The Challenge

I'll just call yesterday, my first day getting fitted for and learning how to pop in and out my new prosthetic cornea challenging. K?

OK, it was also motherfucking, frustratingly HARD.

Today's a new day though.

I hit the gym when it opened at 5AM. Exercise chills me out. When there's a break in the testing and training today, I'm gonna take a walk – move my ass instead of sitting on it in the comfy lounge.

I'm ready – as ready as I'll get. I'm channeling Mary Richards this morning.

I CAN do this!

Day Uno

I’m awake no earlier than usual but it feels WAY more early. Warum? I gotta be coffee-ed up, showered, dressed and out the door by six bloody AM.  Today’s my first day of four in a row at BostonSight. This is the joint where they’ll be doing the  fitting, measuring and crafting of my prosthetic cornea. After they do all this fun stuff, the real good times start. They’ll teach me how to pop this baby in and out each day and how to clean it.

I was never a good student. I’m not a dimwit BUT, in a classroom sitch, I kinda freeze up. Is this knee-jerk antagonism feelings toward authority figures. Could be!

On this very first day, Ten and I are leaving mega early. We just don’t know what kind of traffic we’ll run into and want to arrive as unstressed and chill as possible. We're also bringing books just in case of we find ourselves in time killing positions. With my appointments scheduled to run all day, every day for four solid 9-5 days, this seems likely.

Aren’t we the smart, plan-ahead doobies!?

Dunno how present I’ll be here this week. BUT, fer fuck’s sake, I blogged through The Amazing Bob’s death AND my hospital stay after my November back surgery so I sorta doubt I’ll be completely MIA. Ya know?

'scuse me now – I gotta go commit acts of hygiene.

Everything's Just Beachie

We came across an ISBW (International Seagullhood of Beach Workers) meeting

Yesterday was a grey day with occasional rain BUT it was still gorgeous. Of course it was – it’s June after all. Weather-wise, this may well be my favorite month – right now, this year anyway. All the trees are fully, beautifully leaved, flowers are perky as fuck, it’s not too hot out and the odd chill in the air is sweetly welcome.

Ten and I motored down to Stars for his Happy Father’s Day brekkie and then on to Nantasket for a walk. Ya know, if I had the buckos, I’d have a second home on the water in Hull. I hear you – Donna, you live on the water already! Yes but this is different water! My bay is generally VERY calm which is GOOD. Still, variety is a lovely spice, ya know?

Nantasket has slightly taller waves. I like waves. I like watching sunlight playing on the crests and in the curls of those babies. I could sit on the shore (or a nice oceanside porch) all day, mesmerized.

I lurvs watching the surf riders too. None out yesterday though. Nantasket's a pretty tame venue for them. Generally, ‘cept after a big storm, there's no heavy, clean action. For the pro level wave jockeys, I'm guessing, this is about as exciting as a bathtub.

Old (Ultra Sexy) Man and the Sea?

Are there any good spots in Massachusetts for surfing? Yes. Reportedly:

1. Coast Guard Beach in Eastham and and Marconi Beach in Wellfleet – both on the Cape
2. Cisco Beach, Nantucket
3. Good Harbor Beach up in Gloucester

but I suspect the action’s more thrilling down Rhode Island way. (and on employing Mister Google, I see that I’m correct on this)

Back at Nantasket though – I find myself in Daydreamsville this morning. I’ve been checking real estate prices – looking into the cost of a vaca/weekend crib. I could get a 696 square foot one bed/one bath, across the street from the ocean for 189 large. There’s a two bed/two bath 1,173 square foot crib, also across the street from the water for 319 Gs. OR, for a bit over a cool mil, I could have a sweet three bed, three bath 2763 square foot mansion RIGHT ON THE BEACH!

Did I mention that this is all happening on Fantasy Island? Still, it’s awesome to imagine picking up that small one. We'd have a nearby, regular get away on a different beach AND, bonus here, I could Airbnb this baby for some always needed spare dosh. Maybe I could even make the joint pay for its ownself through rentals? Yup, the imagination's totes off leash this morning.

