Jeffrey D. Tharp's Blog, page 4

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. Man cold. I hate the phrase “man cold”. It feels like everyone’s favorite trope. Except in my experience there’s no such thing. I’m head cook, animal care specialist, housekeeper, mechanic, landscaper, and bottle washer. I wish to hell I could have the man cold experience, but when I go down with something, not a damned thing happens here if I opt to just lay about in bed. So yeah, when someone says “man cold” I honestly have no goddamned idea what they’re talking about… except maybe they chose a questionable partner. 

2. J.D. Vance. As someone who grew up in Appalachia, all I can tell you is that I’m sick to death of the people who hold up blowhard J.D. Vance as a version of the hometown boy who made good. He certainly doesn’t reflect my opinions or values – the ones I was raised with in coal country. He is hardly an example of the faith, charity, and kindness I saw so often from the community where I grew up. If anything, J.D. seems to represent the worst instincts of the region – its clannishness, fear of new ideas, and deep desire to roll the clock back to a time in our history that may or may not have ever actually existed. He’s a Republican fever dream I’d rather take a pass on. 

3. Adult cats. When it comes to cats, I’ve always had singles or pairs. I did not fully appreciate the level of effort involved in attempting to integrate adult cats. It’s been… a lot. I won’t even claim that we’ve done it successfully as there’s still a great deal of hissing and swatting. There’s less literal fur flying than there was a while ago, though, so maybe things are improving. Everyone has the run of the house during the day – which translates to Cordy holding her usual place under my bed, Anya keeping an eye on things from high atop the kitchen cabinets, and Ivy kind of taking it all in. I don’t think anyone is particularly comfortable or confident yet (me included), but I suspect if this experiment is successful, which I don’t consider a foregone conclusion yet, Ivy will end up being the new showrunner. 

A common act of patriotism…

The man from Delaware has done the politically unthinkable. In the full spate of the closing weeks of the presidential campaign, Joe Biden read the tea leaves and opted to walk away from the sirens call of power and prestige that inevitably surrounds the office of the most powerful person in the world. I’m not sure one man in ten thousand would have the internal fortitude to do that – to be that close and deny themselves the opportunity to stand in the limelight just a little bit longer.

Joe Biden was never “my” candidate. There are too many policy differences that separate us. Still, I’m a close enough student of politics to recognize that his stepping away marks him out as something special. After weeks in the maelstrom following a disastrous debate, he was self-aware enough to understand his own limitations. Maybe he should have come to that realization sooner, or maybe his closest aides should have pushed harder to arrive here months ago, but he got there eventually. In a world where pride and ego count for so much, getting there at all was never a certainty. He could have held on grimly right through election day and damn the consequences.

We still have a long ride through until November. The Democratic Party must find a way to rally around a new candidate. That candidate must be someone who can defeat a twice impeached, disgraced former president at the ballot box. Even as I type what feels like it should have been a nonsense sentence, I realize what a tall order that’s going to be for any candidate. The Republicans are, if nothing else, organized and disciplined, even if their candidate should be little more than a bad joke’s punch line.

Last night, Joe Biden took the one step left to him that could most influence the 2024 election. His decision was a remarkable act of a career politician putting country ahead of self – and an entirely common act for an American patriot. Whatever the outcome now, history will judge him far kindlier than our contemporary political experts and media commentators. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. The Republican Party. After watching as much of the Republican Party’s nominating convention as I could stand, I suppose it’s good that I left the party when I did. What they’ve spent the week shilling bears almost no resemblance to the Republican Party I joined when I was 18. That was a party of giants – of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bob Dole. It was a party committed to projecting a confident image of the United States into the world as a beacon of what’s possible when free men combine with free markets. It was a party committed to America as a bulwark against despots and dictators around the world. The idea of Republicans as the party of individual liberty and a strong role for the United States in the world seems to be dead and buried. There’s no room for me in what rose to take its place.

