I love sci-fi, music, reading, gardening. I am ill, but I am not my illness. Life is good. BTW, have I mentioned that I am a fan girl. Because I Am A FanGirl. Torchwood!
Mark Ruffalo: “”Project 2025 is not a game, it’s white Christian nationalism. It is the Sharia Law of the ‘Christian’ crazy people who aren’t Christian at all but want to control every aspect of your life through their narrow and exclusionary interpretation of Christ’s egalitarian, inclusive, and kindly teachings.”
“Don’t be fooled by Project 2025’s extremist and perverse ideology,Trump is bringing it to all our lives: abortion, LGBTQIA+ rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of education, and equality between the races and genders—GONE. Forced birth and forced religion. Trump’s American Taliban.”
Have to admit it is getting pretty scary. A decrepit old man with dementia will have the power to kill, torture, jail anyone he doesn’t like. Any one he doesn’t like. They don’t even need to have done something specific. This is what we’ve done, by voting for the man who gave you permission to hate and persecute and denigrate without consequences, or by not voting at all, which meant his opponent did not get enough votes to defeat him. You are about to understand consequences. Seriously. Enjoy.
So, I bought this neato Cuisinart one-cup coffee maker. It is so easy and I can set it up the night before and I only have to dump the filter and rinse the holder to clean up. Easy hot coffee. It also does grind and brew. So I finally got some whole beans and pressed ‘grind and brew’ and it ground the coffee into the filter and stopped. Dead. Tried it again bypassing the grind feature and still dead. I have had this thing less than two weeks, and finally tossed the box, because it works, right? Wrong. Frustration. Why is everything made today just shitty? Oh, capitalism. Profit is the only thing that matters. Quality costs more, meaning less profit. I need to go back to bed. Sheesh!
I really should not check instagram and Tumblr in the morning. It ruins the entire day when It becomes very obvious that while we will be sitting around on the fourth of July, barbecuing our hot dogs and burgers, our country is being destroyed by the deliberately engineered ignorance of a huge segment of the population. People who were not taught how to think, how to reason, how to ask questions, but to just blindly believe what they are told and obey unquestioningly. Under-funding schools and under-paying teachers leads to under-educated citizens who have no ability to think for themselves and who it seems are now confusing the Constitution with the Bible. Separation of church and state is getting lost on purpose. If that is the kind of country you want to live in, ruled by fake-Christian dictators, forcing you to live by their idea of what is acceptable (meaning profitable for them), then go ahead and vote Red or even better, don’t vote at all. When you wake up in that country, think about what you have done, but it will be too late.
For years, people have been eating egg white omelets, which in my opinion are an abomination, and today I have seen an article explaining that egg yolks contain choline, which helps stave off Alzheimer’s. My daughter once said to me that she no longer knew what to eat, because the list of what is good for you and what is bad keeps changing all the time. We evolved eating real food. The entire egg, meat, fish, fruits, veg, whole grains. Then food companies thought up new ways to make food more profitable and started scaring us about this so we would buy that instead.
Eat real food, as it comes from the garden or the tree or the ocean or the animal. Eat a variety. Stay away from sugar, stay away from artificial sweeteners, which only allow you to eat things that are really bad for you with less guilt. Remember fat-free? In order to have taste, fat-free was actually sugar-laden. Duck Duck Go sugar. Sugar is not your friend. You can have cake, pie, candy, etc., just don’t eat the whole cake, don’t have pie every single day, don’t snack on candy all the time. Make those things a special occasion treat. A once a week reward for eating really well that week. (Duck Duck Go is a search engine, if you didn’t know)
I have this MS weather thingy in my side bar, and if I accidentally hover over it, it opens up Microsoft Start, which has literally hundreds of articles about which food is good for you, which is bad, which food you should never buy from which store, etc. Thousand of words that amount to click-bait meaningless drivel about food. Zillions of diets out there. This one is THE one this year, it’s really bad for you the next year and another one has taken top spot.
