Second False Fall

Weather guy says we're getting yet another "false fall" next week. Highs in the low 80s and 70s.

And there are only two more weeks of summer. 

Ding-Dong the Witch

There was a rumor on the internets that Trump had bit it. Such rejoicing! Such glee!

It made me think of when he lost the election in 2020, and people poured out into the street to dance and cheer, pop champagne, whoop with glee. Church bells rang all around the world. 

If you build your entire life around promoting hatred, bigotry, and evil, don't be surprised when the world is delighted to see you go.

(Sadly, it seems it was just a rumor. Also, President Vance? Urgh.)

Arguing With Bigots

I mean, good for Mother Jones, but using facts and evidence to argue with bigots is pointless. If they could be convinced by the truth, they wouldn't be the lying scum they are.

Bigots Gonna Bigot

Bigots all over the MAGA world are pissing themselves with glee over the news that the latest school shooter is trans.

To them, this killing is wonderful, the best news all year, because it proves that trans people are terrorists. Or something.

Of course, cis men do most of the mass shooting -- 97.7% according to this source. White nationalists, white supremacists, men's rights activists, conservatives shoot children and women and their own families -- these bigots shrug that off. 

In fact, if the shooter in MN had been a white cis man, not a single one of these bigots would be saying a word about the shooting today.

When a cis man shoots 27 children in a classroom, why, it's thoughts and prayers, and no one could have prevented this, and our fear about the lives of children doesn't trump their right to bear arms, and usually they don't even bother to comment.

When a trans person shoots someone, they start having orgasms of glee. Any excuse to hate. Any excuse to harm. 

I started to say they don't care about dead children in a school shooting. But in fact, they do care, this time. They are delighted by these deaths. They are delighted that those children are dead: it gives them a chance to spew their vile lies.

May they burn in the hell they are creating.

More on Yesterday's Hoax

So I was on my way to mail something to Social Security (an important form which cannot be done online, God knows why) when my kid texted me: Mom, there's an active shooter on campus.

Those of you who are parents will appreciate my terror. I was in traffic, driving toward the post office, and could not respond at once. I found a place to pull over and asked him where he was, where the shooter was, if he was safe.

He was locked down in the building he had been teaching in; the shooter was in the library (so we thought) which is close to where he was. But they were in a fifth floor room and there were no windows in the door. I told him to stay put. He made me promise not to come on campus.

I don't think I could have gotten near campus anyway, though at that point I was maybe half a mile away, parking in the parking lot of our recycling facility. I sat and panicked for about half an hour, hunting the internet for hints of what was happening. Police cars and fire engines sped past, lights but no sirens -- to keep from alarming the shooter, I surmised.

My kid was as scared as I was, and no one on FB or Reddit or the online news sites knew anything. Or rather, they all were posting a lot, none of it sensible. There was another shooter at the nearby Walmart; there was one in the parking garage by the Union; there was one in the art building. 

I finally went ahead and went home, where I watched about six live reports simultaneously and followed the Reddit thread that had reports from people on campus. A lot of wild rumors, and other people saying not to repeat wild rumors, that that caused panic. 

Eventually the Fayetteville police held a tiny press conference, a young corporal saying they had found no shooter, no shots had been fired, no one was injured. There had been about sixty calls, she said, but no confirmed sightings of a shooter and no one had actually heard any shooting. They had cleared the library and were clearing other buildings.

About half an hour after that, it was confirmed that there was no shooter.  It was a very mean hoax. Eventually my kid was allowed out of the building he was in and he walked home.

Dr. Skull slept through the whole thing. 

Then later that evening, I had to take Dr. Skull to the ER because his home health nurse and his PCP thought he might be having cardiac issues. (Spoilers: he was not.)

Today I am exhausted and having leftover traumatic twitching. Everything is fine, but tell that to my adrenal glands.

I did take the dog to the dog park this morning and let him run around with another border collie mix. That helped a little.

Active Shooter (Not) on Campus

We had reports of an active shooter on the university campus, and everything locked down. My kid was locked in his building for an hour and a half. As it turned out, no shooter at all. Someone SWATting the campus. 

I'm glad no one got hurt and there was no actual shooter. I'm still traumatized.  My kid is more so, of course.

More here: https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/fake-active-shooter-calls-target-us-universities-5-campuses-including-university-of-arkansas-hit-by-swatting-calls-article-152524542

 

My Electric Bill

Each month, here in our progressive little city, the power company sends me a breakdown of how much energy I'm expending where.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm meant to do with this information, but it's nice to have. I suppose if I was spending a lot on, say, running my laundry, I could Take Steps. I could also maybe spend less on cooling, but honestly I have the thermostat at a barely-tolerable level as it is.

Medical Update

I had the procedure for my kidney stone done yesterday. An outpatient "procedure" is what they call it. Now Dr Skull and I are both recovering from different medical issues. I hobble around moaning, he hobbles around swearing.

