Preamble

At a press conference yesterday, President Biden reiterated his stance on the evacuation of Afghanistan and pledged to use the American military to help any Americans who want to come back to the United States do so, and also help evacuate any persons who helped American forces during their occupation, as well, though it’s not clear where these (mostly Afghan) will go.  Perhaps they will be “resettled” in the United States, but perhaps they be shunted to our allies, mostly, if not wholly, European (French and German) or British…  I surmise the European nations (Germany, France), as well as Britain, will balk at resettlement of Afghans in their countries, because they are already in the midst of a refugee crisis.  The xenophobic Brexit idiots have redefined the (now-nationalist) politics of their once-great Empire, much to the disgrace and shame of the British people. 

[When talking with me, Peter stated that the Scottish (and Irish) will likely leave the Commonwealth to “rejoin the EU,” as a more positive spin on their intentions and future action.  England has overused its international weight and its once-great (read: large, extnesive) Empire is disintegrating.

Perhaps President Biden realises this and is trying to avoid a similar fate.]

There was one reporter who asked President Biden about the process of evacuating Americans and other allied forces, troops and otherwise.  President Biden answered by stating that the plan has always been to leave the country (indeed, that was one of the platforms on which he ran for the office of President).  The Taliban are helping to get people out, to secure the airport, but, Biden reiterated, that does not mean that the Taliban is a force aligned with US interests.  They are merely acting in their own self-interest, which is best served by the exit of westerners.  Many people, including a lot of women, are fleeing, essentially, what they see as the coming regime as a return to the oppressive religiously-justified subjugation of not only women, but the destruction of anyone or anything who does not cowtow to their brand of islam.  In their negotiations, the Taliban said that women will be “protected,” but haven’t detailed what that protection will actually be.

Thoughts on the Day

210809  9:33

Washed my hair over the kitchen sink after preparing and eating toast with butter and broccoli pesto.  I am awaiting a message from Kat that she’s awake, so that I can go home and have her bring the walker upstairs into the flat for me, though my foot is feeling sufficiently better today so that I may be able to just walk on it.  I took a Percocet tablet this morning, though, so I wonder how long I should wait before driving home.  I’d forgotten that my car was here until Peter reminded me either last night or this morning.  Mark, Peter’s landlord, is coming over this morning with a contractor to begin work on the bathroom upstairs.  They were supposed to arrive at 9, but it’s past 9:30 now, and I’m still sitting in my boxer shorts at the dining table.  I suppose I should dress before they arrive…

9:46

They’ve arrived, and I’m dressed.  I got down the stairs as they were talking in the foyer, and Mark brought over the walker for me to use to get across the living room.  I used the walker to get into the sunroom,, but left it there, as I’ll start walking without it today, though stairs will still be slow-going, for sure.

Mark is leaving the workmen here to get on with it.  They’ve removed the shower doors and leaned them against the long exterior sunroom wall, and are now using a power drill to remove the frame from the wall and tub upstairs.  Peter surmises that once they open up the wall and floor, that they’ll find a lot more work that needs to be done, as he expects (as do I) that they’ll find quite a bit of rotted wood in the long wall adjacent to the shower as well as the floor at the edge of the tub between the tub and the toilet.

At least it’s dry out and their shoes are relatively clean and dry coming in (not like the original “handyman” that Mark had working for him, Clinton, whom Peter described as “dead from the neck up”).

15:25

I prepared pastry for sweet potato graham crackers, and the first one is baking in the toaster oven (20-25 minutes, they’re pretty thick).  The recipe is for a S’mores recipe, but it sounded intriguing to me, so I tried it.  As is predictable, the pastry came out dry, so I added several squirts of RO water as I kneaded it until it became smooth.  It rolled out nicely enough, but remained rather thick, probably about 1/8” thick typically.

Peter has a dinner date with a colleague who happens to be in town, but is departing tonight.  I asked Peter if he wanted to come fetch me after dinner and bring me home to watch an episode or two of “The Umbrella Academy,” and he replied affirmatively.

It’s interesting to me that the program is a series, with a few seasons (at minimum), as Peter believes that the third season is being currently produced.  We have watched the first four episodes of Season 1 over I believe three nights, watching the pilot and one episode, then two episodes the other night, and the third and fourth episodes last night before Peter realized how late it was (it was after 1 am when we finally went to bed!).

15:45

The first tray of six small crackers is cooling, and the second is baking.  The third is rolled out and awaits the oven.  In total, it’ll take about an hour and a half to bake all of the crackers in the toaster oven, but I’m just too reluctant to use the big oven when the weather is so hot and humid.  Indeed, the humidity is bringing in mosquitos, and I’ve been preyed upon by one already.  At least, it’s still cooling off at night, and for this, I am thankful to the weather system that is allowing Southern California to maintain a semblance of its preindustrial climate.  I watched a few reports about the extreme weather conditions in Mediterranean countries, and the reports don’t bode well for the future of waterfront cities.  The inhabitants of a Greek island were ferried off, rescued from wildfires that are engulfing the island’s structures along with its forested areas.  The IPCC has just told us what many of us knew already, that the effects of climate change are coming on faster and more severely than expected.  This is no wonder to me.  What is a source of curiosity to me is how bad it will get within my lifetime, and, by extension, that of Kat.  Of course, I am assuming, not albeit without cause, that Kat will outlive me by some number of decades, if we’re not to perish almost simultaneously due to climate change.

