Like Fish Flopping On The Dock

     My Dad was an avid fisherman -- he like the quiet.  He liked being in nature.  And he liked fresh-caught fish.  (Just about ruined my palate for anything but!)

     But it wasn't all Zen-like stillness and delicious aftermath.  You catch a fish and take it out of the water, the creature is desperate to get back to where it belongs.  It flops and thrashes around in this new, strange environment, trying to get traction, trying to move productively, trying to survive.

     Say hello to this strange period of legislative overlap, in which the departing Representatives and Senators try to get in their parting shots, while the incoming class tries to find their bearings and talks about their ambitious plans, which have yet to meet the slow gears and millstones of government.

     Like fish out of water, all that action can be unsettling.  Where's it all going?  Will dinner escape?

     It's a good time to step back and just watch.  There's not a lot to be done.  We voted.  You can call or write your Congresscritters, but the old ones aren't much minded to listen and the new ones can't do anything yet.  They're all going to do just whatever they're going to do, and there's a lot of be learned from paying attention.  How to they act when largely unconstrained by consequences?  What to they plan when their future still looks unlimited?

     They'll tell you who they are, if you look and listen.  My Dad could read the riverbanks, the shape and the shadows and the flow of the stream, and have a pretty good idea of what was in there before he baited the hook.  Our elected legislators are often more transparent than an Indiana waterway, and it can be surprising what bait they'll lunge at.