"I'm miffed, Rog..."

I'm assuming most, if not all, of my readers have seen the Lethal Weapon movies.  Remember Lethal Weapon 2, when the nasty, drug-dealing diplomats finally sent Riggs over the edge to the point he was barely coherent on the phone with Murtaugh?  "Miffed, I'm miffed, Rog..." 

Remember what happened next? 

I've passed "pissed off," and I'm heading toward that level of "miffed."  Right now, the only thing keeping me grounded is the kids (who are, by the way, also the reason I'm headed toward "miffed"). 

The economy I grew up in, and have headed toward middle age learning how it worked...is trashed.  We have the same levels of unemployment now as we had during the worst parts of the Great Depression.  And it has been deliberate on the part of the Left. 

Note I'm not blaming just the Democrats.  Not all of the Democrats are in on this.  And some of the Republicans are. 

This is Trump Derangement Syndrome writ large...and destructive.  This is the far Left politico's version of the riots that took place on the street level when Trump was first elected, then again when he took the Oath of Office. 

They tried it with the impeachment.  That failed. 

Then China fucked up by the numbers, starting with eating critters they shouldn't have.*  And in the process, they gave the Left a torch with which to commit mass arson. 

71% of our economy is tied up with services and/or tourism. 

Right now, restaurants are closed for dining in, which removes the server jobs.  Bars have been closed, removing server jobs and bartender jobs.  Not much need for janitorial staff in those places, right now, either.  Tourist attractions are closed, which shits on those jobs, too.  And the jobs of the hotel staff that count on those attractions. 

There are jobs out there.  But a lot of the people in the service industry...aren't qualified.  Because most of these "indispensable" jobs are either trades (for which they aren't trained), or IT in some form.  In all honesty, a lot of the "service industry" jobs have taken the place of "low-skill factory work" jobs, but require a higher level of starting intelligence and a very thick skin to deal with Karens. 

(The rest of the jobs are stocking shelves or cleaning...for which several in the service industries simply aren't fit enough to do: it's a lot of bending, lifting, and repetitive motion.  And cleaning/sanitizing is a much heavier job than most people think.)

I have an indispensable job for which I don't get paid: I am a housewife and mom.  Right now, I'm also a teacher and homework supervisor.  A lot of people formerly in the service industries are now learning to do the same jobs...however, like I said earlier, I'm not being paid.  And neither are they.  But where I've got a working spouse (not likely to change, given what he's doing), they may not.  And where I don't have rent or a mortgage,** they may...on top of the standard utilities and food bills. 

We are about to head into free-fall deflation, because everybody that has money isn't spending out of absolute terror.  Jobs are either gone, or may vanish without warning (or sometimes with warning--not sure which is worse), and while there's a lot of "you can't go anywhere" orders blocking a lot of spending, there's also a lot of absolute terror.  Gas prices have already plummeted.  The federal reserve is reacting to that, and to a lot of fear...which I understand.  But where they should have been raising the interest rate incrementally, and more often, so that there'd be a safety zone for if things went into the shitter, they didn't.  And now, out of the same fear the rest of us are feeling, they've put the interest rate into negative figures. 

People are cheering the "stimulus package" that was recently passed.  They're eagerly anticipating those aid checks that are coming.  $1200 per adult, $2400 per married couple, and a $500 credit per kid...for those who don't owe child support. 

What they don't realize is that a) this is their money in the first place, robbed from them by the government in a greater amount this year alone than they'll be "given" back, and b) this is only going to stave off bottoming out by a couple of weeks--maybe a month, if we're lucky.  A lot of people are going to be using this money not as the government intended (to live on while they're unemployed before the unemployment kicks in, as they've been promised will happen), but as a stash.  Because they're scared into saving money for the first time in their lives. 

Deflation is going to happen.  Without throwing everything back open tomorrow, deflation is going to happen.  Because a lot of businesses?  Have gone, or are going, bankrupt right fucking now.  Which means jobs are going away--permanently--right now.  Deflation is actually happening right now in some areas.  When that bottoms out? 

Well.  That's an ass of a different color.  We are going to have rampant, massive stagflation.  Remember what I said about the Federal Reserve's actions to attempt to stave off deflation?  That's going to end up causing the opposite. 

