear why this happened in Texas:

 

 

 

 

 

I mean, even ARKANSAS did better in Winter Storm Uri:

 

 

The Republican mayor of Colorado City in west Texas, Tim Boyd, was fed up with constituents whining that they expected to have power and heat from the utility companies that they pay money to every month:

If you have the time, you really should read what he wrote about God and the people who pay taxes for his salary and public services who he was elected to serve. I have taken the time to type it here for you because, lordy, it’s classic Republican political philosophy:

Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute, he begins. (Remember, this is what he posted in a public forum for all to read; he’s PROUD of this):

No one owes you are [sic] your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a dam handout! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal without and think outside of the box to survive and supply water for your family. If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your [sic] lazy is the direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and he weak will parish [sic]. Folks god has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. this is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water: yes! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and meshed them in to one group! bottom line quite crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family! 

 

Bottom line-DONT [sic] BE A PART OF PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!

Mayor Boyd is now the resigned, ex-mayor of Colorado City, west Texas.

Other Texans found ways to blame the Democratic Representative of New York’s 14th Congressional District, Alexandra Ocasio Cortex, commonly known as AOC:

Dan Crenshaw, another Texan politician, blames, uh, non-fossil fuel energy, but a rocket scientist named Holly Griffith ‘stained it to him:

Here’s Holly’s Twitter bio. Note that she’s actually a real rocket scientist!

Wind mills in Texas got a lot of blame, too, for causing the Texas power outage:

 

A guy who ran (and lost) for congress in Texas’ 14th district, named Joshua Foxworth, tweeted that there were too many illegal people in Texas using up Texans’ rightful electricity: 

Here’s Joshua Foxworth’s Twitter bio. See what he lists as his first bragging point:

Where does Texas get all these shitbags from??? Because we haven’t even gotten to Ted Cruise yet and I am fed up with these guys already.

 

 

On Wednesday, February 17, Ted Cruise, the junior senator from Texas, took a trip to Cancun in the midst of his state’s worst human disaster in decades.

Ted Cruz voted against giving federal disaster relief to New York and New Jersey when our states were ravaged by Super Storm Sandy and we here in Too Many Cats Estates here on the north shore of Long Island did’t have power for six days, and he’s a racist anti-immigrationist, and he voted to exonerate Trump at his impeachment trial, and he also voted to negate the electoral votes of Georgia, so, fuck off, Ted Cruz.

 

All this shit with Cruz blew up on Thursday and as of Friday morning, Cancun Cruz is still trending on Twitter. He might not be able to live this one down — it’s like Al Capone getting busted for tax evasion: his constituents were OK with him being the Senate’s biggest liar and asshole, but this trip to Mexico is what will get them really riled up…

 

 

Also, Don Trump Jr is trending this Friday morning for this tweet of his:

Here’s a small sample of the blowback:

And, lastly, Rush Limbaugh finally died on February 17 and as he shuffles off this mortal coil, let’s give him the send-off he deserves:

 

 

 

OK, are we caught up with the current events? Yes?

Then bring on the cats:

This is an old one but it’s still funny. Because it’s true.

 

 

 

And more Kitten-to-Cat glow-ups:

 

 

 

 

Another Rescue-kitty to Handsome dude:

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. May all your brownies be edge prices, and all your days make you feel as good as the day Rush Limbaugh died, and please remember this bit of wisdom I learned on the internet today:

Your chances of being killed by a giraffe are low but never zero.

XXOO

 

 

A Shot In The Arm.

 

Speaking of getting vaccinated. . . 

Top Cat’s two kids in California worked the phones for weeks, and yesterday they finally got us an appointment for the Covid-19  vaccination here in New York state!

It was a same-day appointment so, at 5 o’clock in the evening, we bundled up and trudged through a foot of snow to a hospital in Queens and by 6:30 PM we were shot and half-way to being corona-proof, and sorry that Long Island is still in lock-down mode and we couldn’t go out for a celebratory dinner, or drink. We were that giddy.

The rule is that you have to hang around the hospital for 15 minutes after you get shot (or “jabbed”, as they say in the UK but, interestingly, not in Australia, where they, like us, say “shot”, and where they also call a tight Speedo a “budgie smuggler” and I’ve been laughing all day about that one). The nurses want to make sure you don’t have a bad reaction to the vaccine, so as I presented my paperwork to the attending health care professional in the waiting area, she looked at my form and asked me to say my name.

