Tomorrow’s the big day…our second Covid-19 vaccination!
We will have to go down the Las Vegas for the shots. The site is a 70-mile drive south on I-15. However, we will feel so much better once we get it and won’t have to worry as much. It’s been a tough twelve months: 528,000 deaths. Glad we weren’t one of them. Time for a “Two Shot” backyard party!
Charlie is in the middle of tax season, which typically keeps her busy as a bee.
On top of that, she is still helping clients with paperwork associated with those Federal economic “lifeline” loans that were approved last year. Congress approved them and then lateraled off to the Small Business Administration, which then lateraled off to the Nation’s banks, which then had to come up with software and systems to accept applications, track awards, and process compliance paperwork.
It has been a f’ing nightmare, to put it politely. Charlie has spent half of the past six months on the phone with banks, trying to iron out kinks in their hastily developed online systems…that don’t work very well. Luckily for her clients, Charlie has the patience of Job…up to a point. Every once in a while, she goes postal on some unlucky schmuck at the other end of the phone call. (Just a minute ago, some software automatically updated toward the end of a multi-hour task with Bank of America and Charlie…lost all of her work! She’s mad as a hornet; told me to pour her a stiff one while she tries to calm down.)
I read somewhere that hundreds of billions of authorized “lifeline” grants have gone unclaimed. Gee, maybe that’s because the f’ing process is so f’ing difficult to negotiate!!! They (the Federal government) literally can’t give money away…they’re so incompetent (I’m talking about the Fed’s buddies, the banks!).
Anyway, life goes on.
Hey, we’re one month into our diet (Nutrisystem) and I’ve lost 10.2 pounds! Charlie has lost less, but that is normal when we diet. My metabolism is higher than hers, for some reason. Plus, I walk the dogs, hike, and hit golf balls at the range occasionally. All those things burn a few calories. On Monday, I hiked 7.5 miles up in the mountains (7,000 feet). I probably worked off a pound that day alone.
Charlie’s main daily activity, at this time of the year, is sitting at her computer, talking on the phone, and reaching for product from the copy machine. And cussing a lot. My heart goes out to her.
When it gets a bit warmer, we will begin to use our stationary recumbent bicycle in the back patio area. That should increase our caloric burn (particularly if Charlie cusses while pedaling!).
Yesterday, I took the Beast (RV) into Las Vegas for service at a place called National Indoor RV. Wow, what a mammoth place! It is located near one of those huge Amazon warehouses and is just as large. The facility encompasses sales, service, and (indoor, climate-controlled) storage. Lots of very expensive RVs are stored there. I’m having the NIRV folks fix my refrigerator (doesn’t shift to propane while driving), troubleshoot the washer-dryer (agitator on fritz), and replace my Blue Ox tow bar.
My buddy Al Howa and I looked at several “for sale” RV’s. One real nice one was a 2021 43’ Newmar, driven 1,500 miles by the owner…a real beauty, loaded with all the goodies…only $385,000. That sounds like a lot, but the owner paid $450,000 several months ago. Al decided to pass on that “deal”.
Our next family RV outing will involve heading north and east to Aurora, Colorado on May 6th to stay with our adopted 5th son, Jason, for a week.
Speaking of visiting, our granddaughter Jessica and her brother Craig will arrive here on Saturday for a couple of days. She’s taking a breather from nursing (she’s an R.N. pandemic hero) and he’s about to graduate from high school, join the Navy, and see the world.
Charlie and I watched that Oprah Winfrey 2 hour interview special with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the other night. We have previously watched all the seasons of “The Crown”, which is a docu-drama of the British monarchy over the past 100 years. And so, accepting the fact that there has probably been generous fudging with truth here and there, my impression is that the monarchy is pretty messed up and it must be no fun at all to be participants in that fishbowl, with all the petty gamesmanship among the royals, and the pomp and ceremony, and the incessant sniping by the British tabloid press.
Sure, Harry and Meghan are probably getting a dose of what all of them have had to endure (including Harry’s mom, Diana, who was literally hounded to death). However, Meghan has received an extraordinary amount of vicious tabloid coverage that is racial in nature, and the royal family (and the institution of the British monarchy) has done nothing to call off the dogs. In fact, they’ve piled on…by unprotecting her and demoting her husband (the son of future King Charles) and their child Archie. It appears that the monarchy doesn’t want any brown-skinned progeny in the Royal family photos.
Harry and Meghan are definitely not the villains in this drama, although the tabloids (and some of the royals, hiding in the bushes, slinging arrows) make them out to be traitorous, money-grubbing, publicity-hungry ingrates.
I am happy for Harry and Meghan that they’ve escaped the Gilded Cage to live a “normal” life together, and am even more disgusted with Prince Charles than I was before. What a zero that guy is…the next King of England!!!
In other news:
Congress passed the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill today. Whoopee! More fake money pumped into the American economy. It won’t be long now until gasoline is $6 per gallon and Big Mac will cost $10. Too much money floating around is a bad thing. It would have been better to target these stimulus efforts (both of Trump’s and Biden’s one) toward those folks who are really suffering. There’s 25 million people out there who lost full-time jobs. What’s a few thousand dollars going to do for them? (How about getting all of them Covid-19 vaccinations this month so they can go back to work?)
The Republicans refused to support this stimulus legislation, but months ago branded Democrats who questioned G.O.P stimulus packages as “unpatriotic”. We’ve seen this movie before…during the Obama years: The “Party of No”.
The Republicans are the anti-democratic patriots who wouldn’t give Obama’s Supreme Court nominee a confirmation hearing in 2016 (“let the voters decide”) but steamrolled Trump’s nominee through Senate hearings at the tail end of the 2020 election year (“who cares about the voters!”).
The guy the Republicans screwed in 2016, Merrick Garland, was approved today as Attorney General. Garland doesn’t have big shoes to fill, i.e. Trump’s disgraced toady, William Barr. Those January 6th Capitol Riot insurrectionists are in big trouble with Garland on board: he’s the guy who put the wood to the Oklahoma City bombing conspirators.
Speaking of the Republican Party, the G.O.P. National Committee is now jousting with ex-President Trump over campaign donations. He wants all G.O.P. fundraising to be channeled through his America Great PAC…so that he can bless (with $$) his favorites or oppose (with $$) the Republican elected officials who have dared oppose him. And also, put a bunch of the money into his wallet.
In essence, he wants to BE the Republican Party.
Same old shit, different day.