#bobcat this isn't livejournal

[bobcatmoran]

Just thinking about Mr. H, who was my 10th grade English teacher. I took 10th grade English and American Studies as a year-long "block" where you signed up for the "Enriched" versions of both courses. American Studies was split between two teachers who were very big personalities – one taught pre-20th century, the other taught the 20th century. And then there was Mr. H, quiet and nerdy, who would never dream of whacking the chalkboard with his pointer and shouting "AN UNEXAMINED LIFE IS UNWORTH LIVING" or forbidding scented lotion in their classroom and giving a giant letter "S" (for stinky) for any offenders to display on their desks for the duration of the class (recurring scenes in the two American Studies teachers' classrooms). Mr. H taught us for the full year, and was widely regarded as The Boring One among the two Block classes.

But. This quiet man, who brought his geraniums into the classroom for the winter because they couldn't survive outdoors in our climate, who got excited over Latin and Greek prefixes, was also astoundingly political. He was head of the local teacher's union, and I only put together years later how very much in character that was. Our assigned summer reading before we even started his class was "Grapes of Wrath," and although everyone made fun of the entire chapter on a turtle and the breastfeeding scene at the end, what stuck with all of us were those scenes where the Joad family was trying to make a living off of fruit picking and couldn't because were always more workers even more desperate, willing to work for wages even farther below what you could survive on, in an endless spiral of poverty.

He assigned us xeroxed copies of MLK's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" and Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience," neither which were in the textbook. And when we got the rare treat of having the (Republican) Speaker of the state House coming to talk to a joint session of the Block classes, and we all spent all of it grilling him on why he wouldn't allow a vote on legalizing gay marriage (this was the late '90s, and it was still regarded as a fringe liberal issue at the time), Mr. H afterwards was like, "Maybe you should have branched out on topics, but good job speaking truth to power."

Anyways. Wherever you are now, Mr. H, however unappreciated you were back when you were my actual teacher, I still carry with me the lessons you taught, decades later.

[bobcatmoran]

Back from a trip to Palm Springs, California, staying at the house my parents were renting for the winter, which, totally unplanned, overlapped with Modernism Week there. For those who've never been to Palm Springs, it's a town that's very, VERY of that era from post-WWII - 1970s, and there's a significant population of the town that is, shall we say, enamoured of that era of architecture. If you've seen "Don't Worry Darling," it was mostly filmed on site in Palm Springs, and large swaths of the town are to a not-insignificant degree just as unnerving as the environment in that film.

I went to a couple of free lectures on various bits of that era, thanks to the event. And don't get me wrong, there's some seriously amazing buildings that came out of it, and the modernism movement's embracing of merging outdoor and indoor spaces while, especially in those bulidings built in the pre-A/C era, trying to work with both the local climate and the stunning views from the valley and the nearby hillsides.

But despite my dad's reassurances that, "This town is built over an aquifer, so we don't need to worry about water," I was very aware that this was a town built in a desert environment that cannot possibly sustainably hold the expanding population that lives there, especially if people insist on keeping grass lawns and pools — a great many houses I saw had xeriscaped yards with gravel and local flora, but the many, many local golf courses certainly didn't.

I also tired quickly of tours of, "This is where [celebrity] lived!" where you could see little more than a 7-foot high hedge or fence and maybe a sliver of rooftop, since Palm Springs' bulding codes don't allow for buildings more than 1 story tall unless you know somebody or find a loophole like one celebrity house that has a 2nd story that only has 3 walls. The area was a refuge for Hollywood stars during the studio system era, and there still are a couple who live there today in gated communities, but most of those formerly celebrity-occupied-houses now are mostly hidden except for a mailbox and like, the top foot of the roofs. My celebrity-obsessed stepmom nevertheless decided to take us on a tour of them.

It all made me uneasy, especially with the glorification of an era where my very existence, as a biracial Japanese-American, would've held me suspect by my birth alone. Heck, even when my parents married in the mid-70s, my grandparents on both sides got a lot of not-so-subtle commentary from "well-meaning" family friends and neighbors about, "Do you know your son/daughter is marrying someone of a different race?"

