Abandoned, Again

Solo For A Week

My women have abandoned me again, one to graduate school and one to a job in the Caribbean, where she is currently being visited by her mother (my inamorata). I am left with our menagerie (two labs and three cats) and the oversight of the property, a property that was subjected to a serious set of storms Thursday night that caused a good bit of damage to the trees in our lane and in the yard. Friday and Saturday have been devoted to cleaning up from the unprovoked attack by mother nature. There are a lot of limbs and branches to pick up, and the pool was pretty much defiled by this vicious natural attack. Because I have some travel coming up myself, I had to cancel on driving down to Charlottesville Saturday for the UVA football game (as it turned out, a genius move). I suspect it would have been unloving of me to leave the detritus of the storm to the lady of the manor for her return.

Miss Moppet looking in on me in my solitude

I was caught unprepared by the storms, lulled into complacency by a week’s worth of hot and dry weather. I paid little attention to the day’s weather reports, and after an early evening meeting I took to the couch for solitary bingeing. The storm came up on us pretty quickly, or at least that’s my story. So quickly that I was unable to get two of the patio umbrellas secured before the carnage, and so they wound up in the pool. I am—in all seriousness—very fortunate they didn’t propel through the big planes of class into Catherine’s office. Seconds after the first (directly overhead, bomb-like) thunder-claps hit, the power went out (2032 hrs), and it would remain so for five hours. That it was returned as quickly as that is a credit to Choptank Electric Cooperative, who have a fantastic outage map that allows one to follow along with repair efforts. At least until one falls asleep.

As soon as the power went out, I started to go over worst case scenarios, pre-planned responses, etc. I really just sorta hoped the power would come back on quickly, but I was in no small degree buoyed by the Sherman’s march-like cleansing I’d done of the refrigerator earlier in the week, destroying all remaining evidence of vegans and their odd product choices. If everything WERE to have to be thrown out, there wasn’t very much left anyway. The freezer—and my freezer in the garage—were different stories. I would have gone and bought ice to save the delicious flesh of beasts of sky, land, and sea upon waking in the morning, but the return of lighting and air conditioning after a few hours was enough to wake me back up. I had gone to sleep on the couch in our bedroom, as the bed itself was still tilted up in reading position from the morning, and without electricity I was unable to flatten it.

To amuse myself in the absence of electricity, I got a forehead hunting light and another volume of E.B. White essays, a paperback purchased earlier this summer by The Kitten (before my switch to Kindle reading). Of note, one of the essays I read was the narrative of a big hurricane that hit Maine—in the 50’s maybe, I can’t recall—and White’s actions during an extended power failure of his own. Another essay—one I highly recommend—was “Death of a Pig”, a wonderful piece about the sadness this pig’s unexpected death—purchased solely to be fattened for slaughter—caused in White’s heart.

I miss my people when they are gone, but not mawkishly. I have always been capable of self-entertaining, and I cannot remember the last time I was bored. Being a slave to routine also helps, as the day—any day really—has its predictable activities that just seem to run together. There are morning ablutions, coffee, dog and cat feeding, and dog walking all to be accomplished before much of anything else occurs, and I can make these activities last a good 90 minutes if I want. Then there is the news of the world to devour, the pursuit of filthy lucre, lunch, more work, a workout, swim, maybe work on my boat-handling, shower, dinner, more work, TV, and reading to be done. And since there is no one to answer to, I can be cozily ensconced in my adjustable bed after the last walk of the day with the night-lighted dogs (steady red for Baloo, everchanging for ZuZu) at say, around 2120 hrs. Day melts into day with little variation, and the variation just makes the whole thing move along even faster. Do I need to go to the Pentagon? Or a client site? Is there some work social function I need to attend? How many Zooms/Teams do I have? You get the picture.

Since January of 2015, I have lost 90 lbs. and gained 81, and am currently toward the higher end of things. I have kept weight data on myself pretty consistently since 1983 when I started college, and upon waking today it seems that I am 8.1 lbs. above my average weight across these forty years. I am become large these last two years, and so have begun another round of low-carb/high fat eating, the approach that has been the heart of the lost 90 across two periods of discipline and consistency. The problem ultimately is that I LOVE breads and cakes and sugar and all that stuff, and so I eventually start working a little of it into the mix at a time until it is the mix again. These habits are responsible for the 80.

