Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Life in the Senior Apartments

 It's actually not bad. The rent went up $35 a month after the first year, but that could have been a lot worse. It's still a pretty nice 2 bedroom apartment at a reasonable price.

The population is quite diverse. There are people who are sociable and people who aren't, and that's ok. Lots of dogs, most of them friendly. I've seen one other English Bulldog, whose name is Dudley. He's an elderly gentleman who approaches life with a "get off my lawn" attitude, but he's actually pretty nice. There's Gabriel, who is a large teenage German Shepherd with a booming bark and who regards Rocco as a bowling ball, There are innumerable Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes, all of whom seem to be 10 years older than dirt, much like their owners. I've met a Shih Tzu or two, a Boston Terrier, and one HellifIKnow (according to its owner).

There are a several people I chat with at the swimming pool, or just walking around, or at the Poopy Park. The Mail Room seems to be a good chat spot. There's one lady who comes over every once in a while, but I don't go visiting. My neighbour across the hall very nicely looks after my delivered packages, and I do the same for her.

So, after a year, I feel confident that I can live here.

The apartments are not really designed for seniors, with deep garden tubs that are not the easiest things to get in and out of. The bedrooms have carpet, but the bathrooms and living areas have that fake wood flooring that is easy to maintain. There's a kitchen island, which I didn't think I would like until I discovered that it is the perfect height for a cutting table. It's made of a sort of composite marble that absorbs heat well. I have to remember to set the tea pot on a cutting board, or it cools off quickly. The place is easy to keep clean, which is a huge plus! I have a washer and dryer, thanks to a friend, connected to the theater, who pays for the rental of the set. I do the costume laundry for the theatre school, so it all works out.

I realized early on that the lobby at the office was designed to appeal to the well-heeled offspring of said seniors who are shopping for a place for their parents who no longer want to deal with looking after a house and yard. It's all angles and a seating pit that even I have to make and effort to get up from. And (I'm told) I'm pretty spry.

I like the swimming pool, which has no deep end, but is just under 4 ft deep all over. It even has a chair that can be lowered into the water, if you can't make it down the steps by yourself. There's an exercise room, too, but that's not my jam. There are raised garden beds, and paved walk of about a quarter mile. There's a CVS pharmacy within walking distance, but that's the only shop. More are supposedly being built, but that hasn't happened yet. The CVS has a few groceries, so emergency milk and bread are available. I get my groceries delivered from H-E-B, which is the favourite supermarket of most Texans. "If they ain't got it at H-E-B, ya don't need it! They even have Marmite, though it's not on the list of things you can order on line.

All in all, it's a nice place to live. My apartment faces northwest, with a view of a parking lot, but the patio is well situated for plants, as are the living room windows. I've managed to train a couple of Pothos up the window wall with Command Hooks (tm), which are hooks that attach to the walls without damaging them. I have more on the patio, along with some spider plants and a few other odds and ends that seem quite happy there. One problem is that the patio floods whenever there's a heavy rain, as the flower bed right outside it overflows into it, and I can wind up with an inch or so of standing water. It doesn't last long though, and has not seeped into the apartment at all.

I hope the rent doesn't rise to the point I can't afford it. This year, the Cost of Living increase in my Social Security is enough to cover it. The apartment is nice, and new, and clean, with new appliances and no problems with any of them. I can supply as much character as I need...

Of course, I've had to learn to keep the door locked, as I looked up one morning and there was a rather confused man in my apartment. I guess he just came in the wrong door, thinking it was his. I yelled at him with my finger on the emergency call button on my phone until he left, muttering something about "Bitch..." I have a large, glittering artificial flower wreath on my front door (Addy picked it out), so he must have been really off his meds...

Anyway, when I have only myself to support, I can manage, as long as I can hold onto my job at Austin Educational Theatre and pick up a few costuming gigs and alterations here and there. As long as I can stay spry...

Let's hear it for SPRY! Dearly Beloved, I will be 75 in June!

Monday, December 11, 2023

First Freeze

 I love my apartment! I'm on the ground floor of a three-storey building, which conserves heat and coolness in a most remarkable manner, compared with the drafty house in Round Rock. During the hottest summer on record, my electric bill stayed below $90/month. I don't know how it will do in the cold, but let me tell you that I rarely had a bill lower than $300 at the house, and often over $400 during the summer. Of course, that one time it got really, REALLY cold, the electric grid shut down, so we had neither heat nor a high bill until after the got it back up. THEN the bill was through the roof. That poor struggling electric company needed to pay for the repairs somehow! God forbid they should take the cut in profits caused by their own greed!

