Kingfisher Cove

Basking

I am over the moon! I am so relieved! Welcome, President Biden!

A lot of people have said that democracy prevailed. But my still-roiling gut is telling me that democracy survived, barely, with fingernails scrabbling the slippery slope of the precipice, holding on for dear life. The sheer effort and determination to demolish—to topple us over that precipice—was insidious. It’s like how it feels when you’ve just avoided the worst imminent (and malevolently deliberate) car crash by mere fractions of an inch and your body is ringing with adrenalin and PTSD.

We watched the bulk of Wednesday’s Biden/Harris inauguration throughout the day, and it was sublime. Everything about it was uplifting, kind, inclusive, inspiring, and emotional. (I was teary all day long!) So much history being made, with our first WOMAN vice-president, and first Black/South Indian vice-president! Amanda Gorman’s poem, and her delivery of it, was magnificent. She is only 22 years old, and so much poise, so much talent! I later found a transcript of the poem, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and soaking it in. Her alliteration, her imagery, and those sneaky rhymes! It ended like this:

For there is always light
If only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

This is such a diametrically, 180° shift from just days ago. Already many of trump’s most egregious proclamations, like the Muslim Ban and our withdrawal from the W.H.O and the Paris Accord have been reversed. Boots are on the ground to actually DO something about this pandemic. Dr. Fauci is giddy with his freedom to speak SCIENCE and TRUTH! I am hopeful. I am unburdened. I no longer stare into the middle distance. I am so incredibly buoyed by the competence.

More information came out tonight about trump’s continued desperate coup attempt to overturn the election. It is just stunning and just so STUPID. It sheds continued light on his relentless, batshit bonkers aim to subvert democracy, to viciously attempt to overturn Georgia’s certified electoral votes—even though it would have never succeeded, and it wouldn’t have even been enough electoral votes to make a difference in the outcome. What a delusional idiot. It’s a good thing he was an idiot. It terrifies me to think of a more intelligent monster attempting this shit.

I am beyond thankful that his Twitter account has been quashed.

And I have not slept better in the past 4+ years as I have these past three nights.

Three Wednesdays in a Row (Three “I” Words)

• Insurrection
• Impeachment
• Inauguration

That final Wednesday is tomorrow and it just can’t get here fast enough. I am so done with trump, so ready for normalcy and kindness. Biden and Harris held a very emotional memorial today (the first one ever) for the 400,000 people who have died so far from this goddamned pandemic. I was a bit caught off guard how it affected me; I was a riot of snot and tears. The beautiful lamps along the reflecting pond in D.C. beneath the Washington Monument just about did me in. 400 of them, each symbolizing 1,000 people who have died. There will be so many more until we have this under control.

Our governor has changed the vaccine age requirements and John is now eligible! (Not me, though. By ONE YEAR). I’m hoping that he will be able to get his VERY SOON. I am a wifey-bear, insisting that he make his appointment STAT.

I keep thinking about the janitorial staff of the immense, lovely, and precious capitol building having to clean up the SHIT and the PISS and everything else in the aftermath of that godawful insurrection. (And they are likely paid the federal minimum wage of $7.50/hour to do so).  I will never forget this assault on our teetering democracy. I will never forgive this unequivocally worst president in U.S. history for inciting this traitorous act, simply because he is a sore loser and a wannabe dictator. He has never cared about this country; he has only cared about himself. And for the first time in our history, in light of him being soundly beaten in the election, we aren’t experiencing a peaceful transfer of power. I hate him! He has no soul and no humanity. And if you think he does? You have buried your head under your “Pillow Guy.”

Tomorrow, like a miracle, he will disappear. Thank you! My relief is over the moon.

(Jesus. Even PINTEREST banned him!)

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I’m excited that my Aerogarden is starting to sprout! In fact, today I had to remove one of the plastic domes because the dill is going to town! This is so much fun! I do have two pods (the mint and the parsley) that haven’t shown any green noses yet, but hopefully eventually. The rest are showing happy little green leaves!

I love it!

Getting to bed so I can get up early to watch the Inauguration festivities! I suspect there will be tears! (But good ones).

Who Would Have Thought Two Impeachments? (Me!)

It’s a historic day, albeit an ultimately heavy day. (Typical lately). For the first time ever, a United States president has been impeached TWICE. First, for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress, just a year ago. Today, Incitement of Insurrection. And like so many things these last years, I’m shocked, but not surprised. I could have called it.

