Right out loud with it.

Alarmed? Why would anyone be alarmed by this?

MADISON, Wis. — Hinting at his plans to overhaul how elections are run, the Republican running for governor of Wisconsin this week said his party would permanently control the state if he wins.

“Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor,” construction executive Tim Michels told supporters Monday at a campaign stop.

Michels is seeking to unseat Gov. Tony Evers (D), who over his four years vetoed a string of Republican-backed bills that would have changed voting rules in a battleground state that Donald Trump narrowly won in 2016 and narrowly lost in 2020.

To be sure, Michels’ mouthpiece says he was only speaking abstractly, that the GOP’s policies would be so gosh-darn popular they couldn’t help but hold their seats forever and ever, amen. Which is, I’m sorry, a crock of shit.

Man, am I tired of election season. Which I won’t be working this year, at least for money. Still waiting to hear what my shift will be at the absentee counting boards.

In sad news of the day, did y’all hear about Julie Powell? Dead at 49, of quote-cardiac arrest-unquote, which as a former colleague once pointed out, is what everyone dies of. Still, she’d recently had a long bout of Covid, followed by the flu, and then, hmm, just dies? I’m going back to my pre-booster mask behavior, i.e., wearing one indoors, with certain allowances for living life, which is to say, I’m not giving up on restaurants this winter. But with restaurant prices what they are, I’m not eating out so much anyway.

Short entry today, because I’m tired. Let’s hope for better later this week.

Posted at 1:53 pm in Current events |
 

65 responses to “Right out loud with it.”

  1. JodiP said on November 2, 2022 at 2:56 pm

    Oh, that is too bad about Julie Powell. So young! I loved her book and the movie. I really thought Julia Child was ungracious about her project….cuz who on earth was cooking from that book at that time? I just made the sausage and potato gratin.

    Deb Perlman of Smitten Kitchen is quoted in the article. She is another one I enjoy, and we use one of her recipes at least once a week. She has a new book out and is on tour. We’re seeing her on 11/27. Fun fact: there is a sex-positive store in Minneapolis called Smitten Kitten and it’s a common gaffe to say that instead of KITCHEN. I still have to pause and make sure I say the right word, every time.

    656 chars

  2. Mark P said on November 2, 2022 at 3:52 pm

    Some physicians who pay attention are trying to forecast our future with Covid. “Perennial” is considered upwards from possible through probable. Continued mutation is virtually certain. A more virulent strain is “who knows”, but seems to be as likely as less virulent. There seems to be evidence that older people die more frequently, and at least some indications that even a relatively mild case of Covid might translate into an earlier death by a year or a few from other causes, like lung and heart problems.

    The US continues to be a leader in cases and deaths, at least among the industrialized nations. Thanks be to the former guy.

    647 chars

  3. Julie Robinson said on November 2, 2022 at 4:42 pm

    49 is heartbreakingly young, though this morning I streamed the memorial service for a friend’s husband who was 67, and from the small distance of 66, 67 is also heartbreakingly young.

    I thought Powell came across as whiny in the book so was glad the movie focused on Julia Child’s life in greater proportion than the book.

    However, having just suffered a kitchen disaster, maybe that’s why she was whiny. Someone wanted to try out their new food processor with pie crust and enlisted their assistant to make chicken pot pie. Someone’s assistant tipped said pot pie and lost a fair bit of it in a drawer containing cooking accessories. Someone only said comforting things but after 10 minutes cleanup is letting the assistant handle the rest. Someone suggested Marie Callender’s next time.

    Julie Child’s movie husband Stanley Tucci has written a hilarious and touching memoir of his life, TasteThrough Food. I definitely recommend the audio book read by Tucci himself; he’s great in the role!

    And did you know he’s married to Emily Blunt’s sister? They met during the filming of The Devil Wears Prada. He lost his first wife to breast cancer.

    Our great nephew just accepted a job with Epic, a medical management company (MYChart, if you have that) located outside Madison. He’s a delicate southern flower and I wonder how he’ll do there, but maybe he’ll only hangout with others from work. He’s also still a senior in college and will start this job next September. I’ve never heard of someone having a job that early unless it was through nepotism.

