Who knew relief could be so exhausting?

Everyone expected the previous administration's vaccine rollout plan to be a self-sabotaging mess at best or at worst a clumsily obvious attempt to extort something from the individual states; I'm not sure how many people expected it to just not exist at all. I definitely didn't.

Yesterday it came to me, thinking about the period between the election and Inauguration Day, that it was 100% exactly what you'd expect if you hired a businessman to do a job that has nothing at all to do with business. He lost, and he reacted to that loss as if it were a first offer or a contract that had been rejected. Not a decision, just the beginning of a transaction, to which he reacted exactly the way he's spent his entire life reacting to every other transaction that doesn't go his way.

Bluster at it. Bully the guy on the other side of the table. Wheedle. Threaten. Coax. Sue someone. There's absolutely no need to concede anything, because in his world nothing is an institution or a complete action or a self-contained event or a thing he can't control. It's all transactional, and it ends when he's bullied the other guy into giving in just to make him stop.

But this absolutely and fundamentally was never a transaction. It was a complete action, it was a self-contained event whose beginning and end were utterly beyond his control, and it was and is an institution. Our system of government, our rules of law, our processes and procedures and rituals and the concepts of public service, of citizenship and citizens, are fundamentally meaningless to him.

The whole entire post-Election-Day period was a hideous nightmare version of Eric and the Dread Gazebo, with the former occupant totally lost because he kept trying to pick a fight with and bully into submission something that fundamentally doesn't *do* any of that. You can't wheedle or threaten the Constitution or the rule of law or the Electoral College. That's not what they do or what you do with them. They're a gazebo, Eric.

And yesterday, finally, FINALLY, the gazebo awoke and ate him.

That is a perfect summation. He was a bully who lost.

The United States does not renegotiate elections.

Everyone expected the previous administration's vaccine rollout plan to be a self-sabotaging mess at best or at worst a clumsily obvious attempt to extort something from the individual states; I'm not sure how many people expected it to just not exist at all. I definitely didn't.

I 100% expected it to not exist, or at most, to exist in the form of a note scribbled on a post-it in Sharpie just saying "Jared, do vaccines?"

I 100% expected it to not exist, or at least, to exist in the form of a note scribbled on a post-it in Sharpie just saying "Jared, do vaccines?"

Same.

Cass, how are you feeling?

I'm scrolling thourgh CNN's pictures from yesterday and the caption "Lady Gaga sings the National Anthem in front of Vice President Mike Pence" is just cracking me up. I think I'm still a little giddy

Too bad it wouldn't have been tasteful for the overall event for her to utilize go go boy backup dancers and have them gyrate at Pence through the whole song.

I forced myself to get up early and get more allergy meds. Tater tots are in the oven as my potato reward, but I'm also eating a salad because I want to convince the cornered animal that is my body to unclench. And apparently my reasoning is, "Would someone in a crisis stop to make a salad?" *slaps salad bowl* "This bad boy can fit so many vegetables in it."

Quiet day.

Good/Bad new on the basketball front. DH had already opted out of coaching this year and was only videotaping the games for upload to MaxPreps and statistical analysis. Games have been dropped left and right from other schools being quarantined. Now his school is under quarantine because the head coach's son is positive. Coach has like 5 kids, plus all the team, etc. Yeah, and one of the other school coaches came up top to talk to DH last game and was giving him a hard time about his distancing and mask 'paranoia'. Yeah, then today they all get the email with all caps, wear your masks. Grumble. Anyway, the good news is probably done for the season now as I wouldn't be surprised if they canceled the playoff and championship series too. Bad news is who knows how many vulnerable people have been exposed, and I do feel bad for the seniors who will have a harder time getting scholarships.