Let it SNOW...Bernie in Mittens...Brunches and More

 

The Holidays are over. 

The chocolate-covered cherries are finally gone.

Busy week with Chris and Don here for a Winter Brunch of Meatloaf and mashies and green beans...with apple cobbler, catching up and politics for afters.

"No...I do not sound like a REPUBLICAN!!!"

My sister, Tina and her husband Chad  (also Bandit, their chihuahua) came today bearing a pot of homemade chili...an iron skillet of corn bread and a bottle of Moscato. I baked a cherry crostada for afters with whipped cream and had cheddar to top the chili.

It was wonderful!

Tina's tribute to RBG.
 

Since we are all political animals we spent several hours dissecting...pretty much everything that has occurred since November 3rd...also these:

And my personal favorite...

Yeah...we may have too much time on our hands...just saying.

But now the house is quiet and warm...and beautiful duck feather flakes of snow (the really huge stuff) is silently falling. I have a stem glass of our leftover Moscato and Sofi-Cat and I sat watching the snow coming down until it became too dark to see. 

Tomorrow, the very last day of January.

Still in queue for Obama's- A Promised Land.

The Movie this Week:

 

Wonder Woman 1984

Good casting, great cinematography, well done.

WW brought into modern times.

Good message, funny at times, and a nice feel good ending...what else could you ask for?

Well worth the time.

 

Excited about a Mahomes/Brady SB next Sunday!!!

And mixed news on the Covid scene...with 4 variants now...and the African variant above, the latest to join us in the USA.

Although we had several days of 4000 or just under deaths...we are also seeing a gradual decline of new infections.

The death rate is staying much the same at 3 per 100 infected...both in the US and Worldwide.

There are 103 MILLION infected worldwide now.

Johnson and Johnson is soon to release their 1 and Done jab...with 66% efficiency worldwide...and a higher 75% here in clinical studies. But the best part is that zero of the people who received the J&J required hospitalization...even if they did get mild symptoms and nobody in the test group died of Covid. 

No One!!!

And the J&J seems to handle the variants.

Pfizer is formulating a booster to handle the known variants. 

No word from Moderna yet.

Dr. Fauci says that by the holidays next year we may be approaching some semblance of normal.

That is good enough for me.

Have a Great Weekend!

 

Oh...and every good thing (...rains finally in Cali...) often comes with a bit of bad news.

As part of the coastal highway (Highway 1) through Big Sur eroded and collapsed into the Pacific Ocean soon after.

Virtual Africa: Johannesburg SA

Welcome to Jo-Burg, South Africa (or Jozi).

Today it is a warm 70 degrees...but rain through this week. It is, after all, the rainy season. 

Afrikaans for rain is "...pula..."

And they are happy when it returns...bringing fresh water and life with it. 

The purple trees above are Jacaranda and are a beautiful variety of mimosa tree.

 

 

They grow everywhere! It is not unusual to see them planted on both sides of a street making a purple tree-tunnel when they are in bloom.

Their spent blossoms littering the streets like fall leaves.

Non-native, they were brought to Jo-burg from Brazil and planted during the gold rush in 1887. 

They bloom here in October and November...and the tree's wood is soft and prized by woodworkers who use it much like pine.

https://youtu.be/3mRI3vr1o00

Classified as a megacity, Johannesburg is one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. Home to over nine million people. 

It was established in 1886 springing up as a small gold-rush town overnight after the metal was discovered on a local farm. By 1896 the population had grown from a handful of people to 100,000.

Soweto was formed as a separate town (South West Territories) and served as home for black workers and families during Apartheid. Johannesburg populated primarily by whites, at the time. Whites were not allowed in Soweto. Neither were persons of mixed blood which they referred to as "colored" and children of white and black mix were illegal and could be removed and resettled.

Today, Soweto is just recognized as part of Jo-burg.

At one time this area sat over a massive gold deposit and its mining contributed to over 40% of the world's gold!

Religions in the area and predominately Christian, Hindu and Muslim.

Temperatures stay between 78 degrees (high) and 61 degrees (low). 

There are more than 14 different languages spoken in this area alone...with the primary language here being Zulu.

One of the more interesting museums in the area is the ACEI Dynamite Factory which documents the history of the mining and settling of Johannesburg.

 We will tour it next!!!

Until then....

 

 

The First Kitty...Covid...A Cinderella Day and More

 

The Biden's have adopted their new rescue kitty...Winston...

No word from the German Shepherds yet.

"..we're effing thrilled... just thrilled..."

                                                        Champ and Major

"Did you know if you grab it like this, it sounds just like a squeaker toy???"

                                                                                                              Major
 

 Woke this morning to sunshine and 20 degrees. Started the day with hot tea and buttered toast with black raspberry jam. My fur-ball is still nestled happily in her cat-nest in front of the heater.

Nope...not moving...

Predictions of more snow by Sunday or Monday.

YAY!!!!

If it is going to be winter....it might as well be pretty.

A Winter Wonderland.

Cinderella Saturday, here. Getting everything done up before the last of the Divisional Playoffs, tomorrow...and yes...football and food!!! 

And it is shaping up to be an amazing "Football Sunday" with The Chiefs vs The Bills....and The Buccaneers vs The Packers. 

All four have played brilliantly this season.

And it STILL amazes me that despite Covid...we have actually managed a season!

Personally, when the dust settles I hope this year's SB Contenders are Mahomes and Brady.

THAT would be a game!

 Dear New England Patriots,

I saw where Cam did not get the team to the playoffs this year.

Also, that Gronk and I brought Tampa here for the first time in 13 years.

