golden corral

The OB&C and MJE, like human glaciers are inexorably crumbling toward our “past due” dates. As my readers may remember, we have a home in Ancient Oaks, a community for overactive seniors. It’s located in the “low country” of the usa, which means most of it is below sea level and will be under water within a few years, but what do we care, we’ll be even further below sea level by then. AO offers every sort of activity or “amenity” that anyone of any age could want. MJE eschews participation in organized activities unless I am the one doing the organizing. In point of fact, I find sitting inside by myself, drinking a nice white bourdeaux, with the occasional interruption by the OB&C to be the perfect day. MJE is obviously a rather unsophisticated elderly person, as I always thought of amenities as the little bottles of shampoo and body lotion you swipe from a hotel, but it is apparently a far broader category than I imagined, and a very big deal when hawking an old folks place.

The OB&C’s younger brother jank and his wife marmalade have just chosen their very own final nesting place, in a cob webb planned community in cheese whiz, texas. It is promoted as a 55+ colony, although plus what is left to the imagination of the buyer. They want to have a place closer to their son jank jr. and their first grandchild, lil janky. Jank jr.’s wife, gelatina, has all the trademark traits of a fertile brood mare and is in fact about to deliver another foal. They’ll have a barnful of young uns on their hands before long, yee haw.

Jank and marmalade’s new homestead is in a planned codger town called echo chambers creek which, according to their promotional materials is both active and “amenitized,” which I didn’t know was a verb, but offers “resort style” amenities and a full time “lifestyle coordinator.” It seems to me that by the time you are 55+ you already have a pretty good idea about what your lifestyle is, but for those who have resisted committing, there is someone there to decide for you. Among the resort style amenities, there is a nine hole golf course (half a golf course does not scream resort to me, but it’s probably plenty for the average +), a marina on a lagoon, a vineyard of their exclusive “crimson cobernet” grapes, a dog park, lots of safely paved trails that are easily maneuvered with a walker, an electric jitney or a golf cart, and of course pickle ball courts to literally die for.

Echo chambers creek makes most of your important decisions for you so that you can just sit back and enjoy your internment. It limits the housing designs to five approved layouts in either their “scenic series”, or the “distinctive series”: Alpine, which is counter intuitive since it sits in the hottest and flattest landscape imaginable, Pulmonary, an excellent choice for those who require supplemental oxygen, Hallmark, for the romantics among us, Compass, for those who have difficulty remembering where they live and finally Prestige, for those who haven’t quite given up on the notion that they are richer and more successful than their neighbors 20′ away. Jank and marmalade chose a model called ‘deadly nightshade’, so named for the somewhat limited protection from the oppressive heat and scalding sun provided by the three 20′ ilex vomitoria, colloquially known as yaupon, or cheap junk trees gracing the lot line.

The layout of the housing plan is a dizzying series of winding streets with names like vista ridge court, which like Alpine is flat as a pancake and the nearest ridge is in arkansas, and monarch cove, which must be the high rent district where the Prestige homes are located but is miles from the nearest quazi-natural body of water, also in arkansas, all ending in inescapable cul de sacs. Residents are provided with residence locator devices, part of the resort style amenities package no doubt, otherwise god knows who would end up where and with whom…in fact statistics show the highest incidence of std’s is in retirement facilities! Geezers gone wild.

I am impressed by the number of ways that echo chambers creek promoters have been able to reduce unwanted input from future homeowners. They offer for sale all of the furniture in their model homes to simplify any personal decorating decisions one may foolishly consider making. They also offer their own mortgage options, as “completing mortgage applications can be confusing”. They highly encourage virtual home buying, however should you insist on actually being present, they do offer four opportunities to do so: 1. an introduction to your construction manager, 2. a pre-closing tour of your prospective new home, 3. a pre-drywall walk through and 4. CELEBRATION! after your home is complete and before it starts to fall apart. Does anyone really need anything more? Cob webb suggests not, having decades of experience throwing up ticky tack houses in record time, without the unwelcome and costly interruptions of prospective residents.

Jank proudly pointed out that is is a gated community, which might be impressive to elderly bougies who just fell off the turnip truck but not to the connoisseur codgers among us. Gates do not even begin to cut the artisanal dijon mustard these days. True upscale communities require far more elaborate and impressive security measures. Moats are now la mode, alligators are an optional upgrade, but truth be told they are a must to attract the discerning senior prospect.

duck!

