Federal Mandates, Mental Illness Victims, An Unforced Error, and a Lack of Accountability

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”
— Aldous Huxley 

Good morning from a mountain top; I’m looking at a beautiful sunrise; I’ll share a photo with this bit of word soup.  Our day was a bit wonky yesterday; we were to fly from Indy to Denver at 10:40 a.m., our flight got delayed, so we took our kid’s vehicle back to her house and hung out with her, Bay, Angie, and my wife and I., the flight, got pushed back to 2:00, then 1:20 so we headed to the airport about 11:00.

We dined and had a drink before seeing some friends from Muncie that are planning on stopping by the house today. After that, I went to our gate and saw some other friends heading to Golden; we will dine with them Monday night; it’s nice to have our midwestern friends in for a visit. Interestingly, 110,000 people can come together for a football game on a Saturday, they can spit, laugh, yell, and scream, but you must still wear a mask at the airport.

The plane ride was ok, Bay and I played Gin the entire flight, she kicked my butt, but I am leading in our mountain house game.  We arrived around 2:00, got in an UBER; most UBER drivers do not make you wear a mask, but Dan claimed there was a federal mandate; it was out of his control.  I’m a big tipper, but Masked Dan didn’t get a dime.

As we were getting ready to land, my wife asked where I parked the car, and I was struck with fear; I left the car keys in Indiana.  For four years, we flew back and forth every week; I never had a critical issue.  I was diligent; each time I returned to our destination, I would put the other keys in my bag, I always had the keys.  But being a little off my game, not traveling on a routine basis, I put them in the key drawer and never put them back in my bag. In short, I screwed up.  I sent a note to our daughter, she ran over, picked them up, we will get them on Saturday, we have a wedding this weekend, we don’t need the car, luckily we have two out here, and old faithful was there when we needed her.

We arrived back at our downtown Condo, picked up our vehicle, and began our drive back home.  It’s a beautiful drive; the aspens are starting to change, the golden leaves welcomed us back to Conifer.  We stopped by to see our friends at Brooks Place Tavern; Dan, Patricia, Nicole, Dave, and Mark caught us up on last week’s events.  We shared our Indy recap and then headed home to relax.

We sat in our bean bags watched a movie; the cats and pup were happy to see us; it was an early night due to the time change, we got a great night of rest, I think maybe 10 hours of more, acclimating west is easy vs. the acclimation of the west to east.  As I shared before, I waited until the sun was coming up to get out of bed; I made coffee watching the sunrise, my wife is up now, as are the animals, the zoo is alive and well.

I listened to some senate hearings on the plane ride home; there seems to be a lack of accountability at the top levels of our government.  It’s the blame game over and over again.  Pick a department and an issue, and no one made an error; from Afghanistan to the Border Crisis, no one is taking responsibility.  They did pass a bill to fund the government; now, they have until December 3rd to figure out a path forward.  Thankfully, the five trillion-dollar boondoggle is caught in a legislative tar pit; I think only the bones will be left.

We will work here today; friends will visit, we have tickets to see Bill Burr at Red Rocks.  The last time we saw Bill, we were in Vegas the day of the shooting; we flew out before the bullets flew; why we did not extend and hang at the country music show will always be a question, was something bigger than ourselves watching out for us?

We have a call at 10:00 a.m.; they are setting our hot tub on the new deck. So we will work here until this afternoon and head over to our neighbor’s arena. Tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment to check my blood work, and then we are heading to Parker to see our good friends Dave and Anna tie the knot.  It will be a celebration, our friends Knight and Amber are using our home as their wedding venue, we will catch up with them on Sunday.

We have a busy two weeks here; we have tickets to see Dave Matthews next weekend; we need to work to tie up all loose ends before beginning our drive back east in October.   We will bounce between Indiana and Colorado through the holidays; we have a wedding for our daughter at the end of November, a lot of positive things are happening in our lives. 

I submit this as a true and accurate description of the last 24 hours; I think I have described my future as well.  I will soon visit furkot.com and plan our return drive home.  Three six-hour drives with a couple of neat Air B and B’s on the way with our pup is our new reality.   Life has evolved over the past few months and years; I could not have envisioned our life, and I can’t wait to see where we go from here.  Always be kind; Karma is real; if you help others, the world will put you in a place of bliss and freedom.

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”
— Aldous Huxley