Puzzling into the new year.
My fingers have taken a long rest as I reorient myself to the looming nightmare of our worst president; our worst world leader, the vile religion corrupting, draft dodging, lynch party leading, rapist, cheat, liar Donald Crapfaced Trump. I expect that dubious middle name will give me legal immunity not that I need it with Trump’s henchmen doing their best to rid the internet of troublesome fact checking.
I’ve had several months to stew over my role in saving Earth from Trump, who is currently gloating over the fires in California. While campaigning for the Presidency he threatened to deny Californians water for fire fighting.
But first let me set the stage for this possible return to more regular blogging.
Claudia and I had not planned to decorate for a Christmas as we didn’t expect to be in Duluth. When our second granddaughter arrived a little early on Dec. 5th our two weeks of helping out allow an early return to Duluth. We put up the bare minimum of decorations on our secondary plastic tree. I’d done some Santa advising in a quirky Aurora, Colorado mall, The Stanley, which made some stocking stuffing possible. I hadn’t planned on my usual jigsaw spree even though we had bought some puzzles on our recent travels. I was just going to put one together but now as of this morning its two and will soon be three.
I have discovered that putting jigsaws together is a good way to listen to French radio broadcasts by earphone. I also began listening to an audible book that was free not knowing that a cowboy themed novela was in fact softcore listening. Soutien Gorge is bra in French. I am about to drastically reduce my Duolingo French after seven years because I’ve gotten to the end of the French course. I’m now working on my listening and pronunciation.
I can juggle the equivalent of three balls in French but I can juggle the equivalent of five balls in my native English. I won’t be satisfied until I can juggle four in French.
I wrote one column for the Reader after a recent trip to Trump voting Tennessee. I was chastened after the results of the Presidential election and it was a sort of peace offering. It was not, however, a throwing in of the towel. The soul of America still needs to be defended. I’ve got my work cut out for me. Trump is rich in lackies like Pete Stauber. Pete has been hinting that he’d like to be the governor of Minnesota. Over my dead body will be my credo as he head into 2026.
I’m still full of piss and vinegar. I think I have a 22nd campaign in me. I got an invite from West Duluth to build a snow sculpture on Valentines day. I am still thinking about accepting. I have more writing to get out of my system and I’ve been doing some serious reading which I will continue. Among the first books of the years I hope to finish is a book I started about three years ago. Its titled Driven Out. A harbinger of Trump its about the removal of Chinese citizens back when my Grandfather was a kid. Its one of an eclectic series of books I’ve read about China. Tic Toc, Tic Toc. As Trump rethinks his threats that nation will be trying to out FOX Donald Trump.
I’ve also ordered the book The Chinese Typewriter which should show up by the end of the week. A short review of the book piqued my interest further because it mentioned a writer whose peculiar 1947 book “the Gay Genius” I bought second hand possibly at the infamous bookstore the Last Place on Earth before its owner, Jim Carlson, was sentenced to a prison term that the opiate killing billionaires the Sacklers should have served.
I just set in my laundered whites before I fold them. Author Lin Yutang’s wrote this biography of a Chinese Poet who was sentenced to live out his life on the prison island of Hainan several centuries ago. The “Genius” was not gay. That was an innocent word back in 1947 but rather a poet whose poetry threatened the empire. Yutang wrote a lot of books on China in the afterglow of the Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth. According to the person who praised the typewriter book Yutang was the creator of a functional typewriter for a language which has over 10,000 characters compared to our Latin based languages 24 letters. If so China has writer/inventor Yutang to thank for being able to catch up to the west so quickly in our lifetime.