Waking up at 5:30 this morning, I spent my morning mostly on FB. Getting up-to-date with the Resistance, lol. It just warms my heart that millions of people around the world marched in solidarity with the US yesterday.

I’ve been wondering if the grander purpose of the Trump presidency will be to swing the pendulum back to the opposite way in a global rejection of all that he stands for. Yesterday made me hopeful that that may be true. I’m hoping that the sane but naive folks who want to ignore all his faults and hope that he will do some good, will see, day to day, what the man is really up to. I hope that they will be able to admit their error and come on over to the side of love and compassion, away from hate and anger and racism, misogeny, and all the other evil crap that man stands for.

He had a press conference bitching about the reporting of the size of his crowds. Does he not have anything better to do? Or does not his press secretary have anything more important to talk about than the size of his crowds? Is it related some how, in Cheetoman’s head, to the size of something else? Geezus.

Scarier to me is the fact that Canadians trying to cross the border to come to Saturday’s march in DC were held and denied entry by US customs. Here we go folks. The wall has begun.

I heard a rumor, and it’s a rumor only because I haven’t gotten the source yet, but I have every reason to believe it, that although Kellyanne Conway said Trump would write his own speech, it was written by Bannon, the white supremicist. I did not listen to it. I saw parts of it on the news, but I can’t stand to watch the man. I saw excerpts from it on FB. George Will, an arch conservative, agreed it was the worst inaugural address ever. That the tone was negative, and lacked any semblance of hope.

I will continue to rail against what this man stands for. He is casting this nation into darkness, or at least trying to. And all so that he can feed his ego. I guess he never understood that you don’t make yourself matter more by making others matter less. Since he has no idea of what it means to rise spiritually or emotionally, he tries to push the rest of us down. Sick sick man.

We’re due for some big severe storms here tonight. The wind is whistling through the palms, if that’s possible. It’s been beautiful for so long, but yesterday and today it’s been very very windy. Hoping there are no tornadoes tonight. And that wifi doesn’t go down, lol.

I’ve been sleeping so well lately it’s scary. No sleep aids. I’ve only had 2 glasses of wine all week. Just feeling happy with my place in the world, I guess. There is a filter, I guess, to catch the cheeto dust so it doesn’t darken my soul.

Love and light, all.

I was supposed to go to my friend’s play today, but didn’t end up going. I could have gone by myself, but I really didn’t want to go alone. I was a little aggravated over it, because I didn’t find out we weren’t going until it was past time to leave to get there on time. If I’d known, I might have lined up someone else to go with. But it’s whatever. I took a long walk and burned off my frustration. Then came back and read for awhile, tried to get some news on the Women’s March, did a little FB perusing. And worked on a wire wrapped pendant that I’ve been working on on an off for awhile now.

It was heartening to see so many 100’s of thousands of people marching today, all over the world. Don’t feel quite so all alone with large displays of support from other countries. Gotta look for the positive where we can…and we can in all those people of like minds.

I heard from the man I’m meeting Monday. Another seemingly nice man messaged me and I guess we have a communication going. I’m not initiating, but if someone interesting messages me, I’ll follow it up. Then towards the end of the day I got a message from the man I met the other day. I’d kind of thought he’d changed his mind but apparently not. He was getting his boat ready, he had a charter today. It was nice to hear from him.

I have not been able to get the spray nozzle off my hose. Too many years in the frigid cold, my son left it on, so it’s seized on. So, I bought a new hose for $28, and I have a new sprayer. Trouble is, I keep my hose in a box, that allows me to wind it up after each use. There’s another connection to the other end there, and now I can’t break that connection. I’m getting really irritated with it. But I’m going to go to an auto parts store and get something like WD4 that may loosen it up a bit. Then I can finish cleaning the deck. Pain in the neck.

Other than that life is good here in my little corner of the world. Love and light.

If you only hear ONE speech from today’s Women’s March, it ought to be this one.

Spent way too much energy on the Tweeter-in-Chief today. Don’t want to talk about it too much. It’s exhausting. It’s disheartening. It’s depressing. And it’s going to get worse every day. Right now I’m trying to do whatever I can to make my little corner of the world happy, and a pleasure to be in.

I made a date for lunch on Monday. It would have been tomorrow but I’m going to a play that one of my friends is in. The man seems nice enough on the phone, and we talked for a long while, but I’m going with the expectation of having lunch with him. That’s it. If a 2^nd date comes of it, I’d be pleasantly surprised. I hope he’s fun to be with.

I’m also meeting the man who is director of the thing I’m doing for the veterans art center on Monday. He’s going to give me a tour of the facility and let me know what he needs done as far as the treasurer’s position goes. I’m kind of psyched to be involved. I think it’s a wonderful project for the vets and involves the arts, so it’s right up my alley.

My day was good, relaxing, and productive. I’m about ready to hit the hay, and have a similar day tomorrow. I hope all the marches happen without incident tomorrow.

Love and light.

Today is the inauguration. I won’t watch it. I won’t listen to it. There will be enough on the news outlets, social media and Comedy Central to learn what he had to say. I won’t stand silent, but I for sure won’t give him any of my energy, especially today.

