Thursday's Meanderings

 A Little About me

I'm way too busy. but the more I put on my schedule the more I get done. Today, I had a 1-1/2 hour ZOOM class - the second of two sessions on Eleanor and Franklin (Roosevelt). Very interesting- great teachers, new to me, and lots of familiar faces who keep turning up in the various classes I take. Tomorrow, I have a Reading the New Yorker ZOOM class and an afternoon Friday with Friends session. Also tomorrow, I lead the Atria Writer's Workshop. Having nothing fresh to read, I may just read this blog post.

I decided to go back to posting on Facebook, but exclusively political opposition posts. We'll see what Facebook's algorithms make of that. Posts from a very right wing "Bill Blair" (no one I know) keep showing up in my feed. I wonder if FB is proselytizing, trying to convert me.

The pants hemming activity seems to be picking up, there are a couple more "customers" waiting in the wings.

Today's News Made Political:

Last night an Army helicopter crashed into an American Airlines Regional Jet. Three soldiers were in the copter and 60 people in the plane. They crashed midair as the AA plane was on final approach over the Potomac. The wreckage and the people all landed in the nearly freezing cold river. No survivors and many American figure skaters and their teachers, a married couple, immigrants from Russia.

Today Trump blamed DEI enforcement policies for the crash - implying that maybe the pilots or the air traffic controllers were hired to comply with DEI policy rather than because they were qualified and competent. You have to realize, he knew nothing about the identities of the people he's vilifying- just a crazy wild-assed assumption - he had to find blame that would support his hate and rage-filled paradigm. 

Assisted Living Life:

I have found my tribe here and call several people "friend". Theses friendships are fragile because we all recognize we are in the winter of our lives. Yet, we come to trust, care for, laugh with, confide in, and seek out each other's company. My circle is formed around the people I play bridge with and those who share my love of reading and writing. We all admit that there is no place we would rather live at this point in our lives, yet one of our common bonds is our shared complaints about the facility. In an earlier post, I've mentioned our gripes about the dining room and our plan of attack.

Today's issue is the barking dog on our hallway. The resident next to me has a little dog that barks constantly when she is not in her apartment. It is quite an annoyance. I hate to complain about this because I know the dog gives her comfort, but it is clearly miserable. So, I helped draft another letter asking our acting executive director, who is a regional vice president, to address the problem. I don't want the role of complainer-in-chief, but doing nothing except to grumble in our beards is pointless. So, I drafted another letter, hoping it will go out over someone else's signature.

Bridge

Bridge as we play it deserves its own special heading. In Thursday's bridge, the big news is that I bid and made a grand slam - 7 no Trump (I wish!). I think this is a lifetime first 7NT slam for me. The rest of the game was our usual slapstick routine. The first hand of the day was dealt and came up one card short. Because we keep doing the same silly things over and over again, we each counted our cards. Everyone had 13 cards except the dealer who had 12. We looked on the floor and then we looked to the third most common explanation, a card left in its box, but it was a red card, and we were playing with a blue deck (some would doubt we ever played with a full deck). Looking in all the boxes, we found the missing blue card. We played for a while until one player had only two cards left while all the others had four. The missing two turned up under the chair of the player. This happens frequently and we usually can patch together what the play would have been, but this time it was just hopelessly confusing. We do need to make a video of outtakes of all the feeble ways we play. But the important thing is we don't take ourselves seriously (except in the matter of 7NT Grand Slams), we prop each other up and laugh at ourselves.

A Little About Me

A busy and satisfying day. I started at 7am by phone banking with Indivisible Yolo. Indivisible is getting quite a bit of traction nationally. I will become more connected to them. They seem to be a good, well-organized opposition organization. 

Then, I had my first customer in my pants shortening mission. Because I spend most of my time in a wheel chair I see most people from the vantage point of a very short person and thus, I can see how many of the residents here on the farm need to have their pants shortened. And it turns out I enjoy shortening pants! It gives me a silly feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction to offer this service for free and it gives me subtle access to try to move them to political action.

