It seems a lot of what we take as truth is actually ideas foisted upon us by people who want our money. Also, why on earth does bacon need a lobbyist? Who doesn’t love bacon? Except of course for religious issues. But otherwise, it’s BACON. Seriously.

Nice day. 44 degrees. Don’t even need the heat on. Miss G is happy because the bedroom door is open. She begs me to open it, literally, but it gets at least ten degrees colder in the living room when it is open. Why? No idea.

Nothing exciting going on. Just getting through the day, as usual. Need to get to the post office and mail my rent check in the box out front, as I can’t do the stairs, but not looking good for that. Someone usually does that for me, homemaker or my friend who is currently incapacitated by a muscle?? issue. So it’s up to me. Never a good thing. 🙂

It was over by the time I got up at ten am, but the snow is still there. Not a lot, but still. It is 25 degrees, so I don’t think it’s going to melt. White Christmas. Sort of. Yay.

A person in my friend’s ukulele group tested positive for COVID, so I’m kind of glad her bad leg has kept her away. I do not want to get sick. It’s very difficult to be really ill when you are on your own. She is getting a home test kit, and I’m hoping she is okay. She’s the friend who makes me laugh hysterically just about every single time I see or talk to her. Don’t want to lose that. She is really a wonderful, wonderful friend, and her husband is pretty great, too.

Me and Miss G are just vegging. I did finally load and run the dishwasher last night, and washed the iron skillet today. Am hoping to cook something, Jiffy cornbread, or a lemon bar mix I have, or flourless peanut butter cookies. Something. I am almost out of milk, there was no half and half Friday when my homemaker shopped, and my bread went moldy. Fortunately for my coffee, I have lots of canned milk. Growing up, everyone used canned milk in their coffee. It’s not great, but black coffee is not for me. Still have my fatoush and a bit of the falafel wrap left, too. I think tomorrow I will either make sausage and gravy, or corn chowder. Canned milk goes in the chowder, but I need the real thing for the sausage and gravy, although, you can dilute canned milk to be like milk only the taste is NOT the same. My gramma used to make canned milk ice cream in an ice cube tray. We were too poor to buy ice cream. Anyway, will decide tomorrow, if I even am up for cooking tomorrow. Never know til the day arrives. 🙂 It’s kind of good to be eating what I have on hand, too. Lots of canned goods and pasta and some things in the freezer. I could make bread or biscuits or something, too. I have everything I need. Pancakes, anyone? I have Bisquick, but it’s a couple of years old and I’m not sure how long it’s good for. I used to make my own Bisquick. That way I knew what was in it. Oh, I have powdered milk, too. Ewwww, but it’s great in baking. Just add water to replace milk, or just dump a packet into whatever to up the protein content. BTW, did you know that you can blend summer squash or zucchini and freeze it to use in place of milk in baking. Gives a slight pumpkin vibe to whatever. Really nice.

Watched this last night. It’s a yearly tradition. I love The Snowman. Can you tell? Tomorrow I will watch White Christmas. Another tradition. Hey, just because I am alone does not mean I can’t have traditions, right? I used to watch A Christmas Story every year, because one of our local channels in NH played it all day long on Christmas. Now I have to rent it and I really hate paying for things when I already pay for the service. I have a friend who watches It’s A Wonderful Life every year.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas Eve. We always had beer and Dutch Lunch, and Christmas cookies. May have said that already. Wish I was having that tonight. I do have some really dark beer. I love dark beer. It’s porter, I think. Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone, and stay safe.

I am stuck in a rut. For three days now, I have been pretty much sleeping, reading, messing about on here, or watching my streaming channels. I need to load the dishwasher. I need to put the laundry away. I need to do a lot of things. The plan was a friend would maybe run me by the grocery store so I could pick up a few Christmas-type things in the food department. Not going to happen. I can order groceries to be delivered with DoorDash. Have I done that? Have I even looked online to see what I might want? Have I done anything at all in any way productive? I ordered in last night, if that counts.

