if you celebrate it wherever you are.

Spending the day home alone, as usual. Didn’t even get a frozen turkey dinner this year. Oh, well. It is what it is, right? Did have a good week so far, though. Good chat with my new homemaker Monday, Tuesday a friend came for a visit and we went to lunch and then had a very good chat here, yesterday went out with my friend Tess and as always spent most of the time laughing. Then tomorrow, new homemaker is back, and I am finally looking forward to that. The past four after my Traci were not exactly ‘oh, can’t wait til she gets here’ types. Nice, but not fun. Fun is my Prime Directive, as someone I used to know used to say.

Stopped taking two of my pills. The anti-inflammatory, because it was causing weird changes in my body, and the other the one I had to take so the anti-inflammatory didn’t kill me. This was about five days ago. Pain has been increasing daily, until I am back not being able to do some things I was having no problem with. So going to try the anti-inflammatory every other day, and just skip the other one. Make sure I eat something substantial when I take the pill, and hope for the best. Would be great if they could come up with meds that don’t kill you as a side effect.

Hope everyone is having a great day, whether you are home alone or with family. You make your world. Make it a good one.

online:

https://psychology-tools.com/empathy-quotient/

Here’s what I got:

This is my DD’s site.  She is a healer and asked me to put this out there, as she would like more clients.  So here it is:

http://www.heartspeacehealing.com/

from a blog I read.  The comments are great, too, with both sides expressing their opinions.  It’s kind of a long read, but well-presented, and expresses a lot of the feelings I cannot express without anger.  I should be so reasonable.  Anyway, I hope you check it out.  It’s worth the read.

Thoughts on the election

This is my friend’s dog, because we need all the cute we can get nowdays.

not to shop at Walmart:

Controlling Workers

Had a great conversation with my new homemaker yesterday.  I think I am going to get on just fine with her.  Someone whose visits I can look forward to.  Great to have someone to talk to.  I’ve realized I am really not good just being on my own.  I tend to shut down, and when there’s someone else here, it’s like a switch is flipped and I am a real person again.  Yes, I am weird and have issues.

It is a lovely rainy day.  Another reason to love Autumn.  Rainy days, fireplaces, cups of tea, lovely warm blankets, invisible cat comes out of hiding to curl up on blanket next to me.  It’s all good.  Also baking.  I used to bake a lot more, and at one point I made a loaf of bread every day.  There were four of us, so it went quickly.  I hardly ever bake, or cook, for that matter any more.

My new homemaker is also a certified and licensed personal trainer, and she recommended I try starting out very slowly with yoga to help with pain and maybe condition my muscles, which are practically non-existant after so many years of being inactive most of the time.  I know they say to exercise with fibro, but it only ever made me much worse and sometimes took weeks to recover from one mild session.  So I will give yoga a go.  Used to do yoga years ago, and took a class with a friend a few years back, so I’m pretty sure it’s something I can do and not suffer too much afterwards.

Rain on the windows:

He is well worth listening to, and more of my own countries politicians should be speaking out as well, not sitting back and doing nothing.

“America has just elected a fascist”

And it’s true about the Dunkin’ Donuts.

Move to Massachusetts, not Canada

Solidarity

And on that other subject, if you didn’t vote, or if you voted for hate:

Do you think these are going to get better now? Think again.

Then there’s this:

January, 2016, The Republicans Rescind Health Care For All.

I’ve read one of Trump’s people already has said he will dismantle Medicare and privatize it. This will directly affect me. I depend on services, did I say that already, because I am ill, and Republicans just want me to crawl into a cave somewhere and die. Which I probably will, now.

Spent literally almost all of yesterday in shock, scrolling, reading, blogging, reblogging, commenting.  All on Tumblr.  Checked Facebook and Twitter, but since I’m not really on them, it was a cursory glance.   Helped a lot to vent and to read people’s thoughts about it all.  Felt much better at the end of the day.  Was out today, and when I checked in around 6pm, seemed like most of the furor had died down and things were a lot back to normal, which kind of surprised me.  It’s like ‘OMG, OMG, OMG….here, let me post about my fav tv show’.  Can kind of understand it.  It was an emotional shitstorm yesterday, so some normalcy is a good thing.  I just wasn’t expecting it so soon.  I truly am dreading what’s going to happen.  Speaking just for myself, I depend on the the government for funding of the services I get because I am ill.  What happens to me if they go away?  I do not have to worry about being deported and never seeing my family again, and my life isn’t in danger from angry morons who might beat me up or even kill me because they think it’s okay now. ‘I mean the President-elect hates you, so it’s perfectly fine for me to act out my hate for you as well.’  But I am still very, very concerned. Humanity is not my favorite species.  Individually, some of you are spectacular, but as a species, we really, really suck.

