It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

 With the weather having been rainy all week, and having turned this evening to just a light sprinkle, and with a bit of a nip in the air (around 26 c, which is about 78 f), I decided to venture out for a holiday season walk to the nearby Alfamart, just past the gas station on the main thoroughfare close by. 

Donning my unnecessary coat and hat for the sake of mood, I set off up my street, past the line of conspicuously less than gaily adorned houses, along the rows of humming air conditioning units, tuning up no doubt for a Christmas choir performance later that night and, turning the corner at the top of the street, came upon a lake where a road used to be. 

This was no snow drift. This was not wintry ice. No this was a muddy brown lake that had conquered the entire road between a fence on one side and a gurgling irrigation ditch on the other. 

What to do? Turn back? Never! I am not the sort of person who turns back. I always move forward. So I waded that murky winter marsh, not to be stopped by foul conditions. (I'll wash up later). Over the river and through the trees to the Alfamart we go! (I'll check for leeches when I get home).

From there on it was smooth sailing and I sloshed into the store with no further trouble. 

I had come for a bag of caramel corn, a pack of cigarettes, and a fly trap if I could find one. You see, at this festive season of the year, the air here is filled not with flurries of snow but with flurries of small, exceedingly annoying flies. These flies do not behave in the relatively polite manner of regular flies. These tiny seasonal flies land on everything, buzz in your ears, fly into your eyes, try to crawl up your nose. And of course they love the dinner plates. 

These flies are rather slow compared to other sorts of flies, and so they are swatted dead more easily. But what use is that if they happen to be sitting on your broccoli, or investigating your seafood pasta?

Unfortunately, I found no fly traps at the Alfamart. And this is the second store I've tried today. The things must be selling like Christmas lights these days. 

The vast brown lake had not moved on my way back home, but on this crossing I came upon a man traveling toward me on his own way and we smiled cheerily and greeted one another merrily, amused at the chilling challenges of our separate sojourns.

God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.

This Happens Every 6 Months.or so, Give or Take

 I had been aware for a while that I would need to see the doctor soon, as my prescription medications, alprazolam and clobazam, were running low. These are for neuropathic pain and anxiety. It's just that seeing a doctor is low on my list of favorite things to do--somewhere in between eating raw garlic and jumping off a cliff. 

When I finally got around to contacting the doctor for an appointment, I found to my surprise that the doctor would be gone for a year. I'm speaking of the doctor I have most commonly seen. So I called my backup at a different hospital, and made an appointment with him. 

Aside from the need to refill two medications, I had a few complaints I wanted to discuss. 

I started with the medications, got that done for the next 6 months or so, and then said "Doc, I'd like to discuss three problems I'm having. The first is that my entire body is painful."

I anticipated that he would laugh, or chuckle, or at least smile, but his face maintained the expression of a Sphinx.

So I laughed for him. 

Seriously though, my shoulders hurt, my back hurts, my hips hurt, and my legs hurt. 

"I'm thinking this might be arthritis," I suggested. 

"Hmm, that may be so," he said. 

I remembered then that this particular doctor was always receptive to my self diagnoses, which seems good in one way and not so good in another. Good in that it makes the whole doctor appointment thing simpler, not so good in that I really have no idea what I'm talking about. But there is always the hope that he will prescribe a magical medication that will return my state of health to that of a man 20 years or so younger. 

As it turned out, he suggested that I take low dose ibuprofen, a suggestion which I could not help feel someone disappointed with. Really, ibuprofen? That's your prescription for full body pain? 

Or could it be that full body pain is normal in a 71 year old man?

Hmm. I think I'm going to need more of those anxiety pills. 

I must say though that the low dose ibuprofen has helped.

Other than that, he ordered some blood tests, which turned out okay, showing as usual borderline diabetes and some minor cholesterol problems. I'm already taking medication for the latter, atorvastatin and cardio aspirin, but I've been kind of a bad patient in that I have continued to eat sweet snacks such as cookies and cinnamon rolls and ice cream. My bad. So I am trying to exert some self control now. As long as it doesn't include quitting cigarettes.

Car Wreck

 As with the last Trump administration, this one promises to be another car wreck, only a bigger more gruesome one this time around, a gigantic pile up. It's one of those things you want to turn away from, and yet you can't stop yourself from watching.

Sleeping Dems

 After having been put through years of election denial by the Republicans, 60 court filings, multiple recounts and audits, I can't believe the Democrats are now doing nothing to contest this razor thin election. They should be putting the Republicans through what we were put through. Why is it that we are not threatening innocent election workers and ruining their lives. As long as we continue to avoid doing things on the terms of the enemy, we are merely cowardly and defeated. And what about all of these ballots having gone through the Musk satellites? That needs to be questioned endlessly and hashed out in court for years. We have nothing to lose. We have already lost. The country has lost.

Berries

 On the path at Karang beach this morning, walking back to my bike, I came upon three men using a long pole to drag berries from the high limbs of a tree. They stopped me on my way and asked if I would like to try the berries, some of which they had already collected in a plastic bag. They were purplish berries, about the size of small grapes, had a bit of a meaty quality in texture, and tasted sweet and sour at the same time. They told me the name, but I did not really get the pronunciation. Have another, they said, and I did. When I left, the three or them each wanted to shake my hand. How wonderful. Having earlier in the day skimmed through all the American hatred on Facebook, how sweet was this simple kindness and shared humanity. 

Vipers

 Well this is getting downright biblical, isn't it? In a secular sort of way 😉

Judas, for 30 pieces of silver, betrayed the Lord. Trumpers have betrayed the nation for the price of an egg.

I read today, or rather brought to mind what I had read many times before, something Jesus said: 

Either make the tree good and it's fruit good, or else make the tree bad and it's fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.

You can't have it both ways. The trumpers desire, by selfish motive and base self-interest, to be considered good despite their plain lack of compassion and concern for others.

Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

In other words, you reap what you sow. Sadly, we must all reap what you have sown.

It's not nothing. It was not just another election with one fair choice or the other. It does not come down to the price of eggs. It comes down to the pride of our nation, our place in the world, our commitment to one another. A far, far higher price has been and will continue to be exacted by the irresponsible and thoughtless actions of those who voted to install a felon, a sexual predator, a compulsive liar, an insurrectionist in our country's highest office. 

The F Team

 The one thing that can be said for Trump's cabinet picks is that at least they are hilarious and give us the benefit of a robust belly laugh, albeit a bitter one, rather after the fashion of the Joker. They are completely, supremely unqualified, having no experience whatsoever in the posts to which they are being assigned. A Russian sympathizer/agent for the Department of Intelligence? A vax denier for the Department of Health, a man with a "worm" in his brain? Matt Gaetz, for God's sake, as the head of the Department of Justice? Lol. Bend over, Republican voters. Thy king cometh.