We got a bit of snow here in DC -- just the right amount, in my opinion. It was enough to shut down school on Monday, but not enough to keep it closed any longer. One snow day is cool, but anything longer than that is tough. One extra day home with the kids is plenty. It was fun to play outside with them, but that only lasts about a half-hour before their gloves (and their back-up gloves) get thoroughly soaked and their hands start to freeze. Then they are just inside wrecking havoc for the rest of the day. Also, snow is an annoying mess. It's only slightly better than sand from a beach. Everything gets soggy and salty, and you have to trudge everywhere in clunky boots or with wet feet. I like being able to walk places without needing to bring an extra pair of socks, and I like being able to drive places without needing to deice my car for 15 minutes before I go. One thing I weirdly like about snow days, however, is shoveling the walk. It's a good workout, and it's super satisfying to see a path formed as you go. My neighbor has a little snowblower, and sometimes he'll do the stretch of sidewalk in front of our house as well as his, and so this time I went out with my shovel early to make sure I did it before he did.
Speaking of shutdowns: the government. This is one of the most idiotic episodes in our country's history -- I mean the entire Trump presidency, not just this shutdown. But this shutdown is particularly idiotic, and like everybody else, I don't see the resolution. My hope is that Trump just ends it on a whim and then tells everybody a bunch of lies about why it actually worked and why the wall will still be built or is already being built or actually already exists. He also might go the route of a legally dubious loophole (e.g., state of emergency) and let things get tied up in court. That would give him a face-saving out, but he said he didn't want to do that for some reason.
Whatever happens, I don't foresee Democrats caving, and I don't want them to cave. Of course, I want the shutdown to end. It's hurting millions of people, and the hardships are only going to compound and expand as it goes on. Some of my friends are currently working at the State Department without getting paid. Supposedly, they will get back pay, but when? You can only maintain things without a cash flow for so long, and it could get expensive if you are forced to take out high-interest loans to cover necessities like food and housing. So, if I were a Dem politician I would be willing to cut a deal with Trump to open the government. But "deal" seems to be the deal-breaker. Trump doesn't seem to want a deal. In fact, he has already refused to sign a bipartisan bill to reopen the government. He just wants his wall funded for nothing, and Dems should not abide by this. If they do, he will just do it again. That's the kicker. Even if your goal is to alleviate pain, and you don't really care about some dumb-ass metal slats in the desert, it's still bad strategy to give in, because you wouldn't be alleviating pain, you'd be temporarily soothing it. It would come back immediately the next time Trump (or some other Trumpian figure) wants something else, and then it would come back the time after that, and then the time after that, and so on. If you allow a president to bypass Congress by, in effect, holding federal workers and large segments of the economy hostage, you are on the path to dictatorship. It's another chip off our already eroding democracy. It's better to stay strong now.
It helps of course that the shutdown is not very popular and most people associate it with Trump (because he bizarrely claimed it in that awkward press conference last month with Chuck and Nancy). At this moment, there is virtually no political pressure on the Dems to outright concede. If anything, it's working in the opposite direction, whereby people like me will be mad if they do give in. It's only Trump's base that wants a wall, and they are unlikely to ever support a Democrat no matter how obsequious they act toward the president. So, there is no political incentive to give in -- and if there's no political incentive and the humanitarian incentive is limited to the very short-term and would probably makes things worse in the long-run, then there isn't much of anything at all. On the flip-side, Congressional Republicans could end this with 14 votes in the Senate to create a veto-proof supermajority, but they are too gutless to break with the president. (He'll tweet something mean about them!) So, it seems as if we are just going to keep plugging along until Trump caves or something big breaks -- and if the latter happens it's going to be tragic because it was so preventable.
Back to personal news, S had another hilarious episode of bad grocery shopping. She bought a frozen pizza for the kids, but very unsurprisingly, she got the wrong kind -- she got cauliflower crust. However, it worked out, because the kids didn't even notice. (I tried it. It tastes fine, but the texture is weird. It's really sticky.) We figured that we would get cauliflower crust every time from now on because it's (probably) healthier. So, I come home from work the other day, and what's in the freezer? Cauliflower crusts. Not pizza with cauliflower crust, just the crust. This completely defeats the purpose of frozen pizza, as it's something we give the kids when we don't have the time or energy to actually prepare something beyond taking it out of the box and putting into the oven.
It's one of those things, where it's not that big a deal, but it's like... how? How do you get the wrong thing over and over again. Her justification was, "It says 'Cauliflower Pizza Crust' on the box." Yes, because that's what it is! It doesn't say pizza with cauliflower crust. Also, look at the box. It's a crust! There is no cheese or sauce in the picture. That didn't tip you off?
To makes matters worse she bought a pile of them. I mean, I guess we will go through them eventually, so that's better than the milk she bought the other day. We already had a half-gallon, but we go through milk very quickly, so she bought two more gallons. The problem is the sell-by date on each of them was the next day. She said that we would go through it all before it spoiled, but I knew we wouldn't. And we didn't. We dumped over a gallon and a half down the drain because it started smelling bad, and it was that chichi non-homogenized organic milk (which normally we don't get), so it was like $9 worth of milk.