I say all this not to invite (inevitable) secrets of diet success from my readers, but to reinforce the advantages of periods of solitary living. I eat what I want when I want. Mostly these days, a meal around 1000 and a meal around 1700. That’s it. The lbs are dropping consistently, and I am in a groove, food-wise. I’ll keep this up through Thanksgiving likely, wind up twenty pounds under my average, and then stay there for a few months. At which point the cycle starts again.

The Presidential Election

I have allowed myself over the years to get carried away when it comes to Presidential elections, and I vow not to do so this year. That I make this choice is aided by the fact that the GOP favorite is an insurrectionist serial liar, and the Democratic favorite is an addled octogenarian who also has a dubious relationship with the truth. There are several candidates running that I find preferable to the poll-sitters in both parties, and as of right now I have to consider myself a Nikki Haley supporter. Here’s why.

First, I get that she was in the Trump administration. I also get that she has been far less strident in her criticisms of Trump than others in the race, especially Christie. But the thing I get the most is that the path to the Presidency for a Republican is through the Republican nominating process, and that process is dominated by Trump supporters or the Trump adjacent. The fastest way for Haley to make herself insignificant would be to go after Trump like Christie does, or go after the populists like Pence does. She needs to 1) continue to run “against” the Party by pointing out the exorbitant spending of the Trump Administration and the Republican controlled Congress, and 2) she needs to continue to appeal to Republicans and former Republicans who continue to practice Reagan Conservatism. Trump is going to do Trump, and if nothing changes he will be the nominee. But things will change, especially with two federal and two state indictments lurking. And if she can get this to a two-horse race, as Trump’s problems multiply, the GOP JUST MIGHT come to 51% of its senses and get her nominated.

Because if she’s nominated, she will win. The contrast of her (relative) youth with Biden’s doddering alone will be enough. But then there is “the woman thing”. There, I’ve said it. This country really, really, really wants to vote for a woman president. We wanted it so much that we NEARLY elected one of the most uniquely unpopular political figures of our lifetime in 2016, perhaps the only prominent Democrat who WOULD have lost to Trump. Nikki Haley has NONE of Hillary’s baggage, and to the average voter, she looks like a real human being. Bottom line—she’s qualified, competent, and well-within the standard of deviation for GOP candidates.

I hope that she’s able to continue to build momentum, and present herself as a competent, normal alternative to Trump to a party where he is still very popular. She seems to be playing is smart, and I think she would be a great nominee. If she’s still around for the Maryland primary, I will rejoin the GOP and vote for her.

The Eleventh

Christopher William White Murphy

Twenty-two years ago yesterday (Saturday 9/9), Chris kissed his beautiful wife and daughters (2, 6 mos.) goodbye and got in his car for the onerous drive up the eastern seaboard to his apartment in Connecticut. Chris had joined a large investment bank headquartered in the World Trade Center a few months earlier, and he had been commuting between New York and Richmond. Quickly, he and his wife (Catherine) decided that the best thing for their family would be to raise their girls on the same farm where she grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. So when Chris kissed his family goodbye, the house they had moved into days earlier was chock full of unopened moving boxes. Two days later, he and 3000 others were dead.

Six years later, I would be told of a beautiful widow who lives on the water, surrounded by books, and the rest is history.

There is a chasm of understanding about how that day is remembered by the families of those killed, and everyone else. For the rest of us, we remember where we were, how we heard about it, the images we saw, the anger that rose in us, and the great stirrings of patriotism that followed. Many remember this day mostly for the patriotism it fostered, and I cannot blame them as I look around at what has replaced it.

But I think it is different for those who lost.

And while I cannot speak for any family of the deceased other than the one I hired onto, there is none of that for them. There is only searing pain. Loss. Grieving. Neither of my daughters—because that’s what they are now—have even a shadow of a penumbra of a memory of their father. But their sense of loss is profound. It is real. Not only do they feel they were robbed of their father’s love, but they have listened to testimony from those who knew him, and they realize that they lost a father of great character and joy, of intelligence and patience. No one I have talked to who knew Chris has EVER failed to mention his kindness. I would love for his girls to have experienced him longer. Much longer.

As I mentioned earlier, my women are spread over the eastern hemisphere as I write. The older (elder?) daughter I will see Wednesday for dinner in California. The younger and her mother will spend the 11th together, which was part of the plan I suspect. I am very, very sad for them as I write this. We don’t talk much about that day the rest of the year, but when it is upon us, it cannot be ignored. This little cluster, this still-wounded threesome, clings to itself and each other in a powerful demonstration of love and support that I am an awkward and unskilled witness to.