Legal But Still Not Legal

Well those of us who thought we would have "arrived" with marijuana legal have another think coming.  Because you can't smoke marijuana out in public.  You can't just sell some weed to a friend, and they can't serve it at parties, at least legally.  I guess it's a question just where and how you can use it.  Of course you have to be over 21 to buy it so that lets high school and college kids out.  And I'm still not sure what happens now if you have marijuana in your car when a cop stops you.  And now there is this Church that uses marijuana as a sacrament.  Sounds like my kind of church.  I need some drug to "find peace and tranquility".   There is that song, "Don't worry; be happy"  I should be content and "happy" now that I have economically been "delivered" from ten years of having my back up against the wall financially.  It was almost exactly ten years minus a few weeks.  But I still have these symptoms of stress like restless bowels and a touchy stomach like I had a couple days ago.  I wake in the morning and have an anxiety attack.  I am beseiged with all of these random, anxious thoughts.  I can't relax.  Marijuana would solve a lot of these problems, perhaps.  I've thought about buying one of these little 99 cents plus tax airline bottles of vodka and saving it till the first thing when I wake up in the morning and downing the bottle and then I'd be prepared to face the day.  Really the country is prospering economically like it hasn't in a dozen years.  People are hiring more for the Christmas season with seasonal employees.  More people are quitting their jobs now because they are confident they can get a better one.  There are more openings for jobs than there are people to fill them.  And the best thing of all is that wages are headed up.  And yet with all of this- - I still feel anxious about my health and getting older and whatever. 

The Christian Church really isn't the friend of the common man.  Steve Harvey yesterday was saying "If you keep on doing what you've always been doing then you get what you've always been getting".  Just hen you are used to a prayer meeting that goes twenty minutes they raise it to a half hour.  And just when you're used to a half hour they raise it to 45 minutes.  It seems like you can "never get used to being a Christian.  You can't "out patience" God.  You can never wait him out.  You can never answer the question of "How humble do I have to be and for how long- - until God sees I'm really humble and considers me worthy to get my prayers answered".   There were other issues I was going to raise about the church but they'll keep.  I did want to say thing about heaven.  We're all supposed to have heaven as our goal.  Some would say heaven is like the ultimate "new frontier".  If the old west was exciting to explore and took a certain kind of rugged individual, and if space travel were the ultimate "New Frontier", what about death?  Shouldn't that be the ultimate frintier?  Oddly enough- - No.  Listen to what Christian themselves say about heaven. It's a place of "eternal rest" or sitting on a cloud with angel wings and playing a harp.  Or else it's endlessly praising God and thanking him for our salvation.  There is a hymn that goes "When we've teen there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun,  we have no fewer days to sing God's praise than when we've first begun.  Gratitude is fine but ten thousand years of it could get a little boring.  I heard something on one of these TV "Supernatural" shows that struck a chord with me.  They said "Oh heaven is no big thing.  There's nothing there, actually. It's all just living on people's memories.  And so when Chuck Smith or Mark Bove talks about heaven- - they speak of remembering family life and loved ones.  We are rejoycing in our children and grand children, which I don't have.   At least with my own "after death" visitations from people like Mal Evans, Stewart Sutcliffe, Richi Vallenz, Kurt Cobain and Dennis Wilson- - most of my "encounters" with these people aren't based on their past lives but on revelations I've gotten.   If we get the notion that heaven is all just "memories" once again these could get boring after- - oh, say ten thousand years or so.  We were still coming out of the ice age ten thousand years ago.  It just seems almost narcicistic- - - - that our smidgeon of time here in planet earth in the here and now could provide the central focus for an eternity of happiness, or that what we do at some evangelical rally could shape our destinies for an eternity. 

Paul Manifort was convicted on eight of eighteen charges last month with more charges to come.  Now Manifort has struck a deal where he pleads guilty to two more charges and that’s all.  These are “conspiracy against the United States” and “Obstruction of Justice” and with those two more charges he’s let off on the previous eight according to Dorthey.  But he has to testify before Muller’s commission and if they don’t like what they hear they may recind the deal.   All of these peole are testifying before Muller but there is never any pay off.  There should come a point of critical mass where it all explodes and the full charges under investigation hit the newspapers.  It was stated earlier that even if Manifort, or Trump for that matter, get a pardon, then they no longer have fifth amendment rights and can be questioned on anything and they will be charged with new charges of purgery if are caught in a “purgery trap”.   Now we hear that Judge Bret Cavana (sp) molested a girl when he was still in high school.  I heard another story that he transported a female accross a state line for sexual purposes.  Others are saying that Manifort STILL has to serve time on those eight charges he's already been convicted on.  That could alter his decision on whether he wants to cooperate with Muller.  He may decide it's not worth it.

Today is Friday September 14, 2018 and the LA CO Fair has two more weekends to go.  They won’t start the new TV season till the week after next.  But Halloween is in full force in Disneyland.  I think they are hopelessly rushing the season.  Summer isn't even over for another week.  We're still celebrating Jewish Neayear now  We have a mini heat wave in progress.   Summer reruns are still in evidence.  Mexican independence day is celebrated tomorrow.  And they're trying to get us in the mood for Halloween?   Maybe they could wait at least until the regular baseball season is ended before coming to us about Halloween.  

President Trump Has a Whole Different Definition of Treason From the Rest of Us

The latest news is that President Trump is not only reminding people of how “great the response was” for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, but now he’s saying that it was the democrats that inflated the death numbers from sixteen to nearly three thousand all to make the president look bad.  In some ways Trump reminds me of Michelle.  They both have a highly immature, simplistic way of relating emotionally.  One must question the higher mental capacity of both.  He makes issues of things that only serve as distractions of what he wisely should be talking a bout and that is the prospering economy.  Trump doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.  Also Trump appears not to know the proper definition of Treason.  He doesn’t see capitulating to the Russian Mafia and Putin’s machinations as treason, but he sees personal disloyalty to himself as treason.  He sees his own person as “the country”.  He has no concept of government of the consenting voters by a mandate to do this or that.  All he knows is that he’s in for four years and he does whatever his addled mind can congure up in that period.  Thom Hartman was saying that Trump may foment a war with Iran just to get his poll numbers us.  People speak of a “gathering storm” where Trump is concerned.  But I fear it’s not the gathering storm around Trump’s time in office, but rather a gathering storm signaling the death of democracy.   I wish Muller would get off the dime and come out with his final report and be quick about it.  Because time is ticking away.  And people are getting lethargic considering “this” we are expeeriancing now as “the new normal”.   This is the same way the people under Nazi Germany regarded the eroding of rights in that country as “the new normal”.  Each step leads to a slightly worse one.  I don’t know if the American people still have the will to rally and vote to impeach President Trump by voting democratic in the next election.  It doesn’t matter which democrat they vote for- - just as long as the democrats have a majority to vote out articles of impeachments.  Now we hear Stormy Daniels may be coming out with her own book.  She’ll probably have someone write it for her.  I haven’t seen sales numbers on Woodward’s book or read any post release reviews of it.

