Hello Everyone! Another week has come and gone and January is moving right along here at home in Washington. We’ve had some warm and sunny days this week and trees are starting to bud and some plants are waking from their winter slumber. Mason and I continue our daily adventures around Glover Park, and my mom and I took a nice long trip out to western Virginia over the weekend. And, of course, the United States has entered a new presidential era. While all of these things have been great, and certainly good distraction, I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten the reason why I am here, which continues to worsen by the day.
It was a year ago now that the first documented cases of Covid19 showed up in the United States. This coming week the death toll here will surpass the total number of Americans who died during World War II. In other comparisons as far as American deaths go, we are now suffering one September 11th every 18 hours and one D-Day every 30 hours. I can’t get my vaccine fast enough and hope my folks can get theirs before the end of the month. That would certainly be a step in the right direction. I’m also hoping the incoming administration will take the whole thing a lot more seriously. Had now former-President Trump taken it a little more seriously, I believe he would have won this election in a landslide. We’ve tried things his way for long enough and clearly whatever their plan or lack thereof is failing and I’m grateful we’ll be heading in a different direction.
Congratulations to now-President Joe Biden and our first female Vice President Kamala Harris. I’m certainly wishing them the best of luck in the days and years to come. This is not a partisan statement; I think we should all have that sentiment as a new presidential administration begins. If you wish failure on someone entering those positions, I would sincerely question your patriotism. I felt the same four years ago when Donald Trump took his oath of office. Knowing of his almost absolute lack of experience in government, I was hoping he would do what I would do in a similar situation – surround himself with the best and brightest to move the country forward and make him look good. Especially as an outsider, I would have sought out the most qualified people in the country regardless of political affiliation and brought them on board to help “drain the swamp” and do remarkable things. Instead he surrounded himself with people he believed would be loyal regardless of their backgrounds and dug deeper in the mud. Many of the issues which are important to me, like the environment and public education, took some pretty serious hits over the last four years. Outside of his policy decisions, he brought almost constant negativity and division and that’s from his own Twitter feed, not from the press. I’m really hoping that Biden can make some real progress over the next four years. As a country, we are definitely better together than we are apart.
I’ve become fearful of the division I’ve seen in this country over the last few years, and especially over the last 12 months. While I have traveled all over this country and met wonderful people who lean right and wonderful people who lean left, many of whom usually make their decisions based on specific issues that are important to them, we’ve all allowed the small but extreme fringes to take over our newsfeeds and drive us apart. It’s almost like we’ve chosen our team and we want the other side to lose so badly that we’ll believe anything about them without checking the source or applying our critical thinking skills. Case in point for me is this whacky Q-anon nonsense which hits particularly close to home since Comet Ping-Pong, ground-zero of the Pizza-gate scandal, is a block from my house. This week protestors were there once again in the belief that a child sex ring is being run out of their (non-existent) basement by the Clintons and other prominent Democrats. A few years ago a man walked in with a gun and shot the place up over this completely ridiculous idea and just last year another man walked in and set the place on fire. Child trafficking is real and one of the worst things we can imagine, but these people are wasting their time and energy on a neighborhood pizza joint because some idiot on the internet told them it was happening there and they want so desperately to believe it because their team can’t be wrong. Instead of checking with the police, child protective services or any number of other organizations which are actively seeking out actual crimes, they want to bust in like superman and shoot up the place with visions of grandeur in their heads. Somehow we have to take the megaphones away from those intent on pushing these ridiculous conspiracies and we absolutely can’t give them a seat at the table. Yes, it’s been a political week here in Washington, and I apologize for going on about it but this is what’s on my mind and in my neighborhood.
Meanwhile in Glover Park, Mason is doing great. We continue to build things with his construction set, wander the neighborhood in search of mushrooms and berries, and have long discussions with all of the stone lawn ornament animals we come across. We talk and laugh and both of us learn new things every day. A couple of times this week he has hopped up on a bench somewhere and patted the spot next to him for me to sit and we’ve just sat there sipping water and watching the world go by. It’s pretty great actually. He and I did watch the inauguration today with his mom, and I’m glad he got to see our first female Vice President inaugurated even if he won’t remember it.
Shadow Catcher is back out of the shop. The mechanics took a long hard look at the issues we’ve been having and finally determined that the compression is too low in several of the cylinders and the engine is going to need to be replaced. Thankfully we also agreed that there isn’t much need to do it now, since it still runs pretty well and we’re not having any major issues. They recommended some products to increase the viscosity of the oil (and therefor the compression) and said I will hopefully get another year or even two out of the engine. That will give me time to think and save and be ready for it when it happens. She drove well on the way home and I’m grateful to have her back.
On Friday night my folks and I retreated to the basement for some beers, games, food and fun and, as always, banned discussion of the pandemic and politics. This week we travelled to Belgium with Belgian beers, mussels and fries and some great Belgian jazz from the 30s and 40s. We also tapped our latest homebrew, a holiday ale, which had a nice taste but has not carbonated properly. Hopefully another week or two will correct that. This was my first attempt at cooking mussels, and it was interesting – not perfect, but not a disaster either. I cooked them in white wine, bacon, shallots and blue cheese, so the broth was definitely a winner.
Saturday my mom and I tried to escape the city for the day. We packed up the car and a picnic lunch and headed out to the Shenandoah Mountains. It wasn’t the beautiful sunny day we had hoped for, but we decided to give it a whirl. My hope was to drive a ways down Skyline Drive, but sadly this scenic park road was closed due to winter conditions after Mile 5, so we only got to dip into the park. We took the east-side valley road instead and enjoyed some rural scenery with a stop in Little Washington to look at some beautiful old houses there. Culpeper gave us a nice dose of a small-town Main Street, which was a welcome change for sure, and we even got a little shot of history in tiny Brandy Station, where the Confederate march towards Gettysburg began. We were gone most of the day and got home after dark and it was nice to get out of town for a while.
My Sunday was relatively quiet as I tried to clean and organize a few things around the house and just take it easy for a while. In the afternoon we got together and cooked up a delicious haddock courtbouillon and some smothered cabbage. It was a wonderful winter meal and came out really well. My mom had made some delicious egg custards for dessert and it was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
The rest of the week has been spent in preparation for the inauguration. The city has been shut down in many ways, so we’ve mostly just been hanging out at home. I’ve been enjoying learning some Irish fiddle tunes, and I’ve been playing some great jigs. I’m still just getting started with them, but I’ve been having fun with it. I’ve also started watching a new old season of The Amazing Race which always makes me happy. I’ve been trying to get my exercise in and not get too overwhelmed with the problems of the world. I’ve also started looking ahead towards Michigan, which I hope will be my next state starting sometime this summer. It’s been really nice to just look at pretty towns and lighthouses that I want to visit when I can get back to normal.
Tonight we’re going to watch Wag the Dog for our Wednesday Dinner and a Movie Night. It seems pretty appropriate for the day. The rest of this week should be pretty relaxed with no real plans on the calendar. I’ve had a lot of little things pile up over the last few weeks, and I’m going to try and sort some of them out in the days to come. Beyond that, I’m going to try and enjoy the good weather we’re having, keep playing my fiddle and keep looking towards the horizon knowing that sometime this year I’ll be heading for it. I hope y’all are doing well out there, staying warm and staying safe. Have a wonderful week and I’ll see you right back here next week.
-Mike