Ho Ho Ho

We've had sickness, tragedy, crises, ill will, anger, heartaches, and general drama this year. We've had some joys, a few victories, and shared stupefaction. Somehow, we made it to Xmas. And like the Whos in Whoville, we gathered and clasped hands and hearts.

That's what Xmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

And here comes a brand new year. Another construct to do with as you will.

Let's move forward with big goodness in our minds and acts.  Let's learn, and think, and do better. We can, you know.

War is over, if you want it.

Peace, prosperity, laughter to you and yours.

x

Covid, Round 2 & Last Call for McNeill's

This version of Covid is quite different. The first was coughy and deathlike. This one's been like a regular flu- ague; runny nose; crazy thirst; nothing stayed down - even water; full head; mouthbreathing. It's better today. I want to sleep but I'm slept out now. Yesterday was right off miserable. But figure this out- I started feeling sick on Saturday, but tested negative until today. Nothing is reliable anymore.

Much worse than my little illness is that our town lost an institution. McNeill's Brewery (aka Dewey's to oldtimers) 32 year-old community hang out, burned down on Friday night. Worse than that, Ray McNeill, founder and award-winning brewmeister, father and grandfather, went down with his ship.

Mc Neill's Burns, 1 Dead

With this tragedy, the old Brattleboro is gone to me. The many places I frequented back in the day are closed, or changed, or upscaled. We won't see another McNeill's, as we won't see another Mole's Eye, Frankie's Pizza, Sporty's, or Mike's. Change is inevitable. Tragic ends like this are hard to live with.

So farewell Dewey's, RIP Ray, see you on the other side.

I'm going to go light a candle for us all.

x

# 17 and Pie Day Friday Returns, At Last!

It looks like an organized, sane, non-histrionic personal assistant has appeared. She's mature, owns a cleaning biz, has 9 children and 3 grands, and we get on like a house on fire.

What a strange expression, why would clear communication and understanding be like a burning house?

My friends have kept me in groceries, and tomorrow Plague is coming to do laundry, watch Rings of Power and eat pizza with me. I would be dead without my friends.

Anyhow, #17 is the first solidly promising PA I've had since my Alicia left to have her second set of bairns. The eldest of those three is 4 already. Here are the littles.

 The youngest, just turning 1.

The middle and eldest, 3 and 4. Aren't they adorable little stinkers?

It snowed overnight, the first snow. Of course the predictors made a deal of it, inches and heaviness exaggerated for ratings and to satiate the drama-addicted. The reality is a sloppy inch of mush like any other first snow. It's defrosting already.

The holidays are looming ahead. Thanksgiving is a non event to me, but Pie Day Friday is returning and I'm looking forward to it. This year I'm making Maple Whiskey Walnut, and Blueberry. If anyone wants the recipe for the MWW, lemme know. It's like a pecan pie, but different.
 

There are 3 cartons of holiday gifts wrapped and ready to go under the tree. The only stuff left to get are for the far away that are easy to do- money to charities, a gift certificate to my brother, a set of earmuffs and gloves to my cousin. No big whoop. I'm about 3 weeks earlier than usual, and already getting antsy to haul out the holly. But it'll wait til #17 gives this place a real dusting and vacuuming. It'll be nice to breathe free again, to not see dust particles in every light beam, to wake up without a clogged nose and a headache. And then filling the clean front room with a bright tree, sparkling hoohahs, baked goodies and fancy chocolates, and carols playing. Seeing all the old decorations is dear and heartwarming to me. I love the holidays.

 A very happy Turkey Day to those observing, may we have peace and plenty in our lifetime.

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It's All Weird to Me, and I'm a Wyrdo

By some oddness, all the testings and evaluations this year came back just fine. I'm not eating the 90% meat and dairy diet, because who can afford that now? But I rarely get carried away. I will, as traditional observance, be trashed thru the holidays. It starts with the tree trimming, and carries on until the Very Crompton Christmas. So a month or so of stupid and careless behavior, which is kept in check by my nonexistent ability to party these days. 

It's sad, I'm in bed with a book or movie by 8p and asleep long before 10. 

The latest startling revelation is that I'm turning into Aunt Audrey, who wasn't a blood relative, who looked like Audrey Hepburn, drank whiskey straight, and was a very bitter person.  She suffered no lie or stupidity in her presence. She put pins in balloons. She was called, behind her back, "bitchy". Yes, me too. 

