Hurting the wrong people

I was on my way home yesterday afternoon, gazing out the Metro window at traffic parked for a couple of miles on the Toll Road (jackknifed truck being hooked up to be hauled away), when I got a text from a friend inviting me out to dinner. Seeing as to how yesterday wasn’t too bad of a day for a Thursday, I jumped at the chance.

Because—aside from dinner with a friend—it kept me well and truly out of danger of stumbling across El Klepto’s primetime televised manufactured hysteria.

I’ve been thinking about his base lately—more than I usually do, on account of the #TrumpShutdown. Someone must have told him that, faced with a choice between building a beautiful wall intended to keep brown people out of a white country and getting tax refunds, his goobers would ditch him like last week’s catfish bait, so furloughed IRS workers are being called back to work to process tax returns, although, of course, they’re still not getting paid.

Last week someone on Twitter posted about one of his MAGAt acquaintances moaning that ordinarily he didn’t give a toss about government shutdowns, but this one is [negatively] affecting him, and he really doesn’t like that. I thought that was the epitome of the red-hatters, but it turned out someone named Crystal Minton, of Marianna, Fla., told him to hold her beer as she jumped right in.

Because lemme just leave this here—the money shot quote from a New York Times story on the double-barreled devastation (hurricane Michael and the #TrumpShutdown) of the economy of the deep-red Florida panhandle. This truly distills the entire I’ve-got-mine/I’m-supposed-to-have-got-mine Republican party down to one simple statement.

If you’d like to read the whole story—there are plenty of others in Minton’s community who are stunned that the Kleptocrat would do this to white people—here it is.

Dinner was great, BTW.

Period of adjustment

At time of writing, we’re closing in on 17 days of partial federal government shutdown, with more than 800,000 workers affected—either furloughed without pay or working without pay. Most of them are likely to be paid eventually, although this is not guaranteed. Additionally, tens of thousands of contract workers—from cleaning staff to software architects—are sidelined with no expectation of recouping their wages. They only get paid for hours worked; lost weeks can’t be made up.

This #TrumpShutdown is all down to the Kleptocrat’s demand for funding his cockamamie wall along the border with Mexico, and down to the Repugnants in the Senate (primarily McConnell, but also Graham and some others) who suddenly are “unable” to vote on a Continuing Resolution they’d previously approved, because they’re afraid of the big baby in the Oval Office. We’re 17 days into it, and we’re told that that baby is willing for it to go on for months until he gets his bloody, useless wall and proves his balls are bigger than Ann Coulter’s.

But here’s the thing—those hundreds of thousands of people who are either working without compensation or involuntarily idled are either dipping into their savings or moving into the red to make the mortgage, buy the groceries or pay the doctor bills that are all due now. The Office of Personnel Management advising furloughed workers to arrange with their landlords to swap repair or maintenance work for rent and Orangina breezily assuring everyone that creditors will “make adjustments—they always do” is just master level fuckwittery, although unsurprising coming from someone who’s spent decades systematically stiffing workers and contractors.

By way of demonstrating, I give two examples from financial institutions with which I have relationships.

My credit union, headquartered in Manhattan Beach, Calif., has a banner across the home page stating that if you’re affected by the shutdown, they’re ready to help. But click through and you’ll see that all the “adjustment” they’re willing to make involves a very limited no-interest 12-month loan ($2000 would not even be a month’s rent in a lot of cities), $5000 credit card limit (with “normal” interest) and two months of deferred existing loan—but interest accrues during that period. (I expect they basically repurposed the accommodation they put up for victims of the California wildfires last autumn.)

They’re still going to make a profit, and this is a credit union.

CapitalOne (where I have a credit card) didn’t have any indicator of “adjustment”, nor did Bank of America. I through no fault of my own have a mortgage with Wells Fargo. If you want to find out what “adjustment” they’re willing to make, you have to call them.

That’ll be deep joy. It’s a wonder to me that WF is even still in business and its entire management structure isn’t in prison after it’s well-documented policy of fraud against its customers that went on for decades.

We the people face another assault this evening: Kleptocrat has announced he’ll “Address the Nation” and expects all the fake media enemies of the people to give him airtime. My fear is that he’ll use the occasion to declare the “state of emergency” he’s threatened as an end run around Congress, and we’ll have something much more serious than a government shutdown.

Can you say Constitutional crisis?