2. Cats. Now normally I obviously love cats. They’re soft, fluffy, adorable, and batshit crazy. But the process of getting a new addition integrated, now finishing its second full week, is really something else. It’s less hissing and spitting than it was 14 days ago. It’s been a few days since I’ve discovered an unexplained tuft of hair on the floor at some key intersection in the house. Still, I’d very much like to get back to living in a house with a few less baby gates, shut doors, and creatures living a somewhat less than calm and relaxed life.

3. The Democratic Party. The Democrats should be walking away with the 2024 election for offices up and down the ballot. Instead, here we are, three months from election day and they’re flailing around not even sure if the sitting president who won their primary contest is going to be their candidate in November. I’ve often heard it said that Republicans fall in line and democrats fall in love, but just this once maybe having a bit of organizational coherence would have been helpful. I can’t help but think that the Democratic Party is going to wring their hands and piddlefuck around to the point where not only do they hand the White House to Donald Trump, but that there’s a very real likelihood that he’ll swing enough seats in the House and Senate to give the Republicans a working majority. Then the firewalls are all down and god knows what happens next. 

He remains unfit for office…

The fact that Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt changes a great deal about the closing months of the 2024 election. It’s the kind of shock to the body politic that serves to pull all the oxygen out of the room. 

What it doesn’t change is that he remains demonstrably unfit to hold office. In his four years as president, twice impeached Donald Trump ignored Constitutional norms and precedents, ran up unprecedented trillions in deficit spending, threatened the stability of America’s great alliances, praised despots and dictators, and, at best, stood by idly for hours while his supporters rampaged through the halls of Congress chanting death threats against the sitting vice president and Speaker of the House. The list of reasons why this man should not be trusted with the office inhabited by men like Washington, Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan is manifest and lengthens every time he steps in front of a camera or spouts out a “truth” on his cut rate social media platform.

I type that paragraph knowing full well that publicly questioning his fitness for office puts me squarely on a list somewhere. It makes me the kind of “disloyal” bureaucrat that Trump’s campaign vowed to purge should he win in November. I’d be smarter in every way to keep my head down and my mouth shut until we know what way the winds are going to blow. Alas, I swore an oath to the Constitution and the rule of law rather than to a single man or a political party.

As a Maryland voter, where I throw the weight of my vote makes very little difference. Even so, I can’t in good conscience add my vote or voice to a second Trump term. He simply represents too great a risk to personal liberty and republican government. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. Opportunity. I think I was hit on while shopping for books at one of my favorite used and antiquarian shops last week. As I was looking through stacks of stuff deep in the bowels of the place. A 30-something blonde, well proportioned, with a pixie cut appears at my elbow. “Excuse me,” she cuts into my browsing. “Do you know if they accept credit cards here,” she asks. I’m sure I mumbled something confirming they did without more than glancing up from whatever book about the age of fighting sail I was considering. But she hovered there. Expectantly? Maybe waiting for me to pick up the thread? I have no idea. I didn’t even consider the possibility until 8 hours later when I was safely back home with my feet up for the evening. Chalk that up to a potential missed opportunity.

2. Reengaging. Last week while I was enjoying my traditional early July vacation, I was largely disengaged. I was disengaged from current events, from people, from writing, from just about everything except tending the house and animals and occasionally dipping up the road for some carryout. Honestly it was delightful. Then, as it does, this week came trundling along and required me to reengage with the world and everything has basically been awful ever since. There’s a lesson somewhere in there, I’m sure. 

3. Meetings. Yesterday, I sat in an in-person meeting for the first time in at least a year if not more. Sitting in a conference room with 25 or 30 other people felt, in a word, archaic. It was like engaging in a pantomime from some bygone era. An old fashioned meeting happens so rarely that for the first 30 minutes it was almost an entertaining novelty. As that novelty wore away, though, it was impossible to forget that each of those 30 people was a potential plague carrier and represented more people than you’ve been around in a single room in months if not years. I’m not saying there’s never a role for these in person meetings, but if we can hold them to no more than one a year, I think that would be entirely sufficient. 