Then, I had three hours of my OLLI memoir class, followed by dinner with my bridge buddies. Finally, at 7:00 I went to a Board meeting of the Residents Association where I presented and defended my proposal to an Atria Vice President for improvements to our dining experience. It was enthusiastically received and approved. It will now go forward the the VP at an in-person meeting on February 4 and it will be mailed to the Ombudsman, Randy Dinning. (Dining/Dinning, HA!)

And now at nearly 11 o'clock, I'm trying to get a post together.

Family:

In family news, Valery will be performing with her tai chi group in April. They will do a routine that involves movement with canes and she has chosen to Grandma's (GG's) cane. I think that is so lovely!

And Sam (not quite family) has received one of Trump's buy-out offers. He says if he could trust it, he would sign today. He is currently in Islamabad and his family is in McKinleyville.

Politics:

I called Senators Schiff, Padilla, and Representative Thompson today to block confirmation of Patel, Kennedy, and Gabbard and to thank Thompson for opposing Laken- Riley even though it passed, And I passed out 10 scripts to get other folks to call as well.

I also wrote a half dozen scripts on hot political issues for post card advocacy writing at church this past Sunday. The local Presbyterian church will also write post cards using my scripts. 

Tomorrow Confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy for Secretary of Health and Human Services comes before the Senate. He is a nutcase and conspiracy theorist with racist leanings. If confirmed he would head NIH, CDC, FDDA, Medicare and Medicaid. He is an anti-vaxxer who is personally responsible for more than 200 child deaths from measles in Samoa, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard are also up for approval this week. All would be disaster!

And he fired all the inspectors general - the watchdogs of Federal agencies. Of course he did.

Today was totally nuts in Trumplalaland. He declared all federal funding related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal funds. Never thinking he was cutting off funds for Federal programs including all foreign aid, all grants including Pell grants, Medicaid, Headstart, Veteran Suicide, infrastructure building, etc. Chaos reined and rained and reigned. He would probably lose at least 40% of his base by such action. 

He offered 2,000,000 Federal workers incentives to resign. He hasn't rescinded that yet.

Lest we forget - here are the folks Trump has pardoned.

https://open.substack.com/pub/adamkinzinger/p/revisiting-january-6th-the-truth?r=act5e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/democrats-lost-border-debate-immigration-trump-miller?r=epscg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Life on the "Farm"

Family life

#1 Grandson Tom turned 40 yesterday. For his 0th birthday, I remember buying him the newest novelty toy, the Teddy Ruxpin "talking" bear. I paid $50 for it. 

Today Tom is working in a job I cannot describe, but it has something to do with building and energy efficiency and compliance with government regulations, as near as I can tell. He researches, and writes papers, and presents them, I think. It's all very wonky, but he loves it and seems to be good at it. 

Assisted Living Life

I'm busy. Recently I posted a sign on the bulletin board in the mailroom saying that I would hem pants for free. Not long ago I bought a couple of pair of pants that needed hemming, and I discovered that I actually enjoyed doing it and that it was very simple. I got pleasure out of taking something that was frustrating to me and turning it into something that gave me great satisfaction. So I decided I would offer to shorten pants for anyone who wanted them. So far, only one person has showed up.

I'm enrolled in a bunch of OLLI (Oscher Lifelong Learning Institute) classes from UC Davis. I've been doing this for three quarters now and really like it. They are virtual classes on ZOOM with about 15 people in each class. Apparently, OLLI junkies (like me) turn up quarter after quarter in several classes. This time I'm taking classes on the Ocean, on AI, on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, on reading the New Yorker, and a memoir class. I love making connections in the larger Davis community with bright and stimulating people from outside Atria. 

Friday afternoons, I lead a writing workshop here within Atria. An essay I wrote has evolved into a project to improve food and conditions in the dining room. The food quality has deteriorated precipitously, and little accommodation is mad for low-sodium diets. Acoustics in the dining room are so bad that dinner table conversation is nearly impossible because some idiot painted over the acoustic ceiling tiles making them reflect rather than absorb sound. My essay about these conditions was so well received that we formed a committee to formally approach executive regional management. We seem to have been heard and I expect some action soon.