We are on a roller-coaster, my friends.  And we were strapped in, and the safeties were ripped out, by people who want to watch the world burn so that they could rebuild their version of heaven from the ashes. 

They don't realize that they're going to hang for this.  The minute that we, the people, get miffed enough, in large enough numbers, they're going to be hanged.  They've been working so hard, for so long, to remove the scaffolding of civilization from the people that they've forgotten that we can't be perfected, only house-trained.  They're going to be strung up from the lamp posts in D.C. and in state capitols in job lots, no matter what level of guilt they have.  Or lack. 

If they're lucky.

"We're gonna get bloody on this one." 


*There's a reason for a lot of the Levitican dietary laws.  Most of them are actually health codes: all of the animals labeled "unclean" are unsafe, often because of an inability to either prepare them safely, or an inability to store them safely, but also because some of them can and do transmit disease from animal to human.  

**I am incredibly thankful to have been able to pay off the mortgage.  Yes, our interest rates were locked at 4.5%...with the company we were with.  However, I'm absolutely certain there will be legislation passed eventually that would see that jacked way the fuck up because "economic emergency measures." 

Panic! (but the disco's closed)

I've been thinking, recently.  And I think the media, as a whole, should be burned at the stake.  This panic is entirely, and without exception, their fault. 

Everybody panicking?  Either believes every bit of info being pushed, spread, exaggerated, and disseminated by the media...or believes nothing of it, and there's so much media shit that they can't find* real information.  Or the statistics that they can find are in news stories, and they can't trust that those haven't been twisted (they have). 

And social media isn't helping, for the most part.  I mean, the groups I'm a member of are mostly really smart, and have inroads in finding the information (and experience in interpreting it) that a lot of other groups lack, but they're not able to get that information out there in a wide enough spread.  And then again, when they try, other individuals often accuse them of "drinking the kool-aid."  Because the raw data contradicts what the media's been pushing.  Hell, it contradicts the computer projections some of the so-called experts** have been citing.

It's also, for the USA, contradicting what's happened in China, North Korea, and Italy.  I've got theories on that, and on why Japan hasn't been hit so hard (nor has South Korea, really).  And no, my theories have nothing to do with race, like I've been hearing people accuse others of.  It's culture.  It's nutrition levels.  It's the overall percentage of the population that smokes.  It's the overall percentage of the population that vaccinates.

The cited and projected death rates aren't real.  The media, while not making it up out of whole cloth, are pushing an unrealistic projection, and really screaming the stories of the people who'd had it bad enough they almost died, could have died, or did die*** while hushing the numbers who've recovered, or had been barely symptomatic.  And downplaying how few of us have been tested in the first place.  



*Half the ones that find the raw data and statistics--which, admittedly, isn't easy, and a lot of it may be behind academic or other paywalls--can't make sense of them.  So, I suppose, education can also be blamed for part of the panic.  

**You know what we call "experts" that believe computer modeling over real-world data? The kind that massage the data to fit the computer models, and actively engage in sample bias?  Frauds.   

***I've heard of several younger people who've died.  Previously counted healthy, but potentially with things that often start in middle age and gone undiagnosed, or health workers who've likely depressed their own immune systems through the exhaustion of caring for others.  

Home school

I am now a homeschool mom, for at least the next week and a half.  We shall see if the idiots in charge decide to allow schools to open back up or if they decide to close for the rest of the year.  And if school will start up as normal next fall. 

If things stay in the shitter, I may simply buy the Abeka curriculum and do the job myself.  $800 (two years' worth of curriculum, when I last checked) is much less of a hit on the family budget than tuition. 

The school had middle and high school pick up their packets yesterday; today was the elementary school's turn.  K-2 was on the north side parking lot for pick up (where that bunch gets picked up by parents anyway), and 3-5 was on the south east side (again, normal pick-up spots).  We drove through the regular pick up line, and the teachers talked to the parents and ran the packets out...and talked to the kids.  The Spanish teacher, librarian, and art teachers were there, waving and hollering at the kids, too. 

I think this may be harder on the teachers--it's a really small school, and all of the teachers are really attached to all of the kids--than it is on the kids.  Or the parents, really. 

