#i might have caught either the bug or covid

[batnbreakfast]

I’m so, so, sooooooo tired today.

[thespacesay]

it's official. I have fucking COVID. I hate customers. my sinus pressure is through the roof. I can literally feel it through my whole face and my ears. i'm pretty much cycling between restless sleep, and trying desperately to entertain myself through a persistent headache and earache.

nurse call line said she's worried my symptoms could easily promote a sinus infection, but we determined that based on the amount of time I've had symptoms, I might qualify for Paxlovid and my PCP's care team will discuss that with me tomorrow, but for the time being I should utilize Tylenol if my fever spikes or 'if I have body aches' (haha funny one, they're worse than normal but i'm resting so...) and take, and I quote, "Sudafed from behind the pharmacy counter, none of that off the shelf stuff", or Afrin.

I was once again advised to use a Neti pot, though it was in a different term I currently cannot recall due to Headache and Tired and Brain Fog. I don't know what about them specifically bugs me as a concept so much, but I gotta admit, they just freak me out. I don't find much in terms of science that does more than shrug and say "just keep 'em clean and use distilled or boiled water!" to support that ick. And yet.

It's irritating to catch COVID a second time as someone who never stopped masking, wears appropriate masks, keeps fully up to date on vaccines and boosters, and isn't particularly social. The first time was family exposure, and fairly "The risk I took was calculated, but man am I bad at math". I didn't do my best, though I did what I could for the situation (complicated!). This time... all I can say is either I caught it from an asymptomatic coworker, from a symptomatic coworker but with an unusually long incubation period, or a customer. My coworkers aren't great about masking, but if they're symptomatic they usually will at least use a baggy blue + stick away from me.

Customers, on the other hand. Bro stop digging hair out of your mouth and then handing me your cash. Stop licking your fingers to separate your cash. Stop covering your child's sneeze with a hand and then using the same hand to hand me cash. Stop sneezing and coughing in my face. I primarily work register because I make us damn good tips due to my fawning nature, but I only have so much time to wash my hands between cash orders.

[phantomchaosfangirl]

The Waiting Room is by far my favorite change from the book so far in the show.

Many of the show's changes have usually ranged in either mild pleasure, or a measure of curious confusion for me. (Those are usually the ones where we'll have to wait to see the full scope of the mystery and pay-off.)

The Waiting Room is something I can genuinely say is a fantastic idea, and might even be better than the books.

From a production standpoint, keeping to the original source material would have been difficult to shoot while also gaining full emotional impact. You would have had to have budgeted for enough mud (that would have been safe for the actor) bugs, and rigged something to account for safety measures for the actor not to get hurt. Also doing that in COVID could have also been a factor in making it difficult.

Alternatively, they could have not shown any of the Waiting Room at all, and instead simply cut to Sticky returning back to the room in his dazed state. (This would have harkened back to Alfred Hitchcock's form of horror, leaving things to the viewers' imagination to catastrophize it more.) However, pacing-wise in this instance I could envision this possibly leaving too little to the audience and not giving enough context to land a full enough emotional blow.

Speaking from a writing perspective, this Waiting Room really is brilliant to me. The Institute's potrayal in this leans heavily into the brainwashing element. Not just through the actual subliminal messages they're sending out, but through their schooling and rules. (Mr. Curtain himself in the show is leaning much into a life-coach kind of figure.)

A part of me always did feel that while the Waiting Room in the books did serve as a great threat to raise the stakes, the idea of being drowned in mud and bugs in hindsight seemed a bit...off, for the normally controlled Mr. Curtain. A child covered in mud dragging himself back to his dorm room evoked a sloppier and more overt threat to me.

Here--the Waiting Room is pure psychological torture. It's possibly displayed as being both sensory deprivation and overstimulation at the same time. And most horrifying of all--little time seems to even pass in it.

And it's untraceable.

Curtain could even have plausible deniability. After all, it doesn't hurt truly anyone. You're just sitting in a room for a while. Harmless.

That is terrifying. And it is brilliant.

It accomplishes the goal of a threat of punishment to the Society and raises the stakes--but also finds a way of rearing best of the Institute's darkest strengths against them.

You are as helpless outside of the room as you are being in there.

(And the biggest props to the writers--they even caught me off-guard.)

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

The President Game

There’s a game I like to play where I take an obnoxious habit, social norm, common courtesy, or random behavioral tick and ask myself “would the President of the United States do this?”

You can play the President Game with any starting question, just pick something that bugs you:

Would the President use the last of the toilet paper and not replace the roll?

Would the President reach their hand over the sneeze guard to point at the ingredients at Subway?

Would the President make a pregnant lady stand on a crowded bus?

Would the President put an empty milk carton back in the fridge?

Would the President load the dishwasher with all the cups rightside up so they fill with water and don’t get cleaned?

For the purposes of the game we assume that all the presidents know about the social norms and would react according to their upbringing; there’s no such thing as Subway in the 1830s, but a sixty-something conservative Tennessean like Andrew Jackson would probably reach over the guard with his unwashed hands and point at what kind of toppings he wants.  Also, no president would ever ride on a public bus, so assume they're a civilian and judge them based on their personalities rather than their prestige.

It’s not a partisan thing either.  There are assholes on both sides of the aisle, it all just stems from their personalities.  How much do they know?  How much do they care?  About others?  About themselves?  You have to get into the minds of the presidents, you gotta get meta; the faces they put on in public are seldom representative of who they really are, so you have to delve deep and figure out who they are as a person before you answer.

Example: Would the President put their mouth on a water fountain?

Would George Washington put his mouth on a water fountain?  No, probably not, because he was a very reserved statesmen of high social standing, well aware of how he is perceived by others.  He would never commit that faux pas because he wouldn’t want other people to think less of him.  His teeth are terrible, his breath really stinks, and he's self conscious about it.

Would Abraham Lincoln?  No, for similar reasons to Washington.

Would Teddy Roosevelt?  Yes. He’s President Ron Swanson, he doesn’t give a damn what you think.  If he’s thirsty, then the man’s gonna take a drink and no unspoken social rules are gonna get in his way.  He’s not doing it to be an asshole, he just figures that it’s no big deal; a little germ theory never hurt nobody. Not nobody, not no how!

Franklin Roosevelt?  Probably not. He’s much more reserved than his fifth cousin (yes, that’s how they’re related), he’s a New York socialite with polio; he managed to keep his wheelchair a secret, so he’d definitely make sure nobody ever saw him so much as look at a water fountain, let alone put his mouth on one.

Harry Truman?  No

Dwight Eisenhower?  No

John F. Kennedy?  No

Lyndon B. Johnson?  Yes.  Hard Yes.  He’s a southern hick, he drinks too much and eats like crap.  This is the guy who burps through sentences and talks about his nuts and bunghole, he’d totally put his mouth on the water fountain without even thinking about it. That's just how they do things in Texas.

Richard Nixon?  In public no, but in private yes; he’d be paranoid about people seeing him do it, but that wouldn't stop him.  He’d deny doing it at first, but after he got caught he’d try to turn things around and say you're the weird one for making a big deal out of it.  “Yeah, I did it, so what?  What are you gonna do about it? It's not illegal. It's my fountain, I can do whatever I want with it.”

Gerald Ford?  No

Jimmy Carter?  No.  He might have when he was younger, but his mama done raised him right, she put the Fear of God in that boy.

Ronald Reagan?  No, he’s all about image, he’s an actor playing the president, he knows how to keep up public appearances.

George H.W. Bush?  No

Bill Clinton?  Yes.  He’s Bubba, he’s Slick Willy, he’s a 10-pound douche in a 5-pound bag.  He sleeps around, he cheats on his wife, he eats and drinks and acts like a cartoon, he’d absolutely put his mouth on the fountain and if he got caught he’d probably make a joke about it.

George W. Bush?  Yes.  He’s less like Reagan in this instance, and more like Johnson and Clinton.  He’s a Good Ole Boy. He probably thinks truck nuts are hilarious. His front yard would have three flagpoles for the United States, Texas, and the Confederacy, in that order.  He’d put his mouth on the water fountain, and he’d make weird slurping noises while doing it; he’s off in his own little world, living proof that ignorance is bliss.

Barack Obama?  No, because he knows that’s gross. Next question.

Donald Trump?  Oh, he doesn’t just put his mouth on it, he’s deep throating the spigot on purpose because somebody told him not to.  Do you remember when COVID started and that one basketball player ended a press conference by touching all the microphones?  Trump’s the same way.  He doesn’t think it’s a problem, but he knows that everyone else does, so he feels compelled to do it just to get a reaction, then deny doing it to piss off the people who caught him while continuing to do it for his supporters.  He can’t not do it if he knows it’s wrong, he needs to be the center of attention at all times. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Joe Biden?  No, but he would make a big deal out of it, letting everyone around him know he didn’t do it, as if he deserves a prize.  Like, yeah Joe, you’re not Trump, but you don’t get recognition for doing what everyone expects you to do anyway.  The bar is so low, that even something this mundane seems like an achievement. What, do you want us to clap when you wash your hands too?  For the love of God, focus on the important issues, Joe.

Now that you know the rules, you can play the President Game at home!

Would the President forget to hold the door open for the people behind them?

Would the President answer their cellphone during a movie?

Would the President chew with their mouths open?

Would the President refuse to pick up after their dog?

Would the President double park their car?

Would the President eat somebody else’s food from the break room fridge?

Would the President fart in an elevator?

Would the President take the last slice of pizza without asking if anyone else wanted it?

Would the President stare at a disabled person?

Would the President fill a water cup with soda?

Would the President sneeze without covering their mouths?

Would the President press an elevator button that you’ve already pressed?

Would the President litter?

Would the President throw a lit cigarette out their car windows?

Would the President return a tape to Blockbuster without rewinding it?

[tartlette1968]

My understanding of the evolution of vaccines is this.

Smallpox was the first disease to be attacked head on with a vaccine. Technically it is the only disease that was attacked head on with a vaccine, if I'm being pedantic, but more on that later.

In dairy farming regions of England, it seems, it was widely known that any person who had caught the painful but relatively harmless cow pox was then immune to small pox. I'm sure that this was learnt from very bitter experience of frequent outbreaks of small pox over the time. So if a person were to be deliberately infected with cow pox, they would then be immune to small pox. Thus the cow pox virus (vaccinia) was the first example of defending against a disease by using a different disease.

"Aha," you say, (because you're smart), "'vaccinia'--that's where 'vaccine' comes from, right?"

And I say, "Correct! Which is why I said that small pox is the only disease actually attacked with a vaccine," although I think that the word "vaccination" preceded the other derivatives.

It was not a pretty procedure, either.

The very first vaccination was performed by making a cut in the upper arm of an eight year old child, and then smearing the cut with pus taken from the hands of a milkmaid who was infected with cow pox.

I have, as I'm sure many of you have, come across people complaining and decrying the COVID vaccines.

So my point is this: Perhaps, if you are complaining that these vaccines are not "true vaccines", you would prefer to try the old method? I'm vaccinated, and I have no problem with the current vaccines, so I'm good.

