The Petulant Whiner

It's Thursday, or, since I'm retail, today's my Sunday.  Starting tomorrow I get to work 5 days in a row before I get another 2 consecutive days off.  After that?  Son of a bitch.  Consecutive days are off the schedule for at least 2 weeks.  I hate that.  I have the joy of working 6 days straight, and then my day off is Thanksgiving.  I mean, I shouldn't piss and moan, with holiday pay I'll get paid for 48 hours that week.   Still....
My apologies for posting responses to comments in such a scatter-shot fashion.  You'd think I was taking shooting lessons from Jim Jordan trying desperately to hit at least a part of the target.  That's not quite right.  My comments are posted regularly.  His comments yesterday at the first public impeachment hearing were... well.  You can tell the Idiot Jerk in the White House has left them very little to work with as far as a defense.  Since he had nothing of importance to defend, Jordan used a phony Mr. Rogers voice and ended up coming across as a condescending, petulant whiner about not hearing from the whistle-blower.  This is funny because it was the Republicans themselves who put those rules protecting whistle-blowers into effect.  This is their Karma, to constantly shit in their pants.
As I said yesterday, I was going to set up a little spread sheet for my Rouvy rides.  Here it is:

This is page one.  The distance is in miles not kilometers.  As you can see, the type signifies if it's a flat ride or a hill, I didn't include the difficulty rating, most being 2's or 3's with the Cote de Holm Moss ride having a difficulty rating of 4.  There's also a date column since I try not to repeat rides too often.
Finally, I guess the impeachment hearings continue tomorrow.  Yippee! 

Fry This

And so my weekend begins!
As have so many of you, I have enabled comment moderation in order to eliminate the public platform our disruptive, little spammer so desperately requires.  Will he even notice?  Nah, he's a shallow copy and paste loner who requires a reactionary response. 
The dogs Christmas toys have been ordered.  They're each getting three different toys.  They don't really care what the toy is as long as it squeaks.  The squeakier the better.
I also ordered myself a deep fryer.

Now, I know some of you are scratching your heads and thinking "but he eats healthy, and deep fried food is really nothing more than a heart attack hiding in peanut oil."  Well, you can eat fried food as long as it's fried the right way.  When I was much younger, my Mom used to dump 3 large cans of Crisco into our deep fryer.  When she was done cooking, she'd let it solidify.  She used the same Crisco over and over again.  After a while, she cleaned out the deep fryer and dumped in more Crisco.  That's the wrong way to cook and eat fried food.  Of course, people didn't know any better back then.
And, of course, public testimony for the impeachment of the Idiot Jerk in the White House begins today.  Prepare yourselves for Twitter Hell.  I understand the GOP had some sort of SECRET CLOSED DOOR SESSION on Monday with Jimmy Jordan taking on the role of Adam Schiff in an attempt to prepare themselves.  They are doomed to failure.  Why, you ask?  Because for years they have been attack dogs.  Rabid Dobermans are more civilized.  They are going to go for the throat right out of the starting gate.  Instead of trying to get to the truth, they are going to blame.  And from his hate room in the White House the Idiot Jerk is going to be Tweeting out snarky, little names for those people testifying.  His base lives for those little names.  And all the while those Centrist Republicans in the suburbs will find deepening frowns spreading across their faces.  This ugly hatred is not what they voted for, and if the GOP thought this past election cycle was bad (and they got their asses whipped) 2020 is going to be the year their tinfoil aspirations get fried.

The Dog at the Top of the Stairs

Today is Tuesday and it's my little Friday - little because it's at the end of a 3 day work week.  Tomorrow my weekend begins.  This means my next 40 hour work week starts on Friday.  Which is going to be a bit of a groan day for me.  My brother-in-law bought tickets for a chick concert on Friday night for he and my sister.  She doesn't want to go, so I got her ticket.  Someone named Grace Potter, no relation to Harry as far as I know.  I watched one of her videos and there wasn't a guy to be seen, hence my calling it a chick concert.  I'm not saying there aren't going to be men in the audience, just that we might be a minority.
Of course, after seeing Elton last Friday, comparisons are going to be made.  There's no way of avoiding them.
Outside right now we have drizzle.  The temp is going to drop as an arctic blast sweeps east.  Hopefully Thursday will be warm enough for me to mulch my leaves.  Coming home from work yesterday I was stopped by one of my neighbors who remarked on my amazing ginkgo leaf drop.  "It looks like a golden blanket on the ground," she said.
Last night as I was heading up to bed I saw Lily standing at the top of the stairs, with a toy in her mouth, so I took a pic.  My mind immediately flashed on that old thriller "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs."

