Exorcise

Skitter is cranky today. I can relate.

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

No. The answer is no.

When people show you who they're believe them.
~ Bianca Frazier

The Republi/Fascist party has shown us that they don’t give a squinty-ass fuck about the people – not even the ones who put them in power. These soulless fools cannot be trusted. They’re anti-democracy, all about self-aggrandizement and won’t be voting to convict 45 for stoking and igniting a deadly insurrection.

Along with 145 of their fellow scum sucking tools, Georgia’s Republican Rep. Marjorie Whack-a-loon Greene and Colorado’s incompetent, Palin wannabe (oh wait – that’s redundant) Rep Lauren Boebert are disgusting, utterly deranged and treasonous. They should be, at the VERY least, expelled from their taxpayer funded gigs.

All is not rabid rhino piles though. Now that we have a fer real, intelligent and very sane President (AND VP) things are looking up. Repair work has begun. Not even one week in and we have much to celebrate.

How should we deal with the traitorous shitheels? Mockery. That and lawsuits. Like their orange god, they’re gonna break every law they can. They need to be watched closely and nailed for every infraction, including jaywalking. Now is a great time to be a lawyer, eh?

Sometimes, late at night, I tend to dwell on negative times in my life. What I find about writing is, once those negative times and people are written about, I dwell on them less.
~ Robert Black

Blogging, for me, is one way to exorcise my assorted plagues of demons. Art and exercise are two other load lightening/monster vanquishing schemes. I’m back up, after the latest seizure sparked setback, to being able to do 10 minutes a day on the elliptical. Today I’ll try to push it to 15 AND add in some stretching too. Yes, it sounds like a piddling amount BUT let's see how you fare with Nf-fucking-2.

Maybe if I workout enough, I’ll achieve tranquility. Wouldn’t that be lovely?!

Operator

As a deafie, if I’m alone and need help, what can I do? Yes, given my semi-demi-commune style living sitch, the odds of me being alone during an emergency are extraordinarily slim BUT I like to be prepared.

Back when I first shed my hearing (16 years ago), today’s super-duper tech was but a dream. There was TTY (TeleTYpe) where you could dial into a relay service operator. The operator, in turn, called the intended message recipient to convey the info/the 411 in text form via a teleprinter. OR vice versa. If the caller was deaf and the intended party had hearing, the operator would voice transfer the message. This set up required a conventional phone, a hardwired line.

Years ago, when we first moved to Valhalla, TAB and I got rid of our landline. Why? We had cell phones – not only did a landline seem redundant, it was an extra expense that we couldn’t manage. The only reason to have one was to have TTY. Being, at that time, young (*cough* 44 *cough*) and stupid, thinking I’ll never need to call 911 AND, just generally, hating talking on the phone, we took a pass.

Now that I’m an old broad (and apparently in possession of a thing for rescue squads and ambulance crews), I feel a definite need to have all my bases covered. Ya know, what IF I’m alone and a seizure’s hitting me up?

Waddya know, there’s now TTY for cell phones. Ooookay, I’ll need to learn more about this.

Easier though, as of January 16, 2019, here in Massachusetts, I can just text 911. I did NOT know this. Jen’s gonna call our local rescue squad to make sure this is a real, true, goin' concern. Seems TOO simple and common sensical.

It is important to make every effort to begin the text message indicating the town you are in and provide the best location information that you can. (source)

Yup, that'd be smart.

Other good things to know, not specifically deaf related, about calling 911 via cell can be found here.

Anotha cool bit, I have an iPhone (an old one which I’m overdue on replacing) – it has an Emergency SOS thingie (maybe all cell phones do?). I just need to tap the sleep/wake button five times fast and good shit happens. (Do I also click my ruby slippered heels together and chant there's no place like MGH?) That is, I think good shit happens – must read more about this AND get an updated phone.

I’ll bet there’s a ton more cool, easy SOS shit for the audio banjaxed. Must explore.

Jim Croce – Operator

I'm ALL about solutions!

OK, I have the solution to Columbia’s ‘Cocaine Hippo’ problem AND Arkansas’s coming governor’s race dilemma. Ya see, the twice impeached, disgraced, treason-happy, lying sack of rabid squirrel feces' fave gaslighter, Sarah Sanders is in the running for the  Arkansas guv office.

How can you solve a problem like Sarah-Lie? Replace the state’s inhabitants who rock the wildly low intelligence levels and racist dipshittery with Columbia’s excess Hippopotamuses. 

 See? Easy and done!

Now then, just in case you weren’t sure, Columbia’s so-called Cocaine Hippos are NOT actually coke addicted. Nope, while they may enjoy the odd martini (Sapphire, VERY dry with two olives – jalapeño stuffed if ya got ‘em), hippos are, generally, a sober lot.

