So, we’ve now completed week one of the Trumpian Era, and there hasn’t been a nuclear war yet, so I guess that’s good. And it looks like we’re gonna get that shiny new fence across our Southern border. To paraphrase Saint Ronald Reagan, “Señor Peña Nieto, put up that wall!” Unfortunately, along with all this good stuff comes some bad, and people have been dropping like flies this week – Butch Trucks, Mary Tyler Moore, and now Mannix himself, Mike “Don’t Call Me Chuck” Connors. So many of the great TV detectives of my youth are dead now – Rockford, Columbo, Paladin (both John Dehner on the radio, and Richard Boone on the teevee – does Paladin count as a detective?), Banacek, Hec Ramsey (speaking of Richard Boone), Amos Burke (Gene Barry in Burke’s Law, remember that one?), Kolchak, McMillan, McCloud…. At least we still have Andy Sipowicz.

Seeing the people I grew up with croak always makes me feel old. Not quite as old as I felt this morning, though, as I walked up with my wife to her office to kill some time before the shuttle came. We followed a gaggle of student nurses, and either you only need to be about 12 years old to go to nursing school these days, or I’m getting really fucking old.

Unfortunately, based on how I feel trying to get out of bed in the morning (and by morning, I mean what I used to think of as the middle of the night – another sign of age, keeping old man hours), I’m pretty sure I know which one it is.

I guess I probably don’t need to tell anybody here, but this getting old stuff kinda sucks. It’s strange to look in the mirror (which I frankly try to avoid as much as possible) and see that I’ve got that old man chicken neck thing going on and crow’s feet around my eyes when I smile (which, as my wife will be happy to tell you, I rarely do – she seems to think it makes me look “surly,” but I tell her it’s just that I’m not some brain-damaged grinning moron – not that there’s anything wrong with that).

And of course my hair is grey and thinning (not as bad as it could be, of course, and maybe not even all that noticeable – the thinning part; I’m reluctantly forced to admit the grey part is eminently noticeable – but compared to the way it used to be I certainly notice).

Hard to believe that my time is winding down now. I mean, I’m not quite ready cash in my chips just yet, but the roller coaster is on the down side, and it’s definitely picking up speed.

When you’re ten years old, one year is a pretty substantial percentage of your life experience. Now, though, one year is all but indistinguishable from another – unless something bad happens, but even that fades a bit with time – which I guess is a good thing.

And your brain decides it’s gonna remember whatever the hell it feels like remembering, not what you want it to remember. Middle school locker combination? 18-37-29. What you went out to the garage for? Sorry, you’re on your own with that one, pal.

On the bright side, at least it’s Friday. And if there aren’t any late-in-the-day crises that arise, I’m hoping to skip out ahead of my normal quittin’ time and take the early bus home. The earlier the better, because Monday will be here before you know it.

OK, maybe “the end” is being a little over-dramatic (though this headline: Trump Is Getting the Nuclear Football is pretty nightmare-inspiring). Either way, it’s finally here. The day we’ve been dreading since at least November (or maybe longer if you saw the handwriting on the bathroom wall pre-election, but were trying not to think about it). Personally, I know I’ve been living in denial for quite some time (a plan I intend to continue to the extent possible for the next 4 – 8 years, if not longer when President Pence gets sworn in). Not that I wanted this to happen any sooner than it already has, but it seems like it would have been more appropriate to hold the inauguration a week ago – on Friday the 13th. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be as bad as it seems like it’s gonna turn out. Sure makes you miss Dubya though, doesn’t it?

I don’t know about you guys, but for me 2017 has picked up right where 2016 left off – shitty. After a rather cold and snowy start, things warmed up for my first day back at work last Tuesday. Theoretically, that would be nice. But what it actually involved was trudging to (and waiting at) the bus stop in 36 degree pouring rain. To say it was miserable wouldn’t be doing justice to the level of suckitude. Never fear, of course, because then things got really fucking cold and snowy – so it was back to plowing the driveway a couple times a day and freezing nearly to death waiting for the bus.

