I’ve had enough winter now. One more night tonight below freezing, our coldest night so far I think at 28˚, and that’s it for the foreseeable future (but we all know that can and probably will change) even though it will still get down in the 30s every night for the next five nights and then it’s going to yo-yo up and down between the 30s and 40s at night. Yesterday was cold and drizzly wet.
Yesterday we started back up at SHARE after being closed the past two Thursdays and we were busy. We served 44 families with food orders. We also gave away lots of winter coats. A couple of the volunteers opened on Tuesday and Wednesday, days we aren’t ordinarily open, for several hours just for that and I think today also.
Yesterday morning I had a message from the son of a man who was one of Marc’s and my closest friends. In fact it was Tommy who initially got Marc and I together (I was dating his roommate and Marc was dating his sister which made Tommy the common denominator) and Tommy who married us all those years ago and we’ve know his son, Tommy (the 4th), from the day he was born. Our friend Tommy (the 3rd) died in 2004 of liver cancer and his som, the 4th, was going through a drawer crammed with pictures looking for photos of the 5 generations of Tommys for his son Tommy (the 5th) to take to school for show and tell when he came across this picture of me which he sent to me yesterday morning. This must have been taken soon after Marc and I were married and it looks to have been taken at our house from the blurry shapes in the background. I was 26. I’d forgotten how long my hair was then.
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We draw ever closer to Doomsday when that convicted felon and rapist and his company of unqualified billionaire goons formally takes over the government while he and his sycophants blather on about using economic and military might to take Greenland, annex Canada, take over the Panama Canal, and this is like the icing on the cake, rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and his idiot MAGAt congresspeople have already submitted a bill enforcing the use of the new name in reference and documents. Meanwhile, Los Angeles is burning to the ground while Trump spews his lies and lays the blame on Democrats, liberals, and DEI. Seriously. Why the fuck won’t Newsom tell Canada to just turn on the giant faucet preventing all that snowmelt from flowing into California. I mean, it can’t possibly be because of climate change and that California is experiencing a fucking fire hurricane (video Jeff Tiedrich posted) and the water is being used faster than the storage tanks with plenty of water can replace it.
But all is not lost. This guy, real estate developer Rick Caruso, hired some private firefighters to save his upscale shopping center while the homes around it burned to the ground. Where the fuck do you get private firefighters and why the fuck aren’t they trying to save Los Angeles from burning to the ground.
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Progress is slow on the new painting but here’s where I am so far.
Today is the day he is officially and forever Crooked Donny™
ReplyDeleteHe may be a convicted felon officially but it just sucks that he got off with zero punishment.
DeleteDang girl, you were quite a dish and I love the jacket you are wearing in that photo.
ReplyDeleteah, youth. we all were beauties. I love that jacket too but I don't remember it at all. Marc does though.
DeleteSmall blessings: at least Barrett and Roberts went with Sotomayor's side and the MAGAt (love that) is officially a convicted felon.
ReplyDeleteyeah, but I think only because they knew there would be no punishment.
DeleteCodex: Looks like cheetos :)
ReplyDeleteSo it does. I'll have practice if I ever decide to paint cheetos.
DeleteAhhh, look at you, what a lovely woman.
ReplyDeleteYouth is it's own beauty I've come to realise. I had no idea then. Attractive, striking maybe but pretty? Beautiful? Nope.
DeleteOh, Ellen. Your eyes in that picture! Honestly, you could have posed for the Mona Lisa.
ReplyDeleteI was probably high.
DeleteA lovely photo of you, Ellen, and I like the story of all the generations of Tommy's!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Hard to believe I looked like that once. Tommy the 4th was not the original 4th. Tommy had a son by a first wife but they divorced when he was very young and she changed the boy's name to something else. Kept the Tom but changed the middle name.
DeleteWhat a great photo! And for it to just come out of nowhere, more or less, must have been quite the surprise. Do you remember it being taken? Makes me wonder who out there has photos of me.
ReplyDeleteI'm not worried about the "Gulf of America" kerfuffle. No one's going to call it that, no matter how hard the government pushes. I already said this on someone else's blog (hopefully not yours!) but it's like New York City changing the name of Sixth Avenue to "Avenue of the Americas." Everyone still calls it Sixth Avenue.
As for private firefighters, I suppose if you have enough money you can hire anyone. My memory is telling me we've seen that phenomenon before, but I can't remember when or where.
No don't remember it being taken. I don't even remember Tommy having a camera and I don't remember the jacket I'm wearing though Marc does.
DeleteThere is video of a fire hurricane from one of the previous wildfires in California, terrifying. I rather liked the President of Mexico's response to tRump's "Gulf of America" nonsense, here it is: https://meidasnews.com/news/mexican-president-trolls-trump-by-suggesting-renaming-the-u-s-am%C3%A9rica-mexicana
ReplyDeleteAt least the leaders of other countries are standing up to Trump even if no one here will.
DeleteHubba hubba! So pretty (and mysterious, which must have been very sexy). I just keep chanting in my head "they can't REALLY break the government, can they? Can they?" Lord I hope not.
ReplyDeleteI was probably stoned, hence the mysterious look. And I think they can do some damage but hopefully it will be harder than they think.
DeleteI can't stop looking at that photo of you. Not only were you an exceptionally pretty woman, in that photo you look almost exactly like a friend I have today. It's one thing for person A to suggest person B, but when the resemblance is so close, it's just a wonderful-strange experience.
ReplyDeleteBack then I never considered myself to be pretty. My first year of college there was another freshman who girl and could have been twins. She was in drama and I was in art and we were never friends and I don't think we ever actually met, I would just see her on campus. She only lasted one semester. Her boyfriend asked me out after she left. I turned him down, was not substituting for his lost girlfriend.
DeleteI love seeing that picture of you. Your face is the same, I see you so clearly. Only the hair has changed, really. Do you know you were/are beautiful?
ReplyDeleteNot back then, no. I never attracted the guys if I was out with another girlfriend, the male gaze would pass over me to my friend. Skinny, flat chested, didn't wear make-up. I'd get more attention if I was out by myself but even then I never considered myself pretty, not in the traditional sense, and beautiful? Never. But I did think that my spirit shone through. I look at pictures of me back then and I realize I was prettier than I thought. Now? I have a hard time seeing that young girl in my face.
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