![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The television shows are interesting - they did the COVID thing last year, and now they are bored with the whole thing, so are pretending as if the pandemic only lasted a year, and its over now. Grey's had this big disclaimer stating that the show takes place in a fictional post-pandemic world, where the pandemic is completely over now.
And I thought...it would be nice if I could forget the pandemic too and just move on. I wore a mask to do laundry, I wore a mask to go to the grocery store. I wore a mask inside it. I did take it off for a few blocks, but not completely - other people were walking by too. Some chatting.
Not everyone wears masks in my apartment building. Same at work. It's inconsistent. There's a young couple that never did. Two.
I don't understand people. Maybe they believe they are untouchable? Maybe they are?
On FB, church acquaintance, posted that she's lonely and isolated and afraid of getting the vaccine. She has metastasized breast cancer. And is immuncompromised. And not sure about the vaccine.
I told her after someone else posted that their mother who'd gone through chemotherapy, that I have a co-worker who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January, got it removed, and had intense chemotherapy, then got vaccinated with the Pfizer. He's fine, and the cancer is in remission now.
It was pancreatic cancer.
***
Mother has returned home, and is happy there. She's resigned herself to what has happened to Dad, now. And that she can't bring him home. I think she's moved through the five stages of grief, but here's the thing I've learned about grief? You think you are done, and then when you least expect it hits you in the gut like a two-by-four, and you think fuck, I can't get up under the weight of it. I'll just lie here, by myself, sobbing. And you find yourself going through all five stages again.
Or, often the five stages are out of order. Human's aren't neat. We don't follow rules or by the book. And we aren't definable.
**
Watching the Tina Turner's last concert in Wembley Stadium on PBS - I recorded it this week. I like Tina Turner. I'm kind of eclectic about music.
**
I'm currently reading and listening to Gentleman Jim - which I got via a Kindle sale, for about $1.99, and free audiobook apparently. I'm enjoying it - but it is frustrating at times. I keep wanting to kick various characters - except for the hero, who I kind of adore for reasons. The female character or heroine though is annoying me at the moment. I admittedly have no real understanding of wanting to own land or a house or property. That desire is lost on me. It seems more trouble than its worth.
I don't like "owning" certain things. I'm not materialistic at all - it's not what I spend money on. And houses, land, etc is high maintenance. So the heroine's love of her family's estate and difficulty letting it go - is hard for me to understand. The conflict is she has to marry a man she despises (a bully and thug) to keep her family's estate. He has a legal guardianship over her - and if she doesn't marry him or someone he approves of, two years before she reaches a certain age, she loses the estate. The hero has his own wealthy estate, and a title he's fighting for. But is she marries him she loses the estate and land she loves. And I'm thinking why do you love it?
The writer hasn't really done a good job of pulling me inside her head - partly due to the split point of view. I find the hero more interesting, he's a highway man, who is fighting to have his father's title, even though he's most likely his father's bastard son. The heroine feels a bit weak to me at the moment and kind of whiny. That could change. It's a problem I have with romance novels - often the women come across as bit too weak or powerless.
I'm only 48% of the way through though, so we'll see.
I need to start working on my books again.
***
Covid
The US is quickly approaching another milestone, 700,000 deaths. ( by the numbers )
From the NY Times Briefing:
* ( an overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months were unvaccinated )
If you want to know the NY numbers - go here. We still have folks dying and contracting the virus in NY. Most of the cases are upstate and in Long Island - the rural and suburban areas where the folks who don't think the virus is a problem live. The city itself percentage wise is down. We have about 2,300 cases out of 1 Million tests.
COVID has officially killed more folks in the United States than anything else in two centuries. Why? Because people in the US are stupid. ( Read more... )
*( Portugal's COVID vaccine campaign was so successful that is no one left to vaccinate )
Okay, I don't know about anyone else? But I want to move to Portugal. I may travel to Portugal next year. Never been. Hear they have some cool islands.
* Australia is starting to reopen. It plans to lift its bans on international travel in November, allowing fully vaccinated citizens and permanent residents to cross borders for the first time since March 2020. Foreign tourists will not be able to visit immediately. [ Keep in mind the US has allowed Americans to wander freely about, and foreigners to come in and out as well. There's a reason the US has the highest death rate in the world, and Australia among the lowest - all together now: The US is stupid.]
