This graphic came across my Facebook feed just this morning. It’s about the rerelease of Goldeneye…a James Bond movie starring Pierce Brosnan, who I always thought made an excellent Bond, though I didn’t watch the movie. I haven’t watched any James Bond movies after the series jumped the shark with the addition of the Sheriff Claude Pepper and Jaws characters. Roger Moore was another excellent Bond though. I’ve always thought his Bond movies could have done with a little (a Lot) less camp. Anyway…friends and readers of this life blog can probably see which part of it caught my attention right away.

No stream rises higher than its source…as Frank Lloyd Wright once said. If you’re wondering why Fleming just had to specify hetrosexuals in that passage, you have not taken a good look at the man or his most famous character.

“Fleming himself had a deeply unpleasant attitude to women,” writes David Sexton in this 2015 article in The Standard, titled It’s no surprise James Bond is a misogynist when you meet his creator. And as usual, scratch a misogynist, find a homophobe…

[Pussy] lay in the crook of Bond’s arm and looked up at him. She said, not in a gangster’s voice, or a lesbian’s, but in a girl’s voice, “Will you write to me in Sing Sing?” Bond looked down into her deep violet eyes that were no longer hard, imperious. He bent and kissed them lightly. He said, “They told me you only liked women.” She said, “I never met a man before.” His mouth came down ruthlessly on hers.

-Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet.

This also works for gay men, as I discovered when some straight classmates dragged me to see The Opening Of Misty Beethoven, which claimed to be a porn/comedy. In it, a call girl is selected by a pornographer to become his magazine’s New Girl of The Season. But to cinch that title she has to go through a series of sexual challenges. And I’m sitting in this theater watching one sex scene after another after another after another, including the obligatory lesbian sex scene, and I’m trying to figure out if pornography really is that boring after all or was it just I’m a gay guy with zero interest in sex with women, when her final most challenging challenge is to cure a gay man of his homosexuality. Which of course she does because this is straight male fantasy and there is no such thing as bisexuality.

Back when Goldfinger came to the theaters I decided to pick up a copy of the paperback. The paperbacks of Fleming’s James Bond novels were everywhere then, even in the grocery store checkout lane racks along with the gossip magazines and tabloids. Back then the secret agent phase of kid culture was in full swing, and I had the James Bond Secret Agent Briefcase and a Man From U.N.C.L.E. pistol-rifle-combination-submachine-gun (it took your usual cap rolls) and several secret agent toys that would probably give adults kittens today if they were sold to kids, like the transistor radio that converted at the touch of a spring loaded button into a rifle, and a pocket knife that likewise became a pistol. By then I was already a voracious reader, escaping into the world of books whenever the world outside my bedroom became too much, and scanned the paperback bookshelves constantly for new material.  I read westerns by Louis L’amour, science-fiction by Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Hal Clement, the Lensmen series by E.E. Smith. I read the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories, mysteries by Earl Derr Biggers and Robert L. Fish. I read the novels of Arthur Healy. But the only cold war secret agent stories I could get into were the ones by Alistair Maclean. His stories really drew you in and kept you hooked. I tried to read Goldfinger and could not get past the first few pages. I scanned a few more, gave up and put it back. It was probably just as well.

Some years later I picked up a Raymond Chandler book whilst browsing the racks at a small local bookstore/newsstand (are there still any of these left?), because I’d heard he was the gold standard in hard boiled detective novels. It was The Big Sleep. Randomly I opened it up and began reading…

“Don’t kid me, son. The fag gave you one. You’ve got a nice clean manly little room in there. He shooed you out and locked it up when he had lady visitors. He was like Caesar, a husband to women and a wife to men. Think I can’t figure people like him and you out?”

I still held his automatic more or less pointed at him, but he swung on me just the same. It caught me flush on the chin. I backstepped fast enough to keep from falling, but I took plenty of the punch. It was meant to be a hard one, but a pansy has no iron in his bones, whatever he looks like.

…and then I put it back.

Yes, that really happened. I just flipped open the book and the first thing I read is this crap. 

