We Deserve Donald Trump

The following assessment of last night's presidential debate was written by Zack Rouda (my son, age 32), and posted on his Facebook page. Since I couldn't have said it better myself, I present it for you here.

"Donald Trump is as American as apple pie. He really is just a classic American man. If you had to imagine the average American man, I think he would look and act a hell of a lot like Donald Trump.

Trump embodies “individuality,” which is, itself, a stupid concept. The notion that we should identify most strongly with our current body and our own ego is uniquely Western/American. Many other cultures value family, the health of the land and community over the individual ego, and individuals are understood to exist within a larger community. We exist in relationship with each other. 

The fact that a grown adult doesn’t have the ability or interest to listen to anybody else, God or man, is not admirable. It’s not cool to be so self-confident, or self-absorbed, that you lack the interest or ability to listen to another single living human.

As for last night's debate: Why aren't people like this automatically disqualified? Why didn't somebody cut off Trump's mic? Sorry, you’re not following the rules. You’re not acting like a grownup. You’re a little baby who was abused by your bad parents. You need therapy. You’re fired!! Can somebody please say that to him, please? I’m begging for God to save us.

The thing that is most upsetting is how often we, each of us, act exactly like Donald Trump. He is a perfect mirror of the country. We roll our eyes at one another and snicker and smirk and say, “Yeah right!” and “Yeah sure!” and "Sure, yeah, whatever!” We say, “They started it.” We say, “I’m NOT listening to you! You’re a big stupid idiot clown orange old toxic garbage racist.” Doesn’t even matter if it’s Trump or Biden or Clinton or Bernie or whoever. 

Look at how meek Chris Wallace, the moderator, seemed. Has nobody ever gotten mad at Trump? They’re all afraid of him. And we are each afraid of each other. We deserve Donald Trump for President. He represents the spirit of American individualism perfectly."

Forget the Russians, the Robots Are Coming

Robot children practicing their phone skills.

With the exception of my husband who is fully human, lately I spend most of my time talking with robots. They call me on the phone and send emails and texts daily.  I don't handle them very well as I hate robots as much as Hitler hated the Jews, so usually I shout nasty things into the phone like, "Fuck you!" or "Die you Commie bastard!" while they, nonplussed, continue with their pre-recorded talking points as if I had not said one thing.

My most recent robotic interaction was with the team of computers working at Airbnb, and it's still ongoing. Weeks ago I booked a lovely house on the Jersey Shore where our dear friends from Virginia were going to meet us for a three-day weekend. During the entire process I never spoke with a living, breathing person, instead doing it all on computer. Naturally I was forced to pay in full with a credit card.

Horror of horrors, two days ago our friends had to cancel because of a dire family emergency. Now having no reason to go to New Jersey, we set about cancelling the reservation, hoping for a full refund. To begin, my husband engaged the "chatbot" which issued standard replies to his questions that never addressed the problem. Eventually Mitch found a magic place that allowed him to contact a human, and was told via the chatbot it would "take some time." A day later a text arrived, chiding him that he was not the person who made the reservation, so go away. Turns out it would only speak to me.

This morning the computer wrote, "Your cleaning fee has been applied to your credit card, have a nice day." Other than that it's not looking good, despite the fact that early in the proceedings we spoke with the property owner whose phone number appeared on the listing. Paul was great. A human, armed with a full range of emotions and a working brain, he was quite sympathetic to our plight and assured us we would get a full refund, but we would have to do it through Airbnb, not him.

This is where things stand now. I am continuing to punch the right buttons to get the rest of our money back ("Press 1 if your question is Covid-related, press 2 if this reservation was made after March 20, 2020, press 3 if you have billing questions"), but so far to no avail. Honesty, I miss the old days when people ran things; these machines are heartless and, dare I say it, stupid. Still, they are the dominant species of the future so we'd better learn to live with them.

