I spent the morning outside today, clearing the vegetable beds (meant to get it done last fall, but it never happened) and putting in the seedlings: squash of various kinds, cucumber, tomatoes. (This was probably inadvisable because I woke up yesterday with an ear infection. Better today. Hopefully the exertion doesn’t make it worse again, but it had to be done, because there’s a timing for these things.)
Before this year, I’ve had vegetable gardens three times. Once in NC pre-kids, and once last year, when we got invaded by tomatoes that wouldn’t stop till first frost. Oh, cucumbers too, but the tomatoes were outright hostile in over-producing.
This is one thing that has changed since 2020. Objectively, I know that five tomato plants, three cucumber plants and a bunch of squash aren’t going to save us from starvation. Heck, even the madly laying quail (no really. They do two eggs each a day I swear.) But I feel an utter lack of trust in the food being in the store when needed. Planting is anxiety-calming, more than anything else.
There are other things that have changed. We now don’t really go out unless it’s for absolutely necessary shopping/picking up something or eating out, or church. We used to go out for all sorts of things, from long and interesting walks, to just exploring a new area, to — even — museums, etc.
Now, sure, part of this is the move, though there are museums and zoos within driving distance, and we used to drive to Denver from the Springs for this, so it’s not a problem. The problem is internal. Or perhaps just something shifted. I no longer feel the need to go out and be around people even passively. I think I know why. I think I feel betrayed. And also guilty. Neither of which is sane, and more on it later.
Part of the problem is that all the things we loved to do, our spontaneous fun outings, like going to a diner at midnight to plot is impossible in the post 2020 world. And not just because we moved. We’re in a smallish (compared to Denver) town, but not so small it shouldn’t by rights have at least a 24/7 greasy spoon. I used to brag I could be released to the wild anywhere in the US and find the best one in a half hour range within a day. This was true, and not only because I had an affinity for decent diners, but also because there were so many. Now, even in Denver, our old hangout, Pete’s Kitchen, closes (I think at 10, except on weekends when it closes at midnight? I think that’s it. We were shocked when we went back.) And throughout the country, in smaller places, a lot of them have just closed. (Partly I suspect because the clientele are mostly those who have had to cut out eating out, not merely “cut back” as we have. Though we have a plan for our entertainment budget. It’s just going to take time to get it going. Yes, merchandise, including t-shirts, etc. but also hand made stuff. I just need some time.)
The thing is, taken in aggregate, our lifestyle has changed almost 100%. I truly can’t underline how much it’s changed, or how strange it is. It’s particularly strange because I’m not climbing walls, which used to be my response to not getting out of the house for a couple of days. (Though to be fair, I’m outside a lot. I have the tan to prove it. Farming is not something to do inside, in this house.)
Now, of course, things change, and as the newly empty-nesters we are, it was going to change anyway. (We were semi-empty nesters for years, due to the fact our previous house had a spacious and independent basement apartment where first one kid, then the other lived. But it turns out semi-empty is not empty. It’s different. Even with younger son living closish-by we don’t see him every day. (Though we tend to talk everyday, for at least a few minutes.) Which means our life is more us-oriented now. And it would have changed.
But I can’t rightly explain how radical a change this is.
Add to it that I don’t like large gatherings or even small ones much anymore. Or at least, I get the horrors before any gathering of any size. I have found that small gatherings of friends for dinner/hanging out are actually good for me. I just resist them before they happen. And psyching myself up for cons is so DIFFICULT.
The not liking to be out, even in the middle of strangers/seeing strangers is because I realized I’m made at strangers in general for falling for the Covidiocy and at the same time feel guilty I didn’t SOMEHOW prevent the lockdowns. How could I have prevented them? No rational way for me to even know how to. I just feel I should have. SOMEHOW. (Did I say this was in any way rational?) So a lot of the people watching no longer interests me. Now, how good this is for my mental health, I don’t know. I know that I used to need a minimum amount of seeing people I don’t live with. I suspect I still do, but am suppressing it.
Anyway, my scars are minor. The lifestyle I arrived at is functional.
Besides the fact of all the friends who died because of that nonsense: because no medical checkup, because were vulnerable to covid and real treatment wasn’t offered, because… And besides their having used the “emergency” to seize control of the country and destroy everything, I emerged on the other side sort of okay.
A lot of people’s scars from the last four years are bigger and more obvious.
The scars fall into two groups: the people who know it was a scam, many of whom knew it from the beginning, others who gradually caught one.
They are suffering various forms of fatigue. They’re mostly tired of being so incredibly angry and having nowhere to put it. It becomes a form of stress.
On top of which they no longer trust… anything, really. Most of us — because I fall in this group — are disturbed to find ourselves looking at most conspiracy theories we used to dismiss out of hand and going “OTOH… 2020.” A short list of things we no longer trust includes various authorities from religious to scientific to anything in between. We’ve gone way past trust but verify to “Don’t trust, verify, and dig past initial seeming confirmation before you allow it might be true.
Thing is, once you’ve seen the authorities running around with their pants on their head, you’ll never see the the same way again.
To us the last four years weren’t shocking in what happened, so much, only the magnitude of it. “Government oversteps” is not a shock for those of us raised in the cold war. But to see the entire west go nuts over a danger that wasn’t, and the level of complicity from every authority and institution (even as the individuals often rebelled, of course.) was mind boggling.
So what it left us with was a profound distrust of every authority, even the ones we thought were okay before.
Meanwhile a minority in the us but PROBABLY a majority abroad — this is hard to know for sure as their news are more tightly controlled than ours — think they lived through the equivalent of the black plague and that the authorities were wonderful in getting us through it.
Then there are the even smaller minority who are running around still wearing masks and convinced they’ll die at any minute.
How those later two views survive without piles of bodies at the street corner I don’t get!
So we’re all running around with different sorts of scars. I’m tempted to say us skeptics are the most functional to emerge from this, but you know even we have fractures.
How it’s all going to play out as the loonies in control become ever crazier I don’t know. They should know not to mess with people who aren’t exactly sane. But they don’t seem to realize there’s any danger.
Interesting times ahead. Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark and be not afraid.
As for the anger, I don’t know what to tell you. Mine is barely under control as is. All we can do is keep on and try not to lose our minds.
According To Hoyt 
I don’t know if there is any cure for this ailment. I have never been a big believer in what the official line has been from authorities, or news media. I don’t say I have ever had any kind of superior knowledge, only the things that come with experience being a social outcast my entire life, and watching how the in-group behaves. The lockdowns almost destroyed my career in IT, and I had to get help from family to make it. I ended up trying to get a job in IT, which to even get considered required me to get my vaccine card. I got the J & J, as it was not MRNA, which I simply wouldn’t take. I held a temp position for about 6 months and was interviewed to be made permanent, but they let me down easy, saying the “other guy” had more experience with their kind of firm.
All for nothing. Nobody in the IT field wants to hire a guy over 60. My wife, who is a medical practitioner was forced to get the Moderna, or lose her career of 40 + years. plus the booster. Plus another booster, plus… being sick ever since, having COVID 3 times, and a lot more I can’t discuss. Yeah, I’m salty enough about it to keep fish.
There is no reason to believe anything said by anyone official or not. At all. Ever.
Heck anyone over 40. You were lucky to get a chance for six months. Saw that 20+ years ago. Frustrating as Heck (not really, mean something worse). Doesn’t change the hope when you aren’t ready to quit.
This is one of the reasons I am trying to write for a living, which I realize is a bad option. It’s just one of the better remaining options. I’m no longer the right anything for all the stuff I was good at.
I will probably have some unexpected contract work in a few months, but that might be the last. We have savings, though, and really low expenses, so we’re doing okay.