How’d they get the tag AND get to South America? Drug lord, head of the Medellín Cartel, Pablo Escobar, brought them over from Africa to his 7,000 acre estate. He wanted a private zoo – HEY, don't we all? He also brought over giraffes and camels. These were re-homed somewhere but the hippos stayed and flourished. Originally there were four muy horny hippos – now there are between 80 and 100. Our frisky pals sought out roomier digs and moved down to the Magdalena river basin. Cool, cool, right?

For over a decade the Colombian government has been pondering how to best curb the growing population, a strategy largely supported by conservation experts. But not everyone is on board. Without direct evidence that the animals are doing harm, some ecologists argue that there’s no reason to cull or relocate them. Indeed, the hippos could fill in for species that humans pushed to extinction thousands of years ago—an idea known as rewilding. (source)

To my mind, killing off the hippos is cruel and insane. I GET that the hippos aren’t indigenous to Columbia BUT, fer fuck’s sake, white people aren’t native to America and…oh wait, bad example.

Jens-Christian Svenning, a biologist with Aarhus University in Denmark, doesn’t think people should assume the worst. In a 2017 letter in the journal Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, he and a colleague argued that Escobar’s hippos are one of several species introduced to South America that might contribute “ecosystem services” provided by large herbivores that are now gone.
~~~
South America lost dozens of giant herbivore species in the last 20,000 years or so, including the somewhat hippo-esque toxodons, which may have been semi-aquatic, as well as water-loving tapirs. Although several tapir species remain today, all are declining. “Hippos could likely contribute a partial restoration of these effects, likely benefitting native biodiversity overall,” Svenning says. He’d let the hippos be for now, while monitoring the creatures to ensure they don’t become a problem. 

Shurin notes that the animals may be providing a valuable service for native plants that once relied on large, now-extinct mammals to disperse their seeds. “We're planning to look at their poop and see what's in there,” he says. (source)

Back to my solution to the Arkansas treason enabler problem – move in the hippos. There are plenty of lakes and rivers. PLUS, hippos in and fuckwads removed, would make Arkansas a vacay destination spot because, c’mon, who doesn’t want to see BIG wildlife? Think of the job creation opportunities! Arkansas could finally start carrying their weight by NOT taking out more federal buckos than they pay in. AND they’d rise up from the bottom of the U.S. rankings in health care and education.

Where would we re-home the fuckwads? Wyoming or Idaho are my suggestions. Both are low population density red states.

With that done, there’s no Guv Sarah Slanders – NO continuation of the puke spew admin. I see a LOT of win here.

Super

Yesterday’s tea time telly was The Avengers movie – the first one. I’d never seen it. I like superhero shit so, WTF, why’d I take a pass?

I’ll tell ya why – the casting seemed ridiculously homogeneous and uninspired. I’m specifically talking about Thor and Captain America.

Viggo shoulda been Thor!

 
I get that Thor should be played by a Scandinavian type BUT I totally expect a Norse god (a god fer fuck’s sake) to rock some serious hotnes. The actor playing him? Jesus, he absolutely radiates BAD. IN. BED. AND dialogue-wise he's so dull he could cure insomnia in seconds flat. Poor guy is utterly devoid of duende. Was Viggo Mortensen unavailable? 

For Captain America…..honestly, they just had to cast some painfully bland, squinty eyed and stereotypically blond white dude for the role? Yeah, I get it – that’s the characters comic book backstory. Why not, in the interest of getting more butts in megaplex seats – if nothing else, make the person playing the role meaningful to more than just insecure Caucasian man/boys?

Marvel could expand their audience by updating and broadening the appeal of this character. Duh! Think about it, who better to play Captain America than someone whose people are originally of this land. First Peoples and shit. How about Michael Spears as Captain America? In real life Spears is Sicangu Lakota of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe

OR, how ‘bout making Captain America an indigenous woman (us chiclets DID serve in WWII ya know) Find a young Tantoo Cardinal. Maybe Rene Aranda or Tonantzin Carmelo?

Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow was marvelous and all but I’m imagining the Avengers with Lupita Nyong’o in the part.

Now that I think on it, (cause I rilly like Johansson) what about replacing Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye instead? He was NOwhere near as snoozifying as the actors playing Cap America and Thor but still – let’s make the franchise look more like America. Eh?!

The best thing about the flick, for me, is that Joss Whedon did the rewrite, the script save. The following exchanges were glorious:

Captain America: I wanna know why Loki (the evil, bad guy) let us take him. He's not leading an army from here.
Bruce Banner (i.e. The Hulk before he goes all green and rage-a-tronic): I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him.
Thor: Have a care how you speak! Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother!
Black Widow: He killed eighty people in two days.
Thor: He's adopted.