What are the food groups? Who knows? Meat, fish, and poultry. Fruits and veg. Whole grains. Dairy if your body tolerates it. Everything else is not food. It is gimmicks and chemicals and garbage designed to entice you to give that company your money and forget about nutrition. And everything you eat does not need to have sugar in it. I have read that people from other countries consider our bread to be more like cake, because of the sugar content. You can add maybe a teaspoon of sugar to a yeast dough to feed the yeast. No more is necessary. Bread is flour, yeast, salt and water. Read the labels of your store-bought bread. Read the labels of any processed food. Some things have five or six different forms of sugar as ingredients. Why do young people get cancer more now than ever? Why is there so much obesity? Sugar and chemicals in everything we eat. We did not evolve to eat these things and our bodies struggle to manage having them ingested.
Wow. No idea why I am ranting about this today, but something clearly set me off. LOLOL
By the way, this rant is by a person who had a Pure Protein bar for breakfast, and two hot dogs for lunch. Oh, and a Kombucha, but that is a good thing, I think. 🙂
To me, anyway. did not sleep well at all. Finally got up at 11:30, in a lot of pain. Took pain meds, made coffee. LOLOL Forgot to put the mug under the thing. Remembered at the last minute. Put the lid on the coffee holder backwards, so water going everywhere except over the grounds. Unplugged and fixed that. Okay. Feeling really awful, so much pain, but PT person coming. Would have cancelled but I have decided that people need to see me as I am, not just as I am on a day well enough to deal with them. So she came, we hit it off right away and did a lot of laughing along with the exercise, and before I knew it I was feeling much better. Laughing, moving, or just the pain meds kicking in, I don’t know, but it kind of demonstrated that lying on the couch reading when I am in a lot of pain is not necessarily the best solution. As my friend Beth told me, Motion Is Lotion. Guess it works. PT person said every time I choose lying on the couch for one day, I lose three days of progress I have made. Been doing it wrong for years, but nobody told me. LOL
Last week I had the best week I have had in eons. No idea why, but loved it while it lasted. Walked about a block to a restaurant with a friend, using the Rollator, so two blocks total, and the next day had two medical things and took my laptop to the computer guy, so a lot more walking, with the cane, not the rollator. Doctor says I should be using the rollator all the time, will have to work on that. The restaurant was fantastic, btw. Very expensive, but the food was so good. Tiny little place, very Mediterranean vibe, really nice. And a block away. One block. Just the other side of the post office. Who knew? Not me.
Been really hot and humid the past few days, dew point in the upper 70’s, which is like being in sauna. Thank goodness for air-conditioning. Even it struggles to keep you comfortable when it is that humid, but without it I don’t think I could function at all. High humidity is very bad for you, it seems.
Getting more and more concerned about what is happening in my country, and all the things I’ve been seeing about the 2025 project the Republicans plan to implement if they get in. The end of my country, and stepping right into something very similar to Nazi Germany. Vote BLUE people, for god’s sake. VOTE BLUE. However much you disagree with some of Biden’s policies, at least you will still have freedom and safeguards and you can vote him out next time. If you vote Red, or don’t vote at all, it will be the last time you even have the opportunity to vote, to have any say at all into the kind of country you will be living in. Think about it. It is getting scary, people.
Just read a book description from my library wherein the main character was described as ‘unhoused’. Like ‘unalived’ which I see everywhere. Homeless and Dead or Killed are good words people. Prettying them up does not change the meaning. I do not understand humans, even though I am one, as far as I know anyway.
The best description of Doublethink I could find is ‘self-deception’, forgetting what you know is truth in favor of believing what you want to be true. Cults do this to you. Like the Republican Party has become. A cult ruled by a demented orange disgrace. Just a bit of politics here, people, but good grief, what is happening to my country?
Lots has been going on. Had an excellent Saturday, best day in years, and the PT assessor came and I had to tell her I am not always this mobile. Couldn’t she have come on a regular ‘bad’ day to see how I really am most of the time? Came back Monday and I was not as good, but we did a very few exercises and walked the hall with the Rollator, which she said I should be using all the time, instead of the cane. Oh, well. So yesterday, probably completely unrelated to the exercise, was a very not good (LOL) day. Slept most of it as the pain pills took a brief vacation from working. Better today. I am supposed to be getting an occupational therapist, too, but so far have not heard from anyone.