It’s a better world for the gay and lesbian readers now, though sometimes it makes me ache for the world I could have had growing up, instead of the one I got tossed into where a pansy has no iron in his bones. There is so much more for us to read now…adventures, mysteries, stories where we are real people in them and not cheapshit bar stool stereotypes.

Here are some young adult books on my To Be Read stack, for the young adult I was once, who had to grow up in a world where young hearts like mine had to build walls around around ourselves to survive. It did its job on me…I never found a boyfriend to have and hold…but I have seen it destroy so many others, so runts like Fleming and Chandler could feel good about themselves. 

Travels With Charley is the book that, at age 13, lit my hunger for taking road trips. I bought the novel in 1968 while on vacation with mom in Ocean City NJ, (relaxing on the beach with a book was something people did before smartphones) and devoured it before we made the trip home.

Then I read it again. And again. That worn 22nd printing Bantam paperback sits on my special books shelf with a few others, including Mary Renault’s The Charioteer and that first Golden Book of the Stars and Planets mom gave me when I was 9 because I spent so much time looking up at the night sky.

California was his birthplace and mine. He moved to the east coast of his own free will and I was dragged there at age two after my parents divorced, but I see a yearning for the land of his birth in this book that is similar to my own. Maybe this yearning for the homeland that was once ours is the wellspring of wanderlust and road trips. I didn’t know until recently that the motivation for Steinbeck’s road trip was his heart was failing and he knew he didn’t have much longer and he wanted to see America one last time. In his book he says simply that a writer who writes about his country should go look at it now and then. I wonder if the deeper motivation was that he wanted to plant his feet in California and Salinas one last time. If I knew I didn’t have much longer to live I would absolutely do one last road trip that ended up in Oceano, and the shores of Pismo Beach. 

Since that first road trip with classmates to the Southwest and California in 1974, I’ve taken more than I can count offhand. I remember Steinbeck’s warning that you don’t take a journey, it takes you, and it starts and ends on its own good time. But at the end of one road trip I am always ready for the next one. I look at my road atlas like I used to look at the annual Christmas catalogues when I was a young boy. I plan my trips to California selecting roads I’ve not yet driven to get me from Maryland to Oceano. I have spoken here before about escaping the gravity of home…

There’s a moment in every long distance road trip that I think of as escaping the gravity of home. Like the Apollo astronauts who escaped the earth’s gravity to go to the moon, there is a threshold you cross on a long distance drive where heading back home to your own comfortable bed is no longer possible, even if you push it bleary eyed into the night. You must bed down somewhere else. Keep going and its two nights. Then three. You’ve left the safe comfortable orbit of home. Now you’re traveling among the planets. At some point, and for me it’s usually the middle of the second day, comes the awareness that no matter what happens, you’re not getting back home any time soon. You and your car are a self contained capsule, scooting down the highway, looking for whatever it is ahead of you that you’ve never seen before…

Friday May 24, 2003

And even when the destination isn’t California, but somewhere else like Ocean City or Disney World and I am on vacation time and I am not going far, I know the vacation begins the moment I am on the highway travelling away from home. 

Next time I’m there I really need to see if I can get up to Salinas and behold his camper truck Rocinante with my own eyes and whisper a thank you.

This XKCD cartoon has been in my thoughts recently…

The other day I discovered to my displeasure that an old friend acquaintance has belly flopped into the anti vax sewer. So just replace the 9/11 conspiracy theories in that cartoon with COVID vaccine conspiracy theories and you have what I had to listen to the other day.

And yeah it breaks my heart because he’s smarter than that. But there’s that right wing talk radio streak in him. I suppose lots of us have people like that in our past. I hadn’t spoken to him at all since the last election because I knew where those conversations would end up going and I’d get angry again and hang up on him again and I just didn’t want to deal with him after that election day.

