{"id":36989,"date":"2025-12-16T08:47:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36989"},"modified":"2025-12-16T18:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T01:03:10","slug":"back-in-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36989","title":{"rendered":"Back in the Box"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_6635\"<\/a>The inset selfie is from a couple of days ago. Donna and Polly, at the other end of the house, were yelling at each other about something or other. When they get into it the girls seek shelter with me. Look at the concern on those faces!<\/p>\n

Do our four-legged companions wonder what life would be like if we weren’t there to feed them? Donna’s taking Lulu to the vet for dental work in a couple of hours. They’ll have to put her under for the procedure, which means she can’t eat beforehand. That, in turn, means Fritzi has to wait until Lulu’s gone before she gets her breakfast. Is it woke to wonder how our pets will react to changes in their routine?<\/p>\n

Break break … it’s been a few hours, and a groggy Lulu is home again, 13 fewer teeth in her mouth than she woke up with. Although our intent wasn’t cosmetic, she no longer has an underbite. Fritzi, who fretted all day about her missing companion, doesn’t like the way she smells now, a lingering fragrance of veterinary clinic and anesthesia, and is keeping her distance. We’ll be giving Lulu pain pills and antibiotics the next couple of days, along with empty pill pockets for Fritzi so she doesn’t think her housemate’s getting treats when she isn’t. When it comes to goodies and who gets what, there’s not a doubt in my mind they count and keep score. Just like us … well, hell, we’re all mammals, so no surprise there.<\/p>\n

The annual holiday season letter is written and, mostly, sent. These days almost everyone on our address list gets theirs via email or Facebook messenger. We’ll have to reach out to the rest the old-fashioned way, with paper, envelopes, and stamps.<\/p>\n

When it comes to buying things online, we pretty much stick with Amazon. Yes, I know we’re supposed to hate them, but we almost always find exactly what we’re looking for there, at a good price and with quick free delivery. If it’s not right, it’s crazy easy to return a purchase, and refunds are instantly credited back to our account. They’ve never let us down. For us, an Amazon Prime membership is a no-brainer, especially since it includes their ad-free streaming TV service.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6727\"<\/a>Sometimes sellers on eBay can beat Amazon prices. A couple of weeks back I got brave and branched out, ordering a wristwatch from an eBay seller. It arrived promptly (only for Donna to confiscate and hide it until the 25th), so I stuck my neck out and ordered a Lladro figurine from another eBay seller, ditto for Christmas, this time for Donna. It was meant to replace one I once brought home from a deployment to Spain, a tall thin lady sitting in a tall thin chair and doing embroidery with her tall thin hands, a figurine Donna loved but sadly dropped years ago, smashing it to bits. Which is how, yesterday, the replacement figurine arrived … in bits, courtesy of the USPS. I sent a quick note, along with a photo, to the seller. Two hours later he’d refunded our money. So we’re trusting eBay now, along with Amazon.<\/p>\n

So that’s good, but now what? That was to be my big gift for Donna. And I owe her one, especially after she bought me new living room and office chairs for our anniversary earlier this month. Scrambling now. Wish me luck!<\/p>\n

\n

I’m going to assume I don’t have to explain that Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered in their home Sunday, and that Donald Trump posted a hateful rant about Reiner on Truth Social. What I’m finding interesting is right-wing reaction to Trump’s nastiness. Like this post from conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan, a person I almost never agree with:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2654\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m focused on Sullivan’s last sentence: “The damage he is doing to the civic and moral core of this country is profound and irrevocable.” Yes, exactly that, and I’ve been saying so since 2016, when he first ran and somehow managed to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, who earned almost three million more votes than he did. The man is a moral abomination. It’s not politics, it’s morality. The damage has been, and continues to be, real.<\/p>\n

Until Trump took office, I never fully realized just how right Hillary Clinton was when she said this<\/a><\/strong>: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic \u2013 you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people \u2013 now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks \u2013 they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.”<\/p>\n

I could have happily gone through life not knowing that ten to twenty percent of the kids in Sunday school and my childhood classrooms, where we were being taught moral and civic values like working together, being brave in the face of adversity, doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, feeding and clothing the poor, welcoming the downtrodden, and looking out for one another, were privately thinking “fuck this goody two-shoes shit; I’m gonna grow up and do the exact opposite.”<\/p>\n

Unfortunately the deplorables, led by Trump, have come to represent America to the world. The moral rot is deep now and may take generations to excise. What I can’t understand is how we, normal people who were raised with decent values, allowed it to happen. Don’t we outnumber them by a wide margin? The deplorables used to know, or at least sense somehow, that their beliefs were contemptible and shameful, and mostly kept them to themselves, but they’re running wild now. As Yeats says, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst\/Are full of passionate intensity.” It’s way past time to put that mob back in the box. I just pray it’s not too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m going to assume I don’t have to explain that Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered in their home Sunday, and that Donald Trump posted a hateful rant about Reiner on Truth Social. What I’m finding interesting is reaction to Trump’s nastiness on the right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,40,250,10,2,415,2761],"tags":[285,2532,4834,1974],"class_list":["post-36989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumerism","category-critters","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-personal","category-products","category-yell-clouds","tag-amazon","tag-deplorables","tag-dogtooth","tag-ebay"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36989"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37006,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36989\/revisions\/37006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}