It was Ms Moon's Fault

Ms. Moon posted a video. Country Joe and Fish singing the Feel like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag. 

("Don't know, and I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam.")

Remember back then, when it felt like the biggest problem we were facing was to get out of the Vietnam war? Well. Of course, if you were not white, there was the issue of civil rights. That was major. Women's rights. We were protesting things that had some clearly defined 'right' and 'wrong'. No middle ground. You either were for it or against it, and the two sides argued it out, and eventually we got our butts out of Vietnam. Schools got intergrated. Laws got made to even things out a bit. Bigotry never went away, I imagine, but it did go underground. Bigotry became unfashionable. Edgy sitcoms mocked it. Women, too, came a long way, baby. (Remember that? We had our own cigarettes?) 

And it just seemed like such a simpler time. 

I listened to Country Joe and the crowd singing, and I was feeling pretty nostalgic. 

Appropos to absolutely nothing, Arlo Guthrie popped into my head. 

Alice's Restaurant. 

Ignore the mistakes in the captions, 

but it might make it easier for people that have never heard it before. 

I knew that music. It was comfortable. I felt like I knew that place. 

And now, 50 years later, those simple rights and wrongs have once again become convoluted and twisted, and all the things that happened then are unhappening now. I look around me and I realize that at this point, I don't feel like I know this place. 

And I sit in my dark office and I grieve. 

Late Edit. There were high points today. More flooring down: 

See that snow outside the sliders? Whoo-ee, it was so windy today. Snow devils swept across the open field. I made my way down to the garage to feed the cats. I had a special treat for them, along with three cans of catfood and fresh water, and when I opened the door, three of them came bounding down, glad to see me. It was warm in front of the heat, and I listened to the wind howling for a little bit. 

I locked up and trudged back up to the house, and we worked inside. 

The wind howled on. 

When we went to leave, we were astonished to see that my brother in law had come across to plow our driveway. We had not heard him over the wind!

I have a beautiful little hydrangea bush on my table. It was a half price sale from Valentine's day, and so I got it for $4.99. It makes me happy to look at it. When spring comes, it will get planted outside. I know exactly where. I've got flower bulbs to plant too. I even have two little pine trees, left over from Christmas. They were selling them for $1, and I picked them up for either side of the porch. 

In the depths of winter, I learned that, within me, lies and invincible summer. And that makes me happy, for it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger - something better, pushing right back. (Albert Camus)

Push back, good people. Push back. 

You too, Tasker! 

 

Tasker

 Please stop over and leave our Tasker with an encouraging word, would you?

taskerdunham.blogspot.com 

Heroes

It is another snowy day today. They are not calling for a huge accumulation.

Another cold night tonight. I am tired of winter, but it looks like winter isn't going anywhere for awhile. Tim did wake me up with the news that all we have to do is get to March. Supposedly, a stretch of 40+ degree days are coming. 

So. There's something to look forward to. Spring. 

We've got our taxes all put together for the preparer. Tim did most of that. This year was a lot easier than it has been, so that was good. We're hoping to drop them off tomorrow, but with president's day, who knows? 

I'm going to go off on my own editorial here. (Stop groaning...it's a short one.) People are paying a heavy price for speaking out these days. I've paid a high price on a personal level. I live in a red county. Most of my family are 'red dots'. I don't discuss politics with them. There's no point. I do believe that MAGA is wrong, on a ethical, moral, legal, economic level, and I believe that we are headed into hard times. 

Other people are still celebrating. "Everything's great! He's going to replace everything with something bigger, and better, and...." 

I'm one of many that don't believe in MAGA fairy tales. In the end, I believe we are going to see the situation devolve very rapidly. As for me and my house, we are doing our level best to prepare for hard times. As Tim and I both see it, if the hard times do not happen, we haven't lost anything by being prepared for hard times. It's not much different from having an emergency kit in your car. You may never need it, but if you do, you'll be happy that you have one. 

Some people feel there's honor to being a centrist, or being able to see both sides. That's their choice. I will say that I believe that sometimes wrong is just simply wrong, and we should not try to back away from that, or point our fingers in other directions at other people. Sometimes, it is down right cowardice to refuse to speak up. But...hey...you do you. 

Where I have a big problem is someone feeling as if their opinion should affect what I write or what I say. That's wrong. 

