Finally. We are in sad need of it. I like rainy days, too. It’s chilly and gray and may turn on the fireplace. Am having coffee with cinnamon in it. Just sprinkled some in the basket before turning it on to brew. Very nice. Supposedly cinnamon is good for you, too.

The muscle relaxer prescribed by my doctor helps with the pain. Not enough, but some. Unfortunately it is wasted, because all I do is sleep, so pain is not an issue. So I had to quit taking it. Being awake is a good thing in the daytime. I’m thinking chiropractor or acupuncture or what? I don’t have a clue what to do. It’s very debilitating, because most of the time I can’t even stand up straight, or stand up for very long. Wash one dish, go sit for a bit. That kind of thing. I cannot seem to catch a break. Every time one thing seems to get better, something else pops up to mess things up again. I did get a regular homemaker for once a week. Not for very long, I just tell her what’s most important, like unloading the dishwasher and vacuuming, she does it and goes. She takes the trash out, too, which is a good thing. I used to get 4 hours a week before the pandemic. I think I’m lucky to get any time at all now. The people who do these jobs, and working in restaurants, and stores and whatever are risking their lives for us. I’m not sure lot of us appreciate that.

Got my ballot, filled it out, need someone to take it to town hall for me. I am not mailing it, and I’m sure you have read enough about the Post Office to know why.

AND, they have messed with WordPress again and it is the block editor page that I had done away with some time ago. Cannot figure out how I did it, so I guess I will learn to use this. Why does everyone feel the need to fix things that aren’t broken?

I need to figure out something for winter, because I am already getting a bit wonky from the shorter days and the isolation and the closed windows. I need a project or something. Something I can do in spite of pain and cramping hands and whatever other fun things mother nature sends my way.

Meanwhile, it’s October. I love October. It is so colorful here in New England.

The flare is over. One day flare. Had those many, many times. Slept all day, up a few hours, slept all night. Woke up feeling okay, and the back isn’t even too bad so far.

Reading my emails, which I absolutely should not do first thing.

From The Guardian:

James Baker will vote for Trump. The Republican former secretary of state told the authors of a new biography he considered voting for Biden but decided re-electing Trump “was worth it to get conservative judges, tax cuts and deregulation”.

If you think any of them are on your side, are looking out for your best iterests, this is what they are really looking out for. I may have mentioned that even Bill Gates has said he would vote for Trump if it meant no tax increase. How rich is he? Those taxes that we have to pay because we are not rich enough to hire lawyers who specialize in finding loopholes, those taxes pay for infrastructure, police, fire, healthcare, schools, etc. If you already have more money than you can spend in several lifetimes, why would giving up a bit of it to make the world better for everyone else be such a bad thing? Just so you know the kind of people you are voting for, or allowing to succeed by failing to vote.

Also from The Guardian

Donald Trump fuelled growing concerns about his post-election intentions on Wednesday, when he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose in November

If you think this isn’t the end of our country, I think you may well be very, very wrong.

Fun, fun, fun. This is the second time recently I’ve noticed a connection between the weather and a flare. It was 62 yesterday. It is 78 today. It actually started yesterday, with various pains. My fingers ached. My arms, too. Pains in my legs. But annoying is all. Did not sleep well, and woke up to the alarm feeling like many, many semis had run over me. This one is gorgeous, though.

So slept most of the day, am up now and sprayed a couple of window glides with WD40, and opened one in the bedroom. Am going to attempt to open one by the desk in a minute. I hope. Have to move a couple of things, like the plants and the small, light desk in order to get decent leverage and not do more back damage. Someday I am going to live in a nice place, with windows that work, hardwood floors instead of eons-old crappy wall-to-wall, and better closets. New stove and dishwasher. A porch, balcony or possible an actual yard. (I almost typed ‘garden’, I read way too much Brit fiction.) Hey, if you’re going to dream, dream big, right? However, an actual garden would be nice, although I doubt I can take care of one now.

I feel really terrible, but I am used to it. How great is that? Not great at all, let me tell you, but after more than two decades of chronic illness, you either get used to it, or you cannot survive.