At the same time, I find myself going about the day-to-day tasks that still appear to need to be done:  grocery shopping, washing laundry, driving places, including to Peter’s.  During my drive home this morning, I could not help but think about how it’s happening as predicted:  everything is happening in quick succession:  the diseases (Covid and its variants), the floods, the drought, the extinction of species (though the extinction of my own, even though it would aid in the survival of others – many, many others – is still far into the future at this point), the fueling of conflict and rise of strongmen, like Bolsonaro and Putin, because so many people want to be led, as sheep to the slaughter, for the vainglory of those men who still see themselves as invincible.

It is a wonder to me that scientists studying Climate Change are not all consumed with misery and depression.  Do they see a means for our species to adapt and change, when the evidence of history tells them otherwise?

These thoughts remind me that I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder, but then I think to myself, am I not merely being realistic?  To be fatalistic is to be realistic, is it not?  To prepare one’s self for demise, if not merely of one’s self, but of the world at large, beginning with our species.  For so so so long, humans have proved themselves unworthy of the price we exact on this, the only world all of us will ever know.  It’s going down the shitter.  What is the It to which I am now referring?  Everything.

Thoughts on the Day

210809  9:33

Washed my hair over the kitchen sink after preparing and eating toast with butter and broccoli pesto.  I am awaiting a message from Kat that she’s awake, so that I can go home and have her bring the walker upstairs into the flat for me, though my foot is feeling sufficiently better today so that I may be able to just walk on it.  I took a Percocet tablet this morning, though, so I wonder how long I should wait before driving home.  I’d forgotten that my car was here until Peter reminded me either last night or this morning.  Mark, Peter’s landlord, is coming over this morning with a contractor to begin work on the bathroom upstairs.  They were supposed to arrive at 9, but it’s past 9:30 now, and I’m still sitting in my boxer shorts at the dining table.  I suppose I should dress before they arrive…

9:46

They’ve arrived, and I’m dressed.  I got down the stairs as they were talking in the foyer, and Mark brought over the walker for me to use to get across the living room.  I used the walker to get into the sunroom,, but left it there, as I’ll start walking without it today, though stairs will still be slow-going, for sure.

Mark is leaving the workmen here to get on with it.  They’ve removed the shower doors and leaned them against the long exterior sunroom wall, and are now using a power drill to remove the frame from the wall and tub upstairs.  Peter surmises that once they open up the wall and floor, that they’ll find a lot more work that needs to be done, as he expects (as do I) that they’ll find quite a bit of rotted wood in the long wall adjacent to the shower as well as the floor at the edge of the tub between the tub and the toilet.

At least it’s dry out and their shoes are relatively clean and dry coming in (not like the original “handyman” that Mark had working for him, Clinton, whom Peter described as “dead from the neck up”).

15:25

I prepared pastry for sweet potato graham crackers, and the first one is baking in the toaster oven (20-25 minutes, they’re pretty thick).  The recipe is for a S’mores recipe, but it sounded intriguing to me, so I tried it.  As is predictable, the pastry came out dry, so I added several squirts of RO water as I kneaded it until it became smooth.  It rolled out nicely enough, but remained rather thick, probably about 1/8” thick typically.

Peter has a dinner date with a colleague who happens to be in town, but is departing tonight.  I asked Peter if he wanted to come fetch me after dinner and bring me home to watch an episode or two of “The Umbrella Academy,” and he replied affirmatively.

It’s interesting to me that the program is a series, with a few seasons (at minimum), as Peter believes that the third season is being currently produced.  We have watched the first four episodes of Season 1 over I believe three nights, watching the pilot and one episode, then two episodes the other night, and the third and fourth episodes last night before Peter realized how late it was (it was after 1 am when we finally went to bed!).

15:45

The first tray of six small crackers is cooling, and the second is baking.  The third is rolled out and awaits the oven.  In total, it’ll take about an hour and a half to bake all of the crackers in the toaster oven, but I’m just too reluctant to use the big oven when the weather is so hot and humid.  Indeed, the humidity is bringing in mosquitos, and I’ve been preyed upon by one already.  At least, it’s still cooling off at night, and for this, I am thankful to the weather system that is allowing Southern California to maintain a semblance of its preindustrial climate.  I watched a few reports about the extreme weather conditions in Mediterranean countries, and the reports don’t bode well for the future of waterfront cities.  The inhabitants of a Greek island were ferried off, rescued from wildfires that are engulfing the island’s structures along with its forested areas.  The IPCC has just told us what many of us knew already, that the effects of climate change are coming on faster and more severely than expected.  This is no wonder to me.  What is a source of curiosity to me is how bad it will get within my lifetime, and, by extension, that of Kat.  Of course, I am assuming, not albeit without cause, that Kat will outlive me by some number of decades, if we’re not to perish almost simultaneously due to climate change.

At the same time, I find myself going about the day-to-day tasks that still appear to need to be done:  grocery shopping, washing laundry, driving places, including to Peter’s.  During my drive home this morning, I could not help but think about how it’s happening as predicted:  everything is happening in quick succession:  the diseases (Covid and its variants), the floods, the drought, the extinction of species (though the extinction of my own, even though it would aid in the survival of others – many, many others – is still far into the future at this point), the fueling of conflict and rise of strongmen, like Bolsonaro and Putin, because so many people want to be led, as sheep to the slaughter, for the vainglory of those men who still see themselves as invincible.

It is a wonder to me that scientists studying Climate Change are not all consumed with misery and depression.  Do they see a means for our species to adapt and change, when the evidence of history tells them otherwise?

These thoughts remind me that I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder, but then I think to myself, am I not merely being realistic?  To be fatalistic is to be realistic, is it not?  To prepare one’s self for demise, if not merely of one’s self, but of the world at large, beginning with our species.  For so so so long, humans have proved themselves unworthy of the price we exact on this, the only world all of us will ever know.  It’s going down the shitter.  What is the It to which I am now referring?  Everything.