“Mr. Trump also reiterated that he was interested in serving a third term, saying that he ‘would love to do it’ because of his popularity with his supporters. Mr. Trump, who spoke to journalists for about 30 minutes on a flight to Tokyo from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during his almost weeklong trip to Asia, seemed intent on presenting himself as fit to lead, if not run for the presidency again.”
Cue nationwide ‘No Kings’ social protests and civil disobedience on a scale never seen in this country.
There are two types of baseball fans. The real ones who have the “catchers and pitchers report” date on their calendars and happily tune in for all 162 and the fake dilettantes who pace themselves and wait until October to start caring.
My friend Mike is a real one. Has been for decades. I’m a fake dilettante. Our text exchange is prob repeating all over the PNW.
The pre-season #1 and #2 ranked college football teams just fell out of the Top 25. So much for high falutin analytics.
I was 39 years young the last time the Mariners won a playoff game. I hope I won’t be 87 the next time.
Sometimes it takes awhile. SDarnold and BMayfield were putting on a quarterback clinic yesterday. DanDantheTranspoMan chalked it up to bad defense, but what does he know about football anything?
UCLA won a football game against a formerly great team. So much for going winless and getting the number one draft pick.
I finished fifth out of seven on Michigan Hill Saturday. A shell of my former self. TMAT was second.
Can we please make the Ryder Cup Great Again by kicking out every single loud and obnoxious American knucklehead on their first offense? Related. Who wants to go to Adare Manor with me?
Keep an eye on Quenton Lanese of Olympia High School. He’s got the goods. Related. My 1k/year running streak is in serious jeopardy as a result of very stubborn left heel bursitis that has put a serious dent into my mileage. Try not to let that ruin your day.
When I press pause and reflect on the covid pandemic years, I can’t help but conclude we overcompensated for the very real public health risks. For example, now that we know more about the virus, I’m with a lot of people who have concluded we errored in closing schools for as long as we did. One weekend, our former governor even closed an outdoor park.
Like our former Luv Guv, except for the elderly, immune compromised, and otherwise physically vulnerable, many of us kind of lost our minds.
I can’t help but wonder if a covid pandemic “abundance of caution” mindset lives on in ways that might be related to the widespread conspiracy thinking that is so prevalent these days. Why? Because of the way some educated people spent September spreading fear about the safety of our pristine local lake.
First, an admission. Yes, sporadically, usually in the spring, Ward Lake has algae blooms that make swimming unhealthy and unwise.
In early summer, a member of Facebook’s Olympia Triathlon Training Group posted this missive, “FYI, possible but not confirmed toxic algae bloom at Ward Lake.” That’s all it took for lots of people to lose their minds. Rightly or wrongly, I blame the covid pandemic.
Here’s what the County reported about the lake.
So, nevermind that there wasn’t enough algae present to even warrant a sample/reading, and that actual swimmers said the lake looked perfectly fine, an “abundance of caution” took hold to the point that triathlete meet ups were cancelled because “of a potential toxic algae bloom”. That phrase was like a spark that started a wildfire. People repeated the phrase, which acted like a wind whipping up the flames.
Fast forward to yesterday when someone organized a meet up. Then this from another member, “Have you checked their contamination levels – a couple of weeks ago they had high levels and said no swimming. Just FYI.”
Sigh. This is the fire jumping a demarcation line. Despite the County saying very matter of factly that there was NO reading, this person inexplicably lobbed “high levels” and “no swimming” into the mix. What the hell?!
I spent a glorious hour in the lake yesterday morning minutes before this back-and-forth. But maybe my lived experience isn’t a credible counterfactual to the abundance of caution. I don’t even believe in QAnon.
A word I just made up. An “update” includes positive and negative developments. A “downdate” is a decidedly negative update. Here goes.
Lynn’s symptoms are growing in number and worsening. And she’s darn near non-communicative.
Since the MSA diagnosis, she’s been like a jack spinning so fast on a hard tabletop that you wonder when, oh when, will it stop.
I want to ride my trike. I want to go to the Y. I want to dodge the garbage cans and go from the back yard to the front in my wheelchair. I want to stand up on my own. I want to do it myself. I want to be normal. I want to live. And now that I’ve stopped caretaking, and can exhale, I wonder, who can blame her for her fighting spirit?
Now, though, the jack slows and wobbles. No more trike. No more trips to the Y. Alison said last night she held tight to a few garden tools, but no real gardening took place. It’s like this disease broke into our house, took every single thing in it, and then, not content, broke out a sledge hammer to destroy the walls. Now, I’m afraid, it’s going to torch the exposed wood framing. It’s relentless.
