Another Lifetime to go

7th November 2024

There are many upset people in America. There are many angry democrats in America and that was to be expected.

With a divided country the losers are taking things badly.

What is concerning is how uneducated they are. They have blindly followed the talking points of the media without question. It is somewhat embarrassing to hear them cry that their lives are in ruins, that their reproductive rights are at risk and the country will become a fascist dictatorship.

Tick-tock is full of young girls crying, threatening to cut their hair and not have sex with men in protest of having their women’s rights threatened. This is totally wrong, but families have been divided as a result.

I found this difficult to believe until recently, when it happened very close to home.

Yesterday Kelli received an Instagram post from her daughter informing that she no longer wants anything to do with her family. Through her tears, Kelli read it to me a couple of times before it became clear. 

Because of politics, because of the bias spread by the networks, because of the misinformation that has been fed to the “sheep”, our family has been affected.

There is generation damage thats happened, nobody questions things anymore, they believe that if a celebrity endorses a politician, and they are fans of this celebrity, they must follow.

What will happen to our family? Time will tell.

I met up with Lloyd for our beer tasting session, it was a pleasant relief from all the election stuff.

It had been six weeks since we last met, so it was great to start that up again.

Lloyd is not the healthiest person, his health had been damaged by long exposure to agent orange during the Vietnam war. This has weakened his heart, limiting his ability to walk distances, he gets compensated by the government, but that is small in comparison to a ruined life he has live.

As the light was failing we managed to get pictures of the dresser and two side tables that Kelli had been working on.

6th November 2024

It was a long night, it was compelling viewing, and we finally got to sleep around two.

We already knew that Trump had won a landslide victory, even though some of the swing states had not called the result.

Although not a Trump fan, I could see that the American people wanted to stick the finger at the corruption and criminality of the current administration. Even the Amish communities in Pennsylvania came out to vote for the first time.

The Democrats held on to the abortion issues, like they have done for ever, the people care more for the price for food, gas and housing.

There were many strong people behind Trump who will help start the long road to healthier food, less pesticides and multi processed foods.

People’s health, or lack of it, is the reasons for major organ failures and early death. 

I hope that the truth about the Covid vaccine will come out and make the pharmaceutical industry accountable for the rising death rate.

Hopefully it will also end support for the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate Agreement, all of which do not have anything to do with what their titles imply.

Yes there is a lot for the new administration to do, the people have given permission to start rebuilding trust,  and who knows the rest of the world might benefit.

I had two cubic yards of top soil dumped on the driveway, it certainly looked more than that as it dropped from the lorry.

I knew the driver was a republican because he didn’t dump the load over Kelli’s Trump sign.

I had to move some of it because it was blocking in our vehicle.

Now there is a large black mound on our driveway.

I had a plan to start moving the dirt to the new bed, but I had to loosen the soil in the old bed area before I could add the new.

Boy, that was hard work, the area was a mass of roots from times gone by. It took me more time than I thought, and I was so wrapped up in it I didn’t notice that it started to rain. I stuck to the task, and removed a lot of debris getting it ready for the new dirt to be added, but as I was now soaking wet, I called it a day.

5th November 2024

Well today is what the USA have been waiting for, my dental appointment!

It was also voting day, but my news was far more interesting.

I gave myself plenty of time to get to the surgery, but the my route was blocked by a bloody train.

This took over ten minutes to pass, it was painful. When it finally cleared the crossing, I was hit by every red light for the rest of the journey. Fortunately I ended up only four minutes late, I hate being late, but it was unavoidable.

I had a good treatment session, not much discomfort and I was out in under an hour.

Kelli also had a doctors appointment so off we went to that event as well.

She had a good check over herself, so to celebrate we visited the Goodwill store in Zeeland. Apart from the clothes that she found, that will undoubtedly be returned, we found a dresser. 

There is a policy that the staff will not help you load the item into the vehicle which was just as well as we had all of Lloyd and Nancy’s kitchen doors in the back. After careful rearranging them we both managed to load the dresser into our truck.

We then headed home, I had a craving for a chicken sandwich, and boy did it taste good.

Then we spent time in the garage, Kelli was desperately looking for some handles that she was positive she knew where they were. She didn’t find them.

By now it was getting dark, our dinner was Tilapia and a salad, delicious.

We watched a bit of television before checking out how the election was playing out.

This was compelling stuff, Kelli was whooping and cheering as the different states were announced, it was going to be a long night.