“Living in the moment”, first cousin once removed of meditation is another one of those notions I don’t fully buy. Live in the moment just a tad too long and you could get hit by a bus. That said, there have been a few times when I truly did live in the moment, like it or not.

The OB&C is a dedicated duck hunter and back in the day, once a season he would drag me out to experience the thrill of getting up at 2am, dressing for the antarctic in camo, loading up the truck, driving an hour to god knows where downriver from new orleans, hauling the skiff out of the boat shed, loading it up with a bag of decoys large enough to make santa’s sack look like a kelly bag, one very excited retriever, several guns, a shell bucket and enough shotgun shells to decimate every duck in the central flyway, paddles, a thermos of something to take the chill off (preferably 90 proof), life preservers (although frankly if I fell into that water, life preserver or not, I’d expire tout de suite from hypothermia and sheer terror), then jockeying for position at the launch, getting the thing into the water, and very slowly motoring through the marsh in total darkness in a dinky boat equipped with a motor called a go devil that looks like something a blind person assembled in his garage. After about half an hour, frozen to near death, we then pull into a clump of marsh grass wherein lies the duck blind. Depending on the tide, the wind or the weather, it’s either a few inches under water or a foot or more. Here we disembark, unload the gear onto whatever area is driest, if any. I am tasked with arranging the gear, guns, wet dog, etc. in the blind while the OB&C heads out to set the decoys. Sunrise is not to be seen. He returns, hides the boat and as the poem says, “we sit and shake and shiver waiting for the flight to start.” Well I’ll tell you one thing I was definitely living in every single one of those goddam moments.

And if the flight should appear, we crouch down hoping the the decoys lure them in and they set their wings and he blasts away. Our retriever is whimpering in anticipation, and at the signal, marks the location of the downed duck and launches into the water, living her best day ever. I, on the other hand, am slumped in a corner of the blind, certain that today of all days, dawn will never fully break and I will end my life, sodden, in unattractive and ill-fitting camouflage, clutching a thermos of everclear.

But back in the heyday of gentlemen’s hunting in louisiana, the OB&C’s father would take us to one of several exclusive hunting clubs around the marshes of south louisiana to which he was invited. He was an exceptionally charming man, an academic dean beloved by both the wealthy and the hoi polloi. At the time I really did not fully appreciate the experience. I had never hunted ducks and assumed that a well appointed camp, and a staff of servers, cooks and guides were de rigueur. What a fool I was, what a silly little fool. We were ferried to the camp the night before the hunt, where we were assigned bedrooms and given time to “dress” for dinner. After dinner was a poker game, and I stayed and played with our host and the other guests. I think they were somewhat surprised to see a very young woman in their midst, but it has been my experience that there’s nothing more old horndogs enjoy than a feisty young woman in the mix, especially one who knows nothing about poker and needs a good bit of “hands on” instruction.

Come time to hunt, we were awakened by a servant with demitasse cups of black coffee and chicory and assigned our boats and guides. We were then transported to our blinds where the decoys had been set out and once we were settled, the guide called in the ducks. After we shot our limit we were carted back to the club house where a beautiful breakfast was served. As we left we were given a sack of plucked and cleaned ducks. Honey chile, if mama’s gonna hunt ducks that’s how I want to do it.

Ah, those were the glory days, but little did we know it. Ducks may not be the brightest creatures on earth but they know enough that if it’s like miami beach in manitoba they don’t need to fly a thousand miles south to stay warm. Now no matter the level of genteel extravagance of the hunting clubs, they ain’t no ducks. The washing away of the marsh and the changing salinity of the water from saltwater diversion canals and hurricanes has made south louisiana a less than desirable destination for both ducks and duck hunters.

Addendum: south louisianians have their own names for various duck species: french duck, black duck, smiling mallard, d’eau gris, grey duck, and poule d’eau…hunters out there, you figure it out.

woo hoo houthis

I don’t know about you but I am having a hard time keeping all of the terrorist groups straight. First off, is it a rule in the terrorist handbook that if you decide to start a new terrorist group, or an off shoot of an existing one, that the name has to begin with an h? It seems like a pretty petty rule plus it makes all of us non terrorists get you all mixed up.