If there were some way to stop myself, I would have by now. So I must be aspiring to be Audreyish on some level. Isn't constant self-analysis fun.

I truly don't mean to be bitchy. It really irks me when friends are drowning in needless stupidity or someone's lies that they believe. It didn't used to bother me.  Here and there I'd drop a terse bomb, and that was it. But over the years, it's fine tuned to dry, sarcastic know-it-all Audreyness. It's Sheldonesque, and boring, and somewhat mean. And that's all freaking weird.

Furtherly weird, I had to order wide glasses because this giant Viking head breaks readers that normal people wear.  3 pairs of readers in 6 months. Arms give out, lenses pop, frames crack apart. I have a huge head.

And here we are on a rainy, weirdly warm November 11th, Veterans Day, Armistice Day. 

It was t shirt weather today.  People were all "Isn't it great?" while I'm thinking, "This isn't November weather." 

Elections are hanging like the pit and the pendulum; who knows what will happen but my guts won't allow me to think about it. Hell, my guts won't allow me to drink 2 cups of coffee anymore.

We creep and crawl closer to the Herman movie, at so slow a pace, but I won't let it not happen.  Lots of sickness and elder issues among The Old Gang of Witches. Time is ticking and we've already said goodbye to 2 of the interviewed, Kaye Flagg and Jim Wasserman. I still can't believe they're gone. So yeah, this will be finished. Dammit.

And I still have no aide, so there's that. #17, where are you?

If you are a veteran, thank you and I'm sorry.

x

 

Good Times, Bad Times

 There is balance. But somehow it's not enough.

My eye doc says I'm still 20/20, 4 years later.

Aide #16 is done. I was to interview a possible #17 today, but they didn't show up or even call.

I despise being disabled. I hate having to depend on other people for stupid things like shopping, vacuuming, laundry, mopping... These are things that are making me silent and bitter. Nobody wants to hear it. I don't even want to say it, because what's the point? It's obvious this all sucks. So I don't talk about it. But then there's this here blog, where I've opened many veins over a decade and a half.

It's generally not easy getting old. I swear my body started falling apart at 30, when I saw my first arthritis specialist. But it's been a "slow fade" as my exboss The Meathead put on my disability form. And to end up in a wheelchair when in my dreams I still run... 

I loved to run.

I loved a lot of things, and a lot of things are gone.

My wise motherinlaw once said, "Life is a series of losses." Yes it is, Roz.

And so there's a lot of acceptance needed. Not crying and whining, just quiet acceptance. And with that acceptance is also the special acceptance annex of friends doing things I can't do.That isn't easy either. I'm a proud Brooklyn woman who was raised to be the charity giver, not the taker. It's a very different view on the other side. A lot to swallow.

With all that, it's a miracle I have several kind and caring friends who are eager to help out. And for that I'm truly grateful.

And now I'll shut up and not let myself get bitter.

x

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Austanspace: the Final Frontier

So Musk has bought Twatter and is proceeding to stink up the place. Since he's become a MAGAt, it will no doubt become another MeWe, full of fascists and stupidity.  Well that's about it for social media. When it comes to the point that you have to give up personal info just to log into their craptastic site; when your 'free speech' is threatened and subject to approval by, and privately owned by, some rich freak, screw it. I intend to treat it as it deserves. hehehe

Okie cousin was here, sparkles and spandex and very much like Meemaw on "Young Sheldon" but with a platinum page boy. There was much "getting to know you" since we had 6 days and nobody came out with her. I may go into detail at some point, but we have more in common than we knew.

Halloween is Monday, Samhain following. It's like this last month folded  and reopened a couple weeks later. This year I'm dressing up as the elderly Luna Lovegood. still in her Ravenclaw robes, her wild blonde hair and weird earrings flying.

Late Summer

 There are certain tenets I stand by.

1) Things went to Hell after Bonzo died, September 25th, 1980.

2) Nothing good comes of Rudy's.

3) Take care of your teeth and feet.

4) We are pretty ignorant, quite hypocritical, and know very little for sure.

5) Hot pans cool down if they get out of the heat.

6)  The whole world's got PTSD

 

 One of the things I gave up is online arguing. It's easy if you're off Fecebook (and I hope you are). In general, I've grown to care less and less what anyone else thinks. So if they don't agree, who cares. If  I still argue with you, by email or in real face, you're a true friend. If you continually try to provoke or be an ass to me, you'll be gone like Poof! It makes life feel nicer.

