Suziecreamcheese Sings the Blues

No, Maverick doesn’t have it. Geesh, people, settle down.

Maverick goes to daycare. It’s the best thing that has ever happened with him, he comes home still with energy but it wears off after about an hour and he settles. He’s a very demanding, and very needy, kid, so when he’s home all day, and I’m home all day, he thinks that means that I’m at his beck and call all day.

He is very spoiled. Yes, my fault entirely, shutty. He will bark at me until I give him what he wants – this has been changing, I’m starting to leave the room and shut the door behind me when he does this.

He also has no concept of settle down. If someone is awake and moving, so is he. Every minute is a party to most Golden Retrievers. Maverick is ready to play any time you move.

So he goes to daycare, and he gets to play all day and I get a break, and life is good for both of us. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with him, but I am basically an introvert who can only take so much interaction with people – and yeah, I’m good at it, but – I need to decompress, be by myself, not have to react. So after a few hours of constant Maverick attention, I need some peace.

He went a week ago for his normal shots. I mentioned to Dr. Dave that he was going to daycare, at which point Dr. Dave asked if he’d had his kennel cough vaccine. It seems that Bordatella, the technical name for kennel cough, is highly contagious. He’d never had the vaccine. (I’m assuming this is NOT the Delta variant of Bordatella, or he’d have to get the experimental jab and I’d be saying no)

However, like experimental jab, when a dog is given this vaccine, he (or she, shutty) sheds it for two weeks. Hence, he can’t be around other dogs for this period of time because they could catch it from him, even though he doesn’t have the actual virus. (Does this all sound strangely familiar?)

Maverick is home for two weeks. We’re on day 10 of what will actually be a 16 day quarantine. Next year, when he has to get this vaccine again, I’m booking a vacation.

When you work from home, each day seems pretty much the same. And when you teach from home, the weekend is just the time you catch up on grading and student emails, so it’s not really all that different from any other day except the Bear is home all day and the TV is on all day (I don’t turn it on when he’s not home).

I have homework to do and I don’t want to. It’s the last two chapters of PowerPoint and then the class is done, and I was cooking along till I realized that this isn’t due till next week. I’ve been perusing the “news” and see that the Mayor of NYC has decided to make restaurant owners, gym owners and others into vaccine police. His statement that NYC has a lot of great stuff to offer but “you can’t play in our sandbox if you don’t get jabbed!” (my words, not his, exactly, but the same sentiment) made me laugh.

Dude, I’ve BEEN to NYC and trust me, it ain’t all that. Yeah, there’s some cool stuff to do there, but is there REALLY that much that you can’t do in any city? I want to visit the 9/11 memorial at some point but I’ve lived this long without doing that, I guess it won’t kill me if I don’t get there.

I’ve worked retail. The thought of confronting people and demanding to see their papers – nope, I didn’t get paid near enough for that. I once almost had my head torn off for asking a guy if he was a senior citizen – we gave a discount – geesh, I was supposed to know he was only 45? He looked like he had one foot in the grave, seriously! There isn’t enough incentive for anyone to ask people for their “papers.”

And if they should be brave enough to do so, how many (hopefully lots) will just turn around and leave? It hasn’t been hard enough for small businesses to survive lately, let’s make it even harder!

We’ve been hearing all along that it’s far more difficult for people of color and poor people to get this jab than it is for others. So let’s just make life more difficult for them too! Isn’t that racist? Isn’t that segregation at the highest level?

If we don’t stand up to this nonsense, I fear for our country.

Driving home from the park today, I turned on the radio. I usually don’t because I like to just drive and enjoy the scenery but Maverick is banned from daycare for two weeks – kennel cough vaccine – sheds for two weeks so he could infect other dogs – so we went to the big park today and walked a mile and a half. This is half my usual, but he decided at 1.4 miles that he was done, planted himself beneath a tree, and panted like he was about to keel over. (It was barely 70 degrees out, he got a drink of water and after a bit was able to meander to the car. Can we say “drama queen?” (He informs me he is not a queen, by the way)

To drown out the panting from the back seat – I did mention drama, right – I turned on the radio. The big news was the expiration of the ban on evictions. I sympathize with people who are struggling now. Shutting down the economy for all those months was brutal – so many people suffered. Most landlords, in my experience, are people who have bought a second home and rent it out in the hopes that someday, it will be paid off, and then will actually generate income, but in the meantime are using the rent payments to pay the mortgage and any other bills that go along with upkeep on that property. There seems to be a picture of landlords as all filthy rich tyrants who can go years without collecting rent and while I’m sure there are plenty of those, I’m sure there are plenty of just regular people trying to get by.

For the filthy rich, this ban was no problem. For the regular guy, it has been. The bills still needed to be paid, and for all the talk of mortgage payments being delayed, we never saw that here (we don’t own a second property, we’re paying on our home). Where were they supposed to get the money to pay those bills?