I get hamas, it was first out of the box with its invasion of israel, a move absolutely guaranteed to propel any group to a spot on the nyt front page above the fold. First off, as far as I can figure out hamas was duly elected in 2007 to govern the gaza strip, admittedly just a fraction of gazans voted, but the ones who did gave the thumbs up to hamas. So, just as in the ole us of a, minority of people voted in the winner of the election. Dems the breaks. However, despite gaza being an “independent” entity, israel effectively controls it and the u.n. considers gaza to be an occupied territory. Israel controls its air space, territorial waters, as well as the movement of gazans in and out of the territory. Israel is not what anyone would consider to be a friendly landlord, and treats the gazans like crap. Since israel controls the borders above ground, the gazans simply went underground and built a massive network of tunnels. Israel then decided to put the almighty retaliatory kibosh on gaza and bomb the living shit out of it, seemingly indiscriminately targeting schools and hospitals and killing lots and lots of everyday joe gazans. At this point I suspect israel is up to at least a ten to one kill rate with no sign of stopping. Their excuse for targeting civilian locations is that there are tunnels underneath. For god’s sake, there are tunnels under virtually every square inch of gaza and it’s only a matter of time before it just collapses. Sheesh israel, kick it old testament, be patient, remember job. Oyvey.

Hezbollah is a shia islamist terrorist group working out of lebanon. Frankly I am confused about why the hell the shias and the sunnis can’t get along. It sounds like a spat over who got more of mom’s silver. Who cares if the prophet died intestate or whether he wanted his 2nd cousin once removed to sit on the family pouf. Give it up, it’s a stupid argument, go fight some unrelated religion.

Then you’ve got the huthis in yemen who popped up again, probably feeling left out of the terrorist group grab ass going on. Their story is kind of like rinse and repeat. The huthis apparently are also not overly fond of the sunnis in their hood and keep a side hustle going with them. But primarily they use the same old playbook, hate the u.s. (boring) but they are also seen as a front for the Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy war. However, they have now started to take pot shots at ships in the red sea which pisses everybody off. Talk about punching above your weight!

So many wars and so little space. Is it any wonder that every once in a while a stray missile hits some other unrelated bitchfest? But try telling that to the people who got blown to bits. All of these groups are basically religious/tribal who have no interest in being part of, or faithful to any arbitrary territory imposed upon the region by some distant power.

Why do the world powers not seem to get the message? The terrorists have done everything but fly over the big shot countries with a plane trailing a banner that says “Mind your own business, your politics are a fucking mess, how about you sort that out before you stick your nose into ours.”

2023: write it off

Trigger warning, bad grammar ahead! MJE has folded like a cheap suitcase under the strain of trying to placate the myriad of sexual prefix preferences, it is just too exhausting to constantly try to be inclusive of all of the variables. So, although it pains me no end to bend to the current application of “they” as a replacement pronoun, especially when it does not agree with the verb, I cry uncle/aunt/auncle. MJE hopes that you tender gender grammar ignoramusi are pleased with yourselves. One more brick in the wall of linguistic literacy knocked loose.

As a courtesy to my readers I have deliberately refrained from either political or actual personal family topics* in my first post of the new year, but don’t expect that to last.

A new year looms , but before MJE can throw 2023 into the dustbin, I feel compelled to drag myself through the pile of dreaded annual holiday letters the OB&C and I receive, under the misapprehension that we give a rat’s ass about any of it. First off, we don’t want to hear that your daughter has been accepted at harvard, stanford and brown but is in an existential quandary about which to choose. If the author of this over-long self involved missive, who is purportedly a long time friend of ours, really cared they would be aware that the our second child was recently thrown out of louisiana state in lafayette, fondly referred to as U La La, for setting his dorm room on fire while trying to cook up a batch of meth. Our third kid is already in rehab, for the second time, and painting stripes on the county road as part of their public service requirement. We now have to sell our house to pay for the extremely expensive, yet wildly unsuccessful rehabilitation programs, but with interest rates and the housing market as it is, we have had no takers. However, the IRS is not overly sensitive to taxpayer’s woes, therefore we also had to sell off half of our retirement savings, at a substantial loss, in order to satisfy the tax man before additional interest and penalties accrued.