Warming up the last of my shepherd’s pie, which is actually cottage pie by what I’ve read because it’s made with beef not lamb. I make my own version of this, which we always called Nancy’s Casserole, because I got the recipe from a friend named Nancy lo these many years ago and being from Colorado I had never heard of shepherd’s pie. Brown the ground beef, add a can of drained veg of choice although I love creamed corn in it, add a jar of chicken or turkey gravy, top with mashed potatoes and seven pounds of grated cheddar. Well, maybe not SEVEN pounds, but a good bit. I like cheese. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes. Dinner. Yum. You can do it all right in the iron skillet, too, from browning to baking. Use good beef so not much grease to drain off.

Am in a much better frame of mind than yesterday. It comes and goes. Sometimes I am just so angry and hopeless and then I kind of rally and just try to get on with things. You can’t stay angry all the time, you need to compartmentalize, like with pain, so it doesn’t consume your entire being. My being wants to have fun, people. Miss G has a vet visit next Tuesday, and I am hoping to be well enough to go with my friend Tess, who is taking her there. You call when you get there, once they answer, which can take many, many redials, they come out and get the pet, then when the pet is ready, I assume they call you and you pick her up and pay with your phone. Not sure how that works, but Tess has done it with her dog, so she’ll know. If I am up for going, we are going to Dunkin Donuts for frozen coffee. Just sit in the car and drink and chat. It’s a good thing. We used to do it regularly, but it’s only been one time since mid-March. This will be the second time I’ve gone out, except for when we had the fire alarm. Tess is out and about all the time, shopping, visiting friends (outdoors with masks) and I admit to being a bit concerned for her.

Gertrude has turned out to be the best cat, after that whole ‘let me destroy everything in sight’ phase. She comes up and rubs her face on mine, stands back, repeats, then goes about her business. How can you not love that?

Okay, my warmed up dinner has dinged the toaster oven, so if anyone has connected flares and weather and wants to tell me about it, I’d love the comments. Thank you, dear readers.

First, healthcare became a business, all about profit rather than health. Now it is a political weapon. If you worship the orange man, you are against masks; if you are a normal human with a working brain, you wear a mask. How did we get to this point of gross stupidity? Trump says this that or the other, and people die for believing him. People have drunk bleach, because he said to. They refuse to believe science and instead believe a real estate failure/tv personality. Have I stepped into an alternate universe? People dancing down the aisles of Target, shouting ‘no masks’. Personally, I don’t care if they all die, which I think is the real Republican goal, but what about the innocents around them who will also die. A wedding in Maine is killing people who were not even there. Because once you are exposed, you expose everyone around you This is what I don’t get. The utter self-centered selfishness of Republicans. I am not saying Democrats or any other party do not have issues as well, I am saying that these particular Republican issues kill people. And no one gets it, or seems to care.

I should not be surprised. If you look at history, humans have never been the most sensible, compassionate, caring species. We do horrid things to one another, and every revolution, every stand meant to make things better, in the end winds up the same, because to quote Jon Kabat-Zinn, wherever you go, there you are. No matter how many try, the basic human traits wind up winning. Over and over and over. Greed, selfishness, hate, we torture each other, murder each other in horrific ways. Disillusioned human here. Seriously disillusioned. A good many people fought and a lot died so the world would not be ruled by Nazis. What is happening now? Nazis are taking over again, and how many of us are complicit, how many actually welcome this? I don’t understand my species, and I wish those good and caring and unselfish and wonderful people were the ones who were in the forefront, but it always seem to be the bad, uncaring, selfish ones who are on top.

I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know that it is fixable. I just want to curl up in a cave somewhere and pretend I am not a member of the human race. Being ‘Christian’, quoting Jesus and referencing God frequently, does not seem to have any meaning at all as far as how we behave. How we treat each other. Christianity is, I thought, about what Jesus taught. Jesus. You know. Christ. After whom Christianity is named. How many Christians do you know who even have an awareness of what Jesus taught. They use his name, but I can call myself anything I choose. It doesn’t mean I believe or live the tenets of whatever I am calling myself. It’s just a name. I do not want to feel like this anymore. I want to be happy and hopeful and feel good about my fellow humans. Maybe I should take up drinking, or drugs? Mental oblivion. It’s a good thing? IDEK.

