Sooner Than You Think: A Prophetic Guide to the End Times (NOT by Sid Roth, though)

I am adjusting to my temporary surroundings at least to a degree. My room is still too small and in too remote a location, but there is a cute little restaurant attached to the hotel, open from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., that serves sandwiches on deliciously fresh made-down-the-block sourdough bread and brioche.  The restaurant is basically a crab restaurant, and I would not eat crab unless it was the only option other than Tamsen Donner steak. (That would make crab not technically on my Donner Party List, as only those food items I would reject in favor of death or the consumption of human flesh can be considered to be on the list. Crab is merely a close second to items actually on the list.) I had a most tasty grilled tomato and cheese sandwich on sourdough from the crab restaurant for lunch. (It sounds gross, but the tomato slices were incredibly thin, and the sandwich was actually quite good.) I told the waiter I was allergic to crab, which is a total lie, to ensure that no one would sneak any crab into my sandwich. There's also a very nice bakery, on the same block and same side of the street as the hotel, that serves both baked goods (Duh!) and breakfast and lunch fare. I'll grab something there for lunch tomorrow. 

I have my phone back. The valets are not low-life thieves. My faith in humanity, Donald Trump excluded, has been restored.  Then again, perhaps Trump is sub-human and therefore needs no exclusion.

Speaking of Trump, I watched Tom Arnold's suprisingly lucid appearance on AC360. I had mistakenly believed  that he is an idiot. He had interesting insight concerning the relationship between his ex-wife Roseanne and Donald Trump; he attributed her downfall in part to her having bought hook, line, and sinker into Trump's bizarre conspiracy theories He also said Trump has spoken quite disparagingly of her in the past and was feigning affinity with her solely as an opportunistic measure.  I can believe that. 

I was texting a relative today, and I mentioned in the text that most of the people who work at this hotel bear uncanny resemblances to one or another of the Kardashians or their hangers-on. I left the h out of Kardashian. My freaking phone offered an automatic correction for Kardashian. Can you fucking believe it?  My phone doesn't even recognize the alternate spelling of theatre for theater, yet it apparently knows who the Kardashians are and how their surname is spelled. If we previously lacked evidence that the world is circling the drain of the universe (though I couldn't say as to whether if it is circling in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction), we now have all the evidence we need in the knowledge that my phone's text-messaging apparatus apparently knows who the Kardashians are. 

Earning Money So That I Can Almost Immediately Spend It

I'm not as bad as this guy, but I am suffering mild withdrawal symptoms.

I finished a week of filling in for a calculus teacher in a high school.  In order to be able to pay anyone who was capable of teaching calculus enough to entice the person to take the brief job, I had to be designated as a consultant rather than as a substitute teacher. I was initially a bit intimidated regarding spending a full week teaching high school students, but they wanted to score well on the final exam. They were not out to harass me. 

In just a few days I shall take what I would consider to be a major vacation. I'll be gone for roughly two weeks. I will talk about it after I return.

At the moment I am at a rather swanky "boutique" hotel, though the particular room I was given is less impressive than a room at the local Holiday Inn would have been. The university at which my mom is teaching is hosting numerous students from a university in St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida). A few faculty members including my mom are hosting the overflow of students. The dorms could accommodate only so many. My bedroom is being occupied by someone else.  No one told me until after I drove here.  My dad went on Hotwire and got a room here for me. He took one of those  "Secret Deals." Next time I shall book my own hotel room.

I would take a picture of the hotel room to underscore just how unimpressive it is except that I mistakenly left my phone in the car.  I'm too cheap to tip a valet to retrieve it for me in the valet-only parking garage but not quite crass enough to ask someone to get it  for me without tipping. I'll have to get through the night without it. (I hope the valet didn't have figuratively sticky fingers.) I'm not nearly so attached to my phone as are many of my contemporaries, but still I feel a bit lost without it.  

I will survive.

St. Petersburg

The Hypotheses of Life

I watched several episodes of The Facts of Life this evening.  I'm certain that anyone reading this is seriously impressed by the cerebral TV fare with which I amuse myself.  Beginning in July, I will have little to no time for frivolity. I'm making up for it now with a vengeance.

A question arose concerning the character "Blair Warner," played by Lisa Whelchel.  I get that the character is totally vain. Are we, the viewers,  however, supposed to consider her to be a total bombshell, or is the joke supposed to be on her in that regard?

Also, I'm curious about her hair coloring. In most episodes, her roots were conspicuously darker than the rest of her hair.  It didn't look like a weave. Instead, it appeared to be a grossly overdue touch-up. The character was quite wealthy. She presumably could afford a hair-coloring job whenever she needed or wanted one. Was sporting noticeably dark roots considered fashionable during the time interval (very late 70's through most of the 80's) in which this show experienced its original run? 

