Johnny's in the Basement, Mixing up the Medicine, I'm on the Pavement, Thinking About the Government

Coadster tested positive for Covid on Friday. She's lucky because she's young and her blood type is O-, and at one time they were saying that made people's chances better than, oh, say, my blood type of A+.

She said she's mostly had a horrible headache, really sore shoulders, and a sore throat. Of course, even if she recovers, there's still a chance of her getting blood clots, having an enlarged heart, and having lung problems afterward. It sucks.

Because, as most of you know, food is love in my world, I spent yesterday morning, running to a few different stores to stock her and her boyfriend (who also tested positive for Covid) up on groceries. They will have to quarantine for a couple of weeks, which means she can't work. She works at a restaurant, where she has to wait on people who are eating and drinking and not wearing masks, which is, I'm sure, how she got it.

I had to drive about 45 minutest to get to her house to drop off her goods, and there was a big Winter storm heading our way. I was very lucky and made it home just as it started raining. At this time, Coadster is doing better than her first few days of having Covid. I hope she doesn't experience any other complications, and that her boyfriend makes it through okay too.

 What I don't understand about all of this Covid stuff, is why people want to make it all worse. These bizarre conspiracy theorists, who want to say it's a hoax, or it's not a big deal, and that being considerate and wearing a mask is somehow against their free-dumb. Then, those same weird anti-vaxxers go and disrupt a place that is giving out vaccines and shuts it down for a while. What happened to personal freedom? Oh, I guess it's only THEIR freedom that matters, and not anyone else's? Or maybe it isn't about freedom at all (especially since they never cared about the no shirt, no shoes, no service rules). Maybe it's all just about forcing their political agendas down everyone else's throats.

The pharmacist who ruined all of those vaccines, said he thought the vaccine wasn't safe for people, and he was just trying to help them. Ummmmmm, no one has died from the vaccine, but as of now, 439,000 people in the U.S. have died of the disease itself. And to those bizarre people who think that the vaccine will put a chip in them, so that Bill Gates can track them. Let's try using some logic. Can you imagine how expensive that would be? Bill Gates isn't a bajillionaire by blowing his money on stuopid shit. Wouldn't it be cheaper and smarter of him to make American citizens feel like they need computers and smart phones, and they would pay Bill Gates for devices that would allow him to track them? Duh. So, if any of these anti-vaxxers are worried about being tracked by an imaginary chip in a virus, but own computers and smart phones, and aren't worried about being tracked by those, all I can say to you is, DERRRRRRRRR.

The good news, is that if people can pull their heads out of their asses and get the vaccine, and the federal and state governments can make it available, we could reach 75% of people vaccinated, and hit herd immunity by later in the Summer. Can you imagine going to eat INDOORS at a restaurant? Going to see live music again? Hugging your older family members again? Being able to travel safely? Who wouldn't do everything in their power to make that happen again? I don't get it.

Anyway, I hope we can all be smart enough, and actually stop with the conspiracy theories, and fact check, and try harder to understand science, so we all work together to make our lives better. Please.

I'm So Tired, And I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight

 

Well, kids. If I've been a little distant lately, it's because I seem to have had a two and a half month long migraine and it makes me super D-U-M. 

I have had a migraine-free day in there once or twice, but lately, it's just either migraine after migraine, or maybe it's one steady migraine that waxes and wanes, while I whine. Either way, I am so over it. 

In an attempt to be more positive, the snow and the full moon have been a really pretty combination lately...Except when I'm at work and every type of crazy person calls me, influenced by that same full moon,  and doesn't ever want to get off the phone with me. It could be worse, I could still be working in OB/Gyn and have to deal with those people in person, where they can see me, and I CAN'T dramatically pretend to pop my eyeballs out with spoons while they speak and flip them off through the phone. There's always a bright side to things, if you look hard enough.

Welcome to the nerdy part of this blog post. I have a thing for classic literature. Sure, I'll read almost anything, but in the Winter months, I love to sit down with a good classic novel and read about how attractive people were back then, depending on how many thousands of pounds they inherited. This month, it was "David Copperfield". I really loved it.

I come by nerdiness honestly. I was raised on "Masterpiece Theatre". Well, imagine how excited I was when I found out that HBOMAX has a bunch of BBC available. This past week, I watched the 1995 mini-series of "Pride and Prejudice". I have to say, Colin Firth makes the best Darcy in any adaptation, in both this mini-series AND "Bridget Jones's Diary". Meow!

I just started watching the 2006 mini-series of "Jane Eyre". It is dark as fu*k, so I can't devour it like I did "Pride and Prejudice", but it is still intriguing so far. Maggie Smith's son makes for a good Rochester too.