From Enviroflash:

NOTE: There has been significant wildfire smoke aloft for the past several days, which has been really impacting sunshine and visibility aloft. However, none of the smoke has been reaching the surface, and air quality has been VERY GOOD. For Thursday, mild, with southwest flow, temperatures into the mid 70s, with continued GOOD air quality. If any smoke reaches the ground, it will be very brief and with minimum impact. A strong front passes overnight, with a chance of showers early Friday as a coastal low develops offshore. Strong northeast winds, much cooler temperatures, sunshine, and GOOD air quality lasting into Saturday.

My asthma still disagrees. I really hope the rain forecast pans out. We need it badly, and I miss rain anyway. It used to rain a lot here, sometimes for days at a time. That has not happened for several years. Climate change happening before my eyes. 😦

I don’t understand this. These are from airnow.gov.

We are in the smoke. Then there is this, for my town:

How is it possible that we have good air quality? My asthma is acting up, for one thing. The sky at daybreak was weird-looking, too. Is the smoke so high up that it is passing right over us with no effect? My asthma disagrees.

In other news, I feel like crap, yet again. Everything hurts, and I have next to zero energy. Zapping a slice of pizza is a major to do, and I have to lean on the counter while I get the box out of the frig and put the pizza on a plate, and again as I wait the 90 secs it takes to take the chill off it. I won’t even go into reaching up to grab a plate from the cupboard. I am so over this.

From the fires out west. https://www.airnow.gov/

Here’s a bunch of places you can check:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/true-5-factchecking-websites/

Cool Whip is fake whipped cream. There is a recipe online to make fake Cool Whip. It’s whipped cream.

It has cooled off dramatically, and I am now wearing my favorite long-sleeved shirt. Beautiful day, fluffy white clouds, breezy. It’s all good. I went back up to 7 mg prednisone yesterday, because I was just getting less and less able to move every day since I went down to 6. Already better today. Not great, but better. Also took the 8-hour Tylenol and am hoping to actually do some food prep today. I googled how to eat healthy without having to do food prep, but came up with nothing unless I want to buy meals on line, which I would if the darn delivery services would bring packages to my door like they used to instead of just dumping them in the lobby. If I can’t move, I can’t go down and lug up packages. Frustrating. They stopped proper delivery long before the pandemic, so that’s not their excuse for poor service. I don’t know what is. UPS was always great, FedEx was always terrible, but no difference now. Terrible all around.

I’m not looking forward to winter, because closed windows and feeling even more isolated. Even during the summer, I closed the windows on a really yucky day and my mood just plummeted. I need that feeling of connection to the outdoors, but even if I could stand being frozen, I can’t do that to Miss G. She’s still a bebe. Well, she’s 15 months old. Still a bebe to me. If I continue on the road to feeling better, I am hoping to be able to play with her more. Some days I could not do it at all, and she needs the exercise and the fun. She is a real sweetheart, and I want to do my best for her.

This is my futon, but the mattress is different and the color is lighter. Like you care. LOL I’m thinking that maybe if I could stop sleeping on the couch it might help my back, but for some unknown to me reason I cannot sleep on the futon. Even if I sleep, I wake up feeling like I need to go to bed, and wind up sleeping half the day away on the couch. I’d open it up to a bed and try that again, but I do not have the strength right now. Maybe a new mattress for it would help, but I am not Mrs Gotrocks. Life is hard. Good thing there are funny videos on line. And QI. I do love QI.

Hoping the country, and the world, gets a brain soon and works to change the mess this administration has created for us. And the English government is just as bad, so get those brains working, you Brits.

Oh, heck. Something delicious-smelling is cooking somewhere and the aroma is blowing right in my windows. Drat. I’d really like a pizza and mozzarella sticks, but Papa Gino’s won’t guarantee that the driver will bring them up to my door, so no pizza for Jean. 😦 Living alone is hard when you are kind of house-bound. No one to go out and get the things you want/need for you. On the other hand, and yes, I always say this, there is always an other hand, no one to have to worry about. Just the cat. She’s pretty darn self-sufficient, so long as I put out food and water and scoop the litter box every time I go into the bathroom. Also, cats are bendy. I like bendy. I may have mentioned that before, too. 🙂 Stay safe, and please vote them out. Thank you.

