Here’s a Heart of Darkness Stout to my grandson’s third birthday, another one I have to miss.  It seemed appropriate for this dark, rainy last day of November.

Outside, sirens have been blaring for weeks, building up to the dark time that is the holidays in a place like this.  It’s like one big chase scene out there.

Out in the wider world, our depraved “leaders” are trying to plunge our country into the deepest Heart of Darkness yet.  The news is too unbearable to watch anymore.

Still, it looks like our exit strategy is moving right along, as long as we don’t get screwed too badly by trump, so there’s something else to drink to.

It’s 67 degrees up here, at the end of November, so we took a walk at Charleston Falls.  It was like a breezy spring day in autumn.

In other good news, our mortgage guy is sending our pre-approval to our realtor lady!  We’re that much closer to finding a home.

I’ve been slacking with the posts, being preoccupied with life the universe and everything, so here are a few random photos: dramatic dawn skies, and a new place to eat and drink we checked out.  They had local micros on tap, and actual edible food, so there’s that.  On the brighter horizon, it looks like our pre-approval will go through this time.  Waiting…it’s what we do.

Not to gloat, but haha we’re not buying it!  Black Friday is a scam, a sucking black hole of oblivion.  Why get brutally trampled by greedy vultures, and go in debt for another year, for a lie, when you can just stay home and eat TG leftovers?!  It’s a no-brainer.  Much more sane and affordable.  But that’s just me.

Erev cheers!

Happy Indigenous/Thanksgiving Day.  I won’t do my usual genocide rant.  I’m thankful.  Gobble.

Here we are hunkered down, doing our TG thing.  See how festive the Skullies look.  Maybe it’s the beer.  MST3K Turkey Day Marathon starts…Now!

You never know what a day will bring, but we finally got some good news.

After all the setbacks to our attempts to qualify for a home loan, and our painstaking work to rebuild and maintain our credit scores, our patience and diligence has paid off.  We are that much closer to our long-delayed goal.  It’s a ray of light at the end of a dark tunnel.  It hasn’t been easy.

Here are dog and cat biscuits E made, to celebrate a taste of victory.

Two funerals, one day, two very different families and legacies.  (No names used, to protect their privacy.)

In the first, hundreds of extended family and friends showed up to be supportive of each other in their collective loss of someone too young to die of cancer.  Relations had not always been perfect, but past differences and phobias were forgotten, in the face of such a loss to her young children, husband, mother, brother, and many others.

In the second, a lifetime of vindictive feuding and estrangement could not be set aside or let go, even in the face of death.  A beloved grandmother and grandchild were forced apart and communications severed from a young age, because of some petty vendetta and dysfunction of the parents.  The ugly feud triumphed and outlived death.  Many family members, including great-grandchildren, suffer damage done by this legacy.

Human life at best is uncertain and fragile, and there is no time or excuse for prolonging mindless  hostility and division.  Break down walls while you still can.

Some topics are just too repulsive, so I won’t rant about killing endangered elephants for fun and profit.  More qualified commentators can address such disgusting behavior.  It’s just one more sign of trump’s depravity and instability.  And all his sick sycophants (psychophants?) and hypocrites can go to hell with him.  Do they think we’re so stupid as to be decoyed from what’s really happening?  Maybe the endangered elephants are themselves.

Oops, was that ranting?

Meanwhile, back at the real world, we’re just hoping we can fly under the lunatic radar long enough to survive and make ends meet.  We’re not alone there.  The majority of Americans will suffer profoundly for years to come if these tyrants have their way.  It will become hard to distinguish the US from the very dictatorships we claim to distance ourselves from (or are in bed with).

We’re as endangered as the animal kingdom, being a part of it and dependent upon it.  Let’s hope the natural world survives us.

OK, I lied, it was a rant, fooled you.

It’s a strangely warm, extremely windy day, with t-storms threatening.  There are practically whitecaps on the literally black lagoon i.e the abandoned swimming pool that the neighbors never used.  Soon the weed jungle will conceal it.  I mean, who does that?  Hillbillies.  I keep expecting to see bodies  floating in it.  An old white rag is hanging from a tall weed, evidently indicating surrender to the elements.

Hopefully the strong winds will blow all the leaves into the corner of the yard, so I won’t have to rake.  My favorite kind of leaf blower.  Not that it would matter if I didn’t.

It’s that sort of a day.  I can let my inner Eeyore out.

It’s hard to feel at peace or secure when so much is going horribly wrong in the world, country, and the lives of people close to you.  It’s hard to make sense of all the senselessness.  It’s easy to just shut down and withdraw from the overload.  I know because I’m there, so if you are, too, I understand.  I don’t have a lot of reassurance to share, but what I have I offer.  I wish much peace and relief to my close family members and friends who are grieving for many kinds of loss.  Your tears won’t last forever.