…or so I thought, seeing the headline “Warriors at Mavericks'” [though why a basketball team would be Risking All on that sketchy wave, were it even going off this late in the season, was a little mystifying] until what with all the sporting news around Superb Owl Sunday* I learned that there’s also a professional basketball team named for the famous reef off Pilar Point.  Ah.

We ourselves continued on our [self-]appointed rounds

mornings,

noons

and afternoons.

On the aforementioned Sunday, although totally unrelated to it, I was made aware of a New and Dire Affliction afflicting, well, the inherently knife-challenged: Avocado Hand.  Fortunately, Dezeen to the rescue; “The hook eliminates avocado hand, an increasingly common injury where people cut themselves while trying to open an avocado”. Oh, dear; “increasingly common”.

[below are not depicted avocados]

Winter haze, grey days and TVs over the refineries…

and then, BAM!, brilliant sun for

a morning where, after a brief emergency interruption to top off the fluid for the clutch linkage between Target and Lowe’s I had a half enjoyable run through the hills between Vallejo and ABC Muffler on East Second, the unenjoyable half entailed being stuck behind a DP SUV which took every bump in the road as an opportunity to nearly completely stop and never ever gave way.

At ABC Steven gave me the name of a mechanic he thought would be good for sorting the Tundra’s electrical problems and even eventually whatever might come to ail the ’45, which came rather sooner than expected. I limped into Alex’s in second, clutch locked up

despite the recently topped off reservoir which was, uh-oh, still full. Made an appointment 

for the Tundra and left the ’45.  The next day, every vehicle I own being out of commission one way or another [the ’82 Chev ignobly immobile in a field two hours north of Reno, the ’45 clutchless on a rack in the industrial park and the Tundra right there with it], had the added and ongoing background cacophony of democracy going down the toilet as Senate Repuppetlicans shut their ears and swore allegiance to the Big Lie in Loyalty to The Leader despite the oft-proven fact that someone else won the election last November with four million more votes than Trump lost by in 2016.  It seems quite a few “patriots” really do believe their guy won in a “landslide” which was then wrested from their grasp by, oh, who the fuck knows what?  Mysterious nefarious [cannibalistic?] forces is what…not good, not good at all.  As for here, more better, rain was what…

rain afternoon and into the night but meanwhile it turns out that

to dry out just wait a day, hey…

as blustery west winds always help.

Certain people around here seem to feel the Kaos Kandidate’s been propped up all too long [going on forty years, maybe] by actual Nefarious Outside Forces hellbent on the destruction of ‘democracy’ and if so who’s to say that said NOFs throwing a few resources at true believers [nothing like True Belief to erode the moral compass, eh?] wouldn’t pay great benefits…think Ted Cruz, his buddy Mitch or, even better, some punk from Missouri who thinks we’d all be better off living in a fifth century Christian theocracy…with him at the helm, of course.  It’s certainly not all that unlikely. “Pay”-triotism…

In fact by lunchtime on Saturday 13 February 2021 the US Senate had voted to acquit the former [not that he admits it] President of the United States of fomenting actions intended to overthrow the government of said United States, leaving the way open for him to continue.  No way to Shut the Trump Up now…

Paytriotism, ya gotta love it.  Or leave it, they love to say.

 

*Thanks to Linda’s former student and amazing artist Welly Fletcher for pointing this out on IG on the day in question.