“Vivian”, I said, wondering if this was part of the screening. You see, Top Cat and I are in the official Old Farts category of vaccine recipients, so maybe the young lady wanted to make sure I still had my marbles, you know, in that I could remember my name and not bore her with stories about the price of bread in 1977.

It was 32 cents! A loaf of Wonder bread was 32 cents!!

Anyway, I tell her my name and she exclaims, “That’s so pretty!” She says, “I’ve never heard of this name before. I didn’t know how to pronounce it.”

This is not the usual reaction to my name. Six times in my life I’ve been asked, about my full moniker, Vivian Swift, “Is that your real name?” Fewer times than that — exactly twice — I’ve had someone say, about “Vivian”, “That’s my name too!” 

It’s a rule. When two Vivians meet, you have to get all excited and become best friends.

That’s because there aren’t a lot of Vivians out there in the  world, but I would have expected a full-grown woman of what looked to me European descent would have come across “Vivian” at least once in her life. So, that was weird.

P.S. My twin sister goes by a nickname that is rather unusual and no one has ever asked her if that’s her real name, although one guy did go, “That’s my dog’s name!” Her name is Elizabeth, but everyone calls her Buffy. 

During registration for the vaccine at the hospital, I was asked “What is your ethnicity?” and I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve ever been asked that. I had to think hard. Scottish-American? White? Anglo? From the gene pool that made Appalachia great?

I went with “Caucasian,” but I didn’t feel good about it. The woman questioning me was African-American and I’m 75% sure that word doesn’t have a whole lot of positive connotations for her.

She also asked me about my religion. I briefly considered saying “None,” but decided to be more pro-active. I said, “Atheist.”

So, that was weird, too. Top Cat and I assume that these questions were for statistical purposes, and not a way to make the experience of getting a longed-for vaccination in the middle of a pandemic even more bizarre than it had to be. Because it was bizarre.

Here’s the surprising thing: The hospital, in the heart of Queens, New York, was practically empty. It was almost creepy. Although there was a loooong line of chairs looping around the enormous lobby, all appropriately socially distanced, there was no one sitting in them.  There was no waiting at all, and we’ve been trying to register on-line for a month. It was Top Cat’s daughter who called this hospital from Los Angeles, got a top administrator on the phone. explained our situation, and got us these coveted slots for vaccination. Go figure.

Once we did the registration, we went immediately into the vaccination tent (it’s indoors, isolated from the rest of the hospital; technically, the tent was set up in the atrium) and signed more paperwork, and then we were seated in another screened-in area with a nurse. We didn’t get shot together. The nurse-to-patient ratio is strictly one-to-one.

BTW, The hospital was giving two vaccines: the Pfizer and the Moderna, and it was random that we got Pfizer but Top Cat says that’s the one he wanted anyway.

I hate shots like crazy, so the most anxious time for me was sitting with the nurse, waiting for the vaccine to be made up. It seems that each syringe is made individually, and it was 5 minutes or so before mine came, sealed in a plastic envelope, delivered on a tray. 

“This will be a little cold,” the nurse said, and I’m thinking that I’m about to get shot with fluid that was, until 5 minutes ago, being stored at -80 degrees centigrade (-176 degrees Fahrenheit), and I began to sweat. Turns out she was talking about the alcohol swab that she rubbed my arm with. It was cold. I flinched.

The shot itself lasts less than a second, and I managed to jump at that, too. “Ha ha,” the nurse said, “You very nervous!” (She was of Asian ethnicity.) Another nurse, passing by, said to me, “How does it feel? Pretty good, right?” I said, “It does feel good!”, and she said, “Congratulations!”

My arm didn’t hurt right away, but it aches this morning. It’s not like I’m injured or anything, it’s more like the ache you get from thinking you can start doing multiple dead-lifts on your first day of weight training and the next day your body says,  “Don’t pull that shit again.” I speak from personal experience.

We get our second shots on March 4. We’re going to plan something awesome to celebrate what, for us, finally feels like The Beginning Of The End.

Meanwhile, in another news this week, it bears to be repeated:

And this happened, when the MSNBC news commentator, Rachel Maddow, was sued by the network that broadcast the My Pillow guy’s two-hour video filled with baseless conspiracy theories about the election being rigged and placed blame on electronic voting system companies Dominion and Smartmatic:

And a reminder of how different it is to not live in Trump’s America anymore:

 

And another Republican who thought Covid was just like the flu had a little rendezvous with karma on February 7:

Meanwhile, the House of Representative sent their Impeachment managers over to the Senate to begin presenting their case that Donald Trump should be found guilty of denigrating his path of office:

 

 

The Republicans, who want to avoid dealing with the merits of the case, are trying to hide behind procedural arguments, such as the one about it not being constitutional to hold a trial for an ex-president:

And this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is to get you all in the Weekend Mood:

 

 

 

 

From Kitten to Cat photos:

He started out a rescue, and now he’s a beautiful boy.