It’s not that bad. People need help. And imaginary worlds are…. an escape.
What saved us was after 59 1/2, all that money we’d been saving for us, first (IRA’s, 401(k)’s – rolled into IRA’s, Roths) were now available, penalty free. Don’t have to take official distribution, but we can use the money, just pay the taxes owed.
Trying to find any job beyond shelf-stocker at Walmart (not even fast-food these days) is nearly impossible for someone over 40 that doesn’t have spectacular skills. My last job that was “long term” after the start of the lockdowns lasted barely nine months (but, in the company’s defense, ChatGPT/AI text generation and the general economic downturn hit at the same time and marketing is always the first thing cut by companies in trouble).
Talk to the first guy and make your own company.
No. Just no. Understand the advice. Thank you. But not for me.
Does not matter now. We’re set. Unless things really go to hell. Then it won’t matter if you have a job or not. We aren’t set to survive that setup. Do not have the property. Gardens aren’t my thing. Don’t have anywhere to go, not anymore. As long as infrastructure holds up, and the money, even with the inflation, is available. Now if son ever has finds someone and gives us grandchildren, then reassess.
I was 49 in 2001 and most of the semiconductor portion of Silicon Valley had quietly bailed out from California. Finding a job at the semiconductor companies was near impossible, and after 9/11, “near” ==> “impossible”.
The saving grace for me was the fact that I was one of a handful of people who were familiar with a particular piece of computer-driven testers. (The language was a superset of C, but the tricky part was the need to know the hardware.)
The client didn’t last that long, so the consultancy didn’t either, but I earned “enough” to finish getting the house ready to sell. Two years after the layoff and a year after the client went toes up, we saw Silicon Valley in the rear view mirror. Barring three trips to deal with moving, haven’t been back.
If you do nothing else for yourself, Sarah, at least resume those walks. Fresh air and exercise are good for you (but I won’t belabor the point), and it’s free (if you don’t count wear on the shoes). If you need to indulge your “am I paranoid enough?” side, tell yourself you’re scouting bug-out routes.
And who knows? Dan may miss them, and wouldn’t that be reason enough? {big but innocent-looking grin}
That is my free advice for the day, Guaranteed or your money back.
Don’t let the black dog win. If there’s even a small portion of things you love available, grit your teeth and try to enjoy it. It took a few months but I managed it.
The black dog is a Chihuahua.
https://youtu.be/DVX4zGX3iWg?si=UZ2vE1uUrTKBmHq_
I wanted to post this to the last post, but that’s ok. I think it has just as much relevance here as there.
Fires of rage burn brightly
Held tight under rigid control.
The rage at lies still told nightly
Fueled by grief that gives no parole.
The anger that burns may be righteous.
The fire that rages burns true.
But fire unchecked will consume us,
And then burn all that we knew.
Yet fire should not be our Master
Nor anger force us to bow.
Our hearts understand the disaster
That sparks our fire right now.
Yet iron there is that can tame it.
Cold iron will bring rage to heel.
Cold iron will boldly still name it,
And yet not demand we not feel.
The raging will leave only ashes,
But fire still warms the day.
Cold iron chills the great passion
Without robbing its strength.
Turn the fire to the future
Let the rage make not destroy.
Cold iron of will forms a suture
We over our wounds have employed.
In rage the world it is burning
But by iron will it be reformed.
Not the iron of shackles returning,
But the the iron of hope reborn.
Yet another good one; thanks once again!
Domo, Wyrdbard. I needed that, I think.
This.
hugs you’re welcome.
The Reader thanks you for this!
You’re welcome.
Oh, my. I wish I had the ability to put that to music…
(Applause, from the whole family.)
Wow, really well done. Felt that down to my toes!
Thank you!
I was one of the ones who trusted enough to get the first pair (Pfizer), mainly because my wife is immune-compromised by medication for psoriatic arthritis and I didn’t want to take a chance. By the time the first booster rolled around the data were beginning to appear showing reality, so I didn’t get it. Not completely clear, however, so my wife did get it. Within a couple of months after that it had become clear, and she vowed to not get any more of them, no matter how much TPTB whined, cajoled and threatened. Since we’re both retired, no job implications. And our regular doctor doesn’t push it at all. Since it’s been almost 3 years with no additional health issues we seem to have dodged that particular bullet.
But angry? You bet we are (slow burn most times; occasionally quiet but simmering rage), and neither one of us in any mood to trust the bastards again. Clothes and weapons readily accessible in the dark and, as for weapons, in almost every room in the house.
I was on Humira myself when the last “bird flu” came through. Figured that I’d better get the vaccination.
ONLY being done through the County health agency. Appeared there, filled out the entire form (including being immuno-compromised), got in line.
Bureau-brat with a clipboard came along, ran me out of line – “Only for children!”
Got coldly angry then, and tore up the form. Sheriff’s deputy came over and ordered “PICK THAT UP, OR I’LL ARREST YOU!” (The Sheriff HERE is NOT one of the good departments. Completely in bed with the cartels and their politicians.) He had no idea of just how close he came to being a cop casualty that day – if my wife and children hadn’t been there…
Family saw early on that there were issues. A friend has been involved in designing and building vaccine factories for 30 years in many countries. Simply shook his head no and very tight lipped.
Daughter was ‘required’ to get for clinical s for nursing degree, she fought it with help from a couple of the signatories of the Barrington declaration and was granted her goal of no vaccine requirement as was immoral and unethical. The University (will not name) changed their policy shortly after her work. So clearly benefited others as well.
Sarah, I feel so much the same. My work in retail has me in front of folks all day every day. But I used to enjoy so much more and now just want to cocoon. Very much becoming a get off my lawn sort. The empty nest thing is weird and spouse and I have not yet adapted. It has happened for short periods before but had an ending. Now is long term and in the midst of it all we struggle to sort it. I guess a fun problem to have as we can spend time remembering what we liked (or not) about each other.
Also have taken to carrying anytime I am outside even doing yard work. Gives me comfort.
Not retail. But we had no support department. The developers handled support. Had some regulars I talked to, well, all the time. More than a few because I hand held as they started out, even after onsite training (provide by boss), and/or major projects for their location. After I gave official notice, I let these customers know. Got a lot of “Nooooooooo!”, “You can’t retire before I do!” For reasons, I know I was missed. Not sure, in today’s environment, I could handle it.
I’m much more reluctant to travel, and eating out is only when there’s a special occasion with a group. Aside from the weekly sandwich with my folks. Any faith I had in government is gone (aside from the National Weather Service forecast office, and there at least I know how they are wrong, because they’ve been wrong that way since the 9th day of creation.)
Eating out has easily tripled for the 3 of us, since the Biden puppeteers took over.
Two day forecast is usually pretty good (for general chances of precipitation and winds; not so much for temperatures). Beyond that, plain “old fart experience” works best for me.
Any old fart can tell you which way the wind blows…
Take care Sarah and I hope everybody else takes care.
I’m still trying to convince my wife that an airport is the last place I want to go for a vacation. In some ways, she’s more resilient, as are my boys when it comes to day to day annoyances, grievances, and missteps. Like water off a duck’s back.
On the other hand, drop me in a natural disaster and I’m good to go. It’s the little things that accumulate, and I’m learning to shed them like a snake’s skin, be myself, and keep life simple.
I’ve found that friendly gatherings are important, even if I’m not in the mood. Everyone needs a cocktail and smile and a story to fill those empty places.
Cheers!
Ah yes… I lost all trust in all of the local “churches” as their philosophy seemed to shift pro-government and support all the minorities no matter what along with the bad flu crazy. Government trust was also totally out the window and the medical profession was just embarrassing as they behaved in such a stupid and anti scientific way. So we too have scars.
