Uphill Battle
28/03/21 07:26
I'm debating on whether or not to hire someone to give our yard a good raking this Spring. Maybe if I take a section a day or so until I'm done that might work. You know how things go this time of year. You make plans and when the day finally arrives it's either too hot, too wet, or too something else. As I sit here this morning with Spring just a day or two away, I'm debating less and less. I'm thinking it's doable. Git er done, Johnny.
Me and the missus will be getting our second vaccinations for the dreaded Covid-19 this coming weekend. I don't know that it will liberate the missus from her self-imposed prison or not because she is literally scared of her own shadow at this point. "Where is the missus I married?", I plead here and there while on bended knee. I wouldn't say that she's at the potted plant stage but she seems to be leaning into that possibility more and more with each passing day.
We don't even know anybody who has contracted much less died from the dreaded Covid-19 for chrissakes. Why in God's name is she so frightened? I'm telling you, she's reading all the wrong rags (newspapers) and they're putting the fear of god into her. I've said all along that we'd probably be better off getting the damn virus and beating it and then we'd have put it behind us once and for all.
There's some evidence now that the disease has lingering and long-lasting effects so I'm not so sure surviving it is the way to go anymore. What I'm not hearing in the media are accounts of people who have been vaccinated who then contract the virus and end up on a ventilator or worse. Is that by design? It seems the government is going out of their way to portray vaccinations as a pathway to liberty and news to the contrary would not fit easily or well with that narrative.
Nobody is mandating that everyone gets vaccinated so that gives the anti-vaxxers an out of sorts. That said, I'm reading about certain businesses that will no longer do business with you unless you've been vaccinated. When it comes to the airlines, they're referring to it as the "vaccine passport." I know of at least one ocean going cruise line that is now on board with this approach. I can't fault them but you have to admit that it does put the anti-vaxxers in something of a box.
The Astrozeneca vaccine is coming to market now after Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J have been around for a month or more. There have been wide ranging reports of dangerous and dreadful side effects of the Astrozeneca vaccine and I have to wonder if the competition is doing what competition does when they prefer to have the market all to themselves. The problem with rumors and vaccines is that rumors can destroy the public's appetite for the vaccine before the first jab is ever administered.
My last couple of bike rides have been pretty good. I've been a little concerned that my not riding all that often in the months of January and February would have put me behind the proverbial eight ball when the weather started to improve. I figure that every day you're out riding that it builds on the day before. If your endurance was X on Monday, then it's X+1 on Tuesday and so forth and so on. And conversely, when you're not getting your rides in you're losing ground or momentum. X-1?
It is true that when I haven't had a ride for a few days that I'm less able to put in the usual mileage. I just lose a step or two. It's not that complicated, really. My breathing is more labored, I tell myself that putting in this or that number of miles will be good enough for today, and with any luck I'll get back to where I was before the layoff soon enough. If my last two outings are any indication, I'm back in the game and in with both feet as they say. I even surprised myself when I found that I was going balls to the walls on the return trip these last couple of days. Yeah, baby!
I'm up so early today. I can't say that I like waking up at 4 in the morning with my eyes wide open but it is what it is. What I don't like to do is to end up feeling groggy around 9 or 10 in the morning and that happens sometimes when I get up too early. It's all about having to make up for the number of hours of sleep that I was somehow deprived of and the unrelenting need I feel to take a nap just to get back those hours of sleep that I missed. I can avoid it all by staying in bed later but, alas, that is not always in the cards.
I lie in bed at the hour of four a.m. with eyes wide open thinking about the day ahead and what plans, if any, I might want to follow through on. The longer the list of things that I have to contemplate, the less likely it is that I'll fall back asleep. I tell myself that if it's 3-something I have no business getting out of bed. If it's 4 something, that's close enough to the hour of 5-something that I can make a good case for getting up and out of bed. There is espresso to brew, news reports to read, blogs to update, radio shows to tune in to, etc.. Hell, I may even put the dishes that have been sitting in the dish drainer over night back in their rightful places.
Maybe the good news is that I'm not waking up to hordes of illegal aliens walking through my yard on their way to go knows where. Or, worse yet, to find Mexicans dead and dying on my lawn due to hunger, thirst, or simply failing to thrive after their arduous and harrowing trip northwards from countries south of our border. The same cannot be said for American families living along our southern border. They face this reality day in and day out in Joe Biden's America.
