Depressing Trump, too mild winters and three wonderful grandchildren

Random thoughts from a disorganized mind:

I've been feeling extremely depressed lately. Most of it is that I'm still coming to the acceptance of the fact that the American people voted for someone as unsuitable as Donald Trump for president.

I have certainly been unhappy with the results of elections before, but whether it was Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, I never dreaded the fact they would be taking office. Nixon had been part of the system for the better part of a generation, Reagan was governor of California and Bush was the son of a president and had also been governor of Texas.

Trump?

I suppose it was a perfect storm of sorts, but it came down to voters accepting Trump for something he wasn't.

A successful businessman.

I don't want to waste your time with stuff you already know, but 3,500 lawsuits and at least four bankruptcies would be enough to turn me off.

By of course he has one thing going for him that outweighs everything else in short bus America these days.


He's been on television.

Yay!

Not only has he been on TV, he has been the star of a well-rated prime-time series playing the very model of a modern major businessman.

Everything he isn't.

He played a businessman who was not only sober and successful, but was also classy and under control.

Our first television president.

***

WINTER? -- We haven't had much of a winter this year. A week or so ago, we had three or four days where the temperature didn't get much above 40. But since then, we've been in the low to mid 70s most of the time.

So of course one of the NFC semifinals today -- Seattle and Atlanta -- is being played between two teams that don't play outdoors. The game is about 40 miles north of here in the Georgia Dome, a stadium that was built in 1992 and will be demolished next year.

Will there ever be another stadium that lasts a hundred years?

I doubt it.

Of course, who knows if we'll ever have real winters again?

***

IN THE GUAT -- People probably don't call Guatemala "the Guat," but I live near a city people call "The A-T-L," so I thought I might as well try it.

Guatemala City

Guatemala City is my daughter Pauline's fifth posting as a foreign service officer, and it's the third one where we have visited her. We didn't make it to her first in Cameroon or her third in Indonesia, but we made it to Beijing in 2008, to Jamaica in 2013 and 2014 and to Guatemala for Christmas a couple of weeks ago.

As you can see from the picture here, Pauline, her significant other and their six children live in a really wonderful neighborhood.

Three of the children -- Johnathan's boys -- weren't there. They were visiting grandparents in Minnesota, but we did get to see our wonderful three -- Maddie, Lex and Albanie.

We've known Maddie for eight years and Lex for five. Albanie is just 2, and Pauline told me not to be upset if she didn't remember me and was shy when we first met. We had seen her about six months ago in Virginia, but she's only 2.

Albanie

So I was prepared, but the first time she saw me, her little face lit up, she started running toward me saying, "Gam-pa!"

What a feeling.

We spent two hours playing the first morning, and while the games didn't really hold my interest, spending two hours with just me and Albanie was about as good as life gets these days.

I became a grandfather at age 58 and I figured I had a pretty good shot at seeing Maddie through to adulthood. It's more problematic with Albanie, but I'll do my best.

I really want to see how this one turns out.