I’ve grazed about a billion pundits ranging throughout the polly-tickal spectrum. I don’t tend to stick around with anyone too far right or left. I’m polly-tickally complex but in this day and age, my personal echo chamber tends to be liberal with COMMON SENSE (!). Something like that anyway.

Here’s the thing. This gubmint shutdown thingy? It affects my household DIRECTLY! As in, the GG went to work for exactly one hour this morning to close things up for the duration. So, no paycheck for him for now. Last time this happened, he did eventually end up up getting back pay for all of his furlough days. That’s right, he got paid for not working (except for all the time he was futzing around with orthogonal polynomials or whatever because that’s the kind of thing computer scientists do and that’s what he had been working on at work). We’ll see what happens this time.

Am I panicking about this? No, I am not. We are definitely okay and do not need any money (not that anyone out there was planning to send us any). Because what did I do today? I went to work like I always do. I didn’t even mention the damn shutdown to anyone. Why bother? The sun will still rise and set over the Landfill and the bills will get paid (assuming Froggy doesn’t EAT any of them). Anyway, I am NOT a damn drama queen.

Am I angry about this? Of course I am! Who are these cray-zee people? I certainly didn’t elect any of them. Who did? Why am I angry? Because there are a lot of furloughed folks out there who do NOT have the financial security that my household has achieved (after many many years of hard work). Like the mom who commented on a TV 9&10 facebook story this morning — family of five, furloughed dad works at the Soo Locks. Take a note Cray-zees: people who work at the Soo Locks are hard-working, honest laborers who are working to feed their families. They probably share the “family values” that your party is always promoting. In fact, I’ll bet that some of those folks vote for Republicans now and I will bet that they may change their tune after this. How does furloughing folks like this help the economy or reduce the deficit? I think that this family *should* be paid for their dad’s furlough days. I think the GG should be paid for his furlough days but if he isn’t, we will suck it up. The Soo Locks family needs back pay.

What did the GG do today? Well, for one thing, when I got home this afternoon, he was NOT HOME!!! YAYYY! I am accustomed to having a wee bit of space when I get home from work. Where was he? He was out on the river in the purple kayak! (He texted a pic.) It was a gorgeous Indian Summer day here on The Planet and he did yard work and gardening and things that we struggle to get done on the weekends we are not gallivanting around in the Great White North or wherever.

Those are my opinions. I have no predictions except that I don’t think this shutdown will be short. If you care about those who have less than you, this may be the time to make some donations to help those folks, the ones who had regular paychecks and could provide for their families until today. I know I am planning on doing that. And please contact your national representatives to tell them that this shutdown is a reeeaaallly bad idea.

Good night,
KW

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