Tuesday, November 3, 2020

I'm Nervous

 Well today is the day.  Election Day.  As the hubs said this morning, "Welcome to History." 

This election day feels so much different than 4 years ago.  Four years ago, I remember standing in line, and then pausing before I pushed my computerized voting screen to vote for what I thought then would be a historical outcome, the first woman president.  I was so excited waiting for election results, and then - Florida. Why is it always Florida?

Once Florida went for trump, I knew it was over.  The tears started, hysterical ones to be honest.  I knew the next four years were going to be bad.  But honestly, I had no idea they would be this bad.  

There is no standing in line waiting to vote this year.  Pre-existing conditions that makes me at greater risk for a really bad outcome if I get COVID put an end to that.  I took a vacation day today, planning on being at the polls volunteering, but again ... COVID.  So instead our ballots were safely delivered to the county election board last week.  And while I know voting by mail is safe, not subject to fraud, or any of the other shit trump claims on a regular basis, it doesn't have the same feel to me.  But you do what you have to do.

So now we wait.  And we have no idea how long we will wait, since absentee voting has been HUGE this year because it had to be.

And I will be nervous until the end.  I fear for what will happen if the country doesn't make trump a one term mistake. 

I woke up with lines from Hamilton going through my head, "History has it's eyes on you."  Yes, yes it does and I hope we end up on the right side of history when this is over.




Sunday, September 24, 2017

I'm Still Here

No, I haven't forgotten about you. I've actually been trying to decide what I want to say here since last November.  Yeah, I've been pondering what to say for ten months.

How to explain the feelings of joy and optimism I started with that day.  Being in line to vote before the polls opened.  Standing at my little voting "booth" for a moment before I cast my vote, just to take in the sense of wonder and history.  Walking out with the smile that wouldn't leave my face for hours.
It stayed until Florida, why is it always Florida?  Then the smile turned to tears.  Many, many tears.  The kind of crying you see when someone has died.  It wasn't just disappointment that my candidate lost and someone else won.  It was more than that.  It was the fear and utter disbelief.  Fear of what might lie ahead, and utter disbelief that a reality television star, who openly bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, and mocked the disabled was going to lead this country.

The day after the election one of my cousins told me that he knew it was a tough couple of days for me with the Cleveland Indians losing to the Chicago Cubs in the World Series and the whole Hillary thing.  But he was sure that in a year the Indians would be even better (OK he may have been right about that) and I would see that I didn't want Hillary to be the first woman president after all.

Well you know what? It's awfully close to a year and he's as wrong now as he was then.  Every day I am more and more convinced that she would have been the much better decision for this country.  Every time there is a tweet antagonizing the North Koreans, goading them a little closer to trying to send a nuclear weapon into the world.  Every time Neo-Nazis are touted as being "fine people on both sides".

So in my own way I've become part of the resistance.  I marched proudly in January, wearing my pink pussy hat.  And by wearing my pink pussy hat every day for the rest of the winter.  And by knitting them for others as well (nine so far this year, ten if you count the tiny one for the tiny panda).

I've taken to not only putting my "money where my mouth is" by giving to the organizations I support, but by wearing my politics and beliefs proudly.  A couple of weeks ago I was at Costco proudly wearing my pink "I stand with Planned Parenthood" t-shirt.  Someone touched my shoulder and I turned to see an older woman who stopped to take a moment to thank me.  To thank me for standing with Planned Parenthood.  She too was a supporter, and had been writing and calling our state senator on a variety of issues, and she wanted me to know that she thought it was wonderful that I was willing to publicly display that I was with Planned Parenthood.

I've taken to trying to join with others that feel the way that I do to work for change in the political arena.  And defending my beliefs publicly, even if it's just on Facebook. Even if it means that my own relatives (different one this time) call my husband an asshole for agreeing with me, and telling me to leave the country if I don't like it.  I'm not sorry, my political leanings haven't changed much in the past 30+ years, and I doubt they're going to start changing now.

Is there a point to all of this rambling?  Maybe, who knows?  But I do know that the better candidate lost in November.  I do know that a great disservice was done to this country with that election.  I do know that I stand with Planned Parenthood and women's rights.  I do know that a trans person can pee next to me (yep, I have that on a shirt too).  I do know that Muslims are not our enemy.  I do know that Neo-Nazis are our enemy and the generation that fought to defeat them would be less than pleased about claims that there are "some very fine people" among them.  I do know that taking a knee as a sign of protest or not attending the singing of the national anthem are NOT signs that you are not a proud American.  I do know that the people you are sure that are offended fought to give those same people the right to protest.