But you who are refusing vaccination, maybe you would prefer we sit you on an island by yourself, give you access to all the species of bats you want, and let you go at it. "It" being making little cuts in your arm, taking bat's blood lousy with all types of coronaviruses, and smearing it in the cuts to see if you have, in fact, found a suitable SARS variant to use as a vaccine. I mean you more than likely might die, or you might unleash another novel coronavirus on the rest of us (hence the island, so you keep your bugs to yourself), or there is a very slim chance you might find a useful virus, the old way.

[jenniferrpovey]

Her Legacy

Please spread this piece widely - it’s for all paramedics and EMTs on the front lines. This is a gift, and you can post it as LONG as you credit me. Her Legacy

Jennifer R. Povey

It wasn't a good day. Now, it was very rare for Sophie to have a good day. Or rather, by definition, a good day was a day off.

Every other day was that odd mix of boredom and terror that came with being where she was, doing what she was. Either you were doing nothing, or you were scrambling.

Today had been, up until now, a doing nothing day and part of her had hoped it would stay a doing nothing day.

Then the alert came, and she sighed inwardly. The selfish part of her knew that this meant her shift would not be over quite as soon as she had thought.

The part of her that had chosen this job stirred in a different way. Somebody was in trouble; in danger or sick or hurt and it was her duty and joy to help them. She pulled herself together figuratively and literally (she had partially unzipped her jumpsuit) and ran to the shuttle.

Gora, her Ilarian pilot was already waiting and strapped in. She dipped her muzzle. Ilarians didn't generally nod, but Gora had picked up the gesture.

She strapped herself in. "What do we have?"

"Freighter in distress," the dispatcher said. "Sick pilot. We already have a tug out there to keep them from flying into anything important.

She nodded. Once they were en route, she unstrapped and checked the back of the shuttle This was the dangerous part in some ways; she knew more than one person who had ended up needing treatment for a concussion because they banged their head moving around under thrust, but it was part of the job. You learned to be careful, that was all.

Everything was stable. "Dispatch, what do we know about the pilot's condition? And what about the co-pilot?"

In-system freighters generally had a pilot and co-pilot. There could also be a couple of passengers aboard; it was rare, specialist passenger ferries were faster and more comfortable, but it did happen.

"Idiot seems to have tried to do the run alone."

Dispatch was an AI. That didn't mean he didn't have opinions on stupid people, and Sophie cracked a smile. "Well, then he'll be dealing with the license authorities when he's better. What species?"

"You really need to ask?"

Sophie sighed. "Human. Caucasian."

"In one."

It wasn't that humans were all that more reckless; it was that humans tended to get away with it more than most other species. So the reckless ones tended to live to do even more stupid things.

Like this.

The freighter was still careening. The tug had yet to get a good grip on it.

"He's accelerating," Gora said with a sigh. "Maybe he collapsed over the controls."

"The deadman's should stop that."

"On that?" Ilarians didn't smile, but the slight appearance of the very tip of her tongue was a good substitute for that habit.

She was probably right. Sophie could tell that it the freighter was a total rustbucket. Maybe the pilot had done the run alone because nobody else wanted to do it with him.

She didn't know the gender, but she was sure it was a he. Nine times out of ten something this stupid was a young male.

No, she was stereotyping, and that was unworthy of her. "Can you get us alongside?"

"It's risky."

"And that guy could be dying." It was his own fault; but it didn't matter.

You saved them all, even the ones who risked themselves and others.

And if they could get hooked on, Gora could get control back over the ship while she worked on the pilot. "Please. Do it."

Gora nodded again, her muzzle making the gesture almost too obvious, exaggerated.

A caricature of humanity. She glanced at the Ilarian again; short fur, long pointed ears, the slight muzzle, all of which spoke of a different evolution.

The fact that her fur was blue spoke of it even more. Chemicals other than melanin protected her from the light of a very different sun.

And then Sophie threw herself into her seat as the shuttle accelerated. She didn't move around under this thrust. Accelerating to full speed. Pushing the shuttle past its normal cruise speed was something you did.

It always made the mechanics complain. Something would break. She was just making sure it wasn't her. She didn't want to be a patient by the end of the day.

She got the straps closed just in time as Gora decelerated. Once more, she was amazed with her partner's skill.

There was a reason she always let Gora fly; she wasn't a terrible pilot, but she wasn't that good.

Twisting to the side. She felt her shoulder wrench; that was going to need attention later, she already knew that.

But there was nothing she could do about it. And then she felt them latch on, the shudder that went through.

"Got a good hatch?"

"Got a good hatch." With the ship latched on, Gora could leave the controls. Their fate was now tied to the freighter's.

If it hit something...

The hatch was stuck. Sophia had to use a literal crowbar to force it once the seal was in place.

She pulled on her rebreather before going through, checking the atmospheric readings. Good choice; the carbon dioxide levels were a little high. "Dispatch, what are the pilot's symptoms?"

"Headache, vertigo, bit of a cough."

"I don't think he's sick. I think it's life support failure." She glanced at Gora, made sure she had her own mask in place and then headed into the ship.

It was held together by duct tape and prayers and the duct tape was wearing out.

Headache, vertigo, bit of a cough. She went over that. The rebreather would also protect her from viral and bacterial infection. She already had her gloves on.

It was most likely a life support problem. But there were other things it could be.

Gora might or might not have to worry. Some bugs cared what species they infected. Some didn't. Fungi were...

Fungi.

Headache, vertigo, bit of a cough, stale smell in the air.

Crap.

She suddenly sped up. Of course, she'd got a breath of it herself, but if it was what she was afraid it was, early treatment would work.

The pilot hadn't gotten early treatment.

She moved quickly, hearing Gora behind her. The freighter was, thankfully, a stock model; she knew exactly where the bridge would be.

The bridge. The man slumped over the controls. She'd been right in all of her demographic guesses except one; he wasn't a young man.

He was an old one, pushing past retirement, trying to keep doing what he loved on a shoestring, fighting off the creditors.

This would be his last trip one way or the other.

Gora dropped into the copilot seat, started slowing the freighter.

Carefully, she examined the man. Checked him for broken bones before turning him over.

The grayish cast to his face said it all. Crap.

"Leri fever."

Gora paled.

She pulled out the bag, tossed Gora a vial. "You know what you have to do as soon as you have us stopped."

The second one was for the patient.

The third one was for her. But the patient would need more. She imagined the black tendrils going through his lungs.

She imagined what would have happened if he'd landed. What might be happening. "Dispatch, we have leri fever. Find out where this guy is from, alert medical there, get them to dose everyone."

She took the dose and then turned back to the patient.

And got to work.

Quarantine was boring. The worst part was that she couldn't do her job. She caught up on her favorite TV shows.

And she looked through old pictures. She found the one of her standing next to the Emergency Medicine Memorial on Earth, its graceful lines behind her resembling a bird taking flight. Or a protective mask.

And she thought about the fact that she had never had to deal with the events that had caused it to be erected. Even leri fever, as nasty as it was, had gone through its pandemic phase before she had been born.

She thought about the fact that she'd never had to go out there, look at her coworkers, and wonder which of them would survive.

Knowing it could not be all of them.

And being in quarantine suddenly didn't seem so bad. Being part of that lineage, that honorable band going back through the centuries, back to the very first person who had discovered chewing certain leaves prevented a cough and spread that knowledge to others.

To those who had tried to fight the Black Death with no knowledge of germ theory.

To those who had fought against swine flu, and bird flu, and SARS, and COVID.

She was part of them, and the risk was what she did.

She was their legacy and the students coming up would be hers.

[thevisafly]

Post-Covid Travel Guide | Surviving a Long-Haul Flight | Tips and Tricks!

Covid-19 has taken a massive toll on the travel industry. It has undoubtedly put a damper on everyone’s travel plans in 2020. However, with encouraging news about development of Covid-19 vaccines and start of human trials of the same, international travel may soon resume 🙂 We’ve seen many people lose out on their summer vacation plans because of this, but not for long! A long-haul flight can be pretty tiresome sometimes. If you don’t know what ‘long-haul flights’ are, they’re basically any flight longer than 7 hours. Usually this category involves international flights, however, some domestic flights in large countries can come under this umbrella. Why are long-haul flights so bad, you ask? Well – the constant sitting, lack of WiFi and limited area for movement  could contribute to this attitude. But don’t worry about all these pain points – we’ve got you covered! In this article, we’ll go through 9 super-important tips for your first long-haul flight! Some of these may come off as a no-brainer, but those are the ones we tend to overlook and forget first. With this list, you’ll end up a long-haul flight expert. So, let’s jump right in to some tips for your next long haul flight in post-covid times.

Wear Comfortable Clothes Well, this comes as no surprise – comfort over style is good for all kinds of flights. However, it’s especially important for long-hauls. Always remember to dress in loose clothing, made out of a breathable material like cotton. You need to be able to move around, be free and as unrestricted as possible. Often, people might opt for one-pieces (like dresses), but we advise against that decision. Flight air conditioners are quite unpredictable, and are (more often than not) on the too-cold side of the spectrum. Dresses mean that your legs are exposed to all that cool air, allowing them to get stiff and maybe even cause an injury if exposed for long enough. Jumpsuits may be an option, but a good sleeved tee and jeans/track pants should do the trick. And always carry layers! The best way to protect against the chill is to layer up. Jackets are imperative, especially if you plan on getting cozy and catching some z’s. If you feel too hot, you can always just unwrap yourself by a layer, and you’re good to go.

Good Seats Are SO Important Trust us, you really don’t want to get caught with a non-reclining end-of-flight seat for 10-11 hours in a row. Reserving a seat beforehand (especially on a long flight) is worth the trouble, and even more so if your flight is at night. You can even come early to the airport and reserve a seat then, if you are not able to do so online. Leg room is one of those commodities that one can never have too much of, so this is something to consider when choosing seats. The seats near the emergency exits have the most leg room, however, in case the unlikely case that the aircraft has to land on water , be ready to snap out of that slumber and activate the emergency exits! Some people prefer aisle seats, and some prefer windows. But no-one – and I repeat, NO-ONE likes that crammed middle seat with no elbow space and no privacy. This is probably something to keep in mind as well. If you’re the kind of person who loves to enjoy the view on an airplane, window seats are for you. Alternatively, you might value your bathroom breaks more than this – aisle seats are best in this case, as you don’t have to keep excusing yourself every time you get up. The middle seat is okay if you’re travelling in a group or with family. Stretching and moving around is also a good idea on long-hauls, as your body tends to stiffen up. Back muscles can take a toll with all that sitting, so make sure whichever seat you’re in, you can get out of easily! We recommend some good ‘chair yoga’ – you might find that your seated arrangement doesn’t deter the will for some good asanas!