 Since we're on the subject of incredible leading men, it was our fourth wedding anniversary today. We didn't really do much for it. Even if there wasn't a pandemic, John had to go to the store for his mom after work, and I, you guessed it, had another migraine. Grrrrr. We did order a pizza and watch a few episodes of "The Sopranos", and some anniversaries are just going to be like that. Being the homebody I am, that's probably just as good a way as any to celebrate our anniversary for me. I'm hanging out with my best friend, watching New Jersey mobsters behaving badly, and feeling pretty damn good about myself in comparison.

So, I hope the full moon isn't making your lives hell, and you are able to appreciate its beauty. I also hope that you got to sit on your couch and eat pizza with your best friend, whether that be your husband, your friend from high school, your cat, or hell, even your vibr*tor, and watch a show that makes you feel better about yourself. Getting this close to the ass-end of Winter, what else can you ask for?

Oh, Yeah, Yeah, At Last, The Skies Above are Blue

 Okay. Today was finally a hopeful day. I wasn't able to watch the inauguration, but it sounds like I missed something great. There is so much to say about today. I'm excited to get the seditious, divisive, person out of there, and now we have so much work to do to try and fix everything he messed up, but most importantly, to be vigilant that we never have anyone like him or worse get that much power in our country again.

I am hopeful, but I am not naive. No one is perfect, and every president makes mistakes. Hopefully, now, though, our new president won't think only of himself and his friends like 45, but of what's best for ALL of the citizens of this country. Let's also hope that that whole culture of believing in lies, and not wanting to fact check anything that didn't align with your conspiracy theories goes out the window too. I'm excited to see science and facts make a comeback...Oh, and to have a leader who speaks in full sentences! 

As always, here's wishing the best for our country.

Kid, You Better Look Around, How Long You Think That You Can Run That Body Down?

So, I was going to try and write every day this week, but then I did this really stupid thing. I started reading "David Copperfield", and now it's hard for me to do anything else. It's so damn good.

I am on the precipice of a three day weekend. Monday is Martin Luther King JR Day, and it's the last holiday I get off before Memorial Day in May. Sigh.

Last year I decided I was going to try and start painting the laundry room. I had already painted the door a nice light gray color on Saturday, and I was going to start painting the walls a bright white on Monday. They were a dingy, dirty, off-white color that looked like depression would, if it were a color. I washed the hell out of the one section of wall, and started painting. I felt fine at first, but then I started getting a headache and I was really exhausted. I took migraine meds, hoping that would do it, but they didn't do anything at all for me, so I figured it wasn't a migraine.

I also was losing my appetite. I thought maybe if I got some ice cream that would make me want to eat, but that didn't even sound good - which is when I was sure I was coming down with something serious. It's not unusual at all for me to get sick toward the end of January. We get a lot of international students coming into our office with their official documents a week or two before classes start up again, so I get exposed to a lot of different germs. I wasn't at all surprised that I was sick. It was just how weird/bad I felt.

At first it was mostly just a headache and exhaustion. At one point while I was trying to paint, I had to sit on the ground and then use both hands to hold the brush. Don't worry. I finally stopped at that point. Even I'M not that stubborn. 

Then by the time John came home from work, I told him to go out and get whatever he wanted for dinner, because I was too sick to eat. I figured I'd lie on the couch and just rest. Then I got these weird body aches. I was literally writhing around on the couch. I almost couldn't stand to be in my own skin. I got sick to my stomach a few times, and was finally able to sleep. I slept a LOT.

Whatever the bad juju was, it lasted about a week. I lost about 7 pounds, and even for however many months after that, I had very little appetite. It was so unlike me. There were a couple of different kinds of flu going around back then, and it was too early for me to have caught Covid, so who knows what I had. I guess the good thing about Covid for me this year, is that when we go back to the office in the next couple of weeks, we'll be a lot more careful. We have plexi-glass between us and the students, and we're all wearing masks. I'm hoping those kinds of precautions will keep me from getting the flu or even a cold. I guess there are a few benefits of Covid...

The "funny" thing is, I never finished painting the laundry room. I also feel like I can't try it this long weekend without tempting fate. I guess any excuse not to do it, works for me. If it keeps snowing like they say it might, I want to cross-country ski as much as possible this weekend. Since I'll have extra time on Monday, I told John I'd try to make eggplant parmesan for dinner that night. That is, of course, if I don't come down with anything.

Blue, Here is a Shell For You, Inside You'll Hear a Sigh

 Since I'm trying to write more, and there's a pandemic, so there isn't much to write about but our political situation, and our political situation hurts my stomach, I thought I'd do a post where I play with words. I did look at writing prompts and some of them were pretty bizarre. Here is one example: 

"Write about two people who own rival bakeries, but fall in love during their town's holiday festival."