As for the season...I fully reserve the right to pick September as my fave when it rolls around. There’s something wonderfully sweet about summer’s end. NOT gonna rush this tremendous late spring though. Nope. I'm, fer reals, being here now and shit.

False

Huh, I seem to have totally missed all the Flag Day hooplah here in my town. Gee. Darn.

There was to be a parade with floats and “specialty units” (whatever the fuck that is), a flag raising ceremony AND fireworks? Sounds like the ultimate in ronmantic Republi/Facist dates, doesn’t it.

I thought the celebrations were today and was planning my day so as to avoid the parade/fireworks end of town. Heh, I’m all set now!

This, by the by, is the flag we honor down here in Valhalla. Funny that it's not universal, huh?

Let America be America Again
~ Langston Hughs

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—
the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine—
the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

They Matter

The installation art (+audio) appearing on the streets of NYC now is art that matters. Big time. This is our Guernica.

"The litmus test of any society is how it treats children. By normalizing the detention of children in cages, we’re only going further down the path of forsaking the rights of all children,” RAICES executive director Jonathan Ryan said in a news release (source)

WHERE are all those Jesus humping “Pro-Lifers” now? Oh, that’s right they only care about fetuses. Once you pop out the mom chute…well, yur on yur own kid. Hey here’s a nice cage for you to live in and you don’t mind if this skeevy border patrol thug rapes you do you?

To be fair (!?) this was never about LIFE. This has always been, for the Reich Wing Cons (AKA the party devoted to manipulating the rubes – the Republican Party) about imprisoning us womenfolk within our bodies and forcing us back into the dark ages. Next stop – taking away our rights to vote and own property.

As for those of us in the unelected set, WHERE ARE THE GOD BANGERS? Ya know, the ones who claim to be so damn passionate about LIFE?

Five children have died since late last year after being detained by the Border Patrol. Immigrants have been kept outside for extended periods near a bridge in El Paso in conditions that a professor who recently visited the location told the Texas Monthly magazine. (source)

A dog pound would, likely, have better conditions.

Five immigrant children have died since late last year after being detained by the Border Patrol, including a flu-stricken teenager who was found dead in a facility migrants refer to as the “icebox” because of the temperatures inside. (source)

OH but it's not just the asylum seeker's children who are being radically, rabidly ill-treated. Spanky's administration is into full service sadism.

And an Inspector General report last month found severe overcrowding inside an El Paso processing center, with 76 migrants packed into a tiny cell designed for 12 people. Investigators saw immigrants standing on top of toilets to make room and find space to breathe because the cell was so cramped. (source)

 76 people in a space for meant for 12. Children in dog cages. And Preznint KKK has now reopened one of our previous BIG national embarrassments.

When the Trump administration announced its plan this week to turn a former WWII internment camp in Oklahoma into an emergency shelter for migrant children, many Japanese-Americans worried history was repeating itself. (source)

So, under the Horror-Show Sub-Human Sack of Weasel Feces in the defiled WH, WWII interment camps are back in vogue. I’m just SO proud to be an American now – aren’t you? Yeah, not so much. By the by, under that jackboot fetishizing idiot, history's back like Freddy Krueger.

 When will this King of Deplorables enact the final solution on the innocents? Has he sent Kellyanne shopping for some discount Zyklon B yet?

The ship that sailed the moon

Oh to be a cat! To, at least, be able to sleep like a cat – fifteen hours a day, without the pressure of having to nail those fifteen all in a row. That’d be divine. Ya know, sleep a few then get up, grab a snack, endure a bit of cosseting from ”Mom,” engage in some bird watching, poop, have a good post-crap zoom around the house and then find a nice patch of sun for a nap. Ahhhh, heaaven.

Nope. We wage earning, bill paying humans have calls on our time.

FREEDOM! Yes, what cats have. Mel Gibson too but he had to be drawn and quartered to, ultimately, get it. NOT the sort of freedom I’m questing. 

My man, Ten!