I am afraid to look.  I’ve been ready to cringe now and then in previous elections, but this is the first time I’ve truly been afraid to look.  Because this election defines my country, and tells me what the majority of my countrymen think is right for us.  If they’ve chosen hate as the new American ideal, I don’t know if I can cope with that.  All the evil that has spewed from orange gas-bag man’s mouth, and it didn’t sway people at all.  No one said, “Wait.  What was I thinking, supporting him?”  I’m not in one of those groups, unless he has a hate agenda against old white women, which he probably does, but I can imagine how those who are must be feeling.  Like many of those same groups must have felt when the Nazis came to power.  This could be the end for this great experiment in democracy.  It’s only been about two and a half centuries, not a very long run if this is it. Gearing up, gearing up, gearing up.  I really don’t want to look.

I looked.

I am avoiding social media as much as possible.  Last time I was on any of it was day before yesterday.  I just don’t want to know yet.  I am, however, attempting to watch ‘Before the Flood’, the Leonardo DiCaprio/Fisher Stevens film about global warming.  Don’t think I’m going to get through it, because it is too depressing.  One thing that struck me right off was this quote from a clip of Sean Hannity on Fox News:

“Who better to educate world leaders on made-up climate change in a crisis that doesn’t exist, than an actor from Hollywood with zero years of scientific training?”

Does anyone notice that an equally un-scientifically trained paid shill for Rupert Murdoch and the Right Wing just declared as fact that climate change  is made up and the crisis does not exist?  But when he says it, it’s fact, when Leonardo or anyone else says the opposite, it’s fallacy.  Does no one pay attention?  People just believe whatever Fox News tells them, and no one questions anything?  Apparently so.  To quote George Carlin, “…question everything.”

I am as pessimistic as DiCaprio says he is for the future of my species.  Unfortunately, I was not gifted with magic powers so cannot wave a wand and kick-start people’s brains into actually working.  BTW, I love Fisher Stevens.  No one mentions his name in talking about this movie, although he is the film maker.  Here’s the link:  http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/before-the-flood/videos/before-the-flood/

Don’t remember if I mentioned a fuse blew Sunday night, meaning the dishwasher and several kitchen plugs and one living room plug are not working.  Breaker switch did nothing, so landlord is sending an electrician, who can’t come til tomorrow afternoon.  I have moved things so I can use the toaster oven and my favorite thing ever, my electric kettle (is it possible to fall in love with an inanimate object, because I think I am in love with my kettle), and have lighting to read by on the couch.  There are dishes needing to be washed in the dishwasher, but I cannot really wash more than the odd dish now and then, especially since I tore my rotater cuff, not to mention the OMG pain when I stand for more than literally one or two minutes.

Have the windows open, but will need to close them soon, as it’s warm outside, but very thick brick walls keep it from getting in here.  My apartment is like the ocean.  It takes a few  weeks for it to warm up once summer hits, and a few weeks to cool down in the colder months.  It’s the brick.  I just figured that out recently, even though I’ve lived here for sixteen years, because I can’t think of everything.  Come on, people.  LOL

Took a carbon footprint test from here:  http://www.carbotax.org/.   My score is 7.2, I think because I can’t recycle here.  I’d like it to be lower, but there’s only so much I can do.  I really don’t think it matters, actually, because we have already messed the planet up so much, I think we have passed the Rubicon, the point of no return.  I am a cynic, I know, but if you pay attention at all, you have to at least be a little pessimistic.

Please, if you haven’t voted, it’s not too late.  It matters.  I was trying to think of a good analogy the other day, but I could only come up with different-colored sheep.  Say there are ten green sheep, who are all timid and fearful of everything, and filled with hate.  They each and every one follow their leader without question.  There are fifteen purple sheep, each of whom feel free to wander and search out and decide issues for themselves.  There is a prize, which both sides are vying for.  All ten green sheep follow their leader for the prize, and 6 of the purple sheep go off on their own and abandon their team.  Majority wins the prize, and guess who has the majority?  The green sheep.  If even two of those six independent sheep had stuck with the plan, they would have easily won, and their continued freedom of choice would be pretty much guaranteed.  But they didn’t.  God, that is the worst analogy in the history of analogies, but I don’t know how else to try to make the point.  I have spoken out and reblogged relevant posts on Tumbler, and Tweeted, and Facebooked, and tried other ways to make myself clear, but by tonight, it won’t matter anyway.  It will be done.  And if you didn’t vote, or you were one of those who wandered off and took your own path, we will all suffer the consequences, because orange gas-bag man will be running your country and taking away any freedom of choice you may have fought for and thought you’d won in the past.  It will all be gone.  So please vote.  Right now I have to go pack for when I call down the mothership or emigrate to Canada, in case this all goes to hell today.