Honestly, this isn't something I expected to be able to do, ever.  Take the imp: he's going to school because he would hide and try to learn things for himself instead of letting me help him, or teach him.  He still does that, to an extent.  The pixie is such a social butterfly that NEEDS people around that she wilts on her own.  It's not as pronounced now as it was when she was a toddler, but it's still there.

I have a list of assignments per day for each kid.  The imp's started today, the pixie's starts tomorrow.  The imp was done for the day, within thirty minutes of actually working on stuff.  Too bad it wasn't all at once...we'll see how quickly the pixie does hers tomorrow (I'll be doing hers with her, first).

Today was really hard for the imp, though--he wound up forgetting to take his pill this morning, and forgetting that he hadn't taken it until it was way too late.  I wound up letting him do his history by doing the reading, then typing the answers to the chapter check comprehension questions assigned for the day's work.  And then booted him out for a while before starting math.  And booting him out between pages of math.  But he did get done, and it really did only take him a half an hour of focused work to do.  He just...couldn't focus. 

Tomorrow will be better.  Tomorrow, I'm getting up earlier, and I'm going to make sure he takes his focus pill, and that he eats enough.  Tomorrow, he goes outside and runs around until the pixie's done with her work, to help burn off some of his energy.  Tomorrow, we go onto a modified school routine. 

He does so much better with routines.  So does the pixie, but to a lesser extent. 

That didn't take long

My son, the engineer/designer/electrician/architect. 

Last week, when I felt able to do anything at all, I started in on the imp's room.  Fifteen minutes at a time, by the timer.  We got half done with his entire room in two days, with two fifteen minute sessions at a time. 

Until Saturday.  Saturday, I let him off the hook for the morning session: Odysseus was building things, and the imp was helping.  They got a bookcase made for the entry way--it's a four-foot square, with four shelves.  Holds a LOT of books. 

And then, I went in for the afternoon session.  And the little shit got mouthy. 

My temper is already short.  I'd already had them home for a week, and I've got two more weeks to go.  So I turned and left to get my thoughts together, and not react immediately.  I do not ever react or punish from anger.  I try not to "punish" at all, just add consequences. 

What I ended up doing was going back in his room, closing the door, telling the pixie when she poked her head in that no, she wasn't allowed to help...then making him help me finish the job. 

Friday evening, I'd pulled an entire bag full of trash out of his room.  One of the big, black yard bags.  Saturday, we filled another half a bag.  But we did finish in another hour and a half what we'd started. 

We also rearranged his room a bit--his Hot Wheels Mega-City track is now in the corner of his room, his tackle-boxes of travel-Hot Wheels kits are stacked behind it instead of taking up room in his toy box, and the secondary toy box full of wood blocks (that he uses to prop ramps to the angle he wants them to be) and extra track is pushed over by the rest of the related stuff.

We put a small, plastic drawer cart in his room with a desk, too.  Two Christmases ago, we got him a snap-together circuits kit.  He'd lost parts of it (most of it is now found, and in the top drawer of said cart). 

Today, I've been hearing whistles and other noises made by that set.  He'd also built marble runs designed to drop marbles back into the drawer he's designated for them. 

I'm glad it's had this effect.  I just wish I hadn't pushed myself into a ME/CFS attack in the process.

Musings on the fucking stupidity...

China.  China is the fucking villain of the piece.  Set aside the conspiracy theories that they manufactured the virus (really?  Really??  It's a terrible weapon--not even that good at thinning the elderly from the population).  They are still the villain.  First, they lied, lied again, executed doctors that wanted to spread the word, and lied some more.  Then they panicked.  Which...well.  Humans have about as much sense as horses: they stampede really easily if something spooks one or two of them.  No overreaction means no panic.  Third, trying to blame the mess on us?  Pooh bear, you started it. 

This ignores the whole theory put forth that most plagues start there, just...unacknowledged. I read, several years ago, that the Black Death and a few other nasty, Middle Age plagues, started on the far Eastern end of trade routes.

Overreactions here: we are murdering our nation's productivity and the livelihood of our middle class.  There are some states that are now saying that all non-essential (and THEY determine that) businesses must totally shut down for...now, and for an as-yet-to-be-determined length of time.  Banning restaurants from serving meals in their dining rooms.  Banning bars.  Banning any gathering of 10 or more people (Missouri has joined that bandwagon as of today).  Fiddling with elections.