Since Lynn’s move to an adult family home five weeks ago, Alison and Jeanette have been amazing. Investing tons of time and energy. Ready to catch her as the wobbling worsens.
Lots of people continue to be amazing. Ebony, for example, is a hospice volunteer who comes twice a week to help Lynn shower. The last time she didn’t know I had slipped into the bedroom that is connected to the bathroom where she was helping Lynn. Ebony was so ebullient. She kept asking Lynn if the temperature was okay and continued talking to her like she was her own mother. She was having a genuinely good time aiding Lynn, and by extension, our family. Such humanity.
And Lynn’s friends. And their flowers. And cards. And visits. As a group, they are wonderfully unbothered by her decline. Like Alison, Jeanette, and me, they need her smile and probably wonder what they’re going to do without it.
A significant change is that Lynn is coming to grips with the fact that nature is running its course. And that her time is short. Her quality of life is such that she’s more okay with that now. One can only endure so much.
As for me, I’m living a double life. Monday, I had an amazing swim in a beautiful local lake. Tuesday, five friends and I were bearing down on Tenino when a herd of 50+ cows and calves, all the exact same white color, moved in unison towards the road to seemingly spur us on. That was surreal, and when combined with our idyllic weather, and the trees starting to show out, it’s tough not being able to enjoy my favorite time of the year with my favorite person.
When I get home from the lake and the group ride, the kitchen is empty. There’s no one to ask, “How was your swim? How was your ride?” So my autumnal joy is tempered by a void. My love of fall is no match for this loss of intimacy. Unlike Lynn though, I will be okay. In time.
Increasingly, it’s obvious that the more “plugged in” to the news, the more “on-line” one is, the worse their physical/mental/spiritual well-being because media algorithms know that outrage is the surest way to attract and keep eyeballs, and thereby sell advertising. As a result, outlandish opinions dominate. And once you and I are sufficiently outraged, we can’t unplug.
So if you and I want to maintain whatever sanity we have, we should intentionally tune out the news. Learn to leave our phones behind on occasion. Step away from our keyboards. Not watch as much t.v., or more likely, stream television clips.
Ignorance may in fact be bliss, but it also empowers those in power, because the more uninformed people are, and the more apathetic, the more free elected officials are to do as they please.
So what are we to do? Localism is the answer. Or a variation of the popular phrase that you no doubt remember, “Think globally, act locally.” Instead, maybe we should, “Think locally and act locally.” I’m advocating for a type of grassroots accountability, starting with ourselves and then branching out to where we live, trusting that if we do right by those we’re in closest relationship with, our county, state, country, and world will be okay in the long run.
So, in this way of thinking, we don’t get embroiled in fighting about national policies or current events. Instead, we recognize that our attention and energy are finite; consequently, we focus on being better partners, parents, and friends to those we live with, next to, and near. We go to the farmers’ market and initiate conversations with those closest to us.
Recently, someone, on-line ironically, asked a great question that gets to the heart of localism. They asked, “Do you know the name of the person that delivers your mail?”
I don’t. Why? Because I’m usually on my computer when she visits each morning.
My “friends” like to bust my chops for buying and selling cars too often. And yet, they give me no credit for my seven year old iPhone. The whole lot, consistently inconsistent.
One of my besties visited last week from CA. While in the kitchen, he glanced at my ancient iPhone XS Max on the counter, smiled, make that laughed, and asked, “Do you still keep it in a tube sock?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“When you first got it, you used to keep it in a tube sock!” followed by more guffawing.
Damn if I hadn’t repressed that memory. It started to come back. Walking into Department meetings slinging a tube sock on the table next to me. Too bad I can’t rewind that tape. Had to have been the phone before the ancient phone and I vaguely remember waiting on a proper cover. Still, hard to live that down. Damn his very good memory.
I just watched a vid of tips and tricks to customize the brand new IOS 26. Only one problem, IOS 26 only works on 11s forward. Tim Apple, what are you doin’ to me, a longtime investor?
Yeah, it’s probably time to upgrade, but I don’t like being pushed. I wanna jump into the new tech pool of my own volition.
The AirPod Pro 3 reviews are smashin’. I will get those despite the 2’s still being fine. The bonus being that will give my “friends” more fodder.
“Tens of millions of bison once roamed North America, grazing on grasslands, forests and plains, from the Great Basin of Nevada to the Atlantic Coast. It is difficult today to imagine the size of herds that are no longer seen; Lakota oral histories gauged herd size by the number of days it took them to pass.”
Pressing Pause 