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marijuana
Hillary PTSD
My get-out-the-vote calls went pretty well today. It was actually kind of fun. I talked to left-leaning voters from Pennsylvania. Many had already voted for Kamala and were willing to reach out to friends and family to do the same. One young man from Erie County, PA told me he wasn’t just excited, he was ECSTATIC to make Kamala Harris the next President of the United States.
So why don’t I feel better? Where’s my joy? Why am I SO anxious?
Because I remember 8 years ago…
Here I am in my cute little pantsuit (which no longer fits) on November 8, 2016, heading out to help elect Hillary Clinton as our first woman president. I was so excited and happy. Joyful!
And then….
Utter despair, bitter disappointment, disbelief, and a huge amount of anger at every single person who saw fit to pull the lever for Mr. Grab-em-by-the-Pussy Donald Trump.
Tomorrow (US Election Day) is going to be rough. I’m going to wear my new KA-MA-LA t-shirt and buy some celebratory champagne, but I also have to prepare myself for the worst. I have Hillary PTSD. Of course I’m hoping against hope that it’ll be a Kamala landslide and red states will start dropping early on. (My fantasy is that Florida miraculously goes blue by 9pm.) But that’s probably not going to happen. It’s probably going to be some sort of a protracted nail biter like Biden/Trump in 2020. (It took four days from Election Day for CNN to declare Biden the winner.)
The one and only good thing about the November 8, 2016 election was that Massachusetts legalized recreational cannabis the very same night. And that is the only reason I’ve made it through the past eight years.
May the Trump Era in the United States of America end tomorrow.
🇺🇸
Fascinating or Fraud? – Part I
We met a woman on the porch of The Red Lion Inn.
“How’s the chicken pot pie?”
“It’s good!” she said.
I detected a British accent, but she said she was from Miami. Polite smiles. Back to our menus.
Later, while we were discussing the meaning of “agender” vs “non-binary” with some delightfully open GenZs, she jumped back in.
Here’s what we learned:
She’s building a solar farm business in western Massachusetts for which she had to undertake complex government permitting and state house lobbying.
She owns a home in Miami, but had been raised in the UK where she went to “college.” (Oxford was mentioned.)
She lived in western Massachusetts for many years, had two daughters, but then moved to Belgium with her German engineer husband (no longer in the picture) who was a high-level executive with General Electric.
She had a home in Newport, Rhode Island for many years.
She was a realtor and avid home renovator.
She just returned from a trip to Northern Italy where she met George Clooney’s driver.
One of the daughters left marketing and opened a successful antique store in northeastern Massachusetts. The other daughter lives in Austin, Texas, where she’s considering moving to from Miami.
She is a fan/follower of a certain self-help guru which led her to her passion for neuroencoding.
She is a grandmother.
She is a professional life coach.
At this point, I needed to vape a little weed…I mean, it was a lot.
Now, slightly high, I listened to more things being relayed.
She’s a BIG sports fan, especially basketball and football, and her Miami condo overlooks the Miami Heat home arena.
At one point, she purchased and successfully overhauled some sort of professional American football club.
In the past, she worked at the Miami port herding passengers onto various cruise ships, including swinger cruises for which “codes of conduct” contracts were required from passengers.
And this is the one that finally put me over the edge into doubting everything:
She founded and runs of charity dedicated to improving the lives of pediatric cancer patients.
I mean, very admirable, but how on earth does she find time! Does this woman ever just watch TV?
I made a joke about her having a multiple personality disorder. She did not seem offended. We said goodnight, after getting her name so we could connect online.
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My Advisors
#1) ME! I pay attention to my instincts and tend to value my own wisdom. I’ve got 58 years worth of life experience. Sometimes great revelations hit me late at night, frequently after smoking marijuana. Weed and writing both help me gain clarity.
I was recently honored to be nominated for my church’s Standing Committee. It’s the 6-member executive team that is responsible for all of the organization’s business affairs, including the annual budget and managing the staff. It’s validating, because it shows that other people respect my wisdom and judgment too.
#2) MY HUSBAND. He’s smart and he doesn’t panic. He’s very good at giving advice on medical concerns (i.e. it’s fine; you’ll be fine; I’ve had that; it’s nothing, etc) and occasionally gives good input on fashion (i.e. I like the red one better). It took him awhile to learn this, but he usually knows when the best advice is just to listen and not give any advice. IF I wanted advice on how to get physically stronger, I would ask him, because he knows a lot about it, but I’m way too lazy for lifting weights. He’s also a reader. In my opinion, people who read books tend to give good advice.
Some years ago, I would’ve put my parents on this list, but I don’t typically seek their advice these days.
My kids are getting better at advice-giving as they get older, especially my daughter who is basically a professional advice-giver through her astrology business.
My son is good for one-off tech tips like “try turning it off and on.”
Inside is an absolutely stunning, classic New England sanctuary in the Greek Revival architectural style. Services are online every Sunday at 10am (EST) here. Check us out, especially if you’re not “religious” and think traditional church is not for you. Atheists welcomed. We are a member congregation of the UUA. 🌈 ☮️ 💓 🌎 🎶
Dictionary, please
What are your favorite emojis?
GenX are not digital natives and I don’t think we use emojis correctly a lot of the time, but personally, I like them. So could we please have a dictionary of their intended meanings? (Nevermind the hidden meanings)
My son played lacrosse for years, so it was exciting when they finally came out with 🥍 (no dictionary required)
But like what the heck is this supposed to be 🧫 ?
And what does this mean 🫡 ?
And why is there still no real marijuana emoji?? (Broccoli 🥦 is stupid.)
Also, our aging eyes are getting bad so it’s hard to actually make them out without very strong readers.
