This summer of my discontent.....

I and the wife are lazing around the house today, listening to Prairie Home Companion, while the air conditioner struggles to keep the temperature below eighty and dry, while it's 94 and muggy as a sponge outside. The goats managed to trim down some of the front "yard" before the heat got to them and I returned them to the coolness of their pen area beneath the oaks. Every once in awhile I have to turn the thermostat to FAN and let the outside coils shed their ice build-up. I'm sure the unit is low on freon, but I'm just dealing with the hassle until some extra cash manifests itself to offer up to the air-conditioner repair God, who I am sure will demand a hefty sacrifice.
We took a little trip, if you can call a whole tanks worth of gas little, to a small town down south called Cassadega. It's a nondescript little place that is home to a community of spiritualists and mediums. The wife has really gotten into this stuff, so it was a pilgrimage of sorts for her. The two twins, the kid, and the new son-in-law met us down there. We toured the several shops selling pendents, stones, and other magical paraphernalia, but didn't have the money, nor I the inclination, to splurge for a reading from one of the many "certified" mediums that offer their services for a price. We did restock our sage supply and purchased a few stones, which are purported to enhance certain aspects of dealing with life. We had a nice little pik-nik under an aging gazebo down by the lake, while I went around with the camera and camcorder capturing the flavor of the place and perhaps a few ghost images. Since it was a hazy day, there were no lens flares or reflections intruding on my optics, so there were no globes or ghostly images to delight the wife. I try.
Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. Thirteen happens to be my lucky number, however, unfortunately, my luck never did extend itself to money. So no night on the town, no gifts other than what we already got yesterday, just a nice dinner and relaxation at home, which I hope will devolve into pure, raw debauchery. One thing I and the wife have always enjoyed when we aren't exhausted or something hurts is our debauchery. Of course, it's a milder form of debauchery than it used to be, but it's still working for us. We try.
Tomorrow I have to experiment with removing the tires from our newer car and investigating the grinding noise from the brakes. I am hoping like hell that the front brake pads are just thinner than they appear from outside inspection, and that replacing the pads on anti-lock brakes is not more complicated than on standard ones, which I figured out how to do with the older car years ago. If not, then it's another sacrifice to the brake-job god, who yes, demands more than I have in cash on hand.
What is really burning me is the ever increasing price of gas. The price of this commodity has nothing to do whatsoever with how much it costs to produce. We are simply at the mercy of speculators who figure out every excuse they can come up with to declare that a barrel of oil costs X amount. Now, if there was REALLY a reason that that barrel of oil cost so much more today than it did yesterday, then the oil companies would not be making that much more in profit. However, as the price of oil goes up, so does the record and obscene profits the oil companies rake in. And we, the sheep of the world, with no one in authority with the balls to put a stop to it, just have to suck up and pay it. We have no choice. We have to get to work, and our brilliant government has made no effort whatsoever to provide us with alternate methods of getting around.
Yes, you guys in New York and Chicago have your subways, we guys down south here have nothing but asphalt ribbons. Those of us who have had the good fortune to be so well off we can buy a hulking tank of a vehicle that costs as much as my home, and gets 6 inches per gallon of gas, are just now discovering that they might have to cut back on their daily cups at star-bucks. The rest of us are feeling our budgets squeezed like never before. My boss is not rushing to raise my pay to deal with this spiraling out of control increase in my cost of living. So, the ordinary bills of living are becoming ominous things that lie in wait in the mailbox to burn your fingertips when you touch them. Our leaders in Washington could care less. The economy is humming along, they say. That's news to me, and to alot of people living on the edge. Well, this is capitalism.
Them that's got get more and more while us that don't just don't. Whatever, it's never going to change. The two fold increase in the homeless population here locally hasn't passed that threshold where enough of us are threatened by it. I know that as a good American, I have to realize that my station in life has totally been my responsibility and is my failure.
Well, fine, I will scale back my desire to just be comfortable and get used to the idea that I haven't worked hard enough to deserve it. But, in the meantime, I will rail against the machine, cause I really am a good American.......one pissed off man with a loud mouth, an opinion, and the audacity to express it.