"I Don't Feel Safe"

     That's the catchphrase -- people who think Mr. Trump's election to the Presidency has put them in danger.

     Listen up, kid: you weren't safe on 7 November, either, or 7 October, or, by golly, 12 November.  The laws of the land have not changed and neither has the fact that a very few of your fellow-humans are willing to do you harm.  Nevertheless, it's still illegal to beat people up, unless they hit you first and you win the fight by main force.  The same haters that worry you now were around earlier in the year and they were just as hateful -- and just as much a tiny fraction of your fellow citizens.  Your friends are still there, as are all of the in-between people, from the ones who like you well enough all the way to the ones who can't stand you but won't bestir themselves even so far as to scowl across the bus station at your purple hair or the "I LIKE IKE" sticker on your valise.

     It's the same world and you can still turn to the cops for protection -- no, really, you can; even the most stereotypically-mean officer of the law finds it hard to turn away from a scared person asking for help, and the mean ones are, yes, a tiny percentage of the force.

     This is the reality we live in: most people aren't out to get you.  Don't confuse jerks, fools and the occasional artist spray-painting walls (usually in the dead of night or at least when nobody's looking) with every man's hand being raised against you.

     Most people just don't care that much.  Personally, I take great comfort in that; on the other hand, I'm a tall, vaguely butch-looking* mostly-white† woman, and when I can't blend into the background, I can usually loom and get by with no more than muttered insults and dirty looks.  Not everyone has that luxury and that's got to make for greater worry.

     Sure, elections matter.  Who won matters.  But it doesn't change the laws of the land; it doesn't change the norms of civilized behavior.  On a practical level, the Feds aren't going to change state laws or city ordinances because they can't; and they're unlikely to go after settled Federal law because A) they are not as ambitious as all that, and B) it's a can of worms they dare not open.  You think there are people protesting in the streets now?  Ha!

     And about those "people in the streets:" hell, I'm scared.  Not of folks marching with signs and chanted slogans; yes, do that.  Smash windows and burn cars, throw stuff at people, block freeways?  Don't do that.  It's fraught with danger.  There are plenty of scared kids and scared adults who don't need to be any more scared and your signs show up a lot better when there aren't drifting clouds of tear gas or muddy bootprints in the way.

     If safety-pin "safe person" badges don't get politicized with a crapload of barely-related side-issues in the same manner as the Gadsden Flag, I'll wear one.  I'm not here to make anyone but genuine initiators of force feel afraid and if I can make somebody worry even a mite less, I'd count that as a good thing.  What kind of dreadful person wouldn't?
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* Not so butch as all that -- I barely own a flannel shirt and I wouldn't be caught outside the house without lipstick and mascara.  But I wear Carhartt dungarees by choice and carry a Leatherman tool on my belt; nobody sends me to fetch coffee and they're surprised that I sew, at least well enough for mending.  Don't think my somewhat-forbidding "look" cannot be leveraged when needed or that I would refrain from so doing.
  
† As I may have mentioned before, we're not sure what the remainder might be -- Cherokee and/or "passing" African-American, so long ago that my ancestress is barely a memory and a line on a census tally.  I just hope she had a happy marriage and a fulfilling life.  I hope she felt safe.

But I Ain't Dug No Sixteen Tons...?

     Another year older, nevertheless. 

     Yes, gentle friends, it is that time again -- and, for a wonder, my birthday falls on neither 500-Mile Race Day nor Memorial Day!

      I am now about twenty years older than I ever expected to be. And there's still no Lunar settlement and no Orbital Hilton. You people need to get to work on that. I'm too old to learn Mandarin.

Tooth, Update

     The oral surgeon got the remaining parts of the tooth with only the usual amount of pressure, disturbing sounds, abrupt jars when the pliers slipped and the occasional worrisome muttering and requests for even more obscure tools -- "H'mm, I'll need the Number 12 Snivvy forceps, no, make that the Number five...  And a pitching wedge...."

     Now it's bleeding and bleeding.  The Novacaine is wearing off and...  And I'm an idiot.  I took a couple of pain pills right before I left and because I didn't want to eat anything, I took Tylenol.  Go now and loop up Norco or Percoset, drugs I happen to have been prescribed in the past and have on the shelf.  (They wrote me some more Norco today, just in case.)  Yes, they consist of a narcotic pain reliever and (drum roll please) Acetaminophen.  Paracetamol.  In a word, Tylenol.  In a word, dammit.  I can't take one until about, let's see, carry the t, divide by e to the x, h'mm, 11 or 11:30 a.m..

     Maybe I'll have some pudding and a frickin' Ibuprofen.  Because that's way more convenient than taking a couple and eating a cookie would have been, around about 7:20 this morning when I wasn't having to hold a roll of gauze over a bleeding hole in my gums.  Also I just misspelled seven owrds in the prgious tw sentences, much as you see in this one.  Oh, I'm Just Fine. Fine. No pain.  Well, some pain.  But no gain and I'm out $23, even, for the non-covered part of the extraction.