.  The problem with Days of our lives is that it’s a show now in continual crisis.  Ever since John and Marlena’s aborted wedding it’s been one unmitigated disaster following hard on the heels of the last.  It’s Samantha and Susan and Christine and Marlena’s shooting and Paul falling through the window.  Now they say Paul may never walk again.  Daughter Bell has a document notorized by Marlena that she doesn’t want any heroic life preserving measures to be done.  This document is as good as a death authorization and John and Eric think Belle should just forget it exists, which sounds to me like a pretty good idea. 

They’ve been talking about Hurricane Florence for the past few days and they’ve been saying it would arrive Friday morning at eight AM.  Now they are saying that the curse has turned southward a little into Charleston, South Carolina.  They have a mobile truck saying that the evacuation was mandentory.  Other officials have been calling it a monster storm and not to be messed with.  The storm was downgraded from a Cat 4 to a Cat 3. That was yesterday.  Now it's been downgraded again to a category two with only 115 mph mile winds, which is still pretty strong.  But it's the water inundation people have to fear with over thirty inches of rain scheduled in the next week or so.  This is the biggest storm to hit the area since Hurricane Hazel in 1954.  

Today it was Eye Witness news and then the live ABC network news.  We all know how bad the storm is and the “outer bands” of it are already affecting the outer islands of North Carolina.  They will be inundated with water.  We had a submarine style turkey sandwich.  Of course it was just a thin piece of turkey and some lettuce and cheese.  There was no mustard or vinegar or bell pepper, olives, tomatoes, onions or anything else.  A guy came around with some mustard.  It improved the flavor and it settled my stomach, actually.  We had amberosia for dessert.  There were also cooked carrots.  Dorthey said that it was too early to have dinner and she’s saving hers and has vinegar for it to punch up the flavor.  I still haven’t had those box donuts from last night.  I’ve been waiting for my stomach to settle down.  It’s time to post something.  I know I don’t have anybody reading my blog and maybe that’s affected my readership numbers but maybe if I came up with something interesting, people would. 

America Is Turning Into A Dictatorship

I'll be doing my own posting of my own ideas tomorrow but right now here are a few observations by someone else.  I hope I don't run into any pasting problems.  I did run into a problem but hopefully it's fixed now. 

Eric Zuesse

America is a country in which dollars count far more than voters do, and that’s what all of the data shows. And that’s a dictatorship by the richest.

This kind of country, this kind of country, and this kind of country, get this kind of President. And the rulers blame it on the public, instead of on the billionaires, the actual rulers themselves (the behind-the-scenes rulers). These rulers selected the politicians and offered those to the public to select from in ‘elections’ — and they then blame the public for the choices that the public make, from amongst these bad final options that the aristocracy has provided to them.

Billionaires despise the public, and have no intention of allowing the public to have better leaders than this — but they allow the public to have only leaders who serve their bosses, namely, those billionaires themselves.

Any teacher who says otherwise is simply contradicting the data. The data are clear on this: America is a dictatorship by the few richest under 1%, over the many more than 99%, who are commonly called “the public.” It’s an aristocracy, and it’s run like one. The public’s loyalty to this dictatorship — to this aristocracy or rule-by-the-richest — is retained by the deceit of calling the public “citizens,” instead of “subjects” (like in the bad ‘good old days’), but the reality now is that they’re subjects, not citizens.

Citizens exist only in an authentic democracy. Subjects are merely the people against whom the aristocracy’s laws are imposed. Subjects are not citizens. The aristocracy’s media spin them as being “citizens” in a “democracy.” Almost all of the public are fooled by that lie.

Like former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has said of today’s America (with such honesty so that none of the major ‘news’ media reported it):

“Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. … At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell.”

When a foreign government is a dictatorship by the aristocracy, it’s called an “oligarchy,” but when one’s own nation is, the term that’s supposed to be used is instead an “aristocracy”; and so Carter was here referring to his own country in the way that only foreign aristocratic dictatorships are supposed to be referred-to. That terminological usage might have added to the shock-value, but none of the major (i.e., none of the aristocratically controlled) media reported his statement, in any case.

Can the Brett Cavana Juggernaut be Halted?

This is Thursday morning September 6, 2018 after breakfast.  I was just checking all my books on Watergate in my bookcase.  I guess it’s “The Final Days” that features the story of Nixon walking down the halls talking to pictures of the ex Presidents.   Stephanie Miller today was talking about Donald Trump being afraid to venture into the Oval Office without others because he was afraid the office was haunted with all of the ex Presidents like Johnson and Reagan.  If we believe all of the news stories lately President Trump is having a major mental breakdown and is unable to govern so they have a shadow government of Trump’s aids conspiring to “keep the country going” because Trump just is too detached from the real world.  There was a letter to the New York Times talked about on ABC news that was run as a major print even though the letter was unsigned.  This seems strange to me.  ABC and others have quoted from this letter extensively so the American people know well what is in it.  This is one day after Bob Woodward’s book quoting all of those administration sources such as Mad Dog Mattis and Chief of Staff Kelly, both of which deny the quotes attributed to them.  I don’t know what to think.  I feel like I’m in the twilight zone and we’re all re-living the summer of 1974.  If people wonder why I haven’t been blogging lately it’s because I’m flooded with so much information I don’t know what to make of it.  Part of me thinks “All of this too shall pass” and it will all blow over as so much sound and fury signifying nothing.  I doubt whether any of this has been reported on FOX news.  They have lived in an alternative reality a long time.  Since President Trump is such a cultic figure to people like Shawn Hannity and FOX news- - - no matter how glaring the faults reported they refuse to believe any of it.  They say it’s all Obama’s fault or Hillary’s fault or somebody else.  President Trump believes the New York Times letter or else he wouldn’t have said there is a treasonous conspiracy afoot in his administration.  He says the people involved in the Times letter should resign and I have to agree with that.  Whoever sent that letter should be a patriot and step forward and take the consequences.  Now Trump once again is saying that congress should rewrite the libel laws so people like Bob Wooodward can be thrown in jail or fined or something.  Really the person or persons who wrote the letter should have contacted someone from the Senate Judiciary committee because I think the information would be useful in challenging the President’s authority to even appoint the next Associate Justice.  Of course as you know all of these inside Trump sources report the same thing of general chaos, so it the same report coming from different sources.