Want to hear what's been cited as a bigger danger, but isn't banned?  Public transit systems.  Government offices.  Court houses.  Welfare offices.

You know.  The darlings of the ones pushing communism.

A funny thought hit me, today.  We tried to get our family grocery shopping done.  Went to Sam's Club--that was a huge NOPE.  There was a line stretching from the door, around the corner of the store, down the side past the automotive department, and across the back of the side parking lot.  In the rain.  In sub-40 degree weather.  At 9 in the morning.

Normally, when I hit Sam's Club at 9:00, I have the store practically to myself.  Usually, they're not open to their general membership until 10:00--I pay the premium membership to get in early and shop in less-crowded conditions.

For the time being, Sam's Club has suspended the Advantage membership hours.  They open at 9:00 for everybody.  I mean, getting the store clean is one of their concerns.  Restocked is another.  But.  They handled this wrong. 

So far as I can see, the "reduced store hours," while touted as a way to get the stores cleaned and shelves restocked before the locusts, looters, and panic-buyers descend again, is doing nothing other than propagating and compounding the panic-buying.

Sam's Club is OUT of Cascade.  Not the neat little packets, the basic gel.  Walmart had NO spray bottles of any type.

This is really fucking pissing me off.  Yes, I'm worried about MY mom, and MY sister, and MY mother-in-law.  No, I don't want to see this mutate into something worse.*

However, it isn't Covid-19 I'm scared of.

I'm scared of the power granted to the malevolence of the state by mush-minded, panicking lemmings.

But I insult lemmings.  Real lemmings are nowhere near this stupid. 

*Viruses typically DON'T mutate into worse; they don't want to kill the host--that kills the virus before it can spread.

Three weeks.

Jasper County schools have been encouraged to stay closed until the first full week of April.  For us, that makes a massive reduction in our food budget (a good portion goes to the school to pay for school lunches).  For others, it's a cut in their income (assuming they're being allowed to work, and not laid off because their job has shut down).  For single, working parents, it's an utter nightmare. 

For most two parent households...it's a massive hardship.  Because of the weird insistence that everyone must have a degree, and that everyone must carry debt, many families must have both parents working.  Some of these individuals have one or both of them encouraged to work remotely.  Not all of them.  And there are hardships involved with either option. 

Let's look at the families that are working from home for the time being.  Most of them are asked to do so during normal business hours...which happen to be when kids are most awake and active.  And bored shitless, because Mom and Dad are busy, and aren't available to make sure every waking hour is so full that they don't have time to slow down and just think.  And they pester.  Makes it awfully hard to work from home, when the kids are home with you.*  And that's assuming there's only one kid: more than one, and they can entertain themselves and each other, but that can really easily turn into fighting. 

These families may not be prepared to hunker down and actually have three meals a day, every day, at home, either.  Whether that preparation is a full enough larder, enough time to cook, or the prior planning to make sure they're not left standing in front of the fridge wondering what to cook.  And that's ignoring the distraction of the kids pestering them while they're trying to think.  More on this later--I have suggestions. 

First: think about what your family likes eating, and write down meals on sticky-notes.  Pop them up on a calendar, then move them down a couple of weeks after you've made them.  Get the kids involved in cooking and teach them as you go.  They're less bored, and less inclined to pester, and a lot of kids enjoy Mom or Dad teaching them to cook.  And meal planning--having a rough idea of what you're going to fix and when--removes a lot of stress.

Second: set up routines.  Kids are scared, too, and often have a hard time actually recognizing and articulating it.  Routines help them by reminding them that things aren't completely broken. Routines help kids behave better. 

Third: set boundaries.  And enforce them.  Give them fifteen minutes--a set fifteen minutes--every hour where they can pester you during work hours, but put them in time out for pestering you for something that isn't an emergency (the cat puking isn't an emergency; the toilet puking is) while you're working instead of taking a short break.  And DON'T let them pester you while you're on a bathroom break, if they're older than kindergarten age. 

No, these solutions won't work for everyone, but it's a place to start while families figure out what works for them. 

