Words for Wednesday

Today I was in a shoe store that sells only shoes, nothing else. A young girl with a tattoo and green hair walked over to me and asked, "What brings you in today, I looked at her and said, "I'm interested in buying a refrigerator." She didn't quite know how to respond, had that deer in the headlights look.

I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it.

When people see a cat's litter box they always say, "Oh, have you got a cat" I just say, "No, it's for company!"

Employment application blanks always ask who is to be called in case of an emergency. I think you should write, "An ambulance."

The older you get the tougher it is to lose weight because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

Have you ever noticed: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.

The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he knows when he's really in trouble.

Did you ever notice that when you put the 2 words "The" and "IRS" together it spells "Theirs"

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

Some people try to turn back their "odometers." Not me.

I want people to know why I look this way.

I've traveled a long way and a lot of the roads were not paved.

Ah! Being young is beautiful but being old is comfortable.

Lord, keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth.

May you always have:

Love to share,

Cash to spare,

Tires with air,

And friends who care.

Thanks to my friend, Marilyn, for sharing these with me. 

New Kind of Auto

 

An auto powered by burning wood!

I captured these photos one morning when the shadow of our chimney and smoke looked like they were attached to the car.

You Gotta Laugh!

 

Thank you, Marilyn for sharing these with me.

Postcard Up date

 I went looking for a postcard Sunday thinking the CVS in the college town of Hanover, NH would have postcards. Nope - not a one.  I was thinking I would have to print a photo when it occurred to me that a store near the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge might have postcards of the bridge.  I called on Monday and sure enough they did.

Here's the postcard I've mailed.

I took a photo of the store.  The name comes from several owners ago who liked a wine with 12% alcohol so somehow 12% Solution became this store's name.  It's basically a convenience store.

If you're wondering to whom I'm sending a postcard, scroll down and read my blog post below from Sunday Feb. 18th.

I know of three readers one from VA, one from Hawaii and one from Kansas who have sent postcards.  Will you?  Let me know.

 

Worth a Read

My brother brought my attention to this op ed that I missed seeing on Sunday.

Here's the link to the NY Times article of February 18, 2024.

LINK

But if you hit the paywall I've copied it below which is probably a no-no.

 

So I guess from my more recent blog posts you can see what's worrying me of late.

What's worrying you as this election draws closer?

 

On this Presidents' Day, thinking ahead, I plan to choose old.  How about you?

From the Americans of Conscience Checklist

 Three elementary school teachers in Washington started a “Hearts Across the World” postcard program to teach young students about geography. If you’d like to participate, send a cute postcard from your state (or country) then share this action with friends. This action is included in our Checklist with permission from Mrs. Schaler and her request is to “please overwhelm us with postcards.” 🙂 

Contact: Mrs. Merriel’s TK, P.O. Box 1389, Soap Lake, WA 98851

Now I need to purchase a postcard to send from NH.

Can you send one too?

Jennifer Rubin Makes it Plain

Some Republicans can atone for their betrayal of U.S. democracy

by Jennifer Rubin

The Washington Post

February 16, 2024 

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) announced on Saturday that he would not run for reelection — just days after voting against the meritless impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Though some pundits praised Gallagher as the sort of Republican the country needs, he has a long record of appeasing four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump. He endorsed Trump in 2020, even after Trump ridiculed late Arizona senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), whom Gallagher apparently held in high regard. He voted against both Trump impeachments and against an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection (though he did say he would not support Trump in 2024). Gallagher was not one to denounce Trump’s rabid racism, his association with antisemites or his denunciation of the justice system. Worse, he joined in Trump’s attacks against the FBI. He declined to vote to hold Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon in contempt of Congress. He fanned the flames of the baseless assailing of critical race theory. For his weak-kneed approach, he earned a C-minus grade from the Republican Accountability Project. That this guy should be lauded as a profile in courage says much about the state of the MAGA-intoxicated Republican Party. Gallagher was, as I have described, among those who chose to accommodate evil rather than resist it. After a brief show of independence with his Mayorkas vote, he has joined a stampede of departing House Republicans — many outside the core MAGA group — including Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Michael C. Burgess (Tex.), Larry Bucshon (Ind.), Jeff Duncan (S.C.), John Curtis (Utah), Greg Pence (Ind.), Patrick T. McHenry (N.C.), Kay Granger (Tex.) and Kelly Armstrong (N.D.). Well, now that most of these Republicans have nothing to fear from a primary challenge, why not show some spine? They could, for example, join Gallagher and refuse to support Trump. Furthermore, they could vote to discharge any Ukraine aid bill to get it to the floor, defend judges and law enforcement from baseless MAGA attacks, and repudiate Trump’s betrayal of NATO and his unconstitutional vow to use the military to suppress dissent. Freed from the bounds of party loyalty — which never stopped former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney from putting country over party — they could belatedly join Cheney’s anti-Trump crusade to protect the United States from a fascist onslaught. That might not erase their original sin in refusing to impeach Trump and ignoring his anti-democratic actions as president, but it would be a step in the right direction. Yet I sense that is a bridge too far for most of them. I hope I am wrong. I will be watching to see whether Gallagher and others find their decency and pro-democracy bona fides. It is not too late to do the right thing.