And I do know that I'm still here, I'm not going anywhere and I'm not going to back down on what is right.


Friday, October 21, 2016

To Whom It May Concern:

You know how at the end of a criminal trial the victim often gets to read a statement to the defendant telling them how their crime has impacted their life?  Well this post is kind of going to be like that.

No, no crime was committed. Not technically. But an injustice, if you will, has been committed against my husband and myself.  By his employer.

No one there has ever asked how any of this affects me and my life. Mostly because they don't care. Hell, they don't care about how this has affected Keith, and he works there.

I don't often talk about what happened to us last July.  Last July when a "friend" at my husband's workplace reported him for having suicidal ideations after he answered "Did you ever have one of those mornings you wish you hadn't woken up?" to a "How are you today?"  What progressed was that the work police (yes he works somewhere that has it's own police force) ended up calling him down to their area because this report had been filed and he had to give his side of the story.  The police seemed to think it was no big deal, just paperwork, apparently a misunderstanding.

Well, my husband being wired the way he is, ruminated about it all night, to the point of making himself sick. So he called, OK technically emailed, off sick the following day.  The email was acknowledged and we didn't think much of it.  I say we, because it happened to fall on my regular day off for the week. I had a dentist appointment scheduled for early that afternoon, and we were spending the morning just surfing the internet on our laptops, sharing interesting things we might see online. Nothing special.

Eventually I needed to take a shower so I could get ready for my appointment. Near the end of my shower I hear Keith on the phone with someone.  I don't think too much of it, I figure it's someone from work checking in to see how he is or something like that.  I was wrong. Oh, so very wrong.

He was on the phone with a hostage negotiator from the SWAT team. Apparently they "were outside and would like him to come out and talk to them." I peeked out the glass in the door and don't see a police car out front, but three officers with shields and assault rifles, wearing body armor walking towards my house.

Mind you I am in my bathrobe, I have just gotten out of the shower and I am FREAKING OUT.  Even now, over a year later, I am shaking as I type this story.  Keith explained to them that I had just gotten out of the shower but he will come out and talk to them.  He proceeds to walk out, hands in the air while they have rifles pointed at him.  I fly to the bedroom, trying to get some clothes on as fast as I can before the police are in my house.  I hear them at the door, telling me they are there.  I come out to my living room to be confronted by two officers with assault rifles and body armor, a detective of some sort standing inside my door.  I lost it at that point.  I started to cry uncontrollably, which was only made worse when I turned around and saw a uniformed officer at my sliding glass door to my backyard.

No my husband wasn't holding me hostage.  No he isn't a danger to himself or to others. No he's never harmed me.  The officers were pretty concerned that I was going to collapse on them and kept encouraging me to please sit down, trying to tell me that everything was OK.  Eventually they let me outside to be with my husband as they realized that what should have been a basic health and welfare check somehow went very very wrong and they were basically on a call that was a huge waste of time and manpower. One of the officers continued to pat my shoulder, trying to reassure me that it was all over and everything was fine.

Except it wasn't over and it wasn't fine.  My husband insists that I haven't been the same since that happened and he may be right.  Trying to convince myself everything was "normal" I still went to my dentist appointment that day, which is when I ended up seeing my street and our "situation" on the noon news. Luckily, at least for me, they had the wrong house on the news, apologies to the neighbor that actually lives there (thank God he's been pretty cool about everything and actually vouched for us being good people to the police when they were here. Oh and yeah, they had three sharpshooters hiding on his deck which faces our house).

But that doesn't really tell you how it has affected me though.  I guess the immediate reaction was it made me physically ill.  To the point that I had to get an emergency appointment at my doctor and left there with an additional medication for high blood pressure, they were seriously concerned about me having a stroke, and an anti-anxiety medication.

To this day I can't stand it if Keith is on the phone without me knowing who he's talking to. I was never like that before.  And maybe we shouldn't talk about how I reacted on the Fourth of July this past year when our neighbor called to ask if we wanted some potato salad.  Unfortunately I was in the shower when she called, and I had no idea who Keith was talking to.  I panicked.  All I could do was stand there and yell "Who are you talking to? Is everything OK? What's wrong? Who's on the phone?" because obviously no good phone calls come while I'm in the shower.

