"Exciting Times!"

Tammy had surgery on her foot last week to remove bone spurs and bone chips. Her doctor said it was a much-needed surgery for her. Over the past two years, especially, she hasn't been able to work out or walk very far the way she used to (because of pain), so we're hopeful this will give her that ability again. She was supposed to have the surgery last fall, but had to put it off for six months after her cardiac arrest experience last August. She's wearing a protective boot on her surgical foot and must avoid putting weight on it for 6 to 8 weeks. Our goal is to get her fit for a full day at the state fair in August!

We're in the waning weeks of another relatively easy winter. Nearly all of our snowfall is gone, and the long-range forecast has us well above freezing. Our last three winters have been nearly identical in terms of snowfall, with each recording less than half our usual amount, between 51 and 54 inches (130 and 137 cm). There's still a chance that we could be dumped on in the next few weeks, but those are the numbers so far. 

I drove out to my parents' former home in the cornfields of Farmington a few days ago, where they lived from 1979 until 1985. It was a nice home, just a few years old when they bought it, situated on seven acres of which at least two were landscaped. My mom used to spend hours on her riding mower beautifying their property each week during the growing seasons. I lived with them there for a few months when I got out of the Navy in December 1979. We had many family gatherings there in the early '80s when we still functioned as a cohesive family unit. Those days are long gone now. 

I parked out on the gravel road in front of their former home and launched my drone, flying it slowly up the driveway to avoid overhanging limbs from the overgrown trees lining it. The home looked tired. Perhaps it's the time of year with the drab color. At the end of the video, I included an aerial photo of the home that I took in 1981 when I hired a local pilot to fly me up so I could photograph it. 

As I was packing up to leave, a neighbor next door approached me to ask what I was doing. He had seen the drone flying overhead. I told him my parents used to live in the home but had moved away forty years ago. He asked if my last name was Gilmore. I replied that it was and introduced myself. We chatted for ten minutes as I filled him in on what had become of our family. At 51 years old today, Brian was just a boy when we lived there, but he remembered us.

(The blog post continues below the video.)

I've been off Facebook for well over a month, and have zero regrets about leaving the platform—well, maybe just one regret. I regret not seeing the daily happy adoption stories from the Paws and Claws Humane Society in Rochester, where we found Oscar and Rudy in July 2024. I miss seeing those uplifting updates.

I'm disgusted by what has become of our country under the leadership of Trump. We are now the 'bad guys', as we wage war on countries we're assured of prevailing over, or at least we think we are, and as we turn our backs on our allies. 

We attacked the sovereign nation of Venezuela recently and arrested its illegitimate president before taking some of their oil, selling it, and placing the proceeds in an offshore account controlled by Trump. We've threatened to take over Iceland, and now, partnered with Israel, we're attacking Iran, using the bogus claim that they were days away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. They're not. Besides, is a nuclear-capable Iran any more of a threat to the stability of the globe than a Trump presidency with nukes? I don't see the difference. 

Speaking about his ill-conceived war in Iraq, Trump commented this week that, "These are exciting times!"

What is clear to many of us is that this unnecessary and prohibitively expensive war (at least $1 billion per day) is doing what it was intended to do: draw our attention away from the Epstein files that more and more appear to show our current U.S. president as having raped little girls. 

I worry about children coming of age during this administration, who can only conclude that the criminality, cruelty, and dysfunction coming from this administration are normal politics. It's possible that this has become our new normal, but let's hope not. Let's hope that this evilness parading as Christianity will be dealt with harshly in the years to come. Let's hope that those affiliated with and supporting this evilness will be left to feel shame at some point. And let's hope Kristi Noem is feeling that shame now.

Something that has become clear to anyone paying attention is that we cannot trust the proclamations coming from the White House or any Republican. Most people not in the cult of Trump see this administration and its supporters as being as trustworthy as state-run TV from authoritarian leaders around the globe, which is to say, not at all trustworthy.

Sobering words.

So much grief.

We could have had Kamala.

That's all I've got.