Category: D.C.

Deny, Defend, Depose

Second entry of the evening. Hey, I WILL have 31 entries for the month!

I may or may not have mentioned here (and probably not) that Pluto is now in Aquarius. That is supposed be an era of tearing down structures and institutions that serve only a few to the detriment of humanity as a whole. The last time Pluto was in Aquarius, we had the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Well, since Pluto entered Aquarius on November 19:

There are mass protests in Georgia.

The people of South Korea resisted martial law.

The French government collapsed.

The assassination of a billionaire health insurance company CEO may very well have touched off a class war in the U.S.

I’m not a hardcore believer in astrology. It’s more of a fun thing to learn, and the geometry comes in handy while shooting pool. But maybe we should brace ourselves, because Pluto will be in Aquarius until March 8, 2043. Hey, I’m 58 with one heart attack behind me already. This may be the rest of my life! Bring it on, I say. Just tear it all down. It’s the only way things will ever change.

Some images from around the internet:

A banner hanging off a bridge. The banner says "Deny. Defend. Depose."

This next one is a railcar.

The words "Deny, Defend, Depose" spray-painted on a railcar.

And my favorite:

Chalk writing on a sidewalk that says "We're not from the left or the right. We're from the bottom and we're coming for those on top."

I expect to see more stuff like this. I also figure that there is more where the CEO shooting came from. Americans have pretty much had it with our health care system. It doesn’t matter what political persuasion one holds dear: Anyone who has had private health insurance has had a problem with private health insurance.

In other news… I went on a city-walk yesterday. Here’s a Christmas tree. This is Holidailies, after all.

Ice and Song

We’re expecting one inch of snow overnight and they already closed the schools for tomorrow.

I wonder if the federal government will also close.

The D.C. area really has become the epitome of wimpiness.

“But it’s the ICE!”

Well, we’ve always had ice. The difference is that it actually had to be on the ground and too thick for sand to offer traction on it before anything closed. I remember schlepping to a job that was a 10-minute walk from Union Station, basically skating across Stanton Park in my boots, and stopping to marvel at the unfortunate beauty of budding cherry trees encased in ice half an inch thick.

And yet, nature looks toward spring, even now, in mid-January. This morning Pierre the Northern Cardinal flew up into the tree after Balcony Breakfast and sang his first courting song of the year. It moved me to tears for being alive to hear it.

He kept stopping and starting as though learning and practicing, thus confirming for me that he is a young one and maybe even a surviving son of the pair who nested in the holly bushes last spring. I don’t know where they went or what might have happened to them, though I fear that their second clutch failed because of the sprinklers and they might have abandoned the site. They also may have divorced (it happens about 20% of the time) or perhaps perished of natural causes, including predation, as the average Northern Cardinal lifespan is a heartbreakingly short three years.

I love that Pierre has grown–perhaps in part because of his visits to the balcony?–and I’ll cherish hearing him for the next few months as he establishes his territory and seeks a mate, even when he routinely wakes me up before 5:00 a.m. next month. I hope a lovely lady Northern Cardinal finds his song as charming as I do.

O Christmas Tree, Oops Christmas Tree

Long day of cleaning, laundry, and cooking, and I decided to put up my tree this year, so this will be a short one. I’m putting up my own tree just to celebrate the fact that I survived the heart attack. The decorations were amassed over the years and my travels, inherited from my parents, or given to me by friends, and I want to look back on all of it in gratefulness for the joy I’ve known in this life, while also looking forward to many more years of life, lawd willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

Here is Washington, D.C.’s tree for the year, going out to a whole bunch of people–Don, Mark, Scott, Haisam, Amanda, and Cyndi.

Washington, D.C.'s state Christmas tree, 2023.
Washington, D.C.’s state Christmas tree, 2023. Click to embiggen.

As long as I’m posting D.C.’s tree, I’ll add the National Christmas tree as well, since all of these trees are in D.C.

The National Christmas Tree, lit up at night.
The National Christmas Tree, 2023. What a hot mess.

Yes, it’s looking a little rough. It fell over and had to be hoisted back up with a crane. I don’t think they did too much to fix the lights or the streamers. When I first took a good look at it, I thought someone had TP’d it.

Then there is the other extreme, the tree in front of the Town Hall in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. A smaller tree down by the water in Old Town looked the same. I guess they don’t believe in putting anything on top.

Christmas tree at night.
Christmas tree in front of Alexandria Town Hall in Virginia.

To be honest, I prefer the National Tree. I prefer a wild, hot mess to stringent precision. Pretty sure that’s how my own tree will turn out tonight, too. Usually I weave the lights through the branches one at a time, but I don’t have the patience for it so it’s a rather loose weave. By the time I’m done with the lights I might be done for the evening and have to put off decorating the tree until tomorrow night, but that’s okay. No one is going to see it but me, and it’s worth it.