~~~

Loki: Enough! You are, all of you are beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by...
[Hulk flattens Loki with repeated smashes into the floor]
The Hulk: Puny god.

~~~

Black Widow: [all arguing in the lab] Are you really that dense? S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats.
The Hulk: Captain America is on threat watch?
Black Widow: We ALL are!
Iron Man: [to Cap America] You're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?
Captain America: I swear, Stark, one more wisecrack out of you...
Iron Man: Verbal threat! Threatening! I'm being threatened!

~~~

Captain America:  Doctor Banner, now might be a good time for you to get angry.
The Hulk: That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry.
[Banner hulks out and punches the Leviathan]

Yeah, I'll watch another of these especially if it's written by Whedon.

Again

I'm approaching the three week mark – I seem to be on a schedule with this shit. It's been three weeks since my last seizure. Will I have another or will my new Keppra dosage keep me safe?

As you probably know, 2020 started with a bang – brain surgery, followed by a ‘welcome home seizure’ which put me back in the joint for a couple days in mid-January. I then had six months of recovery and strength rebuilding. This was not just to regain my old abby-normal state but to get ready for August’s spine slice up (where Doc Coumans managed to excavate not just one, not two meningiomas but a whopping FIVE of those motherfuckers.

Shit was mostly quiet until a month post-surgery when I entered the less than wonderful world of Donna’s Mondo Seizure Big Top.

The fun began on September 27th and has come back, since, on a slightly more often than monthly basis.

October 31’s fun was the first of just two shake-a-thons which had a trigger (missed or late dose). It went down during teevee/tea time. Luckily the teevee show was over so I didn’t miss the hero’s escape and ultra necessary happily-ever-after. PHEW.

November 19th's convulsions required a visit to the ER which was overflowing with COVID patients. I attempted to be a good and patient patient  (REALLY!) amongst the overworked and often frenzied nurses and doc. My success was def mixed. When I knew that Ten was outside waiting for me (NO visitors in the ER) and my discharge paperwork was done, I bailed – barefoot, blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Just FYI, I strongly believe that ALL nurses AND docs should know/fully understand how to communicate with deafies (without having to endure my condescending scold first. win-win, ya know?).

December 10th’s was my last ambulance ride in to the ER. The stay was nice enough. I had my own room/cubby. Nurses seemed busy, sure, but far less harried.

While the Rescue Squad and EMTs came out for my January 5th quake, I was OK to stay home. IF I’d lost consciousness I would’ve been off to MGH during the crazy-ass height of the Trumpublican ignited plague. I was happy to have the squad etc. here to check me out though.

Last night’s Donna-quake? Thanks to my new, handy dandy, Stop-the-Shakin’ meds, I was able to head off a MEGA seizure (it was barrellin' down the bed, right at me), maintain awakeness AND stay en la casa versus MGH. YEA me!

These motherfucking seizures went from being a one off, to once a month, then once every three weeks – we’re now in every-other-week territory. 

Jen and Ten will talk to my team – I’ll email them. Something’s gotta give. If my next surgery can’t be put off until the plague is less rampant, I’ll deal. I’ll be cranky, of course, but…emmm….I don’t expect anyone will actually notice the difference.

"Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?” ~ Roy Batty

Dreams and Schemes

I dreamt that I was bicycling (on a two-wheeler, not my trike!) from the apartment The Amazing Bob and I had in Brookline over to Hillel’s house in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Coco was wrapped around my neck. Yeah, she managed to hang on as we passed through the massive, scary intersection (five or six roads all meeting and crossing). Good kitten!

On the way I got hopelessly lost (of course) and ended up in some beat to shit neighborhood, lined with dilapidated, soot covered, once gorgeous gothic apartment houses, schools, churches. Actually, even coated in dirt and graffiti, the structures were magnificent. These abandoned, busted up hulls were creepy but awesome. Think Blade Runner street scenes – the ones without all the people.

Throughout, Coco hung on tight and was wildly fascinated. Why am I dreaming of biking through a deserted, dark, 40s era, urban landscape with my cat? Because I’m a cheery as fuck battered shell, rambling through the wreckage of America. Or some deep-ass, poetic shit like that there.

The dream, specifically the cycling, puts an idea, a plan, in mind. I wanna start triking again. I haven’t triked since TAB died and my concentration shattered into a zillion subatomic sized particles. Triking while deaf takes a bunch of serious focus and I was clean out.

