5/17/23

 Wednesday, May 17, 2023

In bed around 9:30, awake at 3:45, and up at 4. let Lilly out for a long pee. 42℉ under a clear sky, high 53℉, the wind is still NNE at 14 mph (yesterday's 'pneumonia front' blowing down and in from Lake Michigan), 4 to 14 mph today, gusts up to 24 mph, sunrise at 5:26, sunset at 8:10, 14+44.

An old man in his nightshirt with his old dog looking through a window at birds and squirrels feeding in the early morning sunlight

How Biden Blew It on the Debt Ceiling  Paul Krugman in this morning's NYT:  "after months of asserting that it would never engage in negotiations over the debt ceiling, that it would accept nothing less than a clean increase, the administration is now … negotiating over the debt ceiling.  Many people have pointed out that this sets a terrible precedent, that having seen that extortion works, Republicans will engage in it again and again. Even these concerns, however, seem to me to be taking too long a view. Now that Republicans see what seems to be an administration on the run, there’s every reason to expect them to keep escalating their immediate demands — quite possibly to the point where no deal is possible.

I have no idea what happens next. I think there’s a real possibility that Biden officials will in the end be forced by sheer Republican intransigence to adopt unconventional methods after all — a task that will be made much harder by the fact that those same officials have spent months trash-talking the approaches they may need to follow.

But I don’t see any way to regard this whole episode as anything but a disastrous failure to face up to the reality of an opposition party controlled by extremists."

Lazy day for both Lilly and me.  We go into some form of suspended or suppressed animation when Geri leaves town.  Our brains and our bodies slow down, as does our interest in doing things.  I did manage to remember to give Lilly her bladder medicine this morning, though I forgot to give her the Cosequin last night.  I also watered Geri's outdoor potted plants.  I started to mix a batch of dough for no-knead bread but discovered my King Arthur Bread Flour is 2 weeks shy of 2 years past its "best by" date which suggests to me I haven't baked a loaf of bread in two years or more.  Not good.  I put the flour on the shopping list on my phone.  Ditto yeast.  I did watch an episode or two of Godless on Netflix and I'm enjoying it.  Working hard at avoiding MSNBC and CNN.  

How we occupy ourselves with Geri out of town