The Amy Barrett Show

Now that RBG is safely in the ground, or at least will be by day's end, stock up on popcorn and settle in for some fun TV. Tomorrow night the first presidential debate between you-know-who and you-know-who promises to be a combination laugh riot and horror show. And if Joe doesn't cancel because a co-worker of his neighbor's sister-in-law tested positive for COVID, there will be two more of them in the coming weeks.

Amy and her happy family.

Then on October 12, three days of the Senate grilling, I mean hearing, of Supreme Court nominee Amy Barrett promises fireworks. Every lowly reporter hoping to make it big and all the worker bees on Capitol Hill are right now scurrying around in search of a few crumbs they can mash together into some sort of tasty cake, or at least a muffin, proving bad behavior in Barrett's past. Good luck with that, I say, since I saw her acceptance speech at the White House last Saturday and it's hard to believe she has ever committed a wrong of any kind.

I mean really. She has five kids of her own and still adopted two black children from Haiti, so clearly she can't be a racist. One of her kids has Down's syndrome, so she's all about being inclusive.  Every one of her former bosses swears she was the best person that ever worked for them. One of her law school professors remembers her as the best student he ever had. Oh yeah -- she graduated first in her law school class and was editor of the Law Review. Plus, she's happily married. And she's only 48! 

On the other hand, she is Catholic and a true believer. That's about all they've got to work with, but they'd better tread lightly since Joe Biden is also Catholic. So are 70,412, 021 other Americans at last count in 2016. 

RBG Is Dead

Two things: First of all, Ruth Bader Ginsberg is dead. Okay? She is no longer among the living. Now I ask you, is there something disrespectful in my saying that? Next, she is not God. And was never God while she was alive. Correct? Are you still with me? Again I ask, is there something disrespectful about saying that RBG is not God? Okay, let's move on.

Yesterday one of the lunatic lefties who have been sobbing and weeping and pulling out their hair because the former Supreme Court judge died at the age of 87 of cancer and now who will protect their abortion rights posted a cartoon from the Salt Lake Tribune as her new profile picture on Facebook. I looked at the cartoon and frankly did not get it and said as much. My friend answered, "She sees you."

I responded, "But she's dead! And she's not God!"

My friend of 30 years, who for the purposes of this blog and the truth I shall call Debby Robertson, wrote the following:
"I expected a response like this from you. Callous! jaded! mean! rude! respect the dead. besides all the rest and lack of respect of this woman, at least respect her because she's a New York Jew! What is she chopped liver to you? I just can't argue with you. I don't know what more to say."

Somehow Debby could say RBG is dead, and that I should respect the dead, but when I said RBG was dead I was being disrespectful. Of the dead. Like RBG, who we all can agree is dead. So she cannot be watching us. Unless of course she is God, or at least Santa Claus, who sees us when we're sleeping and knows when we've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.

Anyway, now Debby is dead to me. (I wonder if she can still see me.) Who wants a friend that expects the worst from you? And just so you know, chopped liver is eaten by people of many faiths, not just Jews.

Meaningless Bullshit

Clearly racist.

I'm guessing that black people everywhere are breathing easier today now that the purveyors of Uncle Ben's Rice have changed its name to Ben's Original. That's a load off. Of course there's still the whole cops shooting unarmed black men in the back thing, but it's a start.

What Kind of Fool Are You?

I'm confused as to how the White House "bungled" its response to the coronavirus and caused so many needless deaths, which is how CNN's boy-toy anchor Anderson Cooper sees things. He loves to say how Trump has caused so many people to die who could be running around, healthy and happy, today. Driving the point home, for the last few nights CNN has focused on those who were "killed" by Trump's stupidity and gross negligence, running a crawl of the dead like they did when the Twin Towers fell and calling anyone who died from the virus "heroic."

