This past week had so many highs and lows. I would have to say the lows were more plentiful than the highs, but at least there was a little good news, interspersed with the bad.

The good news is that a modicum of a gun control law passed Congress and was signed by the president. It was a tiny bit of good they did there, but it’s a start. It’s something.

I figured I’d go with the good news first because there’s so little of it.

The biggest, saddest, and scariest thing is, of course, what SCOTUS did to women. I can barely find the words to write about it. We’ve been set back 50 years. I’m sure if they could rescind the 19^th amendment if they could. And the worst of them, The Dishonorable Justice Thomas, wants to revisit gay rights, and marriage equality, and every other damn right that we’ve fought so hard for.

I hate to use the word hate when it comes to people, but God help me, I hate them for treating all people who are different as 2^nd class citizens. And I mean all, like women, and gay/lesbian, of different skin color. I often wonder how Justice Thomas, as a black man in America who grew up with Jim Crow, could arrive at the beliefs he espouses. He once described himself as an “uppity black man” during the Anita Hill hearings when he was trying to be confirmed to the court. I never thought he was, until now. Only I’d leave out the “black” in that description. Just leave it as an “Uppity Man”. Like the rest of those men who sit around grand mahogany tables and make laws with the intention of taking control of women’s bodies again.

Because they are terrified that how they’ve treated us is going to reap them the rewards they won’t like.

Women, and the men who support us, HAVE to get to the polls and elect people who will allow the court to be stacked so we can undo the damage done to us by 44.

And the last bit of bad news was only for Tampa Bay. We lost the hockey game last night, and with it, the Tampa Bay Lightnings chance of being a 3-peat Stanley Cup Champion. We really hoped they could do it, it just would have been so much fun. But the Colorado Avalanche was going for their first Stanley Cup in 21 years. They played hard, they beat Tampa Bay fair and square. I was happy for them, watching the pure childlike joy with which they raised the 130 year old cup, the oldest trophy in sports, over their heads. Soon it will be engraved with all their names, along with TV as was every other member of their team, the front office, the janitors, everyone who contributed large or small, to the victory. It’s the coolest sports moment of the year. All kids who play hockey (of which my son was one for 10 or 12 years) have the dream of winning that Cup, and the ones who actually make it to the pros keep that dream of hoisting that Cup over their heads their whole lives, and honestly many of them play 10-20 years, and never get to do that.

I will leave you on that somewhat high note today. Though I’d have loved it if the Lightning had wond it again, I’m genuinely happy for the Avalanche. As I typed this post tonight, the legendary Tampa Bay Lightning (and Thunder) was crashing all around me, in the biggest thunderstorm so far this season.

Love and light, everyone.