"Is this going to be our life from now on?" Dr Skull said. "One ER visit after the next?"

However, I am here to report that Medicare A plus Medicare B plus Medicare G = a functional medical system.

Medicare D, which is the drug part, is some help, but it does not pay for things like the nausea medication I needed to keep from vomiting non-stop with the pain of the stone. That was almost 90 dollars, and also didn't really work all that well.

Here Comes False Fall!

That's what the weather guy called it -- a brief taste of fall before summer slams back into us. Highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s.

Hey, I'll take any sort of fall I can get at this point.

How Many Trans People Are There, Really?

About as many as there are Jews and redheads.

So why have trans people become a main focus of the Trump administration? Well, they know their base is composed almost entirely of bigots. So it's low-hanging fruit, if you'll pardon the pun.

Also, many leftists don't care about trans people, including many (many, man) LGB people and feminists. See TERFs, for example, but there are others. And any number of Democrats are arguing right now that we should throw trans people under the bus in order to regain power. So there's no penalty for letting Trump and his minions turn being trans into a crime. 

If you're as sickened by this as I am, speak up, speak out. Call your reps. Donate to the ACLU. Make some noise.

Adventures in Kidney Stones Part II

The urologist does not think I will pass the stone on my own, so I'm scheduled to go in for a "procedure" on Friday. 

UGH.

Also the urologist doesn't want to give me more pain pills, even though the pain is waking me up in the middle of the night and making me vomit.

American Puritanism.

Adventures in Kidney Stones

I have yet another kidney stone. Spent last night, from about eight p.m. until 2:30 a.m., in the local emergency room. About half that time was spent wailing with agony/vomiting in the waiting room. Finally I upset all the other waiting sufferers so much that the nurse gave me pain medication and nausea medication in the waiting room, though that is against policy, I think. By the time I went back to a "room," which is to say an ER bay, I was pissing blood.

It is a five millimeter kidney stone. They have sent me home with scripts for pain meds, antibiotics, and something to make the stone "pass easier." Also I am supposed to follow up with a urologist.

I am in less pain this morning. Waiting for the only pharmacy that is open on Sundays to open at 10:00 a.m. 

0/10 do not recommend.

Our Beautiful New Stove

It's a gas stove, which I know has health issues, but we love cooking with gas so much we got it anyway.

Isn't it beautiful?

Yet Another Heat Wave and Other Bad News

We're having yet another heat wave this week, with highs of 98 and 99 and extremely high humidity. It will be relatively brief -- only three or four days -- and then we're back to usual summer highs of 89 and 90. 

Five more weeks of summer. I swear this part of summer gets longer every year.

Meanwhile, the students have returned, so traffic has quadrupled and downtown Fayetteville (all six blocks of it) is swarming with fresh-faced young adults, glowing with the delight of being off on their own at college, far from their parents. That a big percentage of these are sorority and fraternity members probably accounts for how shiny they look. 

My kid is starting his second year of graduate school. Our state has made it a crime for trans people to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender. Pushed as a way to protect women, this is actually a way to attack trans people.

My kid is a short, balding, bearded trans man. He looks nothing like a woman. If he tried to enter a woman's bathroom to pee, he would alarm all those shining sorority girls to no end. And Arkansas has made it a crime for him to pee in a men's room. 

“The intention here is to make it so that trans people cannot exist in public,” said Maricella Garcia, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families’ race equity director. “If you cannot use the restroom, you cannot go out in public.”

Evangelical Christians and MAGA bigots love to pretend they're being persecuted. This is what persecution looks like. 

On the Other Hand

On the other hand, if we want a gas stove or a screened in porch, we can just get one.  No need to consult a landlord!

We do have to pay for what we want, that's all.

Trials of Being a Home-Owner

Mostly it is very expensive. 

Some of this expense was optional -- for example, we had our contractor guy screen in part of the deck, because I wanted a screened porch. And we have bought and are in the process of installing a gas stove. The stove itself was fairly cheap, but putting in a gas line (we have a gas fireplace and a gas waterheater, but there was no line to the stove) was pricey. Also I pay a guy to mow the lawn, which is surprisingly cheap.

Other things were not optional. Like, we put in a walk-in shower because Dr Skull has mobility issues and could no longer step in and out of a bathtub shower. Also, the heat quit working back in January, and we had to fix that. We also are having to replace the breaker box, because it's not up to code. 

I mean, I knew this was part of being a home owner. But it's just always something.

Medicare: A Review

Dr Skull and I are now on Medicare and for the most part it is great.

We have Part A, Part B, Part D and Part G. This last is a supplemental insurance that covers the Medicare "gap." Part B and Part G cost us $$ every month, as does Part D, though the part D is like $4/month, so that's not a big deal.

Part B and Part G cost us, together, a total of about $600/month. That's about what I paid for my insurance through the university, and it is indeed more than I really want to pay. 

