We’ve had a string of shitty years that I’ve been happy to say goodbye to lately, and 2018 is certainly no exception. It may have been the worst of the bunch. Hard to say, really. If consider 2016 to be the year we went off the edge of the cliff, then 2018 is hopefully the year we finally hit bottom and hopefully 2019 will be the year we start climbing back up again. But I don’t know. With every new revelation I keep hearing how “Trump is done now!” But there he sits around the White House (and when he sits around the White House…), tweeting stupid shit and outright lies, appointing judges, and just plain fucking up everything. The “Sadim” Touch, as they say – everything he touches turns to shit.

Not that he could do it all by himself, of course. He’s had the House, the Senate, and the entire Republican Party enabling him. Not to mention some 35-40% of We The People for whom he can do no wrong. And I still find it difficult to understand (let alone forgive) anybody who thought that Clinton was so terrible that they’d show everybody and help Trump get elected. They sure showed us! I think the effect that the likes of people such as Susan Sarandon had on throwing the election to Trump are a bit overstated, but still.

I just hope whoever the Democrats nominate in 2020 doesn’t get the same treatment (from either direction).

But hopefully we can put off the next campaign for a while and settle in for some prime investigatin’ for a year or two. Much as I’d like to see Fat Bastard out on his ass (on his way to prison, along with the rest of his family), I really don’t want a President Pence to hold office for very long (if at all). The best that could happen (IMHO) would be if Barbie (and her hubbie), Uday, and Qusay Trump all go to prison after their attorneys bleed them dry while Daddy is hamstrung by investigations making it impossible for him to do any more damage to the world while the House investigations make it clear to even Senate Republicans that the fucker has to go.

I have my doubts but, hey, if you can’t dream on New Year’s Eve, then when can you?

Since I was up before three this morning (which is more or less normal now that I keep old man hours), I really doubt I’ll be seeing midnight. Plus sitting around not drinking isn’t much of a thrill. And I’m so out of practice, a few beers would put me down pretty darn quick. But whatever it is you do tonight, have fun, stay safe, and watch out for the assholes out there who ruin things for everybody.

See ya next year.

Hello, and Happy Christmas to everybody out there. This will be the first one without my father-in-law, who made it to his 97th birthday back on December 7th (yep, D-Day) but only made it a couple days past that. He’d always said he wanted to make it to 100, but I don’t think another three years at the nursing home (where he was apparently a big hit with the staff – he always did have a good sense of humor) in the state he was in would have been happy for him (or for anybody else, really). His ashes went with my stepdaughter back to Alaska (here’s a travel tip – if you’re planning on transporting cremains, the TSA rather frowns on you doing so in a metal, bomb-shaped urn) where they were scattered off the coast and into the Pacific Ocean.

Funny how these things work. One day somebody’s here, and then, poof, they’re gone as if somebody threw a switch. Except of course they aren’t really gone. They’re presence lingers – all their stuff and their papers. Even their smells. Everything lingers and the people that are left have to figure out what to do with it all. My parents have been gone for what seems like forever at this point, and I still have their stuff. Bank records death certificates, my mother’s tchotchkes, my dad’s wallet and letters home to his mother from the war. You know, the shit that’s in all those boxes that you resolve to deal with but the best you can do is take them out one by one, look them over, and then put them back in the box for another day. My one regret (OK, well, I’ve got more than one) is that, being a dead branch on the old family tree, I don’t have anybody to pass this stuff along to.

Ah, that’s the Christmas spirit.

Anyhow, I guess I’d better get going, because there’s a dog at my feet who refuses to let me stop petting her, and it’s making it difficult to type.

So Merry Christmas and best wishes to you and yours.