A Vacation? Ha!

Someone I used to work with asked me last week if I was taking any vacations this year. I told her probably not! This time last year, I was gearing up to go to Portugal in May. This year, nothing. My family is trying to arrange a reunion in Florida later this year, but I don't know if that's really going to happen and I also don't know if I'll go if it does. I'd like to take a trip, but I just don't see it happening this year. If it does, I certainly won't be leaving the country. When I was in Portugal last year, the British folks in my tour group kept asking me how I felt about Biden and Trump. They were really interested in US politics and the last thing I wanted to talk about on vacation was US politics. I can't even imagine what it would be like for an American overseas this year. Oy vey and no thank you.

Lately, I've been thinking about trips in the US, like to one of the national parks or to Alaska, places I've never been before. But with Donny and Elon's government cuts, will the national parks even have enough personnel to run them? As usual, the people in power making decisions about personnel cuts don't care or don't understand what their employees do to keep things up and running. All they're concerned with is doing more with less people. 

Tomorrow is the Presidents' Day holiday. I sure won't be celebrating our current POTUS, but I'm glad I have the day off from my day job to relax. I can remember Portugal even if I'm not taking any big vacations this year!

Serenity Now!

Serenity now, insanity later! Rarely do I quote Seinfeld, but with the nonsense going on in the US right now, I feel I have to. Trying to maintain serenity now is very hard. As if Donny T's second term as POTUS wasn't bad enough, now we have to deal with Co-POTUS, Elon. Ugh. He's not even qualified to be POTUS since he wasn't even born here, yet he's certainly acting like he has the authority to run the government. Why doesn't he go back to his home country of South Africa and run that government? (They probably don't want him back.) I never thought I'd see the day where a private citizen, and one who's not even from the United States, would be in position to oversee the country's financial systems. How is this not a coup? Why is this being allowed to happen? Our government has really gone into the shitter with a swiftness. It hasn't even been a month since Donny's return, but the country has already descended in chaos. DEI is being blamed for airline crashes, a dude with drinking and anger problems is running the military, a foreigner (who also seems to have some substance abuse issues) is taking over the government's financial systems, some nut job wants to run Health and Human Services, and POTUS is talking about making Canada the 51st state and turning Gaza into a vacation destination. Oh, and eggs are $8+ a dozen around here. Every day, it's more insanity in the United States. Don't blame me. I didn't vote for Donny, but now I'm forced to deal with him and every stupid decision he and his sychophants come up with. Another kick in the crotch. 

I can't figure out what this administration thinks will happen if the majority of our federal employees are gone. Where are these people supposed to work now? It's not like the job market is on fire right now. And what about the economy? If people don't have jobs and aren't making money, they can't buy things like homes and goods and keep the economy going. But no one wants to talk about that. Members of Congress and the Senate just sit on their hands, close their eyes, and let Donny do whatever he wants to do. Useless.