Acquitted
It was a day that was careening a bit over individual and mutual grief over a pandemic that stretches onwards to summer as we're iced inside our home, going we don't lose power.
The the GOP acquitted T*. Just like they said they would.
I don't know why I'm so angry and despairing over something we knew was happening. The incomprehensible, incompetent, speedy defense was so for show since the Ghouls Only Party made up their minds to acquit.
My day has also been plagued by neck pain making it hard to turn my head and my right knee swelling for no reason I can recall.
Ice then snow then ice then snow, etc. meant no mail today. The Valentines I ordered should have arrived yesterday, but didn't. Now next week sometime. I'll save them for the belated cake we couldn't have this weekend because the bakery closed on account of snow.
Ursa offered uncomplicated nose boops and snuggles, thank goodness!
400,000 and Climbing
There was a memorial last night (1/19) marking the 400,000 life lost to COVID. Today the CDC website showed it, even though we knows we've been here a few days now.
The thing about the inauguration that most brought tears to my eyes was the large, solemn gentleman who carefully cleaned the podium between people using it unmasked. Closely followed by the way people put a mask back on as soon as they finished.
To see it taken seriously in such a public way felt healing.
I feel like I'm holding my breath for summer militia response, but so far there's been nothing but continued arrests for the January 6 insurrection.
I remain gobsmacked by Amanda Gorman's poem. That's a nice change.
I finally made a budget of all my monthly expenses today AND shared it with CK. I have three months of it saved up. By March we'll sort out how to make it work. Since summer is old credit card debt, it will go down!
Tomorrow we'll get the 2017 tax letter written so Friday I can send it off.
Then we'll tackle the next thing, 2018 taxes.
What Fresh Hell
Today began with seeing a post from my teacher sharing that she had COVID.
Then a friend shared that her Dad died Monday from cancer. Alone at the hospital because of COVID.
T* was impeached again.
I finished my clean up of the utility room. The floor could use mopping, multiple passes, but it's been swept well and looks much better. I hauled a big bag of trash from the basement out to the bin and another from the garage. I also got a big stack of cardboard out for recycling too.
I mostly avoided news until the evening, when CK and I could partake, discuss, and integrate together. Cleaning took most of the afternoon and I managed a little work on budget stuff.
Then I found out my closest college friend woke up with a fever, cough, and chills. She's professional caregiver and just received word about her vaccination. She's awaiting results from a COVID test and isolating in her home, away from her family.
Riding the Self-Criticism Bus
I'm tired today and although my class went well, I took care of all animal control tasks, answered a few messages, and made dinner, my critical inner self hasn't felt like I'm doing well enough.
I pointed out to her that I also cleaned up the dishes, loaded the dishwasher, and swept the kitchen.
Nope. Big list of what I didn't do.
It didn't help that I saw a post from my teacher sharing that she has COVID.
CK came back from vacation to a big change at work.
The inauguration is in a week. I'm wondering what I should do to prepare for worse chaos. I've been stocking up on a lot of things, tomorrow I'll scan the inventory and see what needs to be replaced.
Vintage Pyrex and Grief
I feel a little while back and my backpack went flying of my body, badly wrenching my right hand. It's remained stiffer in one finger and tender, which makes my hand a little clumsy.
A last week, while putting away some dishes while food cooked, my hand cramped and I dropped my favorite Pyrex mixing bowl. It shattered impressively and I felt terrible. I've lost count of how many things I've made in it over the years.
It was a vintage one from a set my Mother had from my early childhood. Originally there were four bowls, all in patterns or shades of avocado green.
She decided to get rid of them after breaking the largest when I was at college. I asked for the three remaining, using them for the past 30 years!
I thought about trying to scour thrift stores until I found a replacement. Vintage Pyrex is often to be had, I've aquired some additional cool pieces of baking dishes.
Then I remembered COVID, so no Goodwill Hunting.
Then I considered getting rid of the remaining ones and finding a new-to-me set, ones that weren't tied to my childhood. This has real appeal!
Turns out the "Cinderella" mixing bowl sets after kind of a thing. It's probably $150 for a set of four, shipped! Not terrible, but still a lot to think about.
So I just put all that on the proverbial back burner. There was a couple attempt to be distracted by.
Until tonight, when I wanted to make cornbread and went to get out my mixing bowl and it all came back.
The broken bowl, COVID, the coup, all the socially distant everything. It just all hurt.
I persevered and madder cornbread in the modern, OXO, plastic bowl. It was fine, even if it felt off. The cornbread was good for dessert.
We're in day one of an Atmospheric River. I miss driveway hangouts from summer and autumn.
It’s the Racism
My art group met online today to make oracle cards together. I’m excited about this project; making a single card a week for the year! I’m going to finish up two cards tomorrow to get started.
I’m always happy to discover that my friends are either already been doing the work to interrogate their whiteness or are getting started without question. Even still, I’m stuck at how much white people dance around racism.
There’s been energy invested in pointing to economic downturns, but this is just smoke and mirrors. It’s about white people not wanting a world that is filled with people who are Black and all other colors, who are queer, who know gender is on a continuum.
I’m tired of a “both sides” approach, there is no balance when one side thinks you don’t deserve to live.
Two Days, 8000+ Dead
COVID deaths are over 4000 a day.
I can't stop thinking about these numbers. How people who think it's a hoax urinated and defecated all over the Capitol Building. They stole, they killed, and desecrated.
People are finally taking this all seriously and it feels like they are too late.
I'm making up cocktails at home because I can and it's a creative outlet. I'm using my vintage barware, which is fun. Although I dropped the lid of the shaker and it vanished; perplexing.
Coup Hangover
A student told me how grateful she was that I taught today. Others shared her sentiment, saying that my class brings some balance and normalcy during these riotous, pandemic days.
It feels so good to know that I'm helping people, but it's also fatiguing to create this for people.
It's estimated that 4000 people died from COVID today.
Trump is still in office despite having provoked a coup attempt.
I lightly bumped my left hip at the market, but I hit a tender point! My body reacted with intense pain that's still lingering, several hours and ibuprofen later. Thankfully I have PT tomorrow, so that tender point will get attention.
I picked up fresh rose water while at the market so I'll be experimenting with my coup cocktail again soon.
Sedition
At the end of teaching chair yoga today I commented that we all might leave to see good news from the Georgia Senate runnoff election.
After lunch we planned to knock out a bunch of work on our back taxes.
Then the seditious riot began at the U.S. Capitol building.
We turned on a news channel, keeping it mostly muted worry captioning to reduce the load.
It's an utter fiasco.
Oh, and over 3,500 died from COVID in one day.
Biden was confirmed about 20 minutes ago.
Now we prepare for inauguration chaos.
Disbelief
We both just dragged all day. Obie woke me up at 2:20 for food. I'll order some things tomorrow, possibly morsels to try and speed up the middle of the night feeding.
Why I couldn't go to bed sooner; brain spin preventing me from taking a hot shower. I wanted so many things done for morning.
We're also in this state of disbelief that Biden/Harris won. Not able to fully take it in, so we're just feeling the tremendous load our stress response systems have been under! All weekend food hasn't been very appealing.
T* hasn't conceded. The lawsuits start tomorrow.
A highlight of the day was putting our flagpole mount to use and hanging the Progress Pride Flag.