Four long years of waiting have come down to four days of waiting to end our great national nightmare, the end of the Trump corruption of America.
If you haven't already voted, vote now.
Vote in person or if you have a mail in ballot, take that ballot to an authorized drop off box.
DO NOT TRUST THE POST OFFICE because Trump has corrupted the Post Office with the appointment of his political lackey Louis DeJoy.
Four very long years of the greatest danger our country has ever been in. I was going to say "in my lifetime" but actually the history of our country.
Trump and his Republican enablers and his racist cult followers (yes, they are all racists, let's not tiptoe around that obvious provable fact) in four years have almost destroyed what American stands for.
Their rampant corruption and racism has left a stench across our country that will take years to repair.
Trump has damaged relations with our allies that hopefully can be repaired when Joe Biden is elected president.
And worst, Donald Trump through his catastrophic failure of leadership in managing the COVID pandemic was resulted in the deaths of over 230,000 Americans. The blame lies at the door of Donald Trump and his Republican enablers. I don't blame his cult followers as much as I blame his Republican enablers because they knew better. They know and we know who they are and we will never forget them and their failure to fulfill their Constitutional oath of office to protect us. They have all failed and now we will hold them responsible for their cowardice and failure.
Finally, perhaps our great national nightmare will end with the election of Joe Biden as president.
I have to admit I'm nervous, concerned that Trump and his corrupt, unpatriotic Republican enablers will somehow muddy up the waters and steal the election like they did in 2016.
Both Bill and I have already voted by mail. First time in his life for Bill. Of course we both voted for Biden. The receipt of our votes have been confirmed.
Wow, what an exciting time to live. History is being made.
So much damage has been done by Trump and his traitorous Republican enablers and his racists (and yes, they are racists) MAGA cult followers.
Trump and Turtleman (Mitch McConnell) have succeeded in packing the courts with their ultra conservative lackeys. Those judges will repeal a woman's right to choose, health care for those with pre-existing conditions and same sex marriage. Sound like I'm exaggerating? Oh no, this is WHAT they WILL do.
So if you haven't already voted, go out and vote NOW.
Two weeks from today voting for the election of the president of the United States will end.
Hopefully, our great national nightmare will come to an end and Donald J. Trump will be soundly defeated.
Hopefully, Trump's Republican enablers in the Senate and the House will be voted out of power, never to hold power again for at least a generation. Those Republicans, by their cowardice and silence in the face of Trump's many crimes against the United States do not deserve to be in power ever again.
Four years ago on my birthday (November 9th), I was in Philadelphia during my annual visit with my good friend Pat and Don. I had expected to celebrate the election of the first woman president of the United States. Instead I was shocked to learn that Trump (and the Russians) had succeeded in stealing the election. I along with many other millions were in shock that Trump had actually won. Probably even more in shock was Trump that he actually won. He only ran for president as a branding opportunity but there it was, he and the Russians and his poorly informed base succeeded in putting this con man game show host failed businessman in office as the president of the United States.
In the past four years Trump has worked relentlessly to divide us as a country and to trash our alliances. He has made us less safe. His greatest crime is his catastrophic failure of leadership in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands have needlessly died because of Trump's vanity in not wearing a mask.
This time two weeks from now we may know who the next president of the United States is. As Bette Davis's character Margo Channing famously said in "All About Eve", "fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night."
Our backyard had a welcome visitor late this afternoon, a monarch butterfly. I read in today's local newspaper (which is published twice a week) that monarch butterflies were beginning to hatch in the Villages of Five Points butterfly garden. Lewes is only about two miles from our home and backyard. This monarch butterfly was probably from that garden. The article said "As cooler fall weather comes ito the area, monarchs begin their annual migration of thousands of miles to Florida and Mexico. The garden of midweek, a plant critical to the life of monarchs, is helping to repopulate this iconic species, which has been on the decline for several years Scientists say the population has fallen to less than 30,000 monarchs." Just think of the trip this monarch butterfly will make to Florida or Mexico. What a stroke of good luck that I happened upon this monarch just as I was taking one of my videos of our backyard. Maybe this is a sign.
