Dwarf Planet in Purple

So ... what have I been doing with the rest of my life, the part that isn't constantly doomscrolling about politics?

(Doomscrolling ... another word that has entered the language in the past year or so.)

The boy toy and I are still in good health. Although neither of us has been tested for covid-19, I don't think we have it. Certainly we have had no symptoms. I have had a dry morning cough for years, long before the pandemic started, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is an early marker of heart failure, compounded by years of exposure to second-hand smoke. I am my mother's daughter.

(On both sides of my family, I have many more male relatives than female relatives. My mother's only sister drank herself to death at age 60. I'm 61.)

Julia the cat is in good health, too, although I should probably take her for a checkup, as she is getting up there in years.

We still haven't heard whether we will be getting Stove #3, so at some point I'll have to decide whether to pay to have Stove #2 repaired. But we are still eating well around here. On Sunday I baked a tourtiere -- French Canadian meat pie -- from the late Alex Trebek's recipe. I have no shortage of tourtiere recipes in my French Canadian cookbook -- it's one of those things that each family makes slightly differently. But Alex's recipe tasted awesome, and I'll certainly make it again.

On Thursday the 14th, the boy toy and I dared to travel to Delaware for a few hours. It was the first time I'd set foot outside Maryland since the last week of December 2019. We drove on I-95 as far as a certain rest stop so I could take the obligatory tourist photo.



Next, we drove around the University of Delaware campus, which reminded me somewhat of the campuses of the University of Maryland and UMass-Amherst. The opposite thing but the same thing, as one of my past housemates would have said. We ate lunch at a socially distanced Irish pub in Middletown before heading home.

Church is ... church. We have our Zoom-based services every Sunday morning. We are asking the UUA to consider us for a developmental ministry, in which we would spend several years trying to fix our problems.

The SCA is plugging along in virtual space. On the 9th we had Kingdom Twelfth Night; I need to finish writing that up for my "Lady Patricia of Trakai" blog. This coming weekend we have another "needles and fiber" weekend where we challenge each other to get a sewing or fiber-arts project done. Their Majesties will also hold a virtual court, streaming on YouTube.

Toastmasters is ... Toastmasters. Our local club has meetings on the same nights of the week as we did in the Before Times, and most of us have adapted pretty well to the Zoom life, I'd say.

All in all, I feel about as busy as I did before the pandemic. I'm just not burning as much gasoline to get there.

And I am THRILLED that we are down to the last 24 hours of the orange cheeto's administration! It's the Final Countdown!

Over and out.

1. I already wrote stuff about my Christmas-week trip to Massachusetts in my paper diary, so please pardon me for not rehashing it. I'm thankful for the people I did see and am sorry I didn't get to see more people. Schedules are always a bit tricky around the holidays. I'm just glad that I got to see people instead of interacting with them on Facebook. Not only had it been three years since I'd been to my native commonwealth, but also I hadn't visited with some friends for four or five years.

2. I am disgusted beyond words at the cruelty the Trump administration is inflicting on people -- unpaid federal employees and contractors, possibly food-stamp and Section 8 recipients, and who knows who else -- during this government shutdown. I have been living on the financial margins for eight years now, and I wouldn't inflict this on anybody, even for a month.

3. We're in the middle of a cold snap. Last night I wanted to see the total lunar eclipse, but I could stay out for only a few minutes at a time. (The last time I went out, I put my sweatpants on over my jeans.) I couldn't look at it through a window because the Moon was roughly straight overhead and my upstairs neighbors' balconies got in the way. It was really windy, too. I didn't think of looking up the temperature on my phone, but I sort of didn't want to know. (The lunar disc looked so three-dimensional during totality.)

4. Speaking of last night ... the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl yet again! But, geez, the latter part of that AFC championship game (fourth quarter and OT) were anxiety-inducing in the extreme. By the time the Pats actually won, I felt physically exhausted. Well, OK, maybe not as exhausted as the players, but still....

5. I should mention that I have started to work on a feature article that is due in mid-March.

And now, everyone who was born in a year beginning with 18 is dead. Since today is the day after what would have been my grandmother's 127th birthday, it seems appropriate somehow.

Today is also the fourth anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, right around the corner, practically, from the building where I rented a room in an apartment during the summer of 1979. I have the Netflix DVD of the Mark Wahlberg movie at home, but I don't think it's going to get watched this weekend, not with the new Doctor Who episode tonight.

Did you see that Super Bowl victory??? A whole decade later than the last one, but hey, I'll take it!

The boy toy and I stayed home, and he made cepelinai because today was "World Zep Day." Basically such things are big, meat-filled potato "zeppelins." It worked for me.

And now I need to focus on getting my freelance article done despite all the other recent distractions.....

Relive it here. And here.

Can't believe it's been 10 years since that fully-eclipsed-moon magical night when the Red Sox finally won the World Series.

The boy toy and I got home around 7 o'clock last night. Yes, it was a night for dance/music practice, but once I got past the threshold I did NOT want to cross it again. I drove a total of 1,172 miles in five days! Thus, I felt a powerful, overwhelming urge to be stationary for a while.

I know that it's a stereotype that cats shun their owners when the people come home from an extended trip. However, Julia ran to greet us at the door and let out a stream of vocalizations that could only mean in kitty language, "Where have you BEEN all this time? I *missed* you SO MUCH!" She came up to both of us for skritches and petting. When I flopped down on the bed and extended my right arm to stretch it out, Julia laid her body against my arm with her head perfectly positioned next to my hand for the neck skritching. Awwww....