It's really been One Damn Thing After Another for many years now. People who weren't alive when the Twin Towers fell are about old enough to drink alcohol. And we've been in a horrific, stupid, and costly war their whole lives.  Terrorism, foreign and domestic, rules. We are devolving, for a time. But all things must pass, and chances are we'll return to inert mediocrity in the end. After all the bangs and booms will come exhaustive quiet and a low farting sound. Then we'll carry on with the tame squabbles.

My new Gal Friday and I cleaned all 32 of the hanging pictures in my front room. Next comes the bookcases and the many things in them. After that, the real Fall cleaning before windows are shut for the duration. The year is moving ahead, the planet spins, I'm about halfway done with Yuletide shopping. Planning food for entertaining this Fall. Looking forward to my cousin visiting. Helping a young woman who's writing an article about home aides. Of course I wonder what's in Ivana's casket besides her, but

In the long run

 x

Might as Well Dump

In the post-Herman days of the Childe, the various characters that worked there reconfigured and carried on. At the cash register, and maestro of the mayhem was Steve Teischer. A big old Brooklynese Jewish hippie with sharp edges and great humor, Steve stepped into Herman's role with no ties to The Craft. He didn't disrespect it, and now and then credited it, but he never partook. He did what he could to keep the place running. He called himself and me The Dumpster Sisters because everything there ended up on our heads. Steve and The Childe are long gone now, but I continued to uphold the title for a couple decades.  

That was, until I got away from being a working stiff, and then escaped living on ramen noodles, and at last cleared some people out of my life that lived in perpetually dirty diapers. It's amazing how much nicer you and life can be when the psychic vampires are gone. All of a sudden you aren't carrying people's crises for them and they aren't sucking the energy outta you. You dumped it all and things lightened up.

And that energy you now have can go into good works, good ideas, and good people. 

This has been a good week. I have hope that truth will out, that people get their comeuppence, and that maybe a little sanity will return. Maybe things aren't entirely broken. Maybe refiring up the Hadron Collider shifted us back to our old universe. Whatever is happening, I'm happy it is, and doing my part to increase the good. It starts with dumping the bad. Try it.

 

x

 

Lazing On a Sunny Afternoon

 Glad to see Summer coming to a head. It's been so claggy and Allergy Hell.  I'm in the AC 99% of the time and even indoors with portals shut, it's Niagara Falls, coughing and sneezing. Someone asked, "You don't like a nice sunny day with warm breezes?" No. No I don't. I want 20F and snow blowing sideways.

There's news. 

Brother Billy flatlined on the operating table and was dead for 23 seconds.  He's mostly fine, just takes a bit longer to say what he's thinking. He saw nothing when dead. But he's back, has a pacemaker, and should be ok for another 10,000 miles.

I hired a new aide, and 16 may be the magic number.  There are omens: her first name is a kickass Game of Thrones woman's name, and she lives on a street named for Alicia's family. And she's Scandihoovian. And a NYer. I'm psyched. She starts Weds.

Much company in the last few days. Nurse Muffinpants stopped in Thursday. I don't see nearly enough of her. She's going to a Rob Zombie concert, which is her version of me seeing Greg Lake after all the years. Wendy's nephew is here visiting, so they came for dinner Friday. Made Caribbean foods, yukked it up, told him the Stories. Then Saturday, Kick finally came south and we did Christmas in July. We hadn't seen each other since she came running to help last Fall when I got bitten. Right after she left, Deb did a drive by. She always has stories to tell. Today I interviewed  the Hoovian and cleaned. Tomorrow I interview a backup aide, and then Wendy's bringing Chinese takeout along with her nephew, and her Dad. Tuesday will be a total Nothing Day.

It's almost pre-pandemic feeling. Not all the way with big hugs and kisses, but much more than it was. In the Big Lockdown Times people only left their houses when they had to. I didn't see one friend for 15 months, but she's been around this year a couple times. The variants are still making their ways around the world. At the start I heard this would be a 3 year deal. It sure looks like that's the case.

Rain tomorrow, and a big solar flare on Tuesday. Maybe we'll have a regulation Summer power outage in there sometime. Better charge things in the morning.

 

I hope you're having a lovely Summer evening in the north, and a cozy Winter evening  down under.

x

 

I Want the Old Universe Back

 I don't know what happened that pushed us to some alternate universe, but it seems clear to me that something did. The Large Hadron Collider? That seems the likeliest culprit. And it's at it again. Part of me wonders if they're trying to get us back in alignment with the old semi-insane universe and out of this full-on crackhead of a world. 