It took me a LONG time before I could see a police car from one of the police cars from the MULTIPLE jurisdictions that were involved that day without thinking, "I wonder if they were at our house? I wonder if they know what happened?" Sometimes I still think that though when I see police cars around the neighborhood.

A lot of mornings I still pause before I open the garage door to leave for work.  It took me a while to figure out why I did that. I didn't leave the house via the garage when that happened.  But it is how I left the next morning to go to work, when I was waiting to see if there would be a news crew in the driveway waiting for me.  I have to remind myself that I don't have to worry about being ambushed about that at this point.

I ended up finding a new dentist.  That wasn't the sole reason, but it was part of it. After that appointment I never went back. I tried. I went with Keith once when he had an appointment. But all I could think of was sitting in that waiting room, watching the noon news and seeing this nightmare on the news.

My doctor thinks that all of this has given me PTSD. Ironic that the actions of an organization that is supposed to TREAT people with PTSD managed to give it to me.

Of course, just when I thought things were getting back to normal, more shit hit the proverbial fan. Three days before CHRISTMAS the work police force once again showed up to visit my husband. Except this time they were suspending him because he QUOTED A MOVIE during a conversation with someone he thought was a work friend.  Apparently this was taken as an actual threat against people that no longer work there, and don't even live in this state anymore.

Yep, three days before Christmas.  Suspended, with pay at least, but not knowing for how long or what will happen.  This was then followed by a petition that was full of vague comments and innuendo that was signed by many of his co-workers. At least one of these co-workers is someone that has been in my house, called my husband "his brother from another mother." Of course this was three years ago, and even though Keith is the one who advised him when HIS job was on the line for running a personal business on work time, I guess things change.

I'm still embarrassed to go to the prepared foods counter at the local grocery store.  All of this caused a massive meltdown, we're talking ugly crying and sobbing because they messed up the dinner I had ordered for Christmas.  I literally could not handle even that going wrong at that point. It was much more than I could take. I think Keith will agree with me that with all of this hanging over us, it may not have been the best Christmas we ever had.

Eventually things went back to "normal" and Keith was called back to work. He had a new supervisor, it seemed like people were going to be willing to let things go, his relationships with his co-workers seemed to be on an upswing.

And then the inquisitions started. Not one, not two, but THREE different ones.  What should have been innocent remarks or an innocent venting session were suddenly turned into an investigation.  I used to be able to count on the fact that a text or message from my husband before I went to work was something simple. A note about traffic, the weather, a reminder about something we needed to get from the store .... not so much anymore.  Not when you find out that AGAIN, just when you think all of this is behind you, they are calling your husband into human resources for an interview. About the movie quote, about an innocent remark about something stupid done when he was FOUR, about venting about something to people he thought were work friends.

That leads to a drive to work when you sob the entire way. When you spend your time literally SCREAMING and YELLING at God, for letting all of this continue to happen. When you're thankful for once in your life that you have allergies, because if anyone at work says anything about your face being all puffy, you can blame the allergies.

Thanks to everything that his employer has put us through since July 2015, I guess I'm not the person I used to be. I used to be more optimistic than I am now, they have robbed me of that. I used to not need anti-anxiety medication to handle simple things like phone calls that happen when I'm showering. I used to not have major meltdowns in the middle of grocery stores, not caring about making a spectacle of myself. I used to not worry when I saw an early morning call or message from my husband.

Hopefully an upcoming meeting with the director at his work will allow us to but this behind us.  For now. The new me waits for this or something else to rear up again and bite like a snake. The old me would have thought that over meant over.


Tuesday, July 19, 2016

The post in which I ask you for money

Not for me. Well not directly for me, but for an organization and cause that effects my life on a daily basis.  I don't talk about it much, but I am a type 2 diabetic, diagnosed in 2010.  The past 10 years have been a constant struggle and battle to keep my blood sugar in control.

Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't go well.  But every day I think about it and how what I do, what I eat, what I don't do, what I don't eat, what effects things like stress, hormones, illness, and everything else will have on my blood sugar.

My morning starts every day with pricking my fingers to get my first blood sugar reading of the day.  Sometimes it is frustrating as hell.  To know that you ate "well" and followed "the rules" the day before and wake up with a number that is way above where it should be.  Sometimes it's great, when all of the numbers fall in line seemingly regardless of what you did the day before.

Have there been times over the past ten years when I just want to ignore the fact that this disease is a part of my life? Oh hell yes. And sometimes I don't eat what I should out of frustration from dealing with it.