I love my wife, but this just drives me bonkers. Between buying the wrong things and making meals too big for our kids to finish, the food waste in this house just makes me batty. But, I suppose every marriage comes with certain "prices of admission," and in the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty small one. Perspective, see.
Until next time...
PS: Shutdown update. Doesn't sound like much, to me, but who knows?
[There is something very melancholy about melting snow, no?]
Speaking of shutdowns: the government. This is one of the most idiotic episodes in our country's history -- I mean the entire Trump presidency, not just this shutdown. But this shutdown is particularly idiotic, and like everybody else, I don't see the resolution. My hope is that Trump just ends it on a whim and then tells everybody a bunch of lies about why it actually worked and why the wall will still be built or is already being built or actually already exists. He also might go the route of a legally dubious loophole (e.g., state of emergency) and let things get tied up in court. That would give him a face-saving out, but he said he didn't want to do that for some reason.
Whatever happens, I don't foresee Democrats caving, and I don't want them to cave. Of course, I want the shutdown to end. It's hurting millions of people, and the hardships are only going to compound and expand as it goes on. Some of my friends are currently working at the State Department without getting paid. Supposedly, they will get back pay, but when? You can only maintain things without a cash flow for so long, and it could get expensive if you are forced to take out high-interest loans to cover necessities like food and housing. So, if I were a Dem politician I would be willing to cut a deal with Trump to open the government. But "deal" seems to be the deal-breaker. Trump doesn't seem to want a deal. In fact, he has already refused to sign a bipartisan bill to reopen the government. He just wants his wall funded for nothing, and Dems should not abide by this. If they do, he will just do it again. That's the kicker. Even if your goal is to alleviate pain, and you don't really care about some dumb-ass metal slats in the desert, it's still bad strategy to give in, because you wouldn't be alleviating pain, you'd be temporarily soothing it. It would come back immediately the next time Trump (or some other Trumpian figure) wants something else, and then it would come back the time after that, and then the time after that, and so on. If you allow a president to bypass Congress by, in effect, holding federal workers and large segments of the economy hostage, you are on the path to dictatorship. It's another chip off our already eroding democracy. It's better to stay strong now.
It helps of course that the shutdown is not very popular and most people associate it with Trump (because he bizarrely claimed it in that awkward press conference last month with Chuck and Nancy). At this moment, there is virtually no political pressure on the Dems to outright concede. If anything, it's working in the opposite direction, whereby people like me will be mad if they do give in. It's only Trump's base that wants a wall, and they are unlikely to ever support a Democrat no matter how obsequious they act toward the president. So, there is no political incentive to give in -- and if there's no political incentive and the humanitarian incentive is limited to the very short-term and would probably makes things worse in the long-run, then there isn't much of anything at all. On the flip-side, Congressional Republicans could end this with 14 votes in the Senate to create a veto-proof supermajority, but they are too gutless to break with the president. (He'll tweet something mean about them!) So, it seems as if we are just going to keep plugging along until Trump caves or something big breaks -- and if the latter happens it's going to be tragic because it was so preventable.
Back to personal news, S had another hilarious episode of bad grocery shopping. She bought a frozen pizza for the kids, but very unsurprisingly, she got the wrong kind -- she got cauliflower crust. However, it worked out, because the kids didn't even notice. (I tried it. It tastes fine, but the texture is weird. It's really sticky.) We figured that we would get cauliflower crust every time from now on because it's (probably) healthier. So, I come home from work the other day, and what's in the freezer? Cauliflower crusts. Not pizza with cauliflower crust, just the crust. This completely defeats the purpose of frozen pizza, as it's something we give the kids when we don't have the time or energy to actually prepare something beyond taking it out of the box and putting into the oven.
It's one of those things, where it's not that big a deal, but it's like... how? How do you get the wrong thing over and over again. Her justification was, "It says 'Cauliflower Pizza Crust' on the box." Yes, because that's what it is! It doesn't say pizza with cauliflower crust. Also, look at the box. It's a crust! There is no cheese or sauce in the picture. That didn't tip you off?
To makes matters worse she bought a pile of them. I mean, I guess we will go through them eventually, so that's better than the milk she bought the other day. We already had a half-gallon, but we go through milk very quickly, so she bought two more gallons. The problem is the sell-by date on each of them was the next day. She said that we would go through it all before it spoiled, but I knew we wouldn't. And we didn't. We dumped over a gallon and a half down the drain because it started smelling bad, and it was that chichi non-homogenized organic milk (which normally we don't get), so it was like $9 worth of milk.
I love my wife, but this just drives me bonkers. Between buying the wrong things and making meals too big for our kids to finish, the food waste in this house just makes me batty. But, I suppose every marriage comes with certain "prices of admission," and in the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty small one. Perspective, see.
Until next time...
PS: Shutdown update. Doesn't sound like much, to me, but who knows?
No comments:
Post a Comment