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...

x