Anyhow, we had mostly fabulous weather. One brief cloudburst in New Jersey on the way up, a few sprinkles in the morning on the way back ... otherwise, it was GORGEOUS weather: bright, sunny, ideal temperature, low humidity, nearly cloudless skies ... to me, that was EXACTLY how summer SHOULD be!! Gosh, I miss New England summers!!!

I will write more later, but I just wanted to drive home the point that one of New England's major supermarket chains and one of the supermarket companies here in the DMV (the new slang for DC/MD/VA) are EXACTLY the same:

Yesterday the boy toy and I went out for a celebratory brunch at Denny's, and later in the afternoon I ended up taking a short nap.

(OK, so it was part celebratory and partly because the boy toy wanted to try out the "Hobbit" menu. We both recommend the pumpkin pancakes.)

Seriously, I know that I haven't been commenting much about politics in this election cycle. Someone in my precarious financial situation is bound to be more focused on survival than someone who's observing from a more comfortable, stable spot. I think that comes straight out of something I learned in Psychology 101 or one of those other nearly forgotten "core courses" in college.

A few interesting links I've been reading over the last couple of days, some thanks to twistedchick and others I found on my own:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/11/why-republican-party-needs-ditch-happy-meal-conservatism-if-they-want-win

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/6593/the_great_religious_realignment

http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/sexandgender/6452/preaching_to_the_%E2%80%98moveable_middle%E2%80%99%3A_bishop_gene_robinson_on_marriage_equality_and_the_election

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/6594/the_speech_mitt_romney_never_gave

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-burnett/top-ten-reasons-romney-lost_b_2087664.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/republicans-face-murky-political-future-in-increasingly-diverse-us/2012/11/07/3b71e4f2-28e7-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/gay-marriage-republicans-should-move-on/2012/11/07/5eaf988c-28ed-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_blog.html

(If any of these links don't survive my cutting and pasting, please let me know and I'll fix them.)

Bottom line is that, even though I consider myself a liberal Democrat, I would be happy to see the Republicans ditch the wingnuts and become a more diverse, if still conservative, party. I don't think the one-party-only mentality is good for small-d democracy.

Reasonable people can debate the size of government, the priorities of government, how much money should be allocated to various priorities, etc. etc. etc. and hash out their differences and come to a reasonable compromise solution in the best interests of the country. Unreasonable people hurl gigantic flaming buckets of dog poo at their "enemies" (i.e., people who don't think exactly like them) and then expect the enemies to vote for them out of shock and awe.

In my humble opinion, the GOP needs to take the fringe jobs out to the woodpile for a talk (is that the right metaphor?). If the tea partiers are going to be that intransigent, then maybe it's time to make the tea party into a formal Tea Party and get their own ballot spot for their purists. Because most Americans don't share their raging anger.

It's human nature to react negatively to "my way or the highway" thinking. Heck, I react negatively to that no matter who is thinking that. In 1990, when John Silber got the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts, I voted for the moderate Republican candidate, William Weld. I'd seen Silber up close and personal during my BU days, saw his intellectual arrogance, and refused to help inflict his attitude on the general populace.

Will the Republicans go back to the days of (gasp) Reagan and his friendship with Tip O'Neill, or Ted Kennedy's friendship with Orrin Hatch? Probably not if Mitch McConnell (ugh) has his way. Maybe he's afraid of the tea partiers challenging him in the GOP primary in 2014. Sucks to be him, I guess.

Here's one last interesting essay directed to the "right wing fanatics who put party before country, conspiracy before reality, and ideology before science and intellect." If you continue to put party before country, don't expect the country to agree.

Not only did Massachusetts have 12 congressional seats during my formative years of 1963-1983, but it had 16 seats at the time both of my parents were born. Sixteen seats!!! And at the same time that Massachusetts had 16 seats, California had only eleven!!!!!

I wonder how the Massachusetts redistricting will play out next year. One observer already has his predictions.

Maryland and Virginia won't be gaining or losing any House seats this time around. The District, of course, doesn't get the dignity of full voting rights in the House.

Some of you who lived in Massachusetts, oh, about 20 years ago might recall a particularly draconian revenue-cutting referendum on the 1990 state election ballot. It was third on the ballot that year. I can't remember the specifics of that proposition, but I do remember the prediction that its enactment would triple UMass tuition -- and remember, I was a second-bachelor's-degree student back then, totally dependent on student loans and a couple of part-time jobs (one good, one shitty).

I was very, very touchy about the subject (and warned my friends to keep a certain loudmouthed libertarian woman from eastern Mass. away from me at NJAC). I was so worried that I wrote to my state representative at the time, who was a conservative Republican, but also a former teacher at my high school (and the father of one of my classmates). He actually phoned me at my mother's house to chat with me in a friendly way, though I don't think either of us changed the other's views.

Opponents of the revenue-slashing came up with a fabulous slogan -- "Question 3: It goes too far." The thing was voted down, UMass tuition didn't triple (although it went up some), I graduated, everything was fine.

Now comes the 2010 version, also named Question 3, proposing to cut the state sales tax by more than half. I don't live in the Bay State anymore, of course, and I don't vote there either. But I still care about UMass, and about the schools and other public services in my hometown, and I fear what will happen to them if this ill-thought-out thing passes.

From afar it's difficult to gauge whether there's an effective oppositional campaign geared up, but in today's climate I'm worried that reason will be drowned out. As Steven Pearlstein was writing today, "Does it taste like fruitcake, yet?"