Distractions, distractions.

Cicadas bring external noise to my head in the form of sound waves and cicadian thought patterns.

General news mixes and matches information of interest to our species.

And everyday, billions of us work toward sending a few of us out of Earth’s gravitational influence.

I’ve seen a few deformed cicadas in the yard.

In the neighbourhood, the cicada chirp sounds have different pitches, less white/pink noise and more of a wooden thumping sound.

Echoes? The reverberation against houses and wooden fences?

While finalising future housing arrangements for my mother in-law – an agonising, emotional decisionmaking process – I survey the large holes chewed through the eaves of our house.

Strategic diplomacy in funding despots loses favour.

How does that apply to letting mammals live and mate in the attic and crawl space?

Or using my mother in-law’s life savings for her to enjoy a pampered few years of “cruise ship” living in a retirement community, now that all the kids are happily employed in good-paying jobs and have plenty of their own earnings saved up for retirement?

How much is a community willing to spend on a school bus to transport their children to a youth educational factory for the community’s future benefit?

Today, I am a tired old man. My ability, the “power,” to see the future (statistical analysis, scanning news headlines, making the future through private/public longterm policy decisions, etc.) is difficult for me while resolving a quiet family crisis.