These days, especially this week, I wonder who is advising President Biden and told him that running for reelection was a good thing. For himself and for our country. Because it isn’t. And while age-ism can be a real and unfair impediment for some people, in part it realistically recognizes that our abilities DO decline with advanced age, and Biden’s age is advanced by any standard you care to choose. I can’t listen to him speak or watch him ascend a staircase without being reminded of this. He is not getting old … he is old.
There’s no shame in that, because although we all might wish we could hike physically and mentally unchallenged right up to the door of those pearly gates, “getting on in years” is real and natural and can come to any of us.
If he were not entranced with all that comes with being POTUS, he might see that and recuse himself from running again. How much better it would be if he would help pick his successor and then gracefully step aside. Someone younger and carrying less of a burden of the past.
Burden of the past? Doesn’t getting old mean that you have the benefit of having seen so much during your years on the planet that making wise decisions is almost automatic? Well, that is only one of the possibilities. Another is that you might be tempted to think that because you have so much experience that you know all there is to know.
That seems to be where President Joe is right now. He could not run and many of us would be forever grateful that he took those first steps in leading us out of the Cluck swamp. Or he could run and in so doing take the chance of disappointing his supporters greatly. We already had one President (Reagan) who had to be propped up so he didn’t fall forward into his soup as he dozed, I would personally much prefer that we not have another.
BTW, for any of you who would like to accuse me of age-ism, go right ahead. But I am older than Mr. Biden by a couple of years, and I wouldn’t elect me to anything.
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Robin and I are back in our comfortable and palatial digs, and presently dealing with the fact that our cats had voted us out while we were gone. All of the decision-making apparatus here in Paradise is in their paws at the moment. So far our pleading has gone for naught.
Must have been the number of days that we were absent that hardened their feline hearts against us. We’ve been gone even longer in the past, but that was then and this is now. You know how it is when your spouse moves something to a new place without informing you? How long it takes to find it if they are not around? That is what the cats have done. Moved our stuff, and now we must find where it is.
This morning Poco is pointing back over his left shoulder at the printer. I believe that he is indicating that he and Willow have typed something up and it is ready to print. It’s coming off now as we speak … a … list … of … cat … demands … oh, this is all too much!
Where is the gratitude for all the years we have provided for them? The astronomical number of cans of Fancy Feast we have opened? The cumulative hours of unpleasant scooping at the litterbox? The brushings, the trips to the vet … .
And now we are asked to believe that we must switch to a cat food that costs $4.00 per tiny can and is half truffles? That future times away from the homestead are subject to negotiation? Well, I’m not having it, that’s what. I will exercise the nuclear option and threaten them with the worst thing they can imagine. I will go shopping for a puppy.
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Robin and I are presently involved in watching The Diplomat. It’s a limited series on Netflix. So far each episode has careened from one room to another and one charged situation to another. The pace is so rapid that the lead actor, Keri Russell, often has to literally run from place to place. Russell absolutely shines in this role. She is IN-tense.
There are soaps and there are great soaps, and this may be a great one. If being an ambassador to a major country was as frenetic an existence as it is displayed in these episodes, I don’t know how anybody would last more than a month at the job.
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Last year we planted a small succulent garden out back and it was lovely. Unfortunately we were careless with the fact that just because somebody had such plants to sell here in Paradise didn’t mean that they were hardy enough to survive outdoors in Paradise. So they flourished, they charmed us, and they all died. Every single one. In effect, we turned some perfectly good perennials into annuals by not doing our research properly.
So to replace them we turned to local counselors, who informed us that our choices were quite a bit more limited if we wanted to see the same plants again next spring. We are now following their advice.
Humbled, that is what we are. One must follow the rules of the place where one lives. Wanting it to be different and thinking you can alter that reality just by wishing is called being tetched in the head.
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On the way home from the Twin Cities, after having learned about Harry Belafonte’s passing, I was moved to break into song and found that I remembered almost all of the words to Mama Look A Boo Boo, one of his famous calypso recordings. The second or third time around with the same song, however, exceeded Robin’s tolerance for tone-deaf husband droning on at great length in car cabin.
She asked politely if I would please drop her at the upcoming rest stop, for she would rather thumb rides for the rest of her journey than hear one more chorus of “Shut your mouth, go away, Mama look a boo boo day.” In fact, she allowed that having her fingernails removed with a rusty pliers would be preferable.
Chastened, I went along with her request, even though my voice still echoed splendidly in my own ears.
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Little Home In The Valley 