Despite Biden's media blackout directive, news of this disturbing reality is being broadcast across the globe by various outlets. This is beyond children in cages. It is a human tragedy of epic proportions. By throwing open our borders, Biden has essentially created a veritable chain of human suffering extending for thousands of miles. The violence, the rapes of children, the misery and suffering brought about by the inhumane conditions in the camps, and the virulent strains of every imaginable disease including Covid-19, has made for a hell on earth for those "lucky" enough to reach our shores.
Biden and his minions have taken one of Trump's largely successful policies on immigration and have turned it into a national disgrace. In their bid to undo everything put into place in the Trump administration, they have created an unmitigated disaster when it comes to our immigration policies. In their bid to flood the red states with low income voters who will vote for the political party providing handouts rather than for the greater national interest, the democrats have turned a blind eye to the misery of these pawns they hope to exploit for political gain. This is who they are. It's enough to make you sick.
I'm thinking about taking my old car to Walmart for an oil change. I stopped by yesterday to ask whether or not I needed to make an appointment to have it done. Let's just say the fella I spoke to behind the counter in the auto department did not inspire confidence. The fact that they only service vehicles between 11 and 6 was the first red flag. "There are only three of us here", he stated almost apologetically. I'm thinking to myself, how many of you should be here? Had he been on his toes, he would have offered to make an appointment for me despite the fact that they weren't opening for another hour or two. No such offer was extended. Strike one.
I've heard rumors here and there about businesses being able to find good help or maybe any help at all. It's just very difficult when the government makes it more attractive to not work than to work. With the federal government throwing another $300 or so on top of monies coming from the state, people making minimum wage are better off being unemployed. It's just fucked up. You almost have to question the IQ of people working who you know aren't making a decent wage and, quite honestly, do you want these people "servicing" anything you own of value. And no, I don't want them fucking up my oil change.
I need tires too. My car is old so no need to spend a king's ransom on tires that might outlast the car. I also can't have the tread peeling off on the highway in my travels around town so something in the low to mid range of prices might do the trick. Walmart has a pretty good selection of the types of tires I'm interested in and at the prices I'm looking to pay. Maybe I'll order them through the mail from Walmart and have them put on somewhere else. I've never ordered tires through the mail. How weird would that be?
I gave Mrs G a call last night to check in and to see if her new computer was up to snuff. I thought perhaps she was not wanting to bother me with questions that might have come up since I set it up for her last week. I knew of at least one change that she would likely welcome but maybe one that she thought was just part and parcel of her new system. I'm referring to her having to put her password in every time she wakes up her computer from a sleep state. I put that question to her directly and she seemed pleased to know that we could do away with that particular requirement.
I updated her on the purchases I was making on her behalf from Staples and it was all good. As snazzy as Bluetooth is, I'm not sure that it's for her. She's down with replacing batteries and such but reconnecting to the computer has been tricky and somewhat problematic for her. You kinda have to play with it a little bit to get it to work is what I've found. It's better to just take that off the table so that's what we're doing. We're going back to wired for both her mouse and her keyboard. I was a little worried about being able to find wired devices in these wireless times we live in but Staples had a good selection of both. Don't even ask about 5G.
I managed to get the missus out of the house and into an eyewear joint the other day in the hopes that we might find a nice pair of sunglasses for her. We've had great luck with Maui Jim's over the years so we thought we might like to have her try on a pair or two of new Maui Jim's to see if we might be able to replace her existing pair. She found a pair with frames and lenses that were just the right color but she couldn't decide on the fit.
She convinced herself that they kept sliding off the bridge of her nose if only ever so slightly. She actually walked around the showroom floor nodding here and there to gauge the actual slippage. It was quite a sight. I wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't trying to talk herself out of buying a new pair. And what role the mask she was wearing played I don't know. It may have contributed to the problem real or perceived in that the bridge of the glasses actually rested on the mask material that snugged up the entire length of her nose.
You could tell that the salesman had pretty much convinced himself that the sale was now slipping away. He took the glasses in hand at one point and put them into a machine that ostensibly altered the angle of frames so that they wrapped back around the ears a little better. I'm not convinced that the machine did anything of the sort. I'm thinking it was a ruse of sorts designed to do nothing more than convince someone that something had changed when it hadn't. In a desperate bid to salvage a possible sale, he offered to put the glasses on hold for a week while she came to her senses. Well, while she had a chance to think it over anyway.
