Covered in oil

I feel deeply for the millions of Texans whose Republican government (both governor and lege) policies have resulted in this calamity that has struck the state. Decades of climate change denial, bidness-friendly de-regulation and cheese-paring lack of infrastructure investment led to the non-winterized power generation failures and shown the world that it’s not just hurricanes that the Gulf Coast needs to be bailed out from.

So, when I was casting about for today’s earworm, I thought about their situation. And this is dedicated to Raphael “Flyin’ Ted” #CanCruz, who has come up with at least four different stories about why he and his family flew to the Mexican resort town Wednesday night for a vacation as his constituents scrambled to stay alive without power, heat, potable water or food in single-digit temperatures.

I mean—the man must be exhausted after amplifying the Big Lie of the Stolen Election for months, instigating insurrection in the Capitol in January and voting last week to acquit a criminal president, right? And then the new ice age descends on the state whose residents he’s supposed to represent, so he totes deserves a Mexican vacay.

But here's the thing: in 2024, he'll be re-elected to the Senate.

Olé, Texas. íOlé!

 

Too soon?

There’s a lot of beauty in winter. I’ve seen frozen puddles, iced leaves, ducks and geese walking on water and the like. But, you know, the cold takes its toll.

This is what I thought when I saw that someone had set out the pansies in their landscaping maybe a little too early this year.

 

 

 

Icing the landscape

We had more of the dreaded wintry mix over the past week. As soon as I realized it was the kind of storm that coats leaves with frozen water, I went out shooting. You know the rest.

 

 

Spellcheck is not your friend

Based on a tweet he posted, I’m guessing that Friday was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day for Sean Penn. How bad, you ask? Here’s the tweet:

Beyond the theologico-legal problem with the Vatican impeaching evangelicals, he was just stating the bleeding obvious.

I mean, tout le monde knows you don’t follow Satin anywhere, much less the bowels of hell.

Taffeta, now—that’s a different weave altogether.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Speaking of presidents...

There are some Mondays that I regret ever having committed to the Gratitude Monday thing. Not the thankfulness part; I’m a much happier person for opting to be grateful. But for having to cough up thanks right after something like 43 Republican senators deciding to appease a fat, old, diapered white man instead of upholding the rule of law and their oath of office.

I mean, some days this is just really hard, yo.

Well, hey ho, it’s Presidents Day, the conflation of the Old Times’ holidays commemorating Lincoln’s (12 February) and Washington’s (22 February) birthdays into a vanilla marking of all presidents, bless their hearts. (Fun fact: Although both days used to be federal holidays, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, no one got off on 12 February.) And this year, my company is celebrating it, so—yay, day off!

(This is new to the company. Rumor has it that management waited until a certain fat, old, diapered white man was out of the Oval Office before celebrating the day. I have no take on this, having only been here for 18 months. But in announcing Presidents Day, they also said we’re getting Juneteenth off annually, too. Interesting, no?)

And it occurs to me that I am truly grateful that we have an intelligent, compassionate, moral human as president; what a gift that is. Joe Biden was not my first choice, back during the primaries, but having him in the White House is akin to how I felt when I left LA and didn’t breathe in smog, or when I left Seattle and actually saw the sun. You don’t realize how awful it’s been until you step away from it, and then the relief is so great you want to cry.

Clearly, we have miles to go. And tons of shite to clear away. And it’s not going to be easy at all. But dear Lord, we have a real president. Gott sei Dank.

 

 

 

Is your money that good?

Watching the House impeachment managers’ making their case against the twice-impeached ex-president this week, I’ve had a hard time restraining myself from driving into DC and bitch slapping every damned R senator. I mean—how they can view footage of them missing by seconds being caught by a rampaging mob that wouldn’t have cared whose blood they shed barely a month ago in the very Capitol in which they are sat right now and stick to their pre-determined acquittal vote is just beyond me.

A bigger pack of jellyweases—morals of a weasel on the spine of a jellyfish—you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere on the planet.

So when I went fishing for something musical to express my contempt for these empty husks of humanoids, the piece that came to mind was Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.” He wrote it about the military-industrial complex (which still exists today—yay!) of the Vietnam War era, but his description of the slimy, cowardly, bloated fat cats living off the taxpayers’ dollars and blood certainly applies to the likes of Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kennedy, Mitch McConnell, Josh Hawley, Rand Paul, Rick Scott and all the rest of them.

I’m giving you Eddie Vetter singing it at the 30^th Anniversary Tribute concert for Dylan. That rage-howling you hear in the background is me.

 

 

Waddling on water

Yes, it was cold on Monday. How cold? Parts of the ponds at the corporate HQ behind me froze, and ducks and geese looked like they were walking across the surface.

Naturally, I have evidence:

 

 

Frozen

When I went out on Monday morning, it was quite cold. Temps probably in the 20s. This means that what yesterday were just puddles had been a form of ice sculpture.

Now, getting used to this new camera phone, and the glare on the screen meant that some of my shots were crap shoots as to what was actually in the frame:

And I'm really sorry I messed up on these, because this frozen puddle had an Art Deco vibe to it.

But others were just gorgeous to me:

Even the melting ice on my plastic patio table had its moment of glory:

Don’t get me wrong—I’m ready for it to warm up. But I’m glad I got to see the water this way.

 

 

 

Game over

On my morning walk yesterday, I came across my neighbor’s recycling bin:

I’m guessing this was Super Bowl related.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Snow in the morning

We got another snow dump here in the District They Call Columbia yesterday morning. By noon it had pretty much turned to rain, but while it was still white, I got a few shows with my new smartphone camera.

Clearly I have a lot to learn about using this one, but still—I’m grateful for all the beauty around me, as well as for a warm, dry place to shelter.