our new year

Where the river bends, is a place I’ve been
The water’s not as blue, and the grass, well it ain’t so green
The current gets strong, it can pull you down
You gotta swim hard, if you want to turn around.

—Michael Barber, Where the River Bends

The morning began with the sounds of battle.  Skunk in the yard!  Lily ran around the corner of the house and I heard the excitement of engagement, all too brief, and then one startled bark signifying defeat.  She came racing back, frantically scraping her body and face against the pavement and the ground.  Her color changed completely from white to mud.  I dumped her into the bath, but neither of us was satisfied with the result.  She ran through the house, wiping herself off on all the rugs, furniture, and bedding.  We are turning her over to the professionals at Petsmart and I am spending the day in the great wash-up.  I know it’s pointless. The stink always wins.

Speaking of politics. 

I feel as if I spent a whole year in the constant hope of imminent rescue.  Headlines continually assuring me that Trump was losing it; he was melting down; Mueller was closing in; this or that bit of news was a game-changer.  Today marked the beginning of the end for Trump (Daily Beast, August 15, 2017.) Keith Olberman, retiring, predicts the end of Trump.  (Washington Times, November 28, 2017) Michael Wolff Says That Washington Will Bury Trump (New Yorker, yesterday.)  Meanwhile the support of the Republican Party for all things Trump deepens and broadens.  Lindsey Graham is not a real boy, but a puppet, and along with Chuck Grassley (less surprising) is all in for obstruction of justice.  Trump seems to me no less insane today than he did at his inauguration, i.e. he’s always been the raving bafflegab we see before us.  We have lived a year now caught at the event horizon of venal stupidity.  It’s exhausting.  Ask Tantalus.

So I attach two soothing pictures – art at the beach and the dawning of a new day.