It's Too Much

It's just too much.

What is too much, you ask? Everything is too much. Endless television commercials for 'moderate to severe' fill in the blank medical condition. Already the Christmas commercials have started. Cable news has wall-to-wall coverage of Israel's war with the terrorist group Hamas. Ukraine's war with Russia is yesterday's news, I guess, as it isn't mentioned at all.

There has been yet another mass shooting, this time in a quiet city in Maine that took 18 innocent lives. Appeals for money are arriving in my mailbox on a regular basis. Text messages from politicians clutter my phone, despite my being on the totally useless do-not-call list, something that politicians can use with impunity. I delete each message and block the phone number that sent it, but that doesn't stop the begging for money. And these aren't local or even state politicians, but from other states.

And now the weather is turning colder, a lot colder. I hate cold weather. I always have and I always will.

I canceled my planned trip to Rome over Christmas when the airfare would have cost more than twice the price of the all-inclusive trip. I canceled February's planned trip to Portugal because the flight schedule would have required me to pay for two additional nights, including a layover in London, where hotels are in the $300 and up range.

So I have absolutely nothing to look forward to until a trip to Yosemite in May.

Winter is supposedly a time to rest. Well, sitting home on a cold, dark winter day is not my idea of rest. I need to be doing something to exercise my mind and my body.

I hate winter. Always have. Always will.