Famous Inventors

 Here's an interesting article in Mental Floss featuring 10 African American inventors.

Of the 10 only 2 were familiar to me: Charles Richard Drew (blood banks) and George Washington Carver (products from peanuts).

Read the article and let me know how many you recognized.

Happy Valentine's Day

 I made the picture at craft night last month.

Dozen roses from Dan.  How could he not buy them when we walked into the grocery store and they were the first thing we saw?

Magnet Collection

 I have collected a few magnets through the years in our travels.

The question I'm facing now is where to display them.  They had been on the front of our top loading washing machine and the door of the dryer.  Those doors on the new washer and dryer are not conducive to displaying magnets.  I've thought of the side but they'd get brushed too often and go flying.

The refrigerator isn't an option either as one side has family photos and the other side has my lists of frozen items.

There's the ping pong room in the barn but no metal to attach to unless I purchase a magnetic white board.

I think I'll have to think long and hard about whether the collection continues. My last two purchases in September were from Spain -  a magnet from the cave we visited and one for the town, Priego de Cordoba

February?

Above on Wednesday. Below on Saturday

It looks more like late March around here.

Mud season. The snowmobile trail through this field is useless without a snow covering.

The cracks in the road are oozing water - likely spots for frost heaves.

This farm up the road is a sad sight now. Once there were beef cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys,and lots of activity. Someone very rich bought them out.  The plan was for it to continue as a farm but that didn't happen. Don't know what will be here one day.

Below is the field and barn across the street where two donkeys and a horse used to live.  They are gone now too.

 The sap is rising in the maple trees and has been off and on most of the winter.

Strange times.

Sharing Jennifer Rubin's Wisdom

 From The Washington Post

Friday, February 9, 2024

by Jennifer Rubin

What caught my eye There are many reasons to vote against four-times-indicted Donald Trump, but this week we saw replete evidence of the former president’s mental unfitness and its consequences. Trump’s broken psyche: GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haleyand President Biden have both started talking in earnest about Trump’s apparent mental decline. They point to episodes of slurred speech, his incoherent riffs and his habit of mixing up politicians. Though, in fact, those are the least of Trump’s problems. Serious analysis of Trump’s underlying mental state remains largely out of bounds, despite the Republican front-runner’s compulsive lyingand grandiosity, his classic use of DARVO (deny, attack and reverse victim and offender) and his impulsivity. No other public figure engages in such aggressive, antisocial and shocking conduct (e.g., threatening Truth Social barrages; adjudicated sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll; crude insults directed at women; vows to seek revenge against enemies). Some close aides have candidly described his aberrant conduct and inability to process information. Nevertheless, the reaction to Trump’s abnormal conduct amounts to a collective shoulder shrug. Trump’s threats of violence make an unmistakable pattern: He egged on the Jan. 6 violent attack on the Capitol, baited the crowd seeking to hang his vice president and was found liable for what is colloquially considered rape. Surely that is a subject that deserves more attention. Voters must be able to evaluate a presidential candidate’s mental and emotional fitness. After all, Trump keeps bringing up the topic, distorting his performance on a cognitive test — as though that proves his mental soundness. (Prevaricating about a mental fitness test is quite meta.) The media has no excuse to avoid covering this topic. With so much evidence of Trump’s mental and emotional unfitness, more exacting coverage is long overdue. He can’t put America first — and he goads other Republicans to violate their oaths. The ramifications of Trump’s influence were in full view this week. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) pulled off what seemed to be impossible: They crafted the toughest border security bill in decades, one so strong that the conservative Wall Street editorial board, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Borden Patrol Union all backed it. Several GOP senators initially praised the bill. After all, Republicans had insisted on this as a condition for aide to Ukraine. Republicans got a border provision trigger. The bill would have empowered Biden to do what Trump could not: namely, stem the flow of unauthorized border crossings and, when needed, shut down the border. And yet, after all that and after years of castigating Biden for an “open border,” Republicans reversed themselves and felt compelled to sink it simply because Trump wanted to deny Biden a “win.” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) correctly said this was nothing short of “appalling.” Likewise, Murphy wondered how Republicans could “vote against a landmark bipartisan bill that we negotiated with one of the most conservative Republican Senators on the border issue,” referring to Lankford. The answer: They could do so because so many in the GOP follow Trump’s self-centered orders. (Even more jaw-dropping: Republicans now want to move ahead only on aid for Ukraine without any border measure, something they had demanded for months be considered along with aid.) We will not have a robust border security bill because, as Biden said, “Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically.” That sort of twisted thinking is par for the course for Trump, who cannot fathom doing anything for America if it does not suit his needs. He wants the border to remain a mess. He wants the stock market to crash. Trump cannot grasp the meaning of his oath or any other constraint. His elevation of self above all else constitutes the essence of his unfitness. Worse, he cows other Republicans into violating their oaths. They, too, feel compelled to betray America at Trump’s bidding. (We know the answer to Biden’s query: “Republicans have to decide: Who do they serve — Donald Trump or the American people? Are they here to solve problems or just weaponize those problems for political purposes?”) Again, we see that when you empower someone as depraved as Trump, the country will always come last.