The economy is still very strong with record low unemployment and the strongest quarterly growth we've seen in ten years.  This is all good news for President Trump as far as the mid terms are concerned.  This economic rosy outlook may be more instrumental than any book that comes out against the Trump Administration because the president's "base" is the ones that vote.  Seemingly liberals don't go to the polls but the FOX "heartland" news base does.  There is that vast mid-section of the country that is solid red and solid red-neck from Idaho to Nebraska to Wisconsin to Ohio to Tennessee to Florida to Texas.  They may be uneducated but they are the "cachee" and the votes and they are the ones with the influence.  The Koch Brothers see to that.  Trump is afraid that if there are delays in the Cavana hearings the red-state momentum will be halted and people will re-think their republican votes.  And Trump reminds us if the Democrats take over they will opperate swiftly to impeach him and set up their own counter-tide of oppinion.   So the Cavana momentum can't be stopped any more than Obama Care momentum could be stopped.  Because like then, the party in power knows their time is limited to get done what needs to get done even if the majority of Americans oppose what their congress is doing.  

Hurricane Gordon struck the central Gulf coast of Mississippi and Alabama and did damage as far east as Pensicola, Florida.  Now the storm is headed into Arkansas in a relatively straight line as these storms go.  Usually they curve to the right.  On the west coast they curve to the left.  (I guess that makes sense)  Last week one night they said there was severe flooding from Minisota to Maryland and every point in-between.  Meanwhile here on the left coast we have been suffering from a drought.  Last year we got less than five inches of rain here in the LA area.  That's a near record.  It's been dry all over the far west due to global warming and forrest fires have abounded.  

Nowdays you can't even sell tennis shoes without being accused of being political.  I like the way these big corporations now are fighting back against right wig political correctness.  Public oppinion sways big money.  Market forces rule. 

My roommate Bill is having his other eye done today for cateract surgery so he will be seeing perfectly.  I myself have been seeing rainbows around bright lights at night and some have said that signals an onset of glaucoma.  I'll have to have that looked into.  Google doesn't have addresses in green anymore but seems to have reverted back to smaller blue text.  

A Week of Funerals

The blog post was still showing "Skeletons from the Closet".

This was the week of funerals.  Aretha Franklin had an eight hour funeral on Saturday where President Clinton spoke and Stevie Wonder and others performed.  There was a whole lot of frensiac gospel singing.  Detroit was Aretha's home town.  And of course Mc Cain had three funerals.  One of them was back in Arizona where Joe Biden spoke.  Paul Ryan spoke at one.  In today's funeral President Obama spoke a bit self cousciously and trying to make with the humor.  George Bush gave the best speech of those who spoke today.  Henry Kissinger spoke and he has really aged.  But then again it's been a really long time since I've seen him on TV, like maybe forty years.  Lieberman spoke and they sang a few hymns.  It was an uplifting experiance in that cathedral.  Of course all of this eulogizing and celebrating of lives has kept president Trump out of the headlines.  There will be plenty of time to get back to that next week. 

In terms of my personal finances this is the first time in almost exactly ten years where I haven't had my back financially up against the wall.  I'd like to keep it that way for a while.  That billing arrangement I may have mentioned went through and my personal checking account is no longer tapped for internet expenses.  Otherwise I don't have that much to say today. 

Definitely a Bad Week for President Trump

. Up to now the National Enquirer has been Trump's chief ally shielding him from the spreading of negative stories with its "catch and kill" philosophy.  This guy named Pecker (of all things) from the National Enquiror has flipped on Trump.  He had turned against his old friend and associate.   Pecker has been given immunity by the Justice Dept so he won’t be charged with anything and is free to talk with Muller and others with no fear of legal ramifications or giving up his fifth amendment rights.   This is a bad week for Trump because also another guy named “Boot” has come out with anti Trump statements.  Of course Mc Dugal and Stormy Daniels were both women that Trump was sexually involved with.  Now Pecker has volunteered to open up a whole vault of articles that have been “Caught and killed” the way the National Enquiror deals with Trump’s enemies, because they are so close.  Trump’s response to all of this is “such flipping of witnesses ought to be against the law”.  He thinks like a mafia Don and also has said that Manifort wasn’t a “Rat” the way that John Dean was.   Of course “You dirty rat!” was a tag line of James Cagney.   If Trump has another week like this one he might be out of office sooner than anybody thinks.  However Laurance and I both agree that impeachment will occur before Trump ever resigns.  Trump is impervious to all construct criticism.  Whatever happens next week- - the President will find an even farther out rationalization for it.

John Mc Cain may have less than a week to live according to the latest news stories.  The family says that Mc Cain has requested that all treatment for his agressive brain cancer be stopped and due to his age of 81 they now say he may not make it to his 82nd birthday just next week. 

Molly Tibit was killed while jogging on July 18^th in Iowa by an illegal alien.  They tracked him down with surveillance and then they nabbed him and he confessed to killing the twenty year old.  The other big murder is the father who killed his wife and three and four year old daughters.  He strangled all three of them in Colorado.  The father later came up with the story that he saw his wife strangling one daughter and the other lay already dead so in a rage he strangled her.  He dumped all three bodies in an oil drum.  This is such a fiendish, cold-blooded murder kind of like the Andrea Yates case.  He should get the death penalty.

Trump’s attorney Koehn, called “the fixer” pled guilty to a bunch of crimes to make a deal with the prosecution to avoid worse sentences.  He turned against his undying and often professed loyalty to President Trump and now Trump is calling him names.  He plans to talk to special prosecutor, Muller.  Meanwhile Bob Manifort was found guilty by a jury mid day yesterday on eight out of eighteen charges.  There were five tax evasion charges and one bank fraud charge and two bank loan charges.  The prosecution counts it as a victory and he could easily get thirty years for his crimes and also likely spend the rest of his life in jail. They had a news flash during “Days of our Lives”.  This case was a major test run for Muller.   

On “Days of our Lives” you saw Will remember his entire life and how much he loved and was loved by all his friends and relatives.  Christine Di Mira came back from the dead disguised as Susan.  She had a gun trained on Marlena and Samantha had a gun trained on her.  All she has to do is pull the trigger, but then she won’t find out if E J is really alive as Christine claims.  It’s like not even after all these decades can John and Marlena be free of jinxes.

President Trump Is Almost a Dictator Now

President Trump wasn’t to be a dictator and yesterday took another giant step toward becoming one.  He took away ex CIA director John Brennon’s security clearance away so he can’t view classified information any more.  Brennon was CIA director during the capture of Bin Laden in May of 2011.   James Clapper and Jim Comey are part of a long list read off at the WH press conference including Susan Rice and others from the Obama administration.  None of these people had broken the law or in any way abused their trust.  The WH press secretary said that Clapper and Comey and Brennon have been making “eratic statements” that threaten national security”.  This is a classic case of projection.  It’s just a power play for Trump.  As John Brennon said in a recent TV talk show Trump’s goal is to styfle free speech and stir up divisiveness in America.  Trump thrives on things like racial conduct.   Omerosa or however you spell her name- - is still in the news but not even the main-stream media trusts her.  I haven’theard how well her book is selling.   The Manifort trial is going to the jury today, this morning.   They quoted liberally from the prosecution and defense summation statements this morning.  The defense put all of the blame on Gates.  Of course Manifort and the defense restedwithout putting on a single witness and Manifort himself didn’t testify.  The jury should be reminded (as in Travon Martin) that attorney’s arguments are not testimony.  Selah. 