The local government was sort of ok but the couple of cops and deputies I knew are all gone now and my neighbor who still knows a Sgt. on the PD has let me know the cop shop is messing around with any/all old timers and wants to be more ‘inclusive’ for what ever that is. Trust? poof-gone.
We are much more home centered and just don’t go out. Once in a while we’ll do a drive around the area just for a ‘look and see’ but otherwise mostly stay home. We’ve got Dr. appointments, have to hit the grocery store and on occasion maybe the hardware store, library or the bird store but otherwise it is home where we stay. We did eat out at a sit-down place as the kids gave us a gift card – the lunch bill, over sixty bucks, tells me that ain’t happing again. A big deal now is getting a couple of burgers to go and a side of fries as a big treat and an unusual ‘night out’ for us.
As said by others, keep walking. My little dog helps me stay aware of that and we try to go out at least a couple of times each day (weather permitting) for neighborhood patrol. It’s good for her and me too. Her social life is still good as she gets to see some of her dog buddies, loves the mail carrier and in general really enjoys the sniff and explore walks. Heck, most people I run into on those walks know her and say “Hi Boo!” and she gets pets and attention – and they have no clue who I am other than the guy from the middle of the block who walks Boo around. And, that’s OK.
My problem is I hate walking alone, and Dan’s knees are shot. He was supposed to get them fixed in 2020….
My guess is that the kitties are not into walking much? Maybe a short stroll around the perimeter is still recommended. Heck, do a video connection with Dan and take him with you that way! ;-)
yeah. Oh, I do the walks around the perimeter all the time. And dig and….
It’s the long walks.
I’ve considered a dog. Maybe eventually.
Unlike you Sarah, I actually tend to enjoy walking alone in my urban neighborhood where I greet all the dog walkers with a friendly, “Howdy” unless they’re busy yammering into the ether (usually bluetooth, but then it could be schizophrenia). I need to learn the names for all the plants of the varied landscaping aside from the palm, carob, and jacaranda trees, just cause I wants to know.
Yeah, it’s a great time to be crazy. Hold a cell phone up to your face and nobody will notice that you’re wandering around talking to yourself. 😀
Or you are talking to Ghosts.
Diane, what have I done to you? I don’t need that story opening.
(very tiny type) I’m sorry?
Seriously. Been reading a lot of current paranormal light romance lately. That is how those who talk to ghost are getting away with not going to the insane mental hospitals. Not new. First encountered it in the ’90s. Although more and more reading the phrase, “Looked at me funny. Pointed to my ears implying a hidden ear bud.”
If I were urban, I might. I used to put my headphones on with an audio book, and go. BUT I am not.
I’m waiting patiently (for values of) for medical clearance from Medicare/Medigap to get the chunks of torn meniscus removed from my knee. AFAIK, it’s supposed to take 3 weeks to get the word; left a message (it’s 2 weeks as of yesterday) for the person who handles that, but she seems to be seriously overloaded. Looks like she does clearances and scheduling for a busy orthopedic practice; not sure how many docs, but “a bunch”.
I can do limited stuff, maybe an hour or two at a time, but then I need a couple hours downtime to recover. The frustrating this is the amount that the pain distracts me when I’m trying to do something that needs concentration. My state tax return had a couple of screwups (nothing to change the values, but figures in the wrong row), and it took two tries to unscrew the mess. Sigh.
I’m one of the ones who initially trusted, then slowly discovered just how big the lie was, and that people will abandon everything and everyone to ignore what they did to themselves and those around them. It is an odd cold feeling.
It’s also changed what I can write. The w(n)ip, I can’t really feel the characters anymore. It’s not just that it’s been on idle for too long, they just aren’t quite there anymore. Ended up writing a little short recently. I was thinking about the differences between visual media and written stories. I’d recorded a playthrough of Project Wingman, and remembered how the story was surprisingly good, so I thought I’d try writing the last mission as a short story just to experiment with the differences between the mediums. What came through from the main character, more than anything else, was rage. A cold frozen rage focused on a singular goal that would not even abate it.
I remember David Drake’s foreword about the Jed Lacey stories needing him to be in a headspace he wasn’t in anymore to write. I think I’m at that space now.
As for me, I am absolutely heartbroken over how much of the intellectual, entertainment and political elite have gone all “I-Heart-Hamas” since October 7th. I KNOW that Jew-hate is endemic in Moslem countries – but having grown up absolutely marinated in Holocaust awareness, and reading over and over again (and seeing it in movies and TV series) of the wickedness of the Nazi system, and how deliberately Jew-hate was cultivated, and we were solemnly warned how not to let it happen again … well, here it is. Happening again.
Indeed. That one particularly boggles me.
The good news is that the vast majority of normies – even on the left – want no part of it. I’m seeing lots of evidence of disgust with the university protests even among your typical Democrat voters.
Just saw that the protests and their identical tents were provided by a group funded by…
… wait for it…
…George Soros.
They’re the same professional rioters that were bused from state to state during the ‘fiery but mostly peaceful’ BLM/Antefa riots. They’re Brownshirts.
Certainly not Browncoats . . .
Whenever you mention George Soros, always call him the Nazi George Soros, because it is true, he is, was, and will always be a Nazi.
Hey, now, the Nazis wouldn’t let just anybody join. They had to be German, or Austrian, for starters. Soros is Hungarian, so, a wannabe Nazi at most. A collaborator.
If Soros was a long-term Soviet plant, what would he do differently?
Soros is a psychopath taking vengeance on the world for not recognizing that he is the world’s great philosopher. Essentially, he trying to show that his concept of reflexivity — that one can change reality — is universally true. The concept is laid out in his Alchemy of Finance, which is worth a read if you’re interested in finance where it’s basically true …. Credit does mean belief after all. Alas, the world rejected his genius and now he’ll show them. It’s The Incredibles in real life.
So he’s another would-be sorcerer?
(facepalm)
Yep. Reflexivity as he calls it is an interesting concept and not original to him. He thinks he can use it to alter all reality. It’s Gnosticism basically.
Ethnical German. As their Germanization attempts showed, they didn’t really have a good test for who was German ethnically.
Hatred of Jews is also embedded in Marxism. It should surprise no one that the Marxists are the most vocal in joining the Jihadists in calling for global genocide of Jews.
Regarding 24/7 diners (and other eateries): They have been on the way out for the past quarter century, but the COVID shutdowns vastly accelerated their decline. They were a staple of the Northeast when I was growing up, and I missed them after I moved to the Midwest before the turn of the century. So every trip back East to visit family, I usually tried to stop at one, usually each way. By 2010 at least two of the ones I knew in New Jersey had switched from 24/7 to 6 AM to Midnight, and three more were out of business entirely, and one was 6 to Midnight most days but 24/7 for the weekend (i.e. open Friday morning and close Sunday night). But there were still some 24/7 diners I would stop at in Pennsylvania, and a few chain places open 24/7. Steak’n’Shakes apparently discontinued 24/7 service (and breakfast!) some time before the shutdowns.
After the shutdowns, those diners aren’t open 24/7, and the chain places (like Eat’n’Park) generally aren’t open 24/7. If I am driving through the night (less common now with the baby), Waffle House, Sheetz, and Wawa are basically the only late night fresh food available. Near my wife’s old stomping grounds, even Denny’s isn’t generally 24/7 anymore. Near home, only Waffle House and (some) IHOPs are open 24 hours – though a Wawa is slated to open not too far away in 2025.
I miss being able to roam the country and be able to buy groceries and fresh food at any hour of day or night.
Also, the Tee Jaye’s Country Place chain around Columbus, OH was 24/7 through when I stopped there in the wee hours of a July 2019 morning with my now-wife. It now closes well before midnight.