I don't expect anything I write (or say) to change anybody's mind. What I do believe is that what I write (or say) will encourage others. You're not alone. There are more of us. We're all here. 

There are heroes in high places:

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-progressive-wins-february-16

Robert Reich has also written a good column: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/profiles-in-courage

(I'm not sure that all of you will be able to read it. It is a paid subscription.)

There are also heroes in low places. 

Where ever you are, whatever your thoughts, I hope that you can be kind. 

As always, feel free to leave your own links in the comments. 

The Excrement Hits the Rotary Oscillator

 Tonight is William's birthday party. Hard for me to believe that he is turning 14, but he is. This is his last year of middle school. Next year he's a high schooler. He has shot up in height, and his voice has gotten that strange slide to it, going from child to man voice, and back again, sometimes over the course of a single sentence. 

The weather today seems to be in some sort of transition phase as well, sliding from snow to rain, and back to snow again, every bit as quickly as William's voice is changing. I'm kind of worried about that. His birthday party is at the roller rink at 7PM tonight. I hope that parents are not scared off by the weather. But, in any case, he'll enjoy himself. I hope.

We got him a spring jacket and a smart watch. We're getting there about 45 minutes after the party starts because we're bringing in the pizza. Given the circumstances, we all decided it would be sensible and wait for a head count. 

We spent the day working at the new house. Thursday was the day that will live in infamy. Tim and I clashed, and lo, it was a mighty clash. Tim is a machinist. He is careful and he is precise. In some situations, that is good, but we were working with tongue and groove hardwood flooring, and wood, by definition is not a perfect medium. It's just not. There are knots and variations in grain. Those variations in grain lead to variations in color, some pieces showing darker than others. Woods beauty lies in its imperfections. 

In my humble opinion. 

Now where the problems started is that the groove where one board butts up against the next board...it was not perfect. Sometimes the gap was wider than the previous gap. Or maybe there was a slight variation in the gap as it ran the full length. Seriously, we're talking about 1/8 of an inch. But to Tim, this was a flaw. He went through that pile of boards (the pile on the far left...the pile in front of it is quite nearly gone, having been used on the bedroom floors.) He picked board after board, trying them, discarding them, getting grumpier by the minute. 

He was not getting grumpy by himself. After two hours of this bullshit, I got grumpy  mad too. I mean we had not laid one board. 

I went out to feed the cats and play with them for a while, and I came back in, and there he was, with his laser line on the floor, still trying to match it, perfectly. I said that I was not going to sit there wasting my time while he sorted it out. I said I was going home and he could call me when he figured out how he was going to do this. And for the umpteenth time, I said, "IT DOES NOT MATTER. YOU'RE TANGLED UP IN A DETAIL THAT, IN THE GREAT SCHEME OF THINGS, DOES. NOT. MATTER."

He drove me home and kept stubbornly repeating, "It has to be started right."

I kept saying, "When you are looking down the full length of a room, do you honestly think that anyone is going to say that gap there is 1/8 of an inch wider here than it is there? SERIOUSLY????"

It was not a good ride home. I was mad. I was loud. I was bawling my head off in total frustration. I do not understand him at all sometimes, and this was surely one of those times. 

Friday morning, I was still pretty mad. I had an appointment, and was surprised to see him sitting there when I got back, waiting so we could go work on the house. I said, very firmly, "I'm not going. You can go down there and you can fuss and fret all you want, but I'm not going to sit there and get snapped at every time I open my mouth. I'm also not going to sit there and be quiet forever until you make up your mind. You go. Figure it out, and when you're ready to do something, you let me know." 

He sat there stubbornly. I said, "I'm serious. And if you are going to sit there waiting for me to get over myself, I'm here to tell you, it's not going to happen. If you don't figure it out today, I'm not going tomorrow. Or the day after. Or Monday or Tuesday... We can play this game just as long as you want." 

He finally left. He was NOT happy. 

I stayed home. I was NOT happy. 

(Happy Valentine's day to us.)

Long story short, he worked out that floor. At some point, he put the damned laser line away. He began to lay the floor. Later he said, "You were right. It's not anything that anyone will notice. It looks fine." 

