I'm just F-ing beside myself. You are too, right?

 

The news, the news, the news. What if we are on a rocket going backwards? Do we want the rocket to safely splash down in the 1950s, say--or do we want it to explode in mid-air? I'm asking. 

I made the mail art card above for a dear loved one. The king lying under the rock in the lower right hand corner might have been too subtle of a choice. 

Last night the wind roared for hours in Minneapolis. I've lived here in this building for 17 months. The wind last night howled like a monster and shook the things on our balconies.

This is what I see from my balcony at night. Like other things I've more or less taken for granted, it too is in the process of disappearing. A new building is going up. Every day, this vista is one day closer to gone.

This is this week's collage. When I can't follow a thought long enough to write, I cut up paper and make things.

Win Lose Draw

This is what the Mississippi River looked like in my neighborhood today as it experienced its scheduled drawdown. I think I read somewhere that it's so the infrastructure of the locks and dams can be inspected. Meanwhile there were flocks of gulls and human onlookers. Many people seemed to be treasure hunting.

 

I watched a crew of workers pull bikes and scooters out of the muck with ropes and hooks.

There was an immense tangle of stuff, including the metal box below. The workers tried for a few minutes to open it--to no avail. The whole situation seemed bleak to me despite the volunteers from the park service talking with visitors about the river and its original configuration before the sawmills, and the flour mills, and the shoring up of the ruined falls. All the while, the evidence of current stupidity and ruination is poking up from the mud. Hundreds of plastic water bottles, trash of every imaginable kind, including the Nice Ride rental bikes and the rental scooters that are a plague for pedestrians on city sidewalks. The pile above represents only five minutes or so of work. I suppose this went on for hours. We're a disaster, we humans. 

I hope someone found treasure. Gold, or silver, or a box of something precious. 

When I got home I opened the bill from my kidney procedure. 20,800 and some dollars--not including the doctor's visits and the testing beforehand. Because I have a Medicare Advantage plan that I pay 99 dollars a month for, all but 250.00 dollars of that was covered. I'll bet our president's care for his Covid hospitalization totaled a quarter of a million. It's disgusting that so many people do not have decent health care or insurance of any kind--especially during a pandemic. These United States are so far into the muck, I fear we may never get out. 

BUT I have cast my ballot. And I do hope for change.