I say I'm confused because since the onset of Covid-19 my husband and I have worn masks and stayed home as much as possible, not because Donald Trump told us to but because we have brains and told ourselves. If tomorrow Dr. Fauci and Trump and the CDC and WHO said it was fine to go out and French kiss everyone you see, we would still stay home and still wear masks when outside.

What kind of fool listens to the authorities, especially when we are constantly told that those in power are themselves fools?

Out of The Loop

Despite my drifting further out of The Loop every day, I still consider myself to be smart, certainly on a par with people who are in The Loop. Still, it bugs me to be considered "out of" anything.

I learned a few months ago that I was out of The Loop from my Millennial son, who is wired into it and may even be one of its founding members. I think it was when I asked him to explain what a hashtag is -- I still don't get it --  but it may have been something else since there are many things I blank on: TikTok, Quibi, QAnon, WeChat, Alibaba, Sufjan Stevens and the last two letters of LGBTQIA, to name but a few. Determined to rectify the situation, I set about catching up.

Since I've never read a Harry Potter book nor seen any of the movies, that seemed like a good starting place, especially after a savvy friend reported the movies were "great fun." And what better time than now, stuck at home during a pandemic? So the other night my husband and I fired up Netflix and settled in to watch the first one, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

After about 40 minutes I decided that at least my life was too short for such nonsense, although Mitch was up for it. (Then again, he sat through all of Hamilton.) Guessing that many other trendy things are equally inane, I will continue re-reading the old classics, watching old movies and listening to Queen and The Beach Boys with abandon, slipping even further behind everyone else but what the heck.

Doing the Right Thing

People gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court to show others how sad they feel.

These days it's very important to have the right feelings. If you don't really feel them that's fine, as long as you pretend to. For example, right now anyone seeking acceptance from their peers will be mourning the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's just the right thing to do, and it's best to do it in front of others for maximum credit. (See photo.)

Personally, I am not mourning the loss of a woman I never met, especially since one of my close friends is reeling from a dire cancer diagnosis and another just suffered a heart attack. Also, Ruth was 87 and had cancer in one organ or another for as long as I can remember, so her death was certainly no surprise.

As for what her passing "means" to the country, I suppose many young women are worried that a new, less liberal Supreme Court appointee could impact their right to an abortion. Being past child-rearing age, this fear does not haunt me. But since I did avail myself of that service years ago, I think about how different my life would be today if abortion had been illegal back then. I'd have raised a couple more kids and maybe even have some grandchildren by now. (Not that I'm complaining.)

This past weekend I spoke with and saw quite a few friends and neighbors, and not one of them was in mourning for Ruth, or for anything. It was a beautiful weekend here in Maine and everyone seemed quite excited about the coming glories of fall. Pumpkins popped up on front steps all around town and finally the mosquitos are gone.

I Don't Wanna Be Woke

Chris vs. an Indigenous Person

In a few weeks my husband and I are going on a mini-holiday to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary, which falls on Columbus Day Weekend. You remember Christopher Columbus, that Italian explorer who supposedly sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered America? Well, I just read about an upcoming event planned for Indigenous Peoples' Weekend, and guess what? It's that very same weekend.

Turns out that in some cities and states in America, there is no Columbus Day, which there has been since 1934. One of those is our nation's capitol, where the DC Council voted to replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day. Several other cities, such as Seattle, did the same. In South Dakota and Oklahoma it's called Native American Day, just to make things more confusing. Here in Maine, it's IPD. Still, I'm sticking with Chris, that guy I made a diorama about in the fourth grade.

Call me unwoke, but I will never utter the words Indigenous Peoples' Weekend, or Indigenous Peoples' Day or even Indigenous Peoples' Hour. I can barely spell indigenous and hardly know what it means, although I have an inkling it's got something to do with a group of people who had their blood spilled at the hands of the evil white man hundreds of years ago and are currently responsible for the Redskins becoming The Washington Football Team.

Don't wake me.