Here's my version.  I call it "Dog at the top of the Stairs."

Cute, huh?
Anyway, I saw the courts handed the Idiot Jerk another defeat in regard to his taxes yesterday.  A day doesn't seem to pass without someone handing that scumbag more bad news.  Now, doesn't that warm the cockles of your heart?  If he hadn't been such a dirty crook all of his life he'd have nothing to worry about.
Oh, and I saw the Junior Idiot had to cut short some sort of book presentation because of protesters.
He actually said there was going to be no Q & A because people would weaponize his words.  I had to laugh at that.  I mean, he'd have no worries if he wasn't such a shit stain.  I'm sure the realization has set in for the Idiot Jerk's family.  Whereas when I look up the staircase I see a cute little Boxer with a toy in her mouth, when they look up the stairs all they see is deep, frightening darkness.

At the Bend in the River

Monday... another week begins.  Repetition is not the joy of my life.  Consistency is not necessarily a good thing.  Sometimes things need to be shaken up.  And underdog progressive has won the DA race in San Francisco.  This is just one more example of how the country is turning away from the rigid, conservative politics of the Idiot Jerk in the White House and his party of phonies.  One thing they have never learned and never will: you can't force your unpopular agenda down the throats of the American people and expect them to accept it.  They will repeat and fail, repeat and fail, until they no longer have a loud enough voice for anyone to hear.
Anyway... I'm changing up my cycling routine, aiming for shorter more intense rides.  This means more hills.... can you hear the joy in my words?
One of my little routines is to always make 4 taquitos when I get home from work and snack on them as read through the day's blog entries.  Last evening I didn't throw that paper towel away soon enough and Big Seig ate it.  Son of a bitch!  He has eaten them before.  They always come out in the end.  They are, however, not the type of roughage I want him chowing down on.
Oh, and today's Veteran's Day.  My personal opinion, not that it counts too much, is that as a Veteran for a Foreign War I should not have to work.  I should get the day off with pay.  Corporate America hates that idea.  Doing that would eat just the tiniest bit of their Profit Pie.  It's all about the money, you know?  Corporate America loves Conservatives - a group consistently trying to give them tax breaks.  Corporate America is not very patriotic.  They prefer banking assets rather than chipping in to help those less fortunate.  They do not care if the middle class is falling into destitution. That word does not describe their definition of the bottom line.  Unfortunately, about 88% of Corporate America is owned by foreign nationals.  That sucks.
Anyway... #2.  As I was walking to my car last week to go to work, before the temperature drop to 25 (F) I spied a little toad stool grown in my grass.

Since I thought it looks poisonous as hell, I left it be.
Finally, I began Chapter 29 last evening:  The Bend in the River.  The Bend has not always been kind to people.  In Chapter 1 there's mention of a body washing up on the rocks at the Bend in the River.  One can only wonder what our intrepid investigators find washed up on the rocks in The Body in the Well.  Hint:  It's not a Conservative.

Cracker Soup

Well, it's Sunday... and I get to go back to work.  For 3 days, and then my weekend begins.  My schedule for Thanksgiving week is crappy.  Off on Thanksgiving, working Black Friday and Saturday and then off on Sunday.  Nobody buys flooring on Black Friday.  That doesn't mean we're not going to get bubble-brained morons asking what are 'special' is...  I always point to appliances saying "go buy a $2500 refrigerator, that's where our deals are."  If you're interested in buy a washer, or dryer, now is the best time of the year - all of our others sales are mere shadows of what the discounts are now.
Yesterday morning I walked onto my front porch and saw all the leaves had fallen off my gingko.  Have you any idea how that feels?  Knowing your gingko is naked?  I took pictures hoping to drum up a little sympathy since... well... now it looks so... woody.