Now the people who haven’t paid rent in over a year are in danger of becoming homeless. The sympathetic part of me feels bad for them. But another part of me is asking – what did they do with the money they would have been using for rent for this past 18 months? What did they do with the extra money they got from the government (yes, almost all of us got the checks, not judging there)? Did they think they were never going to have to pay the rent again? They could have saved the normal rent payment and at least earned some interest on it. Or they could have invested it and earned even more.

Yet we’re meant to feel sorry for them. I’m having a hard time doing that. Maybe it’s because I know people who chose to not pay rent, even though they could well afford it, knowing that they couldn’t be kicked out, and spent the money on themselves. Maybe it’s because I know some of those smaller landlords who have been forced to sell out to huge companies who run multiple rentals. (And do you think those are going to let anyone off the hook for past rent?)

It’s a mess. And I can’t help but wonder if this is an example of socialism in action.

I read today that the border control people are no longer testing the illegals for Covid. Actually, I’ve heard this more than once recently. I’m also hearing that there’s a “surge” in this new Delta variant that somehow manages to bypass the vaccine that was supposed to keep everyone from getting sick – unless you’re trying to kill Grandma and refuse to get it, then you can just go die in a corner, you selfish piece of shit.

I’m also hearing rumors of another impending lock down – because the first one worked so well.

Seriously, I know a lot of people (raises hand) who barely survived the first one and most likely won’t survive a second one. This is more than financial hardship, this is mental torture. I am a social being, when cut off from friends, I go into a mental place that I don’t like to visit, let alone dwell in.

I’m wondering, how many people will refuse to comply if this should happen?

I also wonder why in the hell we’re discussing a lock down when our borders are so wide open, and the people coming over are not even being tested for this supposedly highly contagious variant of the virus that was supposed to kill all of us last year. How does this possibly make sense to anyone?

The CDC is no longer monitoring cases of Covid diagnosed in people who’ve been vaccinated. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html And yet we’re being told that the majority of cases that are being diagnosed are people who are not vaccinated. How the hell do they know that? If I feed Maverick a cookie, and my husband turns around and gives him 6, but neither of us tells the other one, how do we know how many cookies he’s had? He sure as heck isn’t gonna tell us!

I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe, where common sense has gone out the window and people spew so many contradictory statements in a few minutes that my head spins and they don’t even blink.

I’m praying every day that those who are blindly accepting the current state of affairs will wake up before it’s too late.

Yesterday I went to buy some twill tape to finish up an outfit for the most perfect baby ever born. I was going to buy twill tape, nothing more. I was NOT going to buy fabric.

So I bought fabric.

I cut out two tops and two pairs of shorts yesterday afternoon because, well, I bought fabric.

My plan for today was to spend some time studying – I’m taking a computer information systems course and the current topic is Access, which I firmly believe was invented by Satan. Tonight was dinner and diamonds with the dog ladies, always a fun time and much needed for my mental health, and it was my turn to make dessert. I planned a Boston Cream Pie because who doesn’t like Boston Cream Pie, other than Satan?

I took Maverick to daycare, did my usual morning routine, decided not to walk today because it was bloody hot and my feet were screaming at me half the night, so I made some phone calls. One of those was to the vet about getting Bravecto for Maverick. The not so nice receptionist informed me that they had to see Maverick since he hadn’t been there in 3 years. Ummm, I have receipts from about 2 months ago so if you haven’t seen him in 3 years, I think I need some money back! That got resoved and I made the cake and then my lunch. I usually eat in front of the laptop, check mail and answer student emails and scroll through Fakebook and just relax a bit.

The plan was to eat lunch, let the cake cool, study awhile, make the filling for the cake, let that cool, and sew for an hour or so before putting the cake together.

The universe laughs at plans.

While eating my lunch, and listening to Toby Keith’s new song, my laptop suddenly went black. I said some bad words and tried to restart the computer. The jump drives were blinking so something was working but that screen just stared at me in total blackness.

I teach online. I need a computer. After trying to buy one from Best Buy and encountering a total cluster f**k, I called Staples. Tech guy tried to fix the old laptop with no success, so home I came with a new one.

I hate setting up a new computer.

Several hours and a lot of swearing later, I have things pretty much the way I want them. Having dinner with good friends helped improve my mood, having Bear come to my rescue when I was melting down over everything going wrong helped even more.

Today I’m playing catch up with all the school work I didn’t do yesterday. I don’t ever want to hear a student complain about how much homework I assign, the class I’m taking has three times as much homework as I ever handed out. But I’ll get it done and do some sewing today too.

Because it takes more than a blank screen to keep me down for long.