When I moved to $HOOTERVILLE there were two supermarkets open 24 hours (save for Thanksgiving and Christmas). There was another grocery store as well. That closed when Walmart arrived, and Walmart was 24 hours. One of the supermarkets changed to one that always closed overnight, Sundays, and holidays. And then, just before the Great COVIDiocy, Walmart closed for part of the night… the open hours shrank as 2020 got more and more stupid. The reaming 24-hour supermarket followed almost in lockstep with Walmart. There never was a 24 hour restaurant/diner here at least while I’ve been here. A couple gas stations, but event he “truck stop” doesn’t really serve food beyond “buy it from the freezer/cooler and use the microwave.”
We have a Waffle House about 5 miles away, but you do not want to be there after dark, especially on the weekends. Everything else closed at night. Otherwise it’s a trip up I35 to the next 24 hour diner.
One more time … WP has been eating my comments, lately! As for me, I am absolutely heartbroken over how much of the intellectual, entertainment and political elite have gone all “I-Heart-Hamas” since October 7th. I KNOW that Jew-hate is endemic in Moslem countries – but having grown up absolutely marinated in Holocaust awareness, and reading over and over again (and seeing it in movies and TV series) of the wickedness of the Nazi system, and how deliberately Jew-hate was cultivated, and we were solemnly warned how not to let it happen again … well, here it is. Happening again.
As for me, I am absolutely heartbroken over how much of the intellectual, entertainment and political elite have gone all “I-Heart-Hamas” since October 7th. I KNOW that Jew-hate is endemic in Moslem countries – but having grown up absolutely marinated in Holocaust awareness, and reading over and over again (and seeing it in movies and TV series) of the wickedness of the Nazi system, and how deliberately Jew-hate was cultivated, and we were solemnly warned how not to let it happen again … well, here it is. Happening again.
(and WP is persistently eating my comments lately!
Most of you have probably seen this, but it does sum up the feeling left behind by the past 4+ years:
But you only understand the language of the swordWhat if I want to tell you to leave me and my beloved ones in peaceBut you only understand the language of the swordSo my tongue shall become iron and my words the mighty roar of warBeloved brother enemy, I sing my sword song for youSo I can wake up with a smile
And bliss in my heart and bliss in my heart
I love Heilung.
One more darned time … and then I’m done trying to post on this thread this evening — As for me, I am absolutely heartbroken over how much of the intellectual, entertainment and political elite have gone all “I-Heart-Hamas” since October 7th. I KNOW that Jew-hate is endemic in Moslem countries – but having grown up absolutely marinated in Holocaust awareness, and reading over and over again (and seeing it in movies and TV series) of the wickedness of the Nazi system, and how deliberately Jew-hate was cultivated, and we were solemnly warned how not to let it happen again … well, here it is. Happening again.
The institutions, for perceived power, have betrayed the trust of the people. And that trust, once lost, can be nearly impossible to regain. I see the governmental institutions trying to keep their power and control by ever increasing draconian means and more citizens finding ways around and bypassing those controls. If not ignoring them altogether. This has already started in Great Britian, Canada, and Australia. At least as far as draconian measures and some pushback from the people. Destruction of cameras in the 15 minute cities being one. But as these things go, I’m afraid things are going to get worse before they get better. So, my powder is dry and my code is vigilance.
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Testing. My comments on this and the last post keep vanishing. WP Delenda Est
Testing
Apparently, I can’t comment more than a single word.
OK – the comment I have been trying to post for half an hour now –
As for me, I am absolutely heartbroken over how much of the intellectual, entertainment and political elite have gone all “I-Heart-Hamas” since October 7th. I KNOW that Jew-hate is endemic in Moslem countries – but having grown up absolutely marinated in Holocaust awareness, and reading over and over again (and seeing it in movies and TV series) of the wickedness of the Nazi system, and how deliberately Jew-hate was cultivated, and we were solemnly warned how not to let it happen again … well, here it is. Happening again.
One scarcely feels capable of grappling with it on a moral or intellectual level, especially if one is not Jewish. (I’m not, but am fairly philosemitic and have the writing credit to back that claim.) I had thought anti-Semitism was a fading thing, at least in America. I thought it was an indicator that, on one front, we were making ethical progress. Those beliefs lie smashed.
Not meaning to make everyone reading feel horrible — though it’s probably inevitable: good chance to go read something else now — but it is a moral catastrophe that half of Americans age 18 to 29 don’t believe that the Holocaust happened. Thirty percent are merely not sure it happened; another twenty percent are sure — that it’s a myth, or a hoax, one of those Protocols or something. I don’t know how a nation can continue being a guiding light in such a state of educational and moral collapse. The simplest conclusion is that we no longer are one.
And that is part of why I am so impatient for the tug finally to come. Every day brings that cohort closer to power in America. Every day raises a new group to alleged adulthood who are probably even more morally blinkered. Even if the much-desired turn comes, how can we trust such hands to rebuild what was?
Republica restituendae, et, Hamas the absolute [censored] delenda est.
That’s part of why Day Job is so very insistent that we teach the kids about Good and Evil, and that things like the Holocaust, Holodomor, Killing Fields, and other things happened.
And people like Oskar Schindler, and Alvin York, and St. Damian of Molokai, and Alfred the Great, and Jan van Eych, and Bach, and …
Well, General Eisenhower tried.
“Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”
How do you expect kids to know what they were never taught? Or if taught taught with so many caveats that they can’t figure out the truth?
There are a whole lot of things I learned that I was never taught. That’s because I read. One is tempted to say that’s the solution, but it’s only part. I’d devour some things and resist others, and I was probably fortunate in the areas that interested me.
How we get all the strangling vines off the few remaining healthy trees left in education is a hard matter. It’s not as simple as the metaphor implies, because they aren’t just waste plant life. They are human beings doing this stuff, and you can’t just throw them into a compost heap. If there is ever a recovery phase, much of our work is going to be diverted into keeping the old miscreants from worming their way back in and “helping” further.
Reading is being taught.
Finding the stuff to read… that can make things tough.
Figuring out what is not nonsense, is more of it– these “Palestine must be free!” nuts did go and read; their method of identifying who is in the right is intensely broken.
I argue on reading being taught. You went through JUST before my kids. But my kids, in a trendy area? Reading was UNtaught.
:shakes head:
No, I don’t mean they’re taught to read, I mean that they are taught by reading.
I read a lot. It took me a lot of work to make a framework to figure out what to listen to, and what not to listen to– and the folks who got mad that I didn’t already agree with them, but couldn’t find a good reason I should, didn’t help.
OH.
So, the kids weren’t taught to read. they’re BARELY functional.
I HAD TO FIGHT TO PREVENT THEM FROM UNLEARNING READING ON MY KIDS.
What kind of educational system destroys the functionality of kids? Ours.
As a slight aside…down here in Charlotte we had a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer, two corrections officers, and a Deputy US Marshal killed in the line of duty yesterday, and four more police injured, trying to serve felony warrants on a suspect with a fifteen-year felony history and a 9+ page rap sheet. He ambushed them with a .40-caliber handgun and an AR-pattern rifle from inside his house when they pulled up.
None of the usual suspects who come out in force after shootings are staging any vigils or candlelight remembrances for the LEOs or their families. In fact, it took a DAY–twenty-four freaking hours–for any of the local media to even mention the shooter’s name or race. But boy howdy is the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief talking about how awful it was that the guy had an AR-15-pattern rifle!
Not the perp. Not the culture. It’s the inanimate object that’s the problem.
I hate most humanity just a little bit more every day. Present company excepted, y’all help keep me sane.
I saw. Also saw a photo of the perp. Not even slightly surprised.
