Much like House Democrats and their teabagger Senate sycophants, I am clueless as to how this whole debt ceiling/government shutdown thing is gonna go. It’s at least starting to sound as though we’ll get some kind of crappy, short-term debt limit increase, but not anything to open the government back up. I’d like to see this end with a solution that prevents this kind of hostage taking in the future – holding one half of one severely gerrymandered branch of government should not give you the ability to nullify the results of an election. But we’ll see. As a civil servant myself, I feel for government workers who have been furloughed and can’t pay their bills.

There seems to be some notion that public employees make millions of dollars a year and live extravagant lifestyles, but that just aint the case. Especially in DC, where the cost of everything is ridiculously high – housing alone is over 150% more that it is in, say Rochester NY. So, as I heard a furloughed federal employee say in an interview yesterday, many workers were living paycheck to paycheck before this nonsense. I don’t know what the hell they’re doing now (it’s not like the grocery store is gonna grant you a line of credit or your landlord will be OK with you sliding on the rent for a while). Even with the guarantee of back pay, people are gonna be running up their credit card balances and if this goes on much longer, well, it’s just plain gonna suck (never mind the all the shit that’s not getting done, like safety and health inspections).

I read an article this morning where one worker said she was applying for unemployment, and I was wondering how that works since they enacted a law guaranteeing back pay. Not that they don’t deserve it. I mean, they need to pay their bills now, not in a week or a month or god knows how long from now – the last one lasted 21 days (and that was over Christmas). But if they get benefits, will they have to pay them back? What an unnecessary hassle for everybody involved.

We’re in the midst of a massive tick invasion around here lately. I don’t know if it’s the combination of relatively warm weather with a bit of rain or what, but I’ve been yanking the damn things off the dogs constantly. My wife even had one attached under her chin (now I’m gonna have to get Frontline for her). Let me tell ya, that makes you pretty paranoid, ‘cuz the little fuckers’ bites contain anesthetic, so you can feel ’em. I’m constantly checking myself for the damn things. Icky.

Oh well, I suppose it’s almost time to sign on to work for the day. Friday working from home is the absolutely best day to end the week – especially since the weekend is supposed to be warm and sunny, Monday’s a holiday, and I’ll be working from home again on Tuesday. I don’t have to suffocate in my dark little cave again until Wednesday. Sweet.