Day: January 31, 2025

January 31, 2025: Welcome to our January cocktail hour. I’m happy you’ve dropped by to dive into 2025. Cheers???? I don’t really feel very cheery but at least alcohol is good for drowning our hopelessness and frustration. We have been under snow and sub-freezing weather since January 5-6 (yes, the anniversary of THE INSURRECTION in 2021), when the Mid-Atlantic states got inundated with 6-12″ of snow. This was our first substantial snowfall since 2022. Following the storm, we had several weeks of nearly constant temperatures below freezing, with a couple of days hitting the high 30s; sadly it was not warm enough to melt the snow. On top of the snow that never melted, we got another burst of snow and ice showers, solidifying what was already on the ground.  It’s been a frigid and gloomy time for us here, and I can’t wait to escape.

Only in the last week has the snow started to melt as temperatures finally rose into the 40s and 50s. We have rain in store soon, so I imagine the snow will melt and hopefully we won’t get any more before we have to fly out to Nicaragua next week.

The only positive to all of this weather was that our new scumbag president, let’s call him FOTUS (Felon Of The United States), had to move his inauguration indoors on January 20. He surrounded himself with all his ass-kissing billionaire friends, including the Nazi-saluting Elon Musk, while leaving all his [idiotic & brainwashed] supporters who came to Washington to watch the spectacle standing out in frigid 10°F temperatures. (I was rubbing my hands together with glee).

By the way, I turned both TVs in our house to the National Geographic channel all day during the inauguration; I hoped to contribute to tanking the asshat’s ratings. After all, he hates low ratings, and small crowds. I refused to watch as I can’t waste my time and energy on such scumbuggery.  According to The Guardian: “Nine million fewer viewers tuned in for Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony than for Joe Biden’s in 2021. According to audience measurement company Nielsen, 24.6 million people watched the former reality TV personality take office, compared with 33.8 million who saw Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration.” I still shake my head at the 24.6 million who spent precious moments watching that trash.

I also signed out of all Meta-related social media for one week to protest Mark Zuckerberg. I’m so sick of Threads, Instagram, Facebook, X and all social media now controlled by right-wing billionaires. Before signing out of Instagram, I deleted and blocked all the White House, POTUS, FLOTUS, and other accounts that will turn over to the orange turd and his administration. When I got back on Instagram, I made sure I eliminated all political content and reverted to following people I enjoy for travel, food and fashion ideas.

We turned off our Christmas tree lights at noon and took down the tree, as well as the candles and wreaths on the windows, plunging ourselves into relative darkness until we can leave the country in February.

We are now officially a HELLHOLE here in the U.S. and this hell has frozen over. Please put on something warm if you decide to drop by for a drink!

Let’s have some hot toddies today; my bones are chilled and I desperately need some warming up.

I also have a variety of beers, soda or seltzer water if you are having a dry January. Or if you are generally dry.

How did your January go? Did you have a happy New Year? Have you welcomed any new additions to your family? Have you read any good books that can inform your worldview, seen any good movies, binge-watched any television series? Have you planned any adventures or had any winter getaways? Have you dreamed any dreams? Have you gone to any exotic restaurants, cooked any new dishes? Have you been surprised by anything in life? Have you learned anything new, taken any classes or just kept up with the news? Have you sung along with any new songs? Have you undertaken any new exercise routines? Have you marched or otherwise participated in political protests? Have you been battered, or alternately, uplifted by any news?

We’ve tried our best to survive the month’s travails, mostly by tuning out the news as much as possible. Of course, it is quite impossible but I refuse to watch it happening in real time. I choose my sources carefully and read about the dumbfuckery afterwards.

Besides the snowstorms that hit us in early January, BEFORE that, we lost our power twice, once for about 4 hours and once for about 6 hours, again in sub-freezing temperatures. Of course, that was a minor inconvenience compared to the wildfires in L.A. which began on January 7 and which destroyed so many communities and homes and have killed 29 so far. Over 200,000 people were under evacuation, and the fires destroyed entire neighborhoods and blocks, leaving many people homeless. What a horrific disaster. I was thankful that Biden was still President and sent federal resources to help.

On a personal, and fun, note, we shared ramen and dirty martinis at Jinya Ramen Bar with our friends Michael and Karen. We commiserated about the dismaying fact that we are once again living under the previous regime of chaos and cruelty.

We went to Angelika Theatre at Mosaic District to see A Complete Unknown; we enjoyed listening to old Bob Dylan songs and watching Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. We ate lunch at the theater while watching the movie. My daughter Sarah had given us a gift certificate to Angelika for a Christmas gift, so of course we enjoyed using that gift and sending her pictures and thanks.

I’ve come to the end of my rowing days as I let my membership to RowHouse expire. We will be traveling a lot/living abroad in the coming years and it’s too much to handle these commitments. I started dropping into a weekly Pilates class and lifting weights, especially since it’s been impossible to walk on the icy roads. Luckily some warmer weather should be coming soon, so I hope all the snow will melt, and quickly!