While I was doing well, I got stuff done. I. Got. Stuff. Done. You know how often I am able to get stuff done? Hardly ever. Rearranged the hall closet a bit, the linen closet, and some other things which I have completely forgotten. It is icky now, but I have the a/c on so not too bad in here. I have very thick walls which help to keep the hot and sticky out so long as I don’t open a window. Happy summer!
Saw my doctor yesterday, follow up to discuss meds I am NOT going to take, etc., and she asked how it felt to be 80. Incredible. I can’t believe it. Sometimes I just sit and ask myself how this happened? How did I get to be 80. I don’t seem 80, she says. Nice. At the desk setting up the new appointment, the person commented on my age and said I did not seem it, because she’s seen a lot of 80 year-olds who were in really bad shape. It’s because I’m 12 inside, and it sort of balances it out., is what I told her. The out side may be 80, but the inside is still that kid full of fun and wonder and awe. I knew high school classmates who were already old inside. You get to choose. Choose young and full of beans. It’s a good thing. I said to my friend Tess once, ‘When you look at me, you see a decrepit old lady, and then I open my mouth and out comes “WOW! THAT IS WAY COOL!!!”. Made her laugh.
Actually, there I two things I absolutely believe. I got all the good genes in my lineage, and I was born with the happy gene. I am the person who can have fun spending the day in the hospital while they figured out why I am in such pain I can barely breath. I had a great time. Turns out I had pleurisy. Who gets pleurisy in this day and age? Me, I guess. Anyway, I laughed and I made others laugh, as I am gasping in pain. Yes, I am Strangely Peculiar. Get it? LOLOL
And tired, and just feeling lousy all the time. Have a half-way decent day here and there, but never even the entire day. I want to be outside. I want to do things. I can’t even do the things indoors that I need to do. Getting very down about the whole thing.
On the other hand, I have a new bed set up. But first, I had to buy a step thing that should come today I hope.
And here’s why. This is NOT actually me, by the way. There’s a video, but I cannot figure how to get it from Instagram to here. Darn.
Here’s the bed.
New mattress on top of white pad thing. Makes for a very tall bed. I love tall beds.
You can see who actually owns it.
Need a fake backboard or big picture or wall-hanging or whatever. I bought new pillows, too.
Did an order from Shaw’s. They have GT Kombucha on sale, so I got some, and yogurt, and ready meals because cooking and food prep are just not happening right now, and CAKE. I may have mentioned I have cake once a year on my birthday. I plan to have several birthdays this year because Shaw’s has a fantastic small mocha cake and I am in pain and miserable so I am having CAKE! So there!
Be safe people. The world is getting more dangerous by the minute. Kind of scary. My youngest DD is having some housing and financial issues, and I cannot help. Why is life so hard? Anyway.
Finally having a relatively good day. Think I am over whatever it was I got on April 27th. Finally. Had a check x-ray and blood work and nothing bad going on.
Homemaker service still pretty unreliable, plus me cancelling a couple of times because of feeling like death warmed over, so no trash out for a week and a half. BUT my decluttering helper came today and took it all out and we did some more work in the bedroom. She is fantastic. Homemaker due tomorrow and will have him pull futon from wall, clean there, turn it sideways and open it to bed mode. THEN will open the new mattress and let it do it’s thing for several days. Once I’ve slept on it a bit, if it is not really working, will have him put it UNDER the mattress that is there instead of on top. Fun times.
More work to do, but you should have seen it this morning,. Noooooo.
Decided to turn on A/C yesterday, as it was getting pretty humid. Instead of cool air, it blasted out heat. Fiddled with it as much as I could, but nothing worked. Called maintenance. Waited, waited, waited. Decided to turn off breakers, but called elec co first to check it that’s a good idea. NO. Called maintenance. It is now 92 degrees in here and I have two windows open. Finally, maintenance calls back, I tell Neil about elec co, TURN OFF THE BREAKERS, he says. Screw the electric co, say I. So he came this morning and fiddled with the unit on the roof and replace a part, and it may be 82 with a dew point of 42 (not that bad, really) out there, but it is very comfortable in here. I have it set to 72 and I leave it and the central heat on one temp all the time. I think it’s 68 winter. Maintenance says that is much better than changing the temp day and night. Got something right for a change. 🙂
I have been in a lot of pain recently, and have taken tylenol twice today to be sort of functional. Barely, but better than not being able to get off the couch. So over pain and exhaustion. Never over me, though. Oh, well.