    1566 chars

  4. alex said on November 2, 2022 at 4:55 pm

    I had a heart attack at age 49. I see a lot of unexpected deaths in people in their 40s, 50s and 60s from heart attacks and I’ve always suspected that these are people who ignore the symptoms until it’s too late and also likely aren’t being followed routinely by a medical doctor who would check their blood pressure and order lab work and put them on notice that they may have potential issues.

    I’ve somehow managed to evade COVID so far as well, and I’m surprised at the number of well-vaccinated people of my acquaintance who have nonetheless fallen ill. I still follow the advice of Dr. Fauci: Sustained face-to-face contact with an ill person for 15 minutes is not a good idea, so when in doubt, avoid it.

    714 chars

  5. Julie Robinson said on November 2, 2022 at 5:03 pm

    Still masking here although I’ve been a little more lenient in situations where I’m not in close contact with anyone. For the election I’ll be masked all day since I’m checking people in and also sitting next to others with the same job. That’s a lot of hours in a mask. I took three for the primary and used them all. Medical providers who wear them ALLTHETIME have my deep respect.

    383 chars

  6. David C said on November 2, 2022 at 5:49 pm

    Michels is a run the government like a business dipshit. He says he’s going to bring all the department heads and ask them what their return on investment is. Yeah right. He’s also an anti-abortion nut. They’re all saying they want there to be a state referendum on it but that’s just another lie. If they win they’ll forget they ever said that. We don’t have a citizen’s initiative here so we can’t force it like they did in Michigan.

    435 chars

  7. Suzanne said on November 2, 2022 at 10:03 pm

    If you have access to Hulu, take the time to watch this documentary about Jerry Falwell Jr and the pool boy incident. It’s way worse than I knew.

    https://www.hulu.com/movie/god-forbid-the-sex-scandal-that-brought-down-a-dynasty-d0c5802f-05ec-4826-9390-f9ceca67f3e0?dl=false

    278 chars

  8. Dexter Friend said on November 3, 2022 at 1:55 am

    If you like Stanley Tucci, watch Netflix’s “Inside Man”. Tucci plays a condemned death row murderer who analyzes other crimes for certain people. It’s a real gas.

    162 chars

  9. ROGirl said on November 3, 2022 at 7:42 am

    I ignored/denied my symptoms for a while. Luckily I got to my doctor and the hospital on my own steam. I had no pre-existing conditions, so it was just hard for me to make sense of it. And medical science doesn’t have a clue about why SCAD heart attacks occur.

    260 chars

  10. Jeff Borden said on November 3, 2022 at 9:47 am

    You can’t say the QOP is hiding its plans. The front page of today’s NYT focuses on its efforts to attack Social Security and Medicare as a way of reining in government spending. They want to raise the retirement age while cutting benefits and would require seniors to pay far higher Medicare rates, too. They’ll use debt ceiling negotiations as the hammer to force deep cuts. Has this party ever once –just once– done something for people instead of to people? And, of course, the nut jobs in the House will increase and that will mean endless efforts to impeach Biden and Harris, probes of the FBI and the Justice Department, etc.

    Damn, these are discouraging times. Boinsonaro gets ousted in Brazil, which is good, but Netanyahu appears on track to return as the far right nationalist leader of Israel. Yippee oh kai yay, motherfucker.

    We voted early yesterday at the local library branch. Workers said the turnout had been very strong so far. Only a huge turnout by women and younger voters is going to salvage this midterm. If not, we go into total paralysis in January.

    1084 chars

  11. Dorothy said on November 3, 2022 at 10:37 am

    Julie I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to mask up for the Election Day work. Also they emailed me last week asking if I’d be willing to be the ride along person after the polls close to get the ballots and leftover paperwork/supplies back to where they need to go. I’d get an extra $20 to do it. I said yes immediately – not because of the $20 but because I’m a team player. Wonder if we’ll have a police escort to do that? (JOKING).