     Laters. Gah.

Sixteen Hours Of Misery Later

     I don't know what happened.  Yesterday, Tam and I had essentially the same thing for breakfast and supper, give or take her grown-up gin-and-tonic and my noon snack of Reese's Cups.

     About nine -- call it 21-sleepy -- last night, I started getting a tummy ache and in short order, was exhibiting the symptoms of norovirus (you won't mind if I skip the details?) along with chills and localized abdominal pain.  It just got worse and worse.  I tried to lay down and sleep through the worst of it, but I hurt too much.    Standing and walking weren't a whole lot better and I was having to take frequent visits down the hall.  Around midnight I got some relief soaking in a hot bathtub for a little while and managed to fall asleep for nearly a half an hour.  Dried off, wrapped up in a towel and promptly found myself "calling dinosaurs."  They seemed to take a lot of calling.  Tummy pains were bad enough that Tam suggested I'd better go to the hospital.  I would have, too, but if it was norovirus, I would just be delivering a highly contagious and incurable aliment to a building full of sick people, which is a lousy trick.  So I resolved to see if the pain (not a typical noro symptom) and chills were going to get worse.

     From there until about ten this morning, I never got more than 45 minutes rest and never really got warm, despite turning the electric blanket up to "MAX."   I fell asleep at ten a.m., still hurting and feeling wretched.  Tam tried to wake me an hour later and couldn't.  (She was headed to the store.)

     Woke up fifteen minutes ago.  Still a little chilled but not hurting.  What a relief!  Just had a mug of weak tea and a slice of buttered toast.  Hoping it'll stay with me.

     Sheesh.

Happy Belated Blogiversary To Me!

     It was seven years and a week ago today that I started this, after somehow ruining the password of my first effort.

I Aten't Ded (Again)

     I slept in.  There was a lot of snow-shoveling yesterday, and just plain shoving (of the snowblower through deep snow) and it adds up.  Even after having gone and soaked in a bath of epson salts, it adds up.

     The Big Melt is supposed to begin today, with prolonged temperatures in the low forties persisting late into the night and returning tomorrow.  The odd little people who live inside the TV chirpily mentioned at least three times every hour all morning, "Don't forget to clear out the storm drains on your street," which I sleepily thought was a darned good idea, as it would be an excellent place to hide a nagging bundle of photons after strangling.  Awake, I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way and would be rude if you could anyway.

Snowshoveling Causes 3 a.m. Heartburn

     At least it does for me.  So now I know.

I Must Be Weakened From The Workin'

     Or possibly the doctorin' -- whichever.  Worked 36 hours through Thursday, so I could work a half-day Friday and go to the doc for some minor outpatient surgery in the afternoon.   Returned home from that, laid down for a nap, and other than Tam waking me for about 45 minutes around 8 p.m. when her regular Friday evening pizza shipment arrived, I have been asleep ever since.

     Jim the Tree Guy called a few minutes ago; we tried to make contact Friday so I could pay him and couldn't, so he'll be stopping by any minute now.

     I'm trying to convince myself to not go back to bed after that.  It's a purty day out there and there's a gun show on, just down the road.

So, Yesterday

     Yesterday, it was my birthday.  One of those difficult ones, in between the ones that start with "3" and the ones that start with, "Wow, I can't believe I made it this far!"

     --Except, of course, they're really all in the latter category.  We're every one of us wildly unlikely critters and yet, here we are.  That's worth celebrating.

     Me, I celebrated by going to bed early.  Ah. sleep: the cheapest gift and yet one of the most difficult to acquire, give or indulge in when you really want to.

Your Hostess Is Ill

     Sick, sick, sick and I don't mean possibly.

     All this past long weekend, I was fighting copious sinus drainage and mild sore throats every morning.  "Allergies," thunk I, and took OTC allergy meds.  It helped, too.

     Woke up this morning with More Of Same, gargled salt water, took allergy meds, went to work, sinuses filling up every hour...

     Along about 1400, I could no longer breathe through my nose.  Not even a little.  And I was dizzy.  By 1600, I was staying in my chair as much as possible and getting more and more short-tempered.  Left, shivering, a tad after 1830, about par.  Ran the vents on recirc, no cooling, in a car that'd sat out in the sun all day and I was still feeling a bit chilly.

     I'm home now, enjoying tea, soup, toast and kale/orzo salad.  I'm gonna take a bath and go to bed.

     Tomorrow's blogging may be late.

I Aten't Ded

     But I am on vacation!  This did not stop work from calling me four times yesterday, starting about 1 a.m.  --Nobody's inessential but some are more fun to bother?

