Saturday, May 30, 2020

MONTHLY DEATH COUNTS

I keep hearing about how the number of cOVID-19 deaths is way overstated. Then some anecdote about how someone committed suicide or was killed in a car crash then listed as a COVID death.
But these statistics people are sharp as shit. They cross reference these numbers every which way but loose. In New York City for instance, they usually have about 8000 people die between 3/15 and 5/1. Its somewhat predictable. This year 32,000 died. And it just so happened that 24,000 deaths were attributed to COVID in that time period.

So it kinda all checks out for NYC. They do that for all the regions around the country. When they find discrepancies, they will be looking for problems in the data. These guys are smart...
Here is a chart from Michigan that you can compare deaths for April 2019 and April of 2020. Deaths from all causes and by cause. Interesting how closely balanced the variance is accounting for COVID deaths.

Click HERE


Wednesday, May 27, 2020

AUNT LOUISE



Years ago I found my grandmother about to set fire to a suitcase full of old family pics. It took a while, but I talked her out of it, and saved the suitcase. I finally started framing some of these pics last week. Most are 100 years old.
One was my Aunt Louise. I never liked Louise much. She seemed all stuffy, like some kind of fuddy-duddy.
Then I found this pic of her this weekend. Look how adorable she is! Those glasses! That mischievous look! Never mind that she kept plastic on the furniture and whenever we went to visit I had to sit on the sofa with my hands in my lap.
Look at her!
If she was to walk into Boomer Jacks tonight they wouldn’t be able to leave her alone.


TUESDAY MORNING


I bought the cutest little lamp at Tuesday Morning 7 years ago. My first lamp I ever bought. Susan helped me carry it in. She dropped it at the doorstep. It shattered into a million pieces. I still tease her about it to this day every chance I get. I know, I'm horrible.
Its like I love Susan even more for it.
The lamp had a fabric shade with a lavender floral design in it that was invisible until you turned the light on. I kept it in the closet for a while hoping to get another lamp to put it on. I was in the closet one day rearranging stuff and the shade fell off the shelf and an avalanche of boxes came down and crushed it. Some things just aren’t to be.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

LATE FOR WORK FROM HOME DAY

Between work from home and half furlough days I'm all screwed up. Woke up this morning thinking it was Sunday. Turned on the TV, no Sunday shows. It must be Saturday. Nope. It took 5 full minutes of total disorientation to figure out it was Tuesday.
Tuesday? Oh no! I'm late for work from home day!
What did they put in that burrito last night?

Friday, May 22, 2020

AND LOCK UP YOUR ADDERAL


I've been saying for some time that our politicians are fair game, but we should not take shots at their supporters. I try to live by that. This toe's the line a bit.
I've heard it said "Sure he's crass and vulgar and I wouldn't want him at my BBQ but he gets things done." And that is a valid point.

"Me, I wouldn't want him at my BBQ because he'd take up a dump in the pool and blame it on democrats, boast about grabbing my wife's pussy, take one look at my Latino attorney and contact INS, call the guys in white hoods who crashed the party good people, encourage everyone at the party to drink Drano, put a tariff on the egg rolls and lie about how the Chinese are paying for it, brag about his IQ and then tell my kid the Continental Army took out airports during the revolutionary war, lecture me about how the weather vane at the top of my house kills birds, tell my African-American pal he comes from a shithole country, cheat at miniature golf, call any woman who dare ask him a simple question rude and disrespectful, brag about how his house is better than my house and refuse to shut up about it, kick my transqender friend out of the party, eat all my hot dogs and swear Barack Obama did it even though Barack Obama isn't at the party, screw my pooch and blame it on the pooch, then tell me to get away from the grill because the grill is a big, beautiful grill and it was his idea I buy it in the first place. And when he finally left I'd discovered my cuff links were missing."

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

THEY SHOULD WEAR CAPES

"Just got moved off of the COVID19 floor to a regular room where staff aren't wearing space suits! I can eat with silverware, real dishes & see the faces of the people caring for me! Hospital's aren't fun for anyone but the absolute worst part of the small quarantine floor I was on was hearing the screams of real COVID19 patients. The nurses were tense, sad & clearly stressed by the number of things going on. I hated to ask for things because others needed them more. I heard at least 3 code blue calls, saw nurses comfort each other & saw chaos from staff running to other rooms, from the little window in my room where a nurse sat & watched 2 patients for 12 hours. She'd come out of one room & changed gear, disinfected her helmet, hands, etc. Then suit back up to enter my room. I asked my last quarantine nurse if they were having a lot of new people this morning, as she was frantically getting me ready for the room transfer...she apologized for rushing me & said "you have no idea"....I felt so bad for her, she couldn't even wipe her own tears through the spacesuit helmet she was wearing. I have a serious new respect for all our healthcare heroes. They should wear capes, have time to eat, have bathroom breaks & definitely make more money. But for now every one I see, is 'wearing a cape', because they are the real Super Heroes of this pandemic."