It looks like I'm settling into blogging once a week or less. Caring for Bill is taking more of my time. I am still working two nights a week at the hotel (business is good) in addition to mowing our backyard at least once a week now. Which reminds me, it needs mowed.
We've already voted (by mail), Bill for the first time. Of course we voted for Biden and Harris. Hopefully we won't be surprised this election cycle like we were four years ago. Three weeks to go until Trump and his enablers are voted out of office. Can't happen soon enough and we get back to decency in this country.
Bill and I had another COVID test a couple weeks ago. We both tested negative. I don't know anyone who has the virus. We're still practicing safe measures. Bill doesn't go into the store with me now except Ace Hardware, and when we do go in we're masked up. I work behind a plexiglass shield at work and am also masked up although not all of the hotel guests are wearing masks. I offer them a mask but I don't get into any confrontations.
I won't be going to Philadelphia this year to met up with Pat. The border is still closed between the US and Canada. Next planned trip is February when we're scheduled to take our annual two week stay in Palm Springs California. Hopefully we'll be able to make that trip. This will be a year since I've been with Pat in person, although we do talk every day on FaceTime. I miss our get togethers but we're both saving a lot of money. More money saved for future trips. I already have over $1,500 in airline ticket credits, which they say is good until the end of 2021. Will this pandemic be over by then? I doubt it. I don't think life will get back to anything approaching normal until well into 2022. Yes, not until 2022. Hope I'm alive then. One thing for sure, I'll be OLD (80).
One blog post I've been thinking about writing is all the recollections I'm having of past episodes of my long and wonderful and interesting life. I haven't written my memoirs yet and probably never will but I think I will post some of those life vignettes. I'm finding these memories release very pleasant endorphins from my brain or in others words, remembering make me feel good.
Some of these memories I've written before in previous blog posts but many I have not. Some of the memories aren't pleasant but part of my growing up. Of course all this comes down to answering the basic Question of Life. Why are we here? I think I know why. I think we're here to contribute to the betterment of life by giving. Yes, giving, not taking. I know that's where I get my greatest sense of satisfaction. Now that I am Bill's caregiver, I feel fortunate to do so. I cannot imagine where Bill would be in life now if I wasn't here. That may sound self-serving but it's not. I can imagine where I would be in life if Bill hadn't entered my life. Probably a big mess, if I was still alive. Too many times I choose the wrong path in life and when I realized I did, Bill was there to back me up. Not everyone would do that. Bill would and did.
These days I take Bill out for at least one ride a day. Somedays we go out for two rides. Will Bill's failing vision he so appreciates seeing the different colors and scenes. I reminded Bill this morning that for the first sixteen years of our relationship I didn't drive. I didn't even have a car. I didn't take up driving until we moved to Downingtown, Pennsylvania from center city Philadelphia in 1980. Then I had to get a car. For many years we both had vehicles. About six years ago Bill got rid of his twenty-five year old Jeep. I've been driving ever since, a complete role reversal.
That monarch butterfly that I by chance happened upon in our backyard today has a long journey ahead of him (or her). For Bill and I, our long journey (of life) is about to end. It's been some life folks. What a trip.
This morning at 9 AM we had an appointment to get our second COVID test at Parking Lot A at the Sussex Technical College in Georgetown. I was unsure where this location was because Sussex Tech has a sprawling campus right off the very busy intersection of Rt. 113 and Rt. 9, two of the busiest highways here in our little state of Delaware.
Of course when I drove our ten year old red Subaru Forester into the parking lot, a horn beeped right away. Apparently we were in the wrong parking lot. Of course. Highway workers were in this parking lot painting new lines while they stood around in groups of half a dozen or so talking.
After some inquiries I found the parking lot where the tests would be administered. Members of the local National Guard were setting up canopied tents with boxes of medical equipment. They all looked quite attractive in their green camouflaged cargo pants. I was directed to line up my car next to several cars who had arrived earlier than we did. Obviously they knew where they were going.
Like the Delaware DMV, they were quite organized. Yesterday we got our annual flu shots (in the rain) under similar circumstances at the CHEER center in Milton.