Tomorrow afternoon I will play bridge. A group ranging from 4 to 8 players meet three times a week. The games can only loosely be called bridge. We make so many allowances for our various enfeeblements that Charles Goren would surely not recognize the game. Some can't see and mix up the suits, some can't hear, some have memory issues and can never remember what trump is, what's the bid, whose lead it is, and what has been played, some with shaky hands frequently drop their cards and few retain the dexterity to pick them up. But we tolerate and compensate for each other and still manage to have a good time. 

Political Notes

Mariann Edgar Budde

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Cathedral during the National Prayer Service attended by Trump, Vance, and their wives directly addressed the President and asked him to "have mercy on the people in our country who are scared right now." She mentioned immigrants and LGBTQIA. He later vilified her on Truth Social. Maybe she is our latter day MLK. She Shall Overcome.

Tuesday morning, I participated in a phone bank coordinated by Indivisible Yolo. I called Senators Padilla and Schiff as well as congressman Thompson to ask them to oppose cabinet appointments of Patel, Hegseth, Vught, and Noem. Not included was Bondi whom I can't stand simply for her steadfast refusal to say that Biden won the 2020 election.

 Trump pulled out of WHO and Paris Climate Accords.

 Around 10,000 refugees have had their flights cancelled after Trump signed an executive order suspending their entry.

The felon-in-chief rescinded Biden's executive order 14087 lowering the prices on several drugs.

Vivek Ramaswamy axed from "department of government efficiency" by Musk. VR went back to Ohio with his tail between his legs ostensibly to prep for a run for governor of Ohio.

#47 signed an unconstitutional executive order that aims to deny birthright citizenship to certain children born in the United States.

Oligarchs are buying up DC property.

All federal DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) staff put on paid leave and all government publications and websites were ordered to remove all mention of DEI.

January 20, a Day That Shall Live in Infamy

 I'm no longer active on Facebook as of today. Because I want to stay in touch with friends and family far and wide, I'm resurrecting my blog. Please feel free to comment if you wish to send me a message.

I love this photo of Melania's wide-brimmed hat keeping her repulsive husband from closing in for a kiss.

In other revolting news: The felon-in-chief has already started swinging his wrecking ball. He has pardoned nearly all of the 1,600 incarcerated January insurrectionists. He withdrew from the Paris climate accords. He declared a National Emergency at the Southern border allowing him to unlock federal funding for the wall and deploy the National Guard and military. And pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords.Then there is the cryptocurrency meme coin scam he and Melania launched on January 18. There's more, so much more, transgender, immigrants, women's rights, immigrants, the environment
all under attack. You read it in the news, saw it on TV, found it on your phone, I'm just making these notes to remind me.

On to happier notes - yesterday was a wonderful day celebrating Logan's birthday at Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay. Valery, Ben, Logan and I feasted and enjoyed the nippy sea air. I loved getting to spend time with these wonderful people.

We saw this goofy motorcycle in a Half Moon Bay parking lot where surfers hang out. I think it is supposed to be a snail, or maybe a slug. Half Moon Bay is really surfer city because of Mavericks, the bodacious surfer site. Our waitress told a record was broken last week when a surfer conquered a 100-foot wave.

Do you all know I have moved into Atria Covell Gardens Assisted Living? For the most part I'm very happy there. I have many new interesting friends and have found much of interest in the Davis community outside the facility. I enjoy playing bridge with an assortment of friends with various limitations (I also have some) which makes for a rather unique and often hilarious version of bridge which I'm sure has Charles Goren churning in his grave. I will be sharing some of these moments as time goes by. I'm involved with some local political stuff, attend the Davis United Methodist Church and serve on their Social Justice committee. I take several OLLI classes from UC Davis and have made new friends through that connection. More details on all that in subsequent posts. 

I'm going to sign off for tonight but will be back soon to do further political venting and to stay in touch with all of you.