Snow is predicted for tomorrow. Actual white stuff falling from the sky. I am not holding my breath, however. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Any brilliant ideas for getting myself motivated, beside ‘get up and do it, damnit’, cause that is NOT working At. All. So what I am doing is cleaning up my laptop, backing things up, etc. Me and Miss G are just here on the couch with the curtains closed to keep out the cold, the full-spectrum ceiling lights on to simulate actual daylight, and the fireplace keeping us toasty warm. I had oatmeal and coffee earlier, and I have leftover Lebanese takeaway for later. This was disappointing. And expensive. I can make better fatoush, and have done in the past, back when I actually prepped and cooked actual food. Those days. I have had better kibbee, too, but the falafel wrap was okay, except the wrap was kind of dried out. Still have a lot of that left, and a lot of fatoush, which I am going to whack in the nutribullet and drink instead of eating it. I don’t like salad and this is a good way to get it down me anyway. Drink it. Just add a bit of whatever liquid you have on hand. I have some flavored seltzer in the frig. Juice would be good, but I never buy juice. Anyway.

There used to be a Middle Eastern sort of deli attached to a grocery store we frequented in Salem, NH, and they made really good food.

Almost Christmas. Every year I think, this could be my last Christmas, and here I sit all alone without even a decoration up (thank you Gertrude) and no Christmas dinner or pressies or tree or anything. Not even a Christmas ecard. Or a real one. Bah. Also, humbug. But every year I survive it and it’s okay. I do kind of miss the excitement, though. Was fun when the kids were little. Christmas is for kids, really. Unfortunately, I have never grown up so still could fit into that category. Mentally. LOL Okay. Done for now. Be safe, people. Be safe.

Yesterday I said to Gertrude not to worry, because it won’t be long before the days start getting longer again. What do you know, today is the Solstice. I seem to never know anything about anything anymore. We will now begin marching towards spring, as I read somewhere. I like that. I think January and February are the real winter months here, so still hoping for some snow.

This was in a newsletter I get.

rant: I think I’ve mentioned this before. Reading, if you are not learning something new, is for fun and relaxation. It has been turned into a contest, a competition with self, a burden, a chore. I’ve seen articles about how your reading compares to other people’s reading. Keeping track of it all with lists and notebooks and what not. Making it a ‘something I have to do’ rather than something I do because I love doing it. I don’t understand this trend at all. At. All. I don’t care how many or what books any one else on the planet reads. I don’t need Oprah or Reese or whoever else it is to tell me what books I should be reading. I don’t need to blog about it, or review, although I have done that on Goodreads before for a really excellent book I read, or post my count or any of that. I just want to read. What looks interesting. What’s next in a series I’m reading. What I want to know more about. The book whose cover caught my eye. Or whose synopsis made me want to see more. Whatever. It is not a contest, a competition, with anyone out there or with myself. You know how people find something they love doing and then turn it into a business and then suddenly realize that all the love they had has gone? This is like that. /rant.

Actually, it’s ‘What ho, Fernando’, one of those ‘you had to be there kind of things, maybe. But anyway. It is warmer today thank goodness. My fireplace tripped the circuit-breaker twice in succession while I was watching Traces on Britbox on Prime. You pay for Britbox, then you can watch it on Prime. Good show, and there is going to be a second season. I watched because Martin Compston from Line of Duty. I like Martin Compston. It’s 7,99 a month, I think, and a LOT of good British shows on there.

Does not have all that on it now, because Gertrude. 🙂

Anyway, turned off the fireplace and warmed things up with my heater fan til I was ready to sleep, then turned it on again earlier this am to take the chill off. Have fireplace and tv on now, listening to Pandora Instrumental Christmas music station, which has NO Christmas music weirdly enough, and so far no problem. But it’s 42 out, so not going to get too chilly in here anyway.

Why is there always something? As far as I know, we have no maintenance person, and I don’t want to make any waves anyway since my landlord has been trying to get me out for three or four years now Guess I can’t blame him, cause rents are skyrocketing, and my is not that high and is subsidized. But Miss G and I have to live somewhere, right?

