So, Surprise Tuesday is coming up, and we thought we would give a gentle reminder. Not a flashing red light, or a siren or any of that. The annoying claxon horns have been rattling for so many months now that is time to calmly and reasonably look at the horizon and recognize what we all have known is coming is finally just about here.

We call it “Surprise Tuesday” not because it is on the calendar that way. The 7th marks only the start of this episode of the long struggle between the three components of the Patriarchal faiths. We won’t go into it this morning, since we have been talking about the various injustices perpetrated against a variety of people in that neighborhood for a couple milleniums.

This normally would be a morning to look back and be thankful at the grace and beauty of this world and our good fortune to have lived in it in our time. The shredder truck is parked in back of the HQ building, and a lot of baggage can be shed permanently. In other personal terms, the big storm has passed and it didn’t hit us.

Not directly, anyway, and depends on which storm we are talking about as the President reminded us yesterday when he stopped by a microphone. Some pals in North Carolina assured us their power would come back as soon as this morning and then the batteries ran out, so we are not sure. So, you can understand the off-tempo of a day of relaxation actually being part of other things still ramping up in energy.

Before we get to the point of this, we want to issue an informal apology to Homeland Security Secretary Alejando Mayorkas. We implied that his department had expended disaster relief money to provide services to people who used to be called one thing and are now called something else. That was the modification of the term “illegal” to the simpler and less obstreperous word “migrant.”

It works in the messaging for a change in tone. Both are quite true but now describe a transitional status, not a human condition. But that would have been worthy of discussion since they both cost money, but the emergency has moved on all by itself. That’s the nature of our emerging emergency management in times of undebated but well-intended civic virtue.

So, a little confusion in the direction of where the money spigot is aimed is only to be expected. Back in 2022, FEMA was appropriated disaster relief money which was not to be used for other purposes. Separately, it was tasked to disseminate money from another office in DHS- the Customs and Border Protection folks- to help communities receiving unannounced influxes of migrants.

So, the ‘announcement’ part might not have got to the disaster people to program their budget request for the severe hurricane season forecast by the same department last Spring. Who could have imagined storms would come in Hurricane Season?

We know. We used to be in the business of moving large stacks of other people’s money from pile to pile. Misunderstandings are understandable, like the surprises we know are coming.

So, while things are not fine, this is just anoter minor emergency in the larger one and nothing to be more alarmed about than the justifiable alarm we have been having for a while. Which leads us, generally, to the main issue of the morning.

Management told us to be brief and mildly amusing about giving a timely and not hysterical reminder to use this relaxed Saturday to stop at the usual places: gas or charging stationa, ATMa, Harris-Teeter or Safeway, liquor store, and smoke shop to get supplies a couple weeks if necessary.

Our pal down in North Carolina says she may get power back this morning. Failure would not an emergency we can refer to some other office in Arlington, since they might not be open. But that is in case things happen Tuesday. Something will happen because of what is on the schedule for a week from today, Saturday, 12 October.

That is a little more than three weeks before the 5th of November which is a Tuesday. Enjoy the weekend. No surprises until next week, right?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com