Reading the excruciating details of every mile that was conquered, foot of elevation gained and nightly sumptuous feasts enjoyed during the author’s family’s fabulous biking trip though the alps was riveting. Unfortunately it is unlikely that we will be able to delight in those activities, financially or physically, as our necessary knee and hip replacements are not forthcoming since we lost our health insurance when the OB&C’s lifetime career in science was made redundant and he was replaced by an AI generated professor emeritus that does not require any prodding to crank out fake, but damned believable, peer reviewed papers or wants two days a week off to go fishing. The spouse, moi, who has spent a lifetime holding the rather tenuous bonds of marriage and family together and therefore has no “work” experience is awaiting an offer for a position on the graveyard shift as greeter at walmart.

And although we appreciate the author’s tedious recitation of all of the extraordinary adventures of their family’s past year, we felt that perhaps the christmas card photo of the lovely family group beaming in front of the gates of dachau may have been a bit insensitive, considering that possibly, although highly unlikely, one of our grand parents might have been holocaust survivors. But the we feel certain that all of author’s family members learned a great deal from the experience and probably made a generous contribution to the reform of the germanic bent toward facism, in the gift shop. After all it’s not everywhere that one can find tchotchkes like blown glass ss insignia or swastika christmas tree ornaments, or mein kampf in a graphic novel format!

But now it’s out with old and in with the new year, and I’m guessing that it’s gonna be a doozy. So, in the immortal, somewhat altered words of bette davis, “buckle up it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

*None of the persons or circumstances set forth above have any relation to reality. For chrissake, do you really think MJE reads any of that crap. If so, you have definitely not been paying attention.

st. george

Mje totally understands the outrage and confusion regarding st. george’s resume, but what the general public doesn’t understand is that rather than inflating his accomplishments, st. g greatly down played them in order to be more relatable to ordinary people.

For instance, he stated that he attended baruch college. Far from it my friends, st. g has an undergraduate degree from tsinghua university in bejing where he earned double bachelor’s degrees in business and science, majoring in world economics and quantum physics, in chinese. Feeling that perhaps his education was not rounded enough he earned a second undergraduate degree from from the university of arkansas majoring in homeopathic medicine and cross dressing fashion design.

During his undergraduate studies in china his extracurricular activities included martial arts, in which he earned a black belt and was known on campus at the karate kid. Additionally he pursued his passion for floral arranging and won first place at the chelsea flower show. But perhaps he is best known for his mastery of water ballet, the only (fe) male to be invited to compete in the olympics in beijing, where the chinese team won gold for the first time. Then, at the university of arkansas, selected because, as he said in his memoir, “alone in the world, a holocaust orphan,” he wanted to be closer to his ancestral home in sao paulo or belguim.

At u-ark st. g walked on as a true freshman on both the football and foosball teams, became an esteemed member of the mud wrestling team and won the title of barbeque pit master going on to beat bobby flay in his throw down competition. Go razorbacks!

Recruited by both the london school of economics and the university of louisiana at lafayette, know colloquially as oo-la-la, he instead intended to pursue his master’s degree in teaching at sweetbriar college, which unfortunately closed down abruptly after the endowment fund was lost in a ponzi scheme, of which he had no knowledge but was nevertheless falsely charged, and finally exonerated of all charges.

Feeling as though he needed more real world experience he was immediately snapped up by space x and although not widely known, accompanied elon, on his first mission into semi-outer space, in the baggage hold. Impressed with his endurance, elon tapped him to oversee facebook and twitter which, due to circumstances beyond his control began hemorrhaging money and since his tenure, has had to lay off thousands of employees. St.g however, due to his dramatic work ethic and ability to survive a g-force of approximately 3g’s, wearing a g string instead of the recommended g-suit, was rewarded with a $700,000 bonus.