Seriously considered getting my act together and walking up to the new Meat Market store about half a block away, and getting cold cuts for Christmas. Or something. But I will so talk myself out of it, like I always do unless I have someone to go with. This is how I have always been. Fine with someone else, but hardly ever go anywhere on my own. Not sure why, just how it is. I am. Whatever.

I’m tired today. So I guess that’s it. Be safe, people. Be safe.

But none of this:

No snow. It’s winter, for crying out loud.

DD2 sent me a package of KN95 masks. Thank you, Kris. I guess I’m going to be in isolation for a couple of weeks, since Tess is having the leg thing and my homemaker is off both Eves. I can live with that, but it’s nice to have a good mask if I do manage to go out anywhere. Have to keep reminding myself that I CAN walk up the street with my walker. I just have to convince myself it’s a good idea. I am very good at convincing myself NOT to do things. Need to turn that around.

Feeling much better than I was. Mailman actually buzzed me and put the package inside the security door (this almost never happens anymore), and I was able to go down and get it. Yay, me. Someone had thrown all the mail they don’t want onto the elevator floor. Wonder if it’s the same person who steals the packages, or opens them and steals half the contents. I really need to find a new place. My landlord sent me another scam letter a couple of weeks ago. He really wants me gone, but where would I go? Rents have skyrocketed, not a lot of places take Section 8, which is subsidized rental assistance, and I would have to hire someone to pack and move my stuff. I choose not to think about it too much. 🙂

Trying to decide if it’s worth it to order some special groceries for Christmas dinner, because usually when I do that, I am on the couch on the day completely unable to cook anything. I could just get Dutch Lunch stuff. We always had Dutch Lunch on Christmas Eve, my husband and I. Beer, good French or Italian bread, hard salami, capocola, provolone, banana peppers. You know, Dutch Lunch. And Christmas cookies. We used to go to a tavern in Bessemer, near the steel mill, way on the other side of town, and it was a place where you could bring your kids and eat and have a beer and just be comfortable. Dutch Lunch was their thing. Never had it before that. This was in Pueblo, Colorado.

So frustrated with people, especially people in government. We are very broken in this country and I don’t have a clue how to fix anything.

Hang in there, people. Even bad shit does not last forever. I hope. Be safe. Protect not only your own life, but the lives of those around you. Be a decent human being. Please.

Snow up north of us, but none here. It looks damp outside, and it’s 38. Remember when it was 57 yesterday? I had a window open. Ah, well. I am missing winter. Easier to get around this way, not that that matters to practically home-bound me. Check out the website mentioned below. Alexey Kljatov. Fantastic pictures of snowflakes. I love snowflakes. I have a replica picture of one taken by the original snowflake guy, Wilson Bentley.

https://www.almanac.com/first-snowflake-photographer-wilson-bentley

I have decided to work at getting myself in hand and motivated and on some sort of a routine, but today I got up at 11:30 or so, because I just cannot sleep before 4 or 5 am.. Frustrating. I just am not meant to be a morning person.

So because of the ‘Eve’ holidays, no homemaker til January 7th, and no Tess and Ed this week because of her leg issue. She does a LOT of walking, and pulled a muscle or something. Pain is not fun. (Gertrude is playing with the cord to my candle warmer that I keep my coffee on while I’m sitting here. No, Miss G. Just no.) I could go out. I can go out. I have my walker now, and there is no snow to impede progress, but I get up so late and it takes so long to get it together, literally hours, once I am up, that by the time I’d be ready to go out, it would probably be dark already. Sometimes I think life would be easier if it wasn’t just me, if there was sometime to encourage me to do things or do them with me or whatever. It is easier to force myself to get it together if I have someone to go somewhere with. I think the excitement from the prospect of having some fun raises endorphins or something, making things easier.

