Okay, time to get to work. I had stories to write, tales to tell. As I shifted into work gear Cher began playing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” meaning Laura was Skyping. I hooked in; she was in an unidentified American airport. I looked at the signs behind her, trying to figure out where she was. My guess was St. Paul, but I wouldn’t bet my rented apartment on it. Her hair was cut student short and she was wearing a designer backpack. “You saw it?” she asked, with restrained excitement.

“I did.”

“So what do you think?”

I hesitated. That was an easy question requiring a complex answer. What did I think? Got a week? “Well,” I said finally, “I don’t think I’m going to be competing on Dancing with the Stars anytime soon.”

23

It took me several months to get my eh-game down. But gradually I became used to saying zed rather than Z; I took pride in the fact that William Shatner and Jim Carrey were Canadian and that Mr. Big was a chocolate bar rather than a TV character. I embraced Tim Hortons. While I continued to make fun of the Canadians’ relentless good nature, I discovered that they did too; it was an essential aspect of their relentless good nature. I also learned that they also had suffered through strange leaders. Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who headed the government for twenty-two years, conversed regularly with his mothers’ ghosts, often attended séances, and made national decisions based on reading tea leaves, shaving cream, and the responses of the three angels disguised as his dogs who offered advice by the way they wagged their tails.

All America has had to deal with were Trump/Pence, incompetent Democrats, Wrightman, and now Hunter. We should have been as lucky.

The positive news is that the resistance is securely established and has continued to expand. It is now operating in all fifty states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. We have been working from here to offer as much assistance as possible. There is much about it that I can’t disclose without risk to other people. But networks have been established and the opposition to the Hunter government continues to grow.

I do know that within the military there continues to be debate, and grumbling, about continuing to support an administration that has abrogated the Constitution. Although thus far there has been no agreement about steps to take. I can report that there has been considerable tension between the administration and the military and Hunter is aware he does not have its absolute loyalty. But he is a clever man, clever and devious. He has replaced the entire Joint Chiefs with his allies, although he has been warned that their oath is to the Constitution, not the executive branch.

The United Nations has taken tentative steps to at least discourage the Hunter government from further restricting civil liberties. (Although that’s like trying to close the barn door after the farm has been sold, knocked down, and replaced by a soccer stadium.) In protest to the recent limitations Canada has recalled its ambassador, replacing that position with a chargé d’affaires to handle legal matters. Ironically, Mexico sent additional troops to its northern border to assist Americans attempting to escape into Mexico.