He’s actually probably not a Trumper, but he is a gun enthusiast to a degree I am simply not and it’s his one and only political issue when it comes to election day. He has the usual other talk radio issues, yes, but that one second amendment issue is the only thing he thinks about on election day and I am not that. I am all for background checks and keeping a tight control over who can and who cannot carry a gun in public. I’m not so much about “assault weapons” which I think is a meaningless term, but I absolutely think high capacity magazines should be reserved only for military and police use. I think our second amendment does give the people the right to own their own firearms and I think it makes complete sense in the context of democracy. But I also think the second amendment gives congress the right to regulate firearms too.

We regulate by law all sorts of potentially dangerous things people otherwise have the right to possess and use. Automobiles for instance. Firecrackers. Poisons. To be an electrician you need a license. To fly an airplane. Building homes requires permits and inspections. Guns are different only in that being dangerous is their purpose. They’re weapons, that’s what they have to be, that’s what they are intended to be, unlike a table saw which by law nowadays needs certain safety features in order to be legally sold. But the principle is the same. Some people should just not be allowed near those things. It’s not difficult to figure out who.

And when they tell you we need our guns to protect us from our own government, the answer is No, the ballot box is how we protect ourselves in a democracy. The first thing is you protect access to the ballot box. We lose that and it won’t matter how many guns you have.

And it’s not our second amendment superfans who generally want to insure that every adult American citizen has access to the ballot box these days is it, and that everyone’s vote counts the same as everyone else’s. 

So…anyway…I had a reason to chat with him by telephone the other day because I have a revolver I think he might like to have and which I don’t really want anymore. I am its legal owner. We can both go through our background checks unscathed, and in fact I recently got my Maryland license to purchase (not carry) a handgun. My police record is cleaner than your kitchen floor so that sort of thing is no problem for me. I was able some years ago to pass a background check to get clearance to do work in the James Webb Space Telescope Mission Control Room. If my old friend acquaintance and I do a deal on that revolver we’ll follow the law here in Maryland. We’ll agree on a price and then do the paperwork and make the transaction through a licensed FFL dealer. Our police records will be checked and then we’ll get a go-ahead to do the transaction. This is Maryland not Texas. SOP.

I wanted to give him the right of first refusal before I put the revolver up for sale somewhere else because we have a shared history in the shooting sports. So after nearly a year of not speaking to him I texted him and asked if I could call. He said I could and we chatted for nearly an hour. First it was about the revolver I want to sell, then it was almost like old times talking with him about this and that, and I was thoroughly enjoying our conversation. But it couldn’t last.

I brought up a particular .45 automatic that he owned and let me shoot every now and then. An all stainless steel AMT Hardballer I liked the look of, and how good the adjustable sights on it were. But it kept chucking its spent brass right in my face. Once one of those spent cases hit my forehead and wedged between my safety glasses and my cheek and it was Hot. I didn’t want anything to do with that gun after that and I said it was a shame because otherwise it was a very nice gun. My old friend acquaintance promptly told me the brass getting chucked in my face was a user problem not a gun problem. He said it was my limp wrist.

It was probably a momentary knee jerk reflex he just couldn’t stifle, and just never mind that I’ve shot other .45s with no trouble ever. But that is such a hoary old stereotype…

Mad Magazine, July 1978 by Jack Davis

I wrote a blog post about that side of him back in July last year, Here. He’s the guy who unfriended me on Facebook because he didn’t want to see “that gay stuff” in his feed.

Truman Capote once said A faggot is the homosexual gentleman who just left the room. This is something that we of the homosexual persuasion all know to one degree or another. As you grow older you come to expect it in certain situations. It never loses its sting, but you find yourself putting up with it, at least in my generation, unless it is so in your face that you have to cause a scene as a matter of keeping your self respect. But where it really hurts is when you suddenly get it coming from someone you considered a friend for so very long, only to discover it wasn’t real after all.

I’ve been mostly low key about my sexual orientation over the years, largely because I’ve never had a boyfriend to be proud of, just a lot of near misses and one guy who told me we were just friends with benefits. Otherwise I’d have been pretty loud about it. And all that time among my straight friends, I figured I was giving them a living example of how all the myths and stereotypes of homosexuals they were taught were wrong, and all that time they, some of them anyway, probably figured I was a discrete homosexual and therefor a good homosexual. A bigot’s mind, said Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., is like an eye…the more light you shine on it the tighter it closes.

