The Big Heat

This early in the Dunwich winter (August 1^st to June 30^th), we can still have temperatures in the nineties.  Today the grandkids and their friends were in the pool and so we vacuumed it last night.  And Camera Girl’s garden is filled up with various squash varieties; zucchini, spaghetti and butternut.  I took a look at it today and found a medium sized frog hiding among the squash.  I guess he was working for me keeping the bugs off the vegetables.

And the last of the daylilies are blooming like crazy.  In another week they’ll be gone.  So, the swallowtails and the monarchs are flitting around them like their lives depended on it.

And the heat was like a wave of energy radiating from the grass and the plants.  I could feel it in the skin of my face and the hair on my arms.  It seared my lungs when I breathed it.  It made me feel intensely alive.  So, I took a bunch of photos of flowers and butterflies and a couple of the frog.

Looking over the various news items is depressing.  Not because things are getting worse but simply because they are so pathetic.  There is a consensus that no one wants Joe Biden running for re-election, not even Democrats.  But the powers that be haven’t figured out how to force Creepy Uncle Joe into a hospice.  I think they’ll probably get a veterinarian to put him to sleep.  It would be cheaper.

Most of the opinion pieces today align with what I expect the publication’s readership would want to hear.  Lots of cheerleading.  As I said, even though things are trending in our favor right now, I find myself a little down due to just how abysmally bad the state of the world is.  What can you say about the state of the world when we’re forced to choose sides between the Chi-Coms and Nancy Pelosi?  How do you win that bet?

I was having a discussion with an old friend and we were sort of talking about this same thing, the pitiful state of the world.  And I was making the point that we have to stop expecting a big victory that will fix all these awful things.  These awful things are the baseline conditions of our times and it’s up to us to fix them in our own lives.  Sure, we can hope to elect better leaders but what we have to do is find solutions in our own lives.  Your kids are the only future there will be for your world view.  Teaching them what you believe to be true and right is your best chance of saving them from the groomers.  Giving them a good education is the best way of preparing them for making a decent living.  Helping them get on their feet is the way to pay forward the help you were given by your parents.

Of course, I was preaching to the choir but I thought it was worth saying it out loud.  Sometimes we can let ourselves get discouraged and then we need to put things in perspective.  Regardless of what Washington or the Blue State leaders say is policy, we have access to our kids and we can do an awful lot to shape their minds and souls.  And we need to make that our priority.

Saying those things out loud actually helped my mood.  I walked away from the computer screen and spent some time annoying Camera Girl.  I could sense that she needed valuable feedback from me on what she was making for dinner and stuff.

Next week we’re going to spend a day and a night up in Old Orchard Beach, Maine with the grandkids and their parents.  This will be a kind of revival of sorts.  About twenty-five years ago we started going there with our kids in the summers.  There’s an old-style amusement park with rides, bad fried food and crooked carnival games.  The beach is actually quite nice and compares favorably to any of the other East Coast resorts in terms of white sand and clean water.  I’ll get to walk down the beach with Princess Sack of Potatoes just as I did with her mother when she was that age.  And I’ll probably have to carry her when she gets too lazy to walk back.  The littlest boy will fly a kite on the sand and dig a sand castle.  And if I’m not careful I’ll be pummeled by him in the bumper cars at the amusement park.  And all of that is the fun part of paying forward what my parents and grandparents did for me.  Spending time with these people is the reason we do all this.  Otherwise, we might as well give up and let the whole world go to hell.