Fie on Them! in Everyday Ramblings

This picture is such a startling visual of the fact that most of the fabulous woods I hike in around here are 2nd growth. All logged by the early Anglo settlers in their voracious appetite for wood.

Because I am taking a couple of days off next week (one to go hiking and one to recover a bit from the next dental surgery) it means I had to load all the authorized overtime into this week. I haven’t had a raise in 4 years because my salary in frozen and to help me keep up a bit with inflation I have 4 hours of overtime authorized every two weeks. So this means I worked 44 hours this week.

If you are in a salaried position here in the U.S., go ahead and laugh at me for being a work wimp but just so you know I teach three and a quarter hours a week which means transportation, setup and prep time is about an additional 8 hours or so on an organized week.

And I do admit to the fact that I sleep 8 hours a night.

Yes! I know; slacker chick, healthy relaxed slacker chick.

It takes an hour to get to the grocery and back on the bus if the traffic is off peak and longer if I walk. I usually go twice a week but sometimes three times.

Oh, and I walk five miles a day. That is another hour and a half because I have a desk job that is hard to get up from, particularly when I am in the office. Often the walking is part of something else, say, I walk now when I am waiting for the bus if I can.

And, umm, I am a yoga teacher so I actually need to have my own practice separate from my students.

That helps enormously with equanimity and I tell you this political climate is one where equanimity is useful and good.

I have been freaking out all week about the shenanigans and drama in the Senate about health insurance. It has not been about healthcare although that is what they have been calling it. And that is why I have been freaking out.

It was a challenge for me to go to sleep last night because of the impending vote. I am happy John McCain finally acted like the tough hero we know he is. Talk about drama!

We had a big all staff meeting at work this week with our chief financial officer. He is the boss of us and he gave us a presentation about our organization’s current status. Both Saint Joe and I were worried about our positions being eliminated and rolled into The Evil Empire’s bailiwick.

At least for now we are safe. They are looking at “creating efficiencies” and are going to bring in an outside team to review our processes and we don’t know what that is going to look like.

If they want to offer a buyout package that covers my salary and health insurance until I am scheduled to retire…but they won’t of course.

You know the stuff that is going on with our Federal Government is so completely insane I can certainly understand why all sorts of people are latching onto conspiracy theories.

Who needs terrorists when you have a combination of mediocrity, mental illness and complete chaos? The broader Evil Empire out there has got to be thrilled.

I mean…the Interior Secretary threatening the Senators from Alaska?

The part that gets me the most is that there is now a culture in place where bullying the most vulnerable among us is accepted. Transgender folks, gay people, women! Just in the last two days.

Fie on the bullies I say! Fie on them. May a new strong tree of equality and justice grow out of the roots of the old. It is possible. It is. But there is work to do.

Last updated July 28, 2017