November 12, 2016

It was 35 degrees outside at six-thirty this morning when I got up and put on the heat. It was 48 degrees inside BOB. I had let the dogs sleep with me so we could keep each other warm during the night. The heating system continues to blow ambient air once it hits the temperature set on the thermostat, and I neither like the sound of it nor the feeling of room temperature air blowing on me, so I don’t use it. The dogs were happy – especially Addison who curled up as close to my face as she could.

I've read several articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and The Atlantic offering postmortems on the election. The consensus seems to be that the Trump campaign focused on identity- rather ideology-politics. The white working- and middle-classes want better paying jobs, lower taxes, law-and-order, and fewer immigrants, so they hired a silver-spooned white boy who has never looked for work, who has skillfully avoided paying taxes, who has had a series legal entanglements, and who identified immigrants as the threat to their jobs and security, to do their bidding. The irony is obvious, but the logic prevails: they see Trump (his socioeconomic status at birth notwithstanding) as the embodiment of the American Dream. These are the same people who rail against estate and inheritance taxes although most of them will never be subject to them. They believe, however, if given the opportunity (by the government?), they will achieve tremendous wealth and they don't want their heirs to pay those taxes. I also don't believe in estate, inheritance, or capital gains taxes. If I pay income tax on my wages, why should I or my heirs pay further taxes because I was able to increase the value of my after-tax wages by investing in real property or stocks and bonds? That really doesn't seem fair to me every time I pay capital gains taxes.

Leonard Cohen died this week. I became familiar with his music when I was in business school. A friend had the 1975 "Best of Leonard Cohen" CD which I subsequently purchased. "Suzanne," "Famous Blue Raincoat," "So Long, Marianne," and "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" are on my iTunes playlist. I would have picked Cohen over Bob Dylan for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but no one asked me.

The cabinet beneath the kitchen sink is wet again. It hasn't rained, I haven't filled the water tank, and I haven't moved BOB. This time there was water beneath rubber liner. I spent an hour trouble-shooting the leak. Again. I can't remove the rear vertical panel because of the pipes and I can take the pipes apart. When I unscrew the rear panel I can slide it up about three inches which is enough for me to get my hands behind it. Some of the wires were wet, but the floor wasn't soaked. Again, I ran both the hot and cold water in an attempt to replicate the leak, but I neither saw nor felt any water. The hot water heater was off, so I really wasn't running "hot" water. Perhaps the leak is caused by condensation? It seems unlikely. My next experiment is to turn on the hot water heater and not run the water for one or two hours and see if the cabinet gets wet from condensation. If it's dry, I'll do the dishes and check the cabinet again.
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The shower stall started leaking again, too. I don't care about that.

There isn't a real grocery on Chincoteague Island which is pronounced "Shincoteague" by the locals and Jincoteague by Donald Trump. I went to four shops looking for heavy whipping cream, but I had to settle for half-and-half. The guy at the shop was great and he told me where I could buy bourbon. I haven't had bourbon since June, and the cold air aroused in me a desire for brown liquor. Virginia is one of those ridiculous states which controls the sale of liquor through "state" stores. When I lived in Philadelphia, I would go to New Jersey to buy booze (because Pennsylvania is one of those ridiculous states), in spite of the fact that I didn't own a car. Only states which have no borders (Alaska and Hawaii) can get away with that crap. Maine, the only state which borders only one other, borders New Hampshire, a state which says that you can live free or die, and which abolished its state liquor stores in 1991. I didn't have a backpack with me so I stuffed the half-and-half inside my coat and departed for the state store. Once there, the prospect of buying a 1.5 liter bottle of bourbon was daunting because my coat couldn't hold it. I stared at the 750ml bottles of Woodford Reserve for a while when I noticed the 200ml bottle of Maker's Mark. Sold! It would fit in my other pocket! Good thinking, Maker's!