Category Archives: Life

Uncontrolled spread

Health

In which too many are not, for a variety of reasons I won’t get into, taking this shit seriously.

Half the customers in the cheese shop these past few weeks have been tourists. White people on vacation to wine country, visiting tasting rooms, hotels, restaurants, and my place of work in sleepy little rural Oregon, for the purpose of “stimulating the economy” and getting drunk and, possibly, spreading a killing, maiming disease to a bunch of service workers who have no choice but to show up at work and pull a paycheck to make those ends meet.

Mask-wearing in my shop in general is now over 90%, but I had a customer last week whose mask was, I shit you not, beaded, and made of sheer, lavender gauze. Decorative, but completely useless. An agree-to-comply-but-don’t-comply fuck you to everyone with whom the damn woman comes into contact. Including me.

Fuck her. Seriously. And everyone like her.

I smoked for 31 years. So I’m not eligible for a lung transplant, you ignorant bitch. Enjoy your non-essential impulse buys!

I don’t blame people who go to work sick because they have to, but nobody has to bring six fucking people into a goddamned cheese shop in BFE wearing a useless mask. That’s just being an ignorant, selfish, childish asshole.

Look at this goddamned map; click through and read:

The majority of the nation is in “uncontrolled spread” of Covid-19. Let me state that you do NOT “need” to:

– go to fuckin’ Disney
– go to large parties (sorry about your enormous wedding, but shit happens)
– come to my county as a fucking tourist during a pandemic
– fly somewhere just for fun
– get your hair or nails done
– hang out maskless in any public space (not even you drunk fucks smoking outside the Elks)
– go to games or concerts.

FFS, you need to stay HOME except for essential activities. Groceries, health care, funerals maybe. Essential work. Not vacations and shopping and dining out.

Shut shit down, send the “menial” (but SO essential) low-paid, high-risk service workers home, and give them money to live on. We can afford it. Mail the fucking checks, every month. Meanwhile, institute contact tracing and rapid testing and all the shit we failed, stupidly, to do the first goddamned time.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR THOUSAND DEAD HUMAN BEINGS in this country, you absolute shitheads. If we put all those dead bodies in coffins and stacked them up, it would be a cube 3.24 miles per side. Imagine a cube more than three miles per side in the center of your city: THOSE ARE OUR COVID DEAD.

My county, Umatilla, has been shut back down to baseline as of tomorrow at noon because we’re at 234.4 cases per 10,000 people:

It’s not just live or die with this virus. Those who live are, evidence is beginning to show, often very fucked up. There are people who may never breathe properly again. I saw several who presented two months after getting over a mild case only to die in the hospital of sudden cardiac arrest. Victims report exhaustion and weakness and fatigue for months and months.

There are people who had mild or asymptomatic versions of this disease in March who are now presenting with lung damage and blood clots. There have already been lung transplants and amputations and heart failure.

This thing’s been here for barely half a year, we know very little about it. It’s not the fucking flu; the flu doesn’t turn your blood to sludge and ruin your heart and lungs like this shit does.

Stay home as much as you can. Wear a mask when you can’t, and wash your FUCKING hands.

I don’t know how to convince you to care about other people.

Root Canal Revisited

Health

In which THERE WAS AN EXPENSIVE DENTAL PROCEDURE.

Last week, on a whim, I called the dentist across the street from the one that keeps postphoning my appointments, and they got me in TWO HOURS LATER. This place doesn’t take my insurance, but my insurance doesn’t cover most of what I need anyway, so what the hell.

They took tons of images and then the hygienist went to town on my teeth. (My whole mouth hurt for hours that evening.) The doctor told me my root canal and the tooth below it both have issues, and gave me two referrals to specialists.

Went to an endodontist today and he put a bunch of drills, soldering irons, and glue guns into my mouth over the period of an hour or so.

I got three shots of local, which, of course, felt weird as hell for hours, and then a lot of drilling and weird sensations, noises, and smells. The local made me (I think?) feel really gacked for about 40 minutes. (It could have been anxiety, but I didn’t feel particularly anxious as much as like I’d done a rail of mediocre coke.) The gacked feeling wore off after awhile, and in general there was discomfort but no real pain.