But living alone has advantages, too. Do not have to consider any one else’s needs, or what they want to watch, or eat or whatever. As for watching, I have been watching a Christmas movie every day. Some are not that bad, some are kind of nice, and some are ‘shut this down now’ after the first five minutes. I am saving White Christmas for closer to the day. I love that movie. The snow. I love snow. Watching those old movies set in New England back in Colorado, I also loved the snow. We got snow, but nothing like in those movies. Nothing like when we lived in New Hampshire, either. That was some snow, but it doesn’t snow like that anymore. We had blizzards when I first moved to this apartment in 2000, now, apparently, snow is going to just be a very rare occurrence. I’ve have seen articles about people mourning over the climate changing. I totally get that.

People are unloading their car at the laundromat across the street, and it looks like they have either been saving up laundry for the entire year, or a doing the laundry of a small town. That is a LOT of laundry. Homemaker did mine yesterday. One load. I do a lot by hand in the bathroom sink, when I am able. 🙂

Ordered in from Papa Gino’s last night, since they have mozzarella sticks back on the menu. I love their mozzarella sticks, or I did, anyway. Don’t those look good? They don’t look like that now. They are skinny and the cheese kind of strings out. Very salty, too. But the super steak sub with banana peppers instead of green peppers (do not love green peppers) was really delish, and I have some left, along with the salad I bought, for today. I do not like salad, but I don’t think have eaten any vegetables for weeks except if they came with a lunch or my dinner out with my friend. Oh, that was fish and chips. Chips are vegetables, right? Our local Irish pub, owned and operated by a true Irish family with the same surname as my friend’s family name. So we almost always go there. Their food is really good, except Irish bangers are just no. Found a recipe online and they are 3 parts pork and 1 part pork fat, with seasonings and such. I think that’s why I don’t like them. They are soft and kind of icky. DD2 warned me, but I like to try new things. No. They have the best Guinness stew, though. OMG it is good and served on a big mound of mashed potatoes. Too bad they don’t deliver.

On the subject of food, still, since my breakfast bars were stolen, I got some Jimmy Dean bacon egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches for something relatively easy in the morning. No. Just no. Maybe if I figured out how to do them in the toaster oven instead of the microwave they would come out better, but….. I only got 4, not 8, which I am happy about. 🙂 Sorry Jimmy.

Rambling Jean is rambling today. Have not been up long enough for the brain to really kick in.

Discussed with homemaker her thoughts on going back to self-isolation. She said most of her clients cannot go out, so it’s not an issue for them. She is also concerned with the lack of caution exhibited by so many people now. Even the delivery person last night was not masked. I never go out or even open the door without a mask on. Something to think about, anyway. It’s raining. Winter. I miss winter.

This is my brain lately. Nothing there. Just a kind of ‘Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god’. Cannot decide what to do when I get up. Should I take a shower first, brush my teeth, scoop the cat box, make the coffee? I don’t know. Was meant to go out with my friend Tess on Monday. She called as usual just as I was about to get in the shower. Will call you when I’m ready, says me. Take shower, sit in chair to recover and just sit there for almost an hour. Call Tess finally. Do you want to go out? she asks. I don’t know, I say. Do your want me to get takeout and bring it over? I don’t know, I say. Shall I, do you, what, what, what. I cannot think at all. So she decides. This is what good friends do. She recognized that my executive function was on hiatus, and stepped in. She brought fries and we ate and had a nice visit and watched a movie. Once a decision had been made, even if not by me, I was able to get a bit of control and brushed my teeth and got dressed before she came. I think I got dressed. I may have stayed in my robe. This was Monday. Today is Friday. I can’t remember if I got dressed or not four days ago on the only eventful day of this week.

The week did not get better. Out to lunch most of the time, felt worse than usual on Wednesday, chilled and tired. Turned into a major pain episode which meant a night of not much fun or sleep. A bit better yesterday, okay so far today. Okay being hobbling around, trouble deciding what to do next, but was able to decide by my little self. The joys of chronic painful illness.

It’s been hard. The other day I discovered that there is an orange disaster support shop up the street from me. Just opened and is only there for a month, but is doing a great business, it seems. No. This is wrong. ‘Those’ people are out there somewhere, not here in my town. Not my neighbors, not the people in the store who wait on me. Not anybody I could possibly know in any way. It is disturbing how upset I am by this. Worse is the realtor who rented the shop is someone I have met and who was very, very kind to me for no other reason that he is a good person, He says he didn’t really understand what was going on, but I find that hard to believe. On the other hand, I find it very hard to reconcile the extremely kind, going way out of his way to help me person with someone who would support the orange disgrace in any way.