4th November 2024

We delivered the repainted dining chairs to Lloyd and Nancy, then I proceeded to remove all the kitchen unit doors. We had stopped off at the paint store to select a range of colours that Nancy suggested. The number of potential options was vast, but we weeded them down to about a dozen. The decision process was simple, “I like that one”.

I loaded the doors into the truck, and then headed off to the landscaping place to order more dirt, hopefully that should be enough to finish the new bed.

Then it was back to scraping paint of the bookcase.

This was not the simple job I thought it would be. Kelli painted another dresser and two side tables.

The early dark evening hit us, that extra hour of day light made a big difference, now I have to stop at five thirty, not that I will complain, but once I get into a groove I like to finish stuff.

It is the eve of the big election, there is a feeling of urgency on the alternative media, almost desperation, I have warned Kelli not to get so wrapped up in the frenzy like she did last time.

I have watched a number of popular podcasts that last few weeks, these have identified politicians who should be turfed out, bloody useless time wasters, others have shown potential to be a future presidents. It is fascinating, I don’t think anyone will be getting much sleep over the next two days.

3rd November 2024

The clocks fell back last night, so five hours time difference with the UK is back.

Now there is the slow journey to darkness till the end of the year.

Changing the clocks confuses everyone, remembering to adjust the manual devices, and any not connected to the internet.

Usually the ones in the cars stay the same all year round, I know that one, I’ve done it.

The most confused are the dogs who still expect to be fed at the same time they don’t understand about clock movements.

Personally I look forward to being lazy for an extra hour, what I don’t miss is driving to work in the dark and driving home in the dark.

I had to drive to Menards straight after breakfast to get some supplies for the work coming up, of course I had to get bird seed as well, because we have to keep our feathered friends fed even though there are plenty of seed on all the grasses and dead flowers in the garden.

I remembered that I had to take out a bookcase that has been travelling around with us in the back of the truck. We had picked it up from our friends Lloyd and Nancy who wanted it stripped, but only the top layer as they liked the original colour underneath.

Fortunately the top finish did scrape off easily, mainly because there was no undercoat. This will be a quick but messy job.

2nd November 2024

I was determined to finish the landscaping project today, and fill up the new bedding area with the bags of dirt so Kelli could transplant some dead looking flowering shrubs.

I must have emptied eighteen bags of dirt in that area and it hardly made a dent. I may have miscalculated the height of the new wall when I levelled it up to the existing berm wall. Now I am faced with having to order four times as much dirt as I originally thought. However it will look great once that’s done.

It was one of those days that was nondescript, it was cold first thing but got warmer. The coat that I was wearing suddenly was too warm, but I couldn’t take it off because the fleece shirt was a bit damp from my perspiration so I might have got a chill taking the coat off. You see that’s the kind of dilemma I face on a day to day basis, that is choosing the clothing to wear on any given day. Even Kelli who should be an expert on Michigan weather often gets caught out, so what chance do I stand.

The volume of political advertising is unbearable, anything that we watch or listen to on YouTube has an ad every five minutes. There can’t be anyone in the whole of the USA that hadn’t made a choice for next Tuesday.

The winner will either continue to censor the media, let more illegals into the country, support the conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East. 

Or, dismantle the out of control corruption in the establishment, close the southern border and deport all the undesirables, stop China flooding the market with cheap electric vehicles that will devastate the American motor industry.

The choice is that simple.

Halloween was not as successful as we thought, of all the sweets we set out for the children to grab, we had loads left. Now we are tempted all day to devour them ourselves, and we don’t feel good about it either.

1st November 2024

It was back to the range for more target practice.

This time we did a bit more tactical shooting, where we had four targets each. The first target was to check the grouping and the others were to represent moving targets.

Well this did not go so well as we thought, although the grouping was acceptable there was too much variation on the other three targets.

I think this level of target variation is important, but it will require much more work to be effective, but that’s what practice is about.

It was good that we were the only ones on the range, good that we were able to shoot on the best one, but also there wasn’t the distraction of other noises about.

Once we were back, Kelli was working on repainting four dining chairs whilst I did a bit of work on the wall and then mulched a pile of leaves

31st October 2024

The wind was blowing wild today. A mass of leaves had nestled against the front door. I have watched as the shape of the house and the wall creates a vacuum that sucks all the debris into that area. I collected everything up and placed it in our yard work bin, and I know the same amount will be there tomorrow.

