Those of you who have followed this blog for any length of time have probably seen a comment or two from Lucy.
Lucy found me here a long time ago and became a regular, and at this point I regard him as a friend. We’ve traded banter, emails, and a lot of thoughtful conversation, and he remains the only person who has ever made a guest post on this blog.
A couple of weeks ago his wife Sue had her left leg amputated below the knee, and given the glories of the American health care system (which is mostly supported by Go Fund Me campaigns these days) they find themselves in need of some help – mostly to get an ADA-compliant ramp for their home while she is confined to a wheelchair.
If you’d like to contribute and are able to do so, the link for their Go Fund Me is here.
In a world on fire, we do what good we can.
Friday, June 27, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Back Home
And so we return home, after being away for a while.
It was nice to be away. We hadn’t really thought we’d do that after being away quite a bit over the last few years, basically since the pandemic lifted enough to let people do that again. If you’d asked us a couple of months ago we’d have said we were pretty sure that this summer we’d stay home, work on some projects, let people visit us, and rest up a bit. That was the rhetoric. But the reality turned out to be that too many lovely people made too many lovely overtures to join them in too many lovely places, and so we off we went. It worked out pretty well. There will be at least one more such venture – a shorter one that ironically enough we’d planned before we planned this recently completed one – and we’re looking forward to that as well.
Don’t threaten us with a good time.
It was also nice not to be immersed in the ongoing self-destruction of a once-proud republic while we were away. I don’t remember how many random strangers in far off places picked me out as an American (not that hard) and immediately began worried conversations regarding the current regime, its catastrophic and senseless failures and short-sighted lunacy, and their sorrow and fears over where it would all end up, but there were several and it was something I just came to expect. I can’t say they were wrong, and every time I’d see the news their concerns became more justified. It made it tougher to come home than it should have been.
I’m working on a whole pile of blog posts that I hope to get up in the next few weeks. Stories of our trip. Thoughts on the current crisis, some of which I will likely have to tone down if I don’t want a visit from masked thugs claiming to represent my own government here in the Land of the Formerly Free. Random bits and bobs. A historical essay that I promised I’d post back in April or May but haven’t quite because it was overtaken by events. Stories of things that haven’t happened yet but likely will before I finish the previous list of posts. I’m not short of material. It’s going to be heavy on the recent trip for a while, though, so if you’re the sort who doesn’t like reading about other people’s travels you may want to go lightly on this site for a bit. I have things I want to remember, and this is my forum for that.
It's good to be home. The cat is pleased about it as well, and that has to count for something.
It was nice to be away. We hadn’t really thought we’d do that after being away quite a bit over the last few years, basically since the pandemic lifted enough to let people do that again. If you’d asked us a couple of months ago we’d have said we were pretty sure that this summer we’d stay home, work on some projects, let people visit us, and rest up a bit. That was the rhetoric. But the reality turned out to be that too many lovely people made too many lovely overtures to join them in too many lovely places, and so we off we went. It worked out pretty well. There will be at least one more such venture – a shorter one that ironically enough we’d planned before we planned this recently completed one – and we’re looking forward to that as well.
Don’t threaten us with a good time.
It was also nice not to be immersed in the ongoing self-destruction of a once-proud republic while we were away. I don’t remember how many random strangers in far off places picked me out as an American (not that hard) and immediately began worried conversations regarding the current regime, its catastrophic and senseless failures and short-sighted lunacy, and their sorrow and fears over where it would all end up, but there were several and it was something I just came to expect. I can’t say they were wrong, and every time I’d see the news their concerns became more justified. It made it tougher to come home than it should have been.
I’m working on a whole pile of blog posts that I hope to get up in the next few weeks. Stories of our trip. Thoughts on the current crisis, some of which I will likely have to tone down if I don’t want a visit from masked thugs claiming to represent my own government here in the Land of the Formerly Free. Random bits and bobs. A historical essay that I promised I’d post back in April or May but haven’t quite because it was overtaken by events. Stories of things that haven’t happened yet but likely will before I finish the previous list of posts. I’m not short of material. It’s going to be heavy on the recent trip for a while, though, so if you’re the sort who doesn’t like reading about other people’s travels you may want to go lightly on this site for a bit. I have things I want to remember, and this is my forum for that.
It's good to be home. The cat is pleased about it as well, and that has to count for something.