Not COVID, because there's other stuff happening too..
* ( National Women's Soccer League Canceled matches amid coach misconduct - in regards to the abuse of their players ) That's it - how about we just disallow heterosexual male coaches in women's sports? Because clearly they can't behave themselves.
* ( Scientists discovered a vampire parasite that turns a plant into a zombie )
Confused? So am I. And no, that didn't make it clearer. I should provide a link: Zombie Plants Parasites
A mustard plant infected with a certain parasite grows strangely, its development warped by tiny invaders. Its leaves take on odd shapes, its stems form a bushy structure called a witches’ broom and it may grow flowers that do not produce seed. Most peculiarly of all, it lives longer than its uninfected brethren, in a state of perpetual adolescence.
“It looks like it stays in a juvenile phase,” said Saskia Hogenhout, a scientist at the John Innes Centre in England, who studies the life cycle of the parasite, which is called Aster Yellows phytoplasma.
The plant’s neighbors grow old, reproduce and die, but the phytoplasma’s eerily youthful host persists. It becomes something like a mix between a vampire that never ages and a zombie host whose body serves the needs of its parasite, namely, tempting sap-sucking insects to feast on the plant’s bodily fluids as long as possible. When the insects ingest the parasite, they spread it to new hosts, and the whole “Night of the Living Dead-meets-Dracula” cycle repeats.
So has anyone else's mind come up with a bizarre scenario where some mad scientist figures out how to replicate this to infect humans and turn them into youthful zombies? Or is that just me?
***
Mother rattled off niece's first semester courses at London School of Economics...(She has four courses)
( Read more... )
***
Moved on from Tina Turner to 50 Years at Lincoln Center - which has some great performances. I'm loving this violin virtuoso, the folk group, and this weird ass dance routine. The guy was wearing the oddest white pantsuit. I was very distracted by it. It had an opening at the crouch and I kept waiting for his penis to peek out.
I need to go to Lincoln Center sometime this year or next again. I miss live theater and the arts.
***
Not sure what's up tomorrow. I need to clean. I may take a walk in Prospect Park to the waterfall with or without Wales.
Random photo of the night
And I thought...it would be nice if I could forget the pandemic too and just move on. I wore a mask to do laundry, I wore a mask to go to the grocery store. I wore a mask inside it. I did take it off for a few blocks, but not completely - other people were walking by too. Some chatting.
Not everyone wears masks in my apartment building. Same at work. It's inconsistent. There's a young couple that never did. Two.
I don't understand people. Maybe they believe they are untouchable? Maybe they are?
On FB, church acquaintance, posted that she's lonely and isolated and afraid of getting the vaccine. She has metastasized breast cancer. And is immuncompromised. And not sure about the vaccine.
I told her after someone else posted that their mother who'd gone through chemotherapy, that I have a co-worker who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January, got it removed, and had intense chemotherapy, then got vaccinated with the Pfizer. He's fine, and the cancer is in remission now.
It was pancreatic cancer.
***
Mother has returned home, and is happy there. She's resigned herself to what has happened to Dad, now. And that she can't bring him home. I think she's moved through the five stages of grief, but here's the thing I've learned about grief? You think you are done, and then when you least expect it hits you in the gut like a two-by-four, and you think fuck, I can't get up under the weight of it. I'll just lie here, by myself, sobbing. And you find yourself going through all five stages again.
Or, often the five stages are out of order. Human's aren't neat. We don't follow rules or by the book. And we aren't definable.
**
Watching the Tina Turner's last concert in Wembley Stadium on PBS - I recorded it this week. I like Tina Turner. I'm kind of eclectic about music.
**
I'm currently reading and listening to Gentleman Jim - which I got via a Kindle sale, for about $1.99, and free audiobook apparently. I'm enjoying it - but it is frustrating at times. I keep wanting to kick various characters - except for the hero, who I kind of adore for reasons. The female character or heroine though is annoying me at the moment. I admittedly have no real understanding of wanting to own land or a house or property. That desire is lost on me. It seems more trouble than its worth.
