The sonic booms being reported are from aliens trying to send a vaccine to cure the current Dear Leader Infatuation Syndrome in the United States and hitting the Stupidity Shield created snd patented by the Administration to keep the followers from becoming self-aware.
Since it takes a long time to travel through space, it was probably an attempt to prevent the current disaster that is our government. The aliens misjudged the thickness of the American Stupidity Shield and the speed and power needed for an effective penetration to disburse the vaccine.
Nice try, Aliens. You underestimated the thickness of American Ignorance. You’d never catch enough of them for individual vaccination since they’re incredibly anti-vax.
I think I need to just take the bus. This past Wednesday, I had a re-check at the Orthodontist. Not a problem. Except it turned out to be a problem. First I took a wrong turn because I misread the map. Once I got going the correct way and was going down the off-ramp, I was forced to the right by a car that ran the yellow and forced me to move too far to the right to avoid having another insurance claim.
I was closer to the right side that I thought and ran up the curb and then dropped back down to the road. I continued on to my appointment without hearing that particular sound that a flat tire would make. When I came out and started the car, I got a low tire pressure warning light. I walked around the car to get to the air gauge in the glove box, looked down at at the tire and realized I didn’t need the gauge. Called for a tow and called the shop that services my car to tell them the car would be on the lot when they arrived in the morning.
I let the folks at the reception desk know I was outside waiting for a tow in case anyone mentioned someone was just sitting in the parking lot. I had to wait an hour for the tow and had the car towed to my regular repair shop. It was still open so I was able to drop the key inside and tell them what happened.
I’m still waiting for the car to be done. There were six cars already on the lot for service this morning. I did get a call yesterday saying they are changing both front tires so they’re the same. I told them no rush, so I guess they’ll call me this afternoon.
I had the dubious pleasure of using our new and improved (not!) transit system to go to the makerspace for a meeting. I missed my transfer connection by 3 minutes because the connecting bus was running early. I texted one of the members to meet me on at a corner at the bottom of the hill. They showed up very quickly. After the meeting they brought me home.
What a mess. If I had kept my Saturn, this would never have happened because I’d be on a different timeline. 😂😂😂
Yep. I decided that with the petty thefts going on at the shop, I would monitor my studio. It’s not an expensive camera, but sufficient for my needs. It watches the entry and I can access it from my iPad. It works well enough for my purposes and notifies me when someone walks past my studio.
I was just reading an old Buzzfeed article asking how many years old you are without giving your age or birthdate. The answers were mostly from “youngsters”— the ones who grew up with remotes and color televisions. The oldest was “I’m riding in the back of the station wagon-years old” I can beat that. I’m “crouch under your desk and cover your head with your hands”-years old, also known as “duck-and-cover” air raid drills
Early Atomic Age— prepare for falling atom bombs AKA early Cold War Era. Eisenhower was President and Russia was Enemy Number One. We could be attacked at any time by the godless communists. Air raid sirens went off once a month. If you couldn’t get to shelter, you did the “duck-and-cover.” Yep. That’d save you from a real bomb.
Maybe with the current state of the country, we should start those drills again. Not that they’d do much good. Just ask the folks from Hiroshima and Nagasaki how well they did. The weapons we have now would literally blast us back to the stone age, not metaphorically, literally. There’s nowhere to hide. Maybe Greenland or maybe Antarctica.
With the luck of most of us, a nuke would strike Yellowstone and send us all not back to the Stone Age, but back to the Primordial swamp. Millions of years from now, the future inhabitants of Earth will be drilling for hydrocarbons in the areas formerly known as Chicago, Minneapolis, New York.
Geologists will speculate on the enormous pools of fatty hydrocarbons that were formerly Americans. Archeologists will be confused by the incredible amounts of crumbling plastic artifacts. Anthropologists and Paleontologists will be using carbonized and crushed shards of bones to assemble what earlier life looked like and will come up with creatures assembled from the fragments of humans and their pets.
They’ll mine the great rust beds that were girders of skyscrapers and wonder about the fragments of tarry ribbons winding about under the dirt. They’ll wonder why there are uncountable seams of copper that extend for thousands of miles but are scarcely thicker than a twig. And they’ll find the Twinkies of a bygone era- still in the plastic wrap, still with the creamy filling, and the soft yellow sponge cake.
