Marking Inauguration Day with mixed emotions and a heavy heart 🇺🇸 🗽💔"

Today was a catch‑up day.
I finally finished the laundry, though I’m not sure how it piled up so quickly.
Badger had been doing it for me while I was sick.

Poor Badger got drafted into a minor clean‑up this evening.
We kept smelling, and I’ll be honest, road kill.
I mean, it smelled point‑blank like road kill that had been sitting in the hot July sun for a month.
OK, maybe Raven’s work boots. He keeps his shoes in the hallway in front of the heater.
Possibly Lady. I mean, she smells plumb fishy some days, and we haven’t figured that one out..

Finally, Annabelle jumped into my lap.
I looked down, and oh gag.
She’d had an accident.
Right in my lap.

Yeah, I went to clean up, Badger sanitized everything, and Miss Annie is sitting in a crate howling.
I’ll call the vet, because no animal should smell that nasty.
The floors got mopped, the house smells piney fresh, and the couches were washed again.

Heron went fishing early this morning, then came home, took his dog, and headed out hiking at Seven Islands.
I told him the weather was too cold for either activity.

Raven blew the fuse again.
Cowboy keeps telling him not to run that space heater, but he never listens.
The wiring in this old place is touchy, and when one fuse goes, it knocks out half the house.
The power went out in Raven’s room, part of mine, even the ceiling fan and TV in the living room. 
Cowboy swears the fridge and freezer are on that same circuit, too. 
We had to go flip the breaker, and once we did, everything came back on.
It’s hard to blame anyone for wanting extra heat. 
The house turns seventy‑six this spring, and it was never built to stay warm. 
The windows leak, the walls groan, and the cold finds every corner. 
So we layer up, pile on blankets, and make the best of it

New‑Old President has been elected.
I’m doing my best to ignore the change of power.
Cowboy says that surely they had someone better than that nut, but he wouldn’t vote, so I don’t see how he can complain.
I did vote, and I will complain..

Four years of the great orange one and the pretend hillbilly vice president.
Pretend.
I’m a hillbilly. 
That man would run screaming if he ever actually had to grow up in the Appalachians.
He grew up in Ohio.
Handmaid’s Tale, here we come.