    Honestly I’m not nervous or worried about any weird shit that could happen that day. What I worry about more is my flapping lips and what might come out of them if someone pisses me off royally. I’ve been reminding myself what my mother always preached: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. But when I was Clairee in Steel Magnolias her line went like this: If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me. I’m more Clairee than Mary’s daughter Dorothy if I’m being honest.

    979 chars

  12. Heather said on November 3, 2022 at 10:50 am

    Yeah, that was scary news about Julie Powell. I already wear my mask indoors but I might cut back on indoor dining myself.

    I think I’ve posted this before but ex died at 50 of an apparent heart attack because he completely ignored/discounted the warning signs (super high blood pressure, apparently crazy high cholesterol). Obviously we don’t know what happened with her but stats on heart attacks after Covid are pretty scary.

    431 chars

  13. nancy said on November 3, 2022 at 11:18 am

    Alex, the fact Powell is female makes a cardiac arrest, absent other obvious factors, pretty rare, at least at 49. Once estrogen drops with the Big M, of course women’s risk of heart attack rises sharply.

    204 chars

  14. Julie Robinson said on November 3, 2022 at 12:10 pm

    Suzanne, I would have to be in a really good mood to watch the show about the Falwells. I’ve read several long articles and they all confirmed what a nasty, hypocritical pack of liars they are.

    They are requiring ride-alongs for ballot drop-off here too. Dennis went with Sarah last time and will repeat.

    And now, for something positive. At her neighborhood event Tuesday night, one of the guys in the hood gave Sarah a guitar, a Taylor 710CE. She’s still fighting jet lag after two weeks in Kenya and was so tired she didn’t even want to go. And then this happened. She had a really good guitar that was broken by a janitor and could never afford to replace, so it’s doubly sweet.

    The guy who gave it to her bought two during a post-divorce mid-life crisis, and couldn’t get what he wanted when he tried to sell, so decided to give it to her. Karma can be a bitch, but it comes around in good ways too.

    912 chars

  15. Deborah said on November 3, 2022 at 1:24 pm

    Once again I woke up with a scratchy throat and my voice is gravely. Of course the first thing I think is I’ve got Covid a third time. I’m going to test myself in a bit, but I’m almost afraid to do it. I feel fine otherwise, no fever, not tired etc. It’s probably a low grade cold (but no runny nose either), but for the rest of my life I probably will always suspect a life threatening contagion when I have the slightest symptom.

    431 chars

  16. Dorothy said on November 3, 2022 at 1:51 pm

    Deborah my husband has been fighting a cold off and on for about two weeks. He had a regular doctor appointment yesterday so she listened to his lungs etc. She ordered some antibiotics because he has a sinus infection. He’s been coughing a lot, which affects sleep for both of us. Our 7 month old grandson was at the doc this morning. He either has RSV or bronciolitis. He’s been hoarse when he cries and wheezing too. I’m so afraid of that RSV stuff. Thankfully the Walgreens still had some amoxicillin in stock, but supplies are running very low nationally.

    565 chars

  17. jim said on November 3, 2022 at 5:35 pm

    According to The Hill, Herschel Walker thinks he has a better resume than Obama!!

    81 chars

  18. alex said on November 3, 2022 at 7:11 pm

    So Herschel Walker thinks, does he? Well that’s quite a November surprise.

    74 chars

  19. LAMary said on November 3, 2022 at 7:15 pm

    I have the exact same crud as your husband, Dorothy. I’m on antibiotics now too.

    80 chars

  20. Mark P said on November 3, 2022 at 10:12 pm

    Herschel’s resume vs Obama’s? Let’s see. Herschel Walker didn’t graduate from college. Obama graduated from Harvard Law. Herschel Walker had a little food service company he lied about, and lied about “owning” some other companies. Obama was President of the United States. Herschel played professional football. Obama played pickup basketball at the White House. Herschel threatened to kill his ex-wife multiple times. Obama joked about his wife multiple times. I’m not seeing much advantage for Walker other than getting paid to play a game that left him with permanent brain damage. I could almost feel sorry for Walker, if it weren’t for that domestic violence thing.