That’s just a word I made up. I was given two tickets by my friend Carolyn, to “25 Cats From Qatar,” a film about cat rescue operations in Qatar. Carolyn couldn’t make the show so I asked the former “mini-me” aka my youngest granddaughter, to join me.
The film is part of the Wisconsin Film Festival which started in 1999 and highlights cinema from around the world. These are not your Hollywood-type movies, but the work of filmmakers from Wisconsin and different parts of the world.
“25 Cats from Qatar” is about an American cat rescue group based in Wisconsin. The camera follows a woman from Milwaukee to the capital of Qatar, the city of Doha, to choose 25 cats to bring back for adoption. You find out that 25 cats isn’t even a percentage point of the number of feral and abandoned cats in the city.
Most of these cats are abandoned by Qatar’s temporary workers who leave after their contracts are done. Rather than take the cats back with them, they abandon their cats on the streets. “It’s just a cat.” I learned that there is a rotating population of 3 million temporary workers and an estimated 3 million cats abandoned on the streets.
There are people who have been feeding and providing some care for cats in their neighborhoods and these are the lucky cats. Most have to scrounge for food and risk starvation or being killed by traffic or disease.
The film showed several people who take a few cats off the street, primarily to treat wounds and injuries, and offer them a place to recover before turning them loose again. The healthiest of the cats are held for foreign rescuers to pick up and take to their home countries for adoptions. Very few of these make the cut.
There are veterinarians who will verify that the cats are healthy enough for travel and who fill out the cats’ health certificates and their passports. Yep, today I learned that cats get passports. One of the cats turned out to be pregnant so she smuggled 4 kittens in in her belly.
The young woman actually brought 27 cats (+4) back to Milwaukee. All 31 found homes. I think the entire cargo area of the plane was wall-to-wall cat crates. At the end of the film, there was a question and answer period featuring rescuer and the woman who accompanied her to do the filming.
AJ and I didn’t stick around for that, because my bad knee was really giving me trouble. Apparently, the balcony of the 100 year-old theater was built for shorter people with good knees. I spent the entire film standing which was okay because we were in the very last row and I was able to brace myself quite well against the seat.
As we walked out, I took a tumble – very embarrassing, by the way. I made it down the steps okay. And as we were leaving the forecasted rain was pouring down. Being part cat myself, I really didn’t appreciate the wet, and sent AJ to get her car which she didn’t appreciate because she’s also part cat. 😀
My shadow box swaps of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz are nearly done. I still need to make labels. I’m thinking of using cuts pieces from aluminum cans to make embossed title tags which will be attached to the top faces of the frames.
Alice in OzDorothy in Wonderland
These were just a wacky idea I had for using leftover papers from two cardstock bundles. I’ve already done tunnels books using these papers. I sold the Wizard of Oz tunnel book at my last sale as well as a smaller Alice tunnel book. I still have the larger Alice tunnel book.
I’m 2 days behind already with my new painting project. This week has been more busy than usual with two different mechanics to deal with a car problem, a doctor appointment, a lab appointment, and temporarily not being able to use my main arm due to straining my rotator cuff while prepping fresh veggies for the week.
The shoulder is less painful now. But I haven’t been as careful of that shoulder as I should be. I most likely should have had the surgery when I was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff. Instead, I settled for 4 years of on and off physical therapy on the university’s dime because my boss wouldn’t believe me when I told her I couldn’t do certain motions during the move to our new space. I can be petty.
I hadn’t had too much trouble with that shoulder until recently. I’ve lifted more than I should trying to get my craft room back in order. I moved the guest bed back to its corner in an attempt to encourage the boomerang child out of the house.
He still can’t find a job. My thought is that in spite of a population of a quarter million residents, we still live in a place that’s more like a series of small towns where people in my son’s field know him as unreliable. I don’t think he’s worked more than a year at any of his jobs. There could also be the matter of his alcoholic past. The only reason he’s not drinking is he has no income except for selling plasma. That barely supports his smoking habit.
