GROUNDED: Behr’s Color of the Year
This is what Behr has to say: Today, Behr Paint Company revealed its 2027 Color of the Year—a calming neutral that falls somewhere between moss and olive, with brown undertones, fittingly named Grounded. “Grounded is a reminder that the most meaningful spaces are the ones that help us connect with the rhythms of everyday life,” said Kayla Kratz, head of color at Behr. “The shade’s organic warmth creates a sense of calm and renewal, making every room feel inviting and effortlessly livable.”
This is what it looks like:
I love color. I hate this color. If I had to walk into a house painted this color, it would feel like walking into a cave. I could not live with “grounded.” For me, it is depressing!
Trump and Mail In Voting
The man gave us all the information we needed to see this coming. He claimed he won the 2020 election, losing by over 8 million votes.
He was filmed telling a gathering of Evangelical Christians in the 2024 campaign that if they voted for him, they would never have to vote again. (Even then, it sounded ominous.)
Once elected, his first day in office, he fired the Election Oversight executives. Then, he fired everyone working for the federal government in his power who certified that he had lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
This man is corrupt. He has wrecked the guardrails that keep us from stepping over the lines of moral behavior. He has taken away penalties for law breaking. He has pardoned the very sort of people that he states he doesn’t want coming into our country.
But, most cynically of all, he works to deprive those of us who vote regularly, and vote by mail, of the very privilege he himself utilizes – voting by mail.
A selection of cartoon comments for your enjoyment:
Monsoon Season
August in Pensacola is brutal. I walk in the early mornings, trying to get a majority of my daily steps in before the sun even rises. We run from our air conditioned house to our air conditioned car to the air conditioned store when we need groceries,
Between three in the afternoon and six, we have a tropical rainstorm almost every evening, We wait for it. We welcome the booming thunder and the sharp, blinding flashes of lightning. We love the sounds of the raindrops pounding on our roof. And then, when it is over, we have a brief respite from the heat.
21 August 2026 Ship Traffic Density in the Strait of Hormuz
Traditional wisdom at this point is to declare victory and walk away. Six months and no progress. Like the doctors say, “Do no harm.” Listen to your high-ranking military officers. Back away.
Something is Off
I’ll try to show you in screenshots. Since I started actively blogging again, my daily readership averages between three and four hundred readers, with an occasional spike, depending on the subject. One of the most exciting things about blogging is how I will write a toss-off post and it will attract thousands of readers, and I don’t always understand why. In truth, I’m always interested in my readers; this is a niche blog. I’m not selling anything. I write about what interests me. I’m coming up on my twenty year anniversary as a blogger, and I love going back and reading my old posts because I’ve forgotten so much!
And that’s why I started blogging. My Mother sent me a notebook of all the letters I had written to them from Tunisia, and as I read them, I was astonished at all I had forgotten. It was the dawn of the blogging era, I was new to Kuwait, I had time, and it was an exciting way to start logging what I was experiencing and wanted to remember, and to connect with Kuwaitis and other expats. It was a wild time in the blogosphere.
Once we retired from expat life, my life is a lot less colorful. My commitment to blogging lagged. I wrote up our trips, I would write some about our family life, I wrote about restaurants and life in COVID and our pets. I have found good friends in Pensacola, and my life is stable.
So suddenly, my dependable stats dropped dramatically, overnight.
This morning’s readership distribution:
Below is what my stats look like in the last 48 hours. Weird, hmmm?
Today, for the first time ever, even with the stats WAY down, I am getting more hits from China that the United States? This has never happened.
The whole thing is weird.
Job: A Parable for Today
Today, I opened my Lectionary to discover we are reading Job. I have special feelings for Job; I was sitting my my Arabic class at the Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam when my teacher started talking about a character named Ayyoub, and Ayyoub sounded a whole lot like Job. This was a huge “Aha” moment for me – all the years I had lived in the Middle East and I never knew we shared the same prophets, and that the Quran related many of the same experiences as our Bible.
