Summer is Over.

It’s still hot AF and we are having storms/a power outage that knocked me off the internets for a bit, so forgive my silences here. But summer is over, the kids are back in school.

So far ::crosses fingers:: the school year is off to a good start. The Kid loves her teachers, has friends in her class, all is well in her world. I’m doing before and after school, which basically means she eats cereal and I drop her at the top of the street to walk the rest of the way to school, drop off takes about 7 minutes. At the end of the day she sometimes walks, sometimes needs a ride. Today I expected her to walk, and she texted me for a ride less than halfway because it was HOT. No shit, kid. Again, it took less than ten minutes to fetch her and remind her that we’ve been telling her it’s crazy hot and she can walk when it cools off.

I’m glad to be working from home and can accommodate this, she’s really no bother at all. She’s a tween, she does her homework and gets on her phone until one of her parents picks her up. I’m in my office working. I just have to stock things like Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter and real milk and chocolate chip cookies; it’s all good.

Do I have comments on the current events? I’ll just say Shit’s Getting Real, and I’m so here for it. And everybody owes Merrick Garland an apology – the DOJ has only one shot at capturing this many-tentacled criminal enterprise, and he’s been methodically taking it one tentacle at a time, but the pieces are coming together, and remarkably few people are willing to do time for Donald. The flippity-flipping has commenced.

Meanwhile, don’t get distracted by the circus, and don’t think that this country is 50-50 D-R, or anything close. Republicans are 28% of registered voters. That’s all. Why then, do they have an outsized influence in our elections? They’ve been playing a long game for decades, getting into local offices where they can influence how voting works, and how to play the Electoral College to their advantage. But that can be overcome by voting in numbers too big to ratfuck.

The biggest chunk of our “electorate” is people who don’t vote, and this year voter registrations are way up and are skewing younger and far more Democratic from all the reporting I’ve seen. GOTV. GOTV. Talk to people you may know who are concerned and feeling helpless, remind them they are not. Donate to candidates. Phone bank or knock doors if you have the mental bandwith, write Postcards to Voters from home, even a few a week is a small thing to make a difference.

We can fix a lot if enough of the apathetic, apolitical, “both sides are the same” types realize they are citizens and have a voice. And both sides are NOT the SAME. We have reached the point where it’s democracy v. fascism, and sitting on the fence is a vote for fascists. It’s really that clear now.

It’s still storming like crazy here. It’s so cute when people from Ohio tell people on the Disney Facebook boards that “It rains at three o’clock for about 20 minutes, don’t worry about it!” It’s been going hard for two hours now, buckets of rain, lightning, flickering power – that’s the New Normal.

Oh, and HOW ‘BOUT THAT JOE BIDEN?? He has a 50-50 (48-50 if we are real about the two problem children on “our side”) Senate, yet he’s managed to push through (with the skilled, experienced leadership of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi) so many huge, truly life changing, life improving chunks of good legislation, the biggest steps in decades on climate change, infrastructure, all sorts of good things that will actually make life better for Americans. Dark Brandon is on the job, baby!

So, that was another lousy SEO and no cool photos blog update. I’ll learn to blog properly one of these days, it’s only been 20 years.