Once upon a time, back in 1971, I fell in love and it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. It really was like one of those romance movies. The sky was a bit more blue, the birds sang a bit more sweetly, and the stars were brighter than ever. I was twitterpated. Just being alive was a better thing than I had ever known. I knew how it was with me then, and I have never felt ashamed since. There was nothing to be ashamed of.

I think at age 72 I’m old enough now to stop caring what anyone thinks or assumes because I am this or that. I own guns, I like to shoot them. I am homosexual, I like a certain type of guy and although at age 72 the possibility of a romantic sex life is in my rearview mirror I still like to gawk at beautiful men. Also, I get my vaccines whenever its time. And I am a liberal democrat. And a man of science. A photographer. A cartoonist. An artist. I paint, I draw, I write stories. I write computer programs, run Windows, MacOS and Linux computers on a common network here at home. I’ve done work for the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb. I am an atheist, but I grew up in a yankee baptist household and I have a bunch of that still inside me. I love the open road. I am a Disneyphile. And easily manipulated by cats. And what you think about any specific one of these things means as to the sort of person I am is probably wrong if that one thing is all you can see. And I have no fucks to give anymore. Especially after the last election.

Anyway… I’d like to file a bug report…

And I need to schedule this year’s flu vaccination. And the new COVID-19 booster…

The Trump coalition is a strange beast. There are the MAGA voters of course, the hard core racists, the fascists. There are the Fox News angry old people. There are the religious right nutcases. There are the tech bros who think democracy has run its course and now it’s time for something newer and better and AI based, and of course one that shovels even more of our money into their pockets. A subscription based high tech government where instead of voting you can click Like, and instead of paying taxes you just give them money and your smartphone keeps letting you buy things like food and shelter. But all those parts just don’t add up to a whole enough to elect a raving dumbass into the white house so they can get their hands on the levers of power. What you need is another piece that is, oddly enough, even bigger than all of those others put together.

You need the clueless. The oblivious. The ones that never start paying attention until just before the election. The ones that only watch the headline news, barely taking any of it in, because their favorite celebrity gossip show or reality TV comes on afterward. The ones that can seldom even motivate themselves to go vote but they will if there is nothing better to do that day.

There’s a whole lot of them and they can be easily manipulated by the skillful, the morally unconcerned, and the Russian. Especially in these days of commercial social media where you find lots of them spilling their guts about every little thing that interests them. Ever notice how those Facebook quizzes (Your Five Favorite TV Shows…The Top Things On Your Bucket List…) always start showing up in your feed more often close to an election? Where before you had to run surveys and host viewer panels to figure out how to manipulated them, now they show you all their buttons that you can push on Facebook and Twitter.

They’re proudly not political. They don’t want to hear it. Politics either bores them or makes them uncomfortable. So they avoid it.

These are the ones that can push your candidate over the top in a close election. But here’s the thing about those voters: you really don’t want them to start paying attention. Your candidate can screw them over and over and over and their general obliviousness still makes them easy to blame someone else for it and look the other way. Up to a point. Or as Abe Lincoln once said…

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

You really don’t want this generally oblivious subset America paying attention. Because when that start paying attention it’s almost always because they have become angry. And when it gets to that point, they will know who to be angry at.

One good way of getting their attention is taking their paychecks away. 

…because I am not supposed to and/or reluctant to spell it out. Sorry. It seems even on my life blog I can’t always speak my mind these days.

“Never mind what I’m saying just listen to me.”

I’ve always loved that line. Just the way he delivered it. That TV show should have lasted a Lot longer, but too good for TV was/is a real thing.

Anyway…back to vaguebooking…

All is forgiven!

At least…at the present time. Let’s just not go there again…okay?

That was not about any specific person I know, or ever knew. And no, corporations are Not people!

And in other vaguebooking…

Don’t you think it’s a little late to be telling people they might not be able to pay their bills next month?

That was Not about me. Specifically. 

But seriously… Really? Really??

Don’t ask. It’s the new reality!