Beautiful sunny day out there. Really wish I had a balcony.
Here’s a quote that really applies to today, and to me. Respect? I don’t think so. More like disgust.:
“If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.” Cicero
From Britannica.com: Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer who vainly tried to uphold republican principles in the final civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic.
Went out Thursday, went to Joann’s because my friend needed some things. She is a sewer. I am so not. LOL Anyway, I was tired and in pain and needed an energy boost. Checked the candy bars in the checkout line. 2.59 for a small almond snickers bar. 2.59. Did not buy. Went to Shaw’s after and the exact same bar was 1.59. Did not buy but not because of price. Everything else in Joann’s seemed excessively over-priced as well. Maybe this is why they declared bankruptcy. My friend mentioned that there were hardly any shoppers in there, either.
But then in Shaw’s, I was equally as appalled by the prices of a lot of things. How are people meant to feed their families, when greed is more important than anything else? I get why some things are more costly. Eggs, because of bird flu, products with flour, because a lot of it comes from the Ukraine, and they are kind of being decimated by Russia at the moment. But some things are just ridiculously overpriced.
There are a lot of things I just don’t buy anymore, and there is only one local fast food place I still order from, because while they are more expensive than they were, it is not excessive, and the food is very, very good. They even make their own chicken soup, which I had while sick, and it was quite tasty. Even better the next day, too.
So greed is not good, in spite of what corporate America believes, and I hope they all pay the price for it, and soon.
I seem to have fallen into a slump. No idea why. Just cannot seem to get it together. Example: Got up before 8am, yay me. Took a shower, came in and sat on the couch and then just sat there for half an hour. Could not decide what to do next. What to have for breakfast? There is nothing easy, wound up having coffee and nothing else. Sat some more. Decided to fold Friday’s laundry, discovered it is still wet. He did run it through the dryer, I thought. Not soaking wet, but not dry. So kind of just spread it out on the furniture to dry. Got dressed. Decided to eat, again could not decide what so no eating. For some reason, my birthday was the start of the slump. So this is the third day. Bored? Lonely? Still not recovered from being sick? Did not get cake. Cheesecake instead, which is nice, but not the same thing at all. I was looking forward to cake. With frosting. Is that a reason to fall into the blahs? IDEK, but I do not like feeling like this. Just blah. I’ll get over it. I always do. Bah! Also, humbug! 🙂
Actually, it is me. It’s mah birthday. Woo Hoo. Of course it is yet another gray and rainy day in the 40’s, but the trees are still in bloom and later I am having CAKE. I only have cake about once a year, on my birthday, so it’s a treat. My friend Tess gets a little two-serving cake from the grocery, and we split it.
Still sick, but getting better faster, achy all over, too, but took the pain meds, so yay. Listening to my Rusted Root station on Pandora, so that’s good, too. Ignoring the world today. Can’t fix it, not going to stress for today at least. Oh, and I had chicken soup from the local pizza joint this week. They make it themselves, and it was pretty good. Even better the second day reheated. So yum. Not sure if chicken soup really helps when you are sick, but it makes you think it does, so that works. Right? Anyway, happy birthday to me. Can’t believe I made it this far, but really glad I did. Life is good. Pay attention and enjoy every minute of it.
You have to ask yourself what kind of humans value profit over saving people’s lives, but just look around you and the question will be answered. I remember when blogging was fun.
‘Affordable Connectivity Program, which is a federal program managed by the FCC meant to offer people living on low-income assistance with their internet bills. Of course, we can’t all have nice things. On Tuesday, the FCC said that since Congress has not approved new funding, the agency has had to make massive cuts that will mean far fewer people receiving aid for high-speed internet.’ From here: https://gizmodo.com/how-to-tell-if-your-isp-is-ripping-you-off-1851399788
I have this, and have been notified it is ending this month. “Congress has had to make massive cuts’. Tax the rich, for crying out loud. They have all the money and we just stand by and let the country go to ruin while they keep it. Why?
strangely peculiar 