Last week, we had two days of snow and occasional periods of rain. This gave the daffs and tulips lots of muddy garden gunk to push through. Despite the chilly temperatures that kept my duff inside, Mr. Sun will soon take over. It won’t be long until the ladyslippers appear by the stone wall outside the kitchen window. Then, and only then, will we have spring.

I drove to Portland the other day and stopped to check on Ms. Pigette. I found her at her usual post encased in a muddy/icy cocoon. For once, she was silent. Then the next day I got a call from her. “What gives?” I asked her. "It looked like you were frozen solid.”

That comment brought a sustained giggle and a snort or two. “No, dummy,” she said. “That is my doppelgänger. I enjoyed the winter in the islands sponging off my favorite fans. They love me. They admire my rants about everything from fashion to art, and, of course, politics.”

“Well, you are a long way past me,” I said, noting I had been out of the usual information loop while fighting a nasty bug that somehow invaded my elderly body.

I asked her if she had any impressions of the first 100 days of POTUS' second term.

“Are you kidding? He seems to be trying to shift the way America does business. Instead of using the K Street lobbyists to urge the Representatives and Senators to do his bidding, he has gone over their heads by issuing executive orders by the hundreds to regulate the nation. For example, he ordered the Associated Press to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. When they refused to do so, he denied them ordinary coverage opportunities. He also ordered utility makers to increase the flow of water spewing from new shower heads.

His aides are firing foot-dragging civilian bureaucrats and high-ranking military brass hats. Elon Musk and his minions are invading bureaucratic backyards slashing budgets as they crow victory over the evil trio of fraud, waste and abuse. No one is sure how much good old WFA they have found.

Meanwhile, the polls tell us the general public is worried the president's Musk task force will attack Social Security and Medicaid in their quest to fund tax cuts for fat cats. Any major change to those departments could damage his presidency.

As the Democrats don’t have enough votes to do anything but whine, the GOP seems to be following suit.  They are keeping their heads down too, wondering if they can overcome their internal opposition to increasing national debt.”

“OK. OK,” I, said. "POTUS seems to have got the world's economic undies in a bunch. What has he done?"

“Not much,” Ms. P answered. “He just slapped fat tariffs on our closest allies and potential adversaries. This sent the world markets into a tizzy that experts say cost American investors up to $6 trillion in market losses. And, in case you are interested in your retirement package, the market losses just dropkicked your 401K account into the cheap seats.

Will this market loss continue? No one knows, but it sure has grabbed the attention of our elected representatives, who are getting nervous and a bit uppity towards POTUS and his myrmidons. In some GOP sectors, there are some rumblings of mutiny.

“What about back home? What gives in Maine.” I asked her. “I have it on good authority that some of our local retired market experts are very, very worried the GOP tariffs could trigger serious worldwide trouble as they evoke the memory of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs that helped trigger the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“As for our elected representatives, Sen. Susan Collins has become one of the leading opposition Republicans. Democrats like Sen. Angus King is lecturing us about the wisdom of the Constitution, Rep. Chellie Pingree is keeping her head down, and Rep. Jared Golden, who is in a split district seems to be trying to straddle the issues.

Gov. Janet Mills is the only elected official who is defying POTUS. At a televised luncheon, she flipped him a figurative one-fingered salute after he called her out for failing to follow his edict barring trans women from school sports.

“I have spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness,” she said recently.

“So, Ms. P., what is the bottom line? What should, what can we do?” I asked.

“You are asking me, what to do? Remember, I am a pig statue standing by the roadside holding a mailbox. I hear a lot of gossip. But don’t rely on me to solve complex economic and fiscal crises. That is the job of POTUS and he tells us not to rely on the experts for fiscal advice. Instead, he says, we should trust his long record of business success. There you have it.

Eveything is fine. Buckle up.