 

 

It’s the same tie.

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone! We’ll meet here next Friday and vent about how the Republicans have let Donald Trump get away with inciting sedition, bandwe’ll do it together so we don’t have to scream into the void alone. 

Don’t spend too much time googling for photos of “budgie smugglers”, because before you know it, it’s early afternoon and your blog is late and you are regretting all your life choices that did not make you Australian. I speak from personal experience. 

 

I Don’t Want To Be A Cucumber.

The second major blizzard of the season rolled onto the north shore of Long Island last Sunday.

It’s still exciting to prepare for a big snow dump. You check your refrigerator and your books and your  laundry and your Netflix queue to make sure that you have enough supplies to tide your body and mind over if you get snowed in for a few days.

I put my Champagne-O-Meter on the den patio table (with bird seed — the Cardinals are too shy the and Blue Jays are too big for the feeder so they dine where they can scootch their feets in the food) and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up to this:

Winter Storm Orlena was a big, slow-moving nor’easter … and that’s the last time I’m using that term because I don’t like it. I grew up in Pennsylvania in the 1960s and ’70s and I never heard the term “nor’easter” until newscasters started using it in the early 1990s. I think the Weather Channel made it up, and turned us all into  old squinty-eyed farmers from Maine, giving the sky a side-eye and predicting a “nor’easter”. 

P.S. The Weather Chanel also came up with the gimmick of naming Winter storms. But I’m OK with that. It helps to keep them straight.

Anyway, the storm was slow-moving, so we spent the day watching big, fluffy, lazy snowflakes making a thick Winter blanket.

By early afternoon, the snow was mixed with rain:

The big question: Would the snow cover the tippy-top of the Champagne-O-Meter???

 

Those ears belong to Bibs, watching the birds dine on the food that I waded out, four times that day, to throw down for them.

Yep. Taffy certified Winter Storm Orlena at an even 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) here in the backyard of Too Many Cats Mansion:

The s-l-o-w pace of the day made Kimmy fell asleep and have sweet Winter dreams (of tackling Taffy when he least expects it…she’s really a pest and Taffy is her favorite target):

We didn’t dig out until Tuesday. Shoveling snow is something that Top Cat and I both enjoy, and it’s been too cold for me to do my daily 5-mile runs, so I was thrilled to have something to do!

Our snow-shoveling season was delayed a bit because Top Cat couldn’t find his snow-shoveling gloves. He kept saying, “I thought my red gloves were right here. Where are they?” pointing to the credenza in the kitchen that we call Chuck because neither of us likes the word “credenza”. 

“Have you seen my red gloves?” he asked me. 

I said, “You don’t have red gloves.”

“Yes I do,” he said. “They’re the gloves that I use for snow-shoveling. I’ve had them forever. My red gloves.”

I said, “Let’s look in the glove shelf in the hall closet.”

“They won’t be there,” Top Cat said. “I put them in Chuck’s top drawer. I know I did.”

I go to the hall closet and pull down some gloves from the glove shelf (where we keep all the gloves).

“Oh!,” Top Cat says, very surprised. “There they are! My red gloves!”

For the record, these are Top Cat’s red gloves:

I protest, “Those aren’t red!”

Top Cat considers this carefully, and looks at them closely as if seeing them for the first time. And he says, “Oh. Well. They’re not red now. But they used to be.”

It’s the little things like this that make me glad I married Top Cat. Because even when he’s annoying, he’s pretty cute.

It’s stayed cold all week and the snow has stayed beautiful and the Champagne-O-Meter has been outdoors the whole time, and we’re going to harvest it tonight for Friday Homemade Pizza Night. I am really looking forward to it.

I thought it was going to be a slow news week so I loaded some photos I’ve saved from the inter webs since last August to discuss my new hobby, but current events picked up on Wednesday so yes, this is going to be a looooong post, go get another cup of tea.

My new hobby is Saving the Planet. 