    687 chars

  21. Sherri said on November 3, 2022 at 11:54 pm

    Elon Musk is turning into Donald Trump. His takeover of Twitter is reminiscent of Trump’s White House transition.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/03/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-silence-blind/

    I’m just glad that Musk wasn’t born in the US.

    266 chars

  22. Dexter Friend said on November 4, 2022 at 3:53 am

    Many people took a dislike to Zuckerberg and quit and dissed Facebook.
    I only rarely check Twitter, usually when tipped off by friends to look at something. Abandoning Twitter now seems like the thing to do, easy for me to do, but millions are entrenched and addicted to Twitter and they will not abandon ship. For me, since I hardly ever go there anyway, I am just going to ignore it and play in Facebook as always.

    420 chars

  23. jcburns said on November 4, 2022 at 10:15 am

    Well, not just “took a dislike to Zuckerberg” but maybe saw a series of things Facebook/Meta were doing that took advantage of their users. Saw how Facebook/Meta’s API behind-the-scenes was designed to record their other online activities (OUTSIDE of Facebook/Meta) in order to gather more data on users and maybe had a problem with that.

    I’m no Elon Musk fan, but it’s not like you can choose Facebook/Meta as a choice of leader personality. That’s probably the least important part of the equation!

    503 chars

  24. Deborah said on November 4, 2022 at 12:54 pm

    Elon Musk is even more of a turd. Have you been reading how the Twitter employees are being laid off? Thousands of them in a very humiliating disrespectful way. There’s a Twitter thread #loveyourjob where they are expressing their feelings and describing the experience. Others are tweeting support to them. It’s heartbreaking.

    331 chars

  25. ROGirl said on November 4, 2022 at 1:00 pm

    There are some pot growing warehouses and distributors in the vicinity around my workplace, amidst the light industry businesses, and it’s also adjacent to some single family lower middle class neighborhoods. On some days when you go outside you can almost get a contact high from the pot smell that wafts through the air.

    322 chars

  26. David C said on November 4, 2022 at 1:34 pm

    There’s no way you can come into a place and after a week lay off half the staff in a way that isn’t going to harm the company. Even if he’s telling himself he’s separating the wheat from the chaff, there’s no way he has any clue which is which. He’s just going in with a meat axe and swinging wildly. Even if you didn’t get the layoff email, someone who you liked and thought was doing a good job did. I’d guess that a good proportion of those left are going to go into a passive-aggresive mode. He’s messed that place up good and it’s only taken him a week.

    559 chars

  27. Julie Robinson said on November 4, 2022 at 2:38 pm

    Sherri, I think you’re right about Elon. What a horrible thing to put people through. My non-profit was absorbed by another non-profit, and even though they were ultimately benevolent, for about a month I didn’t know if I’d still have a job. Even worse, an interview in the paper sounded like we’d all be replaced. It was a rough time and my heart goes out to them all.

    Florida scandal de jour: a couple years ago the R’s ran some ghost candidates who sounded moderate to pull votes from D’s, and it worked, but they got caught. Now one of the defendants, who organized the whole scheme, is asking to subpoena individual journalists from the local paper for every bit of information gathered during the reporting process. He’s asking for papers, emails, and hard drives. Note that he’s not suing the paper itself but you can bet they are fighting it with every attorney they’ve got.

    885 chars

  28. Scout said on November 4, 2022 at 2:47 pm

    Hanging in there with twitter until Elmo Skum manages to completely blow it up and shut it down just to watch him flounder. https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1588555982342623234?s=20&t=V8AhUWOS1gxsPHoRXIGHSA
    I am confident there is another crowdsourcing info app in the works that will fill the void after he craters his $44B vanity project.

    We were planning and saving for buying a Tesla and now, thanks to him revealing what an incompetent twat he is, we will be looking at other EVs instead. Mr Skum will never get a penny out of us.

    552 chars

  29. David C said on November 4, 2022 at 3:04 pm

    From what I’m reading Hyundai/KIA EVs are about knock the shit out of Tesla. I’m not sure I’m ready to go full EV. We’re looking at a Subaru Crosstrek plug-in hybrid. It has a 17 mile electric range. That should do about 90% of our trips.