But being the man he is, st. g, felt it was time to give back to the community, so he left the business world and entered politics. He was totally unprepared for the rough and tumble political environment, but continued to give it his all, including his bonus from facebook and twitter and several friends’ go fund me charitable campaigns. He tried to understate his achievements, but was instead mocked and derided by the left wing press. In the end, he was, as usual, successful and now sits in the us house of representatives as a republican congressman from ny. His resume, although wildly understated, and only mildly embellished, was accepted without question and his singular relationship with truth and honor earned him seats on two of the most powerful congressional committees.

oyvey-ish

Bottoms up

So a few weeks into 2023 and the world hasn’t imploded yet, well except for poor ukraine, which jumped the gun, so to speak, with an assist from rootin’ tootin’ putin, the world’s worst person, next to elon muskellunge. While here on the home front, we might as well throw in kevin mcarthy who in his quest for the worst job in the world, finally managed to negotiate a price for his soul that was so low it’s like you’re in a TJ Maxx and there is something so cheap that even though you don’t want it you just buy it anyway.

I try to give equal time to skewering politicians and family members so as to appear “fair and balanced” I’ll shift to to the latter. The OB&C and I hosted our NYD party to force feed our northern friends the southern new year’s good luck elixir of black eyed peas and greens to ensure good fortune and wealth in the new year. No matter how bad a year is, I always figure that without bep and cabbage it certainly would have been so much worse.

However, one of us made a bit too merry and had a rather restless night, with comings and goings to the necessary. After one such visit, on the return voyage to the bedroom, there was a massive thud in the closet followed by some unintelligible mutterings and expletives. What now says I to myself, and dragged myself out of bed to find the OB&C splayed in an open suitcase (still unpacked from a christmas vacay) with his feet stuck inside one leg of his underpants, and his ass firmly planted in my roller bag, struggling to right himself like a turtle on its back. He was solidly wedged into that thing and he ain’t no featherweight. It’s times like these when the fact that you haven’t lifted anything heavier than a glass of chardonnay for quite a while comes home to roost, also where the lug in luggage comes from. Holy frijole, without even the benefit of a good stretch I finally maneuvered his extraction . Baggage handlers around the world I salute you.

As if that weren’t sufficient nocturnal high jinx, a few nights later, groping around my nightstand in the dark for cough syrup, I managed to grab a bottle of eucerine intensive repair lotion which I proceeded to pour into my mouth. I levitated off the bed and flew into the bathroom to expel as much as possible, spitting like a hillbilly with a mouth full of tobacco juice. Seriously, how much can one person take, more literally, how much eucerine lotion can one person ingest? My only hope is that if it’s labelled intensive repair, that perhaps it might apply to a couple of my internal organs which seem to have suffered a bit under the heavy load of a lifetime of metabolizing large quantities of ethyl alcohol.

Bottoms up all around.

miracle on 34th gate

First off, I must apologize for my extended absence, which I hope someone noticed. I was frankly exhausted by the insurrection (which btw, upstaged my goddam birthday!) and the congressional weasels who folded like cheap suitcases after they’d changed their soiled underwear, not to mention my being extremely disappointed in the incredible short sightedness of our founding fathers in not anticipating that some day an egomaniacal, immoral, sadistic, very unattractive grifter might just come along and run for president and worse, that millions of god fearing patriotic americans would actually fall for his bullshit and elect him. Maga my ass, miasma’s more like it.

So I took a break to reflect on what’s fabulous about absolutely everything in my life, however that didn’t take very long, so I had to come up with another stall tactic. Got it: self care. Apparently it’s very au courant. I have no idea what it actually means other being completely self absorbed, which is not exactly a revolutionary notion, nor one to which I am opposed, so I thought if it’s good enough for gwyneth then it’s good enough for me ! I started with mindfulness, and being in the moment, which is a conundrum. If you are forcing yourself to be conscious of each and every fucking moment then you are obviously not actually in the moment. 