My computer says it's 31 F outside, and my phone says 29. Last night, I moved all the patio plants back against the wall and covered them, and everything seems OK, but the best news of all is that I am walking around on my insulated floor in bare feet and the floor doesn't even feel cold. I set the thermostat for 69, and was very comfortable sleeping. I will go for lower settings and more blankets if cold weather persists. The weather people have been warning that it is going to be a cold winter.

On a side note, a bulldog is a very adequate substitute for a hot water bottle.

Monday, October 02, 2023

Three Old Music Films #1--The T.A.M.I. Show

 I was looking through some DVDs the other day, and ran across The T.A.M.I. Show. The film was shot and released within 2 weeks in 1964. I watched it last night and realized that I like it even more now than I did when I saw it in the movie theater back then.

It starts with Jan and Dean skateboarding around L.A. "Sidewalk surfing," I think it was called at the time, with the cute little teeny tiny boards they had then. The MUSIC, however, starts with Chuck Berry and ends a couple of hours later with The Rolling Stones. In between, it's mostly British Invasion and Motown. There was one band, The Barbarians, I had never heard of. They sound like a garage band, and I could have done without. Also not wild about Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. Definite creep factor watching this dollar store Elvis impersonator singing a song offering candy and money to small children so he can have some privacy with their older sister.

But the rest of it! Holy cow! That was some awesome 60s rock, put together in a respectful format. Seeing it after all this time, I could see some things I didn't know about back then. I now hear roots of Janis Joplin in the vocals of James Brown. And Lesley Gore, all done up like a Baptist Church Lady in a bouclé suit and enough hairspray to burn down the building, sang six songs. Including my favourite, "You Don't Own Me."

The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles--these were the bands we danced to at sock hops. In future years, we would see them on TV (thank you, Ed Sullivan), but this was nose to nose in a movie theater.

The first artist I saw live was James Brown, a couple of years after. I think it's safe to say that TheT.A.M.I. Show was (heh) instrumental both in that decision and in the direction my taste in music took from that point on.

Before I read the booklet that came with the DVD, I had thought there were three music films that were significant to me, and lo, there they were! The other two are The Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock.

The Stones took one look at James Brown's performance and realized that he would be a tough act to follow. Apparently, James Brown refused to rehearse, so they didn't get to see him till the actual concert. Having to follow such a consummate showman gave Jagger the impetus for his rather awkward dance, which eventually evolved into his classic stage show. By the end of their set, you can see exhaustion all over his face.

Anyway, it was fun to watch, and I'm going to find the other two and have a look from the perspective of age...

(That sounds like a good title for another blog, doesn't it? From the Perspective of Age. Or does that sound a bit too pretentious?)

Monday, August 22, 2022

Reading Burnout

 I saw a meme earlier (damned if I can find it now, of course), that mentioned something to the effect of "emotional support books," that would follow their owner to their grave without ever being read.

A couple of years ago, I would not have understood this at all, but now it makes perfect sense. Dearly Beloved, I fear I have lost the will to read!

Anyone who has known me for a long time will know that I have always been a voracious reader. Back in the day, I wrote my name on a card at the library, and the title of every book I ever read was on that card, along with the date it was due back. And my name was on another card that resided in a pocket in the book. One year, I filled up five cards, and there was scarcely a book in the school library that didn't have my name in it by the time I graduated. As well, I was getting books from the public library, and from the church and swapping them around with friends. 

I'm That Mom, who read the ENTIRE Lord of the Rings trilogy to her kids, a chapter a night for something like 2 years...I may be the only person you know who, upon finishing a book, might just turn it over and read it again, right away.

And yet...these days I just don't seem to be able to sustain interest in reading much of anything. I have several books around that I have started and set down. I think about them, and tell myself I really must finish them, but it hasn't happened. Throughout the lockdown, when I thought I would read a lot, I never did.

I hope this is a temporary condition, and that a lifetime of reading hasn't led to a permanent burnout.

