Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts
I did my ‘first of the month’ chores the other day. These include pouring things down into the bathtub to keep the sewer lines cleared, and running cleaners through the washing machine, dishwasher, and garbage disposal. We hunt for organic, safe things to do this with. I do them every month on the first day to keep it all working well.
That’s the dream, anyway.
All transpired as planned with everything except the washing machine. It stopped, showing an error message.
My wife pointed it out to me by asking, “What’s this mean?”
“What?”
“The washing machine isn’t doing anything. It shows ‘rL’ where it usually shows the time.”
I looked. Not because I didn’t believe her. It’s just habit: see for myself. Helps me shift into ‘maybe I can fix it’ mode.
She was right about what it said. The time is always in green. These letters were in red.
“That’s not good,” I wisely noted.
We pulled out the manual and found the error message. It’s specifically for the cleaning cycle and means, ‘something is in the washer’. Nothing is supposed to be in the washer during this process. The only thing in it is the tablet purchased for the purpose.
My wife and I talked about it. “This is what we used before,” we agreed. “It was never upset before.”
Shrugging, I took the standard modern technology route: turn it off, turn it back on.
And it worked.
Sunday’s Theme Music — the Craziest Thing
Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, July 5, 206.
It’s another hot summer day. Clouds are in the air and the temperature will be about 90 degrees, not nearly as life-threatening as so many others are enduring around the world.
We attended the Independence Day parade in Ashland yesterday. Very tepid. Low turnout to watch, low enthusiasm for the people marching by, dull interest in the music. The ‘flyby’ came about ten minutes after the parade ended.
It could all be me and my friends, of course, but I walked around to hear what others were saying. One young man pushing a stroller, a woman and another child with him, were all dressed in the national colors. “That wasn’t much,” he was saying, walking away. “Where should we go?
Trump broke more promises yesterday, of course. He said he was going to speak no matter what the weather, but then waited until it was cool, much later. That’s TACO for you. He also said he was going to speak for a very long time but spoke only 40 minutes. More TACO.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Trump was said to be talking about the crowd at the July 4th celebration. He thinks that crowd is “the craziest thing anyone’s ever seen.”
No, Trump, the craziest thing ever seen remains how much you lie and steal, and yet people keep saying how wonderful and great you are. That’s the craziest thing anyone’s ever seen in the last fifty years.
Trump promised a ‘golden age’ during his speech. I’ll tuck that promise in with these previous Trump promises:
- Releasing the Epstein files
- The Epstein ballroom would be paid for by donors and cost taxpayers nothing
- Trump promised to ‘clean up’ and ‘fix’ the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
- No new wars
- Mexico will pay for the wall
- A new healthcare plan is coming in two weeks
- Trump repeatedly ‘pledged’, Medicare will never be touched
- Trump said he would always protect Medicare
- Yet the OBBB cut Medicare and put a work program in place for recipients
- Trump said he would not golf as president
- As he campaigned throughout 2024, Trump said he would reduce inflation
We’ve seen the outcomes of these Trump promises. Trump has attacked several countries. He went to war with Iran. Inflation is still up and affordability is a hot issue for many people. Trump was frequently golfing during the war with Iran. Medicare has been cut. A new healthcare plan never emerged. Trump is still building the border wall; Mexico isn’t paying for it.
With MAGA’s unquenched love for Trump going strong, The Neurons unspooled “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen in the morning mental music stream.
I’ve read essays during the last few weeks about how Republicans have weaponized words like patriotism, woke, freedom, God, and religion. They essentially coopted and twisted these words and their meanings in the finest “1984” fashion. So while I use ‘love’ as a descriptor for what MAGAts hold for Trump, I’m not certain that it’s love in the sense that the rest of us employ it. If it is, it’s love in the sense of too many tortured relationships, where one is the abuser and the other is abused, yet the abused cannot quit the relationship. I know that I’m thinking of it from my side of the perspective, and not the abused MAGA position.
But how else can I think of it? Trump continually lies to them. He makes and breaks promises, just as it’s seen in many abusive relationships. Yet, they can’t quit him; they love him. They love him even though he made two billion dollars and did little to improve their lives, even as they struggle more and more with worsening conditions and deteriorating affordability.
So here we go: theme music for the MAGAts and Trump.
Hope your day brings you the best life you can live. May peace and grace smooth your way and take you on to better things.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 