I’ll continue to speak out. I’ll continue to fight his darkness. I can’t march tomorrow. I’m too arthritic to be on my feet all day. As I told someone last night, I did my duty at protests when I was young. When campuses were burning and students getting shot. I hope nothing goes wrong tomorrow. I’ve seen protests go bad, first hand. I also know the heady experience of being part of that great movement, that great action. I will be on the sidelines cheering them on. Grateful that there are those who will carry the torch forward. And praying for the marchers, and for all of us, that we make it through what feels like a pall of darkness being cast over our country, and the world really, today.

I’m going to meet with the guy who heads up the volunteer thing I’m doing for the vets on Monday, so he can familiarize me with what they need me to do, as far as their bookkeeping. He’s going to show me the center where the art projects will be displayed, and classes held. I’d still like to work with my friend who has offered to teach a writing class for this project, because I know the therapeutic, healing, value of writing out the emotions that you can barely talk about.

I’ve thought recently about getting off the dating site for awhile. I think I’d rather invest the energy into my life, and worthwhile projects. If someone comes into my life, great. I’m tired of looking for him though. There’s one guy left that I’ve made tentative plans with. After we meet, and I expect it will go where all the others have gone, really nowhere, I am giving it a rest. If I get a notice that someone has messaged me, I might consider checking them out, but I’m really sick of the search. There’s a lot of life to be lived, and I have lots of good friends, male and female.

It’s another beautiful sunny day here. It’s supposed to cool down by next weekend to a high of 60 or so. I can live with that, lol. A month from now it will be perfect summer-like weather again, in the low 80’s and no humidity. Pretty easy to take.

Love and light.

So many things in my head tonight. A sadness that the Obama presidency is over, and being followed up by the Tweeter. A sadness even greater for this country. In this small community where I live people are terrified. Angry too, but terrified of the future more.

I walked about 2 miles today, down by the beach, through town, near the rec center. Every time I passed a group of people, meaning, 2 or 3 people, talking, they were talking about what is going on in this country. I could hear enough of the conversation to hear the fear, the anger, and the bewilderment as to how this country got to this place. This is a small town, a little touristy this time of year. Usually people are here to relax, enjoy the sun and the shops and the laid back life style.

Not today. That’s not what I saw.

I went to open mic. One of my good friends said she was dressed in black, for the national day of mourning tomorrow. It was a pretty prevalent feeling. The musicians were alluding to it, but also, bless their hearts, trying to find music with hope in it.

I said to my friend dressed in black, “Well, whatever happens after tomorrow, we’ll still have Mangia’s on Thursday night.” She said, “yes unless they take our social security.” I said, “then we’ll all bring a thermos, it will be BYOB.” She said, “that’s true, whatever happens we will all be in it together.”

But it’s a scary thing to be retiring, and have a threat against your income, that you’ve been paying into and assured of your whole life. None of the people here are wealthy. All of them are hard-working creative types who just want to enjoy these years, in the sun and under the palms of Florida.

I kept hoping that we would not, in future days, be looking back at tonight as our last amazing night, sitting under the trees and light, listening to our friends play and visiting with each other. I hope we don’t have to say, “oh remember that last amazing night before it all fell apart?” God I hope not. I hope there are many more to come.

I’m holding on to hope. It’s just what I do. I can’t go through my days fearful of what’s to come, so I hope. There’s not much else I can do, tonight, in this moment.

Love and light.

Sitting at Stella’s

Under an umbrella

Eating veggie quiche

Drinking coffee on the beach .

Birds silhouetted  against a brilliant sky

It’s enough to get me high.

Walk a couple miles

along the beach

Tropical breeze makes me smile

The palm trees wave with a silent reach .

Life, a wondrous gift.

By Deborah E. Dayen

Picture by me, taken this morning.

I’m trying to get past all the political news I’ve seen the last 2 days. It’s like the Tweeter-in-chief really just wants to disintegrate our country. The incompetent people he has nominated, are not just unqualified, but actually just stupid. I mean a Secretary of Education that thinks we should have guns in some schools because of potential grizzlies? Like Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, (and I paraphrase) “I look forward to you coming to CT and speaking about the need for guns in the schools.” He represented the district that Sandy Hook was in. I mean seriously?

Or Rick Perry running the Department of Energy? He graduated with a 2.0 GPA and a degree in animal science, and he’s going to be in charge of our energy? Nuclear power plants? Not to mention he sits on the board of the company that wants to build the Dakota pipeline.

Even if you voted for the Tweeter-in-Chief, and wanted change of some sort, Geezus, I mean you have to see where this is going to go. And none of the options are good. None of them. I’m just praying that there are enough sane men in Congress to stop this madness.

Ok, rant over, for now. I’m going to have a good day today, despite that asshole that’s getting inaugurated tomorrow. I’ve got lots of things to get done today, and it’s open mic night tonight, and I always look forward to that.

I missed a call from the guy who wants to meet over on St. Pete beach last night because I was on the phone. It was too late to call him back when I got off, so I’ll call him today. Maybe be able to meet him this weekend over there. Maybe I’ll hear from the guy I met yesterday. That would be nice, but you never know. No expectations on any of it. Just enjoying meeting people, and staying in the moment. It was a nice kiss though, lol.

Seems we have a cooling trend going on here, highs are going down to around 70, from around 80. It’s a rough winter, lol.

Love and light, friends.