Then there's the "essential personnel" who are still working outside the home: which of them stays home with the sprogs?  How do they choose?  And yes, it will more than likely come to that because daycares are closed, too, and many live way too far away from the grandparents to be able to rely on that help.**

It's hard enough for people who work outside the home to plan for a full week of Spring Break.  What are they supposed to do for three (or more), especially with their usual go-to solutions are shut down, too?  Maybe, with some of the different companies, there can be some flexibility with shifts.

The solution's not so simple for these families.  Nor is it simple for the families who've been laid off and don't have money coming in anymore. 

If you've got people in your neighborhood with kids, and if the parents aren't appearing to be working outside the home, check on them.  If they're not working at all, help them a bit.  Maybe raid your pantries to help them stretch their own. 

It is, after all, what I'm planning to do, if I see a need. 

*Speaking from experience, here.  I've got two, and I can't do much actual brain work while either the pixie or both of them are home.  The imp's a lot easier, because he does like to go in his room and play quietly by himself, or play on his Kindle, or read, or watch TV.  He's learned that if he pesters me, he gets assigned chores to keep him busy.  The pixie, on the other hand is very social, and likes chores.  

**And that's ignoring the fact that the current viral plague we're trying to head off is more likely to harm the grandparents than the kids or the parents, and should NOT be encouraged to babysit. 

Spring Break

The kids are out, this week.  But it was scheduled, and expected.  There's no word on whether their school will open back up afterwards.  Lots of the local schools have announced that they are staying closed and doing distance learning work until...April. 

I feel sorry for the parents that planned for one week, and don't have the flexibility that we have to absorb more with nothing more than frustration with the fighting.*  Lots of folks depend on schools to babysit their sprogs because both of the parents work.  Lots of people are being told to work from home, yes, but many of those are not going to know what to do with the kids that are stuck home with them.  Most kids, if given room and no distractions, can get through an entire week's worth of worksheets and packets in a couple of days--yes, school is slowed down that much by the idea of putting all ability levels of the same age into the same classroom. 

My oldest is spending a couple of nights with his grandma.  My youngest--my clingy, social little girl-child--is home with just me.  So far, we've straightened the entryway (she mopped it with the swiffer mop first--yes, out of order, but it's done); washed her laundry, gotten other laundry sorted to be put away; gotten yet more laundry gathered up to be washed once hers is transferred to the dryer (last load for the day, with a load scheduled for tomorrow, and another one on Wednesday), gotten the dishwasher run, and unloaded; the microwave wiped down on the outside; and some schmutz on the floor soaked down with Windex.**

Why, yes, I'm already pooped and peopled out.  Thanks for noticing.  SHE ISN'T.  AND she's bored and lonely. 

If the kids are out for longer than planned, I will keep them busy.  I have a lot of stuff that's been put off because I've not felt up to doing it that I can use to keep them busy and too mad at me making them do stuff to fight with each other.  

Not to mention, part of what I'm trying to get done is in their best interest: I'm going to make them help me clear out part of the garage to set up for them to use as an art area, so that the art supplies are no longer making a horrendous mess out of my house.

 Right now, though, I'm still working from my Spring Break plans.  Right now, there's no word from their school about extended time away.  Great for mom the introvert, great for my extrovert little pixie.*** 


*And there will be fighting, because our weather this week is terrible, and it's SW MO: next couple of weeks could be awful, great, or disastrous, weather-wise.  Or a mix of all of the above.  

**Schmutz is too dried to clean up without soaking, couldn't find any floor stuff, but like the FlyLady says, "Soap is soap."  

***Eventually, I'm going to have to come up with something different to call her.  The top of the child's head comes up to the bridge of my nose.  

Good GOD, people are dumb.

I went to Sam's Club this morning.  Dropped the kids at school (last day before their Spring Break) and went straight there.  My sister had asked me to get her a mega-pack of TP since they'd just opened their last package.* 

There are no paper products left, except for those used in the dispensers--there were a few boxes of the dispenser-rolls of paper towels and some of the tri-fold ones.  No toilet paper.  No paper towels.  No Kleenex, no "facial tissue."  Nothing. 

I went back to the pharmacy section for toothbrushes...and there's plenty of bar soap left (Dial brand), but not a lot of pump soap (and what's there is limited to two per customer, now), and no hand sanitizer at all. 

I have NEVER seen Sam's Club picked that bare. 