If we all buy just ONE item of clothing a year, we can turn the manufacturing of hideously wasteful fashion clothing into a green, self-sustaining industry. Jane Fonda, who is 83 years old, has vowed to not buy any new clothes, saying that she has closets full of stuff that she will just wear out. I don’t think that I have enough stuff in my closet to last me the next 20 years, but I do have a good supply.

I have a thing for jackets with zippers, and I have several really cool jackets with interesting zippers, and I have a really cool Ralph Lauren jacket that I bought three years ago and still haven’t worn yet, so I know how wasteful we are as clothing consumers.

But here’s a way to indulge your taste for cool clothes and still be environmentaly correct.

Jillian Owens has a blog called The Refashionista and here’s how she re-makes thrift store clothes into one-of-a-kind clothes. She can tailor anything, and she reproduces designer looks with $5.00 thrift store finds. 

Enjoy these Before and After shots:

 

I want to do this! As soon as thrift stores re-open, I’m going to find me some hideous dresses and rescue them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lets all do this! 

Well, things have started getting crazy again, so let’s consider what we’ve been through this past week, starting with our coolest-ever Vice President doing the job that we elected her to do:

I got this in my Twitter fed on Wednesday, February 3

Yikes, what a year 2020 was. And 2021 got off to a hard start but. . . 

The biggest news story was the United States House of Representatives held a debate, and then a vote to remove Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments because of her many, many psychotic Twitter and Facebook postings that approved of killing Democratic members of Congress, spewed crazy conspiracy theories that Donald Trump was ridding the Deep State of its pedophiles, claimed that 9/11 never happened, and that the mass shooting murders at Parkland High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School were “false flag” operations staged to take away guns from Americans.

Oh, right…she also claimed that the fires that ravaged California last year were cause by lasers.

Lasers from space.

Owned by Jews.

Jewish space lasers.

 

 

 

The Republicans, in a tit-for-tat move, tried to remove Progressive Democratic New York Representative Alexandria Ocassio Cortez from her committee assignments. That didn’t go over too well.

 

The Republicans also tried to remove Republican Utah Representative Liz Cheney from her leadership position in the party because she voted to impeach Donal Trump. That didn’t go too well either. Liz Cheney is still the ## Republican in the House.

The My Pillow guy, Mike Lindell, is famous for trying to convince Trump to declare martial law in December to prevent the Democrats (and 80 million voters) from “stealing” the election. Certain retailers have retaliated by removing his pillows from their stores — Bed Bath and Beyond and J C Penny, for example. He’s also banned from Twitter for advocating for insurrection. 

This is real:

These guys are going to make their pillows in America, with union workers. They will ire ex-cons, and make their product environmentally sustainable.

I’m ready to buy their pillows.

Seriously.

Not for me — I swear by TempurPedic — but for Top Cat. He uses six pillows a night (don’t ask), and he’s due for new pillows. I would love to put Mike Lindell out of business!

The Screen Actors Guild voted to kick Donald Trump out of their union because, you know, insurrection, but Donald beat them to it. This is his resignation letter (and puh-leese, get a load of his letterhead!):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now, for something completely different, because as long as there are dogs and cats in the world, we will get through this:

First Halloween for a rescue dog and his human.

 

 

 

Somebody timed the shot of his two cats playing JUST RIGHT.

 

 

This little girl as five cats who love her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. See you all at the watermelon festival with your zip-lock bags. Watermelons are 92% water, so we have a lot in common. Meaning, I could cut out the middleman and just soak myself in tequila…yeah. I think that would be kinder to watermelons. Yeah. 

So, as I am putting on my coat for a run to the tequila store, I want to give you one last reason Why You Should Get A Cat:

k

k

Eat the Rich.

I’ve been reading and watching the GameStop story all week and feeling pretty damn happy about it. GameStop is a retail, bricks-and-mortar store that sells computer games to teenage boys. Most of the stores are found in malls and, as you can guess, since malls are dying and everybody can buy games on-line, GameStop, as a stock and as a business, has been in the doldrums for a few years.

It happened that some bros (also known as trolls, randos, and the poors) in a stock-trading group chat (thread) on Reddit were venting against big hedge funds, and they found out that two of them had taken out huge “shorts” on GameStop stock, betting that the value of it would fall; the further the stock fell, the more money the hedge funds would make. 

The Reddit bros decided to fuck with the hedge funds and they started buying GameStop stock in honor of its seminal importance in their wasted youth, in a classic Wall Street action known as a “short squeeze” (which usually involves institutional players, not individual traders). They were able to raise the share price by 100%, putting the hedge funds that had shorted the stock deep into debt (billions of dollars), and that, if you’ve been paying attention to the news, is huge news. 

