Where to begin? There are so many weird things going on in the world right now, it’s hard to know where to start.

(I should make it clear that neither option presented appealed to me, and I am sad this is the best we can do).

November 3rd was election day in the United States. Trump vs. Biden. I had no idea who was going to win this election. In case someone is reading this years from now, it’s important to remember this is 2020. Everything is different.

First of all, there was more early voting and tons of voting by mail. Now… the President was very opposed to so many mail-in ballots. Prior to the election he decried mail-in voting was fraught with corruption and rigged. Ask yourself. Who are the people more likely to vote early? Likely people who wanted to avoid long lines that would increase their risk for contracting COVID.

From the beginning the President assured the public that COVID would go away. He has routinely called it the Chinese virus (which it probably is) and spent a lot of time picking at Democratic governors for the way they led their state’s response, while providing absolutely no leadership of his own. He was rarely seen wearing a mask, and mocked others who did. He got the virus himself. This is where being President has a real advantage. He’s tested every day, so it was diagnosed immediately, and of course he received immediate treatment from some of the best doctors in the world. I suspect if he was an every day Joe from middle America, 74 years old and obese he may not have faired so well. Example case: Suey. Sick for three weeks.

But I digress… The question was, which voters were more likely to vote early or by mail? Answer: Biden followers.

Fast-forward to election night. Votes began to roll in. It seemed as if early, in-person totals were tabulated first in many areas. This meant that Biden jumped out to leads all over, including traditionally red states like Texas. As election day voting started to be counted as polling places closed, Trump closed the door on a lots of those traditionally red states like Texas and swing states like Ohio and Florida. I went to bed pretty sure that Trump had won, but nothing was certain. There were a lot of states where Trump was leading, but they hadn’t been called yet. Then those mail-in votes began to be counted in earnest, and holy shit! Biden suddenly had leads in a lot of these too-close-to-call states. He won Michigan and then Wisconsin. Next, the unimaginable happened. Biden started gaining in places like Georgia and Pennsylvania and the outstanding votes were not in rural communities, but in places like Philly and Atlanta. Biden was projected to win Arizona which Trump won in 2016, but still we had no winner. Finally on November 7th, the major outlets announced Biden as the winner. Here we are a week later and Trump will not concede, claiming fraud.

Meanwhile Coronavirus is out of control. Some countries are imposing a new wave of lockdowns. The US has had more than 300,000 new cases in the past two days. Yes. You read that right. Two Days! On the bright side, the death rate is down. Still, with that many cases there are still 1200+ deaths reported a day. This doesn’t exactly bode well for large holiday gatherings.

S & I remain in our little bubble out in the country. Our favorite neighbors put their house up for sale on Friday. It makes me sad, because even through I haven’t asked, I’m pretty sure he got laid off due to COVID and she had just started a small business maybe six months before the pandemic which wasn’t able to be sustained through all of this. It makes you feel like a dick, ya know? The world has changed.

There is no black Friday. Stores have moved to a model to encourage as much online shopping as possible so that people won’t crowd the stores on just one or two days. The Ohio State football gave was cancelled today, because multiple players on the team they were facing tested positive. The best college football player, on the best team tested positive and had to miss multiple games which caused them to lose last week. Trivial in the scheme of things, yes. But still surreal.

In other news, I completed my 40 book reading challenge a couple weeks ago. I am currently reading another Brandon Sanderson novel. It’s good, but not my favorite of his. I am also watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. IT IS AWESOME!

Talk to you soon.

XOXO