My phone service was suspended without warning or reason, by text. When I was finally able to get in to see what the heck, I find that T-Mobile merging with Sprint means that my roll-over, buy new minutes plan is no longer in existence, and there is no notice when you are about to run out of minutes. Okay, I have used T-Mobile my entire cell phone experience and been very happy with it. Over.

Medicine. You can’t get an appointment. No one calls you back. No one cares if you live or die, it seems. Doctors job used to be to make you better. Now it seems their job is to make money for the HMO they belong to. This is not the doctor’s fault. But it still means the quality of care is so low now.

It is December 17th, in New England. It is 57 degrees. Absolutely clear sunny sky. There has been one brief snow last week that coated the cars and then promptly melted. This is not winter in New England. Not even.

Nobody I know is doing well. Life problems, health problems, isolation problems. Nothing seems to be going right for anyone. One thing this plague has shown us is how broken our system is. Everything seems to be falling apart all around us, while three or so people are amassing all the wealth there is, leaving the rest of us to just struggle through. People are realizing that working yourself to death for less than a living wage while the people who sit back and do nothing but rake in profit are becoming gazillionaires at the worker’s expense is not a good way to live. More people are leaving those jobs, hopefully for better ones, and thus businesses are understaffed, you can’t always get things you need when you need them, It’s too depressing to continue this line of thought It just all seems overwhelmingly bad, and this is a person who can almost always see a bright side to anything. People are stealing packages in my building. The only time I ever had a package ‘stolen’ before now, that I remember anyway, it wasn’t actually stolen, turns out the mailman just wasn’t bothering to deliver them but saying he did.

I kind of don’t get the ‘accumulating wealth just for the sake of accumulating wealth’ model. Scrooge lives and his name is Bezos, and Musk and Suckerburg, and DD1 calls him. So much could be done with that money. Health care, infrastructure, education, which if you’ve seen the news teachers are grabbing for cash in what is meant to help teachers but is completely degrading and humiliating. Teachers needing to use their own money to buy school supplies for their students should not be used for entertainment, and really explains the ability of so many people to be convinced of really harmful ideas, because education is not a priority. Teaching people to think for themselves and to question everything they are told is at the bottom of the list. And if you think teaching is an easy job that only lasts during school hours, you have no idea at all. NO IDEA. And teachers are very underpaid and it is a shameful stain on our country that they have to use their own money to buy supplies for their students. Use their own money to buy supplies for their students. Obviously, very little of our tax money is being used for our children.

I need to figure out a way to get myself in hand and not be dragged into the black hole again. Been there, never ever ever want to go there again. But you can see why I might be circling around the event horizon.

Okay, I have showered, scooped the litter box, and had coffee. It is nearly 1pm and I woke up at ten. It’s a slow day. Normal for me. Need to eat, but what? My breakfast bar things got stolen from the package they came in, so I have to…..oh, cereal. Don’t normally eat cereal for breakfast, but it’s not too hard. Maybe I scramble some eggs. Or get dressed. Or something.

I hope any readers I may have out there are doing better with all this shit than I am right now, but I am trying, I am fighting, and I am reminding myself of my mantra, ‘Never give up. Never surrender.’ Have put on my Caramelldansen Pandora station and there is a lot of bass (I love bass), and Timmy Trumpet. I also love Timmy Trumpet. ( ‘Party Til We Die’, anyone?) So I guess there is a sort of bright side. Maybe.

This is an actual song, apparently.