Don't at least 5 different Hallmark Christmas movies have that same premise? Anyway, I thought I'd make it a little simpler?/more simple? and just use a word that conjures thoughts or memories, or Hallmark Christmas movie premises.

Today's word is BLUE:

- When I was a girl, I was more partial to wearing red or pink colors. My sister and I are about 2.5 years apart in age, and people used to want to treat us like twins and buy us the same dresses or shirts (smock tops, if we were lucky), but in different colors. I used to whine because my sister always got the cute colors, and I always seemed to get things in boring colors like navy blue or brown...And there was so much navy and brown in the 70's.

-I never got into Joni Mitchell when I was younger. At first, it was that I fancied myself a little too punk for that hippie music.  Then after I moved to California and became more open to some of that hippie music, I had a roommate who fell in love with a guy named Scott while she was studying to be a Chinese medical doctor, and she played "Court and Spark" over and over and over, and in particular, "Help Me". As one can imagine, I still don't think I'm ready to hear anything from that album. When John and I moved in together, he had Joni Mitchell's "Blue", and I just fell in love with it. Older me finally got smart.

-Coming from my family, I have been very lucky not have inherited the clinical depression issues that many of the other members have. I made up for it in migraines, but that's a different issue (apparently, none of us gets away without something fun). I did used to get blue from time to time in my twenties, and thirties, however. It was usually situational. I had that problem with abusive people from the age of 10 - 37, and that can really bring a girl down. Other times it was hormonal. Moving outside has always helped to clear the blues for me. I spent almost every day during the Summer of 1984 walking for hours and hours, trying to purge myself of all of the negativity during my time with my aunt and uncle. I would walk down a street and take it to its end, then I'd find another street, and take that to its end. Sometimes it would lead me out on dirt roads in the country. With my horrible sense of direction, it's a wonder I never got lost.

-When Coadster was in kindergarten she told her classmates that her favorite color was blue. All of the girls in her class got together to shame her and tell her that blue was a boy's color and she couldn't be a girl and like it. I was shocked that shit was still going on in the late 90's.

 So, that was BLUE for me today. What shade are you?

I Got Chills. They're Multiplyin'

Well, let me tell you. I got my second Shingles vaccine on Friday after work and the rest of the weekend was pretty rough. I know it would be 5,000 times worse, if I were to actually get Shingles, and I tried to be smart and get it on Friday evening, so I'd have the whole weekend to recover. Man, did I need that.

 Lucky for me, Verizon gave us a free six month trial of the new Discovery Plus Network. I'm not sure if you all know this about me, but I'm obsessed with HGTV. So, the new channel with all kinds of episodes of "My Lottery Dream Home", and another show called, "Restored" that I'm addicted to are on there. Talk about your cheesy escapist TV. The other thing they have on there is the Dodo channel. which meant, that I could watch episode after episode of 5 minute shows where animals are going to their forever homes with humans who love them after horrible experiences prior to the show. Yeah. One was even about a 36 pound cat who's original human had Alzheimer's and kept forgetting that she had already fed him. If that had been Archie, he probably would have been 50 lbs.

Anyway, I did a lot of resting. I kind of felt like I was on a really bad drug that made me super dizzy and spacey and tired, and also, I had the chills for a few hours on Saturday night. Try to imagine a combination of having chills, and THEN having a hot flash. My poor body must have been so confused. I appears that growing old will never be boring.

I hope you all had weekends that didn't include side effects from the Shingles vaccine...Or much worse, having actual Shingles.

I Read a Lot, I Can't Put it Down. While Others Are Painting the Town, You'll Find Me in a World of Fantasy

Well, I decided not to do the group of end of the year posts I normally do, because 2020 was extra, and I just didn't have the energy for it. I will do a very honed down books I read in 2020 post now, though. Besides Gus, reading books was one of the best ways to distract myself from the craziness of the year.

I only read 71 books of my 75 book goal. The first time in many years that I didn't meet my goal. I had to let a lot of things go the last 12 months.

So, here's my very limited list:

Best Classic novel I read in 2020: It's a tie between Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" as a classic novel that I reread and Wlkie Collins' "Lady in White", which I had never read before. If you ever want to read a great classic novel, check out "The Woman in White"

The best non-fiction book I read this year: "Becoming" by Michelle Obama. I was in desperate need of hope this year, and this book gave me some of that. I loved how open and honest she was about herself, her marriage, and her life.

The best Graphic novel I read this year was my reread of Alan Moore's "The Watchmen". I haven't read it since 1989/90.

The best thriller/scary book I read in 2020, was Blake Crouch's "Dark Matter".

