This is Little Socks speaking. I turned 18 years old this year (that is 87 human years), and from my perspective, as a mature cat, this year can’t end quickly enough!
I’m going to miss a few things, but here we go. For things that happened through the middle of the year, I’m relying on these websites: Fox10Phoenix; Insider; CNN. And then I just added some stuff. Because. The stuff seemed important.
Australian Wildfires
Australia had a really big fire that started in 2019 and kept going this year. 47 million acres burned (Mommy says that’s a lot bigger than our yard), making thousands of people homeless and killing at least 34. From a cat’s perspective, the most awful thing is that more than a billion animals were killed and their homes (Mommy says ‘rare habitats’) were ruined.
World Health Organization (WHO) Is Notified Of A Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, In China
Mommy said cats can get infected! We have to stay in the house, and only go out if we have an appointment with Dr. Ralph! Mommy says if company comes, we have to wear masks. Instead, we just hide.
Anyway, apparently this started in November 2019. As I’m writing this, we still don’t know everything we need to know, but we were really flying blind in January.
Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Step Down From Buckingham Palace
Do we really care? Some people do, so it made the list. But I’m not going to tie myself up in knots to research it.
The President Was Impeached
Mommy tells me I can’t get political, but I don’t care what your politics are. To have a President impeached is a really big thing. I’m not going to go into the details here. Let’s just say it’s a rare thing. Oh, and later, he was acquitted, but Mommy says he is still impeached. I don’t understand it, but apparently, that means people have ignored it.
Iran
There’s this country called Iran, and we’ve been up, down and sideways with them for lots of years. For a while in January, it seemed like we might actually go to war. Phew! Missed that bullet!!!! Oh, and a passenger jet was shot down by Iran, who thought the jet was a threat. It wasn’t.
Death of Kobe Bryant
I’m not a sports fan, but apparently it was a very big deal that this guy, his daughter and seven other people died in a helicopter crash. Prayers to everyone involved. Truly.
The United Kingdom (The Buckingham Palace Country) Withdraws From The European Union
Celebration! Protest! Yay! Nay! This is another thing that we don’t know enough about it to know how important it is, but since that time??? Pandemic and smashed global markets. I don’t know if them being separate now is a good thing or a bad thing.
Oh! I started this in August. A little later, it seems like the leader of the Buckingham Palace Country has decided he doesn’t have to follow the rules he agreed to, and the EU (that’s what Mommy says I can call it) Is. Not. Happy.
Iowa Caucus Chaos
Apparently this year we’re having something called a Presidential Election. There were about a billion Democratic candidates for President, and they were on television over and over and over again, talking and yelling at each other. Then we got to the first state that would have an election. Iowa. They have what is called a Caucus. Mommy has said lots of things about caucuses in general, and what state should have the first one primary, and all of that, but she said to leave all of that out of here. Okay. I didn’t understand it anyway.
But, back to the chaos. Apparently it was pretty important.
According to this website, the February 3 “Iowa Democratic caucuses became a disaster of epic proportions.” There was a faulty app – Mom said it was supposed to count the votes – and other problems. The reporting was off, there were things said one way and another way (Mommy says the word is inconsistencies), and the election wasn’t certified until a month later! Two candidates ended up very close together at the top, with just a 0.04% difference in points. (Mom says Mayor Pete won! I like Mayor Pete because he has two really nice dogs!)
Harvey Weinstein Convicted
This is apparently a really big deal for women. Some big, important, rich guy who was a real rat’s patoot with women was convicted of stuff that Mommy won’t write about in our books. So yay. Apparently, we can thank him – indirectly – for starting this movement called #MeToo.
Can I join? What do I have to do, Mom? Oh. (She told me to hush.)
COVID-19 Pandemic
That virus that WHO told us about was named a pandemic, which means it’s a really bad, really really bad thing. By the time it’s named a pandemic, it’s in dozens of countries, and, well, now it’s everywhere. Mommy still says we have to stay home and stay safe. Quoting from one website piece written in June: “Six months ago, none of us could have imagined how our world – and our lives – would be thrown into turmoil by this new virus. The pandemic has brought out the best and the worst of humanity.”
March: Dow Plunges, Biggest Drop Since 1987
When I think of stocks, I think of soup. You know, beef stock, chicken stock, vegetable stock. Mommy says the stocks in this instance mean money. Mostly rich people’s money. But it’s a big deal. They closed down this trading place for fifteen minutes. I don’t know what good that could do, but Mommy said it stopped an even bigger disaster. Okay.
The 2020 Summer Olympics Were Postponed
This country called Japan was going to go ahead and hold them, but then other countries started saying they wouldn’t come. Then more said that. Then that country – Japan – said, well, maybe that’s a good idea. It has to do with that pandemic, you know. The one I told you about before. The one that is all over the world.
Sports In General
They pretty much all got cancelled. Horse races, car races, baseball, basketball, football… Wow. That must be a pretty potent pandemic.
We Have A Winner
Kind of. Remember when I said that there were about a billion candidates for President? By April, the last candidate – well, there might have been one or two more that hadn’t officially said anything – but the last one with oomph backed out, leaving this guy called Joe Biden. So, according to Mommy, in November, when we have that Presidential election, it will be Biden and Trump. Mommy has her opinions, but she says I can’t talk about that here.
