This is Saturday December 24, 2016 and let’s start off with a little seasonal news. Today is Christmas Eve and also coincides with the start of Chanukah, which is the first time that has happened in thirty years. I was wondering about that. We then have FOX news itself making the news. FOX news has always been known as Trump Central with all of the icons of the Trump campaign such as Giuliani and Gingrich setting up camp at FOX news. We now hear that while all of the other news and cable news outlets have understandably gone down since the hysterical and freakazoid election. But bucking the trend has been FOX news which is actually up in the ratings. But people at KNX radio explain this anomally in that FOX people prognosticated correctly about the result of the November 8th election and people want to go with a winner. We learn yesterday that Carrie Fisher had a major heart attack while aboard a United Air Lines flight from London to Los Angeles. She was in critical condition but now is doing better. Co star Mark Hammil tweeted “It’s as though 2016 couldn’t get any worse but now it has” or something like that. I didn’t know her mother was still alive and sends her greetings. We then have the other news of the day these past 24 hours. The United Nations Security Council has voted 14 to nothing to condemn Israel for the settlements in the Jordan valley. The US voted to abstain. In the past the US itself has voted to condemn the settlements. But now Donald Trump says that when he’s president all this is going to change and the United States will block such resolutions. I don’t know. I think if I were God and in charge of Israel I’d bring back bussing. You know that social experiment that mixed Whites and Blacks? Only I’d bus all of the Israeli top brass into the postage stamp area of Gaza and then turn the guns over to the Palestinians who now get the best treatment, and they can bomb the hell out of them for the next decade or so.
Yesterday
morning Bill wanted the news on during the day and there was news from ten to
ten thirty on some TV station but Bill was outside. We had a mixture of pork chunks and rice for
lunch. Gosh, I forgot to invite
Netanyaho over. We had corn with that
and spinach leaf salad with vinegar & oil dressing. We had apple crisp for dessert. Then I guess it was Gary and Shannon. Meanwhile the weather has been looking ever
more overcast and murky threatening rain.
On “Days” Chad and Abigail had one of these strained conversations one
always has with someone who just reappeared from the dead. Actually it reminded me of some of the
conversations I’ve had with Laura. I got
orange drink from Rico in the afternoon on the patio and graham crackers. I decided to change my routine and watch an
hour of General Hospital, which predictably had Christmas trees, presents and
children. Then it was the 3:00 Eye
Witness news. They kept talking about
how the surf gets weird once it actually starts raining.
I
put on that reddish plaid Christmas shirt and used English Leather and then
went down to tell Sarah at the med room that I would be out for several hours
and to hold my medication. Then I went
in to tell my table mates. I told Nora
not to give me a plate she was handing out just then. Judy called to say they were leaving and I
went out and waited and it still hadn’t started raining. I thought that was a major victory. We got into a conversation about Global
Warming on the way to Marie Calendar. We
would be getting there early for a five o clock reservation we might not have
even needed at that hour. Elizabeth was
with us again. I told Judy about Thom
Hartman’s remark about how the Polar Vortex gives us polar air in a cold snap
but then all that now warmed air returns to the Arctic and melts the polar
ice. Judy says “Obviously that guy has a
political agenda in saying that. We got
to Marie Calendar and found a parking place really close to the entrance and it
still hadn’t started raining. We waited
a while but then Tim, Marie, Mom and Wendy all showed up at the same time. Wendy was wearing an outfit that actually lit up with Christmas lights. Paul had on a plaid shirt which he claims is green but it looked gray to the majority of us. Of course with my cateract problem colors fade until after your surgery. I had been worried my cough would flair up bad, but I had surprisingly little problem that. I thought the coffee was a little weak
compared to other times. It wasn’t my
only complaint about this place. There
was some question about where I should be sitting. Paul wanted me to move to the booth section
of the seating area. Actually I needed
to go to the bathroom to try and take a crap because I felt bloated but it was
mostly gas. I felt as though my
elimination has been incomplete.
