a very Monday-ish Monday

 Today is the 2nd day of the 47th week, the 18th day of the 11th month, the 323rd day of 2024 [and with only 36 shopping days until Christmas, we had better get hopping], and:

• Apple Cider Day
• Breaking Free from Nicotine Day
• European Antibiotic Awareness Day
• Independence Day - Morocco from France and Spain in 1956; Latvia from Russia in 1918
• Married to a Scorpio Support Day - so if your spouse was born between October 23rd and November 21st, know that you are supported 
• Mickey Mouse Day - on this day in 1928, Steamboat Willie, one of the first animated movies with sound, premiered.    Oddly enough, Mickey has been featured in two other shorts - Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho - but Walt couldn't find anyone who would distribute them widely.  
• National Apple Cider Day
• National Princess Day
• National Vichyssoise Day
• Occult Day
• Push-button Phone Day - up until 1963, all phones were rotary dial.  The Bell System introduced touch-tone service in Pennsylvania 
• William Tell Day
• World Day for the Prevention of and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation
• and Voyager 1 is ~23h 00m 50s of light travel time from Earth

Quote of the day:
"Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable."

~  Franz Kafka, Austrian-Czech novelist and writer 

I love the autumn weather, the colors, the holidays and their traditions.  From the time school went back into session through the New Year celebrations, there is always so much to see and so much to do.  And the smells of the season are entwined with the scent of leaf piles, cooking feasts, and pine.

This year?  not so much 

First there was the stress of the move, then the greater stress of unpacking.  Then there was the election - the hyperbole, the trolling, the worrying.  

And now?  I find myself in the kind of funk that usually only hits me in the spring.  

It came to a head last week with an exchange on social media on a post I had made about Bidenomics having been good for the US economy [see my many comments on the difference between inflation and greedflation].  Basically an old school acquaintance, who I had dated at one point, told me because I am 74 and still have to work, I obviously wasn't intelligent enough to understand the economy and should listen to him [and his alt-right theories of how to make American great again].  After all, he is enjoying his retirement [with pension and Social Security], therefore he knows and understand more than I do.  Altho I returned a flippant answer, and raked him over the coals for not acknowledging the power of getting a pension, that comment turned out to be a trigger to the current downward spiral.   You see, all of my friends that are my age are also retired.  My mother retired and lived quite comfortably with her pension and Social Security at the age of 72.  Me?  I have been working full-time since 1985, and despite contributing constantly to my 401K for 39 years [and weathering the recessions of 1999, 2008, and 2020], I am in no shape to stop working.   

But, as I said, this was just a trigger, not the cause of my mood turning mauve even during my favorite time of year.  

#theviewfromthebalcony
from 11.18.2023

The new apartment:  I had already been stressed out by the move, and worried about the financial impact of sharply increasing the price of my housing, knowing it makes it that much more likely I will never be able to stop working as long as I am able to do so.  Two months after moving in, [and after throwing a lot of money into hiring help] I was able to declare the unpacking phase was over.  There are still some pictures I would like to hang in the kid's room, but I want to talk to them before I do so to make sure they are okay with them.  These living conditions are so much better than that of  The Enclave - things work and are clean, there is excellent security, and management is very good at communicating.  But....   I feel like I am living in a posh hotel.  Despite the furniture and tchotchkes being all mine, this just does not feel like home.  I find myself being compulsively neat and tidy, immediately fixing anything that looks out of place, and wandering about disconsonantly looking at things .   And I haven't hardly been out on the balcony - I miss that view from the 20th floor that I used to post online almost every single day.

My family:  both of my kids are on disability, thanks to cancer.   My daughter's family is totally stressed out; theirs is not a happy household.  My son has found a good living situation with his roommates, but his treatments have been paused after his last hospital stay, and the pulmonary hypertension is permanent.  And both of my grandchildren have decided they reject the traditional expectations of gender based behavior when one is labeled "a girl".  And that leads me to ....

Election results:   As happened back in 2016, too many voters opted not to vote.  To say that I am horrified that 76,456,532  voters considered a bully, anti-intellectual,  lieing, soulless, self-congratulatory, money grubbing, hypocrite as the kind of man to lead the country is putting it mildly.  I am simply appalled at the casual cruelty of those who want to deport immigrants and control women's healthcare, and sincerely believe those voters have chosen to let the US descend into fascism.  My fear is that we will never be rid of him as the MAGA GOP implements the same kind of election control Viktor Orbán did in Hungary as they assume they now have a "mandate".  But as we watch the clown car for the administration fill, what strikes real horror in my soul is Project 2025.   The policies espoused therein will hit my family very hard indeed as the social safety net is frayed beyond repair and tolerance for alternate lifestyles disappears.

We'll manage, I know.  

This too shall pass, I know.

There is so much to be thankful for, I know.

But right now?  It is Monday morning, and my soul definitely is feeling the Monday blues.