The staff were all excellent and the music was, I was informed, a station called something like “French Cooking.” I was relieved it was anything but a local country station.

The doctor asked me what was up with the roof of my mouth; there’s a big bruise or spot there. Not sure what it’s from, but I think I burned myself eating pizza while drunk last weekend? Who knows; my mouth is a bit of a mess.

I got the root canal originally nine or ten years ago and apparently a root was missed, so today the doctor dug it out and cleared the forth root.

It cost $1,700. (So that’s much of the stimulus and various checks from aunts and uncles I’ve gotten during Covid-19 gone.) I don’t know that I’ve ever paid seventeen hundred dollars for a single thing in my life; thank God I had it available.

I got a prescription for a week’s worth of antibiotics, but just realized now I forgot to go pick them up. Will have to do so tomorrow.

Have to go back to my regular dentist to get the crown finished; right now it’s just rough and weird-feeling. And after THAT I have to get ANOTHER tooth looked at by another specialist as there’s a pocket of infection that needs to come out. I’ve already spent two grand; by the time this is all ship shape I’ll be out four grand, probably.

I’d better live long enough to make keeping these teeth worth it!

o hai there

Life

In which it’s Sunday afternoon.

I just deleted my Facebook account! It’s a garbage platform with garbage rules, and anybody who actually knows or gives a shit about me can find me here.

I used to keep it for publicity reasons when I was in a band, but I just realized I haven’t been in a band for half a decade. Downloaded my pictures and deleted my account! Every time I go there I just get sad about how dumb people are anyway: “I’m not anti-vaxx, I just believe all vaccines are toxic.” “COVID-19 is no worse than the flu.” “We should listen to both sides, the one with the experts, and the other with insane conspiracy theorists with online stores.”

The infuriating part is they leave your shit up for thirty days after you delete your account. Asshats.

Here’s a sandwich I made and ate:

Leftover JJ’s roll from last week’s bake, mozz from work, pesto from a jar, tomato, red onion from Hayshaker Farm, black pepper, mayo. Needed only arugula and balsamic reduction to be my favorite sammich from the Lake Wine cheese shop!

Couldn’t get himself to go get take-out brunch earlier (he SUCKS at BRUNCH), but he has just fired up the grill. I’m having a veggie burger, he’s having a steak, plus corn on the cob and new potatoes. Should be fuckin’ delicious!

Here’s one of my tomato plants:

It’s an absolutely stunningly gorgeous day.

All this was intended to help me KEEP my dental appointment, not lose it

Admissions, Health

In which I’m currently quarantined.

This entire post is tl;dr but I’m going to write it anyway because I’ve got nothing but time for the next 3 to 7 days.

Wednesday I woke up, felt fine, got dressed, packed up my stuff, and was making a sandwich to take to work when I had that sensation that means I’ll be needing a bit of time on the toilet, if you know what I mean, but I was also supposed to be leaving for work in minutes, so I texted everybody to let them know I’d be a bit late.

And it went downhill from there. Fast. Cramps, nausea, aches, chills, diarrhea. Two hours later I gave up hope and texted to say I wouldn’t be in. By mid-evening I felt fine, and the next day I went to work.

Thursday was a little low-energy, but otherwise perfectly normal. Didn’t think anything of it. Too many Del Taco burritos, too much wine, just normal weird gut behavior, who knows.

Friday I woke up at dawn feeling normal but annoyed, because waking up these days often means staying up and not getting back to sleep before having to go to work. Then I got a headache, but did manage to drift off, so thought it’d be gone by the time I had to get up for work.

It wasn’t gone. It was splitting, and I had aches and nausea too. But not that bad, really, so I got up and got dressed and packed my stuff and left for work.

And turned around two blocks later and came home and called out sick again because my fucking head was killing me and I honestly felt really gross.

When he got home he told me it sounded like Covid-19 and that he’d sleep in the living room. I checked the CDC site and lo: diarrhea and chills are now symptoms. I emailed work that I’d be out yet again, and that I’d call the doctor the next day (because that sounds like the responsible thing to do when you work in a food manufactory during a global pandemic). I slept even more.

