My across the street neighbor was working out in his yard mowing and trimming Sunday morning and he was going commando. The reason I know this is because when I went out with Minnie to have a look around I happened to look across the street and he was bending over fiddling with something on the ground and his pants had fallen so far down his rear that I could see his butthole. Ewww, dude, pull those pants up. Seriously. Nobody wants to see that.
I got all the note cards packaged up and the larger 5" x 7" prints framed this week. Each package of notecards has a sheet showing which images are in that pack.
Then I delivered them to Hesed House after SHARE Thursday and they were delighted to receive them all. I still have the two little original watercolors to frame and take to them. Maybe next week.
An early morning conversation at SHARE yesterday put me in a foul mood for the day. It was pretty slow like it usually is on the first Thursday of the month because people have gotten their WIC funds we surmise, only one or two small food orders the first hour, so I was sitting in the back with the guys when one of the volunteers mentioned he had seen a chart of government expenditures. He expected the military the biggest but first was Medicare/Medicaid. The military budget was third. I remarked that if medical care wasn’t so expensive in this country people wouldn’t need help which set him off about how we’re paying for other people with our taxes and how people think socialized medicine is so great. I told him everyone I knew who lived in a country with socialized medicine liked it. Another guy chimed in that he had lived in Norway and you had to wait a long time to get a procedure. And I’m thinking, first, why would you not want to live in a country that had a healthy productive population and second, how is having to wait for a procedure worse than not being able to get it at all. Then he went off on people just wanting all this free stuff, illegals getting free medical care (they pay taxes I told him that they don’t receive any benefit from, well not if they're paid under the table he said completely ignoring the fact that they pay sales taxes just like everyone else), people applying for everything as if all you need to do is apply and not have to qualify. He went off on college, how he went through college, got his degree, and didn’t get in debt but now nobody wants to pay for it they just get all the loans they can and not pay them back. My comment that people are paying on their loans but after 20 years they still owe the same or more went over his head. The Norway guy spoke up that he didn’t get in debt either but then when he went to college tuition was $300 a semester for as few or as many hours as you wanted to take. Yeah, things are different now. First guy wasn’t through, complaining that colleges just teach useless stuff, people get degrees and can’t get a job. I’m thinking who is he to decide what courses colleges should or should not teach. Not interested in that course of study, don’t take the classes but why bitch about the fact that they are offered. Anyway, I’d had enough by then and we got a food order in so I went back to my station and stayed there whether I was busy or not the rest of the morning. Just about everybody that volunteers there votes republican which at this point voting for Trump makes you a MAGAt as far as I’m concerned. I just can’t reconcile the disconnect of these people that volunteer at a food bank that also offers clothing, housewares, diapers, linens, etc to people in need and then vote to reduce aid, whether it’s medical care or food and housing assistance to those same people, people that they have nothing but disdain and scorn for. Republicans have brought back the myth of the Welfare Queen only this time it's the able bodied man living in his mom's basement who chooses not to work. Do they think Medicaid just sends people checks instead of paying the doctors or hospitals for the medical care?
When I went to college tuition at the University of Houston was $200 a semester. I don’t know how much room and board in a dorm cost then because I was living at home. Here’s what it costs today.
I wish I could turn that volunteer into a 20 year old and then see if he brags about getting his degree without getting into debt.
Last night during dinner I bit the inside of my cheek, not a nip, but a crunching bite. Then this morning I woke up from a long involved disturbing dream full of struggle and a bit of a headache, reached over and tapped my dream catcher, my talisman bag, and my guardian angel that hang on the wall beside my bed and told them they weren’t doing their jobs. And if that wasn’t bad enough when I went out to raise the garage door (have to do it by hand because the motor quit working after the flood) a wasp that was building a nest behind one of the metal struts on the door stung me right on my nose! Fucker. Because that still wasn’t a bad enough start to the day, during breakfast I bit the inside of my cheek again in the same place!
So today is the 4th of July. I won’t be putting out my flag, I won’t be celebrating what this country has become, a country where the President, a state Governor, and Cosplay Barbie of Homeland Security stand in front of their new concentration camp to incarcerate 3,000 people snatched up without warrants or due process and put in cages in tents surrounded by a chain link fence topped with razor wire that they built in 8 days in the middle of the mosquito, alligator, and snake infested Florida Everglades in the middle of summer yucking it up, big smiles, thumbs up while they imagine potential escapees getting eaten by alligators. The whole thing designed for maximum cruelty.
The government won’t build housing for the homeless, doesn’t want to feed the hungry or provide medical care for the sick and injured but they can and did build a concentration camp in 8 fucking days to fill it with people who had jobs, families, contributed to their communities, paid taxes, were self sufficient that now the government must provide for however poorly they plan to do it.
So, yeah, my day is just peachy.