Tuesday, June 07, 2022

Written AS IF by One of the Uvalde Mothers

 

2 June at 22:55 
"The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold.
She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.
Should I call and cancel her dental appointment? Will the office automatically know?
Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work? Last time Son had one cavity and Daughter asked him what having a cavity feels like.
She will never experience having a cavity.
She will never experience having a cavity filled.
The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.
What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside?
Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last?
These are the things they don’t tell us.
Which of her friends did she see die before her?
Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform?
She just earned a Fire Safety patch.
What if it got ruined?
There are no patches for school shootings.
Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire?
She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.
We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday.
None of them will take the spelling test on Friday.
There will be no spelling test on Friday.
Because there is no one to give it.
And no one to take it.
These are the things I will never know:
I will never know at what age she would have started her period.
I will never know if she had wisdom teeth.
(Or if they would have come in crooked.)
I will never know who she spoke to last. Was it the teacher? Was it her table partner? She says he is always talking, even during silent reading.
Did she even scream?
She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.
She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno.
“And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so
Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”
Did the killer ever see Encanto?
Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn?
What if my daughter brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart?
Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all?
If so, what flavor?
Cinnamon?
Wintergreen?
Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them? Or did he drive in silence?
Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot?
Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition?
These are the things I will never know.
There is laundry in the dryer that is my daughter's.
Clothes I never need to fold again.
Clothes that are right now warmer than her body.
How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser?
I can never wash clothes in that dryer again.
It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks.
Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card. Should I cross it out?
That will be the last card I ever sign her name to.
The dog will live longer than she will.
The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10.
What will the school do with her backpack?
It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of keychains like cherished trophies to its zipper.
A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day.
A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon.
A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.
Now there will be no more keychains to attach.
No more trophies.
Surely they can’t throw it out?
Would they throw them all out?
19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rainboots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?
Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life?
These are the things someone else knows:
The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands--was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition?
not my problem my kids are grown and out of school
Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat 
Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed
Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?
My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.”
But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming.
More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.
I beg the world:
“Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows."

Saturday, January 09, 2021

Hillary Clinton's post that Facebook removed due to right wing noise


//More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute.
[Please note that information from the January 6 riot is changing almost hourly, and it is virtually certain that something I have written will be incorrect. I have tried to stay exactly on what we know to be facts, but those could change.]

More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling.
Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices.

New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself.

There are also questions about law enforcement. While exactly what happened remains unclear, it has emerged that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support before Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. Virginia’s National Guard was mobilized when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the governor, Ralph Northam, herself.

Defense officials said they were sensitive to the criticism they received in June when federal troops cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk across it. But it sounds like there might be a personal angle: Bowser was harshly critical of Trump [I think she means Pelosi, here] then, and it would be like him to take revenge on her by denying help when it was imperative.

Refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol might have been more nefarious, though. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” While the insurrectionists were in the Capitol, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count.

After Trump on Wednesday night tweeted that there would be an “orderly” transition of power, on Thursday he began again to urge on his supporters.

With the details and the potential depth of this event becoming clearer over the past two days—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, tweeted her support, and state lawmakers as well as Republican attorneys general were actually involved—Americans are recoiling from how bad this attempted coup was… and how much worse it could have been. The crazed rioters were terrifyingly close to our elected representatives, all gathered together on that special day, and they were actively talking about harming the vice president.

By Friday night, 57% of Americans told Reuters they wanted Trump removed from office immediately. Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions before the riot. Only 12% of Americans approved of the rioters; 79% of Americans described the rioters as “criminals” or “fools.” Five percent called them “patriots.”

Pelosi tonight said that she hoped the president would resign, but if not, the House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment on Monday, as well as with legislation to enable Congress to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment. The most recent draft of the impeachment resolution has just one article: “incitement of insurrection.” As a privileged resolution, it can go directly to the House without committee approval.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has no interest in further splitting the Republicans over another impeachment, or forcing them onto the record as either for or against it. Timing is on his side: the Senate is not in session for substantive business until January 19, so cannot act on an impeachment resolution without the approval of all senators. It can take up the resolution then, but more likely it will wait until Biden is sworn in, at which point the measure would be managed not by McConnell, but by the new House majority leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A trial can indeed take place after Trump is no longer president, enabling Congress to make sure he can never again hold office.

Whether or not the Senate would convict is unclear, but it’s not impossible. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), for one, is so furious she is talking of switching parties. “I want him out,” she says. Still, Trump supporters are now insisting that it would “further divide the country” to try to remove Trump now, and that we need to unify. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the Senate effort to challenge Biden’s election, today tweeted that Biden was not working hard enough to “bring us together or promote healing” and that “vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.”

