Freezing February

Janky January has turned into Freezing February in these parts. (Actually, January was pretty cold at the end of the month too!) This winter in Chicagoland is proving to be more severe than expected. Given that the past few years have yielded pretty mild winters around here, this year is payback, I guess. My car wouldn't start a couple of weeks ago and I had to call AAA to get a jump. The driver told me I didn't need a new battery...yet. My father encouraged me to start my car every day even if I didn't drive it just to warm it up and get the juices flowing. Yeah. Okay. I work from home on my day job and there are days when I don't even leave my home. Running my car is an afterthought. 

I had a brief trip to Florida last week for my day job. It was warm there until it wasn't! Temps dropped during my visit. When I got to town on a Sunday, it was warm. I saw people wearing shorts and tank tops. By Monday night while I was out, the chill had set in and when I left on Wednesday, high temps were in the 50s (and that's cold for Florida). Florida is an interestin place that I'm okay visiting on occasion, but not the kind of place I'd like to live. Yes, it normally has nice weather and no state personal income taxes, but it also has a lot of critters, a lousy governor, and a political climate that doesn't agree with me. I have family members who moved there and love it. More power to them, but it's just not for me. The more I think about where I'm going to spend my remaining years (either after I retire or before then), I often come to the conclusion that I want to live somewhere that has a change of seasons. Yes, freezing through February isn't great, but it's the price you pay to live somewhere that's agreeable in other ways.

Keep Recording

I can be a luddite when it comes to some aspects of technology (mainly social media stuff). You won't find me on Twitter/X, Instagram, Reddit (although I'm thinking about joining since it's anonymous), Facebook, Threads, Blue Sky, whatever. This blog is pretty much it for me. But, I do have the necessary tools to get by in this modern technological age, mainly a cell phone with a camera and filming capabilities. God bless the folks out there who are protesting and filming these armed ICE thugs who are beating, harassing, and killing people in the streets. Without having the citizen footage that's put out for all of the world to see, so much of ICE's gestapo tactics would go unnnoticed. When I lived in NY, the city government was always using this motto: If you see something, say something. Now, that motto should be: If you see something, film it, post it, and say something about it. We're at the point that the current administration will tell you, with a straight face, that it's raining outside when you know it's a sunny day. The bootlickers in Donny's administration don't want you to believe your own eyes about what you're seeing and what's going on this country. Yeah, I'm not a cult member and I don't need a brainwash. My brain and my eyes work perfectly fine and I see clear and well what's going on. 

We've all got to stay vigilant, keep recording, and keep speaking up about the atrocities going on our country. We also have to stay safe. As I said in an earlier post, live to fight another day. 

Here We Go Again

We're only 14 days into 2026 and it's already looking like a repeat of 2025. More chaos! More anger! More idiocy! It's hard to keep your sanity when there's so much insanity around you. Now we've got the gestapo not only dragging people off the streets and teargassing them, but also busting into their homes and killing them on the street. It's a sad day in America when this kind of behavior is being encouraged and applauded by government officials. I've been an American since I was born more than 50 years ago and I never felt like I would have to prove (or try to prove) my citizenship, but I do now! And what's the use of having a Real ID if you show it to ICE and they won't accept it? So it's good enough for me to use to fly domestically, but it's not good enough to prove who I am? Make it make sense! Do I have to start carrying my passport with me too when I go out? The gestapo probably would think that's a fake too! This country is really going down the shitter and it's sad to see. I keep telling myself it won't be like this forever and we'll turn a corner (eventually), but will the wrongs of this administration ever completely be made right? I doubt it.  

People need to keep speaking out, filming atrocities, and reporting on the evil that this administration is doing, but people also need to try and stay safe. You can't help anyone if you're dead! I watched a documentary on the life of Alexei Navalny a while ago that was very good, but I disagreed with his decision to return to Russia after living in exile for many years. He was immediately thrown in prison when he returned and died there. He had his reasons for returning to his homeland, but I wondered if he could have done more good to speak out against the atrocities of his home country if he had remained outside of it. He knew going back was basically a death sentence. I don't want to see anyone lose a life protesting Donny T and his band of idiots no matter how awful they are. And the days of thinking that these ICE thugs won't do anything to you because you're white, old, a woman, whatever, are over. These dudes don't care! People need to wake up and start making self-preservation a priority. Live to fight another day!

New Year's Greetings

Well, 2025 has ended and I'm just glad we made it through. I wish I could say I'm optimistic that 2026 will be better, but I don't feel confident that it will. At this point, I'm just trying to get through each day without having a mental breakdown. It would be nice to see some positive changes happen in 2026. One thing I intend to do this year is get my diet back on track. I fell off the wagon over the past two holiday weeks, but I'll get it together starting next week. I have to see my cardiologist next month and I don't want to go in having gained more weight than my last visit in 2025. I'm not making any resolutions this year, but I'm just going to work to make personal changes like keeping a consistent exercise schedule and reading more books. I also need to get back to writing because that's been sorely neglected by me for some time and I feel bad about it, but I also feel that we all need to give ourselves a break. If you fail or fall behind with something, that's okay. Just pick yourself up and try to move forward. People have enough stress from work, others, the world at large, etc. that no one needs to add to that by piling the stress of failed expectations on top of everything else. 

As I often tell myself (and others), you can't be all things to all people (and you shouldn't try to)!