He brought roses and a card. I got the card that I'd bought for him earlier and stuck in the glove compartment to hide it. I filled it out and wrote, "I love you more today than yesterday." 

Which was the gospel truth, friends.

And it struck us both as hilarious. 

Today we went back up and worked on the floor. We got quite a bit done. More than 1/3, but not quite a half. I submit photographic evidence to you.

It looks pretty nice to my eye.

I am grateful that women are not nearly as annoying as men.
 

Happy Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine's Day

^^^^^^^^^^

Sometimes, at the work site. 

and...

vvvvvvvvvv

This last is for Mary...I think she could use a laugh.

Hopeful Signs

Quote for today: We need to observe what is happening while not being absorbed by it.

Today was another working day. We finished the trim around the ceiling in the living room/kitchen area. The main purpose of that was to clear off a pile of boards in front of the sliding doors. We're freeing up floor space to start putting down the floor tomorrow. We both think that the wood flooring will match very nicely with the ceramic 'slate look' floor. That's always nice, figuring out that for all our dumbing around, we seem to be doing okay for rank amateurs. 

We are both excited about our work tomorrow. 

Sounds stupid, but we spent quite a bit of time choosing our grout color. We wound up ordering it because the store did not have what we finally settled on. But, it was a good match.

We putzed around most of the afternoon cutting boards and hanging boards and then studying the floor and then moving stuff out of our way in preparation for tomorrow. 

We knocked off a bit early. I needed to pick up some produce from the grocery store. I've been going great guns on the salad lately, and have a huge one for supper. We weren't quite sure when the big storm was supposed to hit, so we knocked off at 2-ish. 

Something that is interesting is that the deer were everywhere, along the road, up on the banks. Tim said, "They know the weather's going to get bad. They are feeding before it hits." Interesting to me that animals seem to know. 

Well...except for the starlings. They're back from where ever they go for winter. When we got home, our big maple trees were filled with birds, noisy and flittering about. Just in time for the storm. But it is a hopeful sign, isn't it? 

Once again, I must bring up Boud over at Field and Fen (fieldfen.blogspot.com). I admire her. She does a good job of finding a balance in all of this. She creates, she reacts, she interacts. She always gives an idea of something we can do, which I like. 

We are all trying for balance. We are all looking for a bit of peace within the chaos. The fact is that we will. We'll find our footing. It will   It may not feel as if we are doing anything, but...

I will admit to being very concerned about the concessions we have received from Russia through Belarus. I just don't think that they would have given us any concessions without some sort of promises made. The fact that Ukraine was not involved in the discussion is not a good sign. 

But...

https://open.substack.com/pub/thinkbigpicture/p/the-unsung-resistance-fighting-trump?r=1rv5r5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

I forgot to show you my great find from Saturday. We always stop in at the Goodwill, when I am driving for the Amish. It was 50% off everything in the store, something that I'd forgotten, but nobody else seemed to. People were standing in line at the door. Mattie and Iva were not sure they wanted to get out of the car. But...we did. 

I found this light for the Wayne St rehab. It was in an opened box, tucked way under a rack of clothes. I almost missed it. It is new.  All the pieces were wrapped in their original plastic. The interior box that contained the glass shade had never been opened. $7.50, folks. I was pleased. 

So was Tim.

Happy things.

 Today was another working day. We are trying to clear out the building stuff from the livingroom/kitchen area so that we can begin putting down the flooring in there. 

Tim grouted the tile inside the front door. I polyurethaned a pile of boards that we were going to use for the trim in the livingroom. We made a good beginning on it, and we will finish that up tomorrow. We spent the rest of our time cleaning up the freshly grouted tile. 

I saw something that I've been toying around with getting for my oldest granddaughter who is turning into quite a reader now. There is a program that creates a story for a child, an adventure, or a fantasy. The story is told over a period of a year in letter form, one letter every two weeks. She dearly loves stories, and I thought it would be fun for her, but $129. for a year seemed kind of pricey. I was thinking about it today, and I've got a crazy idea to create the story myself and send it out. I mean, I know her and the little details of her life well enough that I could create something pretty personalized. 

So...that's how I kept myself entertained today while I was working: coming up with a story line. 

It was a gray day, and we've got another winter storm moving in tomorrow night. 

Not much to report tonight. It is a sad night for me, but some days are just like that.