I don't like "owning" certain things. I'm not materialistic at all - it's not what I spend money on. And houses, land, etc is high maintenance. So the heroine's love of her family's estate and difficulty letting it go - is hard for me to understand. The conflict is she has to marry a man she despises (a bully and thug) to keep her family's estate. He has a legal guardianship over her - and if she doesn't marry him or someone he approves of, two years before she reaches a certain age, she loses the estate. The hero has his own wealthy estate, and a title he's fighting for. But is she marries him she loses the estate and land she loves. And I'm thinking why do you love it?
The writer hasn't really done a good job of pulling me inside her head - partly due to the split point of view. I find the hero more interesting, he's a highway man, who is fighting to have his father's title, even though he's most likely his father's bastard son. The heroine feels a bit weak to me at the moment and kind of whiny. That could change. It's a problem I have with romance novels - often the women come across as bit too weak or powerless.
I'm only 48% of the way through though, so we'll see.
I need to start working on my books again.
***
Covid
The US is quickly approaching another milestone, 700,000 deaths. ( by the numbers )
From the NY Times Briefing:
* ( an overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months were unvaccinated )
If you want to know the NY numbers - go here. We still have folks dying and contracting the virus in NY. Most of the cases are upstate and in Long Island - the rural and suburban areas where the folks who don't think the virus is a problem live. The city itself percentage wise is down. We have about 2,300 cases out of 1 Million tests.
COVID has officially killed more folks in the United States than anything else in two centuries. Why? Because people in the US are stupid. ( Read more... )
*( Portugal's COVID vaccine campaign was so successful that is no one left to vaccinate )
Okay, I don't know about anyone else? But I want to move to Portugal. I may travel to Portugal next year. Never been. Hear they have some cool islands.
* Australia is starting to reopen. It plans to lift its bans on international travel in November, allowing fully vaccinated citizens and permanent residents to cross borders for the first time since March 2020. Foreign tourists will not be able to visit immediately. [ Keep in mind the US has allowed Americans to wander freely about, and foreigners to come in and out as well. There's a reason the US has the highest death rate in the world, and Australia among the lowest - all together now: The US is stupid.]
Not COVID, because there's other stuff happening too..
* ( National Women's Soccer League Canceled matches amid coach misconduct - in regards to the abuse of their players ) That's it - how about we just disallow heterosexual male coaches in women's sports? Because clearly they can't behave themselves.
* ( Scientists discovered a vampire parasite that turns a plant into a zombie )
Confused? So am I. And no, that didn't make it clearer. I should provide a link: Zombie Plants Parasites
A mustard plant infected with a certain parasite grows strangely, its development warped by tiny invaders. Its leaves take on odd shapes, its stems form a bushy structure called a witches’ broom and it may grow flowers that do not produce seed. Most peculiarly of all, it lives longer than its uninfected brethren, in a state of perpetual adolescence.
“It looks like it stays in a juvenile phase,” said Saskia Hogenhout, a scientist at the John Innes Centre in England, who studies the life cycle of the parasite, which is called Aster Yellows phytoplasma.
The plant’s neighbors grow old, reproduce and die, but the phytoplasma’s eerily youthful host persists. It becomes something like a mix between a vampire that never ages and a zombie host whose body serves the needs of its parasite, namely, tempting sap-sucking insects to feast on the plant’s bodily fluids as long as possible. When the insects ingest the parasite, they spread it to new hosts, and the whole “Night of the Living Dead-meets-Dracula” cycle repeats.
So has anyone else's mind come up with a bizarre scenario where some mad scientist figures out how to replicate this to infect humans and turn them into youthful zombies? Or is that just me?
***
Mother rattled off niece's first semester courses at London School of Economics...(She has four courses)
( Read more... )
***
Moved on from Tina Turner to 50 Years at Lincoln Center - which has some great performances. I'm loving this violin virtuoso, the folk group, and this weird ass dance routine. The guy was wearing the oddest white pantsuit. I was very distracted by it. It had an opening at the crouch and I kept waiting for his penis to peek out.
I need to go to Lincoln Center sometime this year or next again. I miss live theater and the arts.
***
Not sure what's up tomorrow. I need to clean. I may take a walk in Prospect Park to the waterfall with or without Wales.
Random photo of the night