Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind, but it is probably documented here on Meditatio. She blogs because the world needs her snark at all hours of the night... and she probably can't sleep anyway.
Duuuuude… “Wellerman” is addictive, and I am greatly amused that sea shanties are giving people joy. They are fun to sing, and it’s definitely not the worst thing we could all be binging now. There’s also an emphasis on harmonies, so yay part singing!
I have definitely gotten into Nathan Evanss on TikTok, and I even downloaded TikTok on my phone so I could listen to his stuff while working on my laptop.
Ummm… wow. My latest YouTube binge is “My 600-lb Life”, and it is rather… shocking. My Coca-Cola habit pales in comparison to people who eat multiple pizzas at a meal!!! Still, you see the really massive pain that drives people to eat compulsively, and I can definitely understand drowning your sorrows in food. Then again, you also see spouses and family members who are enabling the patients for some unhealthy reasons, and you want to shake some of them and ask them how they could be so stupid or selfish.
Jim Jordan. I’m repulsed that House member Jim Jordan got the Presidential Medal of Freedom after Bill Belicheck declined it. (Not quite as repulsed as I was at Rush Limbaugh receiving it, but close.) Jordan hasn’t done anything noteworthy other than covering up Richard Strauss’s sexual abuse of wrestlers at Ohio State and being Trump’s yes man. His House district is the dictionary definition of “gerrymandered” too.
Work take. My boss added another student to my tutoring load today, so I have officially maxed the numbers I can work during the week. 6 hours of it is drop-in tutoring, and the other 9 hours is split between a few different students.
Yet another shanty take. I love Nathan Evanss’s cover of “Bully in the Alley” but this one led by John Bromley of the Kimber Men is also pretty lovely and very addicting. The chorus works well for group singing.
Pizza for troops at the Capitol. There’s a pizza place in DC called We The Pizza that will let you donate toward feeding the National Guard troops at the Capitol. Order here, select “Curbside”, choose the donation option under “Pies” and put a note in your order about it being for the National Guard troops.
This Twitter thread, by the way, makes me simultaneously proud of all those “kids” (young soldiers) guarding the Capitol and sad that they have to be there in the first place.
I am about to lay a truth bomb down on all of you who voted for Trump, and you are probably not going to like what I am about to say. If you are feeling especially sensitive, go read something else because I’m not going to apologize for saying any of this.
First things first… I have to tell people this monthly:
ANTIFA IS NOT AN ORGANIZED GROUP, NOR DO THEY OFFICIALLY EXIST. IT’S A SLUR USED TO DENOTE PEOPLE WHO SPEAK OUT AGAINST FASCIST BEHAVOR.
There are idiots on Facebook who accuse me of being part of it because I speak out nonviolently against racist, homophobic, bigoted, fascist things. (What I do is called “treating people the way I would like to be treated”. I recommend it.) It has come to be a rallying cry against anyone protesting some injustice committed by Trump or his supporters.
Also, I will NEVER use the title “President” for Donald. He will never rise from the depths of his own depravity to deserve the title. NEVER.
Calling people out. If you voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and especially if you voted for him in 2020…
YOU ARE COMPLICIT IN THE INSURRECTION THAT TOOK PLACE AT THE U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING YESTERDAY.
Let me repeat…
YOU ARE COMPLICIT IN THE INSURRECTION THAT TOOK PLACE AT THE U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING YESTERDAY, EVERY TREASONOUS ACT CAUSED BY EVERY SEDITIOUS WORD OUT OF TRUMP’S MOUTH.
You heard and saw the horrible things he did and said during the 2016 election. You watched him discriminate against people, make racist statements that would have cost any other person their office, support people committing legitimate crimes, pardon his cronies to keep them from testifying against him in the Russia probe, pay off Stormy Daniels, and do all manner of horrible things. The country is worse off four years later because of his election in 2016, and you voted for him in 2020 knowing all of this.
THE MAN COMMITTED SEDITION, WHICH LED TO THIS INSURRECTION AND CAUSED MASSIVE PROPERTY DAMAGE TO A BEAUTIFUL BUILDING BECAUSE HE WAS BUTTHURT OVER LOSING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
Shame on all of you who enabled him to enter the White House four years ago. You should all be stripped of your voting rights.
Words have consequences. I fail to understand how anyone is surprised at what happened yesterday. Trump has egged these losers on from Day 1, called them “fine people” even as they menaced Charlottesville in 2017, put racist advisors close to him, told the Proud Boys to standby at one of the debates, supported their violent protest in DC in December, and *INVITED* them to DC for this.
HOW THE [INSERT STRING OF EXPLETIVES] CAN ANYONE BE SURPRISED THAT THIS HAPPENED?!?!?!?!