However! those bits of the local environment that have been preserved are amazing. I went to Joshua Tree National Park, and marveled at the uncanny rock formations (geologic uplifts of granite and other igneous rocks eroded away by the wind until they look like backgrounds from The Flintstones) and the Dr. Seuss-esque Joshua Trees, which don't even grow an inch per year. I wandered through a "forest" of chola cacti, elbow-high, bristling with easily detachable orbs that could cling painfully to you if you only brushed against them, saw traces of cattle ranchers that had attempted to make a living there during a relatively wet period in the 1920s and then fled as the climate dried out. I took guided tours up the Tahquitz and Andreas Canyons, which are both managed by the Aqua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians and are each amazing in their own way. I learned about the first recorded human explorations of the area and how the Cahuilla used the local plants for food and medicine and shelter. If you're ever in the area, If you're able to handle the hikes (Tahquitz in particular has a LOT of steep steps up and down), I highly, highly recommend the ranger hikes, which absolutely change your perspective of the area.

[bobcatmoran]

About to embark (after a good night's sleep) on the 3rd weekend in a row of Being Social, after 2-weeks-ago attending a rock show with Favorite Cousin, last week being High School 20+1 reunion events, and tomorrow going to a book sale with Favorite Cousin, followed by the resuming after a pandemic pause of joint annual church services with Local Zen Temple the next day (I belong to a local Pure Land Buddhist sangha, which is, religiously speaking, a cousin of Zen Buddhism, but has a very different view on the role of meditation).

So that's just. So much socializing. Knock wood, I won't get Covid (my KN-94 masks have yet to let me down — I only got Covid in August because I spent a lot of time sans mask in crowded conditions because heat indices in NYC during my visit were in the high 90s/low 100s F, and my plans for outdoor eating were thwarted by my need to be indoors with A/C so I didn't die from heat exhaustion, and I likewise sometimes pulled down my mask in un-air-conditioned subway stations because I know what it feels like to be on the verge of heat exhaustion, and I decided an uncertain risk of covid was less horrible than almost certain Very Bad Times with heat exhaustion, which I've had before, and 0/10 recommend, I've hardly ever been so sick in my life, only outdone by getting strep throat immediately after chicken pox, yay living through the era when there wasn't a vaccine for that)

[bobcatmoran]

I realized today, while my brain was continuing to churn over Recent Events in Kingohger and, to a lesser extent, Blazar, that I've watched 3 episodes of Gotchard now, and usually by now, New Series is devouring my brain with happy munching noises. That's just. Not happening. Like, I like Hopper1 — I am a sucker for Bug Friends (and I'm still amazed that they aren't what's made Kingohger effectively a constantly running subroutine in my brain) —but Gotchard is just sort of lighthearted fun for 20-odd minutes, and that's kind of it for me.

Generally, I need at least one character who I enjoy watching to really be a hook early on. Juuru from Kiramager, Sento from Build, George from Revice, Blazar himself from Blazar, Hikaru from Zett, and Gira from Kingohger all drew me into their shows. Here? I got nothing. And I haven't run into a toku show like that since I watched Ex-Aid (sorry, Ex-Aid fans, honestly, I think some of the fanworks out there actually do a better job with the characters than the series did).

[bobcatmoran]

So the latest round of Supreme Court decisions are a hot, stinking pile of garbage, we're about to be down to only 3 field staff from 5 for the next 6 weeks, with me as the only one who's certified to do several duties, and I'm quietly freaking out about getting sinus surgery this fall (it's almost certainly the right choice since I consider being able to breathe through my nose a treat and am always amazed on the rare days when I can actually smell things).

But today was also the first day of the CSA I signed up for in the dead of winter and I have a head of lettuce the size of a basketball and rhubarb and spring onions and bok choy, and plans for them all. And I think while checking my Emerald Ash Borer biocontrol insect traps today I saw one of the parasitic wasps we've been hoping will become established, because those tiny guys are our best hope for giving the local ash population a fighting chance. And I got my election judge assignment for the primary, which is apparently at a local fire station? That I didn't know was a polling place? It's a pretty new fire station, so maybe that's a new thing.