So, to accelerate my rehabilitation, a very merry holiday seemed in order, which the materfamilia (moi) pulled off by basically moving mountains (of cash) to get eight member of our distended family together for a hallmark vacay that would have put ole norman rockwell himself into a diabetic coma. However, on the return, MJE managed to book the OB&C and myself on separate flights. Now, aside from possibly being a freudian slip, it proved to be major headache, and you can bet your buttons I was in the goddam moment then. Despite my best imitation of a distraught, unhinged, befuddled old lady, the airline “help” agent wasn’t buying it and remained unmoved, instead handing me a slip of paper for a standby seat on the OB&C’s flight, tenth in line on a full flight. Tenth! I’ve never been tenth in anything, except when I was on the swim team and finally finished after everyone had gotten dressed and gone home, including my mother. Bowed but unbroken, I staggered over to the gate agent dragging my suitcase and coat, and again pled my case. It’s obviously been a rough week for airline personnel and their hearts have gone full on titanium, hence tenth I was and tenth I remained. I posted myself slumped against a pillar within his peripheral vision, found a crumpled cocktail napkin to dab my eyes and waited, eyeing with unbridled resentment as one after another clearly inferior standby passenger was waived aboard. Finally, when I had almost given in to despair, intensified by the fact that the crown room was closed because the pipes burst, my name was called and I was miraculously transformed from a barely conscious shell of a human being into an olympiad racing down the jetway, with the theme of chariots of fire ringing in my ears.

So, home again, refreshed (read: completely exhausted, mentally and financially, from a relaxing holiday) and ready to meet 2023 head on. So watch out, MJE’s back and badder than ever!

Happy new year!

Pandemonized no mo’

What can I say, MJE has been lanquishing during this uncertain time, besides being a people killer COVID is also a creativity killer. Can you believe it, mje’s formerly inexhaustible fount of creative flair has been decimated. Poof. Gone. Nada. Tragic. But the good news is that I have every reason to be hopeful that the spark will be reignited and once again the world will be privy to mje’s irreverent view of its monumentally moronic populace.

So to recap….let’s see, when mje last surfaced, the conald & co had been defeated for re-election…and to put it mildly, conald did not take it well, as described in a prior post. But aside from that, there’s the aforementioned pandemic whose origin is still being debated. The first theory was that it was the result of people in china eating infected bats. But hold on here, everyone knows that the safe internal meat temperature for poultry and game is 165 degrees, however a bat is a flying mammal so it’s in a sort of grey area but certainly should not be served rare, not to mention raw. If you want to eat raw meat head to france and order a plateful of steak tartare, don’t eat a bat. I mean who does that, you’re at the market and looking over your options….hmm not sure what I’m hungry for, chicken lips, duck feet, snake and frites…no, you know what I am totally craving is bat, bag up a dozen, I’m having friends over for dinner.

We’ve slogged through a year or so of this nightmare, resulting in death and disease unheard of for a century. But also a forced isolation with one’s nearest and dearest, resulting in record numbers of familial schisms and separations and divorces for those who realized that their significant others were not in fact the loves of their lives but insufferable jerks. As if that weren’t enough, a shortage of toilet paper made even wiping your ass a bone of contention. Then an antiseptic shortage, which mje cleverly avoided by stocking up on everclear, which has a higher percentage of alcohol than rubbing alcohol, with a bonus feature…you can drink it! if going blind and nuts isn’t a problem. Your call…

But all of that has been resolved, the companies that diverted production of their normal products to making masks are now stuck with tens of millions of something that people will never, ever want to see again. Quick tip, send them all to india and take the write off. As the repub’s rising star, marjorie taylor green bean said, mask mandates are the just same as making jews wear gold stars (they were yellow but whatever) and being shipped off to gas chambers. Now, that babe definitely has the lack of intellect and gift for idiotic hyperbole that will hasten her bob right to the top of the gop toilet bowl.

But enough of that, let’s get down to mje. This past week was deferred maintenance week. Mje had two fillings drilled out and replaced, and a leaking windshield fixed.  I also had an appointment with my oncologist. However, I made the cardinal error of asking him how he was. He must have thought I was actually interested, I mean like duh, right? Depressed, he responded and spent the next 35 minutes droning on about his pandemic lot in life. I finally had to interrupt and remind him that I am not his therapist, I’m his patient, and he’s whining on my dime. Dejected, he was about to walk out when I asked if he didn’t need to do an exam, he reluctantly turned around and asked me to disrobe from the waist up (I guess gone are the days of asking about my health, or offering some privacy and a robe, not to mention having a female assistant in the room) and he performed a half-hearted exam and made for the door.  As I was getting  dressed, I asked how my lab work was, and in an eeyore-ish voice, head down he muttered “fine” and left. I guess I should look at his lack of interest as a paradoxical sign of my good health, otherwise he’d be more attentive, right?