Puzzles

 I finished my fourth puzzle of this year on Monday night.

I have had help from granddaughter #1 who lent me one of hers.  It was the second one I finished this year. Forgot to take any photos.

Here's the fifth one started on Tuesday.

I limit myself to 500 piece puzzles.  No end to supply as there's an ongoing puzzle swap going on at the porch of the old store next door.

Project Completed

 On January 4th I wrote HERE about the bathroom project we'd started.

Now I can report that it's done!

Between the time that the plumber came to give us an estimate and the dates scheduled for them to make the changes (4 days starting January 25th), I managed to paint the cabinets over the washer and dryer to match the vanity we'd selected.  Dan got beaded board to cover the lousy looking wall under the windows and that got painting gray as well. All the items we'd ordered arrived in plenty of time including the washer and dryer which arrived first.

We did have some glitchs.  When the plumber arrived on the 25th the tub didn't!  It didn't come until Friday afternoon the 26th.  There were enough items on the plumber's list that he reordered his list. Tub was to be installed on Tuesday the 30th but the plumber came down with the bug going through the business. The apprentice came to move the toilet out so when the flooring came on Wednesday the 31st it could proceed.  Tub then installed on February 2nd.  

Once the tub was in Dan set to work to do the drywall which he completed on Sunday night so painting, my job could happen today.

I am moved back in, have tried the new tub, and am enjoying the new look.

Here are the photos.

Old vanity with medicine cabinet removed.  Lights were installed shortly after we moved here so no need to change.

Curtains and valences to stay.

Old tub with glass doors. When this was removed the date on it said 1986.

We replaced the medicine cabinet with just a mirror.  You can see the cabinets on the opposite wall that I painted. Dan pulled off the front of old vanity in preparation for its removal.

New washer and dryer.  Dryer vents from the side and goes down into basement then outside.

The toilet was new in 2021 when we first had this plumbing company do repairs for us.  You can see the beaded board I painted.

Tub removed revealed these wide boards. This would have been an outside wall to barn at one time. No artifacts were found unfortunately.

Toilet removed to guest room.  See the old flooring.

View of new flooring and new vanity.

New flooring looks like slate but it's not.  We like it a lot.

Back in to bathroom

New shower curtain to match the rainbow dots on the curtains.

Shower with a wand.

One of two grab bars installed.

View from guest room. Ready for the next guests to use it.

Friday with Jennifer Rubin

 Reprinted from The Washington Post

February 2, 2024

What caught my eye by Jennifer Rubin

Across time and geography, people respond to totalitarian threats in similar ways. Some people collaborate; others resist. And still others accommodate authoritarians, trying to keep their heads down to avoid an existential choice. As Anne Applebaum eloquently put it in her 2020 essay in the Atlantic on collaborators:

To the American reader, references to Vichy France, East Germany, fascists, and Communists may seem over-the-top, even ludicrous. But dig a little deeper, and the analogy makes sense. The point is not to compare Trump to Hitler or Stalin; the point is to compare the experiences of high-ranking members of the American Republican Party, especially those who work most closely with the White House, to the experiences of Frenchmen in 1940, or of East Germans in 1945, or of Czesław Miłosz in 1947. Given Trump’s assault on democracy, we should identify which Republicans chose which category and what consequences flow from their choices. Collaboration: Local snitches, propagandists and eager Nazi party joiners helped implement oppression in occupied Europe during World War II. Today, collaborators wear red hats, not black-and-red arm bands. They parrot racist slogans, stir xenophobia, attack law enforcement, incite violence, condone their leader’s cruelty, spread conspiracies and conceal Trump’s mental disintegration. They have given up on the United States’ quest to become a more perfect union. Close Trump cronies (e.g., Stephen Miller, Mark Meadows) and the mid-level officials (many of whom joined to gain proximity to power) whose presence shrouded the administration in a thin veil of normality chose collaboration. Cable news apologists (some adjudicated liars), MAGA lawmakers (from Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to former speaker Kevin McCarthy of California to Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas) and right-wing radio hosts afraid of losing their audience also went down this path. Governors, such as Texas’s Greg Abbott, who openly defy court rulings and spur voter suppression efforts adopt collaboration — as do state legislators who gleefully gerrymander districts and suppress voting. Let’s not forget supposedly sober-minded Republicans who insisted in 2020 that Trump was the safer choice. Add in MAGA donors, campaign aides, the former officials who refused to testify against Trump and once-respectable think tanks turned into propaganda and policy arms for Trumpism. All the GOP major presidential candidates who left the 2024 race, except former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, became collaborators when they endorsed Trump. Collectively, they not only normalize MAGA extremism but demonize those who resist Trump. Collaborators also include the right-wing partisans on the Supreme Court who strip away civil rights, wreck the regulatory state and erode separation of church and state in service of their MAGA patrons. Resistance: Naturally, Democrats opposed Trump and Trumpism. Republicans did not face imprisonment or death for standing up to Trump. It wasn’t that hard to put up a fight. And yet, Republican resisters remained pathetically scarce. The few holdouts certainly stand out: Never Trump Republicans (and their media outlets), Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) and former Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.). They broke from their “tribe,” suffered ostracism and, in some cases, lost their jobs because they persistently denounced MAGA’s attacks on democracy and truth. Some former Trump aides (e.g., Cassidy Hutchinson), former state representatives (e.g., Arizona’s Russell “Rusty” Bowers) and lawyers from “team normal” (who willingly told their story to the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021) all resisted. Individual motives might have varied. But a common pattern emerges: Resisters refused to put personal ambition above love of country. They entered politics with a code of conduct grounded in religious belief, patriotism or family heritage. Had they joined Trump, they would not have been able to sleep at night or explain themselves to their children and grandchildren. Accommodation: Dictatorial regimes succeed not just by roping in enthusiastic collaborators. Without the equivocators and the moral relativists who try to stay out of their era’s overriding moral choice, evil regimes would falter. In that regard, many ex-Trump advisers remain mum about his unfitness. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted not to impeach for the insurrection (and hence encouraged others not to break ranks), and GOP lawmakers frequently pretend they missed Trump’s latest tweet to avoid criticizing him. “When challenged, they speak up only long enough to make excuses for Trump and engage in moral obfuscation over issues that they must certainly know are not remotely complicated,” the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols wrote. They thereby “create a permission structure for Trump supporters, to model how a reasonable person can dismiss Trump’s astounding disregard for the law and even for basic decency and yet still vote for him and other GOP candidates in the name of some greater good” (e.g., preventing “socialists” from ruining America). The media’s habit of blurring the moral stakes makes accommodation easier. Media outlets that resort to false equivalences and values-neutral horse-race coverage prioritize obfuscation (dubbed “neutrality”) over truth-telling. (The Sunday shows continue booking election deniers, and cable TV hosts hold softball interviews with MAGA politicians.) Meanwhile, pollsters and pundits distract the public with meaningless early polls. (Most shameful, “anti-anti-Trump” conservative figures attack resisters.) When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee backs any official (including election deniers) who follows its lead on Israel and business leaders insist they like Trump’s policies (or make donations to both sides to cover their bets), they make betrayal of democracy acceptable.The most dangerous form of accommodation: No Labels and fringe candidates lure voters from the only candidate who can beat Trump (President Biden) while falsely denying they are spoilers for Trump. Accommodators who think they can avoid history’s harsh judgment might consider how “moderate” White ministers whom the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. condemned in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” were regarded. History scorns moral cowards for enabling evil. Trump accommodators will fare no better.