On the other hand, with my university insurance, I paid that much, the university *also* paid that much, and when we saw a doctor, or bought medication, or spent a few days in the hospital, there was always a co-pay and there was always a deductible before insurance started paying anything (deductible of $7000/year in my last years on the job). 

Then once insurance *did* start paying, they only paid 80%, and only 80% of some things, not everything. Some things they would not pay for at all. This included my kid's top surgery, for example, and for a very long time, Dr Skull's CPAP or sleep studies. (They did start paying for those after Obamacare passed.)

Medicare costs us that $600/month every month, or $7200/year, but then everything is covered. No deductible. No co-pay. He spent four days in the hospital with cellulitis and now we have a home health nurse coming three times a week to deal with his wound and he's on three different antibiotics and yesterday we had to go to urgent care and the cost to us has been nothing. Not a penny.

In a sane society, this would be how health care would work. There would be a cost, yes, which ideally would be paid through taxes but whatever, let there be a cost. And then the medical system would cover everything. 

How does this change our medical experience? We're not afraid to go to the ER, for example. Usually I would have agreeded with Dr Skull that we should "wait and see" with his cellulitus. That's what we did when he had osteomyelitis in his foot. That resulted in a week-long stay and amputation of his toe. This time we had a four day stay, IV antibiotics, and he's healing well, whereas if we had waited, amputation or death by sepsis were possible outcomes.

In the long run, there is less cost to the end user and less cost to the system as well, not to mention a healthier population. This matters for everyone's health and pursuit of happiness, but it also matters for national defense, for example. And for our education system, and for our national prosperity. Sick and frightened people aren't able to be educated, aren't innovative, aren't good soldiers or good scientists or good artists.

Why don't we have this sort of medical system? Well, because the GOP has convinced bigots and the ignorant that if health care is available to everyone at a no cost at point of service, then black people and poor people and "those" people will get medical care, which currently is restricted to people "like us." You know, the way it should be.

That's why conservatives share those horror stories of people having to wait for medical care in Canada or England. Months! Months people have to wait for medical care! Or about doctors being rude to patients in places with nationalized health care. 

People shouldn't have to wait for the health care they need or want, that's the moral to all their fables. What they mean, of course, is people like us shouldn't have to wait.  Doctors shouldn't speak sharply to people like us. People like us shouldn't have to sit in waiting rooms as if we were people like that.

Those poor people or those brown people or those immigrants, well, that's different. If they have to wait for health care, or do without health care because they can't afford it, they should have been born rich. Or married rich. Whichever.

The reason our medicare experience is so good, by the way, is because we can afford that $600/month. If we could not, if we weren't people like us, if we had only Medicare Part A (the part that is free) things would be very different. After Part B is taken out of our Social Security, we're getting $2771/month, both of us, together.  There would be no way we could afford Medicare Part G at $278/month, which covers the gap, on $2771/month, if we didn't have our TIAA pension and my father's money to keep us middle-class.

So great health care system, for people who can afford it. 

MORE Good News

 I also never have to go to pre-school training again or a faculty meeting again or do Blackboard training again or

No More Essays

Watching my colleagues prep for the new semester, it hit me: I never have to grade another freshman essay.

WOOOO!

I loved teaching while I was teaching, but I am so glad I'm done with it.

Cherry Ripe

Both cherries and watermelon are now in season, so I am a happy snacker.

My kid is the same with nectarines in season.

Tomorrow, sadly, our brief "cold spell" is going away. No more 60 degree mornings and 82 degree afternoons. But it's only six more weeks of summer. (Or seven, depending on when we count fall as starting.)

Shamus Picture

We went to the dog park this morning and so many dogs were there. Shamus ran around wildly, once he decided they weren't going to eat him. Now he's all tuckered out:

As you can see, he's getting SO BIG.

It Was 62 Degrees This Morning

It was 62 degrees this morning when I took the dog for his walk, and almost no humidity. I actually experienced pleasure in the weather.

Soon I will be having my first fall in Fayetteville since 1994. I cannot wait. Fall in Fayetteville is just one beautiful day after the next. (Seven more weeks of summer.)

Meanwhile yesterday night I pulled a tooth out of the dog's mouth and was freaking out, thinking he had somehow broken a tooth. (He loves to dig up rocks from under the deck and chew on them, and I don't always notice in time to stop him.) But this morning upon closer examination it was clear he'd just shed a baby tooth. Horrible little dog.

I spent all yesterday dealing with Dr. Skull's medical issues, though I did also manage to take some boxes to recycling. It's such a production, because you have to flatten the boxes -- cut them up so they'll lie flat -- first. But I cleared out most of the boxes that had been piling up in the garage, waiting for the weather to cool so that I could stand to work out there.

Today I plan to do nothing but write and read. Oh, and do the laundry. And the dishes. And maybe run to the library.

The dog about to take a big bite of my leg