But my main complaint is the lack of a dictionary that goes with them. I want to be able to hold my finger on one and have words or a voice tell me what I’m looking at and what it’s supposed to mean.
So yeah, I’m clearly old.
👵
Eclipse
We had a good eclipse! We headed out to the back yard about 2:15pm with some wine, weed, and snacks. We put Alexa in the window and asked her to play “eclipse songs” which she did.
We could clearly see the eclipse with our special glasses on, but we discovered that it was very difficult to get a picture of it, even with the glasses covering the camera lens, but we tried.
The temperature dropped noticeably as the sky darkened more and more. It was strange.
We could still clearly see our shadows, but the light was eerie. A sunset from above.
We decided to shut off Alexa at the point of maximum coverage (about 94%, I think). The last song she played was “Walking on the Moon” by The Police, which was perfect (a GenX classic). The animals got really quiet too. But then suddenly, a Barred Owl hooted really loudly. It startled us. And then another owl answered. It was pretty wild. I pointed my video camera towards the woods and I caught the sound when it happened again. Listen:
The owls really added to our eclipse experience, making it quite magical and mystical. I thought about how this is a time of transition for us.
All in all, a fun afternoon. Something different. It was also fun getting pics from the rest of the family in various locations and seeing all the posts online.
My daughter and her boyfriend managed to get this nice pic about an hour southwest of us:
About an hour after the eclipse, our woodchuck appeared for the first time this season. He’s been living under our shed for several years now. Hello friend.
March stew
March in New England 😑
Now that I have extra time and fewer obligations (no job, no kids at home), I’ve been enjoying cooking more. I wouldn’t exactly say I “lose myself” in it, but I’ve been enjoying eating what I make a lot more, especially if it’s something new and different. In my opinion, a glass of wine or a bit of weed before dinner will enhance your savoring experience. Taste the flavors, enjoy them, eat SLOWLY.
I recently shared some soups and stews from New York Times Cooking. I have one more for you. It’s similar to the Tortellini Soup, but it adds chicken (so it’s heartier) and is made in the crockpot, rather than the Dutch Oven (Le Creuset). It’s easy and good. NYT recipe attached (for free). My only note would be to avoid “Muir Glen” canned tomatoes. They just don’t taste as good as some of the other brands.
Here’s how mine came out:
The College Experience
For me, there was no greater growth experience than college. The college experience is like no other. The sheer number of new people and new ideas you’re exposed to in a short timeframe is bound to change even the most “set in their ways” 18-year old.
I was lucky my parents paid the bills and my college had no core requirements whatsoever, so I could take whatever classes I wanted—from poetry to Russian history. (Amazingly, I didn’t take a single science class.) Throw in my semester abroad, internships, guest speakers, drug experimentation, and a winter trip to the Soviet Union, and it really was a mind-expanding time for me.
It’s sad that the liveaway college experience has become so expensive and debt-producing. It’s not fair. I think the four-year model needs to go. Three years of college is plenty, and would be significantly cheaper. “Uni” – as they call it in the UK – is only three years. I mean, maybe a few select majors (like Engineering) need four years, but everyone else (Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, Business, etc.) could be done in three.
Speaking of the college experience, we went to see One Love, the Bob Marley biopic, based on DanLovesFilm’s recommendation (American critics be damned) and I had fun. There are definitely some weaknesses in the script and I had a hard time understanding the Jamaican/Rastafarian accent, but the music is the music and it’s great. Marley is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir and he’s 🔥
So, GenX: I recommend you have yourself a cocktail or a weed gummy (or both) and go see One Love. You’ll have a good time jamming in your theater seat to one of our key college soundtracks.
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LOL
Wow, tough prompt. There are different kinds of happiness. There’s contentment, relief, satisfaction, pure joy, thrill, etc. I was relieved when I woke up in my warm bed this morning and realized again (re-realized?) that someone I truly dislike is out of my life forever. Ahhhhh.
I’m content sitting here looking at my beautiful December delivery from BloomsyBox.com. I’ll be satisfied when we finish our Christmas puzzle, but – horror or horrors – it appears that a piece may have disappeared into the vaccum cleaner. Lifting up my voice with others in song is pure joy, especially when I feel like our choir is really nailing it and the congregation responds. Travel can be thrilling. My very first glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris from the taxi on the way to the hotel was a thrill. There it was – the real thing.
But there’s nothing quite like laughter – tears in your eyes laughter – to really make you feel happy. Here’s where I admit that I enjoy smoking weed, always have. I have so many great memories of smoking a joint and giggling with my dear departed friend Carla. Looking into her big beautiful eyes and just cracking up about something. I’m not saying I need weed to laugh helplessly, but it does tend to have that effect on me. Most recently, I smoked (well, vaped) and watched a really funny Netflix stand-up comedy special by Pete Holmes (whom I’d never heard of before) and laughed out loud. White, straight, male stand-up comedians can go either way for me – I either hate them or I love them. Holmes has a modern, silly, interesting male perspective and goes a bit deep on things like God and atheism. Plus, he’s got some absolutley hysterical GenX bits, including one about the old “See and Say” toy we all had. Check it out. High or not. Hopefully, you’ll LOL like I did.
I like my porch
What do you love about where you live?
I have a screened-in porch, which I grew to appreciate during the pandemic. During those first three summers, I lugged an inflatable mattress out there because I wanted to have a comfortable place to read and smoke weed. I called it my flop bed. This year, I bought an actual chaise. It’s not quite as comfortable as the mattress, but it looks better.
Screens are key in New England due to the mosquitoes.
I like the nature sounds and tree view on my porch.
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