Food = Life, Especially On A Long-Haul! Everyone loves food. And most people eat a snack at least once in the span of 4 hours. Imagine doubling that time, but only getting a packet of salted nuts as compensation? ‘Hangry’ is probably the best way to describe it. Carry your own food – but remember to not stock too many liquids or liquid-like foods (eg. curries). This might not even be allowed on the flight, and you’ll have to dispose of it before you begin eating itself. It’s also important to think about what kind of food you’ll be eating. If you are spending the next 10 hours sitting (as compared to working out, playing or even walking around), you’ll have to change your diet a bit. To suit this new seated marathon, make sure to go light on your meals. Heavy meals include higher-energy foods, which you won’t burn on the flight. It will keep you awake, and may not allow you to rest well enough before landing. Sometimes, we may not have a choice, as meals are pre-planned and we have to eat what’s available to us. In this case, remember to bring your own food, and maybe some fennel seeds as well. They’re known to aid in digestion, and also act as a mouth freshener – killing two birds with one stone!

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate! Hydration goes without saying. Drinking water is something you’d need to do even on ground, but it’s even more important when you’re 30,000 feet above sea level. Mouths are more likely to get parched, and you can’t even carry  more than 500ml to quench that thirst! However, here’s a tip – carrying your water bottle is still a good idea, even if half-filled. Ask the air staff for a refill, instead of using the paper cup method which they give you. You’ll get more water in that way, and you don’t have to keep bugging them for water either! International long-haul flight services include drinks. These may include alcohol, or be restricted to teas and juices. Either way, it’s a better idea to stick to good old water for the most part. This is because it has the highest water content out of all (belaboring the obvious), and has the least sugar content out of all options. This means you’re less likely to get a sugar rush, or even a general sugar high and its inevitable low that comes right after. Although, if you are a nervous flyer, the alcohol option might be a good temporary choice, as it acts as a sedative. However, it does dehydrate, so beware. If you want some variety, teas like green tea are good for hydration instead.

BYOE – Bring Your Own Entertainment Some long-haul flights have in-flight entertainment. This includes a back-of-the-seat screen – with movies, songs, and sometimes even games. But it might not be the best idea. Why? Because if you’ve gone on some before, they tend to have similar movies in stock. The music is not terribly updated, but if you are ok with having any old song play to pass the time, then you’re in luck. Many streaming services like YouTube and Netflix offer download options – and our advice is to make the most out of them. They offer a more personalised approach, as what you’re downloading is what you truly want to watch. Offline music is great too, and you don’t even need a streaming service for this – just a few gigabytes of phone storage. It’s more likely to keep your attention, and even help you learn some cool new stuff, who knows? And entertainment doesn’t only have to be digital. If your carry-on space permits, a good read is all you need. Reading lights are installed on all airplanes, so your flight was literally made for this! We don’t recommend card games or games with many moving pieces, though, as these might get lost on the plane… Only to be found by the cleaning lady, a lone, isolated Monopoly chip in the oasis of fluorescent floor strips.

Can You Have A Mini-Bath Here? The quick answer to this is, yes. You can. And honestly, you should. Carrying good travel hygiene products are very necessary, especially on a 7+ hour journey across the globe. Wet wipes, deodorant, cotton pads, sanitizer and even a toothbrush and paste are some essentials on our list. Why, you ask? Well, sitting for so long has its risks. You may be sweating, you may be sitting next to some folks with strong body odour, or you may just not want to inconvenience anyone with your bodily situation. Often, airplane food doesn’t suit us, and neither does being in the same place for hours on end. Freshening up makes you feel not only physically better, but mentally relieves us of some stress even if for a minute. And a flight shouldn’t have to get in the way of your skincare routine, now does it? Speaking of which, it’s advisable to go as bare-faced as you can. Makeup is not a good idea for long flights, as it tends to cake up and smudge. For both men and women, moisturizing is a must, as the AC tends to dry out skin – even under a warm jacket. Toilet tactics may also be a good area of expertise to know about. The best time to use the loo is right after the seatbelt sign is switched off after takeoff, or in the middle of the flight. The end is absolutely the worst, as you risk catching the toilet in a mess, or not catching it at all (due to seatbelt signs). Make sure you carry ample amounts of toilet spray and/or sanitizer with you just in case. And just like that, we’ve come to the end of our article on tips and tricks for a long-haul flight. We hope you enjoyed reading all the spunky tips we had to offer. If you’d like to book your visa, travel insurance or SIM cards before flying out, remember to contact Visa2Fly! We’re always here to help 🙂 If you enjoyed this blog, know that there’s more where this came from! Our articles on Hostels vs. Hotels, and the coolest skiing destinations are live on our blog page! Happy travelling~~

[praphit]

Space Jam: Smells like wholesomeness, with a touch of R.Kelly.

I want to talk a lil "Space Jam" 

(that's a very awk pic of Michael Jordan. He doesn't look real. Have aliens possessed MJ? Is that the twist in the movie? You'll have to watch to find out)

I've been thinking to myself, "We need a hero right about now." We need a hero who is strong and wholesome. Heroes today are so... 

you know?

yeah, you know...

To find the type of hero that we need, we have to go back to the 90's, and what better 90's hero, in our current time of need, than Michael Jordan?

MJ, at the time of "Space Jam", when he wasn't soaring through the air, was walking and dribbling on water. MJ + Looney Tunes = hell yeah!

Lo and behold, we get some bonus nuggets out of "Space Jam" - a lil bit of MJ's origin story.

Everything starts off wholesome enough - with R.Kelly’s. "I Believe I Can Fly". 

Yeah, some of you remember now. This movie actually starts and (spoiler alert) ends with R. Kelly.

A young Mike playing basketball in his backyard with his father. He is telling his father of all of the things he'd like to accomplish when he grows up: he wanted to play at North Carolina, play baseball at some point, play in the NBA, dominate Nike, dominate the world, bang supermodels, everything that all kids want.

The young kid hears the climax of R.Kelly's inspirational hit coming, so (with his dad cheering him on) jumps in the air for an epic slam. He's flying and flying and falling and falling and then lands on his head - blood and brain matter spread out everywhere. There is huge panic on the face of daddy. Walking by, at the perfect moment was a homeless kid, who saw the whole thing.

Dad shouts, "Hey, you! Come here!" The kid runs, but daddy had a bike nearby and caught up with the homeless kid. He convinces this homeless child to help him bury his son (no one knows where), and assume the idenity of the previous Mike.

(We're learning so much)

The rest of his family all had bad eye sight, so the plan worked, and a new (OUR) MJ was born!

"SPACE JAM"!

Then, there's a lot of Michael Jordan footage to the soundtrack of this movie, which I remember being excellent! It wasn't just the gospel musings of R. Kelly, but also Coolio, Salt-N-Pepa, Monica, Jay-Z(with more R.Kelly), Biz Markie, Seal, Barry White.... SPACE JAM, y'all!

There's many cameos in this flick. Ray Ramono's wife in that show... "Everybody hates Ray?" or is it "loves Ray"? Idk I don't know her name either, but she's in it. 

Bill Murray at the height of his powers is in it. 

Btw - most of the LOL moments come from him.

Newman from "Seinfeld". 

And a bunch of terrible-acting NBA stars. Barkley and Jordan are ok, but the rest... Good thing that the Looney Tunes are there to compensate.

Danny DeVito is up in there! - playing a degenerate as usual. 

He's always playing that type of role isn't he??

But, then again, look at him. 

It's not like he was ever going to compete with the Tom Cruise’s of the world.

Sometimes, people, you gotta play the hand that you're dealt, you know?? - work what you look like. Some people look like drug dealers, some look like beach bums, some look like porn stars, but you gotta rock it.

Some say that I look like a weed dealer. Yep! - pastors have told me this. I'm not saying that I'm going to go around selling pot to pastors, but... you know... you gotta do what you gotta do.

DeVito had a plan...  a plan that I do not feel like explaning, so here's a montage of sorts; picture this to the inspirational music of R.Kelly (since he appears to be the background music to MJ):

(I don’t remember which song this one is from... oh well)

Recap:

DeVito wanting to enslave the Looney Tunes, but somehow Bugs Bunny convinced him to play a basketball game instead.

Danny, buddy... that's not how super villainy/dictatorship works. If you've got the power to make slaves, and you want to make slaves, you make slaves. You don't accept a challenge of a basketball game for their freedom.

The Looney Tunes struggle, but they have MJ, so we all know what eventually happens.

A few things:

1) Some fat-shaming when it comes to Newman. BUT, that's more a reflection of how "woke" we've become:) And... look at him.

If you show up to a basketball court looking like this, you're asking for trouble. Remember what I said about playing to how you already look.

2) Lola Bunny - 

When she is first introduced, all of the Looney Tunes.... REACT 

Let’s just say that all of those mofos should be hashtagged! Bugs, at one point, grabs her ass and forces a kiss on her. She likes it though, i guess. They're both horny as well. Isn't that true about all bunnies?? I heard that they're all horny, all of the time. Hmmm...

A lot of Bugs Bunny scenes are starting to make more sense.

That being said, there's a lot of messages of unity and diligence and belief up in here.

Even though they shamed fatty, he was still able to play with them. And after they all got a chance with Lola, she was able to play as well. She was one of the best players!

This movie still holds up! It's funny, entertaining, and a feel-good for any family hiding in their homes from COVID-19.

Grade: A

In watching MJ play ball in this movie, I was reminded of how great he was in general. Go check out some old footage of him. There's something enchanting about watching someone do what they were meant to do on this earth. It's like watching poetry in motion. I remember being sold a car once by a real sleazebag. He was ripping everyone off (probably even me to a degree), but he was so good at lying to people and talkin shit. I had to compartmentlize for a sec, and appreciate that I was in the presence of greatness. This man was (and IS, if no one has murdered him yet) the MJ of sleazy car sales.

We need a lil more of that in our lives at this time, right?? Not the sleaze, but watching poetry like that of Michael Jordan.

I wonder what MJ would do about this current pandemic? Though, the real MJ is rumored to be quite the gambler, and with a lack of sports to bet on, he might be gambling on other things... like if people are infected or not; which is terrible. I could see him having a closet filled with tests, but only for gambling purposes.

So, let's not think about that. Let's stick with 90's "Space Jam" Mike! What would he do? How would he lead us?

Wouldn't it be nice if he could simply challenge COVID-19 to a game of basketball, for our freedom?

I read a headline that said Trump had contacted Arod for advice on COVID-19.

Different sport, but maybe Trump's thinking the same solution. Time will tell.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Deca-Dence 4 | Maou-jou 2 | Fruits Basket 2 24 (49) | Magatsu 1 | IWGP 2 | Koi to Producer 11 - 12 (FINAL) | HypMic 3

Still chugging away at these summer and spring anime...sorry for the delay...(LOL, that rhymed without me meaning to.)

Also, I’ve been on the fence about whether to keep Golden Kamuy, since almost no one I read the reviews of follows it now and it’s a week’s wait (when accounting for my AniList challenge)...so I’m putting it on pause so I don’t have to suffer later.

Deca-Dence 4

“…who possesses the will to fight.”

