My Strange Hours and Darwin takes No Vacation

After the riot in the Capitol, I became uninterested in television.   I went to bed that night very early, after turning off the coverage.  I get only two networks now, on the TV from the antenna.  My reception changes with weather and season.  Sure I could watch coverage on the computer, but my chair isn't comfortable in here, in my tiny exclusion room, that keeps the computer and the cats apart.

So I went to bed intent on reading.  But my current stock of books consists of four sent me by a friend, trying to clear her house of junk.   And my gosh the first of those four, all from same author, is boring as all get out and puts me to sleep in five minutes.  

These latest books I try to read are crime drama books and this author puts way too much into it.   Come on already.  Get on with the plot if there is one.  It's like she is smoking dope while writing it, and taking a lot of little side trips down alleyways that have nothing to do with anything.

Long story short, been hitting the hay a little early.  That means waking up really early, unless I want to clock in ten hours of sleep a night.   Or more.

I've hoped, ever since I heard of the Darwin awards, not to win one.  One invader of our capitol on the 6th, however, did likely become a Darwin award candidate.  I would vote for him, if tasked with choosing.  This man, with a taser in his pocket, that he apparently forgot was there, was very busy looting, in a frenzy with others.  He reached up to grab for his prize, a portrait of Tip O'Neill, and could feel the thrill of the steal.  Oh wait, that was his pocket tazer deploying on his testicles.   The protracted electrical stimulation also stopped his heart.  So close and yet so far.  Check out previous Darwin award winners here.   I can relate in a way.  I'll just say, don't ride a bike with pepper spray in your pocket.

I have to see my latest new doctor tomorrow, in order to get my prescription filled.   And I'll show her my arm, now with some long hard lump down from my elbow, same one that swelled up a year ago.  Only this time it swelled up just below my elbow joint, and then developed this long hard lump too.  I don't have any idea what's going on.  I hope I don't have cancer.  I couldn't get in about it due to the doctor I once had moving her practise and that clinic closing.  Plus the fact they kind of made fun of me for even coming in with the swelling I had a year ago, on my elbow and told me "quit whacking your elbow", like I ever did that.   Well I'm going in this time, not for that specifically, but because its required, to get my prescription filled but I'll show it to this one to see what she says.  I hope they don't make sport of me.  Why would anyone whack their elbow on purpose anyhow, I thought to myself, after the year ago visit.

The weather yesterday was beautiful.  The sun was out but it was not warm.  Fog shrouded the valley but I broke out of fog into clear blue sky just outside Sweet Home.  I had the two black cats, Baby Blue Eye and ABK in the back of my car, to return.  Their lady would not open the gate for me to enter, to make it easier, so I had to park outside the gate, nosed in off the road.  Her tame sheep Lucy was following her everywhere and she didn't want to open the gate or Lucy might go out on the road.  Lucy is more like a dog than a sheep.  So she carried one trap and I the other through the small people gate beside the car gate, to the house and we turned the pair loose.

They had a good easy recuperation night in my bathroom in front of the heat vent and slept like babies there and ate a lot yesterday morning, before I loaded them to return.

That's all I did, return the cats, besides go get 8 cement stepping stone blocks at Home Depot, to place in the cat yard, so there's less area of mud out there.  The grass dies in the mud every winter, although it lasted longer this year than usual.  But the rain that began in November has never let up really, for much more than a day.  It's relentless this year.

The yard dirt is clay.  Many people on the block bragged about having the clay removed and mixed soil brought in along with French Drains under it.   That's a good way to keep a yard well drained and healthy.  

I unloaded the cement yard stones, that are nearly double the cost they were just a half year ago, and dollied them out into the cat yard and used a trowel to dig out a level area, lined the dug out square in gravel I had already, then sprinkled in sand to fill in the cracks and laid the stone atop that.  It took me only an hour to put out the 8 stones.  They'll sink some, the way I set them, without really a proper base of three inches of gravel, but that's ok for now.  They had these paver setting sheets there, so you don't need a gravel base, but they're over $13 for just one of them, that would hold only two blocks.  What a waste.    

I am lazy to buy these paver stones for $2 each now.  They used to be $1.19, only a few months ago. I could easily make them from ready mix cement, in my garage for gosh sakes, with a home made form.  I'll probably do that next time.   It's something to do also.

Two of the outside cat yard cat houses, that I bought online and put together from a kit, have fallen victim to the rain and were not sturdy to begin with.  They're cute but so poorly constructed.  They will be gone by summer--replaced by something home built and sturdy but not as cute outwardly.

The OHA (Oregon Health Authority) leader is so depressing on TV, full of excuses.  Then the governor called on the National Guard to ramp up vaccinations against COVID after the OHA director said maybe next fall the general population would start to be vaccinated.  That statement angered and depressed a lot of people, me included.  So when the guardsman leader came on, and expressed a can do attitude, and reassured folks the guard can get the job done, I was very relieved and happy.  About time, to get someone on air, who says they can do it, not that they can't.

We still have only one vaccination clinic open in Oregon, at the state fairgrounds in Salem and its only to vaccinate medical profession workers in the two counties around Salem.  People are taken for their word they work in the medical profession and they've had a lot of problems with liars coming through.  The state is fricking full of selfish liars.  What can I say.  

Over the course of the last year, with the pandemic and then the Qanon crap spreading and then the attempted takeover of our government by a lot of people with a lot of issues, as you can see even from the photos, I've finally come to realize that people are not good, for the most part.  I was such a true believer of that concept for too long I guess.  They would have killed those Senators and Reps had they found them, I'm convinced, torn them to pieces in a frothing frenzy.   Without remorse, I came to believe too, so immersed are many of them in conspiracies, like the one claiming democrats are all pedophiles. 

 I've lost so many friends to the Qanon crap.  I can't even talk to them anymore.  I don't even try.  It almost seems like a mass brainwashing and they have no interest in anything but "the cause" and they worship Trump like Jesus.  I don't think anything good for our future anymore.  I just think survival and get cats fixed and come home.  I no longer want to chat with strangers while I catch their cats because I'm afraid they're infected with the virus of Qanon and when they start rattling it off, I almost see the alien worms begin to crawl out of their brains.  So to speak.  So that's what has changed most for me in the last year---witness to the Qanon misinformation virus takeover of American brains.  I want no part of any of it.  I suppose there will also be trouble at the inauguration.   Brave people will go anyway and stand up to it.  Those allowed, that is, due to Covid.

Do I agree with prioritizing teacher vaccination over that of old folks?  I do. The older folks in care homes are being vaccinated in the first stage, along with health care workers and vets.  Second stage is going to be teachers and we do need them to be safe and protected.  The kids need to be back in school in Oregon, in person, although they can be now, if their district decides to do it.  But many districts say they won't open or can't open safely yet.  Getting school teachers and staff vaccinated should help districts make that decision to open up.  The others getting vaccinated 2nd stage are essential workers, like grocery clerks.  They are unsung pandemic super stars.

There are lots of people over 65 in Oregon who still work and want vaccinated to be safe at work.  We all have to wait it out, unfortunately.   The over 70 crowd will be vaccinated before the rest of us too.  The rest of us are the general population are at the bottom of the vaccine priority barrel.   So it will be a long long time before the rest of us can resume a normal life.