.  This is Thursday August 16, 2018 and I didn’t type yesterday.  Aritha Franklin died this morning or maybe last night.  I think she was 76.  The family had previously stated that she was “gravely ill” and asked for our prayers, but they wanted their privacy.  She died of pancreatic cancer, and you know how serious that is. Aritha Franklin was from Detroit and a life long resident, apparently, and the daughter of a gospel preacher.  She was the Queen of Soul.  There are either five or maybe six songs included from her on my “all time hits of Rock”.  “Respect” in the spring of 1967 was the first time where “Sock it to me” was sung in repetitive fashion.  I learned the news while eating breakfast in the dining room.  She changed her appearance a lot over the years.

In a belated story there was an altercation at a store parking lot involving parking in a handicapped place.  The white guy complained to the Black guy about and the Black guy knocked him down and the white guy responded by shooting him dead.  Originally this was seen as Florida’s “stand your ground” law.  But then they looked into this white guy’s history and they decided to charge him with manslaughter and Black groups were happy about it.  This case isn’t as black and white as Trayvon Martin was, so maybe they’re evolving for the better.  I think the public has had enough of these white on black shootings.  

Alvin told me at a quarter after eight that we had to leave at eight thirty for the dentist.  I had to shuffle stuff around getting ready for the room cleaning.  Fortunately I had already brushed my teeth.  I got there at a quarter to nine and had a cigarette.  Then a guy from the inside opened the door for me even though they don’t open till nine.  I wasn’t called in till five after nine.  The assistant did a lot of the work adjusting the four crowns and drilling and stuff.  There was a lot of jabbing of the teeth and gums and my mouth was sore the rest of the day.  Then Dr Bui came in and she did more endless taking out and putting in of the four new crowns.  She did the final cementation and I counted the four crowns as she put them in.  I was done at eight after ten.  She showed me a mirror to look at them and they looked good.  Dr Bui said that they were “weakened” and the teeth could crack.  This alarmed me.  I also noticed that I now had an over-bite I never had before.  Dr Bui denied that this was the case but it’s my mouth.  I had the receptionist lady make the phone call to this place.  Three different attractive young women came in during the next hour.  One of them had a little baby.   After ten thirty I had her call again because Alvin hadn’t arrived.  They said it would be “ten or fifteen more minutes”.  I went out for a second cigarette.  I didn’t get picked up till twenty after eleven.  Alvin was taking Andrew to the doctor on Romnya street in north Amaheim.  Now Alvin would drop me off and go check on Andrew.  Fortunately they had saved my lunch.  It was now eleven thirty.  We had a good lunch.  We had roast beef on a long bun with beef dip, we had a baked potato with butter and sour cream, and we had corn with amberosia for dessert.  Patty was still there.  I got a cup of coffee from someone across the tablewho had left.   I checked on the room and the cleaning cart was next door.  They were doing double duty working both sides of the hall at once.  I had a minute or so to go to the bathroom and lay down for a moment.  Then Nora came and I had to leave.  I saw her inspecting the bed covers for bugs but I guess I passed the test.  Except when I returned at a quarter to one the place smelled of bug spray.  I don’t know if Rene was brought in to look at the bugs, if there were any.  Nora had put a heavier spread on the bed. Then I watched “Days of our Lives”.   The air conditioning has been working well. 

Government Could Shut Down in Just Over Four Hours

Here is the latest on this Friday afternoon January 19, 2018.   The Republicans don’t even have the votes to pass their proposed bill even if the Democrats in the senate don’t filibuster.  John Mc Cain is in the hospital with complications on his brain cancer and is unable to vote.  This makes the count fifty and fifty.  But Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul aren’t going to vote for this bill either.  This bill was one to extend the government one month and is nothing to hoot about to begin with.  It contains the CHIPS bill, or children’s health insurance policy or whatever, which affects either eight or sixteen million children.  I’ve heard both figures.  But there is no DACA provision to help out the dreamers, the children of illegal aliens.  And the President wants approval of “The Wall” before he’ll sign anything related to DACA, which is delayed action on children- - something.  Hence it looks as though the government will shot down at nine o clock tonight regardless of what Gary of KFI thinks.  I don’t think a government shut-down is a good idea even if it’s my party sponsoring it.  It means people can’t get passports approved and government monuments and national parks won’t be open.  Some government workers will stay on the job but they won’t get paid till later.

Median approval of U.S. leadership across the 134 countries surveyed in 2017 reached 30%, the lowest point since Gallup began tracking this measure annually in 2007. Disapproval of U.S. leadership increased almost as much as approval declined. The 43% median disapproval, up 15 points from the previous year, was a new record as well, not only for the U.S. but for any other major global power[there were three others — Germany, Russia, and China — that] Gallup asked [this question] about in the past decade.  The map showing country-by-country results indicates declining approval of U.S. leadership in all countries in the Western Hemisphere, except no change in Jamaica and Trinidad-&-Tobago. There were 9% decline of approval of America’s leadership in Venezuela, and declines ranging from 14% to 40% in all other countries throughout the Western Hemisphere. The biggest decline in the Hemisphere, 40%, occurred in Canada.  In Europe, there were declines in all countries except improvements (increased approval) in Macedonia 15%, Belarus 11%, Poland 8%, Slovakia and Montenegro 7%, Russia 6%, and Ukraine 4%. The biggest change was the 42% decline in approval of U.S. leadership in Norway, but close behind that was the 38% decline in Netherlands. Norway, Canada and Netherlands exhibited the biggest of all the declines in approval of U.S. leadership, among all the 134 nations surveyed.  We just thought you’d like to know. 

Last night Paul called me at twenty after five to go to the hospital.  He picked me up out front in ten minutes.  He asked me if I knew where we were going.  I knew it was Roundtree in another unit.  As it happens we had passed by this building many times going up the south walk to Mom’s place.  I think she was in room thirteen.  They had just eaten dinner.  Tim and Marie were there and Marie gave me a bear hug both at the beginning of the session and also when we were leaving.  I got a change to see Mom with her hair combed and dressed and in a more lucid frame of mind.  She said very few things that were off the wall.  We had a nice conversation.  She was watching TV from her wheel chair.  I sat on the bed and there were folding chairs Tim and Marie brought out.  We met the assistant Laurie.  But then Mom had to go to the bathroom and me and Tim and Marie went out to the hall and talked.  We were right by the nurses’ station and they had Shawn Hannity and Larry Elder and another guy on FOX TV and Tim remarked that everyone who watches FOX news is brainwashed.  Who is going to tell them?   Tim had been planning to get Mom some exercise.  Once before Tim had Mom standing up and pushing her wheel chair down the hall.  That’s more progress than I knew she’d made.  But the never got around to doing that this evening at least while I was there.  It was now a little past 6:35 and Paul was tired and hadn’t eaten dinner.  Paul told me about this one good place for Mom “just across Brookhurst” that would be perfect for Mom and her room would be a short walk from the dining area.  He mentioned other places they had visited.  Mom claimed she had never seen my aqua jacket before when I got it Christmas 2013.  Paul and I left and Paul wanted to show me this other house in a tract area that was a board and care place.  But then his memory failed him and he couldn’t remember where it was down Dale.  Paul mentioned that there is too much stuff about Trump personally in the news, and I would have to agree with that. 