Gratitude Monday: the year in pix

A friend sent me a link to a 52-week photo challenge hosted (on Facebook) by a photography studio in Durham, N.C. The deal is, each week throughout the year participants are given a theme. You consider how you want to interpret the theme, take your photos and submit one to social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest).

Not only do you learn from the pix others submit, but you also learn from their constructive criticism.

Week 1’s assignment is “Storytelling: Self-portrait”. Take a picture showing who you are without showing your face.

I thought about taking a pic of my incipient 2019 mindmap—the stickies on my patio door, but I didn’t want anyone enlarging the image and seeing what I need to work on. So I went with a photo of books.

It was actually hard to decide what books to focus on, so I went with a mashup, which pretty much describes me. Voilà:

I like the idea of a weekly assignment; it means that I have to get out and shoot to some kind of spec consistently. Some weeks will be crap; some won’t. But it’s exercising those creative muscles, which I need.

And that’s what I’m grateful for today.

Bunker mentality

Back when I was first parachuted into my current…project, my soon-to-be-former-manager (and now former colleague) told me it was a good fit, because (in his estimation), and despite their numerous PhDs, no one in the entire department had a lick of [business] sense, and my skills were desperately needed.

I thought that a wild exaggeration, but some months later (maybe around last summer) I told him that I get really nervous when I look around a meeting table and realize I’m the most organized person in the room. He looked quizzical and said, “But you’re very organized.” No, I am not. I have seen very organized people, very organized people are friends of mine. I am no very organized person.

And yet—in the land of the blind, the one-eyed astigmatic woman is empress.

Anyhow, your empress took the new year by the horns and called a meeting yesterday to “synchronize watches” on what the hell’s going on with this thing, although I was the only person to understand the military reference. Which is sad, because in this upcoming campaign, whatever troops show up on the field will be annihilated.

I slotted the meeting (meetings in this crowd are always called “huddles”, God help me. One of the crowd is actually going to create a folder on Dropbox called “huddles” for her notes. P.S. Her notetaking skills are…rudimentary; how did she get a PhD from NC State?) for 30 minutes. It ran on another 60, and at every minute mark I saw my old ex-manager’s face as he said that this team had no sense at all; “no sense” obviously includes concise communication.

I’m not going into detail, but you’ll get the drift if I tell you that major components of the service we’re meant to be offering starting a year hence have been changed (which buggers the business plan), outside entities are now taking over delivery of many services (ditto), “we have no confidence in timelines because we never get anything done on time” (tough toenails, honey), the same kind of  bullshit yakkery that we saw in Tuesday’s cabinet meeting flowed as team members basically blew business “strategy” out their butts in the expectation that I’m so stupid or ignorant that I won’t recognize it for what it is, and they are planning to manage development of a complex IT infrastructure without input from the only product manager in the company. Also, Ms. Notetaker has apparently heard the term "wheelhouse" and is proud to use it. I'm expecting at any moment to hear her refer to someone as a thought leader.

So hey, 2019—yay!

Shut the Cabinet door

Oh, for pity’s sake—that #CabinetMeeting yesterday.

Listening to that I-I-I-me-me-me for 90 minutes, demanding nothing but praise, yapping on interminably about how NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY, know more about drones and tech than everyone, arms crossed, all alone with the machine gunners, I could have been a good general, blah-blah-blah; it’s time for the family to have grampa put into the home.

And watching that ophidian John Bolton sitting in the background shifting back and forth from his reptilian core while that orange buffoon rattled on—Jesus sweet Christ.

And what's up with that bloody “Sanctions are coming” poster and the November date—does he not remember that the Rs lost the House last November? As Twitter remarked on more than one tweet, indictments are coming.

If Republicans still think they can hold on to power with this dementia patient at their head, they’re going to be so surprised.

I need to bleach my brain.

Back to work

For most of us working stiffs, today’s the first day in the office after some time off. Depending on your situation, YMMV on how chuffed you are about this. Jury’s out for me.

So as I hunker down with career planning, I’m focusing on whatever light in the darkness I can find.

Fresh hell

Well, alrighty then—we’ve rung in yet another year. Yippee. 

I’ve always found 1 January a somewhat artificial construct for new beginnings, but I suppose we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and this is as good as any.

