This.That.

So .... vacation. 

Tuxedo wanted to go and tried to stowaway in a suitcase but, alas, was unsuccessful.

It was lovely and peaceful and fun and we got to meet up with friends we hadn’t seen since we left, but ... while it took us about nine-and-a-half-hours to make the nine-hour-and-seventeen minute drive to Ft. Lauderdale on this road:

It took us two hours to drive the 53-minute drive from Ft Lauderdale to our hotel on this road:

But once there we found a local Cuban restaurant, La Carreta, was right nearby and I got my Caldo Gallego fix. For those who don’t know, Caldo Gallego is a white bean and broth soup with pork and it was the perfect capper after a day of driving.

We had a few appointments to take care of while down there but we also visited the Fairchild Tropical Gardens, a favorite spot of ours while we lived there. 

They had a new butterfly house and this guy seemed to want to attach himself to me and come back to South Carolina.

Alas, he could not, but ... whilst walking we happened upon this guy and I begged Carlos to let me bring him home—the cats love to play with lizards—but Carlos the Spoilsport, AKA The rational thinker, said, ‘No.’ But seriously we must have seen 6 or 8 of these beauties and many more of a smaller variety lounging about in the gardens.

We also met up with our friend Benjamin and his boyfriend, Ralph, for a trip to Shubui, our favorite Sushi place. Sadly, the weather had turned cool so Carlos and I donned light sweaters with our shorts and shoes. Benjamin and Ralph, South Floridians forever, wore long-sleeves and long pants and literally raced from the car to the restaurant because of how cold it was that night.

It.Was.Sixty.Eight.Degrees. Carlos and I laughed when we told them that that morning, in our hometown, it was 14 degrees and we’d had snow fall—we heard the news from our pet-sitter. Still, Benjamin and Ralph ran whenever we were outside and cranked the heat in the car to stave off the chill ... of 68 degrees.

It was a nice getaway—nicer because we avoided the horrific cold here for the warmth down South—but, as Seinfeld does, and as I do, I immediately calculate how many hours until we can get home, minus the time sleeping of course.

As much as I love to go away and see old friends and favorite places. I love coming home.

In high-larious news, AKA News of the Stupid, a neo-Nazi group has postponed its planned march in downtown Whitefish, Montana because they couldn’t come up with the $125 fee.

Andrew Anglin, publisher of The Daily Stormer, had planned the march in praise of white supremacist Richard Spencer, but mailed the city of Whitefish an incomplete application seeking a special event permit.

Anglin wrote on his hate-site: “I have spoken at length with my lawyers – though the ACLU has yet to respond to my inquiry – and we’ve decided that due to the permit refusal by the city of Whitefish, we will need to postpone the planned march.”

Um, dickwad? May I call you Dickwad? You didn’t send all the money in and you didn’t fill out the application correctly. M’kay?

Sheesh, white supremacists are cheap ... and stupid ... and they lie.

Ben Carson, _____’s nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,--qualified because he has once lived in a house in an urban area—was asked for his thoughts—funny that, thoughts? Plural?—on LGBTQ housing rights and he quickly vomited up his old Gays Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Marry bull shiz:

“Of course, I would enforce all the laws of the land. And I believe that all Americans regardless of the things that you mentioned should be protected by the law. What I have mentioned in the past is the fact that no one gets ‘extra rights’. ‘Extra rights’ means that you get to redefine everything for everybody else. That to me doesn’t seem to be very democratic.”

Um, Ben, as a Black man, you do remember that marriage was “redefined” back in the 1960s to make interracial marriage legal, right? Are you against that? And I know you’re a brainless brain surgeon, but you do know that marriage has evolved and changed dramatically since the beginning of time, right?

Oh, you don’t? Then sit the fuck down you clinking clanking clacking collection of caliginous junk.

So, #Pissgate. #UrineTroubleDonald. #GoldenShowers. #PEEotus. How is that we didn’t see this coming? I mean, c’mon, that picture is not new!

Wingnuts, and _____, went wild over Meryl Streep’s brilliant speech at the Golden Globes when she called out _____ for mocking a disabled man—and let’s be perfectly clear, he mocked a disabled man.

Meghan McCain, the self-entitled, self-indulgent, self-involved daughter of the long passed his retirement day senator John McCain, Tweeted out this load of crap about Streep and the liberals:

I love that the daughter of a millionaire thinks she speaks for the Middle and Lower classes; she probably Tweeted that whilst having the servants butter her bread over breakfast at the manse. But then internet troll, and gasbag, Tomi Lahren, as true an illiterate as I have ever seen, also weighed in:

Yes, the woman who makes a very good living being an internet asshat thinks she’s a Middle Class American.

I was already to take these too ignorant rightwingnuts on until I found this, by veteran Charles Clymer:

Price.Less.

And lastly, as the inauguration of _____ approaches—and remember, turn your TVs off that day to make it one of the least-watched events ever because low ratings will annoy_____—I was turned onto this site by Warrior Queen, Anne Marie, of From My Brian To My Mouth fame. It’s the Indivisible Guide, whose aim is to unseat, rattle and resist President ____.

“Donald Trump is the biggest popular vote loser in history to ever call himself President- Elect. In spite of the fact that he has no mandate, he will attempt to use his congressional majority to reshape America in his own racist, authoritarian, and corrupt image. If progressives are going to stop this, we must stand indivisibly opposed to Trump and the members of Congress (MoCs) who would do his bidding. Together, we have the power to resist — and we have the power to win.

We know this because we’ve seen it before. The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own MoCs to reject President Obama’s agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism— and they won.

We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda — but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party can stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.

To this end, the following chapters offer a step-by-step guide for individuals, groups, and organizations looking to replicate the Tea Party’s success in getting Congress to listen to a small, vocal, dedicated group of constituents. The guide is intended to be equally useful for stiffening Democratic spines and weakening pro-Trump Republican resolve.

We believe that the next four years depend on Americans across the country standing indivisible against the Trump agenda. We believe that buying into false promises or accepting partial concessions will only further empower Trump to victimize us and our neighbors. We hope that this guide will provide those who share that belief useful tools to make Congress listen."

Check it out, HERE, and #Resist.

As I said, I won’t watch the inauguration, but I will be glued to the set during the impeachment hearing because I am sickened by the fact that we are going from this to that ...