Some of the more interesting bull feces I’ve seen online. I had some deluded person tell me on Facebook yesterday that all the damage was caused by Antifa and BLM.
…
Yeah, no. Every horrible excuse for life who invaded the U.S. Capitol yesterday was as pale if not paler than my Irish self. BLM’s complaint is also with the police, not the lawmakers.
Also, you wanna see a picture of what Antifa *ACTUALLY* looks like? This is a VERY clear video of “Antifa”.
Why yes, that is footage from D-Day. They are fighting against fascism, so they’d be under the banner of Antifa.
Some of the heroes yesterday. You want to know who the heroes are from yesterday?
[+] The parliamentarian assistants who safeguarded the electoral votes when the U.S. Capitol had to be evacuated so that the Hosuse and Senate could convene late last night to certify everything.
[+] Representative Andy Kim from New Jersey who helped the ATF and others clean up some of the damage
[+] Mike Pence who showed that he had *ACTUAL LEADERSHIP SKILLS* and told the horde of treasonist Trump supporters to leave long before Trump himself had the jones to say a word.
The certification process. I did actually watch the certification process last night (mostly because I wanted to make sure it happened), and it was pretty boring. The only cool part for me was that Zoe Lofgren, one of my House members when I was in high school and college, was one of the four tellers.
I also absolutely called it on which states would have objections. The only ones that had any bite to them were the ones for Arizona and Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania one was incredibly boring, at least in watching the House debating it. It was mostly Republican reps from there complaining about losing the election because of vote-by-mail (which the Republicans in the state staunchly supported originally) along with a handful of Republicans from other states speaking out of their rear sphincter openings. Those speaking in rebuttal on the Democrat side actually cited laws and statutes to back up their words instead of going on endlessly with their opinions on Act 77. The best speakers by far were Chrissy Houlihan and Conor Lamb. (Lamb actually caused several of the Republican reps from Pennsylvania to be escorted from the chamber for violating the House rules by yelling at him and behaving like toddlers.)
Seditionist senator Josh Hawley, the one who signed the objection to the Pennsylvania votes, just had his book deal cancelled by Simon & Schuster because of his conduct, so that actually made the freaking 2+ hour delay in certification for Pennsylvania’s votes worth it.
A parting quote… A friend of mine posted this quote from the end of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I feel it describes Trump very accurately.
I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
Saint for 2021. As I have for most of the last decade, I clicked on Jennifer Fulwiler’s Saint’s Name Generator to get my saint for next year. (Last year was St. Issac Jogues.) The saint chosen for me was…
St. Rose of Lima Feast:August 23 Patronage: Against Vanity; Embroiderers; Florists; Gardeners; Needle Workers; People Ridiculed for Their Piety
Given that my word for 2020 was “build” and I ended up building a lot of web things for my parish and for my job, I am a bit nervous to see why “comfort” was chosen for me.
Daniel update. We’ve been home from Seattle Children’s for over two weeks now, and kiddo is eating like a horse. His formula for his tube feeds got changed to a lower calorie formulation, and we are hoping that it is less constipating for him. He has been sleeping in until 8:30 or 9 this week, which is making his mama happy.
Bullet journal. I may or may not have glued the spare pages of my second bullet journal for 2020 together before writing “adios 2020!” on the last page.
Beast of the Year.Kelly, our Quick Takes hostess with the mostest, has introduced the Beast of the Year generator so you can pick your beast of the year as she does. I got…
Sasquatch
I think it’s fitting, given that I live in the Pacific Northwest.
We have lost 300,000 people to COVID-19 here in the USA and people still don’t seem to care, so I thought I’d do my Quick Takes on the scale of that number. All of these figures are from Wikipedia with the exception of take #5, which took some combing through Church statistics.
(Seriously, you can either read me talking about stats or me talking about the state of Daniel’s bowels. Throwing out statistics seemed more merciful.)
Also? I’ve seen idiots in my local area talking about how it’s just a cold or flu, and part of the problem with that line of thought is that you can get a mild case of COVID and end up later on with blood clots or heart conditions. This even happens in young people and people with no history of either thing.
Slightly more than the population of Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. Our COVID death toll here in the States would wipe out the entire population of the capital plus 604 people.
Almost the entire Diocese of Toledo. There would only be 19,907 Catholics left in northwest Ohio! (My readership is mostly Catholic, so I thought I’d throw this figure out there.)
Slightly under half the population of the U.S. state of Vermont. The Green Mountain State has a population of 623,989. That means that there would be just about half as many Green Mountain Boys there.
Slightly less than the number of people who work for Starbucks globally. Starbucks employs 346,000 people worldwide, so I might have a hard time finding someone to make my iced grande latté with one pump of vanilla!