I woke at 1AM from a wonderful, wonderful dream. The Amazing Bob was still here but his existence was fading fast and hard (this was NOT the wonderful part of the dream, just FYI). In the midst of all this pain, a fabulous, thoughtful man appeared in my life from out west. He came bearing the most gracious, caring gifts (flannel pajama bottoms!). He left his home and moved east to take care of me, to shore me up in this blindingly painful time.

Can anyone say…TEN. Sure ya can.

So, I’m awake now but the dream was good so I should be able to drop right back into Snooze Land, right? Wrong-o mon ami!

Unbidden, Matthew Shepard came to mind. To embroider on a phrase by good ol’ Rabbie Burns: man’s rabid, savagely brutal inhumanity to man, woman, child and animal make countless thousands mourn. At least.

Raymond Jackson

In this wee-hour lamentation I was seized by the NEED to know if Shepard’s murderers were ever caught. Yes. They’re doing two life sentences apiece. Is that enough for their most heinous, barbarous crime, for the sadistic theft of another human’s life? One of the murderers laughably, in an intro to remarks about his theoretical remorse and how he’s changed, referred to the vicious murder as “unfortunate.” Gee…YA THINK!?!!!

Death penalty – do I believe in it? Nope. Consider our seriously flawed, biased-against-blacks-and-browns justice system. White, particularly wealthy whites are favored, coddled and protected from consequences. If it was up to the fugly-to-the-core, astoundingly racist dumbfuck in the White House AND a shit-ton of others, the WRONGLY convicted men in the Central Park case would all be long dead.

Humans – we value vengeance over justice. Violent retribution is especially sweet if you get to visit it against a group of folks you already blame for all that’s wrong or missing in your life.

Ya see, this, THIS is keeping me awake.

Possibly Coco could help me take a nap later.
Paul Simon – American Tune

Stuff and Nonsense

Yesterday was a grand day. Sunny, temps in the 70s and, huzzah, I found out that I’ve completely paid off my car loan. Bix is ALL mine now! I’ve been paying the loan so damn long that I’d lost track of its end point. I ONLY discovered my lapse in car loan bite because, on balancing the checkbook, I saw that I’d not paid the bill since February. *GASP* and  *PANIC* Will Bix be repoed now?

Nope. I had Ten call the dealership. They put my frenzied mind ecstatically at ease.

Ya know what this means? I have a little extra space in my monthly budget. I don’t gotta sweat the small stuff quite as much. HUZZAH! How will I spend this totes unanticipated mini jackpot? On other bills, no doubt. *sigh*

This is Pumpkin. He often comes 'round at the same early hour as Umlaut. My black mini panther was a no show this morning so Pump had first dibs on the brekkie banquet. Immediately afterward our new VERY shy, grey striped visitor showed up. We’ve named him IO. No, he doesn’t resemble his namesake at all. I just liked the name.

The other, less camera shy Io

On the way home yesterday, Ten and I passed this building. I’ve long admired its big-ass windows. It’s now gutted and being condoized. Of course.

Seems to me EVERY new damn condo, including this one, is described as luxurious. That adjective’s thrown around like popcorn at a matinee showing of the latest Star Wars. WHAT, I gotta know, WHAT and WHO defines what’s luxury and what ain’t? The word’s used so promiscuously that, to me, it’s nothing but a punchline. 

Throw the adjective luxury in and the sellers can add more zeroes to the end of the price.

This particular luxury building, on top of the uszh mod cons, will have a fitness center and a rooftop sky lounge (with a flat out lurvly view of the traffic on 93 south). 100 Shawmut is at the ass end of the South End – an area which used to be home only to the homeless and artists living in defunct factory buildings. In the last few years though, half a dozen beautiful, tall buildings have risen. I guess the money men have marked this as the new, NEW cool investment neighborhood.

Question: do all the hip imagineers from The Innovation District – formerly the seedy Boston waterfront – live down here now?

 Now then, what would make a joint serious luxury for me?