…Great. Kurenai is absolutely tethered to Kaburagi in a one-sided love. Just when I thought Natsume had an independent role model to look up to.

Maou-jou 2

Oh, this is from Shonen Sunday? Didn’t know that until now.

“Demon Shroud: A demon with 99 clans. A cloth demon that puts on airs that it won’t be used before it’s finished off, due to its wonderful fabric. It is full of beautiful ghostly power, so its skin is smooth. However, the hero (who commonly uses things he finds in his surroundings) caught one, so now the princess has zeroed in on them. The princess doesn’t need the hands or the head of these demons, so it’s a cycle of killing and taking revenge for them. Their fighting style is squeezing the life out of things.”

Apparently, the teddy is acceptable, LOL.

I like how the window stopped displaying text at one point.

I saw someone with a huge plait in the ED. The queen, maybe…?

I noticed the laughs dropped off significantly in comparison to last time, but it’s still good. I can flex my translation skills even if I can’t laugh at one part.

Fruits Basket 2 24 (49)

…jumping to the 2nd-last episode in a season is pretty unprecendented, but I’m going to watch this for the sake of Jon’s Creator Showcase…then again, I need to finish this anime anyway, so it’s just cutting and changing the order for something I already know the outcomes of.

I used to lose myself in movies so much that I would lose all sense of who I was and would have to “regain the bearings of myself”, so to speak. I would have to reconstruct who I was, even though I technically hadn’t “been broken” and I knew once I did that, it felt different. Like I’d travelled through time and past me would never be the same as present me. That’s why I kind of get what Machi means.

Oh, I didn’t listen to this OP much…probably because I’m emphasising bingeing the spring and summer series I left behind and now that I can skip the ads on most of my anime, I’m leaving behind the anime I’ll be slower on.

The manga was written when there weren’t as many cell phones around, much less smartphones.

Rin’s on bad terms with everyone…

…if I remember the year of the dragon correctly, the last one was 2012, then the one before that is 2000…around the turn of the millennium, huh? Froob is showing its age here, albeit unintentionally.

Now that I’m closer to the Musketeers’ age, I can kind of empathise with their scenes a bit more.

“If I always blame someone or something, I’ll never change.” – True. I realised I’ve been a bit too haughty lately (what with the HypMic anime going on and it being the first thing I could research extensively before the anime’s debut, my feelings are of course reaching fever pitch – combine that with continued COVID lockdown and you get me being all defensive of HypMic, for better or for worse) and so I may have acted like a jerk to someone, but since I only know them online and generally when I try to apologise to people online they don’t see the things I apologise for as things in need of apology, I know the fault lies with me to rein myself in. I guess this means changing yourself is the only way to move forward.

I wonder how Hatori did his doctor training while avoiding hugs from girls who aren’t Sohmas…?

Shigure vs. Gentaro (of HypMic, of course)…a writing competition! That would be fun.

…Crow’s note here makes sense (<- this is why I changed the order). Shigure was clearly asking a question there.

Come to think of it, HypMic and Froob have some similar characters. The stoic doctor is Hatori/Jakurai, the energetic smol one is Momiji/Ramuda, the teasing author is Shigure/Gentaro…that could make for some good fanfic material, really.

Magatsu 1

…that title is an absolute killer, man. Anyways, I’m here for the director, who also worked on Hataraku Maou-sama.

Is this a no guns thing, like IWGP is a no drugs thing?

…this OP has lyrics?! I just hear strange squeaky noises, the kind you hear on some autotuned sogs to make them seem more ominous (I can’t remember if there’s a similar sound in G-Anthem of Y City or Yokohama Walker, but one of the MTC songs has similar noises).

I kinda guessed Leo’s package was the one Schaake and her partner were looking for. I was right.

That CGI (on the truck) is…kinda conspicuous.

These backgrounds are gorgeous.

“The definition of in dubio contra reum is "in doubt, against the accused", meaning that, where there is doubt, the accused in a trial is not given the benefit of that doubt; they are assumed guilty.”

I wonder: how many protagonists start out as absolute wimps, unwilling to fight because they either know or don’t know their own power? It’s a pretty standard introduction for things with fights.

This battle track is nice. I listened to some of the Magatsu music under Masaru Yokoyama’s name on Spotify and it’s pretty cool, but since it’s background music, there’s not a lot of demand to listen to it (from me or anyone else, I don’t think).

Why is there only a single shield if they know the enemy has heavy artillery?

…what the heck is a Zeits? Update: You can see a “Zeits” (or however it’s spelt) in the credits list, suggesting Zeits is a character in this.

I knew this was my last premiere and this might have made or broken my entire watching schedule, but this is just a pretty down-to-earth premiere for a fantasy mobile game. While that cliffhanger compelled me to continue, I don’t think it’s good enough to beat its competition in the long run.

IWGP 2

I know I said Magatsu was my last premiere, but just to be sure, I’m watching this one.

This dance scene is beautifully orchestrated. The fact there’s no music means you focus entirely on the motion.

The OP seems to trade more in colour and spectacle than actual “cool factor”.

…wow, $2.90…? That’s some cheap food.

You know I hate 1st person cam with a passion, right? So…uh…

Eyyyyyyyy…this is basically McDonald’s, curry style.

I think I can almost see Ichiro of HypMic in how the G-Boys seem to mostly be reformed delinquents or actual delinquents.

…yeah, but what’s your name, random messenger guy? Update: We find out later his name is Isogai.

“It’s because I suck at working and communicating.” – Yep, that me.

Ikebukuro licence plate. I still have no idea exactly what places get licence plates in Japan.

There are actually 2 characters before “Hospital”, but no one confirms the reading of those characters…which is probably why they’re omitted.

…oh gosh, if this were a BL, Mitsuki and Masaru would be star-crossed lovers…*sigh*

Maybe it’s an unrelated 3rd party??? (In mysteries, you can never dismiss the work of a 3rd party.)

You can tell exactly which group is which based on the colours they wear. Makoto isn’t affiliated with anyone, so he’s wearing black and had yellow earlier.

I think an anime is cowardly – or trying to save budget – if they deliberately choose an angle where they can’t show the moment of impact clearly.

E! News, LOL.

Archangel, huh? So like a 2nd in command?

I think IWGP is moving in the direction of pushing the gangs against each other in the way Makoto describes in ep. 2.

As for what I think of it now, it's decent if you want something down-to-earth, but it seems to be missing some kind of "wow factor". Like it's afraid to commit to deeper characterisation, even though it has Makoto as the ostensible lead/viewpoint character.

Koi to Producer 11

“Cognitive Science Association” - I thought it was the Cognitive Psychology Association…? (Psychology is shinrigaku, science is kagaku.)

My boy (Lucien)…why must you be so evil??? Why do I keep falling for the tall but mysterious doctor??? (<- guilty as charged re: Jakurai)

…that’s some funky seatbelts.

What’s that look in Victor’s eyes…? Fondness, or something more…?

…ah, so there is “Science” in the place’s name. It was just being less loosely translated then.

Oh dang. Stuff escalated really fast, huh?

You actually set this in 2020, huh, staff? What happens ten years from now and people watch it, only to realise 2020 and 2030 aren’t so different? That’s what happened when people had the Y2K bug.

That yellow sign on the side says “exit”. It’s not of any use.

That’s not a recoloured Kiro, is it? It’s not Shaw, either (who I think we saw somewhere in the previous episodes)…so then who is it?

…geesh, they even changed Helios to Ares. I guess it makes sense: Helios is the god of the sun, but Ares is the god of war.

Koi to Producer 12 (FINAL)

I read on the wiki Lucien’s power is copying powers. No wonder I couldn’t get a solid handle on it!

So that Helios wasn’t a mistake in the credits list in the previous episode???

Can we even hear what Helios says when Protag-chan is pulled away? Based on the lack of subs, probably no, but I wanted to ask anyway. (Or maybe he said “Watashi”, since that’s the pronoun Protag-chan goes by?)

…so that really is Kiro, huh?

Military…what? When did Protag-chan’s father have a military squad???

LOL, at the very end you can see Gavin gesturing at Greenie (the pot plant, presumably a succulent). I logged on to the game 7 days straight (they have a Discord channel!) and got a Gavin R card with Greenie on it, which is how I know about it.

Anyways, that was a fun show. Not the best, but still fun.

HypMic 3

*snickers* Just look at my boi! He’s so tall, he has to bend down for kids! (I don’t mean that teasingly, I mean that endearingly, but lately I’ve been no good at expressing myself…Must be the lockdown.)

If TsudaKen was a guest last time, then Degarashi and Irihatoma could be voiced by guest seiyuus too…

What is Jakurai, hmm? (A Transformer, LOL?...I’m kidding, of course.)

All I knew about this episode going in was that it was an MTR episode. Maybe they’ll cover the stalker story from the manga…?

More literally, Hifumi’s sign says “will you monopolise me until morning?”. This reminds me of the MTR truck one of the servers I was in was talking about…it looked like a giant billboard.

“The most notable thing about Doppo is that he has no notable characteristics.”…and yet, he’s still one of the most popular characters of the series.

Suddenly, HypMic becomes a mystery…? I’ll take it!

Yup, “Doppomine” is now confirmed as “Doppo-chin”.

If all the mysteries I’ve consumed say one thing, it’s “never forget there might be someone out there with a grudge against you willing to pin a crime on you”…or alternatively, “never forget there may be an unrelated 3rd party who would be willing to pin a crime on you”.

These guys (Tom etc.) are just food critics, I swear…(LOL)

Oddly enough(?), googling “Shinjuku waffles” reveals there are several waffle places in Shinjuku…you wouldn’t expect so many waffles away from the home of waffles (probably Belgium), but there you go.

All the results on Shinjuku French toast point to this Café Aaliya (give or take an H at the end). Apparently, it’s so popular, people line up for it on weekdays.

Oh, so Tom’s a (street) photographer…what are Iris and Rex then?

The CGI on that car looks really bad, man. It may be dark to disguise it, but it still looks bad.

Jakurai’s dad car strikes again!...Was it white? I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure it was a lighter colour than this.

I was quite worried about how much swearing they were going to throw in the MTC episode, but then…they kicked it down a week. So…start worrying about next week, folks!

I…thought he would call Jyuto for some reason. (giggles) I’ve never seen Samatoki look so happy in relation to Jakurai, but maybe that’s because he’s just chilling. (Or maybe he was meant to have a neutral but slightly happy face and they messed up the angle. I know I do that sometimes in fanart.)

There’s Jyuto, right on cue…LOL, that kick to the guts was so random it became epic!

Uwabami…what sort of snake is that, again? *checks* Giant snake. That’s no help. (That host could have a guest seiyuu too.)

Ooh, I’m fairly sure that’s an automatic car.

Jakurai went Jitsu wa kyoumi bukai desu ne?. “Fascinating” isn’t a wrong translation, but they did forget “In fact…” or “Really…” from the start and possibly the “?” at the end (depending on interpretation). Update: It might actually be Jitsu ni, but same deal.