Then to finish off the week I had a colonoscopy! and I can assure you that that was the last one I will ever have in my life. However, now I know exactly what percentage of mje is total crap. Must have been a bad week for those in the medical profession, because the nurse was also not on her game. As she inserted the iv, she said  “That was a great vein but darn if I didn’t go right through it so we’ll need to give it another try and you’ll probably have a pretty big bruise.” My forearms are 95% veins for god’s sake, helen keller could get a needle in one of them. But before we started the “procedure” and I got good juice, I told the doc I had a gastroenterologist joke (and trust me they’re not many of those around) and told them that years ago when you’d call the  GI department at tulane med center the receptionist would answer “anus, rectum and colon!” (coincidentally also the name of giulianai’s law firm). Thought it would get a bigger laugh, but I guess if you have chosen a profession in which you spend all day looking up people’s bum holes you may not appreciate being the butt of a joke.

Bada-boom.

coup coup clockwork orange

On wednesday, january 6th  2021 the american president exhorted thousands of his rabid trumpalumpas, qimbeciles, q balls, screw balls, furballs, fascists, racists, haters, wingnuts, lugnuts, maganuts, cronuts, and other assorted pond scum to storm the capitol building because he had convinced them that he was robbed of his victory in the election. Having primed the pump of violence in a constant stream of victim tweets, he addressed the assembled herd of brutish bullies (from behind a bullet proof shield) and gave them their marching orders. Fight, fight, fight! Assuming his “christ on the cross in a cashmere coat” stance the president commanded his throng of quislings to march on the capitol and carry their trump banners, confederate flags and assorted Q crap on high like the proud boys and girls they are. They also took guns and other weapons, because you just can’t be too careful when you are in the midst of an unruly crowd. And finally they carried a very bad attitude, anger and resentment against the government.

Despite the fact that this rally had been widely broadcast on social media and assorted right wing forms of communication, the highly motivated throng was met with a measly bunch of capitol police, which in the words of one commentator, are really more like campus cops than policemen, armed with billy clubs and pea shooters. They put up a game defense for about twenty minutes then skedaddled up the capitol steps with the crazed mob nipping at their heels. In dc there are about 2000 different law enforcement agencies, metro police, atf, fbi, homeland security, dc national guard, yada yada yada…yet, mind bogglingly they were in absentia…how come that? Am I the only one who smells a rat here? Surely, as these men and women in law enforcement watched their screens or read news accounts and witnessed their own capitol building being ransacked, they must have asked their commanders why they were not allowed to assist…who had ordered them to stand down. We will find out, but for now it remains a mystery. I heard one explanation, which to me sounds a bit disingenuous; that the supporting forces were held back because they were criticized for their over-reaction during the black lives matter protests. If that had been their motivation for inaction it sure as hell didn’t have the desired effect…quite the opposite, it reinforced the image of an america which works like hell to protect itself from the imagined misdeeds of peaceful protesters who happen to have more melanin than others while it sits on its hands as pale faced traitors ravage the heart of our democracy. It was racism writ large.

The past four years have been debilitating, mentally and emotionally, but they have also shown the american people how incredibly fragile our democracy is, and that sitting idly by is just not enough to sustain it. There are far too many who are lured by the blood lust emanating from the people who are sent to washington to represent us.  I have often asked myself how I might react should a fascist regime come into power. Would I be a brave resistance fighter or would I simply go along to get along. I always convinced myself that I would man the ramparts and die for the cause of freedom. Until january 20 we have a wannabe fascist in the white house capable of anything until jan.20, but I disappointingly did not man the ramparts, march and protest. Instead, I stayed home, and I wrote letters urging people to vote regardless of their party, I made phone calls and volunteered at polling places and I voted (twice, just kidding). But in the end, the work of millions of americans, in the streets, behind their desks, knocking on doors, calling strangers, rallying their compatriots to defend their democracy worked. It takes all of us doing what we can, even geezers like mje. The proto-fascist president was soundly defeated and his complicit political party lost its majority in the senate. However, now the lunatic fringe who were beguiled by a con man who told them that all they needed to do was to rally behind him, to follow his example of racism and misogyny, and of course to keep sending him money and they would surely take control. Well, they tried, and they failed, this time. But they have not gone away, they are just waiting….