I had something on my mind that I wanted to talk to you all about this week but first, I have to get GameStop out of my system because I love the smell of Wall Street comeuppance in the morning.  So please bear with me: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reddit bros are now targeting several other “shorted” stocks such as AMC and American Airlines, in over that could again make hedge funds lose billions. And I say YAY! There is too much money being made by people who only make bets in a market that is designed so that only they can make the bets and the money.

As of this morning (January 29, 2021) Melvin Capitol has had to recruit outside lenders for $2.75 billion to cover their GameStop losses, and Citron Research, another hedge fund that had also  shorted GameStop, has not disclosed how much they have lost but have conceded that it’s in the billions, and that its position was a 100% loss. Yay!

I hope this gives you all a serotonin rush as it did me, on this bitterly cold Friday here on the north shore of Long Island. 

The other thing that I’ve had on my mind this past week was something that I heard the comedian Kevin Hart say as he was being interviewed on Howard Stern’s radio program. He and Howard were talking about being famous, and the way fame changes life for the better or worse. Kevin talked about how, at first, being famous can bring out feelings of inadequacy — the well-known “imposter syndrome”, where people feel undeserving of success.

But Kevin’s current theory on fame and success (he’s worth $200 million, according to Wikipedia) is that he does deserve it because  he, like Howard (who is worth $650 million according to the inter webs) are part of the 1% of people who, through hard work and determination, get to be very, very good at what they do. 

Stop right there.

First of all, I think the actual percentage of people who are very, very good at what they do is .0001%, but the sentiment is 100% brilliant. 

Kevin Hart’s words reminded me of a similar lesson I learned, way back when I was a freelance magazine writer in the 1990s, when I was interviewing the brilliant author Lawrence Weschler for an article. Weschler has written five of my favorite six books and I finagled my position as a freelancer to pitch a story about him to the Westchester Times because I wanted to meet him, and so there I was, sitting in his living room, drinking tea, while he talked about his life.

He told me a story about how he was able to introduce two of his friends to each other, the friends being the painter David Hockney and the magician/historian/actor/artist Ricky Jay. Both men are highly acclaimed and supremely accomplished in their fields, and when they met they got along like, well, two things that get along really well. I can’t think of a metaphor. Gin and tonic? Sad songs and a good cry? One diatomic molecule and another diatomic molecule in a sigma bond?

Lawrence Weschler told me that when Ricky Jay thanked him for bringing David Hockney into his life, Jay said, “This is the best thing about being really good at what you do: You get to meet other people who are really good at what they do.” 

That thought stuck with me as being perhaps the simplest recipe for How To Get Through Life, and at the same time the finest explanation of How To Avoid Dealing With Idiots and Morons. 

I’m sure you’ve all noticed that as you up your game, in life or in your job, you spend less time hanging out with stupid people and more time being energized, challenged, inspired, and appreciated by people who are smarter than you, which ups your game even more, and makes it even less likely that you will ever have known a Trump supporter.

If I had kids, that’s the one piece of advise I would give: Whatever you do, work hard and become the best at what you do. 

Because then you’ll get to meet other people who are the best at what they do, and your life will be enriched and rewarding and better than mediocre and you’ll marry someone I don’t have to worry about.

Speaking of better than mediocre, let’s remember that this is true of America, no matter how much it irritates the Republicans:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22 Executive Orders in the first week:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This (below) is funnier when you realize the man replying to Donald Trump Jr. is the former president of Estonia:

But not everything has to be about politics. Sometimes the good stuff is about life in Australia, and wine:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fill up your wine glasses, Dear Readers, and you know that spoon that you dislike for no reason? Throw it out. Because here’s more words of wisdom for a better life from none other than Mick Jagger:

You wake up one morning and you look at your old spoon, and you say to yourself, “Mick, it’s time to get a new spoon.” And you do.

 Have a great weekend, everyone. Enjoy your new spoons.

 

Donald Who?

Zippity doo-dah, zippy yay, my o my, what a wonderful non-Trump day.

Who else is still celebrating? Are we all still walking around in a happy daze, with a song in our heart and a spring in our step and a brain full of light and joy? OMG, how good does it feel to say to yourself, “Trump is done, over, out“? It’s an instant high every time I remind myself that  America is, officially, and finally, Trump-free. 

Now that things are approaching normal once again, and we don’t have to harden ourselves to do mental battle with the every-day CRAZY that we’ve been assaulted with for the past four years, we have to spend more time doing the things that bring beauty and pleasure to our lives.