Yesterday it got slightly warmer, though still in the mid 20s, which gave us the opportunity to experience about 12 hours of freezing rain driven by 40-50 mph winds – which started up a couple of hours before I left work. I managed to walk from work to the bus stop without falling on my ass (years of putting up with this shit has me pretty well versed in the intricacies of doing the icy-sidewalk shuffle, but a few particularly nasty blasts of wind nearly took me down nevertheless)

Needless to say, the bus was late (I mean, it’s late when the weather’s nice, so an ice storm isn’t exactly gonna speed the process up) and by the time it showed up I’d spent about half an hour out in the elements. That doesn’t sound so bad, I guess, but by the time I got on the bus I was a shiny ball of ice. Well, maybe not a ball – I’m not shaped quite as spherically as I was a few months ago, though I would have welcomed the extra padding last night – more like an iceberg, I guess.

Whatever it was, between the sleet and freezing rain and the 50 mph winds, I didn’t thaw out the whole trip back to where I parked my car. The car, of course, was covered in roughly half to three-quarters of an inch of ice, which I of course had to scrape off before I could go anywhere. When I finally got home (to find that the snowplow had creamed my relatively new mailbox), my hands and feet were pure-white blocks of numb ice.

I’ve really had it with this winter – and we haven’t even officially sworn in President He-who-must-not-be-named yet. To paraphrase Lloyd Bridges, looks like I picked a really bad year to stop drinking beer.

On the bright side, it’s supposed to be in the 40s today and 54° tomorrow (with 100% chance of rain because god obviously hates us).

This morning, though, while they managed to get the streets pretty well plowed and salted, my driveway (and lawn, and trees, and…) was like a skating rink. And then stepping off the bus, I was greeted by a plethora of cops all over the place – in particular State Troopers. I couldn’t figure out why, ’til I realized our esteemed governor is speechifying at the county civic center this morning. It’s apparently the penultimate act of his “state of the state” tour – which ends with a 2:00 PM performance in Albany.

Apparently he wants us to get behind his new agendas that I don’t really recall him being much of a champion of in the past. Like free college (not to be a selfish prick, but I’m not planning to go back to school and I don’t have kids nearing college age, so I find it hard to give a shit about free tuition. Sorry. Maybe if people didn’t hate state workers and public school teachers or cared about other people when it comes to their healthcare, and ability to retire, I could work up some empathy for their goddamn kids – who I already subsidize with my property taxes and by them getting income tax deductions).

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Of course, if he wants to propose a heated bus shelter on every corner, I’m willing to listen.

Speculation is this is the unofficial kickoff of his 2020 presidential campaign (oh boy).

Speaking of kickoff, our former sleazeball US Senator Al D’Amato got kicked off a Jet Blue flight from Ft. Lauderdale to NY yesterday for being a drunk loudmouth asshole. Either that, or for standing up for the little people whose rights were being trampled (because they were asked to switch seats in order to balance out the load on the plane so it, you know, would fly right). There’s even video, which is rather amusing because it’s one of those “who’s with me gang!?!” moments that ends, predictably, with nobody being with him.

For those of you who don’t know, Al was almost single-handedly responsible for giving us NYers Gov. George Pataki, god bless him.

It would be nice if a former US Senator could show a little common sense and civility since, as you are no doubt aware, this is the same airport where Esteban Santiago opened fire last week, killing five people and injuring a bunch more. As fellow passenger Jeffrey A. Wurst put it, “What I find disappointing in the situation is that we were one terminal away from where a tragedy erupted on Friday.”

As Peggy Bundy used to say, “oh, Al!”

I managed to do something to my wrist last weekend. I don’t know what exactly but it got worse and worse all week until Thursday it was so swollen and painful I couldn’t make it to the end of the day and had to leave work early. On the bright side, I had Friday off already which turned out to be a good thing because it only got worse. In fact it hurt so much I went to the urgent care and anybody that knows me knows I never go to the doctor so that should tell you a little something about how much it hurt.

So the result of all this is that I’m wearing a splint on my right hand which makes it really difficult to type (or do much of anything actually) so I’m dictating this on my tablet. I don’t know how great a job this is going to do so let me apologize ahead of time for any typos or other mistakes this thing makes. It’ll probably be better than my typing.

Fortunately as usual I don’t have much to say anyway –  there certainly isn’t enough time to list everybody we lost this year  – but I did want to take the opportunity to wish everybody a Happy New Year. Considering who “real America” elected President, I don’t have high expectations for 2017 but I certainly hope it’s not as bad as it seems like it’s almost certainly going to be.

Let’s just hope we’re all still here at this time next year – we’re gonna need each other to make it all the way through to 2021.