The ornery ramblings and occasional fiction of a former political science professor turned author
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.
Continue reading “Friday Thoughts: Truly Random Things”
We bought a house! First time for everything, and yes, we are late bloomers. For the longest time, two PhD diplomas were the stand-ins for a house. But now we bought a house! I’m super excited to get into it and start making it a home. I feel like we’re putting down roots and becoming real Texans. Until we finalized everything, I hadn’t realized how transient I felt, even though we lived in the same place for almost twenty years in Philadelphia (and I mean the same apartment, not just the same city). The house is very nice and the former owners made a number of small, but thoughtful additions and changes – there are misters in the pergola for example. Hell, there’s a pergola!
Continue reading “Friday Thoughts: New Adventures”
It’s been an interesting week. Interesting in the manner of frustrating and somewhat scary. In the “Frustrating” column is the death of the not-quite-five-year-old refrigerator. The fridge belongs to the landlord, so at least the expenses are his. However, dealing with the fall out is on us. In the “Somewhat scary” column is the tornado warning that sounded last night and the winds that blew so hard I could feel the back wall vibrating. Yeah, I was raised in earthquake country, not tornado country. This will take some getting used to.
Continue reading “Friday Thoughts: Non-binary, Gender neutral, or Neutered?”
Things are coming unraveled for the Left and their willingly blind followers. This is the funniest, most out-of-touch quote I’ve seen in a while and that’s saying something, given what we’ve been hearing from Brandon and his minions. From the NY Post: “Board of Supervisors president Shamann Walton had slammed the recall effort as being pushed by ‘closet Republicans and most certainly folks with conservative values in San Francisco, even if they weren’t registered Republicans.’”
Continue reading “Unraveling”
Reporters and journalists like to say that their job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” That’s a nice, pat, rather condescending way of describing something that in the last couple of decades they don’t actually do. If you’ve been paying attention (and I know you have) you have noticed that the journalist crowd likes to bully those who dare to disagree with them (their definition of “the comfortable”), and present political opponents (their political opponents) in the worst possible light.
Continue reading “Afflicting The Comfortable”
This is the last day of 2021. I am happy to see it in the rearview mirror, just as I was with 2020. On our walk today, I was talking with my husband about the last year. It did have its ups and downs. The biggest up being that we have moved to Texas. Met my own goal of moving before the end of the year. Barely. But we did it.
Continue reading “Friday Thoughts: Leaving 2021”
So…we are moving to Texas in a few weeks. We haven’t moved anywhere, not even within the Philadelphia environs, for almost twenty years. This is going to be quite the adventure. It’s been stressful too, and I haven’t been writing. I need to get back to the writing since that’s the only way I’ll manage to finish book #3. My plan is to alternate packing and writing for the next couple of weeks. If I can finish the first draft, I can then do editing which, for me, is a lot easier. Then, send it off to beta readers before the final push of packing and moving.
Continue reading “Moving Forward”