It’s raining here in western Washington (we’re in the middle of a drought (believe it or not), and I’m fighting a migraine. Woo.
Flu. Daniel got Influenza A at the end of January, and it went through the house. Three of the four of us in our household ended up in either Urgent Care or the ER because of complications (it was both places for Daniel), and this was the first time I’ve had the flu in 23 years. (Mine turned into bronchitis.) I was reading something on the flu shot a few months ago, and apparently, it was only 30% effective due to all the shake-ups at the CDC and scientists not being able to meet and discuss it. *bites thumb at RFK Jr.*
No Kings 3. Daniel and I took part in the 3rd “No Kings” protest on March 28th. We were spread out over 1.5 miles for the protest in Mount Vernon, so it was nice from an introvert perspective, but it was a very different energy than the last one, and people talked about missing that.
Of course, we had the usual MAGAts on NextDoor making nasty comments about how it didn’t accomplish anything, how we’re all just a bunch of delinquents, and how it was a George Soros conspiracy. (The George Soros thing has been around for more than a decade at this point, and I’m not sure if people know how utterly stupid they sound when they mention it in seriousness.
(Yes, my kid is tall. His daddy is 5’10”. I’m 5’1″ on a good day.)
Pretty. This was the choral prelude last Sunday.
FAFO. For some odd reason, my FYP page on TikTok has been full of people commenting on posts from MAGA women about how they voted for Trump and favored the abortion bans… but (allegedly) didn’t vote for those bans preventing them from receiving lifesaving care for their pregnancy complications. I’m sitting here eating white cheddar puffcorn as various TikTokers explain to them that yes, they did indeed vote for themselves to be denied healthcare in supporting those abortion bans. I mean, none of them were passed in any state where a board-certified physician was actually consulted on the subject. If they had bothered to do that, they would have discovered that there are some legit medical reasons why people are claiming that abortion is healthcare. You can’t just move an ectopic pregnancy to a different place as Florida Republican legislator Kat Cammock discovered when she had one and had to fight tooth and nail for her lifesaving medical procedure. (She blames the Democrats despite us telling her that this was going to happen.) You know that child with birth defects that are incompatible with life? Those also tend to put moms into sepsis.
There’s a reason that the US has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. It’s at third world levels for women of color because they get ignored 2-3 times more often as white women.
Wow. This is impressive.
Why I’ve been “quiet” lately. My blog readers who have known me for long enough know that I’ve been talkative enough on Facebook and Threads, but I have just had a really hard time weighing in on things on the blog because I’m very much affected by the things the present administration has wrought on this country. I’m a member of the LGBTQIA+ community (I’m the “B” in that acronym), ICE raids are a serious threat to the livelihood of my area, I know the tariff system well as I used to work for an import brokerage on the Canadian border, I have a kid with special needs whose educational protections are threatened, I have friends/fellow parishioners/former students who are terrified for their families because ICE doesn’t actually follow any laws and violates Constitutional rights, and seeing the incredibly racist underbelly of this country has just disgusted me. I’m watching courts having to rule on unconscionably cruel things like deporting people to 3rd world countries where they have literally no economic or cultural ties and seeing the administration flip off the courts and refuse.
This isn’t a matter of having a mere political disagreement with the administration like I did during the George W. Bush years. This is a matter of watching the administration blatantly spit on people’s basic rights and claim to be following the teachings of Christianity while doing it. This is a matter of an actual moral disagreement with people who claim to believe in the same God as I do but who are worshipping a false idol instead. This country is bombing elementary schools to distract from Donald Trump’s name in the Epstein files. People re-elected a convicted rapist and pedophile, and they are claiming to care about family values.
It is just stunning me how revolting and vile people are in this country, and trying to put this revulsion into words is leaving me needing my anxiety meds.
Loss of faith. Some of the Catholic bloggers I used to read and who are now on Substack have started blogging about losing their faith and how the Church has failed them. This has led to other friends from Catholic social media commenting and sharing their own stories of leaving the faith, stories that they are finally sharing openly. These are people who were very visibly raising their kids in the Church and it was like they suddenly fell off the radar.
It breaks my heart to read about their pain, but that’s because I can empathize. I remember driving to church in 2010 and wanting to be anywhere else but there because the ELCA and Lutheranism had failed me so badly. The only reason I was able to stay Christian through it was that my faith was in Jesus and not specifically tied to a Christian tradition. Reverting to the Episcopal Church saved me in so many ways.