Toward that end, I’ve spent some time over the past month slapping multi-colored stickies on my patio door as a means of focusing on areas where I want to make changes in the coming months, with the different colors denoting different component parts of the areas. After sufficient time spent in contemplation, I’ll need to prioritize, and then, you know, take action.

It’s always something.

But more important to me is the list of things from 2018 that I burnt last night at midnight. You know—all the crap that happened to and around me in el Año Viejo, what I’ve done, what I’ve left undone, etc. I do this every year as a way of clearing the decks, so to speak, for whatever fresh hell the new year brings. I have a habit of hanging on to this stuff, long after it’s served whatever purpose it might have.

Burning doesn’t always work, but it’s a start. Fire purifies, and that’s precisely what this year needs to get it going.

Gratitude Monday: finally over

Lordy, what a year, eh? On both macro and micro levels. How do I deal with it on the final Gratitude Monday? Um…

Well, here’s what I’m thankful for: that on the trip I took because I had to use or lose three weeks of vacation, I discovered Pousse Rapière as an apéritif. And that I bought a bottle of the orange-infused Armagnac before I left Paris. And that—although it took hitting two Nicolas wine shops, I found the last bottle in the 6^th, apparently, and the wine shop guy offered to put it in a box when I told him I was taking it back to the US with me. And that it made it here—neither broken nor filched en route.

Because it makes a lovely Kir Royal apéritif and it doesn’t look like you can buy it here.

So this is what I’ll be washing away the taste of 2018 with.

For the rest of it, here’s Dave Barry’s take on the year. I’m grateful for Dave, too.

Not upward mobility

One more way this year sucks. Yesterday I took my car to the garage to get an oil change, find out why the front tires keep deflating, find out why there’s condensate on the interior of the car and get an estimate for replacing the SID panel, which has lost so many pixels I can’t read the error messages.

When I made the appointment last week, I told the Saab manager that I should probably just replace the tires. He replied that the problem could be corrosion on the wheel, so we should check that first. Fine.

But yesterday, after having had the car five hours, I get a call from Lewis, presumably a mechanic, informing me that all four tires were under-inflated, but that’s normal when temperatures drop, so I shouldn’t worry my little-lady head over that. Me telling him that I keep having to fill the front two tires every week because the pressure drops to single digits just didn’t pierce his now-little-lady mentality. He also got wound up on rotating the tires, because the newer two are on the rear, and it’s a front-wheel drive, so why? Dude—your people did that when I had those two tires replaced two years ago; talk to them.

I swear, we talked for fifteen minutes and all he could do was repeat that all the tires were under-inflated and why don’t I have them rotated? Since that doesn’t solve the issue of why the front ones deflate, I didn’t see the point. But he just couldn’t move on from that.

Turns out Glenn the Saab manager is on vacation and hadn’t left any notes for Lewis, who apparently is on a continuous loop of rotating the tires and under-inflation. Also pushing hard to replace the “cabin filter” and wiper blades. I got the distinct whiff of hard upselling, which I don’t generally get from Glenn.

Latest word is there's "dry rot" on the interior of the two tires I told him were continually deflating, and he has to order two replacements that "match" the tires on the rear. Only now they're on the front, because he insisted on rotation. Only he held off calling me about this until the tire distributor was closed, and he can't guarantee that they'll have the new tires mounted by midday when I need the car today. So I may or may not have transportation today. Deep joy.

I’m putting off the condensate issue, which he said involves $650 and a part that Saab discontinued; ditto the SID replacement, which is $450. Putting them off until Glenn is back. Next year.

Gift of the magi

You know what—I have had it with this crappy year.

For someone on my Christmas list, I ordered four bottles of Oregon wines; two white, two red. They were very nice bottles of wine, with high ratings, and not from the bargain rack at the Food Lion.

Apparently I made the mistake of telling the recipient that I’d not tried any of them, so I was looking forward to her opinions.

Because yesterday I received an email announcing that she’s convening a session of Women Who Wine. She and five others will gather with “appropriate cheeses, fruit, crackers and 5x8 cards for notes from each of us about each wine. We will salute you for each bottle!”

Those four wines were for her to enjoy with meals, not swilled down in one sitting by six people chomping crackers whose opinions I could not give a fucking toss about. I read that email and wanted to take back the wine.

Look, I know that once you give a gift, the recipient can do whatever they like with it, even if they like stirring ice and sugar into it. But I just can’t stop crying over this, and I sure as hell am never sending her wine again.

And bring on 2019.