Now we are in the midst of a second impeachment of trump (he wanted to be a president for the history books and he got it) this time for inciting treason. Treason for god’s sake! If that is not something that both dems and repubs can agree is a terrible, awful, no good very bad thing, then we might as well throw in the damp towel of democracy. It’s not like he was just paying off porn stars, or blabbing classified information to the russians (in the oval office!!), or trying to pin the son of his opponent with some cockeyed crime (which had already been investigated and dismissed) or grifting off of the american people through his hotels and golf courses, or having his son in law try to set up an un-traceable back door communication channel with the ruskies and then putting him and the president’s incompetent spoiled daughter into government posts, or appointing equally incompetent cronies to cabinet posts (who then used inside information they received in classified briefings to make a lot of dough). No he is being impeached for treason, sedition, inciting a violent overthrow of our government. That is hard cheese man. And in the olden days it would have been a hanging offense.

But thanks to the first amendment, americans have a right to free speech unless it is hate speech that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, their religion, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. For example, rep. steve king of iowa, said mexicans have “calves like cantaloups” because they’re hauling drugs and illegal immigrants across the border or when trump said he was open to the idea of closing mosques and creating a database of all muslims in the us referring to them as “a problem” and a “sickness.” Those are bad. One section of the first amendment states that publicly threatening or inciting violence against a person or group, carries a maximum penalty of 3 years in prison and/or a fine of $11,000 for individuals or $55,000 for companies. Hmmmmm….trump’s speech on jan 6 sure sounded a lot like that to me or am I just a liberal snowflake who doesn’t understand innocent macho lingo.

But there’s more, and kids I’ve saved the best for last…sedition, but because of the pesky free speech that is protected by the first amendment, prosecutions are rare. Nevertheless, sedition is still a crime in the us under 18 U.S.C.A.

I was just gobsmacked by the lawyer for one of the insurrectionists who said that trump should pardon all of them because “they came to the capitol by the invitation of the president.” That sounds like a great final line in a prosecutor’s summation.

Oh, yeah and almost half a million americans have died of COVID so far….but don’t bother telling trump, he’s got bigger fish to fry, like staying out of prison.

a little divine help here

Well, it’s T-six days until we find out if we have learned anything as a nation about whom not to elect president. Signs are hopeful that our national nightmare, disgrace and general disgust will finally be over. But it ain’t over until the fat lady sings and I have  yet to start trilling.

Seems like we might could use a little divine intervention at the moment, obviously the underworld put in quite an effort in order for us to be in this fix so it’s time for the other side to pitch in. If there is a supreme being with unlimited sight and power she could at the very least loan us a squad of arc angels to lend a hand with some of the election stuff. Let’s start with voter suppression, zap that shit as soon as possible, ditto political gerrymandering. Then there are the ridiculously long lines people need to stand in to vote, losing a day’s pay, waiting hours upon hours, in the middle of a forking pandemic (I’ll chalk that one up to the other side). At least set up some rest stops along the way offering say free coffee, or better yet a full bar or even just beer and wine, neck massages, a knosh or two, then reset time passage at 2x or even 3x to keep things moving. It really doesn’t seem like much to ask. Then there’s the whole question of voting on tuesday, WTF? What’s so sacrosanct about tuesday (which was, after all named for a norse god, which should have taken it out of contention right there) except that it is one day after the start of the work week. You know, when people need to be at their jobs (if they still have one)….what’s wrong with saturday? Yes I know that’s a problem during college football season but since that’s probably not in the cards for the foreseeable future (well, of course you’d know better than I) how about we give it a whirl.

I think that takes care of the big stuff for now but please put congressional and court term limits on the to do list along with background checks and mandatory public tax returns for presidential candidates. bonus points for IQ tests. Oh and what’s with the senate working like 3 weeks a year and blowing town whenever the heat is on? Ditching the filibuster would be nice. I could go on but I don’t want to stress you out too much, but one more thing, and I should have said this first, get rid of rudy giuliani. asap.

Thanks a million, can’t tell you what a difference it will make for our country. Admittedly other places have famine, wars, and desperate poverty. We have trump.

Tough call, I know.