On one of my walks last week, I noticed this setup between
a townhouse cluster and the local private golf course.
(Interestingly, this course is owned by developers who’ve
been trying for about a decade to fill all the space with townhouses. Same
thing’s happening with the public course on the other side of the People’s
Republic. Watching the furor on both sides of the fight has been interesting.)
So I walked over to see what it was. It was American Free
Enterprise at work.
This is located on the second hole of the course, so I don’t
know how many golfers will feel the need of extra balls that early in a round.
I also know nothing about the economics of golf, so I have no earthly notion
whether $2 per ball is an attractive price.
I did find it interesting that there’s a quasi-honor
system: up to you whether you pay, but if you do, once your money’s in the
slot, it’s secure.
This may look like a mundane stretch of trendy 2020s
commercial pedestrian design to you, but it’s actually the last resting place
of scores of spotted lanternflies.
I noticed them on my way to the Korean bakery last week. I
have no idea what about this environment has caused the scourge of Northern
Virginia to die in their dozens, but their corpses littered the sidewalk all
the way to the street.
Considering the damage they do and how hard it is to eradicate them, I this seems like a good
start.
A couple of weeks ago I was helping a local food pantry by
sorting through donations—checking for expiration dates, package damage, etc. I’m
not entirely sure where the donations came from, but it was a wild variety of
canned goods, staples, snacks and outright junk food. (We don’t, apparently
judge.)
WRT expiration dates, if they were prior to the next
distribution (which was last Thursday), they were shelved. If on the cusp or
slightly beyond (depending on the type of food), they were passed on to the
local shelter for our unhoused neighbors. If beyond the beyond, they were
tossed.
(The most out-of-date was something with an expiration year
of 2014.)
The most interesting thing that passed through my hands was
this packet of instant hazelnut mocha latte. Interesting because it’s
apparently infused with collagen and protein, and that kind of scares me.
I discovered today’s earworm via a recommendation from a friend.
He and I agree on a lot of things, but generally speaking, music and reading
genres aren’t among them. However, this piece has grown on me every time I
watch it.
(I say “watch” because in this case, the video images are
integral to the impact of the music and words.)
Particularly given the events of the past week, culminating
in the Kleptocrat fixin’ to demolish the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
because he’s not allowed to put his fucking name on it.
(Another—unrelated, but not entirely, really—beyond-the-beyond
event was Mitch McConnell wheeled insensate in to the Senate after being AWOL
for three months and nearly voting with Democrats on a motion until his minders
“corrected” him because he’s literally gaga.)
I seriously do not understand why no one has piped up about
the emperor being stitch stark bonkers.
Okay, well—if Costco is going to put up its Halloween décor
at the
beginning of August, I suppose it makes sense for them to roll out the
Christmas stuff before we’ve even hit the Ides of September.
It’s really quite terrifying, because I know there’ll be
more every time I make a butter and bread flour run.
Saturday night was one of
those not-going-to-get-any-sleep affairs; I eventually nodded off at 0400; woke
up at 0500; got back to sleep; eventually just got up at 0845. Naturally, that
means that yesterday morning pretty much started out crap.
I got dressed for walking and
realized that the windows
had fogged over, which portended my walk would be complete soup. (Android said
that it was 74F and felt like 74F, but it lied; it felt ghastly. For one thing, my glasses fogged up as I stepped outside.) But I decided
I’d at least walk over to the one remaining pie-plate-sized
hibiscus shrub to take a picture for a neighbor.
And look what I found on my
way:
I saw them because I took a different
route than my normal walk, so I don’t know how long they’ve been there. But
they were stunning, beautiful and exuberant. And they lifted my day into
bearable. For that I am grateful.
Lord, is it 25 years already? A
quarter of a century since the world changed utterly with the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, ushering in an age of insecurity in the
West, multiple wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and (in hindsight) US
policies that made a flurry of performative activities around the top-level
symptoms while never actually addressing any root causes.
And it led us to the current
administration, the most ignorant, cruel, feckless, incompetent pack of
grifters ever assembled in one place and handed the biggest economy, the most
powerful military and (apparently) the most spiteful electorate in history.
I’ve been wondering what the
Kleptocrat would have done had his arse been spreading in the Oval Office in
2001. I imagine him issuing fatwahs for everyone who ever set foot in a mosque,
immediate missile strikes on…well, not Saudi Arabia, the point of origin for
the core of the 9/11 perps, because “ally”, but maybe Syria, Iraq and Mozambique,
just because he could. He couldn’t have done a better job than Bush 43 at
hunkering down on fossil fuels (thus keeping us tied to Middle East supply
sources), but he could probably have raked in a lot more bribes from the
sheikhs and emirs.
I started down the road of
picturing Hegseth as SecDef, but that was too farcically apocalyptic even for
me.
Oh—and as for NATO invoking
Article V—the only time in its existence—spilling its blood and treasure in
defense of the United States…I wonder.
Twenty-five years, and how far
have we progressed, really? Thirteen years of Republican presidents; twelve of
Democratic ones, with a good chunk of the first years of the latter spent
cleaning up the economic mess left by the former. Eighty years of post-World
War II international goodwill and soft power gone like our stock of munitions. It’s
going to take us longer than Germany to rebuild global trust, if we work
diligently and humbly.
Wellbut, today’s a time for
commemorating the more than 3000 people—mostly Americans, but (this being
America) people from multiple countries—who went about their business on a
sunny day in New York City and Washington, D.C., 25 years ago and never came
home.
So my earworm is the “Recorare”
from Mozart’s Requiem. The prayer begins:
“Remember, merciful Jesu,
“that I am the cause of thy coming,
“and cast me not away on that day.”