Well, I have a dental appointment on Tuesday, and I REALLY WANT TO KEEP IT. I was going to make it back in March — even filled out all the paperwork — but there was the pandemic, see, so I didn’t actually make one until three weeks ago. But they’d fucked up somehow, so I didn’t get seen and they never called me to reschedule like they said they would so when I called them three days later the next open slot was Tuesday. So it’s an appointment three weeks in the making, and my mouth is a disaster and I WANT TO KEEP IT.

But I also know they’ll ask me if I’ve had any symptoms, and I have, so I decided to call the clinic and ask them if they thought I needed testing. Because I only have 5 symptoms on a list of 11, and none of them are fever or cough, I thought they’d say no, sounds like the crud, drink fluids, rest, etc etc.

But what she actually said was, “With those symptoms, I’d say you need to be tested for Covid-19.” And then she told me where to go to get tested, which is at the Fast-Track drive-through at Providence.

So I went.

And it took over half an hour but was otherwise relatively easy, and they gave me paperwork and told me I’m quarantined until I get my results… in three to seven days. I’m not cleared to work before then.

And I’m also NOT CLEARED TO TAKE MY DENTAL APPOINTMENT, and have to call and reschedule.

Today I’m not that sick, just fatigued (which honestly I think is related more to my gum disease than anything else) and intermittently nauseous and headachey. The diarrhea only lasted a day (though that’s certainly long enough), with maybe a reprise Friday morning but it’s hard to tell because I was much more concerned with the blinding headache.

My mouth, though: I have gum disease. I used to get prophy three or four times a year but I haven’t had a cleaning in over six years now, for various reasons, most of them laziness. (I did try to see dentists in Minneapolis, but it was always hard finding one I could get to easily, without busses or Ubers, and then the one I could bike to didn’t take my insurance and wanted me to pay cash, plus weather and work schedules and blah blah blah… I just haven’t been seen in too long.) Which is to say that there’s bacteria in my jaw bones now. They burrow town into your sockets and down the roots of your teeth and into your upper and lower jaw bones, and I know I’m there because I can feel it. I get intermittent gland swelling, too. I need goddamned planing & scaling and they’ll probably put me on antibiotics, too.

This is all gross, I know, but that’s the joy of being embodied, right?

Long story short, we need my test not to be positive, because if it is, it basically shuts the entire creamery down for ten days while everybody gets tested, and that would be awful, plus it’ll push my dental appointment back even further.

All I wanted was my fucking dental appointment! I don’t know why I’m sick and I don’t feel bad enough to really worry, it’s just the crap you get from time to time. I’ve been sick about every two months since we moved out here, and that’s always normal for me: move across the country, catch absolutely everything for the next 10-12 months. Happens every single time. But I gotta say, during a pandemic it’s complete bullshit!

Coffee Table

Admissions

In which there’s an item of furniture.

Bought a coffee table. (Also bought a couch, to replace the air bed we’ve been using as a couch, but it’s not here yet.)

Coffee table! It weighs a ton and reeks of finish, but I love it! Was expecting something much flimsier, but this guy’s solid as hell. Nice, simple, non-plastic little piece of furniture.

I’ve never bought a coffee table before in my life, I don’t think. Furniture is generally either already there when I arrive, or gifted or found, right? People give you old coffee tables, right? I mean, I bought a desk, but a coffee table? Who buys coffee tables?

Me! I bought a coffee table! Box says it’s walnut, and I like it a lot.

FUN STUFF IN THE MAIL! WHOO!

Life

In which I got packages that weren’t stuff I ordered myself from Amazon!

Okay, I got presents, for basically no reason beyond the greatness of other humans, but first I gotta bitch about humans being stupid about THE TRANSMISSION OF A KILLING FUCKING DISEASE:

The governor let my county move to Phase 2 re-opening last week so restaurants are open at 50% capacity, you can get your hair cut, bars and tasting rooms are open, small gatherings are permissible, blah blah blah.