Everywhere I look, it’s the orange man did this, the orange man knew that, the orange man is scum. Do any of his worshipers really care? Can you tell anyone in a cult anything negative about their cult leader and expect it to make any kind of difference to them? I don’t think so. When you are that level of brainwashed, there is no changing your mind about anything. The only recourse we have is to get out and vote. Vote them out. Stand up for what is right.

I am good. Yay. Except for the back thing and not being able to stand up for more than a minute or so at a time. Hard to get anything done that way. Happy to have a homemaker coming, even if there is a risk involved. I need the help right now. Had a bit of a scare yesterday, though. She opened the door several times without me even noticing, since I was laptopping, and when she was leaving, asked where the cat went. OMG. Called Miss G, rattled the treat jar, called some more. No cat. We looked everywhere for her. Homemaker left. Called Miss G some more. Waited awhile. Called her again. No cat. Here is a person who can barely stand. Mustered my paltry resources and went to both stairwells while leaning heavily on the cane and the wall, opened the doors and called the cat. Simon used to escape and run up the stairs. Anyway, got on the elevator, called her and checked the halls on all four floors, no cat. Came back, opened door. Cat. Really, Gertrude. You usually come when I call you, and always come for treats. WTF? Did not panic, but was imagining life without her or having to go door to door to see if anyone took her in. I would have to get someone to come and do that for me, though, cause I cannot stand long enough for that. So Miss G and I are going to work on the whole ‘come when I call you, gosh darn it’ thing.

It is a humid, gray day. Maybe it will do some real rain later. We are in a drought here in Southeastern Mass. Better than being in California right now, though. I cannot imagine trying to breath in that mess, mask or no, especially if you have asthma like I do. They did warn us these things would happen. Decades ago. No one cared, though, because doing something might interfere with their profit margins, and we all know that is a definite no. Profit above any and everything else. Capitalism for the win, if you are an extremely rich white guy. Not so winning for the rest of us. Also Suckerberg just seems worse and worse the more I read about him. I miss a few people I followed on Instagram, but otherwise, do not regret no Facebook at all. Orange sky, anyone?

Haleyscomic.com

I acquired thirteen new followers on Tumbler, most yesterday, but one or two today. I get a new follower every now and then, not often at all. Not complaining, of course, but weird. What did I post that was so great? Someone called me a shitty person on there, maybe that was it.

Am I a shitty person? Probably. I’ve spent most of my life being confused, because I do not understand social cues or rules or whatever, and have always felt like I spent most of my time saying and/or doing the wrong thing and not knowing what was wrong about it. Mild Asperger’s. Self-diagnosed through Asperger site’s online tests. Explains a lot. I am more like Sheldon than Leonard or Penny.

It is not pleasant to think you may have been a shitty person and not even realized it, but that’s the breaks, right? Too old to get overly upset about it now, but does make me see myself in a new light. Not necessarily a good one. 😦

In other news, my friend Tess went to Boston with her friends yesterday, fell and hit her head and fractured some ribs. Big hole in a grate on the sidewalk. Really, Boston. Cover it up or plant something in it or whatever. She is okay, but I can imagine not feeling that great today. Weirdly enough, I hadn’t heard from her yesterday, which is not at all unusual, and yet I felt worried that I hadn’t, which is unusual. Yes, I am psychic. So is she. LOLOL Actually, we do sometimes notice weird things like that. Glad the head injury wasn’t serious, although she said it bled a lot. They all went to lunch afterwards. Hello, I am bleeding all over the place, but I’m hungry so please serve me lunch. She said the waitress brought her ice in a towel or something. I have strange friends.

Have a whole list of things I want to cook, and I can barely stand up long enough to pour the water into the cup for tea. I love tea, btw. Irish Breakfast or Tetley’s, especially. Wish I knew how to fix the back thing, because it is seriously impacting my ability to do anything at all. I have tried ice, and I have tried using the heat pad. Neither helped, although the heat pad feels great. Once I stand up, though, any benefit immediately vanishes.

