Status update: I had felt myself fighting off this year's version of COVID so I didn't think twice about visiting someone who wasn't sure whether weakness and a chest cough were reactions to going diabetic, to medication, to flu or to COVID. I didn't even think twice about nibbling chips from the same plate, which was probably a mistake. In my defense I'll say that this person is relatively young, is pure White so far as is known, gets plenty of exercise, and generally should not have to worry about diabetes for another decade at least, so person's being sent home with an insulin kit disturbed my mind considerably. I know how to prepare the kind of meals that reverse diabetes for people like this person. I don't know whether, in today's world of poisoned and gene-spliced vegetable foodoids, the McDougall Diet would do person more good than harm. And I had to (I didn't cry, but I still might) tell person so.
On New Year's Day, I have a deep chest cough and feel just slightly feverish. Could be COVID, could be flu, could be the unholy alliance of both about which we've been warned. Before coming online I've already pretended not to be at home so as to avoid breathing on the first visitor of the new year. Don't visit me. I have provisions, I'm not diabetic, I don't anticipate any real discomfort from COVID this year either, and I've never noticed a difference whether the first visitor was male or female. If the lights go out during the anticipated Big Freeze, I have emergency plans. They do not include underestimating the virus but I don't think I'm glyphosate-damaged enough to need to do anything but stay warm, avoid really heavy overwork or party pig-outs, sit down if I feel faint, and stay away from people who are or might be at any real risk.
Which youall should do, too, if you notice anything in the way of a chest cough. Coronavirus is still insidious stuff, mutating ahead of whatever vaccines you've had, popping up and turning nasty on people who either think it's a nothingburger or don't even know they've got it. COVID coughs can potentially open hernias or cardiac surgery scars. Multiple vax for other mutations do not put your immune system ahead of the virus, quite the contrary, so I recommend asking a doctor who does not just recommend all the COVID vaccines to everybody, a policy that's breaking very bad news for some doctors who've followed it. If you have a jab, be sure it's relevant to the version of COVID that is actually in your neighborhood. In many places a relevant vaccine won't be available. Just do quarantine as if everyone's life depended on it, is all I can say.
To those who really are in mortal danger from COVID, condolences--vaccines may or may not buy you one more year. Write letters. We all need to stand by our Postal Service.
To the neighborhood odd jobs man, I had to pay a late fee to get the primary address at the bottom of this web page reopened, so can't afford to go shopping, and you should stay as far from me and my relatives, including the Professional Bad Neighbor, as you can get. He'd breathe any kind of virus on you and probably snicker through his twisted mouth while doing it. I would not. Most of my relatives would not knowingly breathe any virus on anybody, but are healthy enough not to know when they have COVID.
To the Bad Neighbor, why don't you come up and say hello to everyone? You can tell who's got COVID by who runs out to give you a handshake, or even a cousinly hug.
The lights already went out this week. They were restored when The Infernal Grid That Needs To Be Broken Up Before Our Enemies Exploit It was scheduled for restoration. I knew it was The Grid, itself, because the young person sitting in an office in (I think) Ohio said confidently, right away, without finding other reports on the same line or sending anyone to check the line, when my lights would come back on--and they did. Innovative young men deliberately chose to disconnect customers' electricity for more than 24 hours in December. They were working on connecting more local lines to each other, expanding The Grid's power to zap whole cities' and counties' business and create instant emergencies endangering multiple human lives, when they badly needed an order--by federal law if necessary--to keep America resilient by shortening existing connections, with a goal of making every house its own primary source of solar energy.
Then the lights went off again, right away, for a few more hours while actual workers checked the actual line. They did not inspect the whole line for dead trees, which was probably a bad idea; they had the whole day and the December Thaw weather. The power outage did further damage to the Internet connection, which has been fading in and out ever since. Yes, the company owe me money for this, and no doubt owe lots of other people even more, since most people had a lot more things plugged into the walls when the lights went off. Yes, this winter's legislature needs to establish a firm procedure for collecting that money, as well as a time line for solarization and energy independence that imposes a fine for even whining about building new plants until every house has clean reliable energy for 72 hours after any sort of problem with The Grid. "Treasonous" is not too strong a word to embed in legislation mandating the slow but steady breakdown of The Grid.
If you've sent real mail and it's been returned, please re-send it--the box is open again. I wasn't too far away to have gone into Gate City between Election Day and Holy Innocents Day, but I neglected to do that and thus failed to receive the annual reminder to pay the PO box rent.
If you've sent e-mail and it's been ignored, kindly assume further Internet connection trouble, in which case I'll go to McDonald's again after being symptom-free for a week.
If you are delivering any bottled water, or belated Boxing Day gifts, or anything else, and don't already know this: Do not touch anything or come inside the yard. Leave it on or behind the block beside the road. You will not see me, but I plan to be sitting up in a place from which I can see the block, throughout quarantine. I will go out when the road is clear of traffic.
I don't expect this to happen but, if you must leave an animal, please leave a note (in plastic and/or under pebbles, as necessary), go home, wait 24 hours, and then deliver our furry friend, in a box with its blanket, toys, and food treats if possible. Look for a note indicating alternative directions before releasing an animal--there will probably be one. Please be sure any fowl, or adorable tame rodents, are in a secure cage, and tie any dogs to a tree or post with a lead that will hold them.
If the weather gets bad enough to justify even one more worn-out joke about Al Gore, plans have been made. Otherwise I'll probably be either in the warm room or on the screen porch, probably huddled inside a pile of hand-knitted things. Multiple layers of cheap acrylic yarn will hold body heat longer than anybody wants to find out about at single-digit temperatures. You may buy some and find out after I emerge from quarantine, which should be in time to watch the inaugural festivities on TV. Any knits I may have handled during COVID will be washed with disinfectant before they're shown for sale, if they ever are. The blanket shawl, tabard, and sample-patch blankets that I use are not and have never been offered for sale.
Medical Care
First a grumpy, fluzly Nag: There's no excuse for these young men failing to type out the words in this video. Expecting people who are able to read to sit through an hour and a half of lazy, self-indulgent talking heads, when there are professional transcription services that could turn it into a nice efficient script that could be read quickly AND kept for reference, when (bleep!) there are (bloop!) computer apps that could deliver a draft transcription in seconds so nobody even has to type the full (dang) script, is just disrespectful to the audience. Youtube does not make it easy to get a transcription (you have to start the video, and find where the button is on your screen, and scroll down to just before the last period highlighting the script), but you can probably force one out of it. The person who posted the video should have done that for you, corrected the robot transcription, and posted it as a nice link to a document in which you can edit the fonts and spacing to suit your eyes.
Nevertheless, I did listen to some of the sound. What I heard was very interesting. I think you might want to watch or listen to this one, too. I think somebody should make a TXT transcription beautiful and e-mail it to everyone in the new presidential administration. (E-mail, plain text, is key. Bulky envelopes scare many people in our federal government. Multiple copies of the same e-mail, otoh, might be read and discussed by multiple interns, which is very good.)
Long story short: the insurance gamble may be morally worse than betting money on card games.
Music
Since this web site mentioned Kwanzaa, it's received links to a more mainstream video about a Black American holiday celebration--"Christmas in Hollis." (This web site prefers music videos to talk videos because music videos tend to consist of one song, which means it's possible to listen to all the ones this web site receives in one human lifetime.)
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