[bobcatmoran]

Cut for a metric buttload of COVID angsting and 1st World Problems™

So. Long ago and far away, back in ye olde days when I didn’t have opinions on face mask styles and the idea that I’d be able to work from home for even one day was laughable when there wasn’t an actual freaking blizzard or, I dunno, the office burned down, I bought season tickets for the local Broadway touring show program for the 2019-20 season. Needless to say, the last several shows did not happen when they were supposed to, and I was saddened because there were a few shows in it I was particularly looking forward to. One was the new production of “Oklahoma!” which I saw a month(ish? time has ceased to have meaning) ago and was kind of disappointed with. The other was “Come From Away,” which I’ve longed to see ever since I first heard the positive buzz about it, and which I might never get the chance to see again.

My tickets for it are on the 14th. Omicron is well and truly surging where I am. And I…I dunno, I think I’ll probably go regardless, with the good-fitting KN95 masks that I’ve found, and with a rapid test the day before (can’t find the at-home tests for love or money, and the gap between the need-to-be-at meeting I have at work and the show isn’t enough to guarantee I’ll get results from the state’s rapid testing sites, which I made an appointment for the day prior to the show because of that) but I’m uneasy about it. 

And I’m stressed because I missed seeing Grandma (who is 94 years old and diabetic) over Christmas since Dad tested positive on the 23rd and I’d just been over to have a rare Family Dinner with him a couple days before. I’ve still got her Christmas gift waiting because I can’t stay completely isolated with my job or going to do things like take out the trash or check the mail in the apartment building where I live which has dubious ventilation and where people don’t wear masks in the hallways and, again, Omicron is surging here.

And I’m just. I’m just stressed. Over COVID. Over how so much of the population no longer seems to give a crap. Over my teacher stepbrother and friends, and my cousins who are nurses and doctors. Over how my country’s political system is quietly disintegrating and the people who have the power to stop it are either active participants in the disintegration or has thrown their hands up and gone, “I dunno, I can’t stop it.” Over how the CDC makes choices that make sense from a purely biological standpoint but then keeps forgetting that any advisories they give out will be going to actual human beings who generally aren’t going to follow an effing flowchart. Over how a terrifyingly huge portion of this country actually lives in an alternate reality. Over how, if we want to stop variants from arising, EVERYONE needs to have access to vaccines and how that isn’t happening. Over how I feel so powerless against it all.

A year ago I was hopeful. I actually cried at seeing the video of the first vaccines being given out, first worldwide and then in the US. I spent an entire month of my life working 10-hour days to help vaccinate people. And now…now I feel like I’m back where I was in November 2020, when, while standing in a socially distanced line of masked people waiting to be checked out at Aldi, I had this moment of absolute despair of when we’d be able to stop doing that — how would we know when to go back to “normal”?. The moment of solidarity I’d had way back in early April of that year, when during another Aldi trip, the woman in the car next to me and I had simultaneously sanitized our hands, put on our masks, sanitized our hands again, then realized to our mutual amusement that we were both going through the same then-unfamiliar ritual, was long gone by that November moment. 

I’ve been through natural disaster before. I lived on Long Island and had to evacuate for Superstorm Sandy. I donned my first N95 mask while helping gut and rebuild a house that had flooded, a bullet which I had dodged by the skin of my teeth as there was an actual boat washed up and blocking the driveway of a house just two blocks from me. And the terror accompanied by solidarity that there was for COVID back in March 2020 reminded me of the way everyone came together for a bit in the wake of Sandy. But the shine (such as it is) of that has long since worn off. And people now say that we have to live with it, that it’s a hoax, that it’s treatable with antiparasitics that cannot and will not work for this, that the real treatments and vaccinations we have are worse than the disease, and a hundred other falsehoods, which intertwine with the falsehoods that led to January 6, 2021, and which feed this toxic brew where, again, a sizable portion of the population of the US is living in an alternate reality and dealing with a completely different set of “facts” than what’s really happening.

And I’m tired. And stressed. And I can’t fix it, can’t persuade my cousin who used to be my favorite that she should wear a face mask in her customer-facing job and that she and her husband should get vaccinated, can’t make reforms so that our government can do what needs doing to prevent a slide away from democracy, and I dunno, maybe I need a break from the news, but that won’t change reality, won’t change what’s happening, won’t change how, when I have to go into rural parts of the state for my work, I get glared at and sometimes very loudly challenged for wearing a face mask.