I am avoiding anything political or virus-related or just unpleasant in general. I have really had it with being angry and feeling helpless. If the idiots are going to vote them back in, and the country goes down the tubes, there is nothing I can do but try to survive the consequences. Same with my family. I wish I was the rich mother everyone could count on for help, but unfortunately I am not.

Not a bad day overall, although I was really tired last night, fell asleep early, woke up early, and after taking meds and hygiene and all, fell back asleep until 1:30. Woke up a few times but literally could not keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds. Did I drug myself and forget about it? I don’t have any knock-out drugs, so that can’t be it. Had canned beets and cooked a black and blue burger for dinner. Put frozen burger in skillet, cook five minutes while sitting at desk, flip, cook five minutes, repeat all twice more. Well-done burger. Very little standing. Black and blue burgers are from my favorite grocery store, Market Basket (well, fav after Trader Joe’s) and have blue cheese mixed in the meat and each patty is rolled in crushed black pepper. Oh, yum. They are only available in the summer, so I always freeze some to have on hand.

Okay, I guess that’s it. Stay safe, people. And please, think of someone other than yourself, wear a mask, and vote them out.

Delta Support

This is who you are voting for? This is the country you want to live in, your children to grow up in? This?

This Is Not The American Way.

By the comments on this article. Two strip-mall owners fired shots at some black (but of course, would they shoot at other white people? I doubt it) people returning a U-Haul truck. The victims are suing U-haul and the shooters. The comments are all about complaining to U-Haul. What am I missing? How is any of this U-Hauls fault? The owners don’t own U-Haul, they own the mall U-Hall is doing business in.
I do not understand this. Anyone?

Shot at by White People While Returning U-Haul Truck

If I don’t catch the virus. Homemaker came and completely cleaned the kitchen in half an hour, and offered to come back Friday to do more. Then I ordered Chinese food I have not had Chinese food in six months or more. It is soooo good. I do wonder why we don’t get the variety of Chinese food they get in England, going by what I read in fan fiction. They have all sorts of interesting-sounding dishes I would love to try. We get breaded fried chicken with pink corn syrup sauce. How is that sweet and sour chicken. They don’t even sell sweet and sour pork anymore. But right now, I am just happy to have Chinese food again. I ordered a lot, because I tip well and want it to count for something, so I have at least three meals here. Yay. Ignoring the shit today, as much as I can, too.

Saw a very nice show on Britbox last night. McDonald & Dodds. I liked it a lot, and it is filmed in Bath, which I’ve never really seen and is beautiful. I will never get to England, but if I did, I would definitely go there. Anyway, really good show if you like quirky cop shows. Which I do. I do like Britbox. Worth the money, in my opinion. Lots of good British shows. Acorn tv is good, too. Why just stick to Netflix when for a few dollars a month you can get a lot more.

Also, it rained all afternoon, which was fantastic! Happy, happy Jean is happy happy. 🙂ethan barnowsky

This is from The Daily Kos. This is just mind-bogglingly depressing to think that our elected officials are this kind of people, and that people actually keep voting for them. That’s the worst bit.

To make matters worse, Trump has compared the police shooting of Jacob Blake to a missed golf putt, and has even defended the murderer of the two protestors.

As these events unfolded, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called for a special session to address police reform within the state. By law, the Republican-led state legislature complied, but then adjourned the session after 30 seconds. Wisconsin state law doesn’t require lawmakers to participate or vote on bills during a special session — they can simply convene the session and adjourn, which is what they did.

Wisconsin state Republicans have been playing power games like this for over a decade. They have shown little regard for democracy, civil rights, working families and now even the lives of the people of Wisconsin. With elections in November, Wisconsin Republicans are hoping to pick up even more seats and secure a supermajority where they can have the power to override the Democratic Governor’s vetoes and stop any real progress that could happen.

Edith Holden

Really hope it’s better than August, summer in general, and the whole year up to now, because it has been a really insane country so far. Please wake up, people. See the lies, see the harm, see the hate. And change things.

