From the very beginning, this month was horrible with the insurrection and the usual infighting and blaming everyone else for what has happened to our country. No chance of that being settled - ever, probably.
Personally, I'm just staying inside when I can and avoiding the weather. No snow this year but just constant rain day and night for what seems like weeks with the culmination of the windstorms. According to WA news sources, the Seattle area had up to 70 MPH winds that knocked out power for half a million people, and we were included. It's the first time in my five years here that the power has done more than just flicker, but this time it was the real thing.
I didn't enjoy it. Sometimes in the past when we had power outages in the South, we would enjoy candles and flashlights and roughing it, but now we're so attached to our phones and the internet that it made it quite miserable to keep things charged enough for what passes for normal now. Elise would go to the car and sit there while our phones charged, but then with no WIFI, there was nothing to do. I didn't feel like reading by candlelight or cleaning house much, so I dozed in front of the fire and communicated with the family some and tried to get a little creative with meals, using up the refrigerator things that would tend to spoil and keeping the freezer door closed. I drank a lot of milk and ate a lot of fruit and salads.
There was no coffee because everything in this apartment except the fireplace is electric, and there were no businesses open in the three towns near us. People were driving 15 miles for a cup of coffee. Emily and Ryan have a gas stove, but I didn't even ask for anything hot from there. I was just mainly annoyed and kept thinking about all that food Elise had bought for the freezer the night before and how hard it was going to be to throw most of it out.
The cats were perfectly content since their food comes from cans or bags, the fire was on a lot, and their people were there for extra padding while they slept.
So it was a happy thing when I was awakened at 2:04 yesterday morning with bright lights and music.
On top of all that, Elise was exposed to Covid, and therefore I was exposed if she tested positive, so we had to stay even more isolated. It all turned out good, but I had to miss a whole week of PT because of it. The good thing is that my arm feels great, and Emily will come over tomorrow and work on it a little bit. The bad thing is I may have regressed muscle and movement wise, and it will be tough next week.
We spent most of the day yesterday catching up on laundry and cleaning, and it's a good feeling to be on top of things now and able to put those candles away.
I also caught up on the news, and it's just so much to comprehend. I'm amazed at how many people think storming the U.S. Capitol was a good and even necessary thing. And why? Because one person decided our national election was a fraud and sowed the seeds of doubt in the millions of people who follow the dictator and are unable to think for themselves. The dictator has his party to back him up. Not because they actually believe there was fraud but because they are terrified that the dictator will punish them and that his rabid followers will keep them out of power. I can't even comprehend it. And then, because the leader and his backers say it, it must be true, and therefore ALL the sheep believe our election was a sham.
I was encouraged by an article I read this morning by Michael Gerson (Trump's Evangelicals were Implicit in the Desecration of our Democracy). I can't seem to link it, nor do I agree with every word in this opinion piece, but I have for four years now wondered how Christians could back someone like Trump who stands for everything evil that our belief in God decries. And not only back but worship him as their political savior to the point of dividing the country even more and actively making anyone who disagrees with them the enemy. I found out months ago that because I was not a Trump supporter, I was a "son of satan," according to someone I used to look up to as a wonderful Christian.
I've thought all along that when Franklin Graham sold his soul to politics, he would lead many Christians down the wrong path, just because of profiting from his father's name. If hating anyone who is not exactly like you is what people are looking for, they've found their hero in Trump. If you're black, Muslim, foreign, gay, and non-white, you're the enemy. If Trump says it (even if the majority of what he says is lies), you believe it - lying, revenge, hatred, racism. How did people come to those conclusions? I'm still wondering. I'm still seeing people I once looked up to as devout Christians completely buy into conspiracy theories and completely "drink the Kool-aid" of the cult. No thinking for themselves or questioning the dictator, just marching right along and parroting what they hear.
I dread hearing what might happen in the future if trump keeps the power he has over people. There is enough evil in the world without an organized effort to channel it, and it's certainly being channeled now. I look at the faces of the people who have been arrested in the insurrection, and I see nothing but hatred and craziness. Each individual person most likely has a fairly normal life and a family and probably some goodness, but swept along by this insanity, they become animals, and it's terrifying. All because of an unhinged leader that they insisted can do no wrong and have excused for four years.
Maybe January will end better than it started. I'm just laying low and trying to get myself healthy again. I'm waiting to drive again and hold my coffee with my right hand. Waiting to be able to start on my quilts again. Waiting on this winter to end. Waiting. Waiting on normal stuff and a little more sanity that we have in our government right now. Surely it can't get worse.
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