I’ve read about it, seen it in the news, but OMG when it’s right in your face, it’s mind-boggling.  No, not the virus.  I’m talking about cognitive dissonance, or the ability to hold two completely opposite and opposing opinions or attitudes in your mind at the same time, and see absolutely no contradiction, because it would mess with your whole world view if you allowed reality in.

Our neighbor who lives behind us (on a different street, but adjoining our property) and I were talking over the fence yesterday.  We were having a friendly conversation about gardening and other neighborly mutual interests.  She was all, social distancing, masks and gloves, too soon to go back to business as usual, Drs. Fauci and Birx are great, and so on, so far so good.  She’s a nurse, so has some idea of the dangers of minimizing this pandemic–you would think.  I thought, oh good, another reasonable person.

Then in the next breath, she exclaims what a wonderful president trump has been!  I had to keep my jaw from hitting the ground.  I thought I was hearing things.  HOW…?  No, she was not joking or being sarcastic!  She backed it up with nonsensical, false statements.  It was like she lives in a different universe.  No concept of the extreme contradiction of that belief and the facts.  There it was, firsthand–this is how trump came to power and will continue to be dangerous to all of us.  Mindless, hypnotized people in denial, living in a vacuum, believing what they want to believe.

After politely differing and mentioning a few key counter points, trying to appeal to her nurse side, I saw it would be useless to pursue this line of conversation; she was a trumper.  We agreed to disagree, in a friendly manner, and went about our business.  Maybe I planted a tiny seed of doubt, but I doubt it.  It disturbed me for the rest of the day.  This is the mentality we’re surrounded with.

This is Tennessee, after all.  The same TN that’s opening up for business as usual as I write, despite the sharp rise in cases.  When all these right-to-death-ers get sick and spread the virus, will they realize what nurses and doctors have been up against for months, or how their behavior affects all of us?  Or how their wonderful president has obstructed controlling this pandemic from the very beginning, and obfuscated the issues, for his own selfish purposes?  No, in their narrow delusional reality show world, he’s a hero, because he says so.

Sorry, sometimes the absurdity gets to be too much to not vent.  The mind is blown.  We will now return to your regularly scheduled garden-and-cooking show.

Here is one of E’s infamous savory pies, in this case sort of a breakfast pizza version.  And a few flowers that caught my eye.  Yesterday I planted some of my eggplant and pepper plants, and some yellow squash seeds.  Today we mowed, just in time for more rain.