This was to be our second COVID test. Our previous one was a swab stuck up our nose (that was fun, try it). This test would be a swab of our saliva in our mouth that we had to administer ourselves, put in a container and toss in a green barrel on the way out.
That was our activity in the morning. In the afternoon was Bill's annual visit at the VA with his new doctor to review the results of his labs from a blood test he took last week. Yes, another new doctor. This time a nurse practitioner. She was nice but new to Bill. The VA has a too fast turnover of doctors and nurse practitioners.
Bill is in good health. As I often tell him, he will outlive us all. In fact, his nurse practitioner has to double check his labs because she couldn't believe at 92 years old, Bill had such good labs.
Bill is slowing down though. Hard of hearing and legally blind now because of his macular degeneration. Now he has trouble getting up from his chair. Easily confused. Uses the wrong words more often. Forgetful. Getting older.
Because Bill's appointment at one o'clock, I didn't get my daily nap in before I went to work at the hotel. I'm slowing down.
Tomorrow I mow the grass. Then I relax for the weekend or at least try to relax as I worry about the Criminal in the White House and his Republican enablers try to steal the election. I won't be right until Trump is defeated and removed from the White House and Mitch McTurtle loses his Senate Majority leadership position in the U. S. Senate. I'm still stunned that over forty percent of this country are firmly in the Trump cult. What is the matter with these people? Surely it has to be more than that they're just racists (which they are). How anybody can continue to support that thug, lying con man. One of the great mysteries of our time.
I'll clear my mind when I mow our grass tomorrow.
UPDATE: Trump is in the hospital after being tested positive for the COVID coronavirus. We received Bill's test results back, he's negative I haven't received my results back yet. Of course I am worried now. Am I next? I haven't been feeling the best lately and I am exposed to all those hotel guests. Worrying time now folks.
On this beautiful first day of autumn here in southern Delaware I mowed the grass.
I love mowing our grass. This used to be Bill's job since we moved to Delaware from our home in Pennsylvania. Bill always mowed the grass in Pennsylvania and continued doing so here in our lovely Delaware home. However, this year I had to take over the grass mowing job because Bill is no longer able to do it.
Bill can't even use my iPhone to take photos or videos of me. I have to get it started and then hand him the iPhone. But I did want to get a video of me mowing the grass on our John Deere zero degree turn tractor. If for nothing else just to prove how I am able to perform such a butch chore. Yes, I'm the homemaker in our relationship. I do the landscaping and take care of the financial responsibilities of maintaining our fantastic home here in southern Delaware. But now I really have to butch things up by taking over many of Bill's responsibilities here around our home. He was surprised when I installed a hand grip on the wall leading to our garage from our kitchen door. Yes, I did that much to Bill's amazement. Granted I still have a mirror to hang on the wall in our bonus room upstairs. I just bought a stud finder to help me with that job. I can't do Bill's electrical jobs though. Bill really can't either now that his eyesight is failing and he gets easily confused.
I'm sure some of you have noticed that I seem hunched over. That's my arthritis that is getting progressively worse. About twenty years ago I noticed that I couldn't stand up straight. Over the years I've become more and more hunched and stiff. A few years ago when I was shown X-rays my orthopedic doctor had taken of me during my torn quadricep ordeal, he showed me the arthritic buildup at the base of my neck, spine and hands. Yes folks, I'm OLD. It isn't going to get any better. But I'm going to keep moving on, hunched over or not. I still have a few days left. And if they're like today, just a perfect fall day, I will consider myself very lucky indeed.
Today is the tenth anniversary of my Mother's death. I didn't realize this until I hung up the phone on my younger brother who was screaming at me "You're a fucking Democrat!"
How did this happen? I called my brother to inquire about our other brother who is gravely ill. While I was on the phone with him I asked if his granddaughter had another child. I am updating my will and I wanted to included all my nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews. He told me that she got divorced from her husband and is now sporting a nose ring and dating a black guy. However he didn't call her new date "a black guy." Yes, my brother is a racist and a Trumper. And he has a temper. A scary temper. He said she was just like her mother who had an affair with a black guy which resulted in the divorce. I saw where this conversation was going so I said "I don't want to talk about this." We've had some awful rows in the past because of our differing political views and I just didn't want to talk about it.
