Friday, October 9
To my way of thinking, if Trump is going to kill off all further stimulus money and overthrow Obamacare with its protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions, then he should be required to adopt an accent like that of the villainous Boris Badenov of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.
I mean, Melania already sounds a good bit like Boris’s co-conspirator Natasha. Every so often Melania could chime in with: “Boris—I mean Donald—you are so evil!”
Meanwhile, Bill Barr could announce: “Moose and Squirrel—I mean Biden and Harris—must die!”
Wouldn’t that clarify everything for any remaining undecided voters?
It complicates things a bit that Boris, or Donald, is also playing the part of the duo’s much-referenced Fearless Leader. But things were already complicated thanks to the existence of Trump runnin’ buddies Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, who also play Fearless Leaders. Then there are Jair Bolsanario of Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Viktor Orban of Hungary, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey. Maybe the world can’t have too many Fearless Leaders.
At our house, the strongmen tend to be mechanical. The dictatorial thermostat was overthrown yesterday when it failed to impose order on the furnace; a new fearless thermostat had to be placed in power. Afterwards, Emily and I celebrated by taking our absentee ballots to the post office, getting ice cream, and sitting outside at the admirable but mysteriously now-overgrown Pussy’s Pond, across the street from the legendary Springs General Store. (The Pussy in question has nothing to do with Goldfinger, Billy Bush, or Access Hollywood, I believe, and is simply a name given in a more innocent time, when pussy willows were in bloom.)
Trump says Kamala Harris is a Communist. Yet for some months, one Twitter meme has proclaimed that “Kamala Harris is a cop.” There are, perhaps, Communist cops, although we didn’t see any at all while we were in Cuba a couple of years back. Communist cops perhaps tend to keep a lower profile than candidates for the U.S. vice-presidency. So maybe Trump is wrong…although I wouldn’t want to make any hasty judgments.
“I’m a senior,” Boris/Donald confided in a video yesterday. “I know you don’t know that. Nobody knows that.” I mean, who would have guessed?
Looney, too, is the group that planned to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The 13-member strong Wolverine Watchmen had summertime weapons-training sessions and occasional meetings in a shop basement that was accessible only via a trap door concealed beneath a rug. They spied on Whitmer’s vacation home, planned to buy explosives, and hoped to spark a civil war. “I just wanna make the world glow dude,” exclaimed one member of the apparently less-than-shadowy conspiracy.
This afternoon I have conspired to make a pie crust that will house a quiche for tonight’s dinner. I used to make pie crust all the time with no problem, but in recent years I have lost the knack. Today’s went O.K., although rolling it out required lots of huffing and puffing. I have also been planning dinners for the next dozen days, so we can figure out what must go on the list for Peapod, whose next delivery is scheduled for October 20. The most challenging innovation in days to come will be ropa vieja—a Latin beef dish that I’ll put together after the Peapod delivery.
So, tonight’s dinner: quiche aux lardons and a lettuce and avocado salad.
Entertainment: More episodes of Better Call Saul, Borgen, and All Creatures Great and Small.