Cut back on eating out. Cut back on out-of-home activities. Cut back on a lot of discretionary spending. All that severely cut into the bottom line for restaurants. Partly, at first, to avoid the WuFlu. Then even more because the economy is sucking (and none of the rich elites in Washington have a clue, certainly the Fauxident is oblivious.
I remember a friend who goes to China a lot on business, came back in September of 2019 and told us that something weird was going on in Wuhan. He said they were spraying the streets with disinfectant.
Then the news about 4 people dead of a “mystery pneumonia” in China and the doctor who leaked the information disappeared. If I remember correctly that was November.
So I was already watching, and primed to see something big come out of China. Using their own people and the Chinese New Year to spread a disease seems very China somehow.
I was tracking the spread, tracking disease stats, and slowly coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth the hype. But seeing the world go from “It’s just a bad flu” to “Duck and cover” while I was moving in the opposite direction was just eerie.
And suddenly I’m the enemy because Healthcare definitions and standards abruptly change? And people with Healthcare training, who should know better, turn into bobbleheads. I am disrespectful and trying to kill grandma (literally) and why can’t I “trust the science” when my own sister has been in the hospital with COVID, am I trying to kill her by not being vaccinated?
WP is acting up, so I’ll spare you the rest. Yes, there are scars. Burned out places where there used to be people I trusted.
Same exact thing. I was moving in the other direction.
Even worse it was our own fscktard government that sponsored the research in Wuhan that caused this mess in the first place. Against our own laws.
And still attempts to cover it up, with the help of the media and corporations, even though enough damning information has come out that ought to send thousands of them to Death Row. There is so much documentation of the wrong doing and the list of the damned is very long.
I’m lucky I have a spouse that keeps me sane and on a strong leash.
We need to re-open the Nuremberg court. And the gallows outside.
———————————
“If there were any justice in this world, if your laws meant anything, half of your government would be in prison. Half of the rest should be sentenced to death for their crimes. Start with that, and there might be some hope of reforming what remains.”
Oh, they’re just getting started.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2024/04/30/palestinian-refugees-n2638483
#MeToo.
the WuFlu was the climax of a steady progression of my loss of innocence. Now, I believe nothing they say, and they means just about everyone, state, church, business, the lot. It started early on when we were told by the health commissioner that we were racist if we didn’t go to China town for the new year’s celebrations right around the time the virus was actually most dangerous since we had no idea then how bad it would be. Shortly thereafter we had Diamond Princess and found out it was a bad flu and not the next coming of the Black Death. Then some tech bros did an email push using Bill Gates data to every politician in the world telling them how many people in their jurisdiction would die if the Bill Gates data was accurate. Then Everything shut down. Then some sixth grade science fair social distance was invented because SCIENCE. Then the Bill Gates day passed and nothing happened, but still we stayed closed, then masks were bad, good, bad, compulsory. then they stole an election, lost a few wars, destroyed the economy, debauched the currency, and maintained a drooling senile pedo in the Oval Office because the designing whore second in line is worse.
and that’s just WuFlu. One of many betrayals. did you see the picture of the supposed right wing marchers who were arrested, handcuffed kneeling in formation, all with their masks still on? Cops always let you keep your mask on for the photo op after they cuff you.
we were a high trust society, that’s why it all worked, that’s why we are so rich. The f-cking fools f-cked it up for …. Nothing. I hate them, I truly do. I’m going to have to answer to God for it, but …. There it is.
“Don’t believe the church and state, and everything they offer.”
For oh so many years I have hated them. Watched with jaundiced eye all the stunts, all the deception, the hypocrisy, the out right lies and wondered if I was alone in seeing it and not believing it was possible that I was alone. The hate corrodes at times and I must take care to be close to my savior else I will burn up. My wife cautions me on the hate and yet she refuse to look at the things i see as she knows it will hurt her.
Wow that just came out.
My cynical distrust of government dates back to the Carter Years, if not earlier. Noting how little their Infallible Pronouncements resembled the real world. They were trying to blow smoke up our asses about inflation then, too. I was looking at the 14% mortgage rates and calling bullshit.
How those later two views survive without piles of bodies at the street corner I don’t get!
At the time, apparently they talking about Australia and showing stock footage of Bondi no less that would seem to to about piles of bodies on street corners, at the same time here they where talking about how the bodies where stacking up in India.
This lead to a very confused Indian mamma, asking her son who worked in Bondi,when he was coming home to escape bondi and how he was surviving.
The piles are always somewhere else…
not helped by the fact that on almost every forum you will come across some American who’s relatives and friends where decimated by covid.
Personally I lost someone from the previous generation to Dementia In 2021 and I lost someone else from the previous generation to “old age” last year at 93, sure technically I think it was a lung infection but they had been in and out of hospital for multiple falls In the last year. But I don’t know anyone who died of covid.
I do. He had cancer, had gone through the, “scrape out bone marrow, remove any cancer cells, then kill all the remaining bone marrow and inject the purified marrow and hope,” therapy so his immune system was damaged. Then he got covid, it went straight to pneumonia and…
Also know one person hospitalized (heavy set, possibly a smoker or ex-smoker) and one who probably should have been (smoker). Everyone else I know just got sick, varying from, “worn out and coughing for a month or so,” to, “felt really lousy yesterday, can I come back to work?”
“On top of which they no longer trust… anything, really.”
No, the stupid ones are still going back to the barn. Less of them, but still. Columbia University this week. Cattle, going back to the barn that already burnt down.
“We now don’t really go out unless it’s for absolutely necessary shopping/picking up something or eating out, or church.”
Yes, no kidding. Because why would you want to go out there and mix with those idiots?
Every time I hear a new idiot complaining about another brand-new bad thing the Mad Science shot does to people, it makes me want to scream. I figured that sh*t out on my own, with no help from anybody, and I’m a physical therapist, not a rocket surgeon. Genetic modification experiment being done on -my- body? Nuh uh.
EVERYBODY I talked to about it told me to shut the f- up and take the shot and get out of their face. Everybody. For f- sake. So now, the buyers remorse. But do I hear “Oh, sorry Phantom, you friggin’ warned me didn’t you?” No, I do not.
So, I stay home. Except for riding my motorcycle. That I do nearly every day it isn’t raining. I don’t go anywhere in particular, generally one beach or another on Lake Erie, which are utterly deserted this time of year. Go for a rip, carve some corners. Watch the waves, chill out, go home.
Pretty good day out. Could be worse.
So, you never go out? Jump in the car, go for a spin. Burn some gas, p*ss Greta Thunberg off. Or get an electric scooter. They’re cheap, they rip, and they’re a ton of fun. They’re also completely silent, I sneak up on rabbits with mine.
We’ve definitely cut back, both on the business and personal fronts. I’m restocking far more selectively, and and are getting a lot more stuff in second-hand stores — although that has the problem of people thinking we should be selling everything at garage-sale prices. We’re also clearancing out a bunch of older merchandise we’ve had on hand for too long — but again, it’s causing a vicious cycle of shrinking sales making it harder to buy better merchandise, leading to shrinking sales.
With our business caught between rising costs (booths at conventions, hotels, gas, wholesale prices) and price resistance on the customer side, we’re deferring a lot of spending we’d been planned. Way too much household stuff that’s just going to have to wait longer for its turn to be dealt with, from a stove with a dead oven to some trees that really need removed.
I’m feeling very precarious right now — and it’s leaking into my writing. Just finished a story set about a decade earlier in the ‘verse of “Phoenix Dreams” and “Phoenix in the Machine,” and a big element of its backstory is “the War” leading to some important technological changes because those technologies gave our soldiers just enough of an edge, even if it was seen as an abuse of what had been strictly medical technology, adaptive devices for the disabled.