That is the autumn ritual of clearing leaves one day and the next they’re in Larry’s yard, he then sweeps them up, piles them up on the side of the road, they then blow back. It’s a futile attempt to control nature but we do it anyway.

This was the day when we could get things done, there was nothing on our agenda, until Kelli announced that we had to deliver the entertainment unit to Lloyd and Nancy. This was the first time I have been to their new home, and the place was in a state of chaos. The garage was filled with boxes, and the living room was awaiting a couch and side chair, that will start to make the place more homely.

Whilst I was there I checked out their kitchen that they want repainting. This will be a good job, maybe two weeks work that will generate a decent cash injection.

30th October Wednesday

Quite a different sort of day from yesterday, our weekly shop, and a collection of a headboard from way out in the wilds.

We did our usual shopping run, we had scraped together enough scraps from the fridge for breakfast, now we could feast like kings.

We also had a meeting with Stacy our internal designer about blinds for the windows. It is true that we do take our time making these decisions, and I’m not sure why. We have been talking about them for about a year, and I finally wanted to order them, but suddenly Kelli wasn’t sure about our choice. The only option was to take back the catalog and double check which one we wanted, hopefully we can do that and place the order tomorrow.

Then it was back to wall building. The problem that faced was the mass of leaves that had fallen over the past twenty four hours. All those had to be cleared before I could continue.

29th October 2024

I took another step into the surreal world of American politics today by attending my first political rally.

The running mate to Trump, JD Vance was speaking in Holland so Kelli quickly signed up to attend. I thought it would be an interesting experience so I happily went along to see what it was all about.

The venue was a newly completed warehouse outside of town. We made our way there and followed the signs to the car park. All around us were construction machines resembling prehistoric creatures. That is when we saw the line of people snaking around various parked cars. We joined at the back, moving very slowly. Queuing maybe an acceptable English thing, but over the last couple of days I had my fair share.

There were the large muscular bearded, tattooed beasts, and the men were just as grotesque.

There were the young and old, the fit and not so fit, and then there was me, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Kelli wanted a new cap which then meant I had to wear her old one. Now I was one of them.

The line snaked around, all heading for the entrance. From the outside, the building looked big, there were eight loading bay doors, so very impressive. 

As we got closer we had to pass the security area where everything was inspected, I had new underwear on as a precaution, but I got away without the close inspection.

Then it was in through a large doorway to be met with a wall that divided the building in half, “What! “ I said, “We’ve waited all this time to arrive at a brick wall?” I was not impressed.

Gradually we eased forward, like water drawn to the plug hole, then magically there was space inside that we immediately filled. It was then that we noticed the temperature inside. It was not a cold day, in fact it was mild, and I was glad I didn’t put on the hoodie I was considering.

There were small fans in the ceiling that did very little but move the warm air around. We stood for over an hour before someone had the bright idea to open the loading bay doors a little. The first one they tried failed to open because the control wire snapped much to the amusement of the crowd. The others were more successful, giving a little relief. Kelli, her face red, was busy fanning herself with a fruit jerky pack.

Finally, the man came on to a rousing welcome from the crowd, as one would expect from a loyal following. Unfortunately where we were standing, we couldn’t see him at the podium because of a stack of speakers in front of us. I could see something if I looked through a small gap, but generally I was listening to the speech.

I quite like JD Vance, I have watched many interviews with biased media where he has ripped into their predictable questioning, and emerged as the stronger voice.

His speech has been polished after many similar events, he knows how to encourage the crowd, he knows when to raise his voice to get the applause, it’s all a lesson in public speaking. But like all campaigns they attack each other for not answering the real questions, but actually avoid to answer the questions themselves.

 No one has given a precise answer to the question “How are you going to lower the price of groceries?” They all talk around the subject but don’t even tackle a small part of it.

There are questions from the media, but they are just as incepted are media questions are. The only question that got any reaction from the faithful was when a young girl journalist asked about transgender treatment for young children without parental consent. The crowd went wild, cheering, standing waving their arms about, I bet she wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction.

Then the event drew to a close, JD walked off probably into an awaiting car to take him to Grand Rapids for, I guess, a repeat of the same.

Now it was a race to the exit, more swirling, this was like heading for the light and the air, and it felt good.

I had survived my first political event, and as the red wave dispersed, there was a feeling of excitement that a person of this standing had come to little old Holland to encourage everyone to vote.

This election is probably the most important one in the last thirty years, so votes will count.

Exhausted, we drove home, we had a customer arriving soon to collect a dresser and side table, we had to stay vertical a bit longer.