Job is thought to be the oldest writing in our Bible, and as I read it today, I read it as a parable, with Job standing for the USA, and the devil encouraging the Almighty to test Job. Job loses all his precious children, all this animals, all his wealth – and he refuses to curse God.
Job 1:1-22
1There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 2There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. 4His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another’s houses in turn; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5And when the feast days had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt-offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ This is what Job always did.
6 One day the heavenly beings* came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan* also came among them. 7The Lord said to Satan,*‘Where have you come from?’ Satan* answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ 8The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.’ 9Then Satan* answered the Lord, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? 10Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.’ 12The Lord said to Satan,* ‘Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!’ So Satan* went out from the presence of the Lord.
13 One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, 14a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, 15and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 16While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 17While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.’ 18While he was still speaking, another came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, 19and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.’
20 Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshipped. 21He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’
22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
Internet? Anomaly?
This morning, my stats dropped from their normal count to one or two per hour; the exact time is visible.
Not normal. Very strange.
I don’t look for large numbers, and occasionally I am astonished at what will take off. A change like this gets my attention.
Scorn of the Indolent Rich, Derision of the Proud
From today’s Lectionary Readings:
123 Ad te levavi oculos meos
1 To you I lift up my eyes, *
to you enthroned in the heavens.
2 As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, *
and the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
3 So our eyes look to the Lord our God, *
until he show us his mercy.
4 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy, *
for we have had more than enough of contempt,
5 Too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, *
and of the derision of the proud.
The Strait of Hormuz, 17 August 2026
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has effectively ground to a halt as a fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire expires and recent tanker attacks deter operators. Daily transits have plummeted to just 3 to 4 commercial crossings—down roughly 90% from pre-crisis levels—leaving a massive backlog of thousands of idling vessels waiting offshore.
Current Traffic Status
- Daily Transits: Only 3 to 4 verified ship crossings occurred over the last 24 hours, compared to pre-conflict averages of 60 to 135 daily.
- Vessel Backlog: Approximately 3,200 ships—including roughly 800 oil tankers and cargo carriers—remain backed up and idling west of the waterway.
- Oil Shipments: Commercial crude oil and major petroleum product shipments are virtually non-existent as operators adopt a strict wait-and-see stance.
If it’s August, it Must be . . . Halloween??
In the olden days, when we were Cold Warriors, guarding European borders from the evils of the Soviet Union, smart military wives started Christmas shopping in August. We knew we were up against deadlines; any gifts going surface mail needed to be mailed by mid-November. “Last minute” would need to be sent by Thanksgiving, or, horrors, the first week in December, but that is cutting it very close if you want your gifts to actually arrive in time.
You get so you start your shopping in January. We didn’t earn buckets of money, and we could do well by dollar-cost-averaging over the ten months leading up to Christmas. The bases all encouraged us to plan ahead, put things on layaway, make wise decisions – all year round. Knowing the barriers, the custom is to help the service people deal with the challenges of a life of – you know – service.
Finding Halloween had come to our Base commissary the second week in August, just as school is starting, was new to me. We are in the United States! We shouldn’t need to be thinking two months ahead for Halloween!
Pensacola is a Navy-centric community. We have Navy bases here, a solid community of Navy families and Navy retirees, and of course, the beloved Blue Angels. So I am wondering, too – where is the outrage? Where is the pushback when the leader of our nation tells the sailors and their families that they haven’t been in the Straits of Hormuz long enough? Where is the outrage when he dismisses complaints about food shortages, supply shortages, and mental health problems from being at sea for such a long time with no respite?
There are traditions against complaining, so if the grumblings are being heard, there is a real problem. Our military is used to self-sacrifice. It’s the nature of the service. If they are complaining, we can’t tell our military people to just suck it up. We have to listen.
This war has been going on for months, with countless declarations that the war is over and the Strait of Hormuz is open, only to discover, again and again, that it is not true. Over and over, it is another big fat lie.
Wrap it up, guys.
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Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 