God's Reading List

I have always believed in God. Not a He or a She but an It; the form of Our Heavenly Father has changed over the years.  As a child and well into my teens I truly believed that God was the Ocean, or rather that the Ocean was God. That explained its deep and unknowable mystery and the fact that it covers the globe. Nothing else goes everywhere, except of course the Sky.

So then I started thinking the Sky was God. Perched high above all of us it sees everything, sort of like Santa Claus. You can't hide from the Sky. Yup, the Sky must be God. Or maybe Nature -- could Nature be God? After all, they call it Mother Nature for a reason. Whatever, God is certainly not some old man with a beard wearing a white robe, like in all the cartoons.

Or is He? I am now convinced that whatever God is, He, She or It can read, has a very long reading list, and my blog is on it. I believe this because yesterday I wrote a post concerning the horrible spider living outside my kitchen door that's been there for a month or so, tormenting me every day. I have shied way from watering the flowers on which its web was spun, and thus they are not doing too well. I got the willies whenever I looked out there, and the quality of my life was negatively impacted by its very existence several times a day.

Yesterday's post was all about that spider. I went outside this morning to check on how ugly it still was and it was gone. Vanished. Packed up its things and left, leaving no trace. Not a shred of a web anywhere.

So I concluded that either God read that post and took pity on me, or else that spider has ESP -- I don't think spiders can read -- and somehow got the vibe it was hated and moved on. Either way, it's pretty damn weird if you ask me. Not that I'm complaining. In fact, in case God is reading this post right now I would like to say that I am deeply grateful, that I love Him even more today than yesterday, and I will try to live up to His (or Her or Its) highest expectations of me. 

Something Worse Than Trump

We have a new pet and I am not happy about it. Although somewhat furry, it isn't cuddly, snuggly or cute. It doesn't follow commands and will never fetch the paper, or my slippers, or even its own toy. That's because it's a spider -- a horrible, scary, hideous and outrageously large monster that set up housekeeping on our side deck, within steps of our hot tub, about one month ago and is apparently quite content to live out its life there, spinning intricate webs which it eats every night and ultimately having hideous little spider babies that will grow up to torment other poor souls like me.

Called a Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia to its friends), Wikipedia describes it this way: 

Yuck, yech and gross, if you ask me.

"Yellow garden spiders are large, orb-weaving arachnids, meaning they spin a circular web. Most spiders have two claws on each foot, but orb weavers have an additional claw to help them spin their complex webs. In females, the top side of the abdomen is black with symmetrical patches of bright yellow." It goes on to say that its bite is not poisonous, having the same impact of a bee sting and posing no risk to humans except if you are allergic.

Okay, two things: First of all, yuck, yech and gross. I would rather have Donald Trump parked outside my door calling me fat, stupid and ugly every day. Secondly, I happen to be allergic to spiders and have visited the ER three times for treatment of bites. While my breathing is not impacted and thus my life is not in danger, whatever part of me gets bitten swells to the size of an average telephone pole within minutes and stays that way until whatever magic drug the doc shoots into me takes effect.

Naturally, being of sound mind I have arachnophobia. And yes, I have sought treatment for it and it did not work -- why would it? It consisted of tapping my forehead with my fingers a dozen times while saying aloud, "Nice spider, cute spider, I love spiders." (For that I paid $400, so I am not only afraid of spiders but a moron.)

So no, I am not at all amused by "Spidey," as my husband calls it. Mitch loves Spidey and finds it interesting. He gets up each morning and goes out to say hello to it. Or actually her, since she matches the description. Personally I think if you are going to name her you should go for something like Spidette, or even Charlotte, as in Charlotte's Web, the famous children's book I could never read, for obvious reasons.

My dear friend Jay came for dinner a few nights ago and fell in love with Spidey. Jay is an outdoors enthusiast, and that's putting it mildly. Anyway, she took a lot of pictures of the thing and one of them is shown above. Despite her trying to get me over my fear I remain disgusted and look forward to winter. Hopefully it will be severe and Spidey will freeze to death or be blown away in a punishing Nor'easter.