If I had to guess, I would say she'll not be returning anytime soon to the store to buy the glasses. It will likely take something catastrophic happening to her existing pair before she makes a decision on any replacements. She'll not be out and about without glasses so there's that. She's also not one to abandon something that has worked well for her over time no matter how worn and tattered they might be. Yes, she's loyal to a fault sometimes. Moving her off the dime on decisions, especially when and where spending money is concerned, can indeed be difficult. Frugal to a fault too?
The Ev man was right. He called it. Police in Denver hadn't released the name of the shooter who killed some 10 people in the supermarket within 24 hours of his capture. Evan speculated that the alleged shooter might be of Mideastern descent. Why else would they not be releasing his name? If his name had been John Doe from Boise you can be sure that his name would have been promptly released. His Facebook and Twitter accounts would have been hacked by now and his political affiliations exposed. Certainly, if he were a Trump supporter, the media would waste not a moment in connecting the dots and fashioning narratives to further their own agendas.
But the shooter was a loser, a loner, and he actually despised Trump and said as much on his social media pages. Maybe not releasing particulars about the individual is designed to give reporting outlets time to craft their stories without having to respond to crushing deadlines created when headlines are needed to satisfy a public starved for facts. Maybe giving too many details too soon looks like a rush to judgement. Certain communities, minority and otherwise, might well bear the brunt of an angry public looking to exact their own pound of flesh before all the facts are known.
I'm reading today that the alleged shooter lived in his parents basement, had no friends, and more specifically, had no girlfriend. The media seems to be going out of their way to create a twisted narrative around his mental health, evading as they are prone to do, and desperate to avoid any mention or reference of immigrants going off the rails. Immigrants make better Americans, don't you know. It's bad enough that the immigrants coming over the border now are sick and dying with the virus. Add to that the fact that they're now looking to kill us where we go shopping and Americans near and far might just wake up in a WTF moment. God forbid they take to the streets with their tiki torches and pitchforks.
Who in their right mind wouldn't agree that killing folks like that is an insane act? And since when is not having a girlfriend a predisposition of sorts to taking up arms against your fellow citizens? People with mental health issues already have enough to deal with without the media demonizing them every time something like this happens. That connection it tenuous at best so let's make sure we don't let these radicals with rifles get away with murder by using the insanity defense. It didn't work for Ted Bundy and it shouldn't work for this asshat from Syria. Did Bundy actually use the insanity defense? Not sure.
The missus and I started watching a show called "Resident Alien" last night. We're always on the look out for a show with a newfangled twist or storyline. You know, a little something to watch before going off to sleep for the night. I really despise sitcoms so I keep them at arms length. This was not a sitcom. The premise seemed intriguing given how little we earthlings know about intergalactic travel so we thought why not tune in. We can always abandon it after one episode or sooner if need be. Life is too short to watch a shitty show when it's just not cutting the mustard.
Somewhere, deep into episode one, the missus said something about not caring for it one way or the other. I can usually tell when something doesn't strike her quite right and it usually happens sooner rather than later while watching a show. She might even start to nod or somehow pay less attention. I can just sense it. We disagree on this one so I may be tuning in to future episodes on my own.
I found the show to be a nice blending of "My Favorite Martian" and "Blazing Saddles." Throw in a little "Six Million Dollar Man" and a sprinkling of virtue signaling and you have yourself a delightfully comical bouillabaisse. Did I mention that the women in the show are sassy and sexy? This is not your grandparent's "Lake Wobegon." No siree, Bob. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, and if you'll permit me, let's add a dash of "Twin Peaks."
It's easy to under-appreciate or overlook the writing that goes into making a show like this. The writing can more than make up for acting that is sub par when that happens but both are remarkably good in this show. It's a winning combination in my humble opinion. The show may well have a darker side when you consider that the end game for the alien posing as a human doctor is to kill every last human but you find yourself holding out hope that the more human and less alien he becomes the less likely it is he'll do anything of the sort.
You give the alien (aka Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle) a well deserved high five when he saves the proverbial damsel in distress from an ex boyfriend who is manhandling her in a brutish fashion. Maybe Garrison Keillor was on to something in his intro to Lake Wobegone when he proudly declares, "Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong (but never strong enough), all the men are good looking (and effeminate), and all the children are above average (and annoying as hell)." Welcome to Patience, Colorado. See what I did there?
The alien's interactions with unsuspecting townspeople are understandably wooden given that he is still learning the ways of the earthling. While his behavior appears maybe a little awkward and odd on its face, it seems to endear him quite readily to the opposite sex. His social antics in scene after scene fly in the face of any and all existing social norms and the townspeople's reactions are, more often than not, more priceless than suspicious.
