Moaning Update: 10/31/24
Welcome, fiends, to this All Hallows Eve edition of the Moaning Update. As storms roll across the Midwest this morning, the lightning brings to life the deceased body of our creator who fell into that eternal slumber after caring too much about what he cannot control. Now, as he attempts to walk among us, it is his own mortal flesh that is uncontrollable. Beware, for this is not the genial soul of days gone by. This is a monster who would feed you cookies for dinner and then deny you a drink of milk. The blood of his enemies has stained his white whiskers. You are wise to run away in fear.
The good news is that Kat was dismissed from the hospital yesterday afternoon without needing any surgical procedures. They have her on blood thinners and pain meds for the time being. She has been warned that the recovery is slow and frequently takes as much as a year before she begins feeling completely normal again. When chatting with her last night, she admitted that taking only a few steps was enough to wear her out. The Salon has closed her books at least until the end of next week. They will do their best to reschedule everyone, but please understand that Kat will not be able to return to the heavy schedule she was accustomed to working.
The kids are participating in the day’s festivities. Tipper is going out with some of her Furry friends after school. G is… wearing heels. Apparently, his classmates were strongly encouraging this act. I’m encouraging him to pack his sneakers as a backup. He says he would have worn eyeliner as an accent if we had any, but neither Kat nor Tipper wears makeup that often, so there’s none in the house. Kat keeps hers at work or at Brandon’s. I’m not sure if he was truly disappointed or happy to have an excuse.
We thought we had the breaker issue resolved. Devon came yesterday morning and replaced the breaker with the one we’d purchased. He also kindly replaced the bulbs on our porch lights. Unfortunately, the instant G tried turning on his computer, everything went down again and stayed that way. No recovery. At least not until shortly after 6:00 this morning, when everything popped back on. I’ve no idea what is happening at this point. So, we’re expecting an electrician to come out late this afternoon and take a look at the situation. Will we have power in the bedrooms by nightfall? There’s a joke to be made there, but I’ll leave it alone.
There’s so much going on this morning, that I’m tempted to stop here. We’ve already had two Amazon deliveries this morning. There are more coming before 11:00. Ultimately, this is a good thing. We’ll have food and such for most of the month. I can miss my morning nap to accommodate that, can’t I?
Hmmmm … Let’s see, the Dodgers won the World Series last night, four games to one. This is the eighth championship in the history of the team. I didn’t watch the game, but apparently, the Yankees blew a five-run lead with an abundance of errors. Expect to see some players traded after that debacle.
Damn, the power in the bedrooms just went back out.
Want to know what’s scary? Get a load of some of these headlines:
- A Lebanese family planning for a daughter’s wedding is killed in an Israeli strike on their home
- Spain searches for bodies after flood of the century claims at least 95 lives
- Snow in Hawaii? Cold air and moisture deliver snow to the state’s tallest mountain
- US voters hear a stark message in the presidential race: The country’s fate is on the line
- The US election system is secure. But human nature is a vulnerability
- Uganda struggles to feed more than 1.7 million refugees as international support dwindles
- Opponents use parental rights and anti-trans messages to fight abortion ballot measures
- Nicky Jam withdraws endorsement of Donald Trump over comedian’s ‘garbage’ comment about Puerto Rico
- Millions of low-cost homes are deteriorating, making the U.S. housing shortage worse
- Pregnant women and babies face ‘terrifying’ threat from xylazine addiction
- Inflation Is Basically Back to Normal. Why Do Voters Still Feel Blah?
- Skewed polls and anonymous betting markets are building up Republicans’ expectations.
I mean, every news source I look at this morning is full of scary stories! This is just nuts! I think what all this tells us is that the entire world is wildly out of control. The election is only aggravating problems that were already there. There is a divide across the world between progress and authoritarianism that fuels violence and anger across the globe. People everywhere are scared and not just by Halloween stories. Although, AP has a bunch of fun stories if you need them.
Do we live in perilous times? Yes. Will the decisions we make in this election affect the entire world? Yes. Even your state and local elections can have a reverberating effect on other countries. How you vote, whether you vote, matters more now than it has in over a century.
As I’m typing, I’m hearing sirens yet again in the neighborhood. There are people everywhere who are making poor choices, perhaps out of ignorance, but also out of fear. I think fear is driving a lot more actions than we think. People are afraid of losing critical rights. People are afraid of losing important values. People are concerned that they may be hunted down and killed because of their sexual orientation. All those fears are valid. That’s why this is such a critical time to vote. Your vote, especially down-ballot, carries more weight and more power than it ever has.
Look, I’m old. I’m worried more about how our actions affect Kat and the kids than myself. If I die, it matters little. I’ve lived a life that’s had love and adventure. But the Kat, the boys, G and Tipper, are all still young. I don’t want them to suffer through the hate and violence of a GOP win. I don’t want them to have to worry about how they dress, what they say, who they are, or where they go. I don’t want them to be targeted because of who they love, where they live, or how they vote. I want them all to live happy and fulfilled lives that are not dominated by fear.
Talking with Kat this morning, she’s concerned about being around the cats. Even the smallest scratch could cause problems for her. The blood pressure cuff bruises her arm and causes her to have to put pressure on the IV wounds to prevent them from bleeding. I think she needs to stay put in Fishers, but she had also agreed to take care of her boss’s dog while they’re gone. And it’s going to rain.