How Ballsy Will Kamala Get?

Most people, if asked, would reply that Kamala Harris is the second banana on this year's presidential ticket, with Joe Biden in the starring role. But she sees things a bit differently. In a speech last Saturday in Arizona, she told a group of Latino small-business owners they had better vote Democratic because "a Harris administration with Joe Biden as president" would greatly fill many of their needs.

WTF? A Harris administration with Joe Biden as president? Suddenly the office of President is just another slot in the administration, which according to Kamala would be hers this time around. What this teaches us is that it is possible for a woman to have balls even without surgery! Who knows, we may even get to see Kamala go the whole Chaz Bono route during her administration. Admit it: That would definitely be fun to watch, although maybe not so much for her husband.

Smashing Pumpkins

I'm getting tired of this whole Covid thing, especially all the rules and regulations that change like the wind. Last weekend my husband and I went hiking and closely passed groups of other hikers from time to time. Less than half of them wore masks. In fact, here in Maine masks seem to be losing popularity. Often you'll see people who have one hanging off of one ear, signaling they are ready to use it if some obvious need appears. Otherwise it dangles there like a giant cloth earring.  Still, I wear one to keep other people's disgusting germs, Covid or not, from entering my system. In fact, I probably will wear one forever; why not? They also keep out bugs, and I have surely eaten my share of those little gnats when I'm out walking.

I'm also very sick of hearing about Donald Trump, white supremacy, Black Lives Matter and professional athletes taking a knee. Enough already! What we need is a brand new obsession, like maybe an asteroid heading our way that will smash into the Earth in a few months. Imagine how exciting it would be to anticipate. Suddenly there would be something that nobody could be blamed for! The news people would be at a loss as to how to report it.

In actual fact, according to NASA a large asteroid "the size of two football fields" is set to safely pass by Earth today, but nobody is talking much about it. Another one is expected to come fairly close around Election Day, again doing little damage. What I'm talking about it is one that will hit us head on and take out the whole lot of us. Now that would shut Rachel Maddow up for good.

But that's not happening today, so I shall get out there and enjoy this early fall weather and start counting how many intact pumpkins are already on people's front steps, before they get smashed by the asteroid. 

All the News Unfit to Print

Ah -- The New York Times, that esteemed newspaper of the intelligentsia we are all supposed to revere. In today's magazine section there is an example (shown above) of how some paid staff members spend their time when they aren't out in search of anti-Trump trivia. The research-and-analytics department of the Times annoyed 2,250 subscribers with the following question: Which would you rather have happen to you? 
A. A paper cut
B. Stub a toe
C. Make a minor mistake at work
D. Bad haircut

At least we can take heart that of those asked, 22 self-respecting adults refused to participate. They must have been Republicans.

No News Is Good News

There's an old saying: "No news is good news." We all know what it means, but I'm going to change it to, "Not knowing the news is good news." To that end I will no longer plug in to what's happening. Instead I will fold those 250 letters and stuff those envelopes I agreed to stuff for a local politician in my town, and go ahead and paint the dining room. (Yellow I think, but I'm on the fence.)

I say this because the News is evil. Not only the people who make it but those who report it. It's usually about bad things that are happening, or happened years ago. For example, the Holocaust is still quite a popular subject on a slow news day.  If by some stroke of insane luck there are no bad things to report, today's grasping journalists are adept at twisting anything into something that can be perceived as bad in order to titillate the much-desired audiences and thus earn higher ratings, sell more papers and increase circulation -- all in the name of the Almighty Dollar and truth be damned.

If you are one of the rare (wonderful) birds who reads this blog, I'm alerting you to the fact that political commentary will no longer be in evidence here until after the election when I can hoot and howl about the fact that Trump won.