 

The most disappointing book I read was, "Inland" by tea Obrecht. I love Westerns and I loved her book, "The Tiger's Wife", but this book took sooooo long to get going, and she had so much to work with. Sigh.

The best Young Adult novel I read was, "Children of Blood and Bone" by Tomi Adeyemi. Talk about a fantastic adventure.

The best children's book I read was "Kidnapped", by Robert Louis Stevenson. I am always going to pick the best adventure story.

The best detective novel I read was, "The Magpie Murders" by David Horowitz.
 

 

 The best book by a former Iowa Citian was, Chris Offutts', "Country Dark". I give him that honor even though his son did bring a plunger as a gift to Stinky's 13th birthday party and gave all the kids stomach hickeys with it, so you know the book was good.

The best fantasy/ short story collection was Kelly Link's "Get in Trouble"

I read a lot of series' books this year, and this is my list of those:

 The best memoir series was the Maya Angelou autobiographies. They were so interesting and she was involved in so many  different movements during her time.

The best escapist series: The "Crazy Rich Asians" series by Kevin Kwan. Boy howdee, did I need escapism this year.

The best dystopian series'ish books I read were Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" books. I couldn't really read much dystopian fiction until you-know-who got voted out, and it wasn't quite as close to our actual lives.

Okay. That's it for the books I read in 2020. Let's hope this year has even more and better reading experiences for all of us.

 

 

 

 

 

Crooked Politicians With Nefarious Schemes, Charlatans and Crooked Cops

Holy cow, Kids, but it's been a week. A bunch of crazed, treasonous t-Rumpers tried to take over Congress, but luckily they were stopped, and the democratic process was  finally allowed to happen and we have a new president now. Thank jeebus! It will be nice to have an actual leader again. Someone who cares about the country instead of their own interests, and even with a stutter, can speak in complete sentences. Maybe t-Rump will go to Russia where he can find the kind of government he really wants.

 On a non-political note, I think my tooth may actually be fixed. Fingers crossed. I have been in a lot of pain since my crown, and since it happened right before the holidays, they couldn't work me in until yesterday. The dentist shaved my tooth down, which was pretty excruciating, but it feels way better now than it did when I was too long in the tooth, both now literally and always figuratively. Here's hoping for pain free teeth in the weeks to come.

On a more positive note, John just got his first Covid vaccine, which makes the two people who ever enter my house both vaccinated. So, until I go back to work in a few weeks, I should be fairly safe?

On a what the hell note, I think I'm going to get my second shingles vaccine tomorrow. If they have it. I have no idea how I'll feel this weekend, but no matter what, it sounds like it's going to be way better than actually having shingles.

On a hopeful note, I'm just thinking positive thoughts for things to get better and better for all of us.

So This is the New Year, and I Have No Resolutions, For Self Assigned Penance, For Problems With Easy Solutions

Well, you know Christmas is over when the wise men start passing out. Now, it's New Year's Day already and I haven't written here in way too long. If I made resolutions, I would resolve to write in here a hell of a lot more. Since I don't, I will just have to try really hard to write more.

In my defense, I've been having terrible migraines for the last couple of weeks, and it makes it so hard to string a sentence together. Sigh.

We did a good job sending 2020 off last night. A friend of ours invited us over to a Christmas tree burning bonfire in her backyard. Then we came home and made a cheese and veggie and nut board, and some shrimp cocktail. John and I laughed about growing up in the 70's and back then shrimp cocktail was considered so fancy. We also played Scrabble and watched "The Thin Man" You have to love William Powell and Myrna Loy.

I started put this morning with, you guessed it, a bad migraine. I was intent on making French toast and cheesy eggs, but I almost cut the tip of my finger off slicing bread with the sharp, new, bread knife I bought John for his birthday. I've been taking a lot of Advil for my migraines lately and it's a blood thinner, so it took almost an hour to get my finger to stop bleeding.

I decided to take my Zomig, which are the heavy duty meds, and then rested for a while before we tried to cross-country ski. It snowed about 4 inches here today, and I was weak from my meds, so we only went out for an hour. It was still nice to get outside and play.

 So, now we begin a new year, with all the hope and trepidation that brings. Stinky is going to get her first Covid vaccine on Monday, and John is supposed to get his in the next couple of weeks. I have a feeling I might be last in line to get mine. It would be so nice for as many people as possible to be able to get the vaccine in the next couple of months. How great would it be to eat inside at a restaurant, or go on a trip, or cough because you have allergies without everyone giving you the stink eye? 

Anyway, I hope the best for all of you in the coming year. I hope for a smooth transition of power later this month, I hope the virus gets managed better, I hope people work on becoming kinder and more empathetic, and I hope my cats stay weird and amusing, because that helps me deal with my migraines. Happy New Year!