This was a great trip. Not too long. It was a marvelous interlude. We drove West on I-64, got off, drove a few miles South, then ☝ up the mountain. We loved the view and the peaches.

We drove through Charlottesville, had lunch at their First Watch restaurant. We like the food at First Watch. I had a vegetable frittata and a salad. Charlottesville has a sprawling University within its sprawling and blurred city/county boundaries. There are plenty of cars and stores and earnest souls who want sustainability, probably for somebody else besides themselves.

We drove home on the most boring stretch of highway I have ever driven or ridden on. I just want the trip to be over every time.

And I’m tired again.

I read the obituaries mostly because my Mum read the obits and I’m carrying on the tradition. The other day I read where a friend just lost her granddaughter to Ewing’s Sarcoma. When we saw her at lunch today, we could express our grief and condolences.

Today, I saw in the paper an obituary for an AA friend with 39 years sobriety. The obit read “went out his own way”. Oddly phrased, unless the deceased committed suicide, which he did. My buddy H, a mutual friend, had lunch with this guy, DC, the day before he died. No indication of a problem was perceptible.

I’d known DC since I came into the rooms. We weren’t that close. Still when I can count on seeing somebody at meetings for twenty five years and he consistently comes across as one of the “adults in the room”, it’s a shock.

Makes me want to engage in chocolate therapy.

If something is getting to you, get help. Don’t stop till you feel better. Please, you matter to people, no matter how worthless you think you are.

My Social Security check was automatically deposited in my checking account about an hour ago. I moved some money around to adjust for money I used as a safety net in case a debit hit my account.

I woke up around 2:00 AM, made some decaf, watched the Ukrainian metal detecting guys.

They found a Roman denarius coin, some Soviet coins, a coin from Tsar Nicholas I, and the metal casing of a fragmentation hand grenade from the World War II. All in one field.

I went to bed earlier last night, slept a little better. J was watching sit coms from the Sixties since I was with her. Some of the were good, particularly Green Acres. I love that shiw.

After the Ukrainian metal detecting guys Crazy Seeker, on You Tube I watched some “conspiracy” shows. They are what they are. There a lot of powerful and rich people who seek to influence public opinion. There are citizen journalists who look into the background of a lot of news stories. They raise good points. Leave it at that.

I quickly saw that a lot of them took the ignored problem of human trafficking and attributed too much of this activity to Jeffrey Epstein. We just don’t know, at this point, all of what Epstein was up to. We probably won’t until the government presents its case at trial.

Then I packed J’s lunch. I’m watching a freight train move through Ashland, with shipping containers stacked 3 high on a flat car. Pretty amazing.

I’m getting sleepy again. All part of the night’s routine for me,

I have some pork marinating in Goya Mojo Criollo, that I will slow cook for dinner. Maybe C (#2 son) can come over. He likes this dish, Cuban Roast Pork.

Later folks.

I had my six month Doctor Visit today, as part of being an Old Man. It went OK. I had to fast beforehand, 8 hours, no big deal. Still it throws my eating regimen out of whack. Usually I eat whenever I want.

Physically I’m doing OK.

Before I went to the Doctor, I went to 8:00 AM Mass at the Benedictine Abbey. The Church there has the world’s worst acoustics. And the priest, if he is not a native English speaker, is often times unintelligible. But I know what he is saying, so it’s not that important I understand every word.

So after the Doctor Visit, I went to AA. That’s another example where showing up is the most important part.

Then J and I had cheeseburgers for lunch. She ordered a salad with blue cheese dressing, too, while I had a bowl of chili. This was at Longhorns. It’s a chain restaurant, I know, but we like the people who work there, especially the server, Lauri, we ask for.

I came home and crashed. I had a nap. Now I am watching a YouTube video from a man who lives on a canal barge in England. Maybe I should try that for awhile, cruising the canals. Seems like right out of Dickens. We have the James River & Kanawha Canal in Richmond, built in the pre-Civil War era. It was intended to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Ohio River and its tributaries. It was a good idea before railroads prevailed in transportation. I wonder if reviving the canal for pleasure craft, or barge tourism has ever been considered. Since it was partially built with slave labour, entrepreneurs would probably have to deal with a reparations issue. That could be a deal breaker.