I don’t have the answers I feel I need to have. I’m worried about everyone. I’m worried about all of humanity. Not being able to fix the world is a failure that weighs heavily on me. I want more for you. All of you.
Maybe we just need more coffee.
Morning Update: 11/01/24
Welcome to November! There’s no question that this month is going to be history-making, one way or the other. The question now is what are we going to have to do to survive it? The prospects of a peaceful holiday season look bleak. Gatherings of any type are likely to be fraught with danger as different perspectives, misinformation, and outright lies color our conversations, turning them from casual to caustic. I’m not looking forward to the next week, no matter how the election goes. This could be traumatic.
The good news is that Kat is coming home today. She’s still not feeling great, obviously, but she misses the kids and wants to see how things go with the cats. Small things like walking and eating still tax her. We will be taking extreme care to ensure her safety while she is here. We greatly appreciate all the thoughts and support coming from our friends during this challenge.
Both kids had fun yesterday. One of G’s friends gave him $5 for wearing his heels to school. Unfortunately, one heel broke when he stumbled over something. He “fixed” it with a glue stick and went on with his day. Tipper enjoyed going out with her friends, but they had a difficult time finding anything exciting. She was disappointed in the haunted house they went to, and few people were participating in the trick-or-treat tradition in any of the neighborhoods they went to. The amount of candy she came back with was too small to bother poaching.
We are extremely thankful to the friend who sent an electrician to fix our problem. It turns out that the problem was a mix of old wiring and a space heater that was pulling too much power. One of the lead wires in the breaker box was quite literally melting and showed signs of having been in that condition for quite some time. We are back to normal activity, minus the space heater in G’s room. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish editing all the photos from the past two weeks before anything else distracts us.
There are plenty of other little petty annoyances, of course, but who doesn’t have those in their life? I thought I was buying sugar-free caramels. They weren’t. The cats escaped out the back door. We got them all back. As frustrating as those things can be in the moment, I think they’re part of what colors our existence. They are problems we can generally resolve and even when we can’t, they’re not matters that dramatically impact our lives. We’re entering a period where we could face some dramatic challenges. If we’re to survive, we need to keep the minor things in perspective. Yes, I’m preaching to myself. I’m horrible at this.
You know the world is going nuts when the 2-5 Jets beat the division-leading Texans, 21-13. I watched most of the game. The first half was full of errors, penalties, and blunders. The second half was better with the Jets pulling off some amazing catches. Does this mean the Jets are getting better? Maybe, but I wouldn’t start betting on them just yet. The Texans have a number of key players out due to injury. They had to rely on their third-string left tackle for most of the game, and that inexperience allowed Jets linemen to get into the backfield too easily. A healthy Houston team would have likely run all over their opponents. So, we’ll have to see how the Jets do next week.
More insanity occurred off the basketball court as Charlotte Hornets point guard, LaMelo Ball, knocked the head off an animatronic clown. The clown was slightly hidden as Ball entered the Spectrum Center for practice. The 23-year-old’s reaction has his teammates laughing and poking fun. Yes, there’s video.
The election dominates most of the other headlines. I won’t bother going over all of them, but there are a few things that bother me. One is the degree to which gender has become a critical issue. The felon says that he will “protect women.” Harris shoots back, “Women can think for themselves, thank you.” At the same time, the felon makes anti-trans attacks central to his campaign’s closing argument. The entire GOP has ramped up the anti-trans vitriol. Should Republicans win on any level, the lives of millions of women and transgender people could be in danger.
At the same time, the felon’s fraud claims revive fears he may again seek to overturn election results. This is especially concerning since he has an ally as Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson has been actively campaigning for the felon and he is in a position to prevent the House of Representatives from certifying the election. Johnson could also, in theory, refuse to seat new members of Congress should Democrats make significant gains. So much of what happens after the election is out of the hands of citizens, making protests and lawsuits inevitable.
Yes, this is going to affect your holiday gatherings. There is almost no chance that rhetoric will calm down by Thanksgiving and the winter holidays are at risk. Family gatherings, and conversations around the table, are going to be perilous. One has to think: do I want my children to witness adults behaving worse than toddlers? Maybe this is the year that we diffuse the danger by making our holiday celebrations smaller and more intimate, limiting participation to immediate family members only. Let the arguments, if there are any, be over things like who got the last roll or who spilled the gravy on great-grandma’s tablecloth. We have to begin planning now to create environments that respect boundaries, put differences of opinion aside, and focus on family rather than the snakes in the grass that would tear us apart.
As I said at the beginning, what happens this month will be historical regardless of the outcome. Nothing about this month is business as usual. We’ve selected people to run for office who have no business even managing a small fast-food outlet in the middle of the desert. While I do find VP Harris dramatically preferable over the felon, it is ridiculous to think that her administration wouldn’t be filled with gaffes, mistakes, and errors in judgment. To create real change we need to take over local political parties, replacing power brokers who push incompetent people onto the ballot. From there, we can move up the ladder, replacing party leaders at both the state and federal levels. Only then will there be any genuine change.
Perhaps, if we focus on pumpkin pie recipes and creative ways of working with leftover stuffing, we can avoid letting politics ruin what should be happy moments over the rest of the year. Shut the door on nonsense that you can’t control. Give the system a chance to work, and if it fails, address those matters after the first of the year. They’ll still be there, waiting to ruin people’s lives.
For now, go grab a cup of coffee. Make sure the garbage is out by the curb. Don’t forget to let people know that you love them. Make your weekend pleasurable.
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