    238 chars

  30. jcburns said on November 4, 2022 at 3:27 pm

    Plug-in hybrids are great. Electric miles for around town, and gasoline for the trips up I-75 to Michigan—or out to Seattle.. We’ve had ours since 2017.

    154 chars

  31. Deborah said on November 4, 2022 at 3:40 pm

    We’re going to go full electric for our next car, have been watching what’s going on with various makes, hope our current Jeep lasts until there’s more to choose from . No Tesla for us. Although I did get an Uber ride in a Tesla the other day, it was smooth and quiet. Not buying one and not just because I don’t want to put any more money in Musk’s pocket, it doesn’t make anything that has enough clearance underneath to navigate our drive up to our land in NM, at least not that I know of.

    492 chars

  32. Julie Robinson said on November 4, 2022 at 3:43 pm

    Plug-in hybrids are the belt and suspender approach I prefer. Tesla has been off the table for a while now but our current car is still going strong at nine so I’m not even following other choices yet.

    201 chars

  33. Mark P said on November 4, 2022 at 4:43 pm

    I rode in a Tesla once and was not impressed with the build quality. I wouldn’t get one even aside from Musk. I would like a full BEV. I thought about a plug-in, but I’m not sold on it compared to a full EV. We have a Subaru and I like them but I don’t think the current hybrid is one I would get. My Toyota Sienna hybrid gets better mileage at 41 or so. The current Chevrolet BEV looks good at a reasonable price.

    421 chars

  34. Icarus said on November 4, 2022 at 5:03 pm

    Deborah, tell me about your Jeep. when my Element bites the dust I thought a jeep might be my next car. perhaps we can make it work.

    I need to get my right knee scoped. I had the left one done in 2010 and it was a breeze because I had good insurance. Today, not so much.

    already denied the pre-approval and am going through phone transfer hell right now…I suspect they might eventually approve it but my out-of-pocket will still be high.

    453 chars

  35. Deborah said on November 4, 2022 at 5:35 pm

    Icarus, our current Jeep we purchased new in 2012. It’s a Jeep Patriot, bottom of the line, manual transmission, roll up windows, no gee gaws at all just as we wanted. It has been very serviceable but it’s 10 years old now, we’ve kept it in good working order and since we keep it in NM and are only there half the year we don’t have that many miles on it. They don’t make Patriots anymore. Jeep does make a hybrid now but we want a full electric car. We’re thinking we’ll have to buy a much more expensive car for our next one, hoping it to be the last car we ever have to buy. It has to have high clearance as I mentioned, we don’t like all of the digital screens crap that are on car dashboards now but they’re everywhere so we’ll probably have no choice and finding a manual transmission will no doubt be impossible so that isn’t going to be a requirement anymore.

    868 chars

  36. David C said on November 4, 2022 at 6:02 pm

    Jeep is supposed to be coming out with full electric versions of all their models within the next couple of model years. There aren’t any manual electric cars, Deborah. Full electric cars don’t need multi gear transmissions. Just a single speed gear reduction. It’s the nature of the torque of electric motors versus IC engines.

    328 chars

  37. Sherri said on November 4, 2022 at 8:07 pm

    I’m still leaning towards hybrid for my next car rather than full electric. One of our vehicles has to have AWD to get up our hill in the snow. I’d like to be able to take the same car up into the mountains in the winter, but am concerned about the effects of cold on battery range if I do so. I don’t want to drive up there, have no place to charge in the mountains, leave it parked in the cold for hours, then find out I don’t have enough range to get back home.

    472 chars

  38. Deborah said on November 4, 2022 at 8:11 pm

    Good to know David C, thanks.

    29 chars

  39. Sherri said on November 4, 2022 at 8:31 pm

    As always, read Dahlia.

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/election-lies-2022-midterms-misinformation-survival.html

    127 chars

  40. jcburns said on November 4, 2022 at 9:40 pm

    Sherri, our Prius handled snowy roads through the mountains east of Seattle just fine. And NO effects of the cold on the battery.

    (However, we discovered if we leave it in our Atlanta driveway for two months straight with no use, well, uh, don’t do that.)