Next thing I know he's saying "You know George Floyd killed himself." I told him "No, I saw the video and a cop killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for eight minutes and forty-two seconds." Then he said "You didn't see the video of what happened before." Oh, here we go, the old cop excuse "You didn't see what happened before." Yes, my brother is totally in the Fox News Bubble.
I told him "I saw a cop kill George Floyd by kneeling on his neck until he died" and I don't want to talk about this anymore. That's when he screamed at me 'YOU'RE A FUCKING DEMOCRAT!" Yes folks, that is my brother. For years I had to put up with his usual greeting to me when Clinton president "Clinton the Rapist." I usually ignored him but sometimes I just had enough and came back at him. We have had some scary rows. One of the reasons I was glad I moved from our home in Pennsylvania was because of his hateful attitude. He's actually scary as are most Trump supporters.
This incident comes on the heels of me just recovering from my first ever case of hives. Yes, I had painful and ugly hives on the back of my hands and lower arms and upper chest. I thought I had an attack of psoriasis. Last week I saw my dermatologist. She gave me a steroid prescription to alleviate the itchiness.
What brought my hives on? Bill has been slipping more lately. My goal now is to make Bill's life as comfortable as possible even as he becomes more confused. More than once he's trying to put on his outside shoes on while he still has on his inside moccasins on. A couple of weeks ago he came into my bedroom because he couldn't figure out how to turn off the microwave. Why is he coming into my bedroom at 12:30 AM? Yes, I go to bed late. Bill gets up then to have his breakfast. Yes, he gets up in the middle of the night to microwave a bowl of oatmeal. This night he couldn't figure out how to turn off the microwave. I came out and turned off the VENT fan, which is what he was hitting and hit the OFF button. Then he said "You can go home Bob." I said "I'm not Bob." He said it again. I went back to bed. The next morning he asked "Why was Bob (our neighbor) in your bedroom last night?" I said "What?You thought I was Bob?" I told him Bob wasn't in my bedroom, that was me. He couldn't believe me. He said "I was wondering why Bob was in your bed reading a book." This is my life now folks.
I'm not complaining, just stating the challenges facing me now. I'm very concerned about the Criminal in the White House and his Congressional Republican enablers (remember their names). I'm not so concerned about the Trump Cult, they're lost. They will never change no matter how many times Trump brags about grabbing a woman's pussy, calling our fallen soldiers "losers and suckers", and the greatest monumental catastrophic failure of leadership in our country ever, the almost two hundred thousands deaths of the COVID virus. Now the Trump Team and his Roy Cohn Attorney General William Barr and his criminal Post Master General Louis DeJoy are trying to cheat to win the election.
The video above of Bill walking through our backyard a few days ago is what I try to take in these days to balance all this anxiety that is in the world. I often tell myself things could be a lot worse, I could have a beautiful home that is burned to the ground in the California wildfires. I could have COVID and be on a ventilator, fighting for my life. I could have a fatal illness like my other brother and only months to live. Putting things in perspective, I actually have it pretty good.
A ray of sunshine came into my life last week. One of Bill's nieces found me (called my work number) and was inquiring about Bill. Bill hasn't had contact with his family for fifty-six years ever since his sister said "We know all about you" at their mother's funeral in 1963. What she was referring to was that Bill's mother discovered Bill was gay shortly before her death from a brain aneurism. That was when Bill cut ties with his family, which is what I am doing now. I am cutting ties with my Trump cult brother. This is an action long overdue. I'm tired of tiptoeing around him fearing of setting him off like I did today just because I'm not a Trump cultist like he is. Sad but a necessary step to take if I am to keep myself calm at this time of my life.
My hives has mostly gone. I don't want them back nor anything worse. This country has to get through the election and we all know this is going to get worse before our lives get better.
Some people go to therapy, others do what I do. Try to find a path which helps me maintain my calm while dealing with every day challenges. My backyard (which I love) and caring for Bill does that. Also blogging, which is the best therapy for me.
Peace and calm folks.
The above photo is of Bill with his niece and a neighbor boy - taken in 1963 in Toccoa Georgia