 [Thursday] on Days of our Lives we understand how Andre could be murdered.  Anna has a motive because she is obsessed with vengeance for Tony’s death and carries around his ashes everywhere and has broken off her relation with Roman over it.  That’s sad.  Gabriel is a suspect because Andre just called her in and fired her and intends to steal all of her business profits.  I suspect that’s breaking several criminal laws.  Vivian has a self professed motive.  And Chad has the clearest motive because he just deduced from talking to John Black that Andre had to be the one to organize that phony warehouse break-in thing to take them off the trail.  Also Kate is a possible suspect, though a more distant one.   But he hasn’t been murdered yet.  Otherwise, I would say that Abigail has been both uppity and shrill in her objection to Stephen asking Gabriel for a date.  She seems to equate it in her mind to Bill Cosby drugging women or something.  She was almost threatening.  But I thought her “role” was to play the nice submissive, cooperative employee.  I thought that’s what she and Chad decided on to get Stephen to hire them both back. 

Democrats Pushing Us To Another Government Shutdown

The big news of this week is that there is going to be another government shut-down.  This one is sponsored by the democrats rather than by the republicans.  The democrats say they are going to force a government shut-down by not approving a budget unless it contains DACA provisions for the dreamers.  Chicanos used to call President Obama the “deporter and chief”.  President Obama did deport a lot of illeagels.  I guess you say the democrats are doing it just because they have the power and they intend to use it.  The Republicans need nine more votes in the Senate to pass a budget and the democrats aim to not let them get them.  Of course it’s partially President Trump’s fault by blowing up the DACA deal last Thursday with all of that African “shit hole” stuff the media was hopelessly sidetracked by.  The media and the American people missed the main picture that President Trump appears to make deals and then backs out of them turning around on a dime.  We’ve seen this behavior on his part a lot lately.

At nine thirty I turned on the Bill Handel show after Nora was through.  The “house whisperer” guy was on with the same basic presentation he’d given to Gary and Shannon.  He talked about the no touch toilets where the toilet senses your presence and warms the toilet seat and the floor beneath your feet.  I guess it’s a “bide” thing that automatically sprays and blows your butt dry.  Bill Handel has one of these modern toilets in his house.  There are a lot of household items at the Consumer Electronics show last week.  But they’re mixed in with everything else.  There are also no touch bathtubs and no touch showers.  All you need to do is tell the shower how hot to make the water.  I wouldn’t know because I don’t take a thermometer with me when I shower.  There are also these pop up floor projectors.  They are 8K projectors or something that are powerful enough to produce a 150 inch image.  The other time they said you didn’t even need a screen with these things but just project them on the wall.  I don’t know about that.  At ten o clock I went out for a snack in the courtyard.  I got two Oreos and a lemonade. 

Jeff Flake is a flake according to Norman Goldman.  He gives all of these moralizing speeches before the Senate.  And he wrote that book of his.  But in the end he votes the straight line republican agenda.  The media is trying to start a rumor that Jeff is going to “Primary” President Trump in 2020.  He’s not running for reelection as you know.  The other political news of the day is that Steve Bannon is not going to testify before congress because he’s only going to testify before the grand jury of former director Muller.  Some people have these rose colored visions that somehow Muller is a genious for manipulating the thing so that Bannon rats out all of the higher ups including Trump himself.  I don’t see that happening.  Then we have the second annual “Pink pussy cat” mass women’s protests on January 20^th or the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration.  With any luck this one might even get more media notice, though last year’s got plenty.  But I hold some vague hope that a blue tide is rising in America. 

The Trump administration released the President’s results from the physical he had last Friday.  His temperature was 98.4.  His height is 75 inches and his weight is 239.  His blood pressure was in the normal range and he's not taking any BP medication.  His cholesterol was 221 or just a little high and he’s taking Crestor for it and that amount will be increased.  All of his systems are normal except he’s just a little heavy.  His heart and lungs and brain and nervous system and genital-urilogical tract is all normal.  He’s recently had a colonoscopy and is not due for another one yet.  In short the President is as healthy as a horse.  He’s in great shape for someone 71.  His fasting blood sugar was 89.  My last one was 82.  Of course one topic not touch was the president’s psychological health.  That’s another story.

This is Wednesday January 17, 2018 and it’s the eighth day Bill has been gone.  They aren’t giving out information.  One song that slipped through the cracks in May of 2006 or our rock compilation is “The Cradle Will Rock” by Van Halen.  I don’t know how that song slipped through but we don’t have it.  Just before eleven I was drowsy and roused myself and went out for a cigarette.  I was in the dining room early with waiting.  Jerry thinks that Susan is actually a hypochondriac because every day she complains of some new ailment.  We were supposed to have beef stroganoff.  That’s what it said on the menu.  Actually they had macaroni and cheese.  I guess they didn’t have any beef- - - and didn’t have any stroganoff either.  We had mixed vegetables and also a dinner roll, but no butter.  We got seconds on the amberosia which today featured both the cream and the marshmellows.  I had to go back to the counter for coffee because the coffee cart passed us by.

The Minisota Vikings defeated the New Orleans Saints in one of the wildest finishes ever.  The Vikings scored the first seventeen points.  The Saints scored toward the end of the third quarter just before dinner making it 17 to 7.  After dinner the score was 20 to 14 with over eight minutes left to play.  The lead changed four times in the last three or so minutes of the game.  First the Saints scored making it 21 to 20.  Then the Vikings scored a field goal we were all on pins and needles about making it 23 to 21.  But there was still a minute left to play and the Saints marched down the field with seeming ease and scored a field goal making it 24 to 23.  But there were still about fifteen seconds left.  Things looked pretty hopeless as the clock wound down even further.  But then the Vikings scored a flookish touchdown.  There was a Saint there ready to tackle him as soon as he caught the ball but he didn’t but had a puzzled look on his face as the Viking scooted right by him.  And I’m sure he was thinking “I can’t believe it” as he scored.  The final score was thus 30 to 24 and the game went on till after five.  