There’s not a lot I can do to help him, except maybe to trade him for my oldest grandson who’s not doing that well either. He lives in a town with two gas stations and a Walmart. Not much opportunity there. There used to be three grocery stores and some small shops, but nobody has any money, so no jobs. What a great time to be alive! /s
It looks almost new. The yellow paint from our road trip to my oldest granddaughter’s wedding was scrubbed off and the dent pulled out. That was the souvenir dent and scrape from our stop in Scranton to see the museum of the show “The Office.”
I finished both of my Lego succulent sets. They’ll last longer than most of my plants although I do have a plant that is over 30 years. I have no idea what it was except practically unkillable. It’s moved cross-country twice, moved from three rentals and two cities in the early part of this century and has been in this house for 19 years. It now seems to be in its last year. I have two others that were cuttings from this plant so it will still live on.
I’m almost finished putting my craft room back together. I brought the table I had in my studio back so I could set up my work area. I’m still sorting things back into their proper places. I’ll start bring things back from my studio for the paper crafting that I do and will keep the studio as a place to paint. At least for now, I’ll keep it. It may turn out that I may not have enough income to continue if the mess that we call a government keeps proceeding as it is.
Some of our more maga (I will not capitalize it) state representatives want to make criticism of Israel a hate crime. I’m already sent my “no way” to the Governor to reject this as a violation of the First Amendment protecting free speech.
My opinion is that Israel’s government as well as our government are not right to attack Iran or any other country that disagrees with our actions. Our Senators and Representatives needs to get their collective heads out of Tangerine Twittler’s ass and do their jobs.
Pinterest just showed me a spatula/spoonish-shaped thing for applying butt cream on a baby. My jaw fell open. Are parents these day too paranoid to touch baby butts that need cleaning? Or are they leaving diapers for longer periods of time because of cost, so that diaper rash is more common?
I admit my baby caring days are very last century with cloth diapers, diaper pails, and such. I used the disposable diapers on trips or outings, but for the most part, cloth diapers were my normal go-to. But that was just me.
I also had a neighbor that objected to my youngest’s daily summer air nap. I used to put him in a small crib in the carport on nice days, totally without clothing. I’d be there on a lounger reading a book and my neighbor who was way younger than me, would come over and complain that my baby was naked. Every single time!
I finally asked her why she was looking. It was because she could see his “private parts.” So I asked her again why she was looking. She had no good answer. She never complained again. I still don’t know why a naked baby in a carport 30 feet from her house triggered her.
I did find out later that she was from the Wisconsin version of Pennsyltucky, so that might have been the reason. There are a lot of small towns up north that are just like the insular towns in other rural areas of the country.
But back to the butt spatula/spoon thing — they come in colors and multiple sizes. There’s what looks like a suction cup on the handle end so the thing stands upright on a flat surface. You can buy sets. It’s the future of baby care where infants are handled by machines and left in “pods” until they’re large enough to be put in creches with other pod children wearing headsets wired to their brains for “education.”
The way things are going with the current government, this might happen. 1984, Brave New World, and The Handmaids Tale were not meant to be blueprints for the future. But here we are.
I need to start making lists again so I can accomplish more than just sitting around listening to podcasts and sci-fi stories on YouTube. I’m barely accomplishing the daily minimum of washing dishes and making my bed. I’m sleeping more than usual.
I haven’t been working on my paintings although I don’t have that many more to do to reach 100. I haven’t been using my studio lately except to hang my coat which makes it a very expensive coat room. So what’s my excuse? I actually have anti-depressants, but I think I need to get a different prescription. They do become ineffective after a couple of years.
The other thing I need to do is to get the Boomerang Child out of my space. He needs to find work and get out of my space. I’d sell my house to get rid of him, but I can’t afford an apartment in this city. Well, not a two bedroom which is what I would need for my crafting, weaving, and bookbinding.
The Boomerang Child needs therapy, medication and a job. Especially a job. He spends most of his time upstairs sleeping with the lights on and the tv going. He’s made himself a little space in the garage where he can sit out of the weather and smoke. He gets money by donating plasma twice a week so he can afford cigarettes.
He’s not really looking for a job. He used to be a cook, but almost everyone in the food business in town has been burned by him not showing up because he feels bad or got stupid drunk.