Here's the funny thing:

Their food was fully stocked.  Soups, Ramen, canned veggies, pasta--all fully stocked.  The peanut butter was lower than usual, but that goes in cycles.  I had no issue re-stocking the household Nutella supplies.  Plenty of ground beef.  The rice was low, and so were the dried beans.**  But the easy to fix stuff that's really all you want when you feel awful?  Yeah, all there.  In massive quantity. 

Locally, there's one tested-positive Corona virus case.  She's in the next big town/small city over east of us (about an hour away), twenty years old, a college student, and newly back from a trip to Austria.  Next closest case is in St. Louis--5 or 6 hours from here on the interstate.

The university's closed, starting the Monday following Spring Break.  All classes are transitioning to online-only for at least the month of April, if not all the way through the end of the semester (there's one week left, plus finals week, after the end of April).  The state capitol is closed to tours (which we'd been planning to do next Friday).  These strike me as sensible precautions, really.  The ones most likely to bring in the Corona virus are stupid college kids catching it over Spring Break; the ones most likely to be in danger from it are our politicians, given the average age of said politicians.

But for fuck's sake, one 45-roll package of toilet paper lasts my family of four six months.  One 15-roll package of paper towels lasts, again, about six months.***  Why are people buying three or four packages of these supplies from Sam's Club, leaving the bars of soap, and not stocking up on food?  Say we do need to self-quarantine to prevent the spread of this mess.  Say it does last longer than flu season.  What the hell are these idiots going to eat?  

I'm pretty sure it won't be toilet paper, soft-soap, or paper towels. 



*The Sam's Club brand of TP, Member's Mark, is comparable in quality to the Charmin.  And there's 45 rolls in the mega-pack--5 packages of 9 rolls.  One pack usually lasts a while, but...it's never wise to not buy a new pack when you've opened your last one.  

**No toilet paper or paper towels, rice and beans low...these idiots are buying out what they think they should be getting, or what they've been told they should be getting, and leaving the things that they actually need to be getting.  And I'd be willing to bet they've got no clue how to actually cook those dried beans and rice.   


***I'm going to have to cut up some old shirts for basic cleaning rags, though.  I'm down to my last two rolls of paper towels, and those get used in heating breakfasts.  

Fucking DST

For states that follow Daylight Savings Time* (which made sense with fuel rationing of wartime, but doesn't now), the "spring forward" of an hour was from 2:00 to 3:00 am yesterday.  I'd gotten most of the clocks reset before I went to bed on Saturday. 

Yesterday was bright, sunny, and gorgeous...but windy enough to set a lot of areas under a burn ban, even with super-saturated vegetation and soil.  And I still felt draggy and awful.  The kids weren't that happy, either.  And nobody felt like staying up, and nobody could get to sleep early enough last night. 

Even worse, Day 2 of DST is dark, cool, and rainy.  I'm on my second 16 oz cup of coffee, and may end up drinking the whole pot before lunch.

After I finish this cup, I may have to go back out.  I pulled up my calendar and to-do list for the day (zone 2: kitchen, by the way, for housework), and realized that I forgot that I need to go get my blood drawn for the frequent thyroid testing the endocrinologist wants.  Thankfully, she's backed off to every three months instead of every six weeks.  But this week is it.  I may put it off until later in the week, when it's (hopefully) not raining.  I think this soggy mess is supposed to clear off tomorrow...Thursday morning's supposed to be clearer, too.  And I'm likely to feel more alert and with it later in the week for dealing with traffic.

I think I will put that off.

In the meantime, I've also got a fuck-ton of housework to do today.  I didn't get much done yesterday, and I want as much as possible done before Wednesday.  I'll be making stuffed pepper soup for dinner and having my mother in law over.

But today...yeah, today sucks.  I can't think straight, and the rain and wind is miserable enough it's even driven the dog inside.  Hell, she didn't want to go out when she was put out this morning.  She wasn't any more ready to get up than the rest of us were.

In all honesty, though, I do like the extra daylight at the end of the day.  I just hate switching the times around.  I'd be a lot happier if they just...left it like this.  Instead of stealing an hour of sleep every spring.

Fucking "spring forward," my ass.  More like "fall face forward because some government fucker decided my money wasn't enough for them to steal."

*Why the fuck, if they were going to move the time change from April to March, and move the change back from October to November, do they still call the other way "standard time?"