Proposition - "You Can't Be What You Can't See"

But first here's the news.  President Trump in some public setting talked about how we need no more people from shit hole nations in Africa or Central America and more immigrants from Norway.  This is the clearest racial sentiment we’ve heard from Trump.  If he had used the term "hell hole" rather than shit hole I think we could understand.  Their is a veil of spiritual darkness that pervaids so much of the condinent of Africa from highly corrupt government leaders to savage religious practices.  You may be destined to live your short life with a half a dozen diseases with flies buzzing around your head.  Just getting a visa to the United States may be a lagistical impossibility.  But then when Trump says he wants people from Scandenavia where they are among the most well adjusted and happiest people in the world, at that point he is being racist.  Norman Goldman says it’s a Brooklyn term and Trump picked up the lingo of the working class ghetto so he could learn to relate to them and negotiate better, and also mount a successful campaign.  History books will say "This phenominon reflects poorly on the character of the American people.  The other key fact I'd like to discuss was that Donald Trump has no mind.  He's mentally a blank slate and does whatever the hard core republicans and the Koch brothers tell him to do and even think.  If he hasn't read the script for the day, he's lost and he says things that embarrass himself. It's a national embarrassment to have a president who's dumb as a post on so many issues.  Apparently President Trump was for the dream act before he was against it.  On last night’s news he spoke of working out a “clean bill” with just the dream act.  But then when someone told him what a “clean” bill was he reversed his position and said “Anything that reaches my desk needs to have provisions for a wall”.  But now they are saying that the “wall” could be as little as chain link fences or electronic surveillance.  So who knows?  Also the President reversed his position on the FISA court bill.  This is all the secret and pervasive spying done by the government in accordance with the Patriot Act.  But he thought it was some Obama conspiracy against him.  Then someone told him that the FISA provision or “Foreign Surveillance Information Act” was something Republicans wanted.  Of course another propensity of the president is to do whatever Putin wants and make Putin happy.  What if Putin personally told Trump to get ride of the FISA law?  He even changed the Republican platform because Putin wanted something different.  We can't have a puppet President.  This is dangerous not only to national security but also to the constitutional welfare of the country in general.  

Last night during some TV awards, one woman raised the proposition that “You can’t be what you can’t see”.  This is the idea that it’s hard to fantacise being Batman or somebody if you’ve never seen a Batman program or movie.  The idea has to be implanted in your mind somehow to give you some image to strive for.  However this is not the approach Christians take.  When push comes to shove they will quote you the scripture of “Eye hath not seen no ear heard what awaits the Saints in the afterlife”.   When you think about it this really gives little to hang on to.  But there is an even bigger problem.  Most teachers see it as their job to impart the knowledge that they have- - to you the student, so that they serve as a role model to you.  But often this is the last thing Preachers want.  When you think about it, your emotion toward these preachers is not one of admiration or even respect.  Indeed if you were adopt some of their traits they would be secretly disappointed in you.  What they do, their “act”, if you will,  is not that unlike a magician whose role is to mystify rather than instruct.  They want you to be in awe of them and they secretly want you to think “Gee, I could never be like that”.  And if somehow you did adopt all of the “stuff” they teach in terms of theology and legalization and all,  your mind would be so filled with theological junk that would only end up clogging and cluttering up your own thought processes.  Think about it.  You wouldn’t be turning into “them” but rather an image they are projecting of themselves, which may be no more real than a hologram.  One thing you find curiously missing are any “rungs of the ladder” that you can climb up after them.   And often (when push comes to shove) they will explain this in almost Hindu terms of “Well you know the Lord has a path for each of us and you are supposed to pursue your own path (or fate) even if that “fate” is something nobody in their right mind would want.  It’s almost as though certain people are meant to be blessed and certain people are meant to be jinxed.  I’ll return to this thought later.  There is also an element of “impossability” about the whole Christian salvation thing.  Just as a woman having the carrier of a man two hundred years ago seemed a near impossibility because it was such a long reach.  John Calvin was a champion of this “impossability” doctrine- - - (for lack of a better term)  Many people speak of hyper-Calvinism.   I would use the terms of strict Calvinism or hard Calvinism, but not hyper-Calvinism.  Because for something to be hyperbolic it has by necessity to somehow be NOT the thing that’s being called “hyper”.  I suspect Thom Hartman gets hyperbolic when he speaks of “Salvation by being rich”, which in essence is what Hartman believes about Calvinism.  He’s inserting this wealth thing in there that Calvin doesn’t make a big thing of per see.  But the key here is that there is no link, no “bridge” if you will to a brighter day for the average hearer at some evangelical meeting.  I will not comment on whether God answers prayers.  Under Calvinism - - - you’d just have to infer that our destinies are fixed, or preordained.  And if they are preordained then you can’t pray for “God to change his mind”.   I would like to think that we can “Change God’s mind” by our deeds known as “works”.   I believe we should live our lives as though this were True, even if we don’t know whether it is.  I think I can sum up my sentiments on this paragraph in that there is no “Sharing the wealth”.  There is a basic tenant of human nation that when one person comes on good fortune he “shares the blessing”, shares the wealth with those he calls his friends.  But in terms of what I’m saying, these Christian pastors really aren’t your friend.  They don’t stick with you when times are down.  Think about it.  If anything if hard times fall on you you may have a jinx which “They don’t want to catch themselves”.  That’s how they think.  Jinxes are like viruses, diseases, which you have to stay clear of.  (Selah)

Two Key Court Rulings Out Today

A three judge panel overturned the gerrymandering of congressional districts in the entire state of North Carolina.  They said the bias and the racism were carried out with surgical precession.  North Carolina is a purple state but the results are red.  It would be nice if every court in the land decided to make the same ruling about gerrymandering in their state.  Then a district judge overturned down the suspension of the Trump ruling saying that the dreamers only hat six months to get their act together and leave the country.  Apparently Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke of the illegality of the Obama decree back in 2015.  He also placed an inter-locqatory provision on this ruling saying he can be fast tracked by one Court before the ruling of another court is played out.  So this ruling will go first to the ninth circuit court of San Francisco and then to the Supreme Court as fast as possible.  Norman Goldman is on now.  He believes the republicans are in disarray this year.  But we’ve heard sentaments like that before and somehow they all manage to rally around and protect President Trump.  Two Republican congressmen have thrown in the towel here in California.  One of them is Ed Royce, who used to be our congressman but his district was redrawn.  The other congressman is Daryl Eisa or however you spell it.  He’s an ultra-conservative and I thought I heard he had a criminal record of some sort.  Lots of Republicans are choosing not to run in 2018.  They don’t want to be associated with the Donald Trump ship of state when it goes off the rails.  Think about it.  

 The Christmas decorations are still up around here. 

This will be a nonpartisan commentary about U.S. politics, as viewed by an American historian who is disgusted with the profoundly corrupt U.S. Government — not merely the political Parties, but the billionaires who effectively control them. Not everyone who finds Trump and the Republican Party to be beneath contempt is a Democrat. All that this commentator is is a democrat — a person who is opposed toall forms of dictatorship, including America’s own.

