If you can't stand the heat, don't go to Cancun in the summer.
-Ben Stein
Or to Corning, for that matter.
When I landed here yesterday, Peg's new car said it was 97 degrees at the airport. Sure, it's a dry heat, at least compared to the panhandle of Florida, but this place isn't set up for the August blast furnace we all take for granted in the South.
For instance, central air is a rarity here on Southside Hill. Our old house is cooled by three window units scattered about the two floors. None can keep up, so it's a game of picking a room I want to keep cool, cranking the window unit and hoping it can keep up with this relatively manageable space. So far, so good, but it's early yet, and the sky has that milky brightness that just promises a humid scorcher later.
Of course, one downside of the jet engine roar of this window unit four feet from my right ear is that it makes using the phone impossible, so I'll have to decide in a little bit whether to go out on the porch to make my first call, or turn it off and feel the beads of sweat forming as I'm held hostage on yet another conference call.
For the curious few, I didn't write anything yesterday because I was in a hurry to beat the weather and fly back to the Southern Tier and P before the daily array of thunderstorms pockmarked the map of the East Coast. So, I took care of a few housekeeping items, dashed out to the airport, and at 10:20 I was climbing out of ECP, bound for Cumberland, Maryland for a pit stop and then on to Corning, arriving here in time to work a little as I was pouring my happy hour toddy.
One key piece of Wednesday morning housekeeping was saying farewell to the Robalo.
That boat survived Hurricane Michael with a bent bimini frame. I proposed to Peg during an outing to Shell Island at her helm. We spent a few wonderful afternoons winding up and down the jungle-lined rivers around Perry. But the engine only had 19.2 hours after four-and-a-half years, and it seemed like we spent more time washing off mildew and knocking away wasp's nests than actually being out on the water. One less thing to take care of. It's the direction we need to be heading.
Turning to the online papers, there's hope out there that you may have missed if you're avoiding the news as a mental health prophylactic.
Nancy Pelosi turned out to be a hero for the cause of freedom and standing up to bullies, visiting Taiwan while Beijing threw a spit-slinging tantrum and most of our feckless political leadership flapped their arms at their sides like eunuchs and counseled that we shouldn't provoke the country whose slaves assemble our cellphones.
So this morning the Chinese are engaging in a bit of military onanism, flinging precision missiles into the Taiwan Straits to show they mean business. I'm not sure how this waste of hardware makes such a point.
If it wasn't for the MAGA/Fox News concerted effort to make her into some sort of villain, Pelosi's actions over the last couple years could make for a heroic counternarrative. She was in the Capitol when a reactionary mob crashed through the door howling for her head.
Earlier that year, if you'll recall, she made a point without saying a word, tearing apart a copy of DJT's State of the Union address as she stood directly behind him and the Republican side of the aisle gave him a standing O for spewing lies and right wing propaganda in the People's Hall.
And now she shows the Chinese that she understands the moment better, and has a bigger pair, than any male American politician. We're already at war with the Chinese. And democracy is dying all over the planet because we're more worried about tanking the stock market than the political consequences of appeasement. The Ukraine War has been a wake-up call in that regard. Maybe being a little more confrontational toward the Middle Kingdom is the next step.
So way to go, Nancy, way to stand up for American values, real American values and not that toxic soup of revanchism being ladled from the cauldron of the right.
Good news rarely emanates from Kansas, but on Tuesday their Wonder Bread eating, GMC pickup driving voters rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have basically banned abortion.
Could it be that the country is finally waking up to the threat posed by the radical right, and the Christian Nationalists? Maybe. The cynic in me wonders if the Rs will take a flop on a couple of these state-level abortion battles, so in November they can turn to their female cohort and with a shrug explain that ending Roe wasn't so bad after all.
Time to get to work. For my sins I have a half-dozen calls on my calendar, and I need to dictate at least three complaints today just to avoid falling further behind.
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