Now that I’m on a crazy high daily dose of anti-seizure meds, my balance, walking strength and endurance are utter, stone crap. Yes, I have the recumbent elliptical but triking is more fun. Yes, even in the cold. Though I’ll be limited in how far I’m able to ride, (by my stupid weakness), I could make it down to the ‘big’ beach (half mile) and back. Woohoo! New views, FUN exercise, recovery progress. SO MUCH win!

Now to get my minders – Jen, Ten and Oni – to go along with this new exercise scheme.

It's a Brand New Day

I woke up to these headlines:

Biden sets to work on reversing Trump policies with executive orders

Biden rejoins Paris climate accord, works to overturn Trump’s climate policies

AND

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff Wore Ralph Lauren for the Inauguration

I’m relieved and thrilled but, regarding that last headline, I’m kind of giggly giddy.
Yes, we also know who Dr. Jill Biden was wearing (Markarian) but the point here is that BOTH the Second Gentleman and the First Lady’s designer apparel were covered. Equally.

Also, Dr. Biden and Doug Emhoff will BOTH be teaching while gigging as First and Second Spouse.Ya know, I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that education is gonna have a whole different, higher priority under our new President. 

It’s a new day. For the first time in more than four years I feel hope.

We’ve been in an abusive, gaslighting, bullshit relationship with our government for four+ years. The idiots, seditionists and greedheaded lying sacks of rabid weasel shit are still out there, of course. They’re like insane street preachers, hollering for attention and power.

This time around, how ‘bout we STARVE those shitheels of the press they crave. Yes, investigate and report on their crimes but if they’re standing on a soapbox, tantruming out obscene and ridiculous lies and manipulations, shrieking for the spotlight, just walk on by.

 Don’t feed the motherfucking trolls. Don't hand the mic and klieg lights to another fascist narcissist.

I need to adjust to this new reality where each day doesn’t bring a new shocking horror. I now have more bandwidth available to me, more energy. I can think about more than just survival. I can read news from other countries again. Today, doing my PT and other exercising, doesn’t feel like I’m gonna be climbing Denali. MAYBE, in time, I’ll even be able to read books that aren’t all about funny vampires, witches, space traveling janitors and alien squid. Huh. Yes, it CAN happen. 

Yesterday was a big-ass day for another mega important reason. Jen, Ten, Oni and I watched the season two finale of The Mandalorian. I don’t want to give anything away, no spoilers (I know, how unusual of me), BUT… I am just shattered that production of season three won’t even begin until next year – 2022! How’m I supposed to survive that long without a Grogu fix – HMMMMMM!?

How will YOU celebrate?

Yes, yezzzzz, I’m fully aware that there is an obscene amount of repair work to be done and it won’t happen magically, the very second Biden/Harris are sworn in. BUT, at fucking last, clean-up on aisle America CAN be started, at noon TODAY.

I know the lunatic, brainjaxed, freeDUMB screaming, entitlement rocking, white supremacist, fuckwads won’t be going away just because their Dear Leader is gone. MAYBE, and I sure as fuck hope this'll happen, they’ll at least begin to crawl back under their rocks.

I’m sure the perspective-free extremist jackals have already crashed through the starting gate to accuse the Biden/Harris admin of being SOCIALISTS and pedos (on the ‘right’ it’s all about projection). I figure the Purity Posse, the Bros – the other side of the extremist coin, are on a Biden/Harris-are-one-percenter-capitalist-cops tear. I intend to publicly laugh at and mock these yahoos. I mean, fer fucks sake, after four years of the astoundingly dim-fucking-witted and radically abusive Orange Asshole administration I’m DONE with taking any of these twats seriously.

Everyone wants the power and the glory but few want or have the ability, to do the hard, grubby work of governing this HUGE, ultra diverse nation in a smart, egalitarian manner. Diaper Don and his entire admin proved they don't have dime's worth of competence between them.

Enough ranting though. We now have the White House, the House of Reps AND the Senate. With Warnock and Ossoff’s wins, Moscow Mitch lost his ability to obstruct and defy the will of the people. I AM thrilled! For the first time in four years, I feel I can breathe out, release a vast portion of the electric tension sprinting through my veins. I no longer feel as though I need to fear so much for my life.

Tonight us Valhallans will watch Mandalorian, sip flutes of Prosecco with pretty floating raspberries and snarf sushi and tempura. I expect at least one of us (*cough* me) will break out in a rousing chorus of Ding Dong The Witch is Dead.

I won’t be doomscrolling anymore, in fear of missing warnings of the coming/growing trumpocalypse. Nope, my scrolling will now be strictly for pet antics, interesting art and art columns and, of course, the odd schadenfreude (such as the decline and fall of a pair of skank faced, heinous, pandering grifters).

YEA! How will YOU be celebrating?