(TMI) I wanted to order steak,
which I remember their having had in the past at least a little. The closest thing I could come to that was
pot roast and vegetables. I was told
they never served baked potatoes. That
was disappointing. I had French
fries. Also I saw their soup of the day
as clam chowder and ordered that but I didn’t get clam chowder but some other
creamed soup. I burnt my tongue on
that. I just think we need to reconsider
our choice in restaurants. They charge
extra for soup or salad on a supposed “dinner order”. Then when we got the bill there was a twenty
percent “gratuity” figured into the bill already. That’s a pretty stiff tip, particularly when
it’s not voluntary. I guess the
conversation was OK. Except Paul got
really bored when I began talking about logarithms and changing to other bases
when I thought the subject was computers.
I had misjudged. Wendy and Tim
and Marie were talking about Trump and his election. Wendy said that “It’s the emotive impact of
the words rather than the words themselves people remember”. I threw in my more than two cents worth
about the electoral college and how rigged it is- -but once again I sensed
people weren’t tracking with what I was saying.
Maybe everybody was taking stupid pills.
Meanwhile Mom was having trouble hearing Wendy. This became a whole lot harder once that
party next door of 23 (?) arrived and were boisterous in conversation. Mom seemed to be complaining a lot about
things on the menu. We had both corn
bread and that garlic bread. Mom
remarked the garlic bread was toasted only on one side and the other side was
soggy. Anyhow we didn’t hang around for
dessert. I ate everything on my plate
and later on would have loved a little pumpkin pie with whipped cream. On any other Christmas we would have ordered
a bunch of pies before headed to the house.
We didn’t even go to Paul and Judy’s but to Mom’s. It still had not started raining or even
cooled off that much when we left Marie Calendars. On the way over Elizabeth remarked about Psalm 34 and how it reads, "Many are the afflictions of the rightious, but the Lord delivers him out of them all". This is a scripture I need to hang on to if I can. We came in the south entrance to Mom’s which
is closer. I haven’t gotten a picture
calendar from Mom since 2014. This year
the only Christmas card I got was from Phyllis Green. The Lord must have told her to give me one,
and it would be the only one. Money in
cards was out of the question. Tim and
Marie didn’t have any gifts with them at all.
Wendy gave all of us the same gift again, and it was some metal dunickey
which is a ten and one tool of some sort.
I wonder if you can break into the Pentagon with it? Elizabeth was taking pictures of us all there
with her I phone and we were all fiddling with the pictures. Some of the pictures actually had a second or
two of action in them. There were
panflets on the table about the difference between a hearing aid and just a
sound amplification device. I’m still a
little fuzzy on the distinction. Tim was
indicating trouble hearing at times and he hasn’t gotten his hearing aid
yet. Wendy has put on a little weight
and she was talking about her utter inability to resist sweets now. One thing remained the same, which surprised
me, and those were the fruit cakes that were passed out. Although Judy has not been entirely well, she
and Elizabeth still found the time to make a bunch of fruit cakes. Wendy says Fred is still working at GM and
Dianne is stuck at some low level court clerk office or something and wants an
advancement. Steve and Kathy both have
high class genious jobs. Paul surprised
me in that he announced that he and Judy and Elizabeth were leaving. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to leave or
not. I thought about it. I again felt bloated like I had gas. My fruitcake and oranges from Paul’s tree
were already in Paul’s car. It just made
more sense. We showed Elizabeth the
central garden of the place. We
reentered the building and they calabrated some sugar testing device. We walked through the building to the other
side. Now at last it was raining and
continued raining throughout the rest of the evening. I arrived at this place just after eight o
clock and got medication from Ida.
There
was a lot of blood on the toilet seat.
Either someone has undiagnosed colon cancer or Glenda had a really heavy
period. Bill cleaned it up- - and then
I used the bathroom – again. Twice I
went outside for cigarettes the rest of the evening. There was basically nothing on
television. The next morning I got up
and went outside and in the pre dawn hours I saw the moon for the first time in
the clear sky. This is the first time I
was to see sunshine since Tuesday. I got
my medication from April. I turned on
KNX radio. I went to the store at
seven. I got a $1.25 coffee and a yellow
cigarette lighter and cigarettes. I got
tired of thrashing my thump on a lighter that didn’t work. I brought my cup into the dining room. We had Raison bran and Judy shared an extra
bowl she had gotten with me so that I now had a full bowl. We got our eggs and toast, butter and jelly. I was telling Teresa that tomorrow when I get
coffee I’ll have six cents remaining my my bank account, if I figured
right. But that today would be the last
pack of cigarettes.
No comments:
Post a Comment