My new homemaker came for the second time.  She is out doing the shopping.  I realized I am feeling anxious and sad, I think.  Why?  I think it’s because everytime a new person comes, I have to start all over with explaining myself, or going through it all again and I always feel like they’re thinking, ‘You look fine.  Why aren’t you doing this yourself?’.  Maybe I can do it myself, but then when I can’t, and I have to ask them to do it, it will not be a part of the job they are accustomed to doing, and they will resent it and  me, so I explain that just because I’m good today doesn’t mean I’ll be good tomorrow or next week and on and on and on.  It’s that invisible illness thing where you really do look okay, and there’s no way to prove that you’re not, or that you won’t be, so you’re always trying to justify yourself.  I hate this.  I don’t get a choice, though, so it’s something I have to go through.  She is the fifth person, including two fill-ins, since the beginning of June.  It was nice having someone who knew me, and knew what I could and couldn’t do, and just did what needed to be done without any explanation or direction on my part.  Eight years is a long time to have the same homemaker, I know, and I did realize how lucky I was.  It’s just hard to readjust, even though I knew it would happen sometime.

It’s a beautiful and chill autumn day.  North wind was blowing straight in the windows and I had to close them earlier or freeze.  I had them open all night and it was fine, but today, the wind changed, and brrrr.  🙂  I love autumn, especially the not hot and sticky part.

Have to admit I am feeling anxious about the election.  I do not watch regular tv.  I do not.  All I know is what I see on social media, and what I see is not looking good.  Part of me is all, ‘It can’t happen.  Orange gas-bag man cannot win.’, and part of me is afraid that he might.  I think I will just hibernate for a couple of days after the election, so the major hullabaloo over the results will be over by the time I fire up the computer again.  I hope.  I know when Obama ran the first time, I did not watch anything until later the day after the result was in, because if it was bad news, I just did not want to know.  I still am completely flummoxed by my countrymen.  Some are threatening to prevent people from voting.  This is the USA, not communist Russia.  How can this be seriously contemplated?  I don’t know what’s gone wrong, but it is major.  All the hateful, homophobic, mysogynistic, zenophobic morons have only been pretending all these years it seems, and now Trump has given them permission to show their true selves again.  This is just horrific.  Horrific.  I like people.  Individual people here and there.  But as a species, we are the worst thing to ever happen to this planet and every other species that’s inhabited it alongside us.  We are even worse to one another.  I don’t get it, it just horrifies me, who we are.

Do you really want to read a post where all I do is moan and groan?  Can’t sleep, pain, pain, pain, and more pain.  Why?  No idea?  Getting worse every day.  Where’s the upside?  Can’t see one right now.

Did get a new homemaker, since last one quit.  That’s five homemakers, including fill-ins, since Traci quit at the end of May.  One a month, on average.  You really need to be able to adapt well to change, and new people, when you are ill.

Plugged in my tv to see if I coud get my Roku to work.  HA!  Freezes up every time I turn it on.  Unplug, leave it, plug in, starts up fine, freezes.  Stupid Roku.  Does anyone else have this problem?  This is my second Roku, and neither one has consistently just worked.

Does anyone out there know how to just get internet for a reasonable price.  I think I’ve said, I have a double play with Comcast, cable and internet.  If I drop cable, internet goes up and instead of my overall bill going up ten dollars a year, it will go up 20 dollars a year.  Deregulation.  It’s a good thing if you’re a corporation, but not so much if you’re just a regular person trying to get by on limited funds.  What is the alternative?  I can’t see one.  I keep reading about people dropping cable, but no one mentions the fact that you need the cable company to get internet.  I think my country, the US, is rigged against me.

See how whiney I can be when I feel like I’ve been run over by two semi’s?  Pretty whiney.  Going to go lie down now.  BTW, do you know how hard it is to find a good image for feeling like you’ve been run over by two semi’s?  Pretty darn hard.  Found this while searching, and yes, been there, done that, with pretty much everyone I though I mattered to: