Steam Bath

The steam bath continues, with temps in the mid-90s and humididity to match.  Matt, in from Las Vegas, hasn't commented yet.  The sticky stuff is slated to be around for a while, so we'd better get used to it.

I've worked out early in the AM, with just a couple of hours of outside/yard work each day since about Wed.  Boy, that heat and humididity just saps me.  I am beaten by 9 or 10 PM.

Persnickety?  That's a cool word and I wonder if it applies to me.  I think similar words might well be fussy, eccentric, finicky, and even picky.  I think I prefer, to all these words, at least in applying to me, the word "particular."  I'm not sure if it or the others are official synonyms, but I like "particular."

I like, at least at home, to eat off of certain plates, with certain silverware.  We, like most households I suppose, have several sets of plates and silverware.  And I like to use just a handful of cups and glasses from which to drink.  I am the same way with where I sit and, often, what I wear.  I can't stand that the car automatically locks its doors.  I disabled it in my car, but K's car still locks it.  Someone once asked me what was wrong with that.  I said, "Two things.  One, if I want my car doors to be locked, I can do it, not the car.  Two, I'm not lazy; I can lock my own doors."  What led me to think about this a bit came the other day.  Earlier in the AM, I took a tumble while running.  I tripped over one of those frames used to post "Garage Sale" signs in the neighborhood.  The sun hadn't risen yet and it was dusky (Can I used "dusky" for an early AM?).  The frame was lying in the dust on the shoulder of the road and, obviously (at least I hope so), I didn't see it.  Down I went.  I was fine, with just a pretty nasty scrape on my wrist from my GPS watch.  It hasn't really healed much since I rub it raw again while putting on my watch each day to run.  Carrie suggested, "Why don't you wear your watch on your other wrist?"  Whoa!  I think my look told her why I couldn't.  Yes, "particular" seems about right.

Is this one true?  One of the cable news shows gave viewers a glimpse of some campaign bumper stickers.  Before showing, "Hillary for Prison," the show gave a warning, "Some viewers may find the following offensive."  (Surely Clinton would, but others?)  Is this one true??????  If so, heaven help us all.

I know Ted Cruz has received a heap of criticism for his speech the other night in Cleveland.  I didn't hear/watch it.  (I was washing my hair that evening.)  But it seems to me he was pretty courageous in giving it.  He has watched his party sell out, the Establishment forsaking traditional Republican values.  He has watched a charlatan somehow convince enough folks to get the Republican nomination.  He has watched many of those same Establishment-types he ran against to gain his TX seat, first oppose Trump for being, well, not a Republican (as if the Establishment-types are!) and then endorsing/supporting him.  To say what he said was not only courageous, but was the moral and ethical thing to do.

I was distressed this AM, although not particularly surprised, at the number of my college classmates who have jumped on the Clinton bandwagon.  Their comments seemed to be those of enablers.  A few suggested that they do the same thing Clinton did with the e-mails and servers at their places of employment.  "It's just a way to save time," one wrote.  Another said it was merely to keep all of her contacts in the same place.  Huh??????  No, it's not the "same thing."  And, if it is, maybe some folks deserve to be fired from their jobs.  How many of their work e-mails contain "classified" and "top secret" documents and information?  How many of them work in occupations that are essential to the security of the US and its citizens?

Did they completely ignore Comey's report?  It was damning, both toward Clinton and toward Comey, although he's not running for President.

Most of them are right in their criticisms of Trump.  But they seem far, far off base in supporting Clinton.  As I have suggested many times, had you and I done what she did, I think not only would we be indicted, but convicted and in jail.

BTW, Trump apparently said something I agree with, but seems to have set off another firestorm among the elites.  I guess he said the US shouldn't agree to come to the aid of NATO members if they don't fulfill their own obligations.  One, I guess, is that they should fund NATO with at least 2% of their military budgets (or was it their entire budgets?).  Regardless of the budgets, why shouldn't these nations pay their own way?  Why should they get to freeload?  They make stupid foreign policies and then expect the US to bail them out, but they don't fulfill their obligations?