It is 40°F. (18.3°C) cooler today than it was on Sunday. And rainy. A nice slow drizzle. Seems like I have waited weeks for such a day. Even though we have air conditioning, it much less stressful to have the cooler temperatures.

That’s all folks (Imagine insensitive and politically incorrect Porky Pig stuttering voice).

If Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent, why is he still alive?

To save himself from serious jail time, he could point directly to the Israeli intelligence agency, were he an agent. To prevent such exposure, Mossad would kill him. If there is overlap with the CIA, would CIA let him talk?

The temptation is to inflate the case out of all proportion. The federal prosecutors are seeking to keep this case down to Earth. Sensationalism will serve to help Epstein, if what the jury has to deal with is similar to a plot outline from a James Bond movie.

I’ve spent my life aspiring to be one of the “smart people”. I went to school to apply whatever intelligence I had into an income-producing asset.

Then Jeffrey Epstein came along. He was a really smart guy. And used his smarts to get rich, gain influence, make powerful friends and rape as many postpubescent teenage girls as he possibly could.

And the entire world of the New York and Hollywood cultural, political and financial elites has been put under scrutiny. This coincides with the examination and reassessment of the goals of globalism. Suddenly more and more people are seeing their political and personal autonomy eroded by institutions like the European Union, by free trade agreements that destroy their livelihood and their dignity.

And the elitist talking heads are finally being challenged. Brexit. The Trump Election, the Yellow Vests, the collapse of Angela Merkel. I could go on.

Culture, finance, politics are all providentially, I would argue, being challenged. Great time to be alive. Glad I made it this far.

So I am up. No surprise there. I just ate a slice of whole wheat toast with butter and cherry preserves.

My Ukrainian metal detecting comrades (товарищи) are going through an abandoned house. These visits are poignant, abandoned houses filled with memorabilia and trash. Sometimes there is an icon, a prayer book, the hidden things of the Soviet era.

I watch these posts from Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦. There is antagonism between these two nations, once Republics within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Different languages, and the lesser nation, Ukraine, is fearful of the cultural domination of the other. To be honest, I like the Russians and the Ukrainians both. They seem like regular people. One of my neighbors flies a Ukrainian flag. I think there are Russians in the neighborhood too.

So many of us have Russian souls but do not know it, until we hear the Easter chants and see the Cathedrals, rich with icons. The women hold the lit tapers and their eyes mirror their devotion. In the time of their parents and grandparents, the State set out to destroy their souls. The martyrs were many. Tsar Nicholas was among them. And we, in the arrogance of our freedom, think we have tamed our own Leviathan.

I have switched to trainspotting. There will be an hour, at least, till a passenger train passes through Ashland. A freight, who knows?

I am choosing to be awake. I am mourning the brokenness of our world, like the rift between Russia and Ukraine. It seems so pointless.. But the takeaway is that people need to maintain that sense of who they are. I get that. We constantly cast aside that from which we are alien. The hard part, sometimes, is understanding the people who embrace what we reject, let alone loving them.

I think I’m losing sleep over the Epstein Scandal. The man, if he really is the pervert he is alleged to be, has well concealed the darkness within him. Pray for him. And the millions like him, for whom, as St Paul said, “Their god is the belly.”

And now I am getting tired. But the beds seem unwelcome, There is little comfort in lying down. And who knows who will visit in my dreams?

It would be a relief to see my mother, even my ex-wife. I would ask both how Death is treating them. I would hope they are on their way to Heaven, if they aren’t there already.

There are few demons or monsters from my past that I fear in my dreams. For that I am lucky.

Bedtime, again. In some bed somewhere. Some time soon.

Certain people will think I’m an SOB.

I don’t care.

I prefer heartfelt scorn to phony compassion.

You know who you are.