Monday, June 2, 2025
News and Updates
1. We celebrated Father’s Day last night because the next time all four of us will be together might well be Christmas and you have to take these opportunities when they arise. It was a pretty low-key affair, which is how I like it. Kim and I spent most of the day at a friend’s memorial while Oliver hung out at home and Lauren and some of her friends went out to the local medieval-themed restaurant, but afterward we all gathered around a table until Lauren had to go back to campus. It’s those moments when we’re all there together, sharing space and conversation, that I will always cherish.
2. The memorial went well, by the way. Our friend Lloyd passed away a few weeks ago out in New Mexico where he’d been living, and Kim ended up in charge of putting together a gathering down at Home Campus for those who remembered. Lloyd’s family came – several generations’ worth, in fact – and there were a lot of familiar faces of old colleagues as well. And if there is one thing I have learned since moving to Wisconsin it is that you cannot go wrong with a potluck in the midwest. It was a lovely afternoon of shared memories honoring a good man.
3. I suppose it’s just ironic that while I was at the memorial I found out that another friend had passed away. I don’t know anything more than that, but Vince was one of the members of the UCF who welcomed me when I joined in 2011 and who always had something interesting and thoughtful to say. I never actually met him in person, but we spoke online and on Zoom and people who think internet friends are somehow not real friends are just fooling themselves.
4. It’s Pride Month again, and every year I repost on my other social media space the essay I wrote about that back in 2019. It’s a good essay, I think. Most people seem to like it and all of the correct people get annoyed by it which is always a sign that you’ve done something worth doing. That’s all you can ask of a blog post, really. There is more urgency to the issue this year, though, as the simpleminded and the intentionally cruel wage war on anyone Not Exactly Like Them. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves can always be relied upon to choose the most thoughtless, morally bankrupt, economically shortsighted, politically retrograde, and callously inhuman option presented to them (or invent one if there is none presented) and that cannot stand. This straight white guy isn’t going to put up with any of that nonsense, thank you very goddamned much. Happy Pride to all who celebrate, and those who have a problem with that are welcome to reexamine their life choices and find some that aren’t so stupid.
5. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from political posting because I’ve had a great many other things that I wanted to write about here, almost all of them much more pleasant, but this does not mean that I haven’t been paying attention to this vile and corrupt regime’s overt attemp to create here in the US exactly the kind of government that we thought we’d bombed into oblivion in 1945. It can happen here, folks. It is happening here. If you haven’t at least skimmed through the deformed monstrosity that the GOP is presenting as a “budget” right now you should correct that while you still technically have the right to question your rulers because they’re doing everything they can to make sure that you lose that right, officially as well as in practice, as soon as this bill is passed. It’s a grab bag of authoritarianism, debunked economics, oligarchy and mayhem that should never have seen the light of day in a well-founded republic, but when you have a party that is openly campaigning to end the Constitutional republic and replace it with an American Reich that’s just how they do things. I will get back to my posting at some point this summer. Lord knows I’ve got the material. It’s a target-rich environment that way.
6. Every day that I can get out of bed, have my tea and fall into a comfortable routine is a good day and not to be discounted. When you are young you crave excitement, but eventually you realize that quiet comfortable days are good things too.
7. I’ve been watching several hundred internet drivers try to navigate a car from Boston to the US west coast via Google Street View and direct democracy and let me just say that the current dysfunction of American politics makes a lot more sense now. Basically you get a screenshot of a Google Street View of a street and you get to vote on what to do next – everything from turning or going forward to changing the radio station to honking the horn (it didn’t take long for me to mute the tab). They started in Boston and as of this writing they’re somewhere in Nova Scotia, which you will note is actually east of Boston and at the present rate and vector they will drown in the Atlantic long before they find the west coast. So far I’ve seen three crashes (which I didn't realize you could do in Google Street View) and two prolonged black screens, and tonight they tried to drive off a parking lot and into a bay. I spent five years running rescue with a volunteer fire company back in the day and this has pretty much confirmed every stereotype about the average driver that I picked up during that time.
8. Oliver’s lease is now signed and ready. Lauren’s been living on her own for years. It is a strange thing when your kids move out, even if they haven’t been kids for a very long time.