The show is good for a few laughs if not outwardly juvenile sometimes but you take the good with the bad and let things unfold as they will. There isn't anything in the show that will keep you from a good night's sleep so try not to take the alien stuff too seriously.
Me and the missus will be getting our second vaccinations for the dreaded Covid-19 this coming weekend. I don't know that it will liberate the missus from her self-imposed prison or not because she is literally scared of her own shadow at this point. "Where is the missus I married?", I plead here and there while on bended knee. I wouldn't say that she's at the potted plant stage but she seems to be leaning into that possibility more and more with each passing day.
We don't even know anybody who has contracted much less died from the dreaded Covid-19 for chrissakes. Why in God's name is she so frightened? I'm telling you, she's reading all the wrong rags (newspapers) and they're putting the fear of god into her. I've said all along that we'd probably be better off getting the damn virus and beating it and then we'd have put it behind us once and for all.
There's some evidence now that the disease has lingering and long-lasting effects so I'm not so sure surviving it is the way to go anymore. What I'm not hearing in the media are accounts of people who have been vaccinated who then contract the virus and end up on a ventilator or worse. Is that by design? It seems the government is going out of their way to portray vaccinations as a pathway to liberty and news to the contrary would not fit easily or well with that narrative.
Nobody is mandating that everyone gets vaccinated so that gives the anti-vaxxers an out of sorts. That said, I'm reading about certain businesses that will no longer do business with you unless you've been vaccinated. When it comes to the airlines, they're referring to it as the "vaccine passport." I know of at least one ocean going cruise line that is now on board with this approach. I can't fault them but you have to admit that it does put the anti-vaxxers in something of a box.
The Astrozeneca vaccine is coming to market now after Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J have been around for a month or more. There have been wide ranging reports of dangerous and dreadful side effects of the Astrozeneca vaccine and I have to wonder if the competition is doing what competition does when they prefer to have the market all to themselves. The problem with rumors and vaccines is that rumors can destroy the public's appetite for the vaccine before the first jab is ever administered.
My last couple of bike rides have been pretty good. I've been a little concerned that my not riding all that often in the months of January and February would have put me behind the proverbial eight ball when the weather started to improve. I figure that every day you're out riding that it builds on the day before. If your endurance was X on Monday, then it's X+1 on Tuesday and so forth and so on. And conversely, when you're not getting your rides in you're losing ground or momentum. X-1?
It is true that when I haven't had a ride for a few days that I'm less able to put in the usual mileage. I just lose a step or two. It's not that complicated, really. My breathing is more labored, I tell myself that putting in this or that number of miles will be good enough for today, and with any luck I'll get back to where I was before the layoff soon enough. If my last two outings are any indication, I'm back in the game and in with both feet as they say. I even surprised myself when I found that I was going balls to the walls on the return trip these last couple of days. Yeah, baby!
I'm up so early today. I can't say that I like waking up at 4 in the morning with my eyes wide open but it is what it is. What I don't like to do is to end up feeling groggy around 9 or 10 in the morning and that happens sometimes when I get up too early. It's all about having to make up for the number of hours of sleep that I was somehow deprived of and the unrelenting need I feel to take a nap just to get back those hours of sleep that I missed. I can avoid it all by staying in bed later but, alas, that is not always in the cards.
I lie in bed at the hour of four a.m. with eyes wide open thinking about the day ahead and what plans, if any, I might want to follow through on. The longer the list of things that I have to contemplate, the less likely it is that I'll fall back asleep. I tell myself that if it's 3-something I have no business getting out of bed. If it's 4 something, that's close enough to the hour of 5-something that I can make a good case for getting up and out of bed. There is espresso to brew, news reports to read, blogs to update, radio shows to tune in to, etc.. Hell, I may even put the dishes that have been sitting in the dish drainer over night back in their rightful places.
Maybe the good news is that I'm not waking up to hordes of illegal aliens walking through my yard on their way to go knows where. Or, worse yet, to find Mexicans dead and dying on my lawn due to hunger, thirst, or simply failing to thrive after their arduous and harrowing trip northwards from countries south of our border. The same cannot be said for American families living along our southern border. They face this reality day in and day out in Joe Biden's America.
Despite Biden's media blackout directive, news of this disturbing reality is being broadcast across the globe by various outlets. This is beyond children in cages. It is a human tragedy of epic proportions. By throwing open our borders, Biden has essentially created a veritable chain of human suffering extending for thousands of miles. The violence, the rapes of children, the misery and suffering brought about by the inhumane conditions in the camps, and the virulent strains of every imaginable disease including Covid-19, has made for a hell on earth for those "lucky" enough to reach our shores.
