I was out of town with family last week, hence no Friday Thoughts. We were up on the northern California coast at the beach, and it was glorious. Highs of 65F, cool, foggy days, a beach to walk on, cousins to hang out with, no news, no politics – just food, fun, and family. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Now I’m back and dealing with moving boxes, laundry, crazy cats, and the heat. We bought a house and are now in the middle of packing up and moving for the second time in as many years. This is not a record for us – that would be the four times in three years we did at the beginning of the 21st century. But at least this time, we didn’t unpack everything, and we dumped a lot of stuff before the last move and are dumping more this time around. Plus it’s a local (hour away) move which is a huge plus.
Skimming the news the last couple of mornings, I am once again highly amused by the sturm und drang that fills the days of the major media outlets. The fear-mongering over a “new variant” of the Wuflu, even as more and more stories come out about the ineffectiveness (and downright danger) of the vaccines, the absolute ineffectiveness of masks (even as I see people double-masking while outside), and the attempt to get us all back into a state of abject fear is kind of funny now. Bless their non-existent little hearts, it’s not gonna work this time around.
School started back up over the last three weeks or so and once again we’re getting the rabid discussions (on both sides) regarding the effectiveness/ineffectiveness, evil/pure good of the public school system along with many discussions on how home-schooled kids are going to be completely lacking in social skills when they grow up (spoiler alert: they’re fine and better educated in most cases than your average public school kid). And I’m not even going to go into the whole “don’t tell the parents anything about their kids” b.s. that the teacher’s union and school districts are pulling. Our political wanna-be elites fail to realize that almost all parents have no desire to turn their children over to the state (I say almost all because there are some that will do so happily).
We’re also getting inundated with presidential election in-fighting already. It looks like the Democrats are truly running freaked-out-OMG-he’s back scared of Trump while simultaneously gloating that he’s beating DeSantis in polling. Yes, I’m aware that they want Trump to be the R candidate because they think that their vegetable-brain candidate (whoever that may be) can beat Trump without even trying. Republicans are also running scared of DeSantis as seen in the growing attacks on him from his own party. They’re afraid he’s going to get the nomination, and likely win office if he does, and then show them all up for the bootlicking, system parasites that they are. THAT can’t be allowed to happen! Gentlemen! We must protect our phoney-baloney jobs!
Climate change activists are still trying to control sun-spots, volcanoes, and other natural phenomenon in a futile effort to stop any and all change on the planet. Gotta give them points for consistency, even if they’re not sure if the planet is warming, cooling, mucking about, or just plain wandering off in search of butterflies.
I ran across a video of an interview with Mr. Rogers where he mentioned the “always look for the helpers” mantra that his mother instilled in him. Now more than ever we all need to be helpers and look for helpers whenever we can before we spiral ourselves into depression over the state of the country and the state of the world. We can recover and we can help our fellow citizens recover their sanity. It’s going to be difficult and take time, but we can do it.
On the bright side, my cats (found some helpers!), having been on their own (except for the cat sitter) for a week, are becoming friends.
I’m still working on Book #4 in my Academic Magic series, tentatively titled Professor of Magic, and on another series. I got a lot of outlining for the second series done on my plane ride to California, and a few hundred words one day while there. But since I’ve been home, I’ve been slacking off using the excuse of packing (of which I’ve done none) and laundry (of which I’ve done some). I did manage to go grocery shopping, but there’s a lot more incentive for that one.
P-Con, a new con in the DFW area will be happening the weekend of September 15-17, and I’ll be there. I’m on several panels and I’ll be doing a reading (glup!) too.
Okay. I’m going to get some food, throw in a load of laundry, and pack some boxes.
Have a great weekend, all look for the helpers and try to avoid the news!
