State of The Union 2016

Tuesday night was the fun-filled State of the Union, which is always fun at our house because Gary has strong opinions about politics. I anticipated he would get more conservative as he aged, but he is now more vocally liberal than ever. I’m liberal, but I don’t go on Facebook and make sweeping statements about “Republicans.” You know, “How stupid can Republicans be” and “Republicans are such cowards.” I am horrified. I’ve tried to tell him that while he may mean “Tea-party Republican congressmen and spin doctors,” people read “Republican friends on Facebook,” but he doesn’t care. Now ultra-conservative trolls have discovered him on Facebook. He tries to engage them in debate. It is hilarious. I was expecting him to be really vocal during the SOTU.

I killed time beforehand by watching the Curse of Oak Island, which is the best time-wasting show because it is a reality show about people actually wasting their time. It follows a team trying to find the treasure at the bottom of the fabled Money Pit. The Money Pit story is very compelling because everyone thinks, “You know the spot, just dig up the whole island.” Season one the government says “You cannot dig up the whole island.” So, it’s been three seasons of people diving under the island, and operating sonar devices, and rooting by hand in the swamp. Gary and I first saw it a marathon over the holidays. After a few hours we got wise to the formula, and when the narrator would intone “will draining the swamp lead to clues about the treasure?” we would answer “No. No It will not.” Because it never does. Three seasons of this.

7:45 – Gary got antsy and made me switch to a news station. Gary does not like the CNN anchor suggesting President Obama doesn’t like the Congress. Soon there will be a Facebook post from Gary condemning Republicans because Wolf Blitzer asked a question.

7:52 – I loaded up Twitter and saw the news that the Rams are going to leave St. Louis. “Hey,” I said to Gary, “Looks like the Rams are leaving.” I thought he could handle a but more disgust piled on top of his existing political disgust, but it diverted his attention and I essentially lost him for most of the speech.

7:58 – Michelle Obama showed up in a Crayola yellow dress. This dress is my favorite of hers so far. And, what was with the camerawork? It swung from a steady shot of Michelle to a wobbly panorama of people’s butts.

8:13 – While the president was speaking the camera panned to some nuns in the gallery. Gary whispered, “Nuns, nuns, nuns.” He’s a little afraid of nuns. Catholic school.

8:51 – The nuns frightened Gary into reverential silence for most of the speech. I had to check Twitter again to feel like I was watching this with someone. There were a lot of tweets about the “Just ask Osama Bin Laden” remark. “Oh yeah, you can’t, he’s dead. “#SOTU ” There were many tweets about Marco Rubio actually being in the senate chamber for once.

8:57 – Gary perked up when Obama spoke against rancor and suspicion. Gary immediately accused Paul Rand of having devil horns under his curly hair, then they showed County Clerk Kim Davis on screen, and my old Gary was back. When the President called to “Change the system to reflect our better selves,” Gary yelled, “Socialism! Ber-nie! Ber-nie!”

But by then it was too late. He gave the person giving the Republican response some grief for talking through her teeth, but it wasn’t the same.