Now, even in Denver, our old hangout, Pete’s Kitchen, closes (I think at 10, except on weekends when it closes at midnight? I think that’s it.
Even in Atlanta many Waffle Houses are no longer 24/7 and many that are don’t have dine in after 10 or midnight
that was the eeriest thing, seeing a Waffle House that was closed.
Never seen an open Waffle House. Franchise hasn’t made out our way. Would say “yet” but sounds like franchises are failing and packing it in.
An aside. Not that I could eat what Waffle House provides. Pancakes, Waffles, French Toast, etc., sky rockets the blood sugar. Which is a clue for the pancreas to flood the system with insulin. Which causes the blood sugar to tank, rapidly. It doesn’t bounce back either. Dang RH.
it’s possible to eat low carb there, but definitely not easy.
try the pork chops with eggs and have tomato slices instead of hash browns.
resist the toast.
It is very easy to eat low carb: steak, chops, ham, eggs, chili.
That would help. Not so much the carbs as the type of carbs. Can’t cut carbs all the way, or the stupid blood sugar doesn’t go up at all and it still drops. Doesn’t crash drop, but it still drops. As in “I just ate dang it!”
I had heard that the thing about Waffle House was there were only waffles. Different combinations of flavors and toppings. Guess that was wrong.
Closest one is in Arizona, I think. Far enough away, and not a direction we typically travel.
weirdly enough, the waffles are merely okay. The steaks are…edible. The chops and ham are quite good. My husband loves the chili.
my favorite toast there is raisin toast with apple butter.
The two nearest the new place are carryout or delivery only after 10pm.
we don’t try late anymore and it’s taken it off our radar in general.
Crime. It has gone up a lot.
No, no, that’s just a Right-Wing MAGA Conspiracy Theory! 😀
We ran into early shutdowns in June, which is start of tourist season in W. Yellowstone. 8 PM and only one place was open, to eat, on a Friday night. Small town. Except for tourist season. Doesn’t mean they had the staff.
Really liked West Yellowstone.
W. Yellowstone is our preferred location. Yellowstone Lodge specifically (about 2 blocks from entrance, not that anything in town is far). Madison campground when we were camping.
In retrospect, it’s rather amazing how long I trusted the Frickin’ Bonfire of Inflammation even after Ruby Ridge, and Waco. That last one I blamed on Janet Reno instead of the whole bureaucracy of death to the norms. I mostly floated through fauxocracy, simply refusing to get any shots. Because of my health and state in life, I could afford to do that. Sure, I put on a damn mask while in the store for only as long as it was required even though I knew it was less than useless. I also wore one when I had to go into work. It was actually good for my health because I could only tolerate it for an hour at a time, so I had to get up and go for a walk outside every hour. Not necessarily as good for my productivity.
I can’t stop myself from giving dirty looks when I see some fool in a surgical mask–back to a rare sight these days in my parts. I’ve recently bought a subscription to Paramount+ so I can binge some TV series’. They always show an ad for one of their shows at the beginning, and apparently they’re particularly proud of multiple series revolving around the feebies. I have an ironclad rule against spitting in the house, but the urge arises every time. Did the USSR have TV series called the KGBs? The only law enforcement show I have any interest in these days is Blue Bloods.
I’m not sure the current bout of anti-semitism isn’t overstated, at least in this country. Most of these Soros tent cities (the irony may be lost on him but not me) are overhyped and made to look bigger by the media. Also seem to be fronted by our deliberately imported anti-semites from the Middle East. I don’t know if it’s a good sign that it seems to have a different character from the good ol’ antisemitism at least in America. I remember the old anti-semitism being about the Jews own and control everything. Just ask Henry Ford.
Life goes on, and then it doesn’t. Oh well.
There are a number of people involved in the Waco and Ruby Ridge atrocities who were key players in perpetrating the Russia-Collusion Hoax and who have been acting as the Biden Crime Family Praetorian guard.
The rot has been there for a LONG time.
To us the last four years weren’t shocking in what happened, so much, only the magnitude of it. “Government oversteps” is not a shock for those of us raised in the cold war. But to see the entire west go nuts over a danger that wasn’t, and the level of complicity from every authority and institution (even as the individuals often rebelled, of course.) was mind boggling.
I’ll admit at this point I question the Cold War, partially because You’ve sold me on we kept the USSR afloat even after the war. I know you say everyone thought they’d win in the end but even if you believe that you either just given in or you fight balls to the wall which includes not keeping the enemy afloat.
But if you want to skim more off the public and expand control, propping up an enemy who you can claim is an existential threat requiring insane surrenders of freedoms like a peace time draft and huge expenditures with lots of room for graft propping up the USSR makes sense.
And I hate that change post COVID. The authorities were revealed to be such liars I can no longer believe what I learned growing up about the world and how it works. The only silver lining is learning it was probably always lies leads me to less interest in burning it all down because what would be the point.
There’d be nothing better to build, just another pack of lies for the immoral to use against the decent.
I’m blessed with people who make sure I get outside. Even when I’d rather crawl into a hole and hide. I think especially when I want to crawl into a hole and hide which is… a lot the last few months. These same friends bring me eggs because they’re worried I don’t eat. And I don’t.
And I look at getting a job and can’t. The thought of being subject to somebody else for my daily bread is terrifying. It’s a PTSD response I’m discussing with the therapist I won’t be able to afford soon.
The government over reaction to Covid hurt and I don’t think it’s scars yet. I think a lot of us are still bleeding from an open wound with no idea how to fix it.
Don’t know if this would help, but – consider maybe looking for a part-time job? That buys you time with income coming in, while still allowing the idea of quitting if things get too much.
I’ve tried. I can’t actually fill out the paperwork. Like, anything at all. It’s gotten bad.
Ooof. *Offers hugs.*
Okay, that’s beyond my skillset in suggestions, then. Outside of “break it into the tiniest steps”, which I’d guess you’ve tried already.
Huh. We need some “I know a guy”s for job-hunting….
Hugs gratefully accepted.
And I’ll figure out the work stuff. Part of the struggle is that I’m priced out of my current market/willingness. If I was looking for fulltime work in management, I could have it, though I would have to take a pay cut from my last position. Which I’m willing to do. But only if it’s part time. And nobody wants to hire me for part time because, well, they can’t pay me what I’m worth at that level.
You old me this once, and you’re going to want to bite me. I wanted to bite you.
Just write. Write, and the money will be provided. Write. Stop worrying.
Trust. Close your eyes and jump. (And yes, I’m only now getting to trust, and money is…. money is. Mostly because house had a ton of deferred maintenance that came home to bite us, but I did get improbable saves — very improbable — and help along the way.
And you were right.
So, bite away. I wanted to. But I feel about your path as you did about mine, and this answer isn’t totally unprompted. (Though it might be prompted by fever not G-d. Then again…)
It’s the only answer that feels right. Options have been removed in very odd ways. Doors have been closed recently that I’d been holding on to for far longer than I should have.
And I knew you wanted to bite me. It’s why I said it. And it was still the right thing to say. So, I’m writing. And I can see that you are, too. I have 2 hours to get today’s post finished and published but I needed to check in because…well, because.
Miss you, mum.
I’m writing the d*mn book that I don’t know what to do wtih. But it won’t give me other options.
Because if you had other options, you wouldn’t write it. So you’re writing what you need to. And when it’s done, you’ll see what happens next.
Additional hugs from me.
Know this one well. Not the same career path. With programming/application design, a very hard pill to swallow. Here is how my salary, after full career change, went:
1990: $32k / year -> $48k/year 1996
1996: %58k / year -> $68k/year 2002
(Looks good? Right? Wait for it.)