I'm not meaning to take shots at Lisa Whelchel with either question. The scheduling and manner of her hair coloring treatments while on the show was presumably not her personal prerogative. Furthermore,  I understand that she took a bit of abuse from the show's production staff over her very normal late-adolescent weight gain.  It happens with a whole lot of girls. If TV production staffs cannot accept it, perhaps they shouldn't work with adolescent females. I certainly have no desire to add to Lisa Whelchel's grief even decades after the fact. I'm asking both questions in all sincerity.

Please respond if you have answers to either or both of my questions.

The Repugnant Donald Trump

the famous Trump pout

I am most un-fond of the political posts of others, yet I am exercising my first amendment right to post one of my own. In a way, though, the nature of the post isn't especially political.  My utter disgust for Donald Trump is every bit as much personal as it is political, if not more so.  Virtually nothing about the man is acceptable to me.  I grasp the concept that I have no say whatsoever in determining the worthiness of anyone to walk upon the Earth and to breathe the same atmospheric air as the rest of us, but I don't have to like it. With each succeeding item or anecdote I read about him, I am less amenable to the idea that Donald Trump is entitled to a place on this planet or even in this universe. My utter abhorrence for him is such that it cannot be characterized in a single blog entry. I could type all night and still not convey the essence of my feelings about this most deplorable individual a substantial minority of the voters in our nation saw fit to place in the role of chief executive of the United States of America.

I recognize that not every vote cast in favor of Trump was, in actuality, a vote for Donald Trump.  Hillary Clinton was, to some voters, every bit as deplorable a candidate for our nation's highest office as Trump was to me. At the same time, I cannot comprehend how anything short of, for the sake of argument,  gassing  six million Jews or perhaps having every child under the age of two slaughtered, could render Clinton less fit for the presidency than is the barely human creature who poked fun at individuals with disabilities or makes references to a female TV journalist with ". . . blood coming out of her whatever . . ."

I'm unsure as to the feelings of others in this regard, but to an extent I don't have a great deal of concern what the U.S. president does in his or her private life. If the person is molesting children or doing something similarly nefarious, I could not condone having the person serving as president, but regarding a whole lot of other behavior, I'm not tremendously concerned. I am concerned, however, about what the person says in his or her official capacity. 

We knew who this idiot was before the election.  It's not as though he lived his life in anonymity until campaigning for the presidency, and then we were hit with who he really is after the election. We've known all along, yet enough fools voted for him anyway to give him in excess of the minimum of two-hundred-seventy electoral votes. 


I'm also cognizant of the premise that Vice-President Pence's political stance is possibly to the right of that of the late Barry Goldwater, but I'm willing to deal with the fallout from having Pence elevated to the presidency. If a decent percentage of the eligible voters goes to the polls in the midterm election and votes wisely, Pence could be stripped of much of his power.  Yes, I'm concerned about the fitness [for the presidency] of anyone who would agree to appear on a presidential ticket with Trump, but it's highly unlikely that Pence could be quite so purely evil as is Trump himself..

Trump has boasted, when he was in second grade,  having punched a music teacher in his school and having blackened the man's eye. No one else who would have been present when this alleged assault happened seems to remember it having happened; the account is almost surely a lie. Still, it speaks of Trump's long-standing disrespect both for teachers and for lawful conduct. We already knew that Trump had low regard for teachers, having described them in a deposition as being "very stupid."

I take offense to Trump's statement that teachers are stupid. My mother was a public school teacher for two years while she was in the process of completing her graduate education.  I know what her IQ is. I do not know what Trump's IQ is, but I would wager that my mother's IQ is 1.5 times higher than is his at the bare minimum.  If teachers in general are stupid, as Mr. Trump has asserted, he is, himself, far more lacking in intelligence.

In addition to what I allege is Trump's deplorable lack of intelligence, he is overwhelmingly morally bankrupt. He quite possibly has major sanity challenges as well. Please, get this cretin out of the White House and out of our lives ASAP. 

I don't have photographers following me everywhere and capturing my every expression, but one would assume Trump has to be accustomed to being photographed on a regular basis by now. He frequently has this expression on his face in photographs. I found dozens of shots with his mouth in this formation from which to choose. Does he know that this look is not attractive? (If not, someone please advise him of it.) Why does he not look in the mirror as he makes this pout-like formation of his lips, then make a mental not of what it feels like as he makes this expression, then avoid making this face?  

In all seriousness, Trump's appearance should be the very least of any of our concerns, yet still, this obnoxious pout-like mannerism is most vexing to me.