"We now return you to your regularly scheduled coup d'état already in progress."

Most Americans haven't realized it yet, but our very own "Intelligence Community" is in the process of over-throwing our duly elected president. For decades, we've been doing it to other countries, either through brute-force assassinations, or more subtle approaches such as manipulating public opinion by planting false stories in the media. I suppose this is just the proverbial chickens coming home to roost, but it won't make what follows any less unpleasant. 2017 may very well turn out to the a year everyone would rather forget about.

Maybe the prep'ers are right: all us deplorables should be stocking up on pork-n-beans and buckshot.

On the personal front, the last few weeks have been my turn to be sick. I just started my second round of antibiotics in two weeks. The doctors at Urgent Care can't seem to agree on what is wrong, but first my left foot, then my right foot swelled all up and became feverish and very painful. On the first time around, it was a tissue infection likely from a cut on my foot that I didn't notice due to diabetic neuropathy. The problem with that brilliant diagnosis is that I don't have diabetic neuropathy and there were no breaks in the skin on my foot. But whatever; don't confuse doctors with facts. No matter; the drugs made it go away. Until about 36 hours after I ran out of antibiotics, then the exact same thing happened to the other foot. Now it's gout. OK. Sure. So as of Monday I'm on a different antibiotic that has an interesting side effect. It can make you shit yourself to death up to six months after you stop taking it.

No progress on Debbie's problem with her arm. The dry needling seems to work for about three hours after each session. The chiropractor suggested some weird thing you buy online that looks like an alien sex toy. So far, it has mostly caused a lot of bruising, but it does seem to help with the pain.

And my father is still in a holding pattern. The antibiotics didn't get rid of the growth, so they want to cut it out so they can confirm that it isn't cancer. 'Cause it so totally could be! And we need to get it out right away! But first lets spend two weeks running a bunch of tests to see if we can find more billable hours! Sure enough, they managed to find some sort of "anomaly" with his heart, so now the surgery is on hold. We should know something by tomorrow afternoon. I won't be surprised if they are still dinkin' around with this in May when my parents want to head back to Michigan.

And just to keep it interesting, my mother had to make a trip into Urgent Care because she couldn't breath. They sent her home with antibiotics for pneumonia. A couple days later, she was at her regular doctor and mentioned that she had been to Urgent Care. Quelle Horreur! Not Urgent Care! You must see a specialist at once! Because they are retired and have nothing better to do than drive around seeing doctors, off my parents go to a pulmonologist. He spent all of thirty seconds listening to her lungs, pronounced that she certainly did not have pneumonia, and prescribed methylprednisolone for her "asthma flair-up". When she got home, someone from Urgent Care called to let her know that the x-rays they had taken confirm that she absolutely did have pneumonia, regardless of what some moron pumonologist told her.

YAY MODERN MEDICINE!

Not much else to report. My work is still cranking away at top speed. Debbie's seems eerily quiet for this time of year, especially given how nuts it was all summer and fall when it's supposed to be slow. It has us a bit concerned, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

In the meantime, we'll just keep buying pork-n-beans and buckshot.