Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Devastating, yet so on the money.

and we haven't been "united" as a nation for at least 50 to 55 years. It's just that the political divide keeps making people rich and/or elected, so it keeps growing.

 

There have been very sparsely few events that have united America over the last 40 years. The Persian Gulf War, 9/11 and to a lesser extent the U.S. men's hockey team in 1980.

 

I used to feel sad for people like that.

Not sure how many of you have a "Next Door" site attached to where you live. The one used by my bedroom community and the associated Facebook group are studies in selfishness and a kind of willful stupid incuriosity and complete inability to think about anything but one's own feelings. Every blessed thing that requires thought and maybe a little bit of consideration is met with chest-beating about "bein' uh patriot!" People whine, oh, how they whine about the canceled city fireworks show and HAYOW DAYUR anyone suggest people think about anyone havin' ta git up n' go to work! We've had to forego so much!!!! We NEEEEEEEED FAHRWARKS! Eeeyuts ahr rahts ta sayluhbrayte this grayte Coontreh! Wah do yew hayte Uhmurcah? Ah ayum not a sheeple! Take yer mayusk n' stick it whur th' sun dont shahne!"

Signed,
Oscar, whose pain level is between high eight and low nine and she just got done talking to the parent of a child who needs a tutor and since said child likes me, she wants to know when he can come over so I can help him with his biology module. Because this is actually a sweet, funny, intelligent child who deserves the chance his parents' behavior is probably going to derail at some point, I ignored her when she sneered, "Ah guiss it's faaaaaahbro" when I explained that I was in a lot of pain and really couldn't do it.

God, this is long. Oh, well.

So I called one of my nearest and dearest who happens to be PhD in anth and a museum educator whose wheelhouse is primarily science, explained the situation and she asked if money had been discussed. Nope. Never mentioned.

"I'll talk to her," F. said, "I warn you there may be an asshole tax."

Mama was fine until she found out F. lived in another state. Then when she complained, F. mentioned her rates were normally 25.00 an hour but she would do it for 15.00 since I spoke so highly of her son.

I could hear her breathing heavily. "No. No. I am no paying either of you crooked bitches a penny. You WILL tutor mah chahl. Mah chahl has a RIGHT to get hayulp. You WILL do this n' Ah will NOT be payn fir this n' then I am gonna cawl Lamar Alexander and Presnint Troomp and neither of yew will EVER teach agin! N' tuhmarrah when Ah see Barry Trott in church (not a typo. She called him Barry Trott.) Ah will make sure you NEVER cover another Predturrs gayme! You can count awn it!"

F laughed her ass off and said the next time someone accused me of hating my fellow Tennesseans, she would steal my favorite phrase and threaten to drag them to the nearest Dollar General parking lot, stip to the waist, and beat them to red jelly.

This pain med-fueled verbal pigtrot is to illustrate that the cult is real and it's also real stupid. Don't be like the cult.

 

We've got a Next Door site. I avoid it in the same way I do the comments section and the Facebook group for my community, and for the same reasons.

 

My cousin manages a grocery store in northern Wisconsin and he says it's crazier now than it was when everything first started and people hoarded, since they now have the summer crowds and then fighting over masks. He's working 16 hours a day and running around for most of them, so I forgave him when he apologized for not writing a long-promised email filled with tales of a recent debacle he had at a seedy motel.

And I mentioned her death, I think, when it happened in April, but the Times today with a heartbreaking, devastating story on Dr. Lorna Breen, who headed up the ER at the hospital just up the street from us and committed suicide.

‘I Couldn’t Do Anything’: The Virus and an E.R. Doctor’s Suicide

 

13. I think. Remember that KS, LA and KY have Democrats. Abbott has not ordered a statewide mandate. Only for certain counties.

 

Abbott's mask order is statewide. He canceled elective surgeries for a select number of counties.

 

This is an odd deal. Is it an “order” if you can opt out? This is Texas, so it’s hard to tell.

Nearly 80 Texas counties have opted out of Gov. Greg Abbott's mask order. Others refuse to enforce it.

 

I had to stock up on groceries and the Albertson's has a giant sign as soon as the doors open -- masks are required in this store. Wanna guess how many people were stopped when they weren't wearing one?

 

Depends on the location.

 

The simple solution to the mask issue has been enacted by my small Cape Cod town -- $300 fines if you aren't wearing one downtown. That's all it'd take. Write some tickets. Put the miscreants names in the paper.

 

I'm really glad I got a chance to see my very good friends in Charleston a few weeks ago. But seeing the map, I'm not leaving Virginia for awhile. We're somehow still doing OK. Maybe because our "asshat blackface libruhl fuckface" governor implemented a mask mandate. I dunno.