Oh it's sad sad sad to try to engage with ignorant people who've been drinking the Kool-Aid of MAGA-ville (next to Johnstown Kool-Aid which just killed the ignorant folks). These poor fools really seem to be enjoying what they're doing to their neighbors. Sad. I'm mad too of course. And how do I live with love toward my fellow humans when so many are so disillusioned (including a lot of Congress?) Look for who we're going to run against them when their terms expire in just a year. Let's resist. Let's do some good trouble! I'm really sorry you bit your cheek...it's so easy to do, and hurts like hell!
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced we will even have elections that aren't controlled by those who pull Trump's strings. Look what they are doing to Mamdani. The republican spin machine is demonizing him. Even the democrats are trying to tear him down
DeleteOuch, hope the cheek and the wasp bite site and the general mood are all getting better. Your cards and framed drawings are gorgeous. Such detail.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up, I hope you do and show your work to us and at art fairs.
I cannot count the times people from other parts of the world wanted to discuss my country's "socialist" health system. I know people from the US living here who prefer to pay huge sums for privat expat health insurance to avoid being treated like "poor people". It's their money. And yes, there is private health insurance here too for those who want it, used to be compulsory for big earners and higher level state employees, not anymore, some people buy additional insurances for extras like single room occupancy. At a big family gathering a couple of years back some smart ass asked around if any of us had any private extras and do we think it's fair that healthy people have to carry the cost of ill people etc. and one of my cousins said, shut up, be prepared to make your contribution to this society or move to the US.
Thanks though I don't do art fairs. Well, I did when I was just starting out in my 20s but stopped when I started getting commissions. I do these drawings and paintings just for my own pleasure. I wouldn't even have thought of these cards and prints if Stephanie hadn't proposed the idea when I showed her some pictures of my drawings.
DeleteGood for your cousin. I really don't understand why so many people balk at helping to support others. It's not like a strong healthy community doesn't benefit them. And if a person is able to afford the high priced private healthe insurance then surely the amount of their taxes that go to support others is not a burden.
Ellen, you cannot cure willful ignorance. Nor change a cruel and evil person.
ReplyDeleteI know but I cannot let that bullshit go unchallenged.
DeleteChew carefully, your bite is swollen and your teeth will keep finding it. I do that to my lower lip at least once every 10 days. Your cards are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYes, am chewing very mindfully. And thank you.
DeleteEllen vs TEXAS
ReplyDeleteCodex: LOL. Don't tempt her, she would.
DeleteShe really really would!
DeleteIf only it was that easy!
DeleteCodex: Like how everything turned out. Was hoping you'd do a separate post on art.
ReplyDeleteYour wish is my command.
DeleteYour art and the card you have produced are gorgeous. I am hoping that there are still folks who send cards so that you will have a booming business! It is too bad that you get stuck with all these right wing whack jobs. I know a woman who has had to go to a retirement centre where she shares the same table with Trump and Religious Right fanatics and it is driving her off the deep end. She thinks she is the only liberal in there. And there’s no escaping them. As for health care for all, the United States is alone in not considering health care as a human right, with access for all. Obviously the system is not perfect, no system ever is, but it works. Over the past few years my wife has had gall bladder surgery and we have both had cataract surgery. The wait time for the cataracts was about eight weeks. Everything was free and for prescription drugs, as seniors, we pay the first $100 per year and the rest is covered. No, it’s not perfect, but every citizen from every stratum in society is guaranteed care under the national system. And that seems like a civilized and worthwhile ethic to me. And so it does, too, in Germany, Britain, Australia, Sweden, France, Denmark, The Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand………
ReplyDeleteThank you. We'll see how well they do. It's a small venue in a small town but their market is handmade stuff from locals, not just handcrafts but food items as well and they are surprised how well it's doing.
DeleteAnd the critics always have some person that dies waiting for a procedure from socialized healthcare in some other country. As if people aren't dying left and right here because they can't afford what they need to live.
Every time I bite the inside of my cheek it becomes a tooth magnet. Ugh. Also, I just can't even engage with MAGA folks. They've drunk the koolaid & it's raises my BP (which is already higher than my doctor would like it to be).
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note, I missed the comma between commando & art & was VERY EXCITED to read this post. Ha! The cards are lovely - I hope they sell like hotcakes!
Which is why I avoided those people the rest of the morning. Commando art, ooo. Butt prints?
DeleteEw....you sure your neighbor wasn't "mooning" you? Gross!
ReplyDeleteNot intentionally and I have to admit I have not been beyond mooning myself. Was on a river trip with some folks who did that part regularly and there was one section that had a passenger train in the distance and which they would moon if they happened to be there when it passed by. But we were quite far away.
DeleteEllen, those cards are beautiful! An old girlfriend of mine from high school has a saying. " It's a waste of time to argue with Republicans, they're too stupid." Your experience at SHARE certainly bears that out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jim. And yes I know. But I can't let that bullshit go unchallenged.
Delete