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance, while users on Parler, the new right-wing social media hangout, are talking of another, bigger attack on Washington.

Tonight, Twitter banned Trump, stating: “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” As evidence, it cited both his claim that his supporters would “have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” and his tweet that he would not be going to Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Twitter says that Trump’s followers see these two new tweets as proof that the election was invalid and that the Inauguration is a good target, since he won’t be there. The Twitter moderators say that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

Twitter also took down popular QAnon accounts, including those of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is having quite a bad day: the company that makes election machines, Dominion Voting Systems, announced it is suing her for defamation and asking $1.3 billion in damages. After taking down 7,000 QAnon accounts in July, Twitter continued by today taking down the account of the man who hosts the posts from “Q.”

While Twitter officials might well be horrified by the insurrection, the ban is also a sign of a changing government. With the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia this week, the majority goes to the Democrats, and McConnell will no longer be Majority Leader, killing bills. Social media giants know regulation of some sort is around the corner, and they are trying to look compliant fast. When Twitter banned Trump, so did Reddit, and Facebook and Instagram already had. Google Play Store removed Parler, warning it to clean up its content moderation.

Trump evidently couldn’t stand the Twitter ban, and tried at least five different accounts to get back onto the platform. He and his supporters are howling that he is being silenced by big tech, but of course he has an entire press corps he could use whenever he wished. Losing his access to Twitter simply cuts off his ability to drum up both support and money by lying to his supporters. Another platform that has dumped Trump is one of those that handled his emails. The San Francisco correspondent of the Financial Times, Dave Lee, noted that for more than 48 hours there had been no Trump emails: in the previous six days the president sent out 33.

This has been a horrific week. If it has a silver lining, it is that the lines are now clear between our democracy and its enemies. The election in Georgia, which swung the Senate away from the Republicans and opens up some avenues to slow down misinformation, is a momentous victory.//

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

New Reality

Well hello there, Dearly Beloved!

Are we having fun yet?

At Camp Runamuck, we are (so far) (knock on wood), not showing any symptoms of Covid 19.  

We are a mess, because nobody feels like cleaning.  The cupboards are groaning full of Emergency Preparedness, and we are ordering a lot of pizza and Panda, because nobody feels like cooking.  I have begun the following:

     paint by number
     macramĂ© bracelets
     sort-and-chuck effort on closets
     several books
     4 knitting projects
     
What I'm actually doing:

     all things Facebook
     bingeing Midsomer Murders
     making costumes for shows performed for a virtual audience
     painting by number on my phone
     crying

You know, the reason we all cried after the election in 2016 wasn't because we were snowflakes sad because our team lost; it was because we saw the imminent destruction that has come to pass.

The question to ask in any presidential election year is, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Whether you look at it personally or in terms of the country as a whole, the answer, for most of us, has to be a resounding "NO!"

We are stuck in our hidey-holes, hoarding toilet paper.  Every time we stick our heads out, the sickness numbers rise and we duck back inside. 

The economy is in the toilet.  Of course it is, because people have no money to spend.  Most developed nations are helping their citizens and their countries get through this by supporting people.  Here?  Our government is arguing that we should only pay 70% of people's pre-covid income in unemployment benefits.  It was hard to get by on 100% of what we were earning, because it wasn't enough in the first place.  They begrudge every penny of OUR TAX MONEY that they need to give back to us in this mess, but happily plan to throw billions at an already bloated military.  Who needs fighter jets in a pandemic?  I suppose it will be spun as an employment stimulus, but surely dams and bridges would be a better idea.

The murder of George Floyd, seen happening right before our eyes, was so shocking, that I feel a huge change coming.  This is one of the most positive things I am feeling, at present.  Even though the prez has as good as declared martial law, sending in a cobbled-together force of border agents and mercenaries to quell the protests.

I got news.  When you don't answer peaceful protest, you get riot.  Thus it is and thus it has ever been.

He can't run on the economy, and he can't run on his covid response.  All he has left is to try and persuade people he's for law and order.  Which, of course he is, for you and me, especially if you are a POC.  Not so much for him, though.

So yeah.  I have a lot of thoughts, but not much executive function happening to organize them.

How's errybody doing?