Key factors are now coming together to indicate that Donald Trump’s Presidency is already doomed, even if he survives to the end of his term as President. His remaining chances of being elected to any public office are near zero; even his success with the Republican Party has doomed — tainted for years, if not ended — that Party, made it not just repulsive, but increasingly repulsive, both inside and outside the United States; and, here is how, and why, this extraordinary phenomenon is happening:

Everyone knows, by now, that Steve Bannon, who was reliably reported (both before the election, and, in even deeper retrospect, after the election) to have been absolutely crucial to Trump’s election, has recently become instead the total opposite, Trump’s enemy — out to destroy both Trump and his family. A book will soon be published from him, that’s sure to spill lots of disgustingly putrid beans, beyond anything previously wafted by the public, from these now rotting but powerful targets.

The well-connected political reporter Michael Wolff has also recently come out with a new book (excerpts here), in which many of Trump’s aides already anonymously leak damning testimony of Trump’s personal stupidity and psychopathy.

Life Sure Can Be Depressing

In a late news flash they are thinking of reconsidering their vote on net neutrality.  I guess they've been flooded with mail disagreeing with their decision.  Congress is voting on a whole lot of things including the dream act.  Trump almost acts as if he's open to keeping the dream act for the children of illegals.  But Trump can turn around on a dime just like Steve Bannon did about that book out last week.  Now he's praising Jered Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.  Politics is turning into one big soap opera where the authors of the thing can't decide what plot-line they want to go with.  Do the good guys win?  In good news it's over fifty degrees in Chicago these days after a nearly two week deep freeze.  

Last Thursday the room was cleaned for bugs and they were alone in here for hours.  I have discovered another item missing.  It’s that ceramic square picture thing I got as a gift one Christmas.  You add this to the TV manual and the fire exit map, and also the two calendars, and my missing confirmation number and Chase bank statement and two store receipts with my balance on it, plus a Christmas card or two.  

Last night it was the ABC network news and Jeopardy and a dash of “Wheel of Fortune”.  The medication line was long and lasted well past seven thirty.   Earlier Bill wanted me to go to the bakery and buy a pack of four cinnamon rolls for a dollar, and Bill gave me the dollar.  Bill ended up giving me two of the rolls.  But Bill got sick from the other two rolls, or maybe it was the two packaged burritos he ate.  Bill says he felt really sick.  Later after seven thirty he wanted me to go to the store and get him a can of Sprite for 75 cents and he let me keep the quarter.  It didn’t help.  Bill got into an argument with Kathy out in the front lobby.  Bill told me that he doesn’t want to lie down and go to sleep because “I feel so sick now I’m afraid if I sleep I won’t wake up”.   Apparently he wanted to go to the hospital but the ambulance was really late in arriving.  We watched NCIS and then that “Bull” show”.   After nine Bill left the room and I went to bed at twenty after nine, not knowing whether Bill would be right back.  I heard Denise come in soon after this to get the laundry.  I hope Bill gets the treatment he needs. 

[material deleted here] I lay in bed and got up at five o clock and showered and made myself instant coffee.  It must have rained again last night because the benches were still wet.  I turned on the Bill Press show since Bill wasn’t here to talk about the TV news.  Leah did the morning medication again.  Normally Ricardo does the medication Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.  Today I got cough medicine.  The Stephanie Miller show came on.  Denise returned the laundry at a quarter to seven.  Everything was there, but I had to figure with last Thursday in mind and which clothes I wore longer and which ones I didn’t.  I wanted to get coffee at the store but Ben wasn’t ready yet.  It was kind of a lousy breakfast.  The oatmeal was late and mine already had milk on it and it was cold and really lumpy.  It tasted strange.  The sausage patty was cold.  We had a crescent with butter pats.  Jerry let me have her sausage.  At least the coffee was hot.  I went back out to the store and got a large cup of coffee for a dollar and a quarter and took it too my room.  I opened the shades.  One thing is Bill always likes it so gloomy with the shades closed so he can sleep or something.  I was in better spirits after drinking the coffee but I woke depressed about the way my whole life is now.

Last night’s program got me to thinking about what a joy it is to have kids and see them grow up right and say “I accomplished something”.  I think to some degree most every Born Again Christian by necessity has to live a double life and compartmentalize things.  But if they grow up wrong or have severe mental problems it’s a different story.  Of course like with Princess Charolette it’s amazing to see a child come into their own developmental personality and how it exciting it is to see them learn things.  The next program was about a guy who had gotten psychotherapy and went out and wasted two people with a gun.   And the people picking the jury wanted people who were analytical able to detach objective “reality” from emotion.  Of course what they are really looking for is a bunch of cold hearted robots who vote the way they are brainwashed to do. 

Now you not only have sloppy Steve but sneaky Dianne.  Dianne Feinstein on her own released some controversial material on President Trump.  I’m not sure whether it has to do with the Russian prostitutes.   Bill Press talked about this on his show.  Stephanie also talked about Trump’s activities.  In the old days like say 2012 I’d be doing long paragraphs about President Trump right now but I just don’t have the energy to do that these days.   We all need to just scan the news ourself and form our own oppinions.  There is a lot of talk about invoking the 25^th amendment, which is more of a pipe dream than anything else. 

I actually made morning snacks for the first time in a while.   Jennifer brought Gabby today and she was wandering around the courtyard searching for food.  I got a lemonade and a graham cracker from Valerie.  I called Judy just now and she was a little puzzling.  She said the reason why Mom was restless before in the hospital was because of the drugs she had been given.  I asked her whether Mom was mobile in a wheel chair going outdoors or anything and Judy said no.  I asked when Mom would get back to her apartment and Judy didn’t see that happening.  I asked what would happen to all her stuff.   The whole issue about Mom possibly having stage four metastatic cancer of the spine was left unresolved.  Either she does or she doesn’t and someone needs to find out because it has profound implications.  It’s almost as if they know she does have cancer but nobody wants to think about it.  

My Picks for This Weekend's Wild Card Games

They did their four football predictions on the Gary and Shannon show today.  My fear is that the Rams and Atlanta game might not even be shown.  They just keep talking about the Chiefs and the Titans.  I pick the Tennessee Titans over the KC Chiefs for the afternoon game.   I am picking the Rams to easily handle Atlanta in the evening game.  I am picking the NO Saints over the Carolina Panthers, and I'm picking Jacksonville to beat the Buffalo Bills.   We'll see who's right in these picks beginning tomorrow.  