A) an Endless Pool RIGHT IN THE APARTMENT
B) a hot tub RIGHT IN THE APARTMENT
C) floor to ceiling windows with a view of:
      1.  the ocean (duh)
      2.  a large, dense forest of old, tall trees
      3.  mountains
D) breakfast cooked for me each morning by an awesomely creative, handsome master chef.
E) ALL of the above

 I don’t have A or B (but the Y’s just a short bus ride away) and my windows may not be floor to ceiling BUT I’ve a fabola view of our sweet, island strewn bay as well as some handsome tall trees. I also have a tremendously creative, handsome master chef cooking me an astounding breakfast each and every morning. Yup. Ten. He’s a mega talented stunner!

What would make a place luxurious for you?

Life in an Age of Good Words

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

It was a day of words catching my fancy.

Fictioneer
noun [fik-shuh-neer]
a writer of fiction, especially a prolific one whose works are of mediocre quality.

I’d call Preznint Idiot Boy the Fictioneer in Chief but mediocre is too damn kind to use in describing the Deception Demon’s tweets and utterings

I'm disinventing 45

Disinvent
verb (used with object) [dis-in-vent]
to undo the invention of; to reverse the existence of.

I’d like to disinvent Donald Trump.

Fecund
adjective [fee-kuhnd, -kuhnd, fek-uhnd, -uhnd]
very productive or creative intellectually: the fecund years of the Italian Renaissance.

The Obama years were fecund. They’d have been way more fecund-y had the lazy-ass citizens of this once great country come out to vote in the off election years. In contrast, these years of Tangelo Twat, Republi/Fascist rule have been wickedly devoid of positive, decent, good-for-the-planet and humankind moves. Also too, they’ve been incompetently Machiavellian. Just FYI and shit.

Still working on the disinvention

Self-possessed
adjective [self-puh-zest]
having or showing control of one’s feelings, behavior, etc.

Self-possession – what women in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Utah will no longer have once these draconian, bullshit bans take effect.

What about him? Can I disinvent him too?

Foment
verb [foh-ment]
to instigate or foster (discord, rebellion, etc.).

NOT to be confused with ferment though fermenting rebellion would be kind of awesome. Ultimately, mebbe, counterproductive.

Appellative
noun
a descriptive name or designation, as Bald in Charles the Bald.

So, the pResident can be accurately appellated Donald the Grotesquely Narcissistic, Cruel and Incurably Stupid.

Nebulated
adjective [neb-yuh-ley-tid]
having dim or indistinct markings, as a bird or other animal.

This can also be used to describe Donald the Dim-ass Fatally Corrupt’s speechifying.

Stymie
verb
to hinder, block, or thwart.

What Mitch the Enemy of Democracy does daily.

Consent
verb [kuhn-sent]
to permit, approve, or agree.

I can’t help but see this as CON-sent as in:

Every goddamned Cabinet head in this fraud riddled, shady as fuck, debauched administration was CONsent.

Proselyte
noun [pros-uh-lahyt]
a person who has changed from one opinion, religious belief, sect, or the like, to another; convert.

What the folks who voted for 45 SHOULD become if they honestly give a good goddamn about their children and grandchildren’s future.

Scaturient
adjective [skuh-toor-ee-uhnt, -tyoor-]
gushing; overflowing

The word kinda implies, to me anyway, that the gush, the overflow is of a decidedly fecal nature.

       Trump’s scaturient Wisconsin speech was a radically heinous, diseased dung pile of deceit.

That particular bucket of foaming at the mouth, mad-dog lies brings us back to Fictioneer. Of course.

Expatiate
verb [ik-spey-shee-eyt]
to move or wander about intellectually, imaginatively, etc., without restraint.

NOT to be confused with Expatriate – a person who lives outside their native country.

The rotten-to-the-core, obscenely exploitative racketeer pResident should be expatriated NOW. We should send him to one of those countries he’s referred to as shithole. We'll dump his ugly ass in some city center without a dime or shred of clothing. It’s a far better fate than he or any of his henchmen deserve.

Oh wait. Could this be interpreted as an act of war? Illegal dumping?

Popinjay
noun [pop-in-jey]
a person given to vain, pretentious displays and empty chatter.

President Asshat Popinjay – I like it!