As for me, it’s sunny and cold today here on the north shore of Long Island, so I’m going to go ice skating.  Later, I plan to read some poetry (poetry!). I like making complicated paper snowflakes and I’ve “pinned” instructions from Pinterest that I’m eager to try out. I’m ready to learn how to make pizza dough from scratch. I might even start being nice to people, but don’t count on it. 

Today, on the second day of the Joe Biden presidency, is a good day to paint a cat.

Meet Mehitabel, from Portland Oregon, courtesy of our Dear Reader Vicki:

 I had the pleasure to meet Mehitabel a few  years ago when I was doing a book tour for one of my books and Vicki graciously showed me the sights of The Rose City (the city is packed full of public parks beautifully landscaped with roses, my favorite flower).

As you can see, Mehitabel was not a cuddle bug. She kept her distance and did not like having her photo taken, but Vicki managed to get this picture that captures her personality. She’s looking a bit miffed, and I swear her lips are pursed and she’s about to go “Tsk tsk tsk” at this invasion of her privacy. My challenge will be to get that glance and that attitude in her portrait.

The other challenge is that the photo is a  little blurry, and small, and I’ve already tried to paint her once before (it turned out bad, very bad), but I’m going to dive in and give it another shot. 

To begin, I’m going to give Mehitabel a wash of white paint…”prepping” the canvas, kind of.

The most important detail of Mehitabel’s face is her mouth; that’s where her entire expression is contained. So I’m going to start there, hoping that I can get that right.

She’s a gray cat, which is fun for me because I really enjoy mixing my own gray colors:

Gray is a rich and expressive color — I love it.

Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea 1871 James Abbott McNeill Whistler 1834-1903 Bequeathed by Miss Rachel and Miss Jean Alexander 1972 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T01571

 

James Mcneill Whistler, “Arrangement in Grey and Black”, 1871, in the Musee d’Orsay, Paris. This picture is, in the words of Wikipedia, “the most important work of American art outside the US.”

Even though she’s only a pencil outline, I can see Mehitabel glaring at me:

Let’s make her glare in full color:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’s almost done. . . 

I have to fix the divot under her left ear and add some highlight to her eyes.

 

DONE:

 

I hope that all the energy I used to spend every day loathing Trump will be turned into something productive, like organizing my bookshelves, or clearing out the basement, or folding last week’s laundry, or learning Korean. (I just found out that there are 48 ways to conjugate a Korean verb, and so far, I only know 17 and to tell you the truth, I barely know all 17, so I have hours and hours of studying ahead…)

Of course there’s still the 2022 congressional elections to fret about, and there’s plenty of crazy and evil Republicans to keep track of, but let’s get to that next week.

For now, for this week, let’s all take a deep breath of pure, clean, non-Trump air, and congratulate ourselves for having made it to this moment, to the return of science and sanity and service to the White House.

I wonder if there are any memes for that. . . 

 

 

 

 

 

This was dated January 19, 2021:

 

When Pence tried to brag about his “accomplishments” as Vice President:

Counting down the hours until Joe Biden was sworn in:

Moving day at Trump’s White House:

 

Speaking of the Trump legacy. . . 

 

 

At the Washington Monument, the president-elect and the vice president-elect paid tribute to the400,000 Americans who have died from Covid:

 

And then, finally, The Day:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the New York Times on the past three Thursdays:

Have a great weekend, Dear Ones. It’s the first Trump-free Friday night in four years!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Love The Smell of Impeachment in the Morning.

 

 

 

I have slept soundly for the past three days which is unusual, because I normally spend 2 – 3 hours in the middle of every night wide awake, doom scrolling Twitter (because Trump is still president) or binge-watching K Pop music videos in an attempt to postpone the inevitable entropy that will be the death of every living and non-living morsel in the universe including, most tragically, Yours Truly. 

But lo, these past three nights I have slept the sleep of redwood trees and blue whales, west winds and rainbows. It’s been a good week here in the U S of A.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since last November, when this cartoon was originally published, things have gotten a lot less metaphorical:

 

Do you remember this guy from last week’s post about the MAGA rioters at the Capitol? (Again, please  note the two hand guns tucked into his jeans.)

Turns out that tucking dangerous weapons into his pants was Kevin’s “thing”. This story is totally true (I fact checked it):

What this little article doesn’t mention is that when Kevin’s taser shot him in the balls, Kevin wee’d himself, and he died in a pool of his own urine. (Getting to write this last sentence has been one of the greatest joys of my life.)