2004: $30k/year … 2005: $36k/year (at $500/month increase) -> $70k/year 2015 (same rate 2016 since I gave notice for 1/32/2016 in December 2015)
As I have commented before, I’ve never seen the kind of money reportedly gotten in the computer industry.
When I got the offer in January 2004, I really wanted to turn it down. Badly. Even with the $500/month increase as “I proved myself.” But. But with two households (rent for the trailer spot where hubby was staying during the week, plus commuting expenses), and we were bleeding $1k/month out of savings, and had been since unemployment ran out after 6 months. Figured I could continue to look for work. Didn’t get another offer for 6 years, and then it was a latter salary and benefit loss. Stayed where I was.
Not down playing your situation at all. It is hard. All I can offer is hugs.
Having to relocate in the midst of what I perceive to be (at best) an economic downturn has been a pretty unsettling experience. To the point of planting a garden, etc. – these things became a rather moot point, surveying an approximately 5′ x 6″ deck for whatever I can plant in containers.
On the other hand, the relocation has helped reorganize other things – I was never much of one to go out but I had filled my schedule with several recurring activities, so now I have my time back and the ability to reconstitute how I spend my time without guilt.
My biggest “personal” (non-household) expenses were books and the odd clothing item, both mostly purchased second hand - but even those expenditures have dropped in the face of everything going on the rise. My wife’s favorite social activity is, or more often was, dining out – but given that this, too, has become an expensive past time, it also happens less and less.
We will simply cut back, and cut back again, and cut back again. Although in the back of my head, I know that my not spending is indirectly impacting people whose jobs depend on me spending that money. It is a trap which I simply see no way out of at this point.
We used to go out twice a week, average. Now? Once a week. Meal prep ingredient costs have dropped dramatically. We were buying 1/2 a hog, or 1/4 beef, annually from one of hubby’s golf buddies (hobby farmer). His costs are now so high, we’ve stopped that (he takes orders, and buys stock accordingly, so not hurting him). Our favorite locations now are over $100, before tip.
The cost between preparing something at home and going out to eat has become rather apparent. In a rush of self-satisfaction, I bought a pound of beef chuck and a salad pack for $10, which combined with a package of spinach, got me two dinners and two lunches for $14. The same item in a restaurant would have been well over $20 for a single meal.
So much of the service industry is built based on things being convenient and not too outside the cost of doing it for one’s self. When that metric shifts, things become difficult to justify.
Everything is strange, nothing works, everything feels like it’s held together with spit and baling wire. If that.
Plotbunnnies are trying to cast around for the next Idea while I hammer at a draft, and… well, I keep poking the thought of a Fay Apocalypse. Only instead of Dark and Edgy and people dying in droves when the Wild Hunt soars through the sky….
I mean. I think it could work….
What am I?
Tired. That’s the big one. At least four years of disruption and distraction. For all of the good things that have happened (first two novels published, got my college degree, found a medication combination that leaves me human after at least fifteen years of not, lost a whole pant size and I can tell that I’m in better shape), the bad things far outweigh the good (losing Mom, losing my long-term job, not finding a job that I’ve been able to stay with for at least a year or is more stable, wondering if I’m on some secret HR “do not hire” list somewhere for anything better than minimum wage work, many of my friends leaving the area, most of those that remain are not…people I want to deal with, Dad being insistent that I get a job with a State or government agency for the pension, an insane economy in a state that should be the Heavenly Paradise but is being methodically fucked over with a chain saw, etc, etc, etc).
Frustrated is another one. The expenses go up, but the money coming in remains the same. (Fond hopes that the startup gets off the ground and I move to full-time employment-and more money.) And if I get a State job as Dad wants, the money coming in goes down by quite a bit and I still have expenses that I have to pay like new car payments and a storage unit that I can’t quietly migrate to the house because Dad is in a major decluttering phase. Most of my stuff would have to go because everything is digital, everything is streaming online and we don’t need stacks of DVDs and BluRay movies…
(Large quantities of laughter if I wasn’t in the middle of this. Just the Stellar Blade controversy alone is same shit, different day-except that the guy organizing the protests against the censorship isn’t just being doxed but having an actual bounty put on his head…)
Getting motivated to hit a convention…anime conventions, I’m just not liking what is coming out. Gaming conventions, the current run of pen&paper RPGs are just terrible. Especially with Hasbro looking like it’s going to farm out D&D to someone else and just make money on the license. And most other events have made it clear that I am not welcome, especially around here because I’m white, male, heterosexual, not rich, and not “cute.”
And we’re not even talking about the upcoming Second Summer of Love as the election gets closer and Trump looks like he might actually win. Just the protests alone on college campuses are making a lot of people unhappy with the way things are, especially since the same people demanding things like breaks on their student loans are defending unrepentent terrorists…
So, yes, Great Aunt, I do feel like you-a mass of raw scar tissue from the last four years. Wondering why people don’t understand why I have doubts about the Crow Flu-if it was as terrible as people said it was, why weren’t there whole hour-long specials on CNN with the Sad Dogs In The Snow music of abandoned cars and RVs of the homeless that states had to pick up and clean out to try and find some information on the owners. How they reacted to a disease that was pretty much a nastier form of the flu like it was the combination of the Spanish Flu, H5N1, and Captain Trips. How far too many people I know trust these idiots, and why people aren’t demanding that most of the people still in charge leave of their own will-or leave in a pine box.
At least I can take a walk without wearing noddy gear. So that’s something…
Tired, angry, hopeful, sad. Everything has changed, mourning, learning to love a new place… So many tears and prayers. Crazy pants time. But we win, they lose. Ca ira.
Also tired, sometimes tempted to despair. But so far, hanging in there. Meanwhile, I stockpile things like yarn and spinning fiber against future need.
We’ve cut back a little on eating out, but not as much as some (then again, most of the time it’s the local pizza joint or Mexican restaurant). In my case, there’s a certain amount of, “Do it while you still can.” involved. We’re really blessed, but still aware of “same money buys less,” and, “you want *what* for that?”
And then on the other hand…had an unnerving experience yesterday, when I visited a local, ‘planned community,’ and realized I was walking almost like Han Solo leaving the cantina. Like visiting Fairyland…in the old sense of the word. Almost too perfect, too ordeerly, like residential Disneyland. Except for the school on the hilltop, full of dark-skinned children who probably don’t live there. Just unsettling.
We have the same school in our neighborhood. 75% of children’s parents were not born in the US. 40% of the local school district’s budget is either refugee related, free meals, or ESL.
All, (as in 100%), of the local school and government facilities are either new or have been overhauled in the last 5 years. (I read the budgets.)
May 4th is local elections in North Texas. Voting against every city, country, school bond and all the incumbents. Maybe they shouldn’t have elections in the middle of tax appraisal season when there is record inflation?
But the bonds will probably pass and the same losers that don’t vote in local elections will moan and bitch about the taxes.
Makes me appreciate Oregon’s tax appraisal, even if it is a PIA to explain to some. The answer is simple as to “Why did my neighbor’s taxable appraisal basis go down? But mine didn’t?” If you know how it works.
In 1992 (ish) Oregon voters approved appraisal tax limitations, and how they worked. Appraisals went back to 1990. In 1994-ish, how much taxes could go up. In addition, unlike (I think) California, which all this was imported from (one good import) the taxable appraisal does not reset when home is sold. (New housing, basis is set on first sold price.)