For the next several weeks, the Bear starts work at 6:00 a.m. He gets up at 4:00 to give himself time to get functional before heading out.

My alarm (clock) is set for 8:00. My alarm (dog) tends to go off at about 7:30.

We are not morning people. For most of our marriage, Bear has either worked second or third shift, and I tend to take only afternoon or evening classes, although I’ve had the rare morning class (that usually doesn’t go well). However, we’ve adjusted to this early rising thing and although things are iffy until that second cup of coffee, we haven’t yet committed mayhem upon anyone or anything. (It was a close call this morning when Maverick was barking at a guy who said, “will he bite?” and I replied with, “I don’t know.” To that he responded, “well then I won’t approach.” I refrained from saying, “DUH!!!!!!” ) (In my defense, I’d had NO coffee!) (I did give him the look, though)

I’ve never quite understood people who are judgy about what time other people get out of bed. When the Bear worked second shift ( that’s 3-11 for you normal people), we would go to bed around 2:30 (that’s A. M.) and get up around 11. We ate dinner at around 1:00 a.m.

My sister, who personifies judgy (she should have been named Karen), would often make snide comments about how late we slept. And the thought of eating dinner so late made her just about pass out. (I would say she got the vapors, but I can’t quite see her fluttering about with smelling salts and a handkerchief) (I’ve been known to get the vapors at times, but that usually preceeds me falling over in a dead faint and scaring the bejinkies out of everyone in sight.) (That’s kind of fun, actually.) (I digress)

She’s now retired and has been for years. When I was in NY, I was told (often) that she gets up at 5:30. I refrained from saying, “what the f**k for?” Seriously, is it even light yet? And what is open? It’s not like you can go to the library or go shopping or go to the dentist or the doctor or really anywhere except all night diners and emergency rooms at that hour! (Are all night diners open or is the Kung Flu still got them closed down?) (I’m going to Hell for Kung Flu, I just know it)

When (if) I ever retire, I plan to sleep till noon every day, take a nap around 5, and then go to bed around midnight. I suppose at some point, I will have slept enough, so then I plan to just get up, get a coffee, and go back to bed with a book.

I have always been a failure in her eyes. My lack of enthusiasm for early morning hours is only one more of the many things wrong with me. (The list is long and grows longer with each passing year. I’ve given up keeping track.)

I’m not sure why people who get up early look upon the night owls as lesser folk. I just know it’s tiresome.

It’s been a long week. The good times are currently overshadowed by the bad times. I just want to be home. I want my Bear’s arms around me, I want my puppy to climb on me and knock me down and lick my face half off. I want to be where there’s no drama, where my friends love me because of who I am, not in spite of who I am.

I’m exhausted. I broke the carafe to my little coffee pot tonight so I can’t make coffee in my room in the morning. I was given orders to get a shower, go get coffee and bring it back to my room, and get functional before getting on the road. I don’t want to, I just want to go home. But the Bear will worry, so I will do as he asks.

There are hurts to heal – pain that I’m still processing – grieving to do, for a sister who will not again be part of my life. I hope she understands what she’s lost.

I’m pretty hard to anger to the point where I actually flash out but it happened tonight. I’ve been contradicted, interrupted, bit my tongue after snide comments about my friends, bit my tongue when I was told that the nasty person who happens to be my niece is “just like you.”

I don’t honestly care who anyone chooses to like or dislike, nor do I care about their reasons for such feelings. I expect the same respect from others. No one gets to dictate to me who I like or don’t, nor do they get to dictate that I never express my opinions.

It has been a difficult week. It ended last night with slamming doors and tears. I leave here tomorrow, once again leaving in sadness, and wondering why I subjected myself to this when I knew in my heart it was going to happen eventually. I told Bear I didn’t want to come, and I should have listened to my intuition.

There have been good days. Going on a 90 mile ride (one way) to find a nursery that only sells African violets, getting lost and endind up on Ann St so many times we thought we should rent an apartment and stay awhile, and buying too many plants but laughing so hard we almost wet ourselves – that was a very good day. Seeing an 80 year old cousin and reminiscing without being told my memories were incorrect was another good day. The visit to the 91 year old cousin was spoiled by constant and relentless contradictions, corrections, criticisms. (This started from the day I was born, I think, never stopped till I moved away and cut all ties, and restarted when I renewed those ties, only to grow in intensity over the past couple of years till if anything it’s worse than when I left 18 years ago)

So I’ll remember the laughter and put the rest behind me. And by next year, I may be ready to gird my loins and head into the battle again. (I love that expression, by the way) I know full well that I could slay the dragons, I could wreck havoc and leave them bleeding on the battlefield that they chose, but I do not choose to do so. I wonder if they’ll ever realize how much restraint I’ve shown over the years? No, they will only remember the few times I let loose and continue to think of me as “such a bitch.”