A Shaggy Windshield Story

So we're driving down the highway, my husband at the wheel, returning from a relaxing week on Mount Desert Island. That morning's hike had made me sleepy, so being in the passenger seat I took the liberty of stretching out, my bare feet on the dashboard and my toes just inches from the windshield. This is a common enough position for many travelers, mostly in summer on the way home from the beach.

Suddenly the car directly in front of us braked, so naturally my husband did the same. This action thrust me forward, causing my feet to make contact with the windshield. We instantly heard a loud noise and watched in horror as a giant web of cracks spread over the right side of the windshield. Nothing else happened. There was no crash, no accident, the car ahead turned and we kept going, but now with an obvious problem. Turns out it's no easy task to get a new windshield during a pandemic.

Immediately I called my car dealership, Morong Audi in Falmouth, Maine. A woman in the service department told me to call Portland Glass. "They do all our glass work," she explained. I said I was surprised that they didn't do their own, being a car dealer with a huge service department. She replied, "Nope, we send everyone to Portland Glass."

So I called Portland Glass. The woman I spoke with there said she would need a few days to find the right part for my particular make and model, and that she would call me first thing Tuesday morning. That's today. But she didn't call, so I called her back. Three times. Each time I got a recorded message saying how important my call was to them and could I please leave my name and number and a brief message and they would get back to me.

They didn't.

My final message contained a strongly-worded and somewhat graphic piece of my mind. I then began looking elsewhere for a new windshield. Hey, how about Safelite, that place that advertises on TV all the time? Nobody answered the phone but their recording said to go online. So I went online and answered a whole bunch of questions and finally got an appointment for a week from today, with a price quote of $823.00.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine in the glass business alerted me to the fact that windshields are out of stock everywhere around here until January. Something about Covid making it more difficult to get them. Anyway, he said to be cautious about who I did business with and be sure to ask where the windshield was from so I won't get stuck with some crummy "aftermarket piece of junk."

So then, nervous, I called the service manager at Morong and ran all of this by him, and he agreed that I had to be careful to not get an inferior product, and that he really couldn't help but that Portland Glass was reputable, although it might take a while for them to come through.

Later in the afternoon the Portland Glass lady called back with a price for me: $1,253.56. As my friend had instructed, I asked where she would be getting the windshield. Her answer was surprising: "Morong, in Falmouth. That's where we buy all our windshields."

Film Review: I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS

The latest directorial effort by Charlie Kaufman, long awaited since his last film was released in 2016, leaves much to be desired -- like almost everything you want from a movie. Unless you want depression, fear, anxiety and bad dreams, all of which I'm Thinking of Ending Things delivers in large quantities. Of course, those are Kaufman trademarks, but in his other movies there's at least been a plot we can follow and lots of humor, albeit dark but humor nonetheless. None of that can be found in this one.

Actress Toni Colette plays a lunatic, quite convincingly.

The story, as it turns out, isn't really one you can follow since it's all in someone's head, not sure whose. We start out thinking it's about a young man, Jake, driving his new girlfriend (in a snowstorm) to meet his parents at their farm in rural Oklahoma. The parents (Toni Colette, David Thewlis) turn out to be totally nuts: "creepy" does not come close to describing their odd behavior. For starters, they both keep getting older and then younger again and then way older again every time they leave the room, sometimes returning with different clothes, worse hair and much saggier skin.

The other main character is an old janitor (Guy Boyd) at the local high school. We never learn who the heck he is or why we see him wandering the halls of the school, pushing a mop. But he shows up quite often and you get the idea he is VERY IMPORTANT to the story. Sadly, only Charlie Kaufman knows why.

But the film is not about all that. Really, it's about death and dying and the horrors of aging and why don't we just kill ourselves right now? What's the point of living since we all end up like pigs rotting from maggots eating our internal organs? In fact, watching this movie I started thinking of ending things just to avoid the terrible fate awaiting me, should I continue on the path of life towards the inevitable crumbling of my body and dissembling of my mind. Youth is all that matters to Charlie Kaufman, and I assume to the author of the book of the same title from which this film was adapted.