I saw where a Class Action suit has been filed against Madonna.  People are fed up with paying good money for a show and having her show up 2 hours late.  Her comment was "the queen is never late."  Someone needs to sit her 61 year old ass down and remind her she's doing 'smaller venue' shows because ticket sales from her last arena tour were... lackluster... yeah, lackluster is a good word for her ticket sales.  Her die-hard fans will always show up, but they're getting older and their patience is beginning to wear thin.
I saw where the Idiot Jerk in the White House went to a college football game in the deeply red south and was... cheered.  At this point in his failing Republican political career this is to be expected.  I know this is going way back, but the same thing happened after Nixon's failed re-election extravaganza.  The Republican Party became highly regionalized.  Only in the deep south, scarlet red and highly Christianized south did they stand of chance of winning elections.  This is happening again.  However, this time they have a problem.  The deep south is diversifying far more quickly than their Conservative white minds can comprehend.  They're going to realize there might not be enough crackers down there to make a decent bowl of soup.
And finally.  A lot of us have experienced the single brain celled antics of troll.  Mildred was right when she pointed out how hysterically this person is in his desperate attempt to be disruptive.  Right now I'm simply deleting the comments.  That's what this person deserves... to be deleted.  If it continues I start moderating the comments.  Eliminating them before they see the light of day is no skin off my back.

Vacation Entry #4 Farewell Yellow Brick Road

So, on the last day of my teeny, weeny vacation I went to see Elton John in Philly.  Had I used my infinite wisdom, I would have purchased the tickets when the went on sale, I didn't.  As it was, I paid a much higher price than their Face Value.  IT WAS WORTH IT!
Our seats were great!

Almost 3 hours of music and memories.  He told about how when he and Bernie were just starting out without any real hit to their names, their producer called to tell them a singer was covering one of their songs on her album.  The singer:  Aretha Franklin, and she recorded "Boarder Song," a song he doesn't do often in concert.  We heard it last night!  He did a number of songs which aren't normally on his set list, like "Take me to the Pilot," the song that launched his career when he played it at the Troubadour in LA back in 1970.  He played "Indian Sunset" from "Madman Across the Water," a song he rarely plays in concert.

You'll notice his piano moved from one side of the stage to the other so everybody got so seem him perform.  All of his hits were covered... oh, and there was a lot of thunder and lighting  and fog introducing "Funeral for a Friend."

Without a doubt, this was one of the best concerts I've been to.

Traffic, however, was not so kind:  rush hour going into Philly and then construction as we left.  It took over half an hour to cover the three miles leading to the Conshohocken exit.  Son of a Bitch!

Today will be a rest day.  

Oh, and I need to get my ass on my bicycle since I didn't get a ride in yesterday.

Vacation Entry #3

Ah, it's Friday, November 8.  For those of you who don't know, today's my birthday.  About 45 minutes ago I turned 67.  I find that number amazing.  Not because I've achieve it, rather, I have to admit I never really put much thought into getting old.  Now that it's happening it's kind of like... well... fuck.  I'd say "what do I do for an encore," but have chosen to save that line for when I turn 90.  A word of advice, if you have to get older, and most of us end up doing just that, it is a lot better to do so gracefully... and opinionated as hell.  I find a lot of joy in telling people what I think.
I rode 12.56 miles yesterday.  I was very pleased.  You see, the last time I rode that route it took a bit over 54 minutes.  Yesterday I did in just a tad over 48 minutes.  That's right, I knocked 6 minutes off my time.  The record is a bit over 24 minutes.  I will never hit that, but I would like to get my time down into the mid 30's.  We'll have to wait and see if I can knock another 11 or 12 minutes off my time.
And rather than buy a store bought cake from Giant like I usually do to celebrate a birthday, I baked one.  Most of us buy our cakes, and our cookies, and our pies; baking just takes too long.  Our palate has deteriorated to such a degree that when we taste store bought cake we say..."hhhmm, the icing is good."  While I did spread a light, peanut butter frosting on my cake, the real flavor buster was the cake itself.  Holy Crap!  I could not believe the flavor of that cake, all moist and deliciously golden.  Even the dogs liked it!
And yesterday, while I was letting the dogs out into the drizzle to do their business, I saw I had another rose.  On November, 7 my roses were still blooming!  I took a picture.

Now, wasn't that a pretty gift?
I saw where Michael Bloomberg is testing the waters for possible presidential run... without going debating one single person.  A word of advice to Michael: don't even think of sticking your toes into the water.  A run by you could well destroy the unity the Democrats have been building.  You're a businessman who thinks he can run the country the way he runs his business.  You're wrong.  We don't need another damn billionaire in the White House.