Oh Look!

It’s Saturday. How do I know – my days of the week pill boxes. Isn't that how everyone observes the passage of time?

I haven’t been outta the house (apart from daily 30 minute walks) since my May 13th MRI. That’s TEN goddamn days ago. Yes, I’m going a bit nutzoid.

Yesterday I was in a rage because, and this is mega understandable, I WAS OUT OF CHOCOLATE! HOW could I be out of chocolate – it’s the most important of the food groups.

Remember mes amis, I don’t have much truck with the food part of the kitchen. When Ten went out to Oregon late last month (to attend to some urgent family business and YES he’ll return), that room was fully transformed into my painting studio. I emptied the grub out of most of the cupboards, replacing it with art supplies and dish-ware that I no longer use.

The point here is that I texted Jen to scream my frustration. She allowed that I still had some Easter candy in a red plastic container, sitting on top of the microwave (your microwave is to the right of the sink. Oh…thanks). Yup, it was there – a dozen wee, foil swaddled, milk chocolate eggs. WHY did I still have these? HOW did they survive prior chocolate emergencies?

Because, ya see, I loathe these tightly wrapped little fuckers. It takes WAY too long to free each tiny egg from their colorful encasements – the foil never comes off in one neat piece. PLUS I much prefer dark over milk chocolate. So, I finally get to the goods, pop it in my mouth and wonder – was it worth the effort?

Instead of walkies this morning, Jen’s taking me to the grocery. I get to go inside the store and everything – WHEEEEE! I can restock all my important comestibles. Ya know, tempeh, soy cheese, egg rolls, raspberries, Brussel sprouts, dark chocolate and COFFEE. Important shit!
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For those horrified souls watching our train wreck of a country, there are now, as I'm writing this, 97,686 dead from the Trump Plague. If the Liposuction Dumpster Fire in Chief wasn’t an illiterate, petty, hate filled obscenity – if he was capable of understanding the responsibilities of his job, had been paying attention and acted quickly, intelligently (stop laughing – I KNOW that’s not even possible in an alternate, NOT supremely banjaxed universe), we would have far fewer deaths to mourn.

If the United States had mustered the same kind of political and public will against the virus on March 1, the researchers found, 54,000 fewer Americans would have died of the illness. (source)

But no. We’e closing in on 100,000 dead Americans and we're reopening for biz, haircuts, pints of Bud at the bar and MORE death. Just FYI, us peasants can’t further enrich the One Percenters pockets if we’re rockin' the Totentanz.

On May 12, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) advised governments that before reopening, rates of positivity in testing (ie, out of all tests conducted, how many came back positive for COVID-19) of should remain at 5% or lower for at least 14 days. (source)

Check out where Massachusetts sits on the spectrum. Governor Baker is being cautious BUT, to my mind NOT cautious enough. There are/have been 90,889 total cases here and 6,228 deaths. We’re trending downward but with more than 200 fresh deaths in the last few days, the sitch still seems mega dodgy.
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Jen and I are just back from an exciting food shopping expedition where everyone was polite, wearing a mask, aware of other shoppers around them AND toilet paper’s back in stock! All in all NOT the horror show experience I’d expected after reading nothing but news reports for the past week

Yes, I’ve ordered fresh escapist literature. The news is just too, TOO much lately. OK, by "lately," I mean "the last three years."

I’ve been reading Lynne Truss’s Talk to the Hand,  A battle-cry for civilized behavior from the author of the multi-million selling Eats, Shoots and Leaves . Wonderfully written – witty, smart and smooth but…I find myself 50 pages in and there’s STILL no spaceships, wisecracking, besieged scientists, alternate dimensions or even one measly vampire.

Honest to fuck, what’s an old broad gotta do to get some reality ditching reading matter?