    256 chars

  41. Mark P said on November 4, 2022 at 9:50 pm

    Sherri, the Toyota Sienna we have is a front-wheel drive hybrid rated at 36 mpg city and highway. Our driving is sort of rural with a little city, and we have been getting about 41 mpg. The Sienna also comes in an AWD version with 1 mpg lower EPA rating. The biggest problem would be actually getting one. I got mine a year ago at a dealer near Atlanta. Their lot was virtually empty, and I don’t think things have improved much. They wanted $1000 over list, but I refused to pay that and they took MSRP. It happened to be a dealer order that took a couple of weeks to come in.

    579 chars

  42. Sherri said on November 5, 2022 at 12:31 am

    Our experience with a Prius is that it doesn’t handle the hill we live on in the snow very well. And the effect of the cold on the Prius battery wouldn’t matter, because it’s a hybrid and would be recharged while you’re driving around with the gas engine. Lithium batteries do lose performance in cold temperatures, though one of the biggest impacts on range in cold temperatures for EVs is heating the interior of the car.

    Yes, Mark, inventory is still very limited, but I’m not in a hurry.

    505 chars

  43. Dexter Friend said on November 5, 2022 at 1:39 am

    Leader personality would be a ridiculous reason to choose Twitter over Facebook. Facebook launched in 2005 and I was in from week one. The next year saw Twitter and the 140 max-characters simple message idea. I never really like Twitter as it gained complexity in leaps and bounds, and stayed away, mostly. I chose to stay with Facebook then Meta because I realized the risks of certain groups mining personal information for their exploitive marketing. I enjoyed the format, still do, and so far , personally, have never suffered from whatever shadiness is prevailing in the bowels of Meta.

    594 chars

  44. Dexter Friend said on November 5, 2022 at 1:53 am

    I am not in the market for an EV or hybrid. I just had my 2007 Odyssey brought up to all the maintenance levels, including timing belt/water pump. LOF, transmission flush, 4 new tires…couldn’t get it back Friday because a tiny hose by the air filter tore and the 3 inch hose needed to be special ordered. Anyway, yeah, I will be paying a couple grand, + – a few hundred, but when I toyed with trading this van in for a 2007 Toyota Sienna with 160K miles, they would not give me more than junk price for the Honda. The engine is an interference engine, which makes the engine work at half-power while cruising. The problem is that if the timing belt breaks and the pistons and valves collide, the engine is instant toast. So, the Toyota dealer would not budge from $7,000 plus $600 trade-in for the Honda. I never realized that Honda interference engines were such a goddamned liability. My mechanic told me to quit reading so many scare stories and just drive the fuckin’ thing. I can dig it…my VW bus broke down on me 19 times requiring towing. I can take it.

    1072 chars

  45. David C said on November 5, 2022 at 6:14 am

    I think that was a BS excuse Dexter. If the timing belt is changed on time they’re fine. If a timing belt breaks before 70k miles there was something else wrong with the engine that locked it up and broke the belt. One of the best things you can do before you buy a used car is to look at salvage yard prices for the engine in the car. If a used engine is $750 to $1000-ish it means there is a good supply because nobody needs them to replace trashed engines. Honda engines, even ones with interference engines and timing belts, are mostly dirt cheap. I’m pretty sure all 2022 cars have interference engines but they all have timing chains now. Even that’s not a guarantee. We had a KIA that had the chain tensioner fail. The engine skipped timing and was toast.

    762 chars

  46. jcburns said on November 5, 2022 at 9:29 am

    The Prius Prime recharges the big battery pack on downhills and during braking, too, which is nice.

    99 chars

  47. Sherri said on November 5, 2022 at 5:26 pm

    I’m not ready to go full electric car, but I have ordered an e-bike. It’s currently scheduled to arrive in January, but global supply chain issues have already delayed it twice, so who knows when I’ll actually get it. I’ve ordered the new Van Moof A5, for the curious.

    276 chars

  48. Julie Robinson said on November 5, 2022 at 7:22 pm

    Our daughter ordered an electric add-on for her not very old bike, and I don’t recommend that. It died halfway through her first ride leaving her with a long hard trip home. She hasn’t been able to get it to charge since. It sat in the garage for a year before getting installed, so she’s way past the return date.

