Absolutely Not

That was TBG's response to whether we should watch the Joint Session of Congress.

I was conflicted.  I always watch them, if only to take the pulse of the listeners.  Sometimes there's drama, and I don't mind seeing it in real time.  POTUS deserves to be heard..... or at least until FFOTUS.

On our walk this morning, I asked Taos Bubbe about her plans.  Absolutely not! came out of her mouth before I finished the question.  She'll catch snippets if they appear on her internet feed, but the thought of spending time with that man made her physically ill.

The notion of self-care by avoiding all things FFOTUS suddenly became front and center for me.  Bluesky and Substack are filled with outrage that is nigh on impossible to ignore.  1440  is unbiased but the links lead to others and suddenly I'm drowning in the slime.  

It drives TBG nuts.  This morning, as I regaled him with the latest outrage, he asked Why do you do this to yourself?  This afternoon, I really had no answer.

I had lunch with The 250K Cruise Club today. We were four ladies-who-lunch, on the patio of the Arizona Inn, loudly and passionately expressing our disgust for FFOTUS.  It is uncertain if we changed anyone's mind, but no one could doubt our feelings.

One of us will watch it, and if it makes me vomit at least I'll be alone and no one will notice.  One will watch until it becomes too painful, one will, like TBG, catch the news reports in the morning.  I couldn't articulate why I felt guilty about skipping it, but my friends helped me dissect it.

I'm an American.  This is an American thing.  Democracy depends on participation.  Those were the valid, civics lesson answers.  Missing a moment of chaos.... that one was harder to explain away.  Like watching a train wreck, in my mind it was hard to look away from that.  Then someone mentioned self-care and I began to nod my head.

I was playing mahjong while President Zelensky was abused in the Oval Office.  Dr. K was appalled, TBG was disgusted, and I am now no less embarrassed than they are despite only seeing the replay.  

6:30 rolled around and, to my surprise, TBG asked if we should give it a try.  It's the State of the Union... we should watch.  

We turned on PBS.  We turned off PBS about a minute later.  That smug, self-satisfied smirk had no place in our living room.  We cleansed our palates with a bit of My Favorite Year, tried once again and were rewarded with Rep. Al Green shaking his gold headed cane and yelling Mr. President, you don't have a mandate as he was escorted out of the chamber by the Sargent at Arms.

I got my drama. 

We went back to  the movie.