The Astute Reader...

     The astute reader will have noticed there's nothing -- or, now, very little -- new posted on my blog this morning.

     There will be.  I survived Family Christmas yesterday and Taking Rannie To The Vet, either of which is blogfodder of the first or at least second rank.

Overslept, Needed It

...But I'm much better now! (As the brilliant and likeable John Astin often said, in character as Gomez Addams.) (Ah, but see Comments: did the line only turn up much later, in his appearances on Night Court?  I thought it was a deliberate re-use but perhaps not.)

     Speaking of Mr. Astin -- still very much with us and teaching drama at Johns Hopkins University, if Wikipedia is to be believed -- it had never occurred to me that he bears quite a resemblance to Edgar Allen Poe.*  It had to him and he proceeded to -- ahem -- act on it.

     You might bear the unfortunate Poe in mind as election day approaches; there's a theory that he died of voter fraud: in the 19th Century, persons would be kidnapped off the street, drugged or liquored up, and sent forth to vote for a party multiple times, with a change of clothes (etc.) and another dose in between, going from one polling place to another.  It was called "cooping" and  worked best with alcoholics, drug addicts and vagrants.  Poe had been traveling from Richmond, Virgina to New York and was found in Baltimore, wearing clothing not his own, near a voting location and in a state of serious intoxication; he died without ever being able to give any account of how he ended up in such a condition.

     And you were wondering why in many states even now, the bars must remain closed as long as the polls are open? Now you know.
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* Possibly one reason he was chosen to play Gomez, s’il vous plaît?

I Am Somebody!

Or "someone," anyway, over at the Blog Formerly Known As Snowflakes In Hell.

Beats bein' nobody, I guess. ;)

Need. Exercise.

Gooooood morning! I'm a-gonna go ride my bike. Back later.

N.B.

I think I'm feeling better -- quite a bit better, in fact.

Update: Still tire pretty easy. Oh, well, it's a big improvement.

It Takes A Geek

...To get this punchline.

In other news -- I'm still running a temperature, coughing, achy, etc. Liquids, rest and the tincture of time. Also cough syrup. And black tea with honey.

Fink Thast!

So, yesterday morning, fasting...

I was up, and chipper; I'd enjoyed a nice cuppa old-fashioned Red Chinese "white tea" (warm water) and was making ready for the shower (a/k/a "how can I be outta washcloths?")when Tam stepped into my room to comment on something stupid she'd heard the TV say; I turned to reply and all of a sudden, the floor dropped three feet straight down!

Except it didn't; it only felt that way, which I realized from the lack of sound effects and Tam "catlike reflexes" K's total non-reaction. I said something like "oh, no!" as my knees gave way and I sat down on the bed like a dropped marionette. The room started lurching this way and that, worse when I tried to sit up, and I started laughing.

'Cos crying would not have helped; my inner ear(?) had come unmoored from gravity. Turning my head, leaning, any rapid motion resulted in a frantic reach for the nearest grabbable large object -- walls, doorframes, the floor. I did my best to ride it out and in about 20 minutes, I could move if I wasn't too quick about it. Managed to shower by bracing myself in a corner. Things stayed kind of drifty 'til noon, fading off into what Og described yesterday as "the inevitable headache."

Hard to blame that on fasting (and my blood work, along about 1:15, was quite good on the tiny tabletop analyzer, fasting gluclose just where it should be, cholesterol not bad (my "good" cholesterol runs high-ish). Even my blood pressure was decent, which is quite an accomplishment considering my fairly dire "white coat syndrome" (my blood pressure is good at home, on multiple whachasphygopsychytacometers, and borderline hypertensive in nearly any clinical setting.

It was a nice day, too; until I lost a half-hour or more to my sense of balance being out of whack, I was seriously considering commuting on my motor scooter. With gas prices what they are, there's a whole lot more scootering and bicycling in my plans for this spring and summer.

--At least, there is if I can maintain a sense of which way is up!

Ouch-Ouch, Sinus Calling

I have no doubt this morning that my dreadful headaches are sinus-driven. A nice, sharp front gusted through last night -- and woke me up with stabbing pains on the left side of my face. OTC pain med and a hot, moist washcloth took the edge off and I was back asleep in no more than an hour.

But yowza, that was pretty bad when it hit. I could barely stay vertical. Fortunately, there was no need to.

This Is The Headline

Generic Roberta X blog post. Body text body text body text. Italics for emphasis. More body text.

Can't indent paragraphs! Annoying. An aside occurs to me.* More body text. Haphazard misspelling that I will find and fix two dats later.

Available via the link at Tam's. Buy there 'cos I'm her landlady.

Bolded: Text about something semi-related that happened later.
Make this line really small. _______________________________
* This is a footnote. Footnotes are kewl. And only kind of small. Also note trendy spelling.