I don’t even know. Seem to have lost interest in a lot of things recently. I think it’s just the winter miseries. I have been doing more real-life things, too, so maybe that contributes. This week was the busiest I have had in eons. Sunday was my friend’s visit, Monday I was on the couch all day and could not do the usual Monday get out, so my friend asked if I wanted to do Tuesday instead. Do I!!! So we trekked to the liquor store from my semi-annual stock up, and did a couple of other stores, too. Wednesday. my friend Beth came for a surprise vist. It’s been maybe three years except for about ten minutes last year when she stayed in the hall and we chatted with masks on and she gave me some pressies. This year we went to dinner and had a great time. Thursday, I got my booster shot. Again, no side effects, not even a sore arm. Yesterday I couched again, and it’s too soon to tell what today will be like. But that was a LOT of activity for me, especially ever since the pandemic began.

Something smells horrid in my kitchen and I cannot find anything that might be causing it. Ewwww. Plus, my homemaker bailed again, so I have a lot of catching up to do. The things she would have done. Oh, well. Hoping it’s a good doing things day.

It’s foggy, although it is clearing up slowly. I love fog. We don’t get it nearly as much as we used to, but it’s December and 56 degrees out. Tell me global warming isn’t real. I can see it every day.

Trying to cancel apple tv and can’t make it work. Got a text that my phone service had been suspended with no warning or reason, and cannot sign in to T-Mobile to see WTF is going on. They were bought by Sprint, so maybe it’s time for a change anyway. I’ve always had T-Mobile, buy minutes in advance, no plan and been very, very happy with it, but it’s not T-Mobile anymore, I guess. I don’t believe they should allow companies to absorb other companies like that. No competition means they can do and charge whatever they want and we have no other options. But nobody asked me. Oh, well.

Hope everyone is keeping safe, because it really is NOT OVER, people. Get your shots. Wear your masks. Keep your loved ones save even if you think you are immortal, they are not.

It’s December. Christmas. Snow. Or not. A good month, I think. November was not too bad. I was better there for a bit, then my primary care doctor was not happy with me being on prednisone and does not want to prescribe it any more, so am finding a new rheumatologist to see. The result was I went down a mg, almost immediately got worse, so after about ten days, went back up a mg. My ability to function seems very dependent on prednisone, at the correct dosage.

BUT, while I was being better, I walked up to the Chinese restaurant with my friend Tess, and stopped in at a couple of new shops on the way. This is about half a block away, I think, so no great deal. I had my eyes check, got new glasses, got my flu shot, and all in all I was out Monday and Wednesday one week, and Monday and Tuesday a coulple weeks later. The second Monday, we walked all the way up to the library, which I have not been able to do in eons. Stopped for lunch on the way up, and needed to sit on my walker seat a couple times on the way back, but I did it. Next time, I’m going IN the library. The thing is, I cannot do this on the lower dose. Maybe new rheumy will have some ideas. Oh, I even cooked a couple of times. Now, while waiting for the higher dose to kick back in, I am behind on everything and it’s starting to look messier than usual again and that is all very frustrating. had to cancel homemaker Friday cause could not get it together, then Tess and Ed did not come Sunday because she was in the Santa Parade, and I was feeling crap on Monday, so except for my neighbor stopping by to bring me a package that somebody had opened and stolen half the contents, I have not seen another human for almost two weeks.

I also met my first anit-vaxxer, who strangely enough, has been vaccinated but is dead set against it, citing the thousands who have died from it, and the people who have gotten it and just dropped dead a week later. It was the optometrist where I got my glasses. Tess and I just looked at each other and I said that both our families and everyone we know and my children have all been vaccinated and none has had any side effects, upon which he started going on about the thousands of children who have died. Tried to tell him I do not believe any of his facts are true, but he has done his research, the famous last words of anti-vaxxers who usually go on to die of COVID. Oh, he had horrible side effects from the vaccine, too, according to a very healthy looking him. When I went back to pick up the glasses, he was going on about how he had to boycott this or that company now because they are ‘woke.’ OMG, there is just no hope at all for humanity. Our brains have turned to mush, it seems. It seems odd to be an rabid antivaxxer, when you’ve had the vaccine, doesn’t it? Getting my booster in a week or so, too.

But I am good, and Gertrude is good, and it is 44 degrees out, leaves are still on the trees across the street, and where is winter, Mother Nature? I like snow.