Gratitude Monday: And the stagecoach you rode in on

When I bought this house in 2017, my mortgage was sold on twice within the first year. It ended up with Wells Fargo, an institution I loathe with a hatred so intense it would cut steel.

It’s not just that their hiring and business practices are disgusting. They once actually paid first-class postage to send me a notice that my escrow account was short $0.25. (I walked over to the local branch and gave a teller three nickels and a dime, and got a receipt for it. Just to make sure the shortage cost them the maximum amount I could manage.)

In the intervening time, interest rates have finally gone down enough that refinancing began to make sense. When I found out that my credit union had competitive rates and would not sell on the mortgage, I pulled the trigger. It wasn’t smooth sailing, and I shall have many words to tell the CU, but as of last Monday, Wells Fargo can just suck it.

And I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that.

 

 

 

Honky tonk blues

Charlie Watts died this week at age 80. Watts was the drummer in the Rolling Stones. I don’t know how they’ll carry on without him, because Watts was the anchor of that group of creative loonies for more than five decades.

In his honor, I’m giving you two examples of his artistry. The first—well, if you don’t recognize it, I cannot help you. The second is a performance by him in his jazz group; Watts was a jazz man at heart, and you can see it here.

You'll want to crank up the volume.

 

Just the husk

I found this on a hosta leaf long after the 17-year cicada invasion had subsided.

Say what you like about Brood X, they’re tough. Even in death.

 

 

 

Sign of the times

You know you’re still in a pandemic when the local gym announces that it’s clean as a come-on to membership expansion.

I mean, it makes me wonder what the place was like before COVID.

 

 

Opinion overload

The need for all manner of people to weigh in on any topic in the world never ceases to amaze me. And God bless SoMe for giving them the platform(s) to do it.

In the past couple of weeks, gobshites who did not let their obvious difficulty with spelling words of more than one syllable interfere with their spouting crackbrained theories of epidemiology for the last year and a half have evidently added doctorates in geopolitics and military science, as they are now inveighing against the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Note: I’ve seen plenty of typo-strewn diatribes. But not one single alternative plan. I'm including politicians on both sides of the aisle in my observation. Not one single plan.

(For the record: IMO the best-case scenario was always that this would be a shitshow, but what we’ve currently got would have to travel up about five floors to attain that status.)

Now that the “mah freedoms” and “Ah ain’t puttin’ no unknown shit in mah body” anti-vax/mask crowd is reaping the entirely expected harvest of Delta variant COVID infections (exacerbated by many of them ingesting industrial agriculture-grade ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine) and flooding hospitals in the Confederate states, they are gobsmacked to find there’s no room for them. So, naturally, they’ve become medical ethicists and are shouting “Hippocratic Oath”.

Yes—the very same people who insist that medical doctors have the right to deny treatment to LBGTQ+ patients (and that pharmacists have the right to not fill prescriptions for birth control) are not down with these same health professionals putting the science-denying, public health-flaunting ignoramuses at the bottom of the triage queue. Perhaps they meant to say Hypocritic Oath?

Well, I have no doubt that in another week the Know Nothing Opinions Brigade (KNOBs) will expand their expertise into other arenas. If they can still tap their devices while on ventilators.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: a voice crying out

My morning walks take me past one pondlike area where I sometimes hear a glopping sound that may or may not be a frog. But one morning last week I was passing a house that’s nowhere near any known body of water and distinctly heard a lone, forlorn-sounding amphibian.

(Yeah, you can't see anything because it's before 0600.)

So, here’s what I’m grateful for today: unexpected discoveries in everyday life. Nothing spectacular or earth-shattering. Just mildly surprising.

 

 

 

Where are you now?

Singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith died last week. At time of writing the cause of death has not been released, but she was only 68. That’s way too young for someone with her gifts, yet here we are.

You might call Griffith a country-folk-traditional-activist performer. She handled the material of other writers with as much ease as she did her own. Her voice sounded of West Texas grit backing up Celtic purity; there’s no other like her.

There are so many of her songs and covers I could give you; it’s a hard choice. So I’m giving you two from her 1993 album, Other Voices, Other Rooms. First up is Woody Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi”, a duet with Guy Clark.

And we’ll close with Malvina Reynolds' “Turn Around”. 

You’re on your own, here, because I’m weeping.