I’m back to working my full schedule (part time, under 30 hours a week) and the cheese shop is open its regular hours for customers again. We’re filling a lot of orders, making cheese three times a week rather than just once, and everything’s pretty much humming along as it was before the pandemic. Last two days have been busy as hell and I’ve personally handled hundreds of pounds of cheese!

But. I observe that fewer than half of the customers who come into my cheese shop wear masks (and I’m convinced that non-mask wearers are probably also non-hand washers, and have been having fucking parties the entire time). I saw one person sanitize their hands since this began, and it was a child whose mother made her do so before eating. Two separate customers told me today that they were entertaining this weekend. None of my customers are distancing in the store or observing maximum occupancy.

All my co-workers save one won’t wear masks, don’t appear to be doing (or, for that matter, to have done) any distancing, and I saw one today hug some friends she clearly hadn’t seen in awhile. Only two of us ever sanitize per official CDC recs (although our regular standards are already high because we’re a food manufactory), and basically it’s a free-for-all. Everybody’s acting like it’s over.

Well, it’s not over. It hadn’t even gotten here yet. The Umatilla county COVID map shows cases growing steadily.

Anyway, so, based on the humans I see at work and while shopping (I’ve been to Safeway and the hardware store since March), I’m finally about to be exposed. Might be asymptomatic, might not be. My lungs aren’t great to begin with, so I wish people would wear masks and wash their hands, but apparently, they don’t. Not until people they know start dying. Maybe that person will be me!

Ugh. Anyway. Out of my control, no point in worrying too much about it.

In better news, I had the most awesome mail week EVER!

First: I asked someone I follow on Instagram to send me a little doodle of Ganesh; he shipped me seven pieces of art and some sour gummi worms. All the way from Great Britian! How awesome is that?!?!

I bought a couple little frames. Gonna hang that toilets one in the bathroom. Because it’s toilets!

Second: Not too long ago, an ex-coworker said she was doing a book stash reduction and I signed up. She shipped me some Octavia Butler!!!

Fuck yeah!

Third: There hasn’t been any yeast at my local grocery store since March, and even Amazon was out until just recently. So one of my online friends took pity on me and sent me some from her grocery store!

Art! Books! Yeast! YAY!

Oh, ALSO: my dad showed up and is living in his RV in our driveway. Not only did he pay us rent (for water, power, and internet) so my utility bill’s half covered, but he made us dinner last night! All I had to do was load the dishwasher!

And also-also: I finally made a dental appointment. Next Tuesday I’ll go in, get x-rays and a consult, and they’ll give me a treatment plan that will allow me to spend hours in a chair under local WHILE getting rid of that two grand burning a hole in my savings account! Certain my gum disease is all the way into my jaw and I’m going to get Very Serious Lectures About Dental Hygiene. Sigh.

Virtual Satsang

Spiritual

In which it was deeply relaxing and refreshing.

With the world on varying levels of lock down, Amma’s stuck in Amritapuri for the time being, and Her tours, including the summer North American Tour, are postponed (if not cancelled). So She’s directed senior disciple talks and local satsang (“a spiritual discourse or sacred gathering”) meetings to move online.

The North American e-newsletter has sent out a massive calendar of online offerings. It’s so great!

The closest Oregon satsang is in Bend, and tonight I joined their live stream for chants, bhajans, and meditation. (Meant to join last week, but stayed at work doing cheese affinage stuff.) There is, of course, no local satsang here.

Tonight’s online virtual satsang was lovely!

I rarely ever live near an active satsang (there was one in Fairfield, but I lived in Batavia so never went; and there was one in greater Minneapolis but it moved every month and was never near me, so I only attended once in five years), so this online stuff is really wonderful for me. So many options I wouldn’t have otherwise! Silver linings and all that.

Anyway, if you want some spiritual nourishment, Amma’s talks are here and the senior disciples’ YouTube channel is here. It’s really good viewing.

ॐ AMRITESHWARYAI NAMAHA

SARS-CoV-2

Health, Web

In which we’re having a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, guys.

In case you haven’t had time to stay caught up, here’s a quick pandemic data dump.

