I can walk only so far from the insanity of Congress and the lockdown

Update: Cantor sounded optimistic, said Wolf. But why didn’t the GOP House members go outside to talk to the media instead of sneaking out the back door?

The gorgeous and not-so-hot day of early autumn has given me an added incentive to get outside and walk.

Walking is needed for my health and my sanity in normal times even though my health prevents me from those treks of a length I once enjoyed. I also find myself needing more walking in these maddening days of the government lockout. I call it a lockout and not “a partial shutdown” as some of the mealier-mouths in media have muttered simply because many of us government employees are locked out. I sit around in my tiny abode with little more to do than read what I find on the Web and what I can see on TV. Somehow it is though that everything I see or read takes me back to news of the lockout, which is in turn increasingly frustrating.

Today’s big headline is that Speaker John Boehner and other top Republican House members will meet with President Obama later this afternoon and talk over the latest GOP proposal. Boehner wants Obama to agree to hike the debt ceiling for six weeks. Apparently, the Speaker has no provision for keeping the government open simultaneously. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, after repeated questions, sounded as if he found such a proposition absurd. However, some of the media and chowder talking heads seemed to interpret Carney’s remarks as indicating Obama might find such a proposal agreeable.

Whether my interpretation is right or not, I have to say that if an agreement was reached by the President temporarily hiking the debt ceiling with or without re-opening the government then Obama needs to have his head examined. Hell yeah, I want to go back to work. I want to get paid. If, in fact, I am ultimately paid unemployment it will be a very small amount. But the thought of traveling down this same crappy old road another six weeks depresses me to no end.

For God’s sake man, will government workers and veterans and the war dead’s spouses and kids have their money held up a week before Thanksgiving? Will we all go through once more in six weeks? I don’t know where you live but from where I come — Planet Earth — this is just plain insanity!

I just saw Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after a small presser say the six-week debt hike deal is a non-starter, that is what I thought I saw at least. I have also read that Boehner might be such a sweetie that he could go for the six-week deal with the government re-opening.

It’s driving me nuts, I tell you. Well, perhaps nuttier.

When this all will end, well, your guess is as good as mine. But I predict I will be taking more long walks in the immediate future.