Because he did. And he warned us long ago that he would never accept that Biden won. He incited that mob of assholes to desecrate the capitol in an attempt to STOP the constitutional act of accepting the electoral votes of President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris. Five people died that day, including a Capitol Policeman whom they bashed in the head with a fire extinguisher. They also smeared shit (literally, SHIT) throughout our capitol building and pissed urine everywhere. (Let alone trashed offices, stole papers and lecterns and laptops, broke windows, and destroyed doors). It’s clear that it was organized, planned, and it also could have been so much worse. There was even a GALLOWS constructed outside with steps to it and a noose, so they had serious intent. There were former military and former/current police involved, and they came with those heavy-duty twist ties intended for taking hostages. They screamed “Hang Pence!” (because the VP had made it clear that he was following the constitution to confirm Biden as the fairly elected new president, and NOT abiding by trump’s demand that he “overturn” the election to trump’s favor). They were hunting down “Nancy” (Pelosi). They would have—no doubt about it—killed them (and others) if they had been able to grab them, and they came oh-so-close. It’s since become clear that some of the republican congress-people/senators are very likely involved with aiding and abetting the insurrectionists.

What a hellacious week it has been. I can’t even BELIEVE where we are! And this in the midst of the skyrocketing Covid pandemic!

I am thankful for the ten republican congress people who joined the democrats that voted for impeachment of this monstrous *president. I’m also furious with them because if republicans had voted to convict trump during the first impeachment, none of this absolute shit would have happened and we would not be where we are, including trump’s massive failure with handling this pandemic. What a mess! What a catastrophe. What an abomination trump is. Today’s only good news is THIS:

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I got me one of those AeroGarden thingies. You know, where you stick the pods in the holes, add water and plant food, and then the light is on a timer. I’m growing herbs (two kinds of basil, dill, thyme, mint, and parsley. I should probably change out the mint and parsley pods for a couple of lettuce pods that just arrived today, but I guess I’ll wait. Probably won’t see any activity (buds) for at least a week, but it’s pretty cool! I’ve heard they work quite well, so I’m excited to see little green things emerge in short order.

I’m just thinking that it should be a pretty easy method of having FRESH herbs, something that is so difficult here in the boonies. If it works!

We had a terrible wind storm last night! It was scary. And yes, several power outages that were unpleasant, in spite of having a (wonderful) whole-house generator. The thing was, the power went out several times for short periods. Just enough to shut off the satellite feed to our TV and the internet (and Alexa), then it would come back on via the generator but take forever for those services to spin up. And late last night at bedtime it went out (again) and I actually had to walk around the ENTIRE HOUSE and MANUALLY turn off all the lights! Is this the definition of a first world problem or what! It does make me realize how much we rely on Alexa! And the internet! And satellite! Jeeze! But beyond that silly stuff, I really was worried about all the trees. I always am when the wind whips up, but we had gusts that were beyond frightening. Luckily, the first world stuff were the only casualties. Whew.

Book club tomorrow! We read “The Mother-in-Law” which was pretty good. It was probably 5-7 books ago, so I need to refresh my memory about it. What should I recommend for next book club? Any recommendations out there?

Coup

When we warned people who we cared about back in 2016 that trump was corrupt, a liar, that he was an authoritarian sociopath, that he was a horrible person, that he was a racist, that he was deplorable—we were accused of hyperbole. We were “snowflakes.” Oh, and “libtards.” (Actually, more disrespectful of developmentally disabled people than those of us who could clearly see what was coming).

I’ve been dreading this day for weeks. It was the day that Congress was to conduct the ceremonial formality of accepting the state-certified electoral presidential votes (for Biden), something they do every four years, and it typically takes about 20 mundane minutes and is never really newsworthy. But a bunch of republicans claimed they were going to OBJECT to the “swing” states’ certified electoral votes. Just a few days ago I said in a letter to my friend regarding this day: “It could either end up being godawfully nasty, or else a last hurrah nothing-burger. I’m hoping for the latter.” Well, guess what? It was godawfully nasty. (An understatement to top all understatements).

Trump had called for supporters to come to Washington, D.C. on this day, to protest the formal counting of the electoral votes by Congress, claiming that his V.P. (Pence) would most certainly reverse the votes to trump’s favor (uhm, no…) He started the morning with a rally with these supporters and incited them to march to the Capitol building, saying this:

"And after this, we're going to walk down there, and I'll be there with you [he ditched them], we're going to walk down … to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women," Trump told the crowd. "And we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved," Trump said. "Our country has had enough. We're not going to take it anymore."