[bobcatmoran]

So that’s the end of week two (plus one day) of teleworking. I’ve been out (as in “have actually gotten in a car and driven somewhere” and not “have gone for a walk down that one weird path by my apartment that I usually don’t take but it’s very wide and almost no one uses it so it works for social distancing”) a whole three times since then — twice to do inspections of agricultural products being exported because, as my old coworker would say, “The trade must flow!” and once to replenish my supply of groceries and sundry necessities such as shampoo and pick up some meds since I was at Target anyhow.

(cut for your dashes’ sake and because this is not Livejournal)

The inspections are…weird. Usually there’s a decent amount of awkward chit-chat with whoever’s exporting the stuff, but these have all been cases where I communicate over email and we figure out “This is where you will leave your shipment of stuff for me to inspect and that is where I will leave your phytosanitary certificate.” So I go into the warehouse or office, don’t encounter another living soul, look at the product to verify it doesn’t have any pests or diseases of agricultural concern, drop off the certificate on an empty desk or shelf, and then leave.

As for the teleworking, there’s been a lot of firsts. First Microsoft Teams experience. First time using the video chat feature of Skype in a business setting. First time signing compliance agreements digitally because magically after years of being told, “No, you have to have physical copies signed in ink,” suddenly digital signatures are ok. First time taking an actual monitor home from the office, which they finally let us do earlier this week, thank goodness. And thank goodness I had to go into the office anyway to get inspection equipment because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to bring one home.

And first time using Zoom, which I used to video chat with my sibs and my parents, the latter who went to Palm Springs for the winter and had originally planned to be heading home rightas things took a turn for the worse. They’re still there and don’t know when they’ll be back at this point, because they don’t want to travel at this point. One of my sibs is thankfully one of the few food service workers still employed full-time since they work for a commercial bakery that supplies a lot of the local smaller groceries. He can also get me flour, which is AWESOME since I’m the sort of person who’s been baking their own bread for the past decade and a half (if you want any tips or recipes, feel free to hit me up)

Other sib is, unfortunately, in job limbo right now since his new position as a higher-up at an NYC arts institution was supposed to be starting this week. He’s still got the job offer, thankfully, and has a bit of a savings cushion, but his start date has been been pushed forward to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Thankful I still have a job and probably will for the duration unless all international trade comes to a halt. And it’s actually not the first time I’ve been in a situation like this. My first summer out of college, I worked for a very isolated National Parks Service unit in southeastern Idaho. I was the last seasonal to leave by about two months and there was exactly one person who lived within 20 miles after the other seasonals had left — the park’s sole law enforcement ranger, who had a reputation for being very severe and standoffish. I had no TV reception, no cell reception, no internet unless I went into the office after hours in which case all my internet usage would be monitored because it was on a government computer. And town was 20 miles away. A town with a population of over 1000 was a good 50 miles away.

So, I figure, if I made it through that (I read SO MANY books from the tiny local library and played SO MUCH Game Boy Advance), I’ll be ok with this, where I have a lot more in the way of personal connections.

[bobcatmoran]

Family Drama #267: Uncle (Mom’s brother) is going to be in town from the West Coast for the opening of an exhibit about the Japanese-American experience in Minnesota during WWII. Dad and Stepmom want to meet up with Uncle. Uncle does not like Dad and Stepmom, because Dad was a bad husband to Mom and because Dad and Stepmom managed to have loud, public arguments at both of Uncle’s children’s weddings, one of which resulted in them actually stranding my younger sibs at the wedding venue when they left in a huff.

Uncle is meeting up with me and youngest sib on Saturday. Dad and Stepmom, though they don’t know the exact plans, want to tag along. It’s going to be a day filled with Japanese-American cultural activities, many of which commemorate difficult times for that community at the hands of Caucasians.

Dad and Stepmom are white AF. 

I’m leaning towards just…not…letting the parental units know what’s happening when. Because knowing my Stepmom, “It’s not for you” is not a good answer, and my dad tends to feel he should be included in these things since he was married to a Japanese-American woman and thus is part of the community.

Uggggghhhhhh