I've heard covid called the "Vid" by people younger than me who don't have time to use real words, this is the same generation who call 7/11 the "sev" and McDonalds, "mickeyD" although that last one really isn't any shorter.
Today I went for my nasal brain swab to see if I have the "vid" I don't think I do, given that
a) I am not micro-chemophobic
b) I probably swallowed enough alcohol based products in my life that everything is pretty well germ free.
But I am not doing this for me. I'm doing this because I have three wonderful grandson's, who would give me serious shit if I ignored the issue and because there are people who could get very sick or even die if I inattentively were to infect them.
I went to the Hazel Bluff community hall, which is about 5 miles west of town, and waited exactly zero minutes for the lovely nurse to stick what felt like a ski pole length swab up my nose to take a sample of my cerebral cortex, then tell me to go home and isolate until I get the text with my results.
My daughter Rebecca, who lives closest to me and who happens to be home, immediately sprang into action and brought Dad groceries and dish soap. So I am set. All I need to do is renew my Netflix membership and my life will be golden, I shall wake up late, feast on Salmon steaks and binge watch Longmire, (again).
I really like Longmire, although I am surprised that Absaroca County, Wyoming seems to have no crime except murder, it does sound like a great place to drive very fast, generally Wyoming is that indeed: In 2008 whilst I held a public role, Barb and I went to Thermopolis Wyoming for a holiday and as I'm tooling down the interstate in her new BMW, 3.0 liter twin turbo SUV at a very irresponsible 200 km/h, (124 miles an hour) the state trooper who pulled in behind us, saw the Alberta plates and proceeded to blow past us like we were standing still.
Ever since then I have wanted a Crown Victoria with that cop spec 4.6 V8. See, unlike Idaho where I a got a ticket for doing 75 in a 55 in my motorhome, the cops in Wyoming, are just really happy to see out of state traffic on the interstate and this might explain why Walt Longmire never has any petty crime in his county, except for one episode where a prize chicken went missing but was later recovered and reported to be "quite tasty".
The motor home ticket did result in me having to call the Governor of Idaho's assistant because, well I forgot to pay it and they issued a warrant for my arrest. I did pay the fine and the Governor's assistant laughed and laughed. I did not go to jail, which was a good thing because I was still in public office at the time.
Now that we are in this weird sort of voluntary/ mandatory lockdown and no longer have a BMW SUV, I have to settle for my Buick Le Sabre which is by no means a slow car, (the supercharged 3.8 V6 is a time tested bullet proof engine) I can't go to Wyoming and play in traffic because, well it would be stupid to do so, especially since everyone else is managing to stay home.
Except of course for the people who keep telling us to stay home: like Allard, Huckabee and Liepert. Although in fairness Ron, isn't a provincial politician. But since I don't want to flaunt my freedom in the face of people who sacrificed things like their grandson's first Christmas and worse funerals, I will stay home. My Buick shall have to wait until the restrictions lift before it sees the happy side of 200 km/h in Wyoming, I am betting I can get about 230 out of it and until then I shall have to be happy making vroom vroom noises while I watch Walt Longmire solve another seemingly perfect murder.
If you have never watched Longmire or are a vegan opposed to concealed carry or open rifle carry by guys with big hats you have no idea what you are missing. I skipped gingerly over the whole Kenney debacle because, well, it's stupid. Indeed today I am more concerned about parts of the United States that are either mad because Trump is insane or mad because Mitch McConnell is now wallpaper.
Never in my life did I expect to see Ewoks and Chewbacca break through the doors of the Capital and break stuff like Nancy Pelosi's scotch decanter. Democracy has been set back at least 15-20 minutes and now the only real question is who is the next crazy leader? We still have that guy in North Korea, but I understand he's an NBA fan and can't be all bad.
I'm not impressed by Joe Biden, but Vice President Harris has a few things going for her one including a well orchestrated opportunity to demonstrate some serious national rebounding from Trump. Gun sales are up about 1,000% in Texas, so I am not too worried about a wholesale erosion of democracy. My concern with Biden is the guy has never actually had a real job, he went from articling law student to Senator about 50 years ago. Harris who is similar to vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin only in gender is a smart person, I also think she is sane.
The Democrats of today are not that dissimilar from the Republican's of the 1870's when my great grandfather was involved, you may recall that Lincoln was Republican and took on the Southern Democrats in the civil war to end slavery. So really he was kind of a social progressive and the Democrats were the social conservatives which proves I guess that pendulums swing both ways and sometimes more than one pendulum is swinging.
None of this forgives Donald Trump or Chewbacca for the gong show or broken crystal, but is does say that the Republican loss of the presidency is not the problem people think it is, indeed it's only a problem if you interpret it as such. Texas is the only state in the union with the right to secede with a simple majority and while I don't think my friends are weaponing up to make that happen, it's comforting to know they could. In Texas it is generally accepted that "An armed society is a polite society" and while New Hampshire has a cooler motto "Live free or die" the end result is the same. Harris is the deciding vote in Congress, which means that the Republicans' and the Democrats have an equal shot at screwing things up or at actually working together.
Time will tell I suppose.
Meanwhile in Alberta: that spot of unpleasantness in Washington DC should not cause us to lose focus over the behavior of our own elected officials, in this age of social media when so many careers are ended by texting dick pics to the wrong people, it takes about five seconds for the oppositions war machine to find out and broadcast them far and wide. Now maybe dick pic is the wrong thing but there was one picture from Mexico that definitely had a dick in it, he was standing in from of a piñata or something.
Such irresponsible power hungry people. I really feel like I'm caught between the fiscally bankrupt and the morally bankrupt, neither evil is acceptable and people like me who are very pragmatic about how you live your life as long as we don't spend too much money on it have no place to go, or do we?
Day one
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