If you enjoyed The Shining you will love this movie, although there's no charming Jack Nicholson to entertain you. Instead Jake is played by Jesse Plemons, a boring, annoying and unattractive actor who obviously was cast to play the boring, annoying and unattractive loser who looks half-asleep for most of the two hours and 14 minutes (but who's counting.)  On the bright side, the young woman (Jessie Buckley), whose name (as well as her wardrobe) keeps changing during the course of this weird evening, is a fabulous, adorable, fun-to-watch Irish actress who gives an Oscar-worthy performance you might want to see twice. I loved her!

Town Without Pity

My husband and I have lived in our little town of South Freeport, Maine for almost a dozen years. When we arrived in March of 2009 there was no mailbox at our property, and the ground was frozen under two feet of snow. Like the home's former residents, we opted to get a box at the post office half a mile away and install a proper mailbox come spring. But we liked picking up the mail every day, and even though it carried a fee, we chose to continue doing so.

Since then we have paid our box fees religiously. I have also participated in the annual tradition of neighbors supplying home-baked goodies for postal patrons every day from the tenth of December until Christmas, and occasionally throughout the year when the spirit moves me. Over time I became friends with a succession of postmasters and postmistresses, and happily gave them each a tip --sometimes cash, sometimes an actual gift -- at the holiday season.

So it was with shock and dismay that, returning from a week away, we went to get our mail and were told that our box was closed as of September 1. Any mail that arrived for us since then was sent back, marked "Return to Sender." Why? Because in my haste to get out of town, I forgot to pay the renewal fee for our post office box. That's it. No grace period. Over and out.

I think that's mean and nasty, and not in the spirit of small-town living. No other business I can think of would do such a thing. And aren't we all supposed to be trying to keep the bumbling USPS operating? We paid up and got another box, but this December I may be putting lumps of coal in that cookie tin I bring to the post office.   

Trashing Nancy

About that supposedly "set-up" hair appointment at a salon: Is she that dumb? And by the way, what about all the Botox injections? And eyebrow waxings? And manicures? Do we think Nancy is doing all that by herself? And while I'm trashing her, those face masks she wears that match every one of her designer outfits are simply sickening, not only insulting to all average Americans but a revolting example of her richer-than-God status. Imagine what it costs for her to have them made.

Damn That Donald Trump!

Here's a mask I could get behind.

My husband keeps wondering aloud why the U.S. has more deaths from Covid-19 than any other country, per capita. I think I found out why this week while visiting Bar Harbor, Maine. Although Maine has not had the lion's share of the disease, being at the very bottom of the list of cases and deaths, still there's something to be learned about human nature in this vacation town.

For starters, the wearing of masks, which are available in town via big dispensers on the street corners that say "FREE MASKS," and promoted with signs in every shop and restaurant in town, does not seem to have caught on with the general public. Or else they just don't get the whole thing. Many people pass by you well within 6 feet without a mask on, although they usually are carrying one and either wave it at you or rush to put it on after they have passed by, as if to say, "See, I do have one, I do care." (Just not about me, I guess.)

Meanwhile, out on the wild trails of Acadia National Park, anything goes. About half the hikers are masked, while the other half are bare-faced. (My husband says it's more like two-thirds, one-third, but he's always been a glass-is-half-full type.) By the end of my second day here I had slid into maskless territory, thinking, "Hey, why bother?" As for all the hand-washing and sanitizing that marked the early days of the pandemic, those too have apparently gone by the wayside, at least based on what I have seen in public restrooms. In our hotel room there is a big bottle marked "Room Sanitizer." I used it this morning, spraying all the surfaces, and feel much better about myself.

In conclusion, I guess all the deaths are Donald Trump's fault. Isn't everything?