Hauled butt to Seattle. Daniel was pukey last Thursday and hadn’t pooped, so we headed to his gastroenterologist in Everett… who proceeded to blow me off and give me instructions for some enemas. I’m sure nobody will be surprised that the enemas did nothing except make my kid afraid of me, and I finally hit my breaking point on Monday when he was puking and nothing was happening. I knew it was ER time (having gone through this last year) and decided to drive down to Seattle Children’s Hospital for their ER, figuring that they would have all the necessary tools (i.e. feeding extensions) and knowledge to deal with Daniel. (They do, and they know how to use them.) I also figured they were probably taking good COVID precautions. (They are.)
Watched construction taking place outside my window. They are building something outside my room, and our room is full of construction noise during the day. They offered to move us if the noise was going to bother Daniel’s autistic sensitivities. (My kid couldn’t care less.)
Prayed for Thomas Lauer. Thomas is the 5 year old son of Katherine at Gloria in Excelsis Deo. If you’re not praying for him, start doing it NOW. Kiddo has survived 7(!!!!!) surgeries in the last three weeks since they removed a 13 oz. tumor from his tummy. He had a SIRS response to the surgery and has dealt with internal bleeding, necrotic organs, and a whole host of issues… and he is still alive.
Pray for him and for his mama Katherine. She has been by his side for the last 3+ weeks, and she needs prayers for continued strength. I’ve watched my kid code and almost not come back from it. She has watched far more than that in the last three weeks, and she is incredibly strong.
Take mask selfies. Did you expect anything less of me? 🙂 My glasses are off because they were reflecting my computer screen, and my hair is in ringlets at the ends because I just washed it.
I’m thankful the election is over. Holy polarization, Batman! This election season was functionally 8 years long. The 2012 election bled into the 2016 one… which then bled into this one. I’m also so thankful that the election went in my favor! I have a good governor who has worked tirelessly to protect the people of Washington, and the idiot running against him would have been horrible for the state. I get my amazing Congresscritter again, and let’s not even go into how happy I am that Joe Biden won the election.
You know what’s making me even happier? Not having to deal with the “rolling Trump rally” idiots driving around, creating traffic hazards, and giving me a headache from their honking. I wonder if they even know how much they made people want to vote for Biden instead!
I’m thankful for teachers. Homeschoolng Daniel is my idea of hell, so I’m grateful that someone else is doing the planning while I just have to make sure he stays on task. His teacher, therapists, and aide love him, and they make an absolute effort to try and reach him. I can’t wait until he can go back to school, but I’m happy that we can at least keep his education moving until the vaccine is ready.
I’m thankful that I have a job right now. One of the good things about my job is that it can be done online. Because of this, I was able to work this summer for the first time since Daniel was a baby. Winter Quarter will also be online, so I have job security for the time being.
I’m thankful for businesses that are trying to keep their employees and customers safe. I don’t have the luxury of ignoring the pandemic where I live, so I appreciate that my grocery store is limiting the number of people inside, that my favorite restaurants are on DoorDash or Munchie Dude so food can be delivered, and that other places have curbside pick up for food and retail goods. People in my area have been patient with the restrictions that we currently have, and that made it easier to deal with the line to get in the store on Thanksgiving Eve to pick up Daniel’s meds and a few last-minute things.
I’m thankful for my family. I’ve been stuck in the house with them for eight months, and we haven’t managed to kill each other yet. The grown-ups are also eating together every night, so I think my parents have a better idea of what I do for a living and what I have on my figurative plate because we talk about our days at dinner.
We also were able to have some socially distant porch visits this summer with some extended family. For Thanksgiving, we made dinner-to-go for my bachelor uncle, and he was able to come over and pick it up. (He brought us a pumpkin spice cheesecake from 5b’s Bakery in exchange.)
I’m thankful for my church. We haven’t been able to have in-person worship for eight months, so we’ve done worship over Facebook Live and then Zoom. Granted, I’m the one doing all the tech and web work for it, but people are being patient with tech malfunctions for the most part, and we’ve gotten pretty good at it. Our Vestry is also trying to make sure people get called every week and checked on because it can be lonely and we have an older congregation. Our choir has put together virtual anthems, and we’re working on finding ways to do worship without being allowed to sing. (This is why we can’t sing.) We did a survey of people this summer, and nobody wants to go back to in-person worship until the county hits Phase 4 and there is a vaccine available. We obviously didn’t get to do Easter in-person, and we are making plans for Midnight Mass over Zoom.
I’m thankful for my NOOK. I’ve re-read and gotten caught up on one series of murder mysteries, and I am almost done with the “Witchnapped in Westerham” books.