In summary, I think it is fairly evident that is was indeed me...not you.

Sincerely,

Tom

 

We will see what happens.

Covid numbers have exploded after the holidays...and they are projecting 500,000 dead in the US by February. Worldwide, the infected are nearly 100 Million now.  Now there are 4 variants (mutations) in 20 countries including our own. The original, one found in UK, One found in Africa, and the latest mutation in California.

Of the four, the UK mutation seems to be the worst at this point...being 70% more transmittable and 30% more deadly. 

Priscilla's husband and Rick's wife (Donna) now dead.

Ditto my RT driver's BIL.

Talk Show Host, Larry King, just died of it.

Thankfully, Chris appears to have made a full recovery...as well as Loretta's son and her DIL,

Loretta gets her second shot on Monday and John has had his first jab with the second scheduled for February.

I'm getting my first soon.

Until then, we are just all being so safe!

You stay safe as well.

The movie this week was

A mind-bend of a film concerning arms trafficking...time inversion...and saving the world.

Doesn't it always seem like the world is this bloody close to complete annihilation???

Seriously.

Well cast, good story, with a nice pop in by Micheal Caine.

Very convoluted and hard to follow at times...already planning a second watch. 

All in all, quite entertaining. 

The house is warm now...going to get a warm bubble bath...then set to work cleaning everything else, here. 

Enjoy the Weekend!

"Hey mom, I caught that damned truck!!!"

                                                                 Gadget

"Nope...still not moving!!!"

                                         Sofi

 

Not the real Winston, above, a photo-shopped "im-paws-ter".

This is the real Winston.

Update:  We did it...we did it...we did it!!!

And Tom Brady goes to his 10th SB....

Edge of your seat game!

Next up Chiefs and Bills!

Must find more snacks!!!!

We won...we won...we won!!!!!!

We have our Mahomes/Brady Superbowl!!!!!!!!

So Excited!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Beginning...

 

Admittedly....THIS was my favorite moment, yesterday...and the few that followed it when Marine One headed south...and got smaller and smaller until it was only a black speck in the sky then disappeared altogether. 

Murmuring a small good riddance.

Like MAGA...which now and forever stands for 

"My Ass Got Arrested..."

and those poor Q people, and Proud Boys...er Bois...er whatever, who were waiting yesterday during the swearing in.

"Wait for it...it is coming...he has a plan...you'll see...wait for it..."

"Hey...we've been duped...conned...nothing happened...and he didn't pardon any of us for Jan. 6th, either..."

Yeah.

The Tiger King is feeling pretty disillusioned, too.

And this guy...

Who said he was expecting thousands of supporters to show up at the Capitol in NYC...then found himself alone.

SAD.

Although, yesterday was the official 

Breaking of a New Day

at noon...in our nation's Capitol...

This...the night before...was when I cried.

 A Memorial to the 400,000+ Americans who have died from Covid. But so much more. The feeling that decency and decorum were returning to the White House. That the ADULTS were back and it was going to be okay.

It was going to be okay.

I watched the inauguration yesterday with the same lump in my throat and proud of my country.
 

And a loving family surrounding the newly inaugurated President...a true outpouring of genuine love not seen here in 4 years...

 

And our new President Biden...amidst a day of pomp and circumstance make time to sign 17 Executive Orders...

• An executive order requiring that people wear masks, and keep their distance from each other, on federal property.
•  
• The launch of a “100 Days Masking Challenge” to encourage Americans to wear masks.
•  
• The reversal of Trump’s decision to remove the US from the World Health Organization.
•  
• An executive order that creates the position of Covid-19 response coordinator and restores the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, a team in charge of pandemic response, within the National Security Council. 
• 
  
• Calls to Congress to extend Covid-19 aid, and requests to various departments to extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums and pause payments for federal loans.
•  
• An “instrument” that will allow the US to re-join the Paris Agreement on climate change within 30 days.
•  
• An executive order reversing actions Trump took that Biden’s agencies judge to have been harmful to the environment, public health, or the national interest, and asking agencies to revise these standards to tackle climate change.
•  
• An executive order with the aim of “embedding equity across federal policymaking and rooting out systemic racism and other barriers to opportunity from federal programs and institutions.” This order will also disband the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission.
•  
• An executive order reversing a Trump administration order that excluded undocumented immigrants from the Census.
•  
• A memorandum directing officials to “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
•  
• An executive action repealing two proclamations, informally known as the “Muslim ban.” that restricted entry into the US from majority-Muslim countries.
•  
• An executive order revoking Trump’s “harsh and extreme immigration enforcement” and directing agencies to set immigration policies more “in line” with the Biden administration’s “values and priorities.”
•  
• A proclamation that will pause the construction of the border wall with Mexico and determine how to best divert those funds elsewhere.
•  
• A memorandum to extend a designation allowing Liberians who have been in the US for a long time to stay.
•  
• An executive order directing the government to interpret the Civil Rights Act as prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, not just race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
•  
• An executive order enacting new ethics rules for government officials.
•  
• An executive order reversing “regulatory process executive orders” enacted by the Trump administration.

Pretty impressive for someone who hasn't even passed a full day as
President.

This morning he would wake and begin again by passing 10
EO's specific to getting us up and running...fighting Covid.

I watched last night and listened to a new press secretary...and the first briefing...and no lies. 

It was wonderful.

I know as the 4 years go on..I will not always agree with what he says or does.

But, I will always know that what he is doing is in the best interest of this Nation.

And that will be enough for me. 

                                     We are going to be okay....