Three is enough…

By now, I suppose everyone who’s interest already knows that I added a 3rd cat to the list of critters living here on the homestead. Ivy is a sweet, approximately one year old calico female who arrived here by way of the Chesapeake Feline Association, who are effectively neighbors to me here on the bank of the Elk River. They’re a small team doing good work and I was happy to be able to be a small part of it. 

As I’m writing this, Ivy has been home with us for about three and a half days now. She’s briefly met Jorah and Anya at the door to her “safe room,” but hasn’t shown much (if any) interest in checking out the rest of the house yet and seems content to hang out in the guest bathroom for the time being. I’m doing my best to remember that time really isn’t a factor here and it takes as long as it takes to get everyone comfortable with this new arrangement.

Aside from a bit more outlay for food and the inevitable increase in vet bills, tending to three cats instead of two doesn’t feel like it’s adding too much workload at this point. I expect it will become even easier once we get everyone integrated and don’t have to maintain separate feeding, watering, and litter operations. I’m not going to speculate on how long that may take.

I’ve often joked that I’ve reached carrying capacity in the past. Now with five furry and scaled mouths to feed, I really mean it. Five is the absolute upper limit… unless I come into a lot of money and can hire staff, of course. Then all bets are off.

In any case, I’m pleased as punch to have a new member of the family settling in… but I’ll be well and truly thrilled when we get past the awkward introductory stage and can all start living together. 

One thirty down and I have some thoughts…

It’s been just about a year since I made the conscious decision to get my weight down towards something that wouldn’t trigger such a serious lecture every time I walked into a doctor’s office. Realizing that I was, in fact, both destructible and well past the demographic definition of middle-age gave me a level of motivation I’d never had before. Score one for the motivating power of fear and self-preservation. 

In any case, dropping 130 pounds over the last year hasn’t exactly been an adventure. I’m agitated every day about the foods – and lifestyle – I had to give up in order to achieve what would be easy to assume was purely a vanity exercise. I won’t pretend I don’t have my vanities, but none of them have ever been tied to my appearance, which is probably for the best.

I’m sure when I wander back to my doctor for my next scheduled checkup, he’ll make all the appropriate approving noises. My most recent bloodwork came back with significantly marked improvements over its historic baseline. Even if we haven’t gotten to the root causes of what was causing my heart to ramp up to a sprint of its own accord, it’s hard to argue against my innards being healthier than they were a year ago. 

What no one mentioned as they encouraged me through this process, though, was all the minor annoyances that would accompany this process. I just did my second cull of the clothes hanging in my closet and came to the unhappy realization that I only have eight shirts and two pair of pants that fit now. The rest – some of my favorite shirts mind you – are now comically oversized on my new frame. 

I’m going to have to take some time during this little Independence Week vacation for clothes shopping. I spent time doing that already this spring. This means I’ve spent more time shopping for clothes in the last three months than I have in the last three years. In fact, it will probably account for more time than I’ve spent shopping in the last decade.

I used to know the brands I liked and the appropriate sizes. It was easy enough finding them online and reordering as needed. Now, every damned shirt is a roll of the dice. It’s an enormous pain in the ass and feels a little bit like adding insult to injury. Sure, I’ll do it because wandering around naked is frowned upon by western civilization (and winter is coming), but there’s no power in heaven or earth than can make me enjoy the process. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. Debate night. It’s once again debate night in America. Our two geriatric asshole candidates will go head-to-head for 90 minutes on CNN. Honestly, I’d rather gouge out my own eyes than watch Biden and Trump debate… again. I weep that these are the two paragons my country of 300 million souls has turned to in its hour of need. If, in fact, these two are the best and brightest we have available to captain the ship of state, maybe we should just accept that America’s long experiment in self-government is well and truly over.

