Non-rich people electing republicans to protect their interests is a bit like choosing Cruela De Vil to run your Dog Shelter.

Just some things that irritate me.

On a recipe I was reading: ‘substitutes mashed potatoes for parsnips’. Don’t they mean ‘substitutes parsnips for mashed potatoes’? You’re replacing the potatoes with parsnips. What you are substituting is parsnips. What you are substituting them for is potatoes. I see this all the time, and every time, I think, ‘Wait, that’s backwards’.

People who say ‘span’ when they mean ‘spun’. Drives me batty.

People who don’t wear masks in public places. There are vulnerable people out there, just because you’re immune and immortal does NOT mean you should not have consideration for those who are neither. Such narcissistic self-serving selfishness has taken over so many of us. It is disgraceful and I am ashamed of my fellow humans who exhibit this.

That’s all I can think of right now. Very tired today. Woke up at 7:30, fed Miss G, and back to sleep til 12:30pm. The course of the fibro is going really weirdly. I suppose I could say the fibro is being Strangely Peculiar. Ha Ha. Little (very little) joke there. Several days of misery, then suddenly I am better, really better, and able to get things done. Not like ‘sort the mail’ stuff, but ‘move the microwave over there instead’ stuff. ‘Clear off the counter, finally’, stuff. Don’t know what has made the difference. The only real change I can think of is I started taking my thyroid meds at night instead of first thing. But I still have really painful, exhausted, miserable days, so whatever is going on is not a complete fix. I just do as much as I can on those good days, and love every minute of it. Yesterday was a good day except my back really hurt. I think I slept wrong. I was still able to do things, though. Again, serious things. I think doing that while dealing with so much pain is why I am sooo tired today. Whatever is going on, I am just really, really happy to be having these good days. I have gotten a lot of things cleared out, reorganized, rearranged. Happy Jean is happy.

When someone else’s choices destroy your present,

refuse to allow your future to be ruined as well.

Its not the life you had planned on or envisioned.

Someone took a sledgehammer to those dreams.

But you can pick up the pieces & rebuild

bigger, better, and brighter than before.

~Hank R Smith 

And here’s a couple pics of the Albert Bridge, in Chelsea, London, which I first saw on The Chelsea Detective.

Now that things are getting better as far as the virus goes, does stopping all the measures that are causing things to get better, like mask mandates,etc., seem counterproductive? The virus has not suddenly vanished. I am not going to be a bit surprised if things get worse again fast.

Here’s something I wrote to someone today, because ‘rules’. There are now ‘rules’ for shit that should just be for fun or because it makes you happy. Sheesh, people, way to make life even harder than it already is. Anyway a bit tweaked for personal stuff:

Read a post about ‘rules’.  Seriously, everything on line is pretty much ridiculous, if you ask me.  There are tons of things about comparing your reading with others, keeping lists of books you’ve read for that purpose, making reading into a chore instead of a relaxing and sometimes informative pastime.  Rules about blogging. Rules about this that or the other. Made up by who, you may ask. Stupid people, I answer.  Not everything in life is a competition, or a way to make yourself popular or get clicks, or earn money or whatever.  I blog because I have things to say.  Period.  I read because I love to read.  I do whatever I do because it makes me happy.  I couldn’t care less about what other people read, or say how or why I should blog, or whatever rules some moron somewhere has made up for whatever part of life they think they know everything about.  Get off line and do what you love because you love it.  How do you think people survived before the internet started telling them how to live and what to care about?  I lived most of my life without the internet, and I managed just fine, thank you very much.  🙂 Just let yourself be you and do what makes you happy.  That’s really the secret to life, I think.

Here’s a quote from something I was reading. “The U.S. has an illusion of free-market competition in internet service.” This kind of made me laugh, because the U.S. has an illusion of free-market competition in most things, but it really is just an illusion. Competition is disappearing because our government allows companies like Amazon or Microsoft or whoever to buy up anyone who might compete with them. Allows them to buy up companies with better products and destroy them. Lets them do pretty much whatever they want. Pretty soon, one company is going to own everything, and what exactly do we think is going to happen to price and quality then. They can charge what they want and make products as shoddy as they want, and there will be no recourse for us poor consumers out here. Actually, that kind is already happening in some sectors. It’s like the news outlets being allowed to all be owned by one company in an area. This used to be illegal, but now we pretty much get one point of view, probably that right-wing jackass Murdoch’s point of view. Anyway.

The other thing is I am seeing a lot about book-banning and other things that go against the grain. A library board down south has given themselves the power to ban books. One person can cause a book to be banned if the local board is friendly to their prejudices and bigotry and whatever else excuses they use to ban books. So what can we do? How can people step up and fight what is happening in every little town in the U.S.? Start our own libraries? Hand out banned books on street corners? I don’t have the answers, but you know, looking at what is happening in the Ukraine, how individual citizens are fighting back in ways that would not necessary have occurred to me, gives me hope that if people realize what we are losing by standing by and doing nothing, maybe things can change. I certainly hope so. It is frightening, what is happening in my country, and how much it seems to reflect what happened in Germany. What went on that allowed Hitler and his Nazis to take over the country and start a World War and exterminate millions of people. Can’t happen hear, you say? Sorry, but it’s already started. No mass exterminations yet, but surely you can see it happening down the road if we don’t to something to stop them in their tracks NOW. Not later, when it is too late to matter.

Complacency is our enemy. “Why should I care? Nothing bad is happening to me personally.’ That will do it.

We need to step up, people. We need to get them out of our government, out of our libraries, out of our schools. We need to fight back or we as a country are done. Don’t really understand why the Republicans are fighting so hard to this to happen, but we need to fight back. Please. And stay safe. Mandates or no, wear your mask and save lives, not just your own,

Past few have not been great. Today I pretty much slept all day after a not great night. Chronic pain is not your friend. It’s gray and cold and supposed to rain later. I like rain.

My friends got me some ready meals, heat and eat, etc., to tide me over this setback. Yay. Nuke and eat. My kind of food right now.

Reading my two or three days of email, I had 75 earlier, and there is so little good news out there. I think the population has outgrown the planet and we are causing a major disaster, partly just because of the huge number of us, partly because the greed and short-sightedness of so many of us. Our Supreme Court, mainly conservatives appointed by Republicans, are even going against fighting climate change, or so I have read. You can’t avoid this, no matter how much I would like to. I am pleased to see that Russia is suffering actual consequences for invading the Ukraine. Unfortunately, the ones who will suffer the most are the ones who have no say in it anyway. Just regular people trying to go about their lives. Too bad we don’t dole out consequences for the Republican Nazis in our own country.

Got an email from my local library about little things for adults. This one is painting a bird house. It’s in the afternoon, too. I am generally awake in the afternoon. 🙂 But I can’t sign up for it or anything else, because there is no way to know if I would be able to go on the day, and it isn’t fair to take a slot from someone who CAN use it. So that’s that. Not that I particularly want to paint a bird house, but just getting out of here and doing something would be nice.

Sorry, not feeling very cheery today. Gray days will do that, unless it’s snowing or pouring rain. Those make me happy. 🙂 Not feeling great again does not help, either. It’s always such a big let-down when I realize that ‘well, the good days were great, but are gone, gone, gone, yet again’. Bah. Also, Humbug!! It’s why I try to do as much as I can on those good days., You play the hand you are dealt, and make the best of what you have and can do. That’s all I’ve got. Stay safe, people.