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AS: Interesting Times-the 2020 USA thread

jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
edited November 2021 in Limbo
Hey, y'all! It's time to start a new USA thread, for the new Year! The title was suggested by @Lamb Chopped and is more polite than the one I had thought of: A Republic if We Can Keep It.

So, I shall start with a weather report. It is January 3 (my granddaughter's birthday and my niece's and a cousin's, too ) and it is 87 degrees. Eighty-Seven. Degrees. For pity's sake. Why back in the good old days, we suffered through July and August with the anticipation of delightful weather in January and February. Don't this just beat all? :disappointed:
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Comments

  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    I blame Trump.

    Ahem.

    May the Interesting Times which lie ahead be 'interesting' in the nicest possible way, IYSWIM, and NOT in the sense of the curse from which the term derives!
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Thank you, Bishops Finger! That is a good thing to hope for!
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    The year is bounded by an impeachment at one end and an election at the other. We have no choice but to live in interesting times.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    May I, as another non-American, join BF in wishing you really rather boring times?

    I'm aware that your Dear Leader™ isn't making this any easier ... :flushed:
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Thanks so much!
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Wot Piglet said 😉!
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    My paternal grandmother liked to use the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times," and the older I get, the more I understand why it's a curse. May we live in boring times instead.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    Lamb Chopped wrote: »
    The year is bounded by an impeachment at one end and an election at the other. We have no choice but to live in interesting times.

    And with possibly (but hopefully not) a War, somewhere in the middle...

  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Please God, no.
    Why yes, I do have a son of draftable age...
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    I saw a great (if impossible) idea floated on Farcebark. If you express approval of going to war with Iran, you are instantly enrolled in the army and told when to report.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    I like that Mousethief. Pop (my Grandfather) always said that politicians should be in the front line in any war. He watched his twin sons march off in WWII. Both came back, but one had severe PTSD.

    Lamb Chopped that brings home the reality. I hope war is avoided.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Excellent idea, Mousethief!

    I sincerely hope it doesn't come to war, but in the present political climate, I have my doubts.

    Keeping you all in my prayers.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    And/or borrow an idea from the book "All Quiet On The Western Front": have a boxing match between the warring parties, with one boxer each. The side that wins also wins the war.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    With Trump as the US boxer?
    :wink:
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Then, we're doomed!
    :joy:
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    Not Trump, dear God! (That applies to every damned thing.)

  • PigwidgeonPigwidgeon Shipmate
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    Not Trump, dear God! (That applies to every damned thing.)
    "Not Trump, dear God!" would have been a good choice for the title of this thread this year!
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    We are having lovely weather--not at all typical January. Today it was sunny; the temperature hit 60°F; there was a very pleasant breeze.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Can we please trade, Moo? It's humid and miserable here. Not quite like August, but still...
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    I'd gladly send you our snow...
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    It's been clear and cold here in SoCal, where cold = mid 40s overnight and low 60s during the day. We're supposed to have rain Thursday, which will be welcome, as it's been weeks since we saw any. Just as it doesn't rain on the long MLK weekend!
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Lamb Chopped wrote: »
    I'd gladly send you our snow...
    And ours - mixed with freezing rain and ice pellets ... :naughty:
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    70+° and way too muggy here today. Ugh! I was miserable by the time the dog and I finished our walk.

    I know I shouldn’t complain, given that we could be having an ice storm or something else miserable. But I’ve got a birthday coming up this week, and I just don’t like it when it doesn’t feel like winter on my birthday. When I was a kid, I dreamed of snow on my birthday—and actually got it a few times.

  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Over here, I'm pretty much guaranteed snow on my birthday (10th February). With any luck, I'll be back in Scotland by then.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Yeah, I know it gets old when it’s on the ground all the time. Where I am, we have maybe a handful of days of snow a year, so when I was a kid and we got it, it was A Big Deal. And no school!

    🤞🏻 for you being back in Scotland.

  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Thanks, Nick! When I was growing up in Orkney, snow was rare enough that it was an Event, and it rarely lasted more than a week at a time.

    We reckoned it was a pretty duff winter if we didn't get any days off school for snow, but it never lay long enough for us to get fed up of it.
  • Graven ImageGraven Image Shipmate
    We only have a bit of snow on our mountain at this lower level where I live about every 5 or 6 years. Three winter storms headed out way, and one might produce a bit of white. Fingers crossed. I like it now and then. Of course I am retired and can just stay home and look out the window so a bit selfish on my part never the less.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    We have snow...messy and tedious, but, hey! it's January!
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    We broke an all time January high temp yesterday-89 hot, sticky degrees.

    Thank goodness for AC!!

    There was a time that I wouldn't even think of turning the AC on until June, or on occasion, May. It is now an all year around expense.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I suppose it'll be slightly offset by the fact that you don't need heating ...