Death Of George Floyd
In May, this guy named George Floyd was killed in a city called Minneapolis. It was a horrible thing, and it unleashed all holy heck around the country. Mommy says I can’t talk about the movements and the happenings and the this and thats, because people have very strong opinions. She says it is not the place of a cat – not even an intelligent Tuxedo cat like me – to wade into the argument. But it was important enough to make the list.
Jeffrey Epstein And Ghislaine Maxwell
This really awful guy named Jeffrey Epstein was in the news in 2019 (he died then), but then this woman who was all wrapped up in his mess, Ghislaine Maxwell, got caught by the FBI. So now it’s in the news again, and it gets racier and racier. Again, like that Weinstein guy above, Mommy says she would never put the kinds of things they did in our books, and she won’t tell me what it all was.
That’s okay. I’m a cat. I want to live in blissful ignorance.
Mommy also can’t tell me how to pronounce that woman’s name.
John Lewis, Civil Rights Icon
Mommy cried a lot about him, and she watched his Laying in State at Capitol Hill and his funeral. She says we have to VOTE VOTE VOTE to honor his memory.
Wildfires, A Heat Wave And COVID Converge
Wow. It’s a lot for a little four-legged creature to wrap her mind around.
There are these fires, and it’s really bad and intense, and it’s in California, Oregon and Washington. And the sky is orange. And there are fire tornadoes. Mommy says I have to say there is a “fire season” in California, and the fires are burning in the season, but they have been enhanced – I’m not sure that’s the right word – by weather. There was something about 12,000 lightning strikes, with more on the way. And a record-breaking heat wave. And there are evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people, but they’re afraid to go to shelters because of that pandemic I talked about earlier. And possible floods. And there is a lot more… but the news is bleak enough without me saying any more.
Midwest Derecho (Idaho Got Hit Hard)
A derecho (Mommy says that’s a hurricane, but on dry land) devastated an area nearly 800 miles wide. The winds were kind of steady at 100 miles per hour, but they say some gusts were as much as 140 miles per hour. It lasted 14 hours. Bunches of homes, schools, businesses and agribusinesses (imagine huge grain bins laid down on their side) were damaged or destroyed. Trees that had stood for over a century fell down. Ten million acres of crops were damaged or destroyed. Power was knocked out to more than a million people. But with all of the other news, this got little mention in the national press.
If it had come here, Mommy would have made us go downstairs to the safe space, and she says even at that, we might not have been very safe.
2 Hurricanes At Once?
This is supposed to be an above-average year for hurricanes, with enough tropical storms and hurricanes predicted to actually use up the alphabet. (Mommy says they are named by the alphabet every year, starting with “A.”) But in August, two hurricanes got ready to aim in the same general direction in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time!
Mommy says this Gulf thing is a lot smaller than an ocean, so not only is it rare, but the damage can be more severe. She also said this kind of thing has never been “recorded” before. That means it could have happened before, but not since we’ve been keeping track of weather.
As of September 19, the Greek alphebet was being used. Mommy says thats a lot.
OH! And hold the presses! We had a zombie hurricane!!!! One that died and came back to life! Are we done yet?
OK OK OK
Mommy said she saw a joke on the interweb. Here it goes.
A man goes to a bar in New Orleans: “Can I have a corona and two hurricanes, please?”
Bartender: “That’ll be 20.20.”
I think that’s supposed to be funny.
A Really Bad Thing
Mommy says Rest In Power, RBG.
Presidential Election
Mommy says, “Let’s not go there.” Okay. I understand, since this will be posted on October 5, that in one month, it will be over. Mommy says it can’t happen soon enough.
But…. just because…. can we say that at the 100th Anniversary of the signing of the 19th Amendment – giving women the right to vote – isn’t it grand that one party chose a woman to be the Vice Presidential candidate? And Mommy says she’s “of color,” and both of her parents were immigrants! One from India and one from Jamaica! So that’s good news, right? And a great thing to mixed-breed female kitty kats everywhere!
There’s One Other Thing
Mommy says voting rights are being subverted, but she said I couldn’t talk about it. She said there was Just. Too. Much. And some people wouldn’t like her opinions.
And let’s not forget!!!
NASA has predicted an asteroid will pass close to Earth the day before the election! Really! It’s supposed to come as close as between 4,700 miles and 260,000 miles. I supposed they’ll narrow this down a bit.
There is good news. There is only a 1 in 240 chance of the blasted thing entering the Earth’s atmosphere, and since it is small (7 feet in diameter), it will probably look like a meteor and break into tiny pieces.
If only we can be so lucky. It is 2020, you know.
We Aren’t Done
Mommy said I have to put in a caveat. I’m not sure what that is, but she said, “Make sure you tell the people that you are writing this in August, and you are going to have to remember to update it before it goes out in October.” Okay. I just told you. Hopefully I’ll remember to do that!
And Here Is The October Surprise. Already.
Mommy wasn’t sure if we should put this in front of the election or here at the end. She said I should put it at the end. That pandemic has reared its head in our most hallowed seat of government, the White House. (We live in a gray house.)
Mommy says there is a lot to talk about here, but she doesn’t want to scare the bejeebers out of me, so she makes me go into another room when the news is on.
In Closing
Let me just say, God Bless The United States Of America.