They struttin’ down Kabuki-cho all fancy-like…Doppo sure does get a lot of punchlines, though.

This random guy at the club could also have a guest seiyuu…

…what’s with the random Tahoma?

…oh, hey. If Hifumi’s jacket acts as a security blanket of sorts against women and he gave it to Doppo for extra warmth (presumably), then…he’s trying to protect Doppo, even in his own sort of unique way.

Mimimi vs Hifumi? This is gonna get confusing…(hey, did they actually make a flourish noise when Hifumi put on his jacket? Does the distinction need to be that clear…?)

…see, never forget the presence of an unrelated 3rd party.Wait, so we have motive…what’s the relationship of Mimimi and the dude she killed? Who is that dude? Update: We find out later.

Notice Mimimi says “Hifumi-kun” – she’s still on an outside layer compared to Doppo, who just uses Hifumi’s name. Also, I noticed Mimimi called herself Hifumi’s “onna” – “woman” – explicitly, as if she belonged to him. The subs reflect that, but it seems to have less meaning in English because they outright translated it as such.

Well, they got to demonstrate Doppo’s snapping. I’m more than happy with just that. Also, Hifumi calls Doppo with a -kun here.

LOL, this song is gonna be known as “catchy”, ain’t it? Anything with an easy-to-sing-along chorus like “nananana” is. Update: Or maybe not even a chorus, it’s just lyrics.

Hmm…I noticed the “use Mr with me” line isn’t actually reflected in the subs, but the lyrics are so fast, I don’t know how they are reflected.

Did you notice the da in the lyrics in romaji?

…and s*** goes ka-blooey, as you’ve come to expect by now.

Mimimi-kun…?

Oh, so the background from Hypnosis Mics can get caught in photos? I never thought of that.

It’s almost as if they’re nodding at the Doppo fans through the 4th wall regarding his appeal.

It seems they’re not switching out this Buster Bros track, which is…okay, but I was hoping for an MTR ED. (Tofubeats was on this track IIRC and the anime website didn’t list a future ED, so that’s why I’m okay with it.)

…Okay, so Irihatoma is Mutsumi Iwanaka, who’s a rookie in the seiyuu world. *goes to consult Anime News Network*

Oh! Mimimi Hibakari! I get it! (It means “me, me, me all day” when written differently to her name.)

Uwabami was Shugo Nakamura and Degarashi was Mitsuaki Hoshino. I’ve never heard of these guys – except for Nakamura’s role as Teru in Idolm@ster Side M – so it’s interesting they contrasted TsudaKen with them…eh? Heilong? Whossat? (Probably the guy whose…parts…almost got crushed by Jakurai with a billiards cue.) This Hiroya Eto is even more underground than those guys.

A-hah! Today’s new song is “WELCOME U” (that’s how it’s spelt, don’t diss me for it!) by Kohei from SIMONSAYZ.

Update: I thought that kid at the beginning was Yotsutsuji, so it scared me for a second.

[icerbogus]

The more I live in a suburban neighborhood and close to a city, the more I want to move out to a rural house in the middle of the wilderness. With the COVID-19 virus going around, all the schools, parks, playgrounds, and businesses in my state have temporarily closed; so children and adults alike are at home with a lot of time on their hands. I am one of those people. The spa I worked at has been temporarily closed for over a week now.

Yesterday afternoon, I caught 4 neighborhood  kids, the ages of 12-14, running through neighbor’s yards and front gardens playing ding-dong ditch. Not everyone has the same reaction to having their doorbell rang or nice gardens ran through; some don’t care, others are annoyed, or some are quite upset with having their flowers growing flowers stepped on. I was one of the annoyed ones to say the least.

I decided to let the rest of the neighborhood know about what was going on and posted this in an app for our neighborhood called Nextdoor (a helpful app to keep in touch with some neighbors, things for sale, and crime in the area). A simple “Hey, not sure who’s kids these are, but there’s some kids in the neighborhood playing ding-dong ditch! There’s probably better things to do than bug your neighbors. It’s annoying and rude to say the least.”

I got a few replies on the post...

“Feel free to kindly remind the kids that they should go find something else to do.   Remember this is a BIG transition for these kids and they're just trying to figure this out :)” 

And “Just kids being kids! This is pretty harmless! Sorry to hear answering a ringing doorbell is such a hardship for you!”

Of course most of the replies I got that were like that in nature were moms in the neighborhood. Other people are just thankful that’s all the kids are doing.

I don’t think people put it to thought that not everyone is going to have the same “Oh this is harmless” reaction. Bored minds can be dangerous... My city itself has seen it happen before... Bored kids flooded the local malls and caused nothing but trouble and destruction of property. They were bored and had nothing else to do. But with everything shut down and closed, the most they can do now is wander the neighborhood.

Either I’m a grouchy 21 year old hag that wants nothing to do with these kids or everyone has stopped caring about people’s property, space, and the well being of those kids that might be getting themselves into more trouble than they think. ヽ(｀Д´)ﾉ

[keefwho]

December 01 - 2022

8:21 AM

My sister “doesn’t feel good” again and I’m pissed that my parents don’t TELL ME THIS before allowing me to come over to do things like laundry. Its brain dead, especially since mom told me she’d call to tell me in the future ever since that “cold” she didn’t tell me about happened to be covid, TWICE. I’m tired of this culture where people seem to act like disease isn’t contagious or they simply don’t care if other people end up getting it. My laundry is still over there and I have to go get it. Its not too big a deal, my sister shouldn’t have touched anything around it but I’m still gonna let the clothes sit around until I actually know what she’s got. Mom said she had a sore throat and upset stomach. Which is it???? You generally don’t get something that affects both. Its either respiratory or gastrointestinal. She might have an upset tummy from having a wicked cold but you can’t have a combo of cough, runny nose, AND blowing your guts out to my knowledge unless you caught a cold and stomach bug at the same time. 

Either way in the past, my sister “not feeling good” hasn’t meant she’s sick necessarily. Which means I have to wait to really know and I hate that a lot. She was home school early yesterday so it must have been happening then too. This all means I have to wait to get more groceries from my parents too. Fucking blows. 

10:34 PM

Today wasn’t a very good creative day which sucks because I had to do a bestie’s commission. I did my best but today’s “best” wasn’t too great. I don’t like how I drew my horse bestie or my own OC, or my other bestie. It was kinda challenging all around. Gives me things to practice I guess. 

[stuber45188020]

How to get rid of lice with tea tree oil (instead of insecticide)

I thought perhaps lice would not be such a problem right now because of COVID-19, but a reader just let me know today that she’s been fighting a persistent case with her daughter who is doing in-person classes. So, here’s a reminder about how you can effectively (and cheaply) get rid of lice without using RID or NIX.

I know lice are a super unpleasant subject, but if you’ve got school-age kids, pin this for future use.

As you may remember, in the summer of 2014, all four of my kids got head lice.

It was, um, not my favorite thing ever.

At first when it happened, I was all, “OH MY GOSH THE SKY IS FALLING! MY CHILDREN HAVE BUGS LIVING ON THEIR HEADS. GIVE ME THE DRUGS.”

So, as my pediatrician directed, the day the infestation was discovered, I:

bought eleventy-kazillion dollars worth of Nix

treated the kids and Mr. FG and myself

washed everything in the house

put stuffed animals in the freezer

generally ran myself ragged

I might have cried too.

(No, I definitely cried.)

The pediatrician said that Nix would kill the bugs, and we’d just be left with nits to pick.

(Haha.  I put “just” and nit-picking together in a sentence.  There is no “just” about nit-picking!)

But a few days of nit-picking later, straggler bugs remained.  They seemed a bit dazed, to be sure (not lightning fast like healthy lice), but still.

Live bugs.

Gah!

So then my ped called in a prescription for Sklice, a newer and super effective med that truly does kill not only the lice but the eggs (nits) as well.

This stuff is amazing, but awfully expensive, especially when you have multiple heads to treat ($50 x 4 adds up fast.)

I applied the Sklice, but kept nit-picking all of my kids for two weeks, just in case the Sklice somehow missed zapping an egg.

This was exhausting, tedious work, and I wished dearly that I could just give all my kids buzz cuts.

(More crying may have happened.)

Anyway, eventually everyone was clear, thanks to the Sklice and my nit-picking.

But then one of my girls got lice again, I think from some friends accidentally passing it around.

This time, I was much more calm.

(Basically, no caps lock is necessary to describe the second infestation version of me.)

I knew I could call the pediatrician and get some Sklice, but since I knew more about how lice worked by then, I felt pretty confident that I could get rid of them without the heavy duty stuff.

So, here’s how we got rid of lice with tea tree oil and conditioner.

1. Cover hair in conditioner/tea tree oil mixture.

I took cheap conditioner (Suave is fine), mixed a little tea tree oil in, and saturated the wet hair with it.

The idea here is to completely cover every strand of hair with this so that the lice are immobilized.

Use a liberal hand and then some.

2. Comb through hair with a nit comb.

Next, you take your nit comb and comb through all of the hair, small sections at a time, while the conditioner/tea tree oil is still in the hair.

This way you will easily catch any live bugs and remove them from the scalp.  They are very, very easy to see against the white conditioner.

An additional benefit is that the conditioner and oil make the nits much more likely to come off onto the nit comb.

(The lice glue their eggs to the hair strands, which is why they are so hard to remove.)

Basically, you just run the comb through a small section, and the comb will pull a bunch of conditioner off the hair.

Scrape the conditioner off into a small bowl (you can wipe it between every sections if you are really devoted. I was not.), check it for bugs/nits, and keep repeating until you have the whole head combed.

3. Rinse and repeat every other day.

Then you can rinse the hair off and repeat the process every other day until you’re consistently seeing no nits in the conditioner.

I ended up with two types of combs, and between these two, the purple one worked way better.  I hear that the best thing is a high-quality metal nit comb, but the purple plastic one was definitely the best of these two.

The first time I did this treatment, I snagged all of the live bugs and most of the nits.

The next time, I got more nits and also a nymph, and from then on, I found just a few more nits and no more hatchlings, and then finally, we had a nice string of clean combing sessions.

It IS slightly scary to not be putting any lice-killer on the hair, but I felt less nervous once I realized how well this worked.

This is really important to understand:

Even if I did miss a nit or two, and those nits hatched, it was going to be quite a simple matter to catch any of them before they reached reproductive age.

Why?

The conditioner/oil immobilizes them and that pretty much guarantees that they’ll get caught in the comb.

Also!

This is SUCH an easy way to tell if any other kids in the house are infested.  If you have a fresh infestation, there will be live bugs, and they are super super easy to see when you do the conditioner/comb combo.

The first go-round with lice, I treated everyone in the house blindly without actually knowing if everyone had lice.

(SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!! mode, and all that.)

But the second time around, I did the conditioner/tea tree oil thing on all of the kids and was able to confirm that only one kid actually had lice.

It has now been 9 months since I used this combo on my kid’s lice-infested head, and there has been absolutely no recurrence, so I know this really did work!