We are all Schultz now…

One semi pleasant side effect of the No Alcohol restriction I’ve been on since before the surgery (I should write some posts about the surgery I reckon) is I don’t go out to eat at my favorite places very much because they are where I do most of my drinking (margaritas usually). So this is saving me money by mostly eating from my own kitchen. Plus I have a fully stocked bar downstairs I can visit when the restriction is lifted. Restaurant and bar drinks are hella expensive.

I dine out half for food better than I can make myself, and half for company, which is why I always sit at the bar. I can chat with people at the bar. Table for one just reminds me how single I am. I won’t do table for one anymore. Staying home all the time reminds me of it too, but at least I have part-time work for now.

This is something else I like about train travel. I get to chat with my fellow passengers in the dining car and the lounge car. A certain someone once told me how good I was at getting a standoffish table talking to each other, but that’s because some situations have their own built-in ice breakers. Hi! Where y’all from? Where you headed? This your first train ride? I’ve had some amazing conversations on the train.

My problem with cancelling my Disney+ subscription is I did that months ago when I found out my Disneyland annual pass had been allowed to expire and they never told me that was going to happen.

The theme parks are apparently run as separate entities under the corporate umbrella, and Disney World spares no effort to let me know when my annual Disney World pass is getting close to expiring. I get email notices, letters (big poster card letters) in the mail reminding me that it’s time to renew. Disneyland could not have cared less and when I found out I was heartbroken because it was such a lucky break that I got it at all. Disney hands out chances just to buy an annual pass now like they’re indulgences from the gods above. So in my anger I cancelled Disney+ even though I really Really wanted to watch the next installment of its Percy Jackson series.

But I have many, Many more issues now with Disney and the parks, not the least of which is I just don’t feel safe going down to Florida anymore.

…and if DeSantis’ homophobia wasn’t enough…

‘It’s just scary’: In Florida, parents ponder future with fewer vaccines

Madeline HalpertBBC News

“We’ll end up having pockets of outbreaks of different types of infectious diseases,” Florida’s former surgeon general, Scott Rivkees, told the BBC. “Individuals who are older, immunocompromised adults and children who may have cancer, for example, are going to be afraid to go out into public.”

If Florida goes ahead, it would be one of the first states to officially do away with childhood vaccination mandates, which have long been a fixture in parents’ back-to-school plans. In April, Idaho’s governor signed a law loosening vaccine requirements.

These moves come as Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, undertakes remaking US vaccine policy, and the nation’s public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is in turmoil.

So, dig it. DeSantis’ Florida removes vaccine mandates for school children and Walt Disney World is full of children and their parents. Pixie dust, magic and disease.

I got talked back into DVC and now I have points in Saratoga Springs (gives me walking access to Disney Springs) but I can rent my points out and get some of that money back. The parks have changed so much since I started going in 2006 it’s not the fun it used to be. The Writer’s Stop is a tap bar now, because I suppose you can make more money selling beer to adults than books to kids. Star Wars has overrun half of Hollywood Studio, The Great Movie Ride is gone, MuppetVision 3D is gone, the riverboat and Tom Sawyer Island are gone, the bar seats are back at the Tune-In Lounge but you still can’t order food. And tickets are worthless if you don’t also make a Park Reservation. Don’t get me started about park reservations!

And…a certain someone is gone. For all I know he’s back in Germany because a green card just doesn’t cut it here now.

I just don’t feel like going anymore. It isn’t fun anymore. It isn’t magic anymore.

I reckon I’ll probably let that annual pass expire too. It’s a shame because I really liked going, and even with all the complaints I just listed I could still enjoy going because Disney World is so big and I can have a great time just wandering around the parks and trails between the resorts. I do a lot of pleasure walking. But it’s in DeSantis’ Florida and I don’t feel safe going there anymore.

Jim Wright today on what happened to Jimmy Kimmel…

Here in Florida, when the governor went after Disney for free speech, Democrats, liberals, the left, and people across the country stood up for the corporation and loudly pushed back against fascism.

