Rambling and Random

I stayed nervous most of last night (which is when I am writing this). There are things I love about the South, but damn, I hate the politics down there. Alabama and Mississippi politics have always made me sick. As I am writing this, the AP had called Alabama for Trump, but that is no surprise. Just as it was no surprise that Biden won Vermont, and the experts called it just minutes after the polls closed. Even our Republican governor declared he voted for Biden. Governor Scott didn’t vote for president in 2016, but he said this election was too important not to vote, and he could not support Trump.
 
When I voted yesterday, it was pretty easy. If we had not voted early in Vermont, we had to take in the ballot mailed to us. Vermont mailed a ballot to every registered voter in the state in an effort to get people to vote early. I wanted to go in and vote on election day. There was no line when I entered the polling place, and I just took my ballot into the booth, filled it out, and put it in the machine. As I was leaving, there was a fairly long line out the door, so I guess I got there at the right time.
 
Enough about politics right now. There just aren’t enough numbers to either mourn the United States' fate or to declare victory. However, I will talk about something else. One day last week, I broke a tooth. Actually, I broke two, but one isn’t bothering me. However, the more extensive break began to be very painful over the weekend. It almost became unbearable Monday night, so I called my dentist first thing yesterday morning. Luckily, they could get me in yesterday at 11 am. They took an x-ray, and my dentist said that the pain and the broken tooth were just coincidences. The pain was not coming from the damaged tooth but an infection around the tooth's roots. 
 
I had an appointment already for Monday the 9th for a filling. I had a cavity when I went for my cleaning a week or so ago. However, my dentist decided to start a root canal on Monday on the tooth that is infected. Filling the cavity will have to wait. He also put me on an antibiotic. I don’t know if I have ever mentioned this, but I am allergic to most antibiotics. He wanted to give me Amoxicillin, but I am allergic to Penicillin. So, he gave me Clindamycin. I can take Clindamycin, but I don’t react well to it. It gives me stomach issues. Anyway, I have seven days of this antibiotic. The last time I took Clindamycin for an abscessed tooth, it relieved the pain fairly quickly. I hope it works as well this time.
 
To update you on the bursitis in my hip, it is still bothering me, but I don’t see my physical therapist until next Tuesday. If it is not improved by the time I see my regular doctor on November 16, he will probably give me a steroid shot. On the headache front, I am continuing to do better. Yes, I occasionally have headaches, but the most recent ones are most likely due to the tooth infection, not my migraines. I am pleased to be seeing improvement with the Botox injections. My next set of injections will be in December.
 
So, there you have a rambling, babbling post of various updates.

Morning Update: I went to bed last night just before midnight, and I wasn’t feeling as hopeful as I’d have liked to have been. When I woke up this morning, I felt no better. What I woke to made me physically ill. I don’t usually say this, but I hate many of the people in my country. I don’t understand how this presidential race could even be close. This election should have been a massive, indisputable repudiation of Donald Trump for his mishandling of the pandemic, his uncontrolled White House incompetence, and his disdain for the rule of law. Instead, I woke to the disheartening message that Trump’s support in key states like Florida was, in truth, more significant than the polls had predicted and that Americans would rather have a misogynistic, racist, homophobic, lying, cheating, criminal as president than a good Christian man who wants what is best for all Americans, not just his wealthiest of supporters, because let’s face it, Trump cares absolutely nothing for the American people. He only cares about himself and possibly his wealthiest friends and supporters.

 

While there is still hope that Joe Biden will win this election, especially if he continues to lead in the states where he’s ahead, and the mail-in ballots continue to go in his favor (that is if those states are allowed to continue counting). However, even if Biden wins, it looks like the Democrats won’t take back the Senate, which means at least two more years of inaction in Washington as McConnell will block all Democratic efforts. The fact that Kentucky reelected a hateful little man whose only concern is his own political gain is disgusting. South Carolinians also sent back to the Senate that lying, self-hating, closet case Lindsey Graham. While those races aren’t terribly surprising, just demoralizing, I did break down in tears when they announced that Tommy Tuberville had won in Alabama. While Doug Jones’ losing his reelection bid was expected, I hate to see a man like Tuberville go to the Senate. He’s a man who, while the coach at Auburn University showed he had no class by gloating about his wins against Alabama in crass and embarrassing ways, he also defrauded millions from investors when he set up an investment firm (unlike his partner, Tuberville escaped prison). There is more I can say about Tuberville, but it just upsets me too much.

 

The most depressing news I woke up to was pretty much expected: Trump claimed victory even though millions of votes still need to be counted. In the early morning hours, Trump claimed falsely that he had been reelected, and the election was being stolen from him in a massive act of fraud. He vowed to mount a challenge in the Supreme Court and declared that he had already won states that were still counting votes, including Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Trump's demand for vote counting to stop in an election that is still undecided may have been his most extreme and dangerous assault on the institutions of democracy yet in a presidency replete with them. Trump's remarks essentially amounted to a demand for American citizens' legally cast votes not to be recorded in a historic act of disenfranchisement. As Chris Wallace said on Fox News after Trump’s remarks, “This is an extremely flammable situation, and the president just threw a match into it. He hasn’t won these states.” However, Trump is afraid that the mail-in votes will not go his way, which all indications point to that being true.

 

It's incredible how competitive Trump has been in this election with 230K+ COVID deaths, his racist and inflammatory remarks, kids being locked in cages, and everything else. Even if Biden wins, he will have to govern in a Trump country. This is who America is, and that makes me saddest of all. I honestly can’t understand how a nation that has always claimed to be Christian can vote consistently to maintain a patriarchal, racist, homophobic, xenophobic country. The worst traits of the United States are more apparent than they have been since the Civil Rights era. Whether Joe Biden ultimately wins the elections or not, the United States will continue to be a nation of hatred and division.