Let It Go

As noted back in June, the 57th governor of New Jersey will be someone who prefers to go by a nickname.  Tomorrow we find out which person that is - Rebecca Michelle "Mikie" Sherrill or Giacchino Michael "Jack" Ciattarelli.

Yeah, I voted last week - for Mikie Sherrill, of course, but the New Jersey gubernational campaign has been the most nerve-racking and most depressing one this year.  The MAGA Republican Ciattarelli has a shot, as I've noted before, and Sherrill, as a moderate Democrat, can't even get respect from her own supporters, who wish a more progressive nominee could have won the June primary.

So Jack, despite the consistent leads Mikie has had in the polls, could still win tomorrow.  I don't really care now.  Let it go.  I'm going to turn sixty this week, and I have much more personal concerns to think about at a time when America has run off the rails.  And it has, big time.  While people who need food assistance have been snapped off SNAP by the shutdown, Trump had a "Roaring Twenties"-themed party at Mar-a-Lago with free-flowing booze and free-flowing women.  To ensure that people on food stamps can't get around their benefits, the government has forbidden grocers who participate in the SNAP program to offer food to beneficiaries at a discount.  (They think of everything, don't they?)  And after having given CBS's "60 Minutes" a chance in the first weeks of its fifty-eighth season, I checked the on-air program guide last night to find that last night's episode had an "exclusive" interview with Trump.  Having seen excerpts of the "interview" that Norah O'Donnell conducted with the White House squatter, I came away feeling like I'd seen the sort of pseudo-interviews MTV would have back in the early eighties with rock stars, who would give perfunctory answers to equally perfunctory questions.  O'Donnell seemed to have more in common with Martha Quinn than with Martha Raddatz.  (You have to be of a certain age to get that reference.)

Again, I don't care.  It is what it is, and not only that, it ain't what it ain't.  I no longer want to take part in changing America - I haven't wanted to for awhile, really - I prefer to change my own little corner of it.   That's why I continue to clear-cut an invasive bush from the community park in my neighborhood, with hopes of getting new trees planted there in the spring.  It's why I plan to add other features to the park in 2026.  And I'm also taking more care of myself and my cats than taking care of what I can do for my country.  Because quite frankly, I will ask not what I can do for my country, as the answer is . . . nothing.  I need to tend to routine medical examinations, one of which I'm slightly overdue for, and I have to take care of the house and get someone to clear the snow this coming winter.  I may even have to get a landscaper if I can't even keep up with my own gardening.

My mother always told me not to worry about things I can't control, which, had I listened, would have made me the most worry-free person in America.  Now that there are things I have control over, I want to focus on those concerns and nothing else.

Who will be the next governor of New Jersey?  At this point, why should I care?