Biden and his minions have taken one of Trump's largely successful policies on immigration and have turned it into a national disgrace. In their bid to undo everything put into place in the Trump administration, they have created an unmitigated disaster when it comes to our immigration policies. In their bid to flood the red states with low income voters who will vote for the political party providing handouts rather than for the greater national interest, the democrats have turned a blind eye to the misery of these pawns they hope to exploit for political gain. This is who they are. It's enough to make you sick.
I'm thinking about taking my old car to Walmart for an oil change. I stopped by yesterday to ask whether or not I needed to make an appointment to have it done. Let's just say the fella I spoke to behind the counter in the auto department did not inspire confidence. The fact that they only service vehicles between 11 and 6 was the first red flag. "There are only three of us here", he stated almost apologetically. I'm thinking to myself, how many of you should be here? Had he been on his toes, he would have offered to make an appointment for me despite the fact that they weren't opening for another hour or two. No such offer was extended. Strike one.
I've heard rumors here and there about businesses being able to find good help or maybe any help at all. It's just very difficult when the government makes it more attractive to not work than to work. With the federal government throwing another $300 or so on top of monies coming from the state, people making minimum wage are better off being unemployed. It's just fucked up. You almost have to question the IQ of people working who you know aren't making a decent wage and, quite honestly, do you want these people "servicing" anything you own of value. And no, I don't want them fucking up my oil change.
I need tires too. My car is old so no need to spend a king's ransom on tires that might outlast the car. I also can't have the tread peeling off on the highway in my travels around town so something in the low to mid range of prices might do the trick. Walmart has a pretty good selection of the types of tires I'm interested in and at the prices I'm looking to pay. Maybe I'll order them through the mail from Walmart and have them put on somewhere else. I've never ordered tires through the mail. How weird would that be?
I gave Mrs G a call last night to check in and to see if her new computer was up to snuff. I thought perhaps she was not wanting to bother me with questions that might have come up since I set it up for her last week. I knew of at least one change that she would likely welcome but maybe one that she thought was just part and parcel of her new system. I'm referring to her having to put her password in every time she wakes up her computer from a sleep state. I put that question to her directly and she seemed pleased to know that we could do away with that particular requirement.
I updated her on the purchases I was making on her behalf from Staples and it was all good. As snazzy as Bluetooth is, I'm not sure that it's for her. She's down with replacing batteries and such but reconnecting to the computer has been tricky and somewhat problematic for her. You kinda have to play with it a little bit to get it to work is what I've found. It's better to just take that off the table so that's what we're doing. We're going back to wired for both her mouse and her keyboard. I was a little worried about being able to find wired devices in these wireless times we live in but Staples had a good selection of both. Don't even ask about 5G.
I managed to get the missus out of the house and into an eyewear joint the other day in the hopes that we might find a nice pair of sunglasses for her. We've had great luck with Maui Jim's over the years so we thought we might like to have her try on a pair or two of new Maui Jim's to see if we might be able to replace her existing pair. She found a pair with frames and lenses that were just the right color but she couldn't decide on the fit.
She convinced herself that they kept sliding off the bridge of her nose if only ever so slightly. She actually walked around the showroom floor nodding here and there to gauge the actual slippage. It was quite a sight. I wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't trying to talk herself out of buying a new pair. And what role the mask she was wearing played I don't know. It may have contributed to the problem real or perceived in that the bridge of the glasses actually rested on the mask material that snugged up the entire length of her nose.
You could tell that the salesman had pretty much convinced himself that the sale was now slipping away. He took the glasses in hand at one point and put them into a machine that ostensibly altered the angle of frames so that they wrapped back around the ears a little better. I'm not convinced that the machine did anything of the sort. I'm thinking it was a ruse of sorts designed to do nothing more than convince someone that something had changed when it hadn't. In a desperate bid to salvage a possible sale, he offered to put the glasses on hold for a week while she came to her senses. Well, while she had a chance to think it over anyway.
If I had to guess, I would say she'll not be returning anytime soon to the store to buy the glasses. It will likely take something catastrophic happening to her existing pair before she makes a decision on any replacements. She'll not be out and about without glasses so there's that. She's also not one to abandon something that has worked well for her over time no matter how worn and tattered they might be. Yes, she's loyal to a fault sometimes. Moving her off the dime on decisions, especially when and where spending money is concerned, can indeed be difficult. Frugal to a fault too?