4 Reasons This is Superior to Commercial Treatments

1. It’s cheap.

Nix, Rid, and Sklice are all pretty pricey, and the priciness really adds up if you have a bunch of heads to treat.

But conditioner is only a few dollars, as is tea tree oil, and you can do tons of treatments with just a bottle of each.

2. There’s nothing iffy in it.

Sklice is supposed to be quite safe, and some of the other treatments are a synthetic concoction made to imitate a substance from chysanthemums, so it’s probably not the worst thing in the world.

Still, the directions on Rid and Lice say not to do too many treatments in a row, which gives me pause.

Plus, that stuff is awfully hard on scalps…when we used it on our heads, even those of us with no lice had itchy heads for a good week.

(This will freak you out no end when there are lice in the house.)

I felt much better about putting conditioner and tea tree oil on my child’s head, that’s for sure.

3. It works better than Rid and NIX.

Unfortunately, some lice have become resistant to these classic insecticides, which means you can put all of that on your kiddos’ heads and still be dealing with live bugs like we were.

Once I did the initial comb-through with the conditioner/tea tree oil, though, I got all of the mature bugs in one fell swoop, which is WAY more than I can say for Rid and Nix.

4. It’s WAY easier than dry-hair nit-picking/combing.

Trying to find each nit by hand in a headful of dry hair is so tedious. And nits cling to hair like crazy.

I found it to be far simpler to use the comb in a head of conditioned/oiled hair, and since the oil/conditioner loosens the nits, they come off so much more easily.

Downsides

There are just a few downsides to the conditioner/oil method, but they are not enough to sway me back into the insecticide camp, especially because they are only downsides when comparing my way to Sklice.

1. You have to keep doing this every other day until the head is clear.

This isn’t EXACTLY a downside, because unless you’re using Sklice, which does kill nits, you are supposed to keep nit-picking every day until the nits are all gone.

I did dry nit-combing and picking during our first go-round and I am here to tell you that the conditioner/comb method is way, way, way less frustrating, and I found it to be more effective.

So, given the choice between nit-picking every day and conditioner/tea tree oil combing every other day, I would pick the latter every single time.

2. This method doesn’t kill anything.

I don’t consider this to be a downside, given that some of the insecticides we tried didn’t kill the bugs either!

And unless you have Sklice, the insecticide you use isn’t going to kill the nits anyway (only the live bugs, and that if you’re lucky), so you still have to get them out of the hair somehow.

So, this, “Oh no! I’m not zapping any of the bugs!” thing is really more of a mental block to get over, I think.

__________________________

Well.

I dearly hope that none of you ever need this information, but I’m putting it out there because it really was a lifesaver for me.

I mean, I’m not at all hoping for another lice infestation, but armed with this method, I’m not nearly as terrified as I used to be.

Supplies

Here’s a highly recommended nit comb.

Here’s the Suave conditioner we used, but any inexpensive conditioner should do the trick.  Just get a lot of it so that you can generously cover the hair.

Here’s a tea tree oil similar to what we used. You don’t need a super expensive variety.

__________________________

P.S. Sonia would like you to know that she merely modeled for these pictures, and that she does not have lice.

P.P.S. If you found this post via a google search and your kids currently have lice, ALL OF THE SYMPATHY to you.  Hang in there, and give this method a try!  It’s gonna be ok.

P.P.P.S.  If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t drive myself nuts by washing/freezing/disinfecting my whole house.  The important thing is to get the children’s heads treated.  If you do that, you should be good to go.

P.P.P.P.S. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments!

P.P.P.P.P.S. Here’s why you don’t need to panic about super lice.

The post How to get rid of lice with tea tree oil (instead of insecticide) appeared first on The Frugal Girl.

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we got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month, interviewer thought I was lying, and more

New Post has been published on https://weightlosshtiw.com/we-got-weight-loss-tips-for-womens-history-month-interviewer-thought-i-was-lying-and-more/

we got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month, interviewer thought I was lying, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. We got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month

This happened months ago but it’s still bugging me. I work for a large corporation that promotes diversity in the workplace. In celebration of Women’s History Month, we received an email with info on women’s health issues .. with tips like maintain a healthy weight, lose weight, having a thick waist ups your risk of stroke, consume less sugar and fat, and don’t smoke. There’s also information that women are more likely to experience urinary tract problems due to the way the female urinary tract is structured.

Am I wrong in thinking … WTF??? I can’t recall ever seeing an email with info about my male coworker’s urinary tract. Or suggestions that my male coworkers lose weight, eat less sugar, etc. How does this celebrate diversity? This whole thing feels really tone-deaf. I want to say something, but then I stop and ask if I’m overreacting. I need perspective, please.

You are not overreacting. Observing Women’s History Month by talking about diet and weight (and urinary tracts — WTF?) is bizarre and frankly kind of insulting. They would have been better off doing nothing! How about donating to a women-focused charity, seeking out women-owned businesses for your vendors, sending women on staff to leadership events, doing a pay equity analysis and releasing the info, and/or designing and implementing family-friendly policies around things like flex time and parental leave? “Eat less fat” isn’t it.

2. I think my interviewer thought I was lying about my degree

I had a very bad interview experience the other day. I am currently seeking a better opportunity for myself while working from home. I’m in my late 20s and I have been at my current job for two years. Unfortunately, the money isn’t good and I don’t enjoy the job either. The good news is that I just completed my second bachelor’s in business administration in May. Previously I received my B.A. in psychology. When I was updating my resume, I only included my business degree.

This brings me to the awkward moment of my interview call. I have been having severe connection issues during the entire period that I have been working from home. I was on a phone screen with a recruiter at a company in my industry. We seemed to be having a great call. She made a comment that my work history was very diverse and so I told her that my degree was in psychology and I worked at a shelter but didn’t feel it was my calling. Then there was this absolute silence (from her being confused about my major) and we lost the connection. I tried calling her back but it said “call failed.” About one hour later, the internet was restored and I opened my email only to find a rejection letter.

Because second degrees are a bit rare, I’m sure she thought I was lying about my background and presumed I hung up after realizing I was caught up in a lie. The rejection email said I don’t have the “qualifications and background needed,” which is not true. I haven’t sent her a follow-up or thank-you email but now I am wondering if I should reach out and explain the situation. Would you recommend I reach out to her and explain?

Yes. It might not change her decision, but you have nothing to lose by trying. I would say, “Thank you so much for your time talking with me. Our call was disconnected while we were still speaking — my service went down for an hour at the worst possible time! — so I didn’t get a chance to explain that while my resume lists my recent business degree, it doesn’t list my earlier bachelor’s degree in psychology from NYU (received in 2007). I think I may have introduced some confusion by referencing the psychology degree without explaining it’s not on my resume — and then we got cut off before I could. I realize you likely have many qualified candidates, but if this affects your assessment of my qualifications, I’d love to keep talking. If not, I wish you all the best in filling the role and with the work you’re doing. I appreciate your time!”

For what it’s worth, it’s possible that she didn’t think you were lying but tried to call you back, couldn’t reach you, rejected you for other reasons, and moved on. It’s still worth clarifying — it won’t hurt and could help — but I wouldn’t assume your interpretation is definitely what happened.

Also, any reason you don’t have the psychology degree on your resume? There might be good reason to leave it off, but if you ever bring it up in an interview, you need to quickly explain it’s not on your resume, or people are going to be confused.

3. Former boss is asking me about assignments I don’t remember receiving

I left my previous job in the midst of COVID-19 in March to start a new position halfway across the country. My boss at my previous workplace was great — very supportive, clear communicator. She assigned work, and I would complete it well. I would usually submit work on time (95% of the time). My boss was very happy to be my reference for the position I’m currently working in.

Fast forward to four months later. After months of not hearing from her, she is now emailing me (four times in the last two weeks) asking me for the file location for work that she claims she asked me to do that I never submitted. I have no recollection of her assigning this work to me. It would be out of character for me not to complete work as assigned, even on my way out the door. However, COVID-19 and moving across the country was stressful and weird. It would be out of character for me but I suppose it is possible this work was assigned to me and I didn’t do it (although I have no memory of that).

Is it unreasonable that she’s contacting me to ask where this work is four months after I left, seemingly irritated that she thinks I didn’t do what she asked? If it’s not unreasonable, what do I do? I have no access to my previous files. If she did ask me and I didn’t complete the work as assigned, I wish she could have contacted me sooner because wow I don’t remember much pre-COVID. Should I worry about my reference now around this?

It’s not unreasonable for her to ask about the location of one or two items a few months after you left in case you happened to be able to easily answer, but it’s not reasonable for her to sound irritated if you no longer remember (and four separate queries is too many).

I wouldn’t get into “hmmm, maybe I didn’t do it, it’s possible, I’m not sure” — that won’t serve either of you well! Instead, say something like, “I really wish I could help! So much has happened since I left that I don’t remember many specifics about projects I did for you before I went. I know I tried to be vigilant about getting everything done and it was really important to me to leave everything in good shape — but at this point I don’t have many of the specifics still in my head. I’m sorry I can’t help!”

As for how much to worry about it affecting your reference … it’s hard to say with certainty. If you’d always done good work and you sent me that email, I’d be inclined to just move on (figuring it was on me for not looking for the work sooner). Some managers would be more put out. If she knows for sure that she assigned it (for example, if she still has emails she sent you assigning the projects) and the work was important … well, she still should have looked for it earlier, ideally before you left! I can’t speak to how reasonable she is or whether it will affect her reference, but I can say that it shouldn’t, at least not unless there are more details than what’s here.

4. Should we offer severance to a belligerent, hostile employee?

I am a board member of a condo who recently had to fire our resident manager for a belligerent, profanity-laden outburst during a zoom board meeting. He has not been doing his job and has been suspected to be drinking or have been drunk while working (although no proof). He has gotten into heated arguments with owners. To further complicate things, our property manager has not done his job by documenting his complaints and appears to be protecting him rather than the board/owners. The property manager is pushing for some sort of severance for good will however the board is opposed to it. We feel we have a termination with cause for insubordination (lots of “F” words directed at us and calling names). What is your suggestions on whether we need to pay severance in this instance? He is talking to a lawyer regarding a possible hostile workplace or wrongful termination lawsuit.

As a general rule, it’s both kind and wise to give when you let someone go, because (a) it’s the right thing to do when you curtail someone’s source of income, (b) it’s likely to make your other employees feel better about the situation, and (c) you typically have the person sign a release of legal claims in exchange for the payment. The first two aren’t as compelling when you’re dealing with such egregious behavior (as opposed to, say, firing someone whose work just wasn’t up to par even though they were trying), but that release of claims is always a good idea, especially if a hostile workplace claim might have any legs. (Even if it doesn’t, you might not want to deal with the hassle of a lawsuit you expect to eventually win.)

Talk to a lawyer though. If he’s speaking with a lawyer himself, it’s likely that he’ll try to negotiate any severance you offer for a higher amount, and you should have a lawyer guiding you on your side as well.