Yesterday, @Disney sold all those people out and instead threw their Mickey Mouse hat in with the fascist government.

Disney is the Senator John Fetterman of companies.”

I am one of those people Disney sold out. I’m a gay man and a Disneyphile, and I felt directly attacked by DeSantis and the Florida republicans then. And they’re still doing it to us…

Disney stood up for us, after a fashion, and the Pride merchandise kept coming as did the acknowledgement of Pride month and the fact of our being part of the Disney family.

But this year’s Pride was carefully muted at Disney World…I was there, I saw it. You had to dig to find the references and the merchandise, and there were only one or two new items on display. If you know anything about how Disney markets itself and leaves no money on the table, it was striking. And sad. Very sad.

So you could almost see this coming. I appreciate how difficult a MAGA ruling government can make things for a company that just wants to keep doing business with the America that was. But that America is on its deathbed and if they can’t bring themselves to take the hits, stand up, and fight back, it is gone forever.

You are a media company for chrissake. You have a platform, a bully pulpit. Use it.

Or lose it.

Today, like every day since Trump was re-elected, I grieve for my country. I’ve none to spare for Mr. Kirk, but I am sorry for what his family, and especially his kids are going though now. They did not deserve this. They deserved to have a father raise them, nurture and care for them, love them from childhood into their adulthood. I am sorry for their loss. 

One could wish Mr. Kirk had spent more of his time on loving and raising his own kids, and not demonizing other people’s kids.

This…

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
-James Baldwin

But also, this…

He who fights with monsters, should see to it that he does not become a monster himself. And if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you also.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

I have two thistle feeders I’ve been putting out since last winter, after I discovered the woodpeckers love the new feed mix of niger seed and ground up sunflower kernels. The American goldfinches have been hitting them all summer long too, which is a new thing. Previously they’ve stayed away once the trees got their spring leaves, and I would take them down. But if the woodpeckers and the American goldfinches keep coming I reckon I’ll keep putting them out. The woodpeckers (downy) brought a chick to the feeders back in spring.

The feeders are two different sizes: tall and short. And here’s the strange/funny thing…I have to hang them correctly or the birds won’t come. Tall feeder on the left, short one on the right. If I reverse them it’s like the birds don’t see them anymore. I’ve no idea…

Yesterday morning I was in a hurry and somewhat frazzled and when I refilled the feeders I hung them backwards. I realized my mistake a few hours later, but decided to dig in my heels and see if the birds would ignore the offence. But no. All afternoon the feeders remained vacant.

So I went back out and put them in the correct order. Not two minutes later the feeders were busy again.

Birds!

Falls Road and Roland Avenue are closed off today from Northern Parkway to Howard Street for the 2025 Maryland Cycling Classic. Looks like The Avenue is caught between them so only foot traffic is getting in this afternoon. Supposedly the roads open back up after 6PM today. Papi’s announced they were closing shop today but I see that post has been taken down so maybe there was just some confusion as to the timing. I can see where a lot of restaurants would be royally PO’d if they couldn’t open on an end of summer Saturday evening.

I’m fine here in Medfield. Although it’s looking like a disgustingly humid day, the more I have to zig-zag around the obstacles on my morning walk the more exercise I get.

I tested negative for COVID-19 a few days ago and my vitals all look good, so I reckon I’m done with it and my upcoming ablation procedure is going to happen on schedule. It’s just amazing, really. Only a few years ago this thing was killing people by the tens of thousands, and now two vaccines and four booster shots later and what I got was less painful than your usual case of the flu. I had a fever for just one day, and my blood oxygen level never went below 95. 

Don’t ever get me started on Mr. Wormbrain Secretary of Health and Human Services and his insane ideas about vaccines. And especially childhood vaccines. In 1961 I and a bunch of my elementary school classmates got the first Sabin polio vaccines delivered via a sugar cube. The Salk vaccine had been approved for use in 1955. Those vaccines were considered miracles. Here’s why…

Look at it. This is where you are going when you throw science out the window. Without science all we have are myths, lies, and superstition. And…Darwin, eventually. That prize DeSantis lunatic