The following was typed yesterday

Steve Bannon has a new book on President Trump called “Fire and Fury” after his North Korea speech.   It’s a real hatchet job in the Kitty Kelly tradition.  It’s a “tell all” book.   The author of the book was given free rein to ask anybody any question he wanted to at the White House with no questions about security clearance.  I don’t see why he did it.  I thought they were friends.  He said dealing with President Trump was like dealing with a child in that it was a chore to figure out what he wanted.  Trump liked to watch TV at night while eating fast food.  He was afraid of being poisoned and the only way around that was for people to not know he was coming.    He called everybody names and thought Trump’s daughter, was dumb as a brick.   He openly admits to all of the meetings with Russia and says “This will only be a problem if we win”.  Trump fully expected to lose and his wife, Melonia was upset at the notion of having to live in the White House.

Now on the east coast there is a new bomb cyclone storm that starts in the south Atlantic and is working its way north.  It’s fully as cold as the general weather but now the wind chill factor will be driven into the stratosphere.  It was 44 in Anchorage yesterday but there were highs in the thirties in Florida.   Also there is all sorts of snow in places they aren’t at all used to it like Savannah, Georgia and northern Florida. 

Attorney Jeff Sessions wants to crack down on all of these states that have passed legalization of marijuana laws.  But the retailers don’t seem too worried.  They are planning to sell pot in the city of Los Angeles on Monday.   Sessions says “Good people don’t use marijuana”.   We know.  They just get drunk and kill people with a car and sexually assault women and lie about it like Roy Moore.  

Yesterday the room was cleaned because there were bed bugs in the mattress and all of the clothes had to be washed, they claim.  - -This is Thursday January 4, 2018 and it hasn’t been much of a new year so far.   This morning after breakfast I began putting away items before the big room cleaning.  No bug spray was used.   I turned off Frangela and turned on KTLA news so when the moment came there wouldn’t be any delays.  Augustine came in here about twenty after nine and began removing the linens.  Then I saw him carrying a lot of mattresses out while out back.  It seemed like there were more than four.  He had Rene helping him.  I was nervous.  I didn’t go out for morning snacks.  It was after ten thirty I asked to use the restroom from someone in the med room.    On two different occasions I sat in the front room and one was around ten to eleven.  We had chicken soup for lunch and a hamburger and macaroni salad.  I didn’t finish the salad.  We had coffee and peaches.   I sat out back a while and then went up and saw Rene and he asked if I wanted to lie down for a while.  I just wanted to use the bathroom - - again.   Finally we got linens on our new mattresses.  Bill’s has a wooden base in front of it.   Both of my towels were taken and we still don’t have any.  Reme remarked about the magazines I’d taken from the closet floor and put them in the laundry basket.   The upper shelf of the closet hadn’t been touched and the contents below the sink were undisturbed.   However there are some things missing.  Both 2018 calendars are missing including the one I just took off the wall.  My latest bank statement is missing and also a few recent “The Week” magazines.   Another thing oddly missing are the TV instruction manual and also the fire exit diagram.   I went down about two twenty to the laundry room to ask when our clothes would be ready and John said they hadn’t been started yet but he’s here till ten o clock tonight.   All of the electronic stuff was working normally.  I had Gary and Shannon on the radio till one.  On “Days of our Lives” now they want to ship Theo off to Johanesburg, South Africa for some experimental stem cell research that should take a year to find the success of.  Theo doesn’t want to go and I don’t blame him.  Now the new Stephen says he owns the Di Mira mansion and wants to pick out his favorite bedroom.  I’ve been smoking a lot being under a lot of stress.  I got two Oreos and a lemonade from Rico for a snack.    I’ve been gradually been putting items back.  This desk chair was swapped out with Bill’s chair and the desk chair was over by the wall.  

Mother's Tumble

Last week my mother fell in her room on something and broke a lot of her ribs and bruised her hip and perhaps punctured her lung.  She went to the hospital.  But I was having digestive problems and could not visit her till Monday morning, so here is the report of that visit.  What a way to start off the new year.  

Paul was waiting right in front of the building.  This hospital was in east Garden Grove on GG Blvd and Palm Street.   We took the elevator up to the seventh floor where Mom was.  What struck me initially was how small the room seemed to be.  There were no chairs to sit on besides the porta-potty.  I had forgotten how narrow hospital beds were.  There was little natural light.  The room didn’t seem that clean.  Mom was dead to the world when first we came across her.  She was sleeping so soundly it seemed ashame to wake her.  Naturally she was groggy.  Mom was mentally confused lapsing from reality to some parrellel world where Dad was still alive and she even made reference to Grandpa and Grandma.  She asked where we were parked and could we go to the car now.   When I was by myself with Mom she asked if I could drive her home and asked if anybody else was in my room and maybe she could stay there.  The nursing staff didn’t seem that attentive.  We had to lift Mom ourselves and reposition her in bed and adjust the bed.  Her hospital gown kept coming undone.  Mom complained continually of pain in her stomach.  She took two things of Malox but that didn’t seem to help.  It wasn’t till after one thirty that she got a pain pill when by now her ribs were hurting.  Some of the nurses were chatty like that blonde who was almost as tall as I was.  But they didn’t appear to be tending to her needs.  At one point I used the bathroom.  One thing I noticed was that the bathroom was spacious unlike the cramped room where you always seemed to be tripping on something.   They announced pizza in the cafeteria just before noon.  At some point they brought in a chair for Mom, which was the only chair in the room.  She was in the chair close to an hour and continually complained of discomfort.  Mom was supposed to get her lunch between twelve and one but it was an hour late and the food was cold and there was nobody else to help feed her and she seemed to have no appetite when Paul helped her.   She complained the food was cold, and I’m sure it was.  She didn’t seem to want to watch TV.  The next door bed has visitors the whole time.  An attendant spilled some coffee meant for Mom even though she doesn’t drink coffee.  I’d like to see her out of that place to somewhere where she can get more attentive service.   I was getting cabin fever as the hours ticked by.  First it’s twelve, and then one and then two.  By the time we left it was ten after two and we had been there for over three hours, which was the last thing I was expecting.   It’s kind of an emotionally draining experience and I don’t know how Tim and Paul do it.  Paul said something about how Marie is a better conversationalist than he is, though Paul did a pretty good job of keeping the conversation humming.  Mom did notice my mustache.  After we left we weaved our way through the streets and came up Katella where there were a lot of restaurants.  I had it in my mind I wanted to eat at a Subway.  I wasn’t in the mood for a sit down place where we would be there over a half hour.  I wanted food quickly.  We went down Gilbert to Cerritos and up to Beach where I thought there was a Subway but it wasn’t there any more so we went to Taco Bell.  We got one of their five dollar specials.  We both had a large taco and a smaller cheese shell taco and a thing of Nachos and a different kind of burrito and a large Pepsi for five dollars.   I ate my food eagerly.  We were ready to return back here just about three.  I told Paul it was an educational experience.  Paul expressed concern what to do next.  I thought we should have her at the “skilled nursing” unit at Roundtree and see what happens after a month.  I guess you have to make a decision then where to continue to hold on to her room.