9. I have had my summer shearing and no longer look like Hungover Ben Franklin. If they did it right I won’t have to comb my hair for several weeks. This will save me approximately 4.5 minutes over the course of a week and I can use that time to stare blankly at the walls and wonder about the state of the world because efficiency.
10. Right now is a bit of a quiet time, but that will change very soon. Blog posts to follow!
2. The memorial went well, by the way. Our friend Lloyd passed away a few weeks ago out in New Mexico where he’d been living, and Kim ended up in charge of putting together a gathering down at Home Campus for those who remembered. Lloyd’s family came – several generations’ worth, in fact – and there were a lot of familiar faces of old colleagues as well. And if there is one thing I have learned since moving to Wisconsin it is that you cannot go wrong with a potluck in the midwest. It was a lovely afternoon of shared memories honoring a good man.
3. I suppose it’s just ironic that while I was at the memorial I found out that another friend had passed away. I don’t know anything more than that, but Vince was one of the members of the UCF who welcomed me when I joined in 2011 and who always had something interesting and thoughtful to say. I never actually met him in person, but we spoke online and on Zoom and people who think internet friends are somehow not real friends are just fooling themselves.
4. It’s Pride Month again, and every year I repost on my other social media space the essay I wrote about that back in 2019. It’s a good essay, I think. Most people seem to like it and all of the correct people get annoyed by it which is always a sign that you’ve done something worth doing. That’s all you can ask of a blog post, really. There is more urgency to the issue this year, though, as the simpleminded and the intentionally cruel wage war on anyone Not Exactly Like Them. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves can always be relied upon to choose the most thoughtless, morally bankrupt, economically shortsighted, politically retrograde, and callously inhuman option presented to them (or invent one if there is none presented) and that cannot stand. This straight white guy isn’t going to put up with any of that nonsense, thank you very goddamned much. Happy Pride to all who celebrate, and those who have a problem with that are welcome to reexamine their life choices and find some that aren’t so stupid.
5. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from political posting because I’ve had a great many other things that I wanted to write about here, almost all of them much more pleasant, but this does not mean that I haven’t been paying attention to this vile and corrupt regime’s overt attemp to create here in the US exactly the kind of government that we thought we’d bombed into oblivion in 1945. It can happen here, folks. It is happening here. If you haven’t at least skimmed through the deformed monstrosity that the GOP is presenting as a “budget” right now you should correct that while you still technically have the right to question your rulers because they’re doing everything they can to make sure that you lose that right, officially as well as in practice, as soon as this bill is passed. It’s a grab bag of authoritarianism, debunked economics, oligarchy and mayhem that should never have seen the light of day in a well-founded republic, but when you have a party that is openly campaigning to end the Constitutional republic and replace it with an American Reich that’s just how they do things. I will get back to my posting at some point this summer. Lord knows I’ve got the material. It’s a target-rich environment that way.
6. Every day that I can get out of bed, have my tea and fall into a comfortable routine is a good day and not to be discounted. When you are young you crave excitement, but eventually you realize that quiet comfortable days are good things too.
7. I’ve been watching several hundred internet drivers try to navigate a car from Boston to the US west coast via Google Street View and direct democracy and let me just say that the current dysfunction of American politics makes a lot more sense now. Basically you get a screenshot of a Google Street View of a street and you get to vote on what to do next – everything from turning or going forward to changing the radio station to honking the horn (it didn’t take long for me to mute the tab). They started in Boston and as of this writing they’re somewhere in Nova Scotia, which you will note is actually east of Boston and at the present rate and vector they will drown in the Atlantic long before they find the west coast. So far I’ve seen three crashes (which I didn't realize you could do in Google Street View) and two prolonged black screens, and tonight they tried to drive off a parking lot and into a bay. I spent five years running rescue with a volunteer fire company back in the day and this has pretty much confirmed every stereotype about the average driver that I picked up during that time.
8. Oliver’s lease is now signed and ready. Lauren’s been living on her own for years. It is a strange thing when your kids move out, even if they haven’t been kids for a very long time.
9. I have had my summer shearing and no longer look like Hungover Ben Franklin. If they did it right I won’t have to comb my hair for several weeks. This will save me approximately 4.5 minutes over the course of a week and I can use that time to stare blankly at the walls and wonder about the state of the world because efficiency.
10. Right now is a bit of a quiet time, but that will change very soon. Blog posts to follow!
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