Rules:
Better believe our property taxes have the following broken down, as of Jan 1, prior to statement due 11/15:
Back to the question above. With in filling we have high taxable appraised homes that are close to the actual estimated (sometimes actual) appraisal. To major crashes like 2008 can drop the homes taxable basis. But homes like ours (Oh darn!) Our estimated real value is $300k, down from $325k. Our “increased” taxable appraised value is $210k. We started out at $78k (34, at last tax season, years of 3%, compounded annually, growth adds up). Since real estimated value is higher than new taxable appraisal value, our taxable appraised value still goes up.
I have literally seen a woman moan that she votes FOR every tax increase, why is she being priced out by property taxes? Apparently bad things aren’t supposed to happen to good people who only give through taxes.
When someone is revealed as a liar, the next question is “What aren’t they lying about?” I thought I was cynical about the government before 2020. Now I’m tired and depressed and angry.
I should probably take a page out of Mom’s book and develop greater faith, how to do that remains difficult task.
If you decide to go down the myriad of rabbits holes and search for the truth, find the facts, follow the money, connect the players, etc… you will have to survive the seven stages of grief and hang on to your faith.
They lie about Everything. It’s like breathing to them.
They lie for our protection. Naturally. (spit)
I wrote a piece just like this on my own substack 2 or 3 weeks ago. “On Demoralization”, but I was downright floored to find another person who was feeling the same thing, but found it just as difficult to put their finger on. Betrayal, anger, and for me, a sense of disappointment about the world that I inherited around the time of my 50th year. Born in the early 70’s, I got a whiff of the great society as it all fell apart.
Thank you for sharing this, I know I’m not the only one now.
I included the link to my own piece, there’s a great pic of Lake George in NY with a chain link fence at the beach when the lake was closed for the pandemic for the spring of 2021. Literally, the state “closed” the lake and put fences and padlocks up on the beaches and boat ramps. The people who did that still walk among us, probably still working in the same jobs. THIS is what keeps me away.
https://nickruisi.substack.com/p/on-demoralization
Blink.
I wasn’t the only one? 😉
I can relate.
Not anymore. Retired now. But I left a very long list. Well before I gave notice, I started assigning most tickets to one person (was always the “clearance” person, but rarely done, then person would assign accordingly) after decision made, but before notice given. After notice was given, everything outstanding was assigned. Including breaking down the large task, by outstanding client conversion (to this point hadn’t been in the system except as the huge task). Then as I worked out the days, I reassigned the tickets back to me, as I got to the next one, or if a client called in asking for a change to that program and their conversion hadn’t been tackled. Was down to 2 to 5 per day depending on how “custom” client’s program really was, or just another “make from” another client. Doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot left. Had 25%, of 100+, done. Granted most the hardest were done, but still. That didn’t count the calls, and requests coming in.
Oh, items/tickets on the system? Had origin dates from years prior, and still not completed. The big conversion above had been requested before I started, and annually since, started it my 12th year (a paid for request required the change). I’ve been gone now 8+ years. Given the current staffing? Backlog has not improved.
I’m ten years older than you. The reaction is the same though.
I’ve worked for 24/7 places since I was in college. And being able to get off at 3 AM and pick up groceries, go out to eat, buy clothes and books, was wonderful. Now, there are barely a handful of gas stations open after midnight, and only a couple of restaurants, mostly along the interstates. None of the grocery stores nor department stores are open all night anymore, and there’s always empty spaces on the shelves. About half of the fast food joints are either closed, or have limited hours. Some are drive through only. It’s sad.
And my wife, who’s already struggling with mental health issues, isn’t adjusting well to the lack of selection when shopping. Everything’s been borked by the politicians and bureaucrats.
Exactly 2 months ago we adopted a pregnant stray cat (rather, she adopted us), who gave birth to 4 beautiful kittens 2 weeks later. Yesterday we took mama and all the kittens in for their vaccinations and deworming, and also scheduled mama for spaying in 3 weeks. The total cost of the visit was $480 (it included some pre-medication for mama kitty when she gets fixed). We will have to repeat this twice in the next 2 months for the kittens, then we have to schedule fixing for the kittens. (They are 7 weeks old as of today)
We have been spending LOTS of money on these kitties, money we “should” be saving for the coming hard times or for fixing up the house or some other more sensible endeavor, and I suppose we may live to regret it later. But….
Mama and her kitties are healthy, happy and great fun to watch playing with one another. The entire (female) staff of the vet clinic was mooning over the kittens. Yes, there’s lots of food and lots of litter boxes and sometimes the cats get kind of crazy but it’s much better for our mental health to watch live Kitten Wrestlemania than spend hours a day doomscrolling through our phones or sitting in front of our computers, which is what we were doing before mama cat arrived.
Some advice requested: Our current plan is to keep mama and 2 kittens and rehome the other 2. (Having a hard time deciding which 2). We don’t want to rehome them until they are at least 12 weeks/3 months old so they are well socialized and have plenty of time with mama. Nearly everyone I’ve offered the kittens to has said “I would love to take one BUT I’m allergic, I have a dog, I have another cat,” or some variation thereof. I know that simply advertising “free kittens” on Craigslist or Facebook is not recommended , and that charging some kind of rehoming fee is recommended. I’m thinking of requesting that whoever adopts our kittens pay half the cost of having that kitten fixed (probably $150-$200, meaning adopter pays $75-$100, open to negotiation). Any other ideas?
Find if there’s a no-kill shelter in your area, if you can’t rehome them. Join Sarah’s Diner on FB and post pics of kittens starting now.
There is a no-kill shelter in our area, in fact my daughter and I volunteered there for a while. However, we’re hoping that before we resort to that, we can find someone trustworthy to adopt the kittens directly.
See if you can post in Sarah’s diner. Start with pictures and tell them how cute they are.
if she can’t figure it out someone help her.
I would join the group except, I only know Sarah from Insty and her blog, and don’t have a favorite book or know where the “diner” reference comes from!
If you’re using your name, I’ll let you in. It’s non-political but fun.
I use my maiden name on Disqus/Google-linked accounts but the Facebook account is in my current name.
Like Sarah said. Or we have a number of Cat Rescues who rehome. Find out what their fees are for kittens, who come with all kitten vaccinations and spayed/neutered, plus (to fund to pay for not as cute adult cat fees, and medical expenses, as well as assist foster costs). They do home inspections too. Their rules are draconian. Including “no roaming” and “no rehoming”, must come back to rescue if rehoming required, or can request checking out rehomed prospect.
My mother, who loves to read up on conspiracy theories (not necessarily believe them, just finds them entertaining and a fun “what if…”) told me a few weeks back “Here’s a new one for you: they’re trying to sterilize us!”
And I said “Mom. That’s not a conspiracy theory. They really ARE trying to do it. What do you think they’re pushing kids into transgender surgery for??”
She got irked–and replied that dammit she needs PROPER CONSPIRACY THEORIES because these ones aren’t any fun anymore, because they’re too likely to be true.
yep.
That’s right, we need a new crop of conspiracy theories because the old ones have all come true! 😮
Have you directed you mom to the publication of prophesy yet? Babylon Bee. At least she can get a chuckle out of the articles before the idiots full fill them.
She doesn’t like the internet THAT well, alas 😀
Try this one:
https://oldnewzork.tumblr.com/post/749336760000167936/cousinnick-trisshawkeye-shattered-earth
It’s my second favorite after the flat earth asteroid dinosaur extinction theory.
When I went to the VA clinic yesterday for a blood draw (routine stuff), there was a sign saying that due to rising incidences masking was strongly encouraged.
Nobody was wearing a mask. Nobody. Not patients. Not people accompanying patients. And not staff.
Gives me a bit of hope. (Just a bit. No boom today, but sooner or later…)
The “please wear a mask” signs around here are all roundly ignored, except by sick people. (When he hacked and coughed so badly that he had to replace his mask, trust me, no one batted an eye at his wearing one!)