5. Grouping jobs by functional area on your resume

I noticed that you’ve written about college career centers not being so helpful to students in their advice and how hiring managers dislike functional resumes. I have a question that combines these two things: my college career center advises students to organize their work experience on their resume by creating functional headers with experiences listed reverse chronologically below. (For example: as someone with a lot of editorial experience looking for communications jobs, I’ve been advised to create a “Communications Experience” section with my past relevant internship/job experience listed in reverse-chronological order below the heading. I also have one with “Project Management Experience.”) This format still involves listing out specific companies, positions, and dates—it’s just not lumped under one large “Work Experience” section.

Is this a new phenomenon that’s acceptable? Or just a mutation of the functional resume that still frustrates hiring managers?

That’s fine to do! The functional resumes that are awful are the ones that list skills and accomplishments without connecting them to specific jobs — just a list of things you did, without any context about when you did them or who you did them for. That makes it impossible to assess your experience in the way hiring managers want to, and looks like you’re hiding something. But what you’re describing is fine; it’s the same thing as a chronological resume, just with the jobs grouped according to subject area.

That said, I question whether it’s really serving you. It can make sense if you have a lot of varied experience and want to highlight one or two areas over the others. But if you’re a student or a recent grad, it most cases that will be unnecessary and will just make your resume a little harder to follow. If you have some specific reason to do it this way, then carry on — but if your career center is just telling everyone to do this, then ignore them.

HR director’s wellness program is invasive and sexist

how to respond to comments about weight in the office

I don’t get to go on my office’s weight loss reward cruise

we got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month, interviewer thought I was lying, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

This content was originally published here.

[whyinever-blog-blog]

Monday, WEEK 16, July 13, COVID-19 ramping up in most states, Phase 2 Reopening delayed until July 17, Living in MASK MAYHEM

We have a few orders to ship today. We don’t have to water this morning since we had a big storm overnight. It’d be great if it rained every night honestly!

I have my month later checkup with Orthopedic doc. Things are fine, but particular movements slower to recover. So he recommends I get a contraption that will help hold difficult positions (that frickin hurt) because the “time holding” that position is what makes the wrist loosen up. I also have PT today. She helps me simulate things I would do at work next month and it’s REALLY helpful. Like really helpful. I think I can do my work, with modified use of my wrist. And hoping the wrist improves in the next couple of weeks too.

I ordered a box full of used books from EBay for us to read. A grab bag. 20 books for $20. It was a box of “thriller/mystery” genre books. I will pass them on after we read them!

My friend Carla posted this and I’m sharing. No one knows who wrote it so far but it’s hilarious!

😂 Dear Diary 2020 Edition,

In ❄️ January, 🔥 Australia caught on fire. I don’t even know if that fire was put out, because we straight up almost went to war with Iran 🇮🇷 . We might actually still be almost at war with them 🤔. I don’t know, because 👩 Jen Aniston and 👨🏻 Brad Pitt spoke to one another at an awards 🏆 show and everyone flipped the crap out 😲, but then there was this thing happening in 🦇 🇨🇳 China, then 👑 Prince Harry and Megan ✌🏼 peaced out of the Royal family, and there was the whole impeachment trial 👩‍⚖️ , and then corona virus 🦠 showed up in the US ✔️“officially,” but then 🏀 Kobe died 😭and UK 🇬🇧 peaced out of the European Union.

In February, 🌽 Iowa crapped 💩 itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted and the 👩🏼‍💼Speaker of the House took ten. Whole. years. to rip up a speech , but then The👨‍🔬 🌎WHO decided to give this virus a name COVID-19, which confused 🤔some really important people 👔 in charge of, like, our lives, into thinking there were 18 other versions before it, but then Harvey Weinstein was found guilty👨🏻‍⚖️, and 🇺🇸 Americans started asking if Corona beer 🍺 was safe to drink🤦🏻‍♀️, and everyone on Facebook became a doctor 👨‍⚕️ who just knew the 🤒flu like killed way more people than COVID 1 through 18.

In March, stuff hit the fan👿. Warren dropped out of the presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or bust 💥, but then Italy 🇮🇹 shut its whole country down 🚷, and then COVID Not 1 through 18 officially become what everyone already realized, a 😱pandemic and then a nationwide state of emergency 🆘was declared in US 🇺🇸 , but it didn’t really change anything, so everyone was confused or thought it was still just a flu 💁🏻‍♀️, but then COVID Not 18 was like ya’ll not taking me seriously? 💡 I’m gonna infect the one celebrity everyone loves and totally infected Tom Hanks👨🏻, get y’all to close all of the schools so y’all can 🙏🏼 appreciate teachers 👩‍🏫 for once (because you can’t teach them anything other than how to use a touch screen🤦🏻‍♀️ ) close down all of salons so you can’t get your 💇‍♂️ hair or your nails done💅 , everyone had to work from home and attend Zoom meetings in their underwear. The 📉 DOW took a crap 💩 on itself, and most of us still don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing 🤔 (I still don’t), We were then all introduced to 🐅 Tiger King and the ONE thing we can all agree on this year , 👍🏼Carol totally killed her husband⚰️ ..... whacked him! And then Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realized there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross and were all searching for lotion now. Oh and during all this there was an earthquake with multiple after shocks.

In 🌧 April, Bernie finally busted✌🏼 himself out of the presidential race 🏃 , but then NYC 🗽became the set of The Walking Dead 💀 and we learned that no one has face masks 😷, ventilators, or toilet paper, or THE FREAKING SWIFFER WET JET LIQUID , and by now our 🦁outgrowth is showing, so there’s a shortage on 📦 box hair dye and all of our hair dressers are like , 😱 NO DONT DO IT!!! But, then Kim Jong-Un died, but then he came back to life … or did he? Who knows, because then the Pentagon released 🎥 videos of UFOs and nobody cared, and we were like man, it’s only April….

In 💐 May, the biblical end times kicked off , historical locust swarms, we learned of murder hornets 🐝 and realized that 2020 was the start of the Hunger Games🙈 however people forgot to let us know. people legit started to protest lockdown measures with 🔫 AR-15s, 🏀⚾️sports events were cancelled everywhere. But then people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were 🗣protests in every city🌃 ,which was confusing to some of us because people were definitely gathering in 👫crowds of more than 🖐🏼🤚🏼10 and for sure closer than 6 foot away ⬅️➡️from each other . Those people must have forgotten about the 😖pandemic called COVID Not One Through 18. Media 📺 🗞 struggled with how to 🤬focus on two important things at once, people in general struggle to focus on more than one important thing. A dead whale 🐋 was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest 🌳 after monkeys 🐒 stole COVID 1 Through 19 from a lab 🔬 and ran off with them, and either in May or April (no one is keeping track of time now) that a giant asteroid ☄️ narrowly missed the Earth🌍.

In ☀️ June, science and common sense just got thrown 🤾🏼 straight out the window and somehow 😷 wearing masks became a 🏛political thing, but then everyone sort of remembered there was a pandemic, but then decided that not wearing a mask was somehow a ✝️God given right (still haven't found that part in the bible or even in the constitution). then 👨‍🔬scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the center of the earth, and everyone was like 🙅🏽‍♂️🙅🏻‍♀️🚧DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, but then everyone took a pause to realize that people actually believed Gone With The Wind 💨 was like non-fiction, but then it was also announced that there is a strange 🛰radio signal coming from somewhere in the universe 🌌 that repeats itself every so many days 🗓 , and everyone was like 👽 DON’T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT‼️🚫 but then America reopened 🙌🏼from the shut down that actually wasn’t even a shut down, and so far, things have gone spectacularly .... not that great 👎🏼. All of the Karen’s came out at once, and people started tearing down 🔨 statues. Everyone is on Facebook arguing 🤼‍♀️ that masks kill because no one knows how breathing works 👃🏼, but then Florida 🏖 was like hold my beer 🍺 and let me show you how we’re number one 🥇 in all things, including new Not Corona Beer Coronavirus. Trump 👱🏻‍♂️decides now is a good time to ask the Supreme Court 🏛 to shut down ❌Obama Care because what better time to do so than in the middle of a pandemic 💁🏻‍♀️ , but then we learned there was a massive dust cloud ☁️ coming straight at us 📍from the Sahara Desert 🐫 , which is totally normal, but this is 2020, so the 👻 ghost mummy thing is most likely in that dust cloud. We then 📚 learned of meth-gators 🐊 , and I'm like that is so not on my flipping 2020 Bingo card 😡 can we use it as the free space?? 🤷🏻 Then we learned that the Congo's worst ever Ebola 🚨 outbreak is over 😓, and we were all like, there was an Ebola outbreak that was the worse ever? 👀 ....... and don’t forget we just discovered FLYING SNAKES! 🐍, seriously! FLYING SNAKES!!!

——————————————-

I get home late from PT, so we have happy hour outside. We’ve figured out why we had soooo many mosquitos this past week. When they say go check your yard for water holes, standing water, etc. you have to look further than those regular things you see everyday. We discovered I had a big vase full of water on the front porch with cut shrubbery in it, which we loved and have had there since winter actually. Well guess what...a breeding ground. We dumped it. Then we discovered our driveway, where we keep the extra garden soil was totally saturated and a pool was sitting in the dirt. We dumped it. Wow what a difference. 2 days with no swarms and bites. Whew. We were about to get the sprayers out here thinking...this is the worst. We have to do something. We don’t want to do that because of expense and it kills all the good bugs and bees.

Dinner: leftover pasta casserole

Watch: Yellowstone s3 ep3

[rememberthattime]

Chapter 53. Lockdown

It’s been almost five months since my last post:  Finland at the start of February.  That seems so long ago – in fact, it’s by far the longest Chelsay & I have gone without a trip in our five years abroad.  

These are extenuating and unfortunate circumstances though.  The global Coronavirus pandemic has put the entire world in lockdown, with far more dangerous and deadly consequences for the millions infected. I don’t want to go into the staggering statistics, but I can safely say that every single person on Earth has been impacted. Even saying that, it is likely we won’t know the virus’ true toll for many years.

However, the purpose of this blog is to “record” Chelsay & I’s present thoughts, emotions, and experiences. In 20 years, I want to read these words and relive our time abroad.

The 2020 lockdown is historically and personally unique – likely more noteworthy than an individual trip we’ve taken. That said, there would be a gap in this record if I didn’t post about Chelsay & I’s lockdown experience.

I’ll start out by saying that Chelsay & I have been very lucky. We’ve been bored more than usual, but with lockdown coming to an end soon, we’ve made it through relatively easily.

The biggest reason: Indy! I briefly mentioned our new dog in the Finland post, but we didn’t bring him home until a few weeks later, just before the lockdown began. It was absolutely perfect timing:

Chelsay and I had stressed about how we would alternate working-from-home while Indy was a puppy. After coronavirus, this was a moot point… I’m not sure Chelsay or I will ever go back into our London offices.  

Chelsay & I would’ve been painfully bored being locked at home for months, but Indy has been a blast. Play time, training, and walks have filled our otherwise open schedules.