A friend of mine, quarantined for COVID 19 for several days and eventually tested negative.

Detailed further..."...EVERY LOSS IS PERSONAL...""I was brought in by ambulance to a special entrance specifically for probable COVID19 patients. Nurses in full protective gear met the ambulance & paramedics to transfer me to triage. I had to stay in triage for several hours before a room in the COVID19 unit freed up. Never thought to ask why it freed up...
But anyway, they put me in that part of the hospital where the rooms were set up with 1 nurse in a spacesuit & helmet, watched 2 rooms on either side of a split window. I was too sick when I went in to notice how many rooms where on the floor but when I left, there appeared to be about 5 stations on each side of the central nursing desk. That would be around 20 patients with 10 nurses, sitting outside the rooms. This was in tower 4. I was told each tower had a COVID19 unit. I got meds through a double sided closet door/window. Techs put it in outside & my nurse would take it out on my side of the room to give me. Techs were walking around helping but they only wore black plastic "trash bag" looking gowns & masks. I did ask one of them if they were really medical grade gowns or if the hospital was improvising. She laughed & said they were actually medical gowns.
I had to wear a mask whenever any staff entered my room too. The doctors had the most protective gear. Full spacesuits, helmet's, masks, gloves & shoe coverings. Nurses had the second best level of protection & techs had the least. All my meals were delivered through the double-sided door. Everything was in disposable Styrofoam. Once I asked if they would re-microwave my coffee. They said that once something had entered a contaminated room, it couldn't leave except as trash.
Even though I couldn't see any other patients, I could hear them. Lots of PA announcements, codes, (code blue), coughing, crying & staff running down the hallways. Sometimes I'd see nurses appear to be breaking down, from exhaustion or sadness...I don't know which, but they were clearly stressed.
This morning, very suddenly, all heck broke loose & a tech & nurse started getting me ready to transfer. It was confusing but I'd guessed more patients were needing a bed in the unit. The nurse apologized for rushing me. I asked if everything was okay & she said "No!" I asked what was happening & she started crying & said "You'd never understand". She couldn't hide her tears under the space helmet.
I was only quarantined for 4 days & had 3 COVID19 tests before being sent to a less restrictive area. So I'm on a regular floor now. No one should doubt that this is a very serious infection or that people aren't dying from it. I'm very grateful to merely have septicemia which is easily treated with antibiotics. I've got only prayers for those still left in the quarantined areas.They are completely alone when they need their families the most. The staff was great but they aren't family. (Although you can see it in their eyes, that every loss is personal.) Yes, there are lots of very sick people who are quarantined here at this hospital. Please pray they get to go home & that you are well enough to stay in yours! I know I will."

I got to tell you she's probably the prettiest girl I ever dated!

Monday, May 11, 2020

BACK TO WORK


And what a wonderful thing that artifice can be. Now that we are all working from home, amid the children, the toast crumbs and the laundry, we are realising that the pretence of an orderly life at the office is also a liberation. It allows each day to have its own architecture, its rhythms of departure and arrival. Putting on a perfectly ironed silk shirt or a crisp suit and leaving the house may be contrived but it is also, says Kellaway, “one of the beauties of working life…It allows us to be a different person. And we’re all so fed up with who we are, the opportunity to be someone else, someone a little bit more impressive, is just so tempting.” When such an escape is denied us, that allure may only grow.

Catherine Nixey, from “Death of the Office” in The Economist

Thursday, May 07, 2020

MONKEY WARDS

I was sharing at an NA meeting a few weeks ago. Recounted that in 1972 I got busted for a little pot. I had to go to counseling. They didn’t have NA around here back then. So my parents and I attended Montgomery Wards Family Counseling Services. I could sense that hardly anyone in the group had any idea what Montgomery Wards was.
“It was a department store y’all, like Sears or Pennys”
“Ohhhh” you could hear them all sigh.
Probably paid on a Monkey Wards CC.

Couple more years and it will be "Sears who?"

FOR THE PEOPLE

"So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists."
 - G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare


Friday, May 01, 2020

A GIFT



As they were leaving the garden
one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

I am to give you this
as you are leaving the garden

I do not know what it is
or what it is for
what you will do with it

you will not be able to keep it
but you will not be able

to keep anything
yet they both reached at once

for the present
and when their hands met

they laughed

–W.S. Merwin from Garden Time
source: beautywelove