He seems to have given up drinking which is a good thing. I no longer find beer cans in the recycle bin. The Not-Wife cut off his phone again. So even if there’s a job offer out there, he won’t get it. Their relationship is more toxic than my former marriage to his drunken sperm donor.
Well, the first thing was waiting for files to transfer to my backup drive from my laptop since I stupidly got rid of the working drive and kept the dead one.
The next thing was to trip over the cat and spill juice into said laptop and kill it. I swear I’m not brain dead, but it’s certainly starting to seem that way. Most files were in various clouds and a couple of external drives, so now I’m double-checking to see what’s missing.
Some files and programs are from a previous laptop that died midway through setting up the maker-space’s library. I pulled that hard drive, bought a housing for it and use that one for storage as well as a 2-terabyte portable storage device.
I use the portable drive to store files and programs to run on an inexpensive laptop I bought to keep at the maker-space to teach members to use software for our Cricut cutting machine and for use with other CNC tools such as the laser cutter, the big vinyl cutter, and the embroidery machine.
Right now, that’s my only computer until I save up for a better one. I still have my iPads, although the older one is used more for watching YouTube videos and is kept in my studio. There’re no programs of value on it except Pinterest, Slack, Zoom, Chrome, YouTube, and my maker-space email.
I’m still doing my watercolor project. I finally got caught up. I was a bit behind – by about six paintings, I think. I’m also making mini blank notebooks. They are tiny, suitable for a pocket or purse, and great as a small gift for a child. I’m doing some watercolor abstracts to be trimmed down as covers for the mini books.
This country was founded on a dream that all men could be free to live, worship, and find a way to start and make a better life. Later this freedom was extended to women, blacks, Native Americans, and immigrants fleeing oppression and poverty.
The dream has not yet been realized. The former slaves still endure harsh conditions, fueled by resentment that they were no longer slaves under control. Native Americans, confined to Reservations, with less opportunities of education, employment, and opportunity have a higher mortality and shorter lifespan of even poor Blacks and immigrants.
The quality of education has declined as politicians, less educated community members, and religious extremists have dumbed down, eliminated, or sanitized courses that would teach students the reality of our history, the responsibilities of citizenship, the general history of the rest of the world, and critical thinking.
Classrooms have become one-size education fits no one. The smarter students are dragged down by teachers having to spend more time with their less enthusiastic co-students. There is less incentive to do well because no one will acknowledge the work and effort put in.
As students in the “olden days,” most of us got the same basic level of education from first to ninth grades, depending on what part of the country we lived in. Students in poorer areas and some larger cities with larger poor populations did not always have the same opportunities for schooling.
Most students moved up grades. Some stayed behind for another year until they “got it.” A few were just passed along. Some students were able to choose classes that would lead to a career path.
Many students started to learn “life skills” — typing, drafting, home economics — in addition to higher maths, English composition, basic science skills, civics, history, and even a foreign language.
High School was where we separated into those who would most likely attend a college or university. The courses were harder — chemistry and biology, calculus and trigonometry, written language skills and research papers.
The second level of courses were for those students who would most likely become office workers — typing classes ( which were open to the College Prep students as well), bookkeeping, stenography, and business communications and business math.
The next level was general education. These were the students who had no interest in college or business, or had no means of getting into a place of higher education. They became auto mechanics, and repair persons, builders, and the folks who became the trash collectors.
We college prep folks and business students were taught to look down on these lesser beings — people who worked with their hands. We didn’t understand that these were the people who would ultimately live better lives as the people who kept our lights on, fixed the machinery that made and still make, our lives easy.
These were the folks who earned good money in the factories that made everything we used, grew and processed the food we ate, entered the military as a way to make a life. The funny thing about those folks — they were brainwashed into believing that they were not worthy unless their children went to college or business school to become better.
Which brings us to now— where we rely on immigrants to make and repair the equipment we use, to harvest our crops, to clean up our messes, to do the work that our families did to give us the lives we had.
And we complain about immigrants “taking our jobs!” The very jobs we were told by our parents and leaders that we were too good to do. And those migrants are sending their children to college to become like us— too proud to do the types of jobs our parents and grandparents did because it’s hard work.
It’s okay if you didn’t finish reading this. I lost track of where I was going anyway.
Sillytoes Crafts 