That said, things weren’t so easy early on: Indy’s first two weeks with us were painful. Really really bad. He had a stomach bug when we picked him up so, starting with the first drive home, he was either throwing up or pooping every 45 minutes.

Making matters worse, we were staying in a terrible basement AirBnB – the only one in London that allowed dogs. Beyond the complete absence of daylight, the other downside of this AirBnB was the thin walls… We tried having Indy sleep on his own, but he would HOWL incessantly. The neighbors were unexpectedly understanding for the first 15 minutes, but their (and our) patience ended when his crying hit the 1-hour mark.

With all this pooping & howling, I’ll freely admit that I regretted getting a dog.  I’d expected a much easier transition, but the combination of his stomach bug & our dreadful AirBnB changed everything. That said, we stuck it out, and I actually think I learned a lot about patience & perseverance… And I’m just really happy Indy pooped all over the AirBnB instead of our permanent home.

This is a good transition to our other main lockdown activity: settling into our new house. In my last post, I mentioned that we found this place within 24 hours of landing in London – a testament to our organization, motivation, and ability to fight off jetlag.

Settling in is always tough, but we had reason for optimism: Chelsay had meticulously coordinated the furniture & homeware shipments for our move-in date. Although most of the deliveries were completed without hiccup, some of the larger items were derailed when the UK went into lockdown. …The shipping company refused to deliver our items – I eventually found a creative solution that I won’t go into, but it meant out our couch, TV, and all kitchen cookware were locked away in a warehouse for an extra few weeks.  

In the meantime, Chelsay, Indy, & I were living the college-lifestyle: we put the guest mattress in our living room as a couch replacement, used a computer monitor as a TV, and ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner for an entire month with only two forks!

That said, the benefit of missing furniture was the extra room for Indy to run around.  Actually, we had plenty of space even once ALL our furniture arrived! Our new flat is twice the size of the Manly apartment, and nearly the size of our previous THREE apartments combined! And that’s without considering the backyard, where Indy could roam freely, play fetch, get his zoomies out… or participate in the 2020 NFL Combine.

Although it took a few weeks to fill the house, we immediately felt settled in our new neighborhood. Chelsay & I loved Hampstead the first time we lived in London, so it was our top choice house hunting… All 24 hours of house hunting.

Hampstead is undeniably London’s most charming & cozy neighbourhood: knobbly alleys, off-kilter homes, mossy lattices, vine covered brick facades. Close to the city, but very much an English village.

It is also home to one of London’s largest parks, Hampstead Heath, which isn’t even really a park. It’s a forest. A wild, unmaintained maze of trees, vines, and brush, with pockets of open heath sprinkled around. Every weekday morning around 6:45 and every night around 6:30, Chelsay, Indy, and I set out for a walk through the park. Indy loves the night walk especially (when we bring his frisbee), but the walks aren’t just for him: Chelsay and I love the fresh air in the morning, and relaxing wind-down at night.

These walks are one staple of our weekday routine, with the other being Chelsay & I’s daily lunch together. Despite work being busy for both of us throughout the lockdown, we’ve found time to take lunch together every single day.  It’s a flashback to Seattle, when Chelsay & I both worked in South Lake Union and we’d meet up a few times per week. These little breaks split up the day, and help us both prepare for busy afternoons. …The only problem is that we’re getting really tired of cooking. We haven’t gone to a restaurant since February 22. Today is June 26.

Weekends have their own routine as well.  Although we wake up early (a new talent of Chelsay’s), we’ll take our time with a bigger breakfast like huevos rancheros. We’ll then saddle Indy up for our primary weekend activity: a 2-3 hour walk through the Heath. These walks have been excellent for so many reasons:

The Heath is gorgeous, as described earlier. Each walk is unique, and we haven’t followed the same route yet.

The weather has been historically great: May was the sunniest month since Britain began recording in 1862!

It tuckers Indy out. He’ll go to sleep for 6 hours after we get back from our weekend walks.

Indy’s exhaustion gives Chelsay & I a chance to FaceTime with our families, a weekly highlight. With everyone in lockdown, its far easier to find a time when everyone can join: both our parents and our siblings (it’s not like we were doing anything else!). Our typical agenda goes: game night, recommend shows, make fun of each other’s unkept appearance. 

The rest of our routine weekend day is spent planning.  Both Chelsay and I have our own roles:

Chelsay tends to handle household preparedness. I have to give her credit – she was way ahead of the curve on Coronavirus. A week or two before the rest of the world caught on, Chelsay was already stocking up on essentials – and more importantly, reserving our online grocery delivery orders into May. This was SO. DAMN. CRITICAL. We went into Waitrose once in early March, and it was a genuine nightmare. You could feel the anxiety in the air: long lines to enter, with everyone panic-buying, irritable, and on-edge while trying to socially distance. It was so important that Chelsay stocked up beforehand and reserved those slots, ensuring we wouldn’t need to visit the grocery store.  Once lockdown started, every delivery service froze new member sign-up and locked delivery scheduling.  

While Chelsay made sure we survived the lockdown, I was ensuring our travel agenda hit the ground running once restrictions were lifted. I’ve probably planned 15 different variations of trips in the past four months, scrupulously researching options that were exciting, feasible, and most importantly of all, cancellable. Although Puglia in April and the Lakes District in May ultimately needed to be cancelled, the following trips *seem* like they might be okay: Scotland road trip in July, Paris by train in late August, Central Europe road trip in September, and Egypt in October. KNOCK ON WOOD!

Now, the standard weekend includes these long walks, family Facetimes, & planning sessions, but Chelsay and I have still fit in a few exciting breaks from the routine.

First, Chelsay’s 30th birthday fell in the middle of lockdown. We’d originally planned to relive her favorite trip by visiting Scotland, but obviously that was no longer an option. Determined to celebrate her milestone birthday from home, I surprised her with balloons around the house and a ready-made dinner including lamb shanks, potatoes dauphinoise, and glazed carrots. Chelsay pre-baked dessert: a funfetti cake.

Second, as lockdown measures began to ease, we started taking day trips within England. Our first escapade was a short drive to Richmond, where Indy got sick in the car… With our Scotland roadtrip booked, we knew he needed better driving experience, so we immediately booked rental cars for the following three Saturdays. These trips were great car training for Indy, but more importantly brought us to some of the UK’s prettiest locations: Richmond, the Cotswolds, Seven Sisters, and Peak District.

I’ll end this post by emphasizing how lucky Chelsay & I have been during this lockdown. As I mentioned in the introduction, every single person in the world has been impacted by Covid in some way… but Chelsay and I have made it through relatively easily.

We’ll always remember this Global Pandemic and our four months stuck at home, but we’ll also remember the extra time we got to have with our new new puppy, or enjoying our new home and neighbourhood. We’ll remember how the extra planning time made our Scotland, EuroTrip, and Egypt trips that much more special. And most of all, we’ll remember that our friends & family remained safe and healthy throughout.

[renearanda]

The New American Order by RM Aranda

INTRODUCTION

"What the Hell Is Happening?"

Nobody knows. The people cried for a system reboot for longer than the system was in place in America. And it was finally here.

After the "last" State of  what we now call the "First" Union, all 50 States had come to an unprecedented accord. The parties had never been more polar, the policies never more divisive, the classes never so red-taped to isolation on either side of the income gap.  For centuries, companies lobbied policy and offices manipulated offices for a shot at untangling the corrupt social web the whole world knew America teetered on... And both sides of the two-party-system pop contest blamed the "other" side. The people all wanted truth. The people did want freedom. The "people" wanted a nation truly of the people, by the people, for the people. So, in lieu of an impeding second Civil War, the Nation's leaders decided the Nation would "reset". The economy was a reality show of a ticking time bomb for months. Citizens rushed to banks to liquidate their assets in exchange for survival rations, bug-out equipment and gear. All borders to other countries would be closed after a deliberation period, during which you could surrender your citizenship and seek refugee status elsewhere on Earth if you opted out of claiming your "deserved freedom" on American soil. Obviously, no guarantee of success there, either. Otherwise: Welcome to the Wilder West. Our guns are bigger now and our horses are made of metal. The Federal Government's final action would be to see Unions level the Nation's zones & industries to the proverbial ground, stripping facilities to bare-boned infrastructure and leaving the attribution and application to arbitration, "mulching up the rotting bureaucracies into tilled soil of opportunity for the 'Recycled Frontier'"! In other words, American politics were self-imploding, state borders were being erased and in turn, bills nationwide would be rendered obsolete - it would be a free-for-all. In preparation, citizens gathered their wits and their bearings in temporary stays called FEMA Basecamps; shortly thereafter referred to as "Fee-BC's".

On January 1st, 2045, The United States of America would declare Bankruptcy. America's new "B-Day"! The U.S. dollar would be wiped from global exchanges and the citizens would have four years to go anywhere in the country they wanted to go and "start again" before the new union would be reformed. Reboot the red white and blue. The U.N. headed a peace treaty where world powers like Russia, the UK, and China would safe guard the U.S. from foreign invasion during this transitory period in exchange for first dibs on trade deals emerging from the recharged economy. If America failed to form a union in four years? The powers-owed would be reclaiming America's multi trillion dollar debt in the lump sum of, you guessed it, land-of-the-brave. But America is well known, the world around, for our unparalleled and unprecedented pride in ourselves. And now, our new open-carry-or-you'll-probably-get-robbed mentality. So, we weren't sweating being caught unawares in a betrayal while we were a mass Operation Hunger Games and the trigger happy who were looking forward to a Civil War sequel probably would have welcomed it. But the race to rebuild-it-right-this-time was on.

Here is how the nation was mapped out for the Recycled Frontier: ‘Countryside for Farmers, Cities for Factories, Downtown High-Rises for Business Owners & 9-to-5 Employee residencies and Downtown everything else for Food and Retail, Suburbs for Education, Skill-building and Community Services & Activities, And all the in-between for the Emergency Responders, the Freelancers and Tradesmen who believed they could best tie zones together’. 

In a nutshell, live where you plan to spend most of your time, or plan to dedicate much of your new life to renovating the transit systems to suit the Newest, "New World". Shaming of those who elected to relocate obtrusively in a way that hindered the flow of the new economy upstart was highly encouraged. And I mean federal military grade weaponry distributed amongst clean record citizens encouraged. But these zones were, much like all government mandates had been in U.S. history, only a guideline and this time from a federal government and a union that was about to not exist. It wasn't enforceable and it wasn't what many people planned to adhere to. But it was a blueprint map everyone had in their inventories, a sort of  godspeed-to-you gift to bewildered citizens as they set out from the Fee-BCs on America's B-Day.

Is it anarchy if it was the government's idea?

My name is Covid (yes, I was born during the pandemic of 2020, no I haven't forgiven my parents for that yet) and this is my account of The New American Order.

CHAPTER 1

"Mechanics"

You might be wondering how things like gas could be distributed if no one owned the pumps anymore. I found that out the hard way.