Knowing that this is how history will remember Kevin Greeson of Alabama . . . 

. . . is something that we should all treasure.

 

Rumor has it that Ivanka Trump is thinking that she still has a shot at a political career of her own, and hadsans to run for higher office (she wants to be the first female president) but you have to wonder if her “brand” can survive these headlines: 

Twitter didn’t take kindly to the Potty Princess story:

Javanka have denied these allegations of being snots to the Secret Service but as of today, Friday January 15, this story still had legs. Photographers have staked out the Javanka mansion and taken photos of Secret Service men and women trotting to and from the basement apartment. I can’t pull images for you because of a minor but annoying computer problem this morning but it’s true: Jared and Ivanka, who have 7 toilets in their house, won’t let the people, whose job it is to take a bullet for them if necessary, use any of them.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but when Hillary lost the 2016 election, her supporters didn’t threaten all 50 state capitols with violence, and all 50 governors weren’t put on alert for another MAGA insurrection, and the Capitol buildings weren’t fenced off and inundated with armed National Guardsmen to protect it from Democrats with hurt feelings, right?

It’s hard to believe that this is what is needed at the Capitol for Je Biden’s inauguration:

I love that the woman leading this file of guardsmen is holding her Starbucks “Go Cup”.

I’m sure the Guardsmen and women  are  highly  trained  for  combat,  but  most  of  what  they  are  doing  is fighting  boredom:

After these photos were published on-line, the National Guard had to release a plea to stop people from deluging them with donations of blankets and pillows and food at the Capitol. 

I hope they stay bored, for all our sakes.

Post-Insurrection, in a classic case of “closing the barn door after the cows have escaped”, metal detectors were installed at the entrance to the House of Representative and the Senate. Here’s how that’s going: 

 

Two days after his supporters rioted and killed a police officer due to his inciting unrest with his inflammatory  speech, Trump STILL couldn’t shut up. Here’s the tweet that got him kicked off of Twitter for violating Twitter’s No Inciting Violence rule:

You could say it was the tweet that broke the Twitter’s back:

The rest of Twitter celebrated:

 

Trump is also blacklisted on Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, Twitch, Tik Tok, Pinterest, Shopify (he can’t sell his MAGA shit there any more), and Spotify. Spotify? 

The air and sound waves are pure Trump-free zones, and I, for one, am very happy. But some people are miffed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final story of the day is about Josh Hawley, the junior Republican senator from Missouri who, before the insurrection, had plans of being the next Trumpian president, but then he did this:

 

 

I am forever grateful that there was a photographer who just happened to catch Hawely in the act of being a dickhead. That photographer is Francis Chung, from E & E News. This photo will haunt Hawley for the rest of his life, and I couldn’t be happier.

Here’s Francis Chung’s story:

The crowd was building on the east side of the U. S. Capitol shortly after 12:30 Wednesday afternoon, but Francis Chung didn’t see much that was visually interesting.

Nor did Chung, a photojournalist for E&E News, a D.C.-based group of publications that cover energy and environmental issues, have any inkling that he was about to capture one of the iconic images from the day the Capitol was breeched by rioters.

The group of about 300 was fairly calm, but their energy flared when a motorcade pulled up. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley appeared from behind the cars, headed for a scheduled joint session in the House of Representatives.

The freshman Republican gave a thumbs up, a fist pump, and waved as the crowd cheered. Chung rushed to shoot, knowing that Hawley was a key player in Republican plans to challenge the Electoral College results. Chung took his shot, and went inside a congressional office building to transmit his images to E&E News.

An hour later, when Chung came back to the east side of the Capitol where Hawley had appeared, the barriers around the perimeter of the building had been pulled down and police were no longer trying to stop people from entering the Capitol grounds.

Within that hour, the context of Hawley’s fist bump changed dramatically.

And ever since, things haven’t been looking so good for Josh Hawley.

 

 

They even painted a road sign in front of the old court house in St. Louis:

 

May all the Republicans who love Trump get what they deserve. 

Amen.

 

 

I’m not philosophically against marrying for money, but it makes me happy that when Melanoma divorces Trump he will be so broke that she’ll probably end up owing him alimony.

This is her message:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

______________________________

___________________________________________

 

 

That’s it for this week, Dear Readers. I can’t say for sure how scarred, or not, our cities will be after Joe Biden’s inauguration, but it will be A NEW DAY and worth celebrating and LIFE WILL BE GOOD.