Oregon governor today bans dine-in, gatherings over 25
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/amid-coronavirus-oregon-will-not-yet-impose-curfew-on-restaurants-and-bars-gov-kate-brown-declares.html 

Multiple states following CDC recs (the dumbass White House: ‘fake news’)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/15/coronavirus-bars-restaurants-closed-states/5055634002/
  
Even fuckin’ Vegas is closing tomorrow?!
https://vegas.eater.com/2020/3/15/21181058/mgm-resorts-closes-vegas-properties-march-16 

Overview:

    – the R0 for Covid-19 is estimated at 2.2, so it is almost twice as contagious as H1N1
    – current estimates of mortality rate is conservatively 10 times that of H1N1
    – the 2019 flu jab offered no protection against this novel corona virus, so the entire population is susceptible
    – there is no Tamiflu-like drug treatment for this disease, only symptom mitigation (we have only a single anti-viral, still in trials, with no proven success against Covid-19)
    – causes mild or asymptomatic infections in a large percentage of those infected, which contributes to spread
    – we don’t have anti-virals available to reduce the number of days of viral loads high enough to infect others  
    – there is possible evidence of reinfection which implies surviving it doesn’t convey immunity (but this is likely a testing error)
    – there is very little testing in the US, so population infection rates are likely significantly higher than reported
    – working estimate of the total infections in the US today is 670,000 or 1 of every 485 people
    – hospitals in Italy, an estimate 10-14 days ahead of us, are so overwhelmed by the ill they forced into wartime triage protocols

Coronavirus survives on hard surfaces for days
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/811609026/the-new-coronavirus-can-live-on-surfaces-for-2-3-days-heres-how-to-clean-them  

CDC sanitization guidelines (KILL IT WITH BLEACH)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/organizations/cleaning-disinfection.html

White House today, fucking finally, steps up
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/03.16.20_coronavirus-guidance_8.5x11_315PM.pdf  

Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs (like ibuprofen) may aggravate Covid-19, so stick to Tylenol
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection  

SARS-CoV-19 has a super awful rally-then-decompensate feature
https://www.roi-nj.com/2020/03/14/opinion/life-at-the-epicenter-of-n-j-s-coronavirus-outbreak/

https://twitter.com/ianmnoone/status/1239236932372172800

How to flatten the curve
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

CDC to employers: minimize exposure between employees and also between employees and the public
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/guidance-business-response.html

Deeper dive: WHO stats & research
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus 

In conclusion, STAY THE FUCK HOME. #StayTheFHome

– San Francisco is shelter in place
– Dubai is closed
– France is closed
– Porn is closed

Spring is coming

Admissions, Weather

In which I just looked out the window!

It’s Sunday so we slept in and then went out for brunch. I had a veggie omelet (with sweet potato in it, for some reason) and hash browns and a side of vegetarian gravy because I love gravy.

Then we came home and he studied for his cert exam next week and I took a nap.

Spent some time massaging my music library (I’ve backed up my ancient iPod yet again but this time I’m actually doing something with the data — I put it in MusicBee and am working on art and tags and replacing corrupted/DRM’d tracks) and then I went out into the living room to get something and glanced out the window and

HOLY SHIT! THAT LITTLE TREE OUTSIDE IS BUDDING OUT!!!

I probably don’t have the words for how fucking fantastic it is, like, on a cellular level, to be back out here where I’m from. Spring in Minneapolis doesn’t come until June, so the winters are not only cold as hell but extremely long.

I know this winter has been disturbingly mild, I know that, but there’s been green all winter. Just bits, here and there, in lawns or next to the irrigation ditch or whatever, but it lifts the heart to see it. (Plus, I’ve only worn cleats two days this winter, during that ice storm thing last month!)

Sincerely looking forward to a long-ass season of mild and green and growing and non-blizzard this year.

Really should weed those raised beds out front; maybe tomorrow.

Hi there!

Life

In which not much of anything!

I like my job, I like my house, I got last Saturday off unexpectedly and spent it day-drinking and napping! It was so great!

My relationship is lovely and lively, I’m richer than I deserve (I just ordered two bespoke dresses and have tons of food in the cupboards). I have a duvet cover!

There was a flood but it didn’t affect us, somehow?

I got a new desk, chair, rug, and lamp!

Life’s pretty great. How are you?