The Ev man was right. He called it. Police in Denver hadn't released the name of the shooter who killed some 10 people in the supermarket within 24 hours of his capture. Evan speculated that the alleged shooter might be of Mideastern descent. Why else would they not be releasing his name? If his name had been John Doe from Boise you can be sure that his name would have been promptly released. His Facebook and Twitter accounts would have been hacked by now and his political affiliations exposed. Certainly, if he were a Trump supporter, the media would waste not a moment in connecting the dots and fashioning narratives to further their own agendas.
But the shooter was a loser, a loner, and he actually despised Trump and said as much on his social media pages. Maybe not releasing particulars about the individual is designed to give reporting outlets time to craft their stories without having to respond to crushing deadlines created when headlines are needed to satisfy a public starved for facts. Maybe giving too many details too soon looks like a rush to judgement. Certain communities, minority and otherwise, might well bear the brunt of an angry public looking to exact their own pound of flesh before all the facts are known.
I'm reading today that the alleged shooter lived in his parents basement, had no friends, and more specifically, had no girlfriend. The media seems to be going out of their way to create a twisted narrative around his mental health, evading as they are prone to do, and desperate to avoid any mention or reference of immigrants going off the rails. Immigrants make better Americans, don't you know. It's bad enough that the immigrants coming over the border now are sick and dying with the virus. Add to that the fact that they're now looking to kill us where we go shopping and Americans near and far might just wake up in a WTF moment. God forbid they take to the streets with their tiki torches and pitchforks.
Who in their right mind wouldn't agree that killing folks like that is an insane act? And since when is not having a girlfriend a predisposition of sorts to taking up arms against your fellow citizens? People with mental health issues already have enough to deal with without the media demonizing them every time something like this happens. That connection it tenuous at best so let's make sure we don't let these radicals with rifles get away with murder by using the insanity defense. It didn't work for Ted Bundy and it shouldn't work for this asshat from Syria. Did Bundy actually use the insanity defense? Not sure.
The missus and I started watching a show called "Resident Alien" last night. We're always on the look out for a show with a newfangled twist or storyline. You know, a little something to watch before going off to sleep for the night. I really despise sitcoms so I keep them at arms length. This was not a sitcom. The premise seemed intriguing given how little we earthlings know about intergalactic travel so we thought why not tune in. We can always abandon it after one episode or sooner if need be. Life is too short to watch a shitty show when it's just not cutting the mustard.
Somewhere, deep into episode one, the missus said something about not caring for it one way or the other. I can usually tell when something doesn't strike her quite right and it usually happens sooner rather than later while watching a show. She might even start to nod or somehow pay less attention. I can just sense it. We disagree on this one so I may be tuning in to future episodes on my own.
I found the show to be a nice blending of "My Favorite Martian" and "Blazing Saddles." Throw in a little "Six Million Dollar Man" and a sprinkling of virtue signaling and you have yourself a delightfully comical bouillabaisse. Did I mention that the women in the show are sassy and sexy? This is not your grandparent's "Lake Wobegon." No siree, Bob. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, and if you'll permit me, let's add a dash of "Twin Peaks."
It's easy to under-appreciate or overlook the writing that goes into making a show like this. The writing can more than make up for acting that is sub par when that happens but both are remarkably good in this show. It's a winning combination in my humble opinion. The show may well have a darker side when you consider that the end game for the alien posing as a human doctor is to kill every last human but you find yourself holding out hope that the more human and less alien he becomes the less likely it is he'll do anything of the sort.
You give the alien (aka Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle) a well deserved high five when he saves the proverbial damsel in distress from an ex boyfriend who is manhandling her in a brutish fashion. Maybe Garrison Keillor was on to something in his intro to Lake Wobegone when he proudly declares, "Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong (but never strong enough), all the men are good looking (and effeminate), and all the children are above average (and annoying as hell)." Welcome to Patience, Colorado. See what I did there?
The alien's interactions with unsuspecting townspeople are understandably wooden given that he is still learning the ways of the earthling. While his behavior appears maybe a little awkward and odd on its face, it seems to endear him quite readily to the opposite sex. His social antics in scene after scene fly in the face of any and all existing social norms and the townspeople's reactions are, more often than not, more priceless than suspicious.
The show is good for a few laughs if not outwardly juvenile sometimes but you take the good with the bad and let things unfold as they will. There isn't anything in the show that will keep you from a good night's sleep so try not to take the alien stuff too seriously.