Cafe Hitch-hike

2021-04-19

Let it happen

Got my new appliances at last. I was making tacos this afternoon and was extra-careful about using the convection oven that's also in the microwave. The glass top stove is amazing. Now I don't have to worry about scorching food that got stuck in the wire elements and setting off my smoke alarms, or cooking the food unevenly because the wires are lopsided.


I had low concentration today. Huck was in this thick of his clueless modes in the last talk, and he's so clueless even when I'm explicit. I forgot that men have selective attention and typically don't give the attention they demand getting.


There was that, and I have an interview for a job next week. I don't want the job, but I kind of want to see what else they have available. I don't think I should say, 'I was interested because I just want to find a place that isn't getting starved out, understaffed, or demoralized.' I may be shite out of luck because I think that's everywhere. I'm just curious. It kind of reeks of being a lateral move in some respects, but maybe I'll be surprised.

Speaking of job, I have a low average for getting my conference presentation proposals accepted. Yeah, conference presentations and papers look on on the resume' in my field. Every time I bluff or bullshite my way through them, I get accepted. When my heart is in it or it was something I worked hard on, I'm flatly rejected. Well, the bluffing and bullshiteing worked this time because it was accepted. The conference will be out west. Man, I was supposed to go to California last year for one but didn't because of the pandemic. I would has loved to see northern California in the early summer again.

When I lived in Gulf Bluff, I had a remarkable average for my proposals. I used to go to a vegan coffee house operated by a cooperative of anarchists and activists to write them. I guess I went so my mind could be free, and poof, my proposals were accepted.

I then got another surprise stipend (or when people pay for participation). I was part of a pilot group for an education program these past 2 months and I didn't realize I was going to get money. This time, it wasn't much, but at least it will pay for this month's internet and electricity bill.


Multiple friends of mine are handling aging parents who are on the edge. One friend's parent is getting sundowners, so she has to sleep at her mother's every night to be sure she's oriented. Another was falling a lot and losing strength (not good). Another is getting dementia and the brother in charge was starting to lose it. I can't believe people don't think child or elder case is important, it just stresses people out so terribly and in multiple ways.

The health care providers also seem to be taking more precautions nowadays. I can't get see anyone for my annual exams for 3 months, minimum. It used to be a month's time.

My friend CO in London will be going for 2 surgeries on April 26. He isn't feeling very optimistic about it insomuch as describing it as a curtain call. A part of me cries inside, but a part of me knows that we never know these outcomes until the end. In his first cancer surgery in 1992, he once said he knew he could had died on the table if he wanted to, but he didn't. There was so much more he wanted to do and see, and he stayed alive. Two of my sisters experienced multiple high-risk health scenarios and got through them (but, they are conditions they continue to live with). Then, there's Uncle Rico who had a stroke near his brain stem. He lost the ability to speak and most movements for almost a month afterward. I don't know if I ever wrote this here, but here's how he described it:

"I was still and couldn't move, like I was stuck and in a cocoon, but I could hear my heart was beating and I knew I was alive!"

A couple friends of mine remarked that I got to see more of this because of the size of my network of family and friends (and they were people who had considerably smaller ones). It never occurred to me that with a bigger one, I'd also see more of them in various degree of trouble. I definitely wasn't thinking about that when I was much younger!

Here's some lyrics for this eve...

I heard about a whirlwind that's coming 'round

It's gonna carry off all that isn't bound, and

When it happens, when it happens

(I won't be holding on)

So let it happen, let it happen

(Bet the guy didn't know his song would be the theme song for the years 2020 and 2021).

downwind | upstream