And then Rudy Giuliani said: “This is trial by combat.”

And so a mob stormed the capitol building, breaking windows, entering the rotunda, laying siege while lawmakers at first huddled in place with furniture blocking doors (some terrifying stories about that), then were whisked away to safe places in the labyrinth of the capitol building. The mob stormed the chambers and lawmakers’ offices, vandalizing and looting paperwork and even podiums. Four people died—one was a trumper shot by a policeman, and the other three apparently suffered medical emergencies. (No lawmakers were injured).

It lasted about six hours, and what was especially horrifying was how easily they were able to breach the grounds and enter the building. There are videos of Capitol police moving barriers out of the way and allowing the rioters to enter those grounds, and taking selfies with them. Were they complicit? There was certainly a lot more police action (brutality) during the “Black Lives Matter” protests. (Can you even imagine if this had been a mob of black people? Or Muslims?)

This was insurrection. This was sedition. This was an attempted coup. This was a dark, dark day. I’ve never agreed with anything that republicans stand for, but they are now the anti-American party. They have become a scourge.

The one high note of the day was learning this morning that we won BOTH Senate seats in Georgia from yesterday’s runoff election. I have to say that I am gobsmacked. I certainly hoped for it, even ached for it (because it means that democrats will control the Senate!) and by God we did it! Georgia is BLUE! Who would ever have thunk it? Man, what a huge difference that will make for President Biden.

Staring into the Middle Distance

In the aftermath of the presidential election craziness, but once it was clear to THE MAJORITY OF US SANE PEOPLE that Biden had won, I shifted my sense of foreboding to how trump was going to behave during his lame duck period. And everything I worried about is coming to fruition, times a thousand or so. I knew he wouldn’t concede, I knew he would try to cheat, I knew that he would behave as a tin pot despot to try to cling to power. And now there are twelve republican senators and over 100 republican house members who are going to contest tomorrow’s ceremonial/mundane congressional formality of accepting the state-certified electoral votes, and trump actually believes that they will succeed in overturning the vote to keep him in office. [Note: They won’t.] It will be nothing more than performance art (I got an A+ in high school Civics, apparently unlike these seditious clowns), but the very idea that elected members of congress would do something so egregiously anti-American and anti- democratic-republic as subverting the will of the voters—the fundamental foundation of this country—just makes me…stare into the middle distance. (Also, incandescent with thermonuclear fury).

There had best be accountability for trump’s gobsmacking extortion of the Georgia Secretary of State, where he lost to Biden by 11,700 votes and he was recorded on a phone call for over an hour pressuring, pleading, groveling, intimidating, and threatening him to “recalculate” the vote and give it to him. Yet another “perfect call,” very similar to what got trump impeached with his “perfect call” (his term) with the Ukraine president to manufacture and publicize dirt on Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, again to cheat in the election. Can you say corruption soup? Can you say garbage human?

Get here already, January 20th!

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Christmas is put to bed. (Always an unpleasant task). I appreciate having everything back to normal, though, except I do miss the extra light emanating from the tree and garlands!

I’ve had this Christmas tree skirt for several years now—I’m thinking about ten! And I’d never washed it because 1) I figured it wasn’t washable because it has various fabric types plus the big stuffed Santa face, and 2) I always hurriedly put it away in its bin in time for John to haul the bins to storage. This year, I realized that I HAD to at least try to wash it. So I did! I washed and dried it on Delicate and it turned out beautifully! The colors pop! (After ten years (!) it had to be pretty damned dirty!)

I also wanted to show you a couple of things I got for Christmas! After watching Netflix’s “The Octopus Teacher” and falling in love with it, John gave me these octopus bookends. Yes, they’re kind of creepy (octopuses are scary looking), but I love them!

And then these cool vases and silk flowers that I think enhance the fireplace mantel:

And then there’s this! It’s a birdfeeder from Nate and Sandra! I’ve never seen anything like it before. The whole inside is open (like a tire?):

It’s been so wet and rainy and often windy lately, that I’ll wait to hang it.

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Ugh…nail-biting election run-off in Georgia tonight to determine who will have control of the Senate. It’s Georgia. And even though Biden won, it’s still a very red state. (Can’t believe anyone would vote for the corrupt incumbent republican candidates who both made a killing in the stock market after getting intel briefings before the public did that the pandemic was imminent).