    The fam is trying to talk me into one but the motion of the pedal going around causes my knee extreme pain. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have to put pressure on the pedal, it’s the motion.

    511 chars

  49. Deborah said on November 5, 2022 at 7:54 pm

    You still have a few hours to get Powerball tickets before the next drawing. It’s up to $1.6 billion now.

    107 chars

  50. David C said on November 5, 2022 at 8:19 pm

    Get an electric moped scooter, Julie. No pedaling needed. https://www.saferwholesale.com/Brand-New-2000-Watt-Venom-Electric-Moped-Scooter-p/bdt-tdsbd576z.htm?Click=24691&msclkid=b22df8e1ce3517b51d7a9b87336c1107

    214 chars

  51. Julie Robinson said on November 5, 2022 at 9:54 pm

    Ooh! That looks fun!

    20 chars

  52. Dexter Friend said on November 6, 2022 at 2:01 am

    There seem to be way more adults on e-bikes than bicycles here. The only old folks on bicycles are the long-legged skinny men who still ride all over hell’s half acre and then some. One old codger rides a sit-down scooter with three wheels. I heard that many over-the-road big rig haulers pack an e-bike to scoot around to restaurants and just ride a little for tension-free pleasure after they max-out their driving hours.
    I regret to inform you that my offer to stand for ice cream for everyone after I hit The Big One last night will not happen. I bought $10 worth of Powerball, which is 5 sets, and hit zero numbers whatsoever.
    Movie comment: Not knowing what I was about to encounter, and since I keep hearing about Harry Styles, I watched “My Policeman”. The pain three people go through, sorting out sexual compulsions and what one man and the woman experience while married, is hard to watch, so heart-wrenching. Never having been attracted to gay porn, I guess I can say I got an education as to how two men make love. I mean I guess I knew, but had never seen the performances. It’s all out there.

    1115 chars

  53. Little Bird said on November 6, 2022 at 7:45 am

    No one won Powerball, it’s up to 1.9 billion now.

    51 chars

  54. ROGirl said on November 6, 2022 at 8:16 am

    I bought tickets last week, but didn’t get any yesterday. The guy where I bought my tickets told me the stores only get a maximum of $50,000 if they sell the winner.

    165 chars

  55. Icarus said on November 6, 2022 at 9:15 am

    Thanks, Deborah. the Patriot isn’t the style I’m interested in. I think getting an electric vehicle down here would put a bigger target on me than my Chicago accent. Ironically my rightwing in-laws have a hybrid but they still complain about high gas prices, because Biden.

    I’m having a terrible muscle spasm in my right shoulder now and while I’m not screaming in pain, it is annoying enough that I cannot really do anything productive. We plan to get the kiddos their booster and flu shots today.

    504 chars

  56. LAMary said on November 6, 2022 at 11:23 am

    Based on what I hear from neighbors who own them and from Car and Driver’s list of most reliable electric SUVs Hyundais and Kias are worth consideration.

    153 chars

  57. Deborah said on November 6, 2022 at 4:28 pm

    Wordle was aggravating today, I got 4 of the 5 letters right off the bat, the first 3 were in the right place and the last letter too. Then there were so many options of what it could be, I didn’t guess the right one until 4.

    225 chars

  58. Dave said on November 6, 2022 at 5:45 pm

    Deborah, I have a modest Wordle streak going but it’s very frustrating when only one letter would work for many words. It took me five tries today. If it were simple, would we even want to play?

    Thinking of actually buying a Powerball ticket, I would probably buy five chances like Dexter did and that would be like throwing ten dollars out in the street. OTOH, think of the wonderful headaches all that money would create.

    We have determined that we aren’t going to tune into election returns Tuesday night, we think it will only make us more disillusioned than we already are. We spent a night in Ohio last Tuesday night and as many political ads on TV as there are here, Ohio has Indiana beat. It was monotonous and when I see the likes of a Jordan ad on Columbus TV, ugh, to say nothing of all the Vance ads. I’ve a whole list of political boogeymen that I hate now, I never wanted to think like this.

