Leaning on something

You all know I broke my foot.  This led the doctors to give me various assistive devices, including a cane and a walker--not simultaneously, the walker came first.

  I can now report that walking with a cane makes you look ten years older.  Instantly, even if you have just undergone a facelift.  A walker adds another  ten years, plus the suspicion that you are either deaf or senile.  So people enunciate carefully, making sure you are looking them straight in the face.  Ugh!

What makes activists tick

I can remember protests in the late sixties--we were protesting the Vietnam War then.  Lo and behold, the war ended, not necessarily because  of the protests.  But the protestors thought it was caused by them.  By God, it felt good.

  The cessation of the war made people hungry for more..  It was like a drug,  It gave them a sense of control.   People missed the excitement, the crowds, the festive air, the fresh air.  So everybody started protesting something, or everything, or nothing.

  The environment was the next Good Thing.  And, boy, did everybody crumble.  Nobody stood up for pollution.  It was a heady success.  We were reminded of that success every time we went to the store and nobody gave us a plastic bag.

  Lately, there has been some pushback, but the protesters chose their targets carefully.  If anyone protested the efforts for gun control, you could shut them up by telling them they had the blood of children on their hands.  It turned out, no-one wanted to kill a child.  Of course not!  But some people still wanted to keep their guns, the murderers!   Not that they had killed any children with them, or even any adults; they just refused to give up guns no matter how passionately the protesters argued. 

 

It's poetry month

I've always liked this one.  I like gloomy poems.

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,

Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had

Past reason hated as a swallowed bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit and in possession so,

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

    All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

My gofundme project

The news of Andrew McCabe's Gofundme project upset me until I came to my senses.  The man is, like me, a retired civil servant who has only his pension to rely on.  How can he afford legal fees?  True, his wife has money, and they live in a multi-million dollar home, but the man says he needs money for legal fees and who am I, whose relative had to pay a lawyer $50,000 to get out of a contract, to doubt him.  Andy--if I may take the liberty of calling him that--is a good example of a retired civil servant making lemonade out of lemons.  He has inspired me to start my own gofundme scheme.

  Naturally, I want the money for a worthwhile cause.  I don't want diamonds or European travel or anything like that.  But, looking through the New York Times magazine, I came upon a project which would certainly improve my mental health--a luxury condo in Florida.  You see, it really snows very hard up here in Delaware, and my doctor has forbidden  me to shovel snow.  So far, my neighbors have helped me with this, but it is really not fair to them to have this extra burden.

  So it would improve the morale of the whole neighborhood if I were to spend the winter in Florida, leaving the snow to pile up in my driveway until the crocuses and daffodils come out.

  I know asking people for a luxury condo is a bit much.  The optics, you know.  So I wont ask for a luxury condo in Fort Lauderdale, which is what was advertised in the Times.  I'd be satisfied with a modest--but not too modest--little pied a terre on the West Coast, even as far north as the panhandle.  I think I will ask for $400,000 , $350,000 for the condo itself and $50,000 to furnish it. That seems eminently reasonable.  I will even pay the monthly fees and airfare to get from here to there.  I could raise a little money from airbnb to supplement my very modest  income.