Hey, I'm just checking: (updated)

Am I allowed to sound angry yet?

Discussing National Security
in the middle of his club, which has a $200k membership fee.  One of the members posted social media pictures posed with the guy who carries "the football" for the love of GOD! Not only is this just totally batshit crazy and evidence that his team has NO fucking idea how to conduct the business of the nation, but imagine what the Japanese are thinking right now? How will other nations' security people trust us about anything, when this amateur hour clusterfuck is being laughed at all over the world right now?

Forcing an American citizen by birth, a freaking NASA scientist, to hand over his phone
Because why, he has a funny name that sounds like he's one a them "furriners"?  He's an American who works for the JPL! You don't think he has already been through deep security checks the Customs people haven't had to do?  Who the hell is in charge, anywhere?

I'm not even going to go into the dozen other daily outrages, and we're only three weeks in. I know, it feels a lot longer.  So yeah, this is why I'm perhaps sounding a bit peeved, and will continue to mention rant about these things because this is the biggest crisis this country has ever seen. We really do need to be paying attention and getting pissed off and above all, not letting up on the pressure. They need to know every day that we see them, we know what they are, and we are not going to accept it. Wait and see isn't a choice.

UPDATE: Flynn resigned and that's a good start, but it's pretty damn clear he wasn't acting alone. This is going to remain ugly for the foreseeable future.

Alarming Animal Update:

Ellie can open cabinets.  I feel fear. So far, she's only breached the vanity cabinets in her bathroom, the room that hasn't been remodeled.  When I was a child I really wanted a pet raccoon.  Wish granted.

Concerning Animal Update:

Sophie's runny yellow poop made an unexpected reappearance over the weekend. No changes in diet, no new stress, just suddenly, the squirt gun of angry yellow poop fired again, and has fired for a couple of days in a row.  It's not uncontrollable; she hasn't done it in the house (where she neatly deposits it in the tiled shower in my bathroom)  in months. But when it happens it's not normal.

I remembered at last that when Murphy was first having issues, Vet Boy added a quarter of a Pepcid to his meds to calm the gaseous innards. We've started that. So far, so good - poop is no longer yellow, and no longer fired at high pressure, but still far from normal.  To recap: she's been through extensive blood tests and sophisticated poop tests and all sorts of tests, and short of spending money I don't have for a veterinary gastro specialist, my beloved and highly trusted vet is on board with messing around, tweaking diet, looking for the key. Her weight is holding, she's enthusiastically eating, loves treats and walks, she's FINE, other than the abnormal poopage. She didn't poop in the house while I was at work all day, she was very pissed at me when I cut her walk short tonight because I had to pee and had to cook dinner.  She's chipper and normal, and nobody has any idea.  Right now she's snoring comfortably on the old futon couch in my home office. She's a mystery, but a contented one.