Hadron up running again 

Since Alicia left to have her 2nd generation of bairns I've had a parade of aides. 15 so far. It's been really difficult, and if it weren't for my friends I'd have been screwed several times. One was close to the high bar Alicia'd set, and she stayed until getting a full time job as a manager at a gas station. But others...

One had a series of unfortunate events (best friend OD'd and died, mother became gravely ill, car died, boyfriend in jail, sicknesses, on and on); one cried thru her entire shift every week; one went into labor on her first day; one who was stoned and mixed up her own purchases when doing my shopping (which is illegal, btw); another stoner who held forth instead of working (he was 25 and burdened with knowing everything and he laughed when he vacuumed up my 22 year old Swedish ivy); a very confident mess who was 13 in a 20 year old's body; too many. Today I was to interview a new one. She emailed just before the set time she chose, cancelling, and answered none of the pre-interview questions. Why has it become so hard to find a dependable competent person? I pay well, I encourage joining the union, and act the way I wish my bosses had. It's not the odd chance of coming across a weirdo here and there, it's the norm now.

The country has gone entirely nuts and stupid. Is this the way it always was and we're just seeing it now, or is this the new world we're thrusted into? I can't believe how gullible the populace is, and how reasoned thought has disappeared. Craziness and idiocy are encouraged. They attract viewers with lies and drama. People are addicted to fear and despair. This is Hell. I don't want to live here but I don't have a choice.

And speaking of choice, the Supremacist Court needs to go. 

Don't even start with the gun nuts and the killings.

And these assholes are everywhere, even in my town.

If the last years were parts 1 to 5 of The Years of Living on Edge, this year is The Year of I Just Can't.

So yes, I want our old universe back. It was far from perfect, but it wasn't all fucktards and scum.

x

Independence Day '22

Kick asked me why I stopped blogging and I'm not sure. It just was all too obvious, the misery and tragedy parade, accented often by shocks. We've had 22 years of PTSD. Does anyone want to hear what I have to say about it? I don't even want to hear myself.

 

But there are updates. Learning to deal with arthrtiis, diabetes, crazy neighbors, poverty, all the usual bs, was followed by a spider bite that put me in a hospital for 3 weeks last Fall. I'm still dealing with the aftereffects, but at least my hair stopped falling out... Now if I could have a competent aide, life will move right along. I just fired #15 since Alicia's departure. And she now has 2 toddlers, a 6 month old, an 18 year-old who just graduated HS, and a 20 year-old who moved to Mississippi.

 

Billy and Mia are still together in Retirementland, having just observed their 4th/52nd wedding anniversary. They are still supporting their son and his tribe, with a 3rd generation having arrived last year. They became very hardcore crazy Trumpers, which seems receding a bit now. With many health issues, they still seem pretty happy.  I keep my distance and love them from afar.

 

Kick and family are back in VT, north of here, though with gas prices it's hard to travel anywhere right now. The Muffinpants family sails ahead, damn the torpedoes. Plague also forges on, having at whatever strikes her fancy. Mrs. Levy has bought a house in the next town-with-a-theater up the road a piece. My southern relations have been thru some real bullshit, everything from Covid and heart failure to nonalcoholic cirrhosis and gender changing. My long-lost cousin is having the time of her life at 66. 3 boyfriends, lots of sex, travel, plans galore. I just adore her. 

The Herman movie is stalled. I have hopes it will be finished. Already 2 people interviewed for it have died. And tick tock, the time keeps going by.

 

Fecebook cancelled me last year, and it was a very good thing. I still waste time with Twitter, but it's much better than FB. Real life and the telephone has made a comeback, what with pre-Covid, Covid, and endemic Covid periods. I had 3 shots, and Covid. But it didn't do much to me, just like a headcold that exhausted me for a week. Not so for friends and relations, some of whom ended up in isolation in ICU. I'm grateful none of my nears and dears died, but the outer edges have had losses. Lots of deaths in the last couple years. I suppose the "Golden years" are full of death. Like the grandmother in the Evanovich books, the old ladies go to funerals to socialize. Joy.

I still have my bee and flutterby garden to bring me back to Earth.

 

I try to stay in a happy place and looking youthful.

I have missed blogging...

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