Sunday, November 20th marked the 80th birthday of Joe Biden, the extremely oldest man to ever hold the office of president of the United States. Mr. Biden celebrated the occasion by sucking his wife's fingers, wandering aimlessly through the White House halls, then having an ice cream cake as balloons cascaded down on him. Balloons that had filled themselves to the bursting point thanks to inflation.
And although I personally loathe the news these days, it's hard to ignore the fact that there has been a bunch of it lately - all of which I'm perfectly happy to be unclear on.
One notable item is that Nancy Pelosi is stepping down from her Democrat leadership position in the House of Representatives, a role which she has held since the mid-Pleistocene Era. She is vacating her leadership responsibilities in order to spend more time with her family and definitely not in order to hire a less inept hammer-wielder than the one who klonked her husband on the noggin, nearly causing her to inherit the millions of dollars he's made through her illicit stock tips.
On a barely related note, I've been playing with some of the new Artificial Intelligence art generators because that keeps me off the streets and away from a life of crime (it's too cold to sell magazines door to door). So if you were wondering what AI thinks a Norman Rockwell portrait of Nancy enjoying Thanksgiving with her very, very, very diverse group of friends would look like, here you go...
Also in the news (as far as I can tell from cultural osmosis), a major cryptocurrency, FTX, went bust making roughly gazillions of dollars disappear in a digital "poof!" This sudden poofery revealed a funny little scheme that went like this: Democrats sent billions of our tax dollars to Ukraine for "defense" (wink-wink, nudge-nudge). Ukraine then "invested" much of that money in FTX, making FTX's owner stinkingly rich. He, in turn, gave a significant part of this newfound fortune back to the Democrats (his donations were second only to those of George Soros) to help them defeat Republicans in the midterm elections. In other words, it was the traditional Washington circle-jerk kickback scheme but on an especially large and obvious scale.
Donald Trump announced that he was running for President again, because our national drug trip still appears to be a long way from over. Simultaneously, Merrick "I was told I'd get a robe" Garland has appointed a special investigator or prosecutor or interrogator or Witchfinder General or someone to persecute Donald Trump yet again. The media, and I use the term with revulsion and disdain, is absolutely sure that Trump will soon be indicted for his role in planning the nuclear explosion that leveled Washington DC on January 6th, killing millions and incinerating the paper records which tied Democrats to ownership stakes in FTX. Or maybe he'll be indicted for "using locker room language while not in a locker room," which has been unanimously ruled to be unprotected speech by the ladies of "The View."
Meanwhile, Thanksgiving is coming up on Thursday and I will be especially thankful once it's over. The holidays will be sheer torture for Daughter J and me this year. Kathy was the one who made the holiday magic around here and there's no "plan B." That being said, I'm nervously looking forward to doing Thanksgiving - for the first time since Covid hit - with my brother-in-law and his family. This will be the first time I've seen some of the family in years, as well as my first sit-down dinner with others while not wearing an N95 mask. And mind you, I DO wear an N95 in other public settings, but damn it - family is family. It is likely to be emotional.
I'll almost certainly not be posting again before Thanksgiving, so let me wish everyone the very best of meals, family, friends, and the spiritually nutritive practice of giving thanks.
After finishing this blog post, I need to dive back into working on the book project I've spoken about because it's really getting down to crunch time (I've promised copies to members of my grief support group on December 12th!) and time flies when night falls hours before you expect it to. But in the interim, here's a little sneak preview of the unfinished cover...
I'm looking forward to sharing the whole book (and Kathy's sense of humor) with you soon!