Because we were going stir-crazy staying indoors, Mike and I took a nice walk on the Cross County Trail (CCT) in the snow on one icy cold Saturday.

That night, Mike and I went out to see A Real Pain and ate dinner at Woodlands. Both of us independently thought the cousin Benji Kaplan, played by Kieran Culkin, reminded us some of our son Adam, especially in his younger days. I thought one line was especially apropos. David, played by Jesse Eisenberg, tells Benji: “You light up a room and then you, like, shit on everything inside it.” Benji is charming and brutally honest, a mish-mash of highs and lows and vocally expressed, often uncomfortable, emotions.

After seeing the movie we went to eat vegetarian Indian food at Woodlands, one of our old standbys.

Since we went to Atlanta for Christmas, we didn’t get to see Mike’s sister Barbara over the holidays, so we invited her over for some chicken tortilla soup and a rousing game of Ticket to Ride. Mike won again, as he always seems to do. 😦

I had a long (2-hour!) chat with my friend Jayne in Tahoe, and nice Face Time chats with Alex and with Adam. We will be seeing Adam and family in early February, so we’re looking forward to that and to meeting our newest grandchild, little Michael, who will be nearly 9 months old when we see him.

To celebrate Martin Luther King Day (sadly also Inauguration Day), we looked up black-owned businesses because we wanted to patronize one in this divisive and racist environment in which we now find ourselves. We ended up going to our favorite Ethiopian restaurant, Enatye, where we enjoyed the vegetarian platter with injera and Ethiopian honey wine.

Of course the kids sent us some family pictures during the month. Alex sent photos of Allie’s first snow day in Atlanta. I don’t know when was the last time Atlanta had snow. It certainly isn’t often.

Adam sent pictures of Maria, little Mikey, the girls, and his new cows.

We went out during January’s last frozen weekend to see The Room Next Door at Cinema Arts, a beautifully filmed movie about death by Pedro Almodóvar. We then ate out at a new restaurant, SERAY: Modern Lebanese Cuisine. The food was good but it was super expensive for the small plates we got; we will probably not be going back.

My goal is to try at least one new restaurant each month, which shouldn’t be hard going forward if we can actually make it work to move to Costa Rica for one year. My goal is to boycott the USA by living abroad for at least 75% of the time during the next four years. We made our last big purchase before the inauguration (a new TV – our old one was small and over 15 years old) and Mike & I agreed we will not be making any more large purchases in the U.S. to line billionaire pockets until 2029 (or longer).

We are now entering into an era of class warfare, and I plan to spend most of our money in other countries or to not spend much overall. When we fly to other countries, we’ll try to take airlines based in other countries.

Sadly on the evening of Wednesday, January 29, an American Airlines flight from Witchita, Kansas collided with a U.S. Army helicopter in midair near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, plunging both aircraft into the frigid Potomac River and killing all 64 passengers onboard the AA flight as well as three in the military helicopter. Our hateful and divisive new president immediately went on the blame game, blaming DEI hiring practices and the previous presidents, Biden and Obama!

Hmmm. As the President of the United States, the buck stops with him; anything that happens on his watch from January 20 is solely HIS RESPONSIBILITY.

We don’t know the results of any investigation yet, but here are a few things to consider since the days the hateful dictator-wannabe was sworn in on January 20 and purposefully went about dismantling our government (one of the main purposes of government, by the way, is to counteract the worst abuses of capitalism and to protect the American people):

• January 20: FAA director forced to resign by Elon Musk
• January 21: Executive order freezing the hiring of Federal civilian employees, which may include Air Traffic Controllers (which are insufficient now)
• January 22: Aviation Safety Advisory Committee disbanded
• January 28: Buyout/ retirement demand sent to existing employees; President fires heads of TSA, Coast Guard
• January 29: First American mid-air collision in 16 years
• January 30: Press Conference blames crash on DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) with NO EVIDENCE.

January has already been the longest four years in history.

I finished five books in January, bringing my total to 5/48. My favorites were American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins and Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad. I also enjoyed Lost in Oaxaca by Jessica Winters Mireles, a light read but interesting in many ways. We watched four movies this month: A Complete Unknown at Angelika, A Real Pain and The Room Next Door at Cinema Arts, and Emilia Pérez (fabulous!) on Netflix. We finished watching Better Things and La Palma, the first season of Bad Sisters, and the second of Shrinking, Grantchester, and Another Self, and we continued watching Pachinko, Lincoln Lawyer, Maestro in Blue, Nobody Wants This, Unforgotten, Virgin River, The Diplomat, and Modern Family. We just started watching Paradise.

We wrapped up the month by finalizing preparations for  our upcoming trip to Nicaragua and Mexico. I’ll write more about that later.

I hope you’ll share how the year is panning out for you, and what plans you have for 2025.