Song of the day:
As I was watching my movers unload my 200+ boxes/furniture items yesterday, I read President Biden’s letter and was truly stunned. I honestly never thought he would step away from his campaign for a second term. Many had been calling for this after the debate and other things for which they deemed him to be unfit to be President for a second term. I was not in support of that plan, but here we are. Whether it was the pressure from others in his party or his own personal decision (or a combination of both), he made what was likely the most difficult decision of his political career and stepped aside. As you likely know by now, he turned around almost immediately and put his support behind Vice President Harris, which I believe was the right thing to do. A myriad of leaders in the Democratic Party have announced their support for the Vice President as well, and I’m hoping that in the next few days we will see many more stand behind her. I read that around $50 million dollars has already been raised for her, which is incredible.
There will be discussion after discussion about who her running mate might be, and there are some good candidates out there, but we won’t know the final decision until the convention in early August. And it’s always possible that the Party could shift its allegiance from the Biden administration to someone else entirely. I seriously doubt it, but we’re in unprecedented times and anything is possible.
So, here we are, on this Monday morning with an ongoing/renewed mission ahead of us - vote for the Democratic candidate. Vote to defeat Trump and his promise of a dictatorship if he wins, to defeat Project 2025 which would remove the rights of millions of Americans, to defeat the hate. Vote to secure/defend your rights and the rights of those around you - women, the LGBTQIA+ community, the Black and brown communities, DACA recipients, and more. This may well be the most critical election of our lives, so please vote. And get your friends and family to vote. And maybe write some postcards to encourage others to vote. Do whatever you can to ensure that democracy wins. Your very life may depend on it.
So, while all that was happening yesterday, my movers unloaded 243 items from their giant moving van and yeah, there are boxes EVERYWHERE. It took them a little over seven hours to unload everything, and now I get to unpack them. YAY! Thankfully The Mother is assisting, especially with the kitchen stuff, so that is extremely helpful. It’s gonna take a while, there’s no question about that. But hey, what do I have to do? I’m retired! My goal is to have everything in place by the end of August. Seems reasonable, right?
After everything was in the house, The Mother and I had a nice dinner then came home to start the unpacking. But we were greeted by a random electronic chirp after coming inside. After surveying every room and trying to find the offender, we landed on the carbon monoxide detector in my mom’s room. It wasn’t the beep of carbon monoxide being detected - thank goodness! - but it was still worrisome. After two calls with our landlord, he asked that we call 9-1-1 which we did. We then waited outside for the fire department who checked everything and let us know it was alerting us that the batteries were dying/dead. These were brand new when we signed our lease back in April, so that was kinda frustrating, but they replaced them and gave us the all clear.
So after all that, we were spent. We sat and watched TV for a while, then embarked on the unpacking adventure. My main goal for the night was sleeping in my own bed, and yay!, I made that happen. There is still so much more to do, but at least I feel like I accomplished something before the end of the day. I’m sure there will be many more move updates to come, but for now, please enjoy my newly made bed and my nightstands. Please ignore the random shadow of my arm and the boxes and empty shelves on the sides.
So, after my first week of living here, I feel pretty good. I got my car insurance updated (and was shocked at how much MORE it is than California), got the car emission-checked, re-titled and registered, and now await my license plates. I can’t get my driver’s license for another 10 days or so unfortunately, but at least the rest is done. Now to find a stylist, a doctor, a mechanic, a nail tech…I digress…so many things to do, but I’ve got plenty of time to do that. Because you know, I’M RETIRED! :-)
Video of the day:
As we process the state of our country right now, and the uncertainty of so many things, I think Mr. Rogers’ words are still relevant. “Look for the helpers. Because if you look for the helpers, you’ll know that there’s hope.” And I believe we have a lot of hope, but we can’t just sat back and hope it’s all going to be okay. We have to take action, we have to make plans, we have to listen and learn, we have to find time to breathe and find the little joys every day, and above all, we have to vote!
Okay, I’ll step down from my soapbox…for now.
One final note…
Today would have been Frank’s 89th birthday, and while we still miss him terribly, we remember him always and plan to celebrate him throughout the day.
Hope you have a wonderful day and a great week ahead! Until next time…