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, Dear Ones. 

 

So, This Is What It Means To “Live In Interesting Times”.

 

 

 

This is not the post that I intended to write today. I had, all lined up for your delight, about 20 photos of me watercoloring a kitty for Vicki in Portland (OR) along with  some deep thoughts about life for our get-together today, but then stuff happened in Washington, D.C. Namely, a coup attempt. And that is what I call a buzz kill.

Things were so innocent, in that pre-coup attempt time, last Monday, that I thought this joke by Stephen Colbert would be the highlight of my week:

But, before we get into the political stuff that I thought I would never have to talk about, I urge you to read the following with this soundtrack: 

Click here.

Also, because I have never typed so much about the official police force of the federal property in Washington D.C. I had to look this up:

Capital can refer to uppercase letters, accumulated wealth, or the city that serves as the seat of a country’s or state’s government. A capitol is a building in which the legislative body of government meets. In the United States, the Capitol is a building in Washington in which the US Congress meets.

So, that’s why it’s the Capitol police, not the Capital police. I’m sure we’re all glad to know that.

I’m just going to let rip:

 

 

 

 

 

So who are these hard-working, salt-of-the-earth, true Americans who love America and Trump and freedom and democracy? Here, let me introduce you to some of them:

 

 

 

I expect we’ll be meeting a lot ore of them, as they are rounded up, one by one, right?

 

 

Unlike Trump, some of the rioters have already been held accountable:And this guy:

 

 

But we have to ask ourselves, when it comes to a lawless crowd of traitors rioting in the Capitol, Who Could Have Seen This Coming???

Well, maybe this guy had a premonition:

Or this guy:

Definitely this guy, who, take note,  tweeted this on December 21, 2020:

 

 

And now, let’s talk about the Trumper traitors and white supremacists who have infiltrated the Capitol Police, shall we?

 

 

 

 

 

Remember  how the Capitol police guarded the Lincoln Memorial (which has zero living persons working there) from Black Lives Matter protestors in June 2020? No? See below:

I wonder what the difference is?

 

 

 

 

For those who don’t know, Rev. Raphael Warnock (above) is one of the two newly-elected senators from Georgia.

 

 

 

In spite of the cops’ best efforts to keep all the rioters safe and pleased with themselves, four Trumpers did die, and I’m sure they died happy:

 

BTW, Ashli, who had taxpayer-supported life-time healthcare and military pension *cough Socialism*, also had two active restraining orders out against her.

Here’s the guy on the left (above)  who had high blood pressure and died from “all the excitement” (see below):

His family released this photo — don’t miss the two hand guns tucked into his waistband — because they thought it was a good picture of him. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday should be an interesting day. . .

The sad thing about the Wednesday, January 6 2021 Capitol riots is that they have overshadowed the wondrous events of Tuesday, January 5, 2021:

Thank you, Georgia voters and organizers, for giving us two new Democratic senators and control of the U. S. Congress!!!

Of course, no American election is complete without Trump making shit up about stolen ballots:

And the Georgia senate victory overshadowed the impeachable phone call that Trump made to the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia:

A day later, Trump did just that:

And four hours later, the Washington Post had the tape of the full one-hour criminal phone call:

And Fox News was shocked, shocked! Oh, no, not about the legality of Trump’s phone call, but about how mean Ratffensperger was to our president:

I hope this gets included in the articles of impeachment on Monday:

And even if Trump pardons himself of all federal offenses, there’s always state laws that were broken:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tweet below is from the Republican candidate for Senate from Delaware, who lost last November, so I guess the House was saved from this kind of idiot:

Let’s all agree that Republicans are all just horrible, horrible people:

That’s it, Dear Ones, that’s my round-up of this week’s news. Breathe, relax all the muscles in your face, go kiss a kitty, and do something nice for yourself. Take that nap after lunch! Light a few candles at bath time! Play you favorite song real loud and dance n the kitchen! Put down that dreadful book that everyone says is so good but you can’t stand (I’m looking at you, The Last Samurai)! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone, Next week I’ll upload all those pictures of me watercoloring a gray tabby and we’ll paint a kitty together and we will exhale, long and lovingly, and give thanks for  Trump’s removal from office and we are five days away from a return to sanity.

That’s my prediction. But you never can tell. Trump could be whisked out of DC by a herd of winged unicorns to the planet Gofuckyourself because that’s how crazy everything is right now.

We’ll see.