Let me tell you, it's hard and it sucks donkey balls through a bendy straw most days. But I know that I'm lucky.  I have good insurance, I have a support network of medical professionals, friends, and family that are there for me.  Not everyone is that lucky.

But the American Diabetes Association is there for all diabetics. They work to support all diabetics with legislation, research, even sending kids to diabetic camp. But that support takes money. And that's why this posts exists.

I am asking you for your support while I participate in their Step Out for Diabetes walk this year.  Please consider making a contribution of any amount to support me while I walk to support this organization that supports me.

This link will take you to my page, where I hope you will be able to support me.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.



Friday, July 8, 2016

ENOUGH!!!!!

Violence against the police is NOT the answer, either. These were innocent people doing nothing other than their jobs.

CNN is reporting that at least one person who was at the protest is stating that they are alive today because a police officer shoved them out of the way of gunfire. Think about that, while someone is shooting AT police, trying to pick them off and kill them for whatever reason, this officer's instinct was still to get the civilian out of harm's way.

I have family that are first responders. I have friends that are first responders.  I have had a grade school classmate killed senselessly in the line of duty as a police officer. All of them are good, decent people that I have no doubt put others before themselves every single day.  And I am sure that 99.99% of all other first responders are the same.

Violence against other human beings does not end violence.  Enough already.



Thursday, July 7, 2016

It needs to stop

What needs to stop? The killing of innocent people of color by the police. Last night an African American male was pulled over for a broken tail light, soon after he was dead at the hands of the office that pulled him over.

Why? He was carrying a gun. A gun that he had a permit for. A gun that was legally obtained. A gun that was his right under the second amendment to carry. A gun that he disclosed to the officer he was carrying.

Still, when he went to comply with the officer's instructions to produce his license and registration, he was shot....to death.

Ironically, I just read this on facebook yesterday. Probably hours before Philando Castile would be killed in the same situation. Please click on the link and read it, I'll wait while you do. I've seen this post a couple of times over the past year when it was written.  Usually it's followed by something along the lines of "See, if you treat the police with respect they will treat you with respect."  Often times it's followed by something along the lines of "see, if Tamir Rice, Amadou Diallo had just followed instructions they wouldn't have died."

Well guess what? Philando Castile DID comply with the orders he was given.  There has yet to be any indication that he was doing anything other than following directions in a respectful manner.

By all accounts Philando Castile was the kind of man that knew the names of every child that came through the school cafeteria in which he worked.  The kind of man that would put an extra snack in the lunch bag of a child he thought might need a little encouragement, was having a bad day, or just having a rough time with things.

So why is this man dead?  Because he was a black man carrying a gun. The fact that he was legally allowed to carry the gun and disclosed the fact that he was armed to the police officer made no difference.  Even the governor of Minnesota has come out saying that he feels that if Philando Castile was white, he would still be alive.  Yes, even the governor of Minnesota admits in a round about way that white privilege would have probably saved this man's life.

THIS IS NOT A LULLABY THAT PEOPLE OF COLOR SHOULD HAVE TO SING TO THEIR CHILDREN!!!!!




Sunday, July 3, 2016

Gotta Get You Into My Life

In an effort to eat more vegetables, I did something this year that I've toyed with the idea of in the past.  I joined a CSA.  What's a CSA you ask?  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, which means you basically pay to get shares of fruits and vegetables from local farms.  Some CSA's also offer eggs (mine does not, which makes me sad) and many offer shares of meats and cheeses at additional costs.

Since this is a new adventure for me, I've been photographing what I get in my share each week and also taking pictures of some of the things I've been making with it.

The first week was the beginning of June, and that share consisted of  green kale, green meat radishes, zucchini, arugula, rhubarb, and romaine lettuce.  The cat was not included in the share. She does seem to think that CSA really stands for Cats Sampling Agriculture though.


Some of the kale, arugula, and romaine made salad for Keith.  Green meat radishes ended up just being eaten plain, although I considered pickling them but as usual, didn't get a "round tuit."

I've never worked with rhubarb before, so I searched the internet and finally settled on a recipe for strawberry rhubarb jam that you make in the crockpot. 

I really found it to be more of a sauce or compote than what I would consider a true jam. It was pretty good on vanilla ice cream and I imagine it would also be good over angel food cake.

I ended up going "trendy" with the zucchini and got a cheap spiralizer to make zucchini "noodles." I think the cheapness of the spiralizer I purchased is evident by the shape of the finished product, but it was tasty!