    Tomorrow, we’re up early for my wife who is having cataract surgery, one eye in the morning and the other on Tuesday morning, along with a follow-up Wednesday. Her cataracts grew significantly in a year-and-a-half and she needs this. She recently got hearing aids, as her hearing was getting worse and she fears she is falling apart. I tell her that she might be a victim of heredity as much as anything, she agrees, looking back at her parents and grandparents but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant for her. We celebrated her 71st birthday yesterday.

    1475 chars

  59. Julie Robinson said on November 6, 2022 at 5:51 pm

    For the primary it was 8:30 before I got home, after leaving at 5:45 am. Watching election returns is the last thing I’ll want to do.

    133 chars

  60. LAMary said on November 6, 2022 at 6:12 pm

    I had a cataract in my right eye for years and my eye doctor kept telling me it needed to ripen before he’d recommend surgery. Finally a year ago I got it done. I was pretty much blind in that eye at that point. It was amazing. I’ve had bifocals for ten years, glasses for 55 years. Now I only need reading glasses. I buy the cheap ones on Amazon (I recommend LifeArt and ThinOptics for the coolest ones) and get blue blockers since I stare at two big monitors all day. I don’t think your wife will feel like she’s falling apart after the surgery. She’ll be very happy.

    569 chars

  61. David C said on November 6, 2022 at 6:24 pm

    I have a feeling that cataract surgery is in my near future. I can’t read for any more than 20 minutes without terrible eye strain and in night driving the halos are getting to be more of a problem. I had my last exam about nine months ago and they mentioned them and bumped up the prescription for the reading part of my lenses. It helped for a while but it’s noticeably getting worse. I’m almost looking forward to having it done.

    432 chars

  62. Deborah said on November 6, 2022 at 7:23 pm

    Nobody should fear cataract surgery, it’s a piece of cake. The improvement is amazing almost immediately. It doesn’t hurt really at all. I had my eyes done 2 weeks apart and I’m still in awe of how colors are so vivid now.

    I managed to get myself a Mastodon account today. Still learning about it, I hope to quit Twitter after Tuesday.

    I bought a couple more Powerball tickets today, tomorrow is a busy day for me so I won’t have a chance, better to take care of it now.

    484 chars

  63. Suzanne said on November 6, 2022 at 9:26 pm

    I got Wordle on the first try the other day! A starter word I had never used before—dream. Lo and behold, it was the word. Maybe I should have bought a lottery ticket that day…

    180 chars

  64. LAMary said on November 6, 2022 at 9:54 pm

    The worst part of cataract surgery was the eyedrops you have to use afterwards. There are three little bottles and one of them burns a bit. I think the three bottle regimen is pretty standard. I’ve compared notes with a few other geezers and we all agreed that one of those three bottles was evil.

    297 chars

  65. Dexter Friend said on November 7, 2022 at 1:50 am

    Dave, a few weeks ago hearing aids became available over the counter…did your wife opt for them? My dad sold Sonotone hearing aids back in the 1950s and early 60s. His office was in the Gettle Building in Fort Wayne. He made house calls to tune the things. They were as big as a little transistor radio and a cord reached an earpiece.
    https://images.app.goo.gl/mYNMV4be8A7VnoJg8
    I am very apprehensive. Wisconsin’s red gov-candidate says he’ll guarantee no more Democratic wins EVER if he gets elected. Trump is on the stump for creeps like Vance saying he lost the 2020 election. Kari Lake in Arizona cracks wise about Paul Pelosi to a house with raucous laughter as a response. Nance has told you about Michigan. I hope Tim Ryan wins here in Ohio but there are a lot of backwards Biden-Pelosi haters here who also hate Ryan. We also have a really real insurrectionist named Majewski , a stolen valor creep, running against 9th District Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. Majewski is a Republican, of course.
    If the Senate flips, and the House stays red, we are in for a hell of a shitstorm which I hate thinking about.
    In the shady underground, many Republicans are plotting to not let Trump run in 2024. They want DeSantis. We shall see.

    1252 chars