    Still - 89°!!! :flushed:
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    True, Piglet! AC is less expensive than heating!
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Oooh! I think Winter is coming next week for a day or two! Next Wednesday is supposed to be in the upper 30s and low 40s in the morning!!!

    Right now it's 82 outside, and my oak tree has bloomed and is covered with new, spring-green leaves!! It's so pretty!!! I can see the honeybees working the last of the catkins. There were far fewer bees this year. Years past, I could hear them humming all the way here in the house! I love those little critters.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Upper 30s and low 40s - you call that winter??? :mrgreen:
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Winter is the carrot that gives us hope during July, August and September!! It is, alas, sometimes an elusive hope.
  • BabyWombatBabyWombat Shipmate
    Ah, but it is frozen carrots this morning! 4 degrees F this morning, forecast to go to a relatively balmy 16, and then to 4 again tonight.....
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Yikes. I just contacted someone at my work, hoping to find a notary public who would be so kind as to do a home visit for a housebound senior of competent mind in difficult circumstances--and received by email a HUGE lecture on my legal and moral responsibility to report abuse to the Proper Authorities, and a list of the requirements I would have to satisfy before she would agree to visit, which include a date/time of report to said Proper Authorities. Was also informed that my pastor or my husband could educate me on the need to report elder abuse and the ways in which to do it, as this is an Important Issue and there are doubtless many others being abused as well (which will be my fault, heavily implied, if I don't Do Something Official about it). I feel properly lectured (which is to say, squashed up into a tiny ball).

    I didn't go into his circumstances with her, nor can I here, due to confidentiality. But having been a missionary in this particular ethnic community for 30 years, and having handled any number of abuse cases (Yes, I know what a mandated reporter is, and how to use the hotline, thank you very much!), I'm a bit flabberghasted that she assumed the worst of me.

    I have hastily backed out. We'll go commercial, if we need to--I have just learned paid people exist for this stuff.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Sorry to hear that @Lamb Chopped. It grates, especially when you're trying to help.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    AND.... (drum roll here).... I have locked myself out of my car, despite it being the kind you can never lock yourself out of!

    Mr. Lamb will ride to the rescue in a couple hours. In the meantime, I'm at work. I cannot attend the dentist, Oh Noes, and I'm sure you're all just heartbroken for me. (not that I escape forever, they've simply put off the evil day by a week or so)
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Oh, poor you, LC! I'd have been fizzing - on the rare occasions when I might have to visit a dentist, I'd want to get it over and done with!

    I'm reminded of a Christmas holiday that was ruined for me when I was a kid because I had an appointment to have some teeth taken out just after the New Year, and every so often I'd remember about it, and start to worry!
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    heh. I'm actually quite pleased to have escaped (for however short a time), as there has been enough stress in my week, particularly with my parents. I have completed my work tasks for the day and am meditating an early departure home, as I really.need.bed. before things start kicking off again, as they doubtless will do.
  • AuthorDivaAuthorDiva Shipmate
    It's 37 degrees F out there today, which is warm for New York City in January. We have been having unusually warm days followed by cold days.
  • AuthorDivaAuthorDiva Shipmate
    BTW, "cold days" in New York City mean the temperature is somewhere in the low 30's or 20's F. We New Yorkers are real wimps when it comes to weather, and we don't usually get the worst of it.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Yesterday morning here in New Brunswick it was minus 25°C (or -9°F in old money).

    That's quite cold ...
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    The Los Angeles metroplex is in mourning today for Kobe Bryant, the retired Lakers star dead at 41 in a helicopter crash. The media have been wall-to-wall Kobe all day; it's kind of surreal. I'm not that big a basketball fan, but everybody here loves the Lakers when they're good.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    41 is too young to die, and it's doubly sad that Mr. Bryant's young daughter was killed in the crash as well.

    May they both, and the other victims, rest in peace.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    It was such a shock to hear about their deaths.
  • Graven ImageGraven Image Shipmate
    Yesterday could have been the Image households lucky day. Mr Image had a phone call at 8 AM offering him $4,000.00 for helping someone release money on some island. First time we have experienced that on the phone, usually we get Junk E-mails for such. Then later I was offered $2,000.00 as compensation from a bank in England via E-mail. Not sure what the compensation was for as I trashed the E-mail. So last night we went to bed, having not taken advantage of these great opportunities, as poor as ever.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Astonishing. Think of it--you could have been poorer than ever!
  • Graven ImageGraven Image Shipmate
    It does make me sad thinking these things must work on some people or they would not be doing them.
  • PigwidgeonPigwidgeon Shipmate
    Only thousands of dollars? The ones I used to get were for millions -- and usually from Nigeria or the Ivory Coast. You need to hold out for the bigger fortunes!
    :wink:
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