2. Julian Assange. The guy is responsible for publishing metric tons of classified documents. He pled guilty to a single count and will serve no time in an America cell. I’m honestly in disbelief that the private jet carrying this shitbird home to Australia didn’t find itself the victim of a tragic midair accident while he was in transit. I can only hope that one quiet night in the not distant future, he will be visited by rough men prepared to do violence on behalf of their nation. His worthless hide should never have been allowed to enjoy a single day of liberty.

3. Time off. I’m about to start the second and last ultra-long summer weekend. That feels great. It also feels terrible in that the next long stretch of time off on the books for me won’t roll around until the end of the year. Oh sure, there will be plenty of one-off days scattered between here and there, but it still feels like a whole lot of time on the job stretching out between now and Christmas and that’s just a little depressing no matter how you shade it. 

It’s been a very strange year…

It’s just a few days shy of the one-year anniversary of experiencing the still unexplained tachycardia that started me down what feels like a very long and often unfulfilling series of medical appointments and major life changes. As June 28th looms larger on the horizon, I’m still not sure what to make of the experience. Maybe it’s not surprising to anyone else but learning that I am not actually indestructible came as something of an unwelcome surprise. 

I won’t say that I ever considered myself particularly healthy, but I always felt robust and strong as a bull moose. I rarely gave much thought to my physical limits. This experience has forced me to confront both human fragility and the illusion of invincibility I once held. Every medical appointment since has been a reminder of my body’s unpredictability, and despite numerous tests and consultations, the cause of my tachycardia remains elusive. This uncertainty has become a constant background noise in my life.

Each day carries a mix of hope and frustration, as I swing between optimism that the next appointment might bring answers and the annoyance of another inconclusive result. It’s a challenge to remain patient and positive when the path to wellness feels never-ending. Often, the struggle between my own ears is as or more problematic than the physical one.

As June 28th approaches, marking a year since this parade of fuckery, I find myself reflecting on the life changes that have accompanied it. Adjusting my lifestyle to accommodate both the knowns and the unknows has meant altering routines that felt as natural as breathing. From dietary changes and new exercise regimes to prioritizing rest and stress management, the shifts have been both major and minor but always impactful. The experience has reshaped my understanding of health and well-being and the surprisingly delicate balance required to maintain it. 

A year later I wish I had better answers than, “well, as long as the incidents aren’t recurring, keep doing what you’re doing.” Patience in the face of uncertainty has never been one of my strengths. This experience hasn’t improved that at all. As I gain some distance from the events that launched this ridiculousness, pondering on what it all means and what’s going to happen has receded to manageable proportions rather than filling a dominate place in my daily thoughts. That has gone a long way to letting me make the mental leap to getting back to what now passes for normal.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. Antwerpen Chrysler Jeep Dodge. Antwerpen is apparently the outfit that bought my Jeep after the nice people at Land Rover sent it to auction. They, in turn, sold it to someone named Kok Loeng. But somehow as far as the dealership and the MVA are concerned it’s still my email and physical mail address associated with the Jeep. I regularly get letters both electronic and physical. I guess it’s only a little absurd that they can’t sort it out. I advised them once but now they’re on their own. I’d like to say I’m surprised, but it feels pretty much in character for both a car dealership and the state government.

2. Smell. I was walking the halls at the office on Tuesday and was struck by a distinct smell that I always identify with hotel rooms at the beach. I think it’s some combination of a space being overly air conditioned, high humidity, and cleaning products. If I hadn’t known better, I could have said I was walking the halls at the Carousel thirty odd years ago. It’s a damned dirty trick for your mind to play when you’re standing in the dumb office being a trusted professional. 

3. Here we are on Thursday, trying to slip back into the week after a random holiday on Wednesday. I’m not a big fan of these floating holidays. Where they fall on most other points in the calendar, I fill in the blanks with some of my own vacation time to build out a nice long weekend. Since I’ve already done that in early June and will do it again in early July, burning off more vacation time between the two feels excessive. So, what we’re left with was basically a week that feels very much like it’s had two Mondays. If that’s not the sign of a having a bad time, I don’t know what would be.