I called the agency yesterday and am getting someone to come in, because I just cannot get anything done most of the time. She will come tomorrow or Thursday. Hope it will be a weekly thing, but not sure yet. It’s a case of balancing the risk of exposure and living in a rubbish heap. I am going to risk exposure, because the place has never been this messy, even at my lowest, health-wise. This is the longest I’ve been without someone coming in to do what I can’t, and it definitely shows. Took some pain meds first thing, and am ever so slightly more mobile so trying to get a few things done. Very few. But I’m trying. Have not been able to do much of anything at all for some time, even with pain meds. I don’t know why I got so much worse, but I am done with it now and ready to be better again please. It does not seem to be just the regular fibro flare problems. I have never been incapacitated in quite the same way, and the brain fog doesn’t seem like brain fog, but something else altogether. I cannot think clearly a lot of the time, I can’t remember things for more than a few seconds sometimes. It’s like there’s a glitch in my brain or something, and sometimes it works just fine. I am a cat. I read that cats deal with things like pain by just making it part of the new paradigm. I’m like that. ‘Oh, serious pain, can’t move, will just try to work around it and learn to live with it.’ Probably not the best response, but it’s all I can do most times.

Meanwhile, it’s AUTUMN, my favorite time of the year. I love October best, but September is good, too. Meteorological summer officially starts today. It is based on temperature and such, not where the sun is, like the astronomical start to summer, the equinox, is. I prefer the weather-based choice.

I am so hoping things get better for everyone, but not at all confident that’s going to happen. Trying to avoid too much negativity, because it’s hard enough coping with pain and fatigue without adding the stress of a nation gone bonkers and wallowing in hatred at the same time. God, where did we go so wrong?

But again, it is fall. Is it ‘fall’ because the leaves do?

But a paper published on Tuesday in The BMJ (formerly The British Medical Journal) argues that the six-foot rule is an oversimplification descended from 19th-century science. Instead of single, fixed distancing rules, the authors propose graded guidelines to better reflect the many factors that determine how dangerous a given setting might be.

What does that mean in practical terms? The general scientific consensus, according to Andrew Joseph, Helen Branswell and Elizabeth Cooney of Stat, is that indoors is riskier than outdoors, large groups are riskier than small groups and prolonged contact is riskier than brief contact. Loud talking, heavy breathing, singing and screaming also raise the risk of viral spread.

Happy Jean is happy.

Sports is big in this country. So big. I live near Boston, sports capital of the world. Athletes using their power to fight racism and injustice. This is a very, very good thing. This man was shot IN THE BACK seven times by police for leaning into his car, and the murderer in Kenosha was allowed to go home for the night before being arrested for MURDER. The police chief praised him for coming (from another state) to save their town’s businesses. I believe that’s why he was there. Wait, no I fucking don’t. He came ready to kill and kill he did and Fox News is also praising him. Am I in an alternate reality here? Is this 1930’s Germany? Ask the Germans how that worked out for them. WTF, America. From what I’ve read about the republican convention, there was nothing about what they plan to do for you or for the country, it was who they hate and fear and how you should hate and fear the same people. Hate and fear as a political agenda. In MY country. Anyway, here’s a bit from The New York Times:

“Professional sports seasons seemed in doubt, as athletes staged walkouts to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was partly paralyzed after a white police officer shot him in Kenosha, Wis., this week.”

Another thing that bothers me though, is rioting. When terrorists and suicide bombers and the like do their thing, does that make us feel bad and want to rectify whatever issue they think they are angry about? I don’t think so. I think it makes us hate them. When peaceful protests turn into burning and looting and smashing, how on earth does that help your cause? It just makes more people angry and convinces more people that you really are dangerous. I’m all for protesting, I’d be out there carrying signs if I was able, but I have to draw the line at deliberate destruction and harm. It serves no useful purpose. That’s just my opinion, I know, but it believe it is a good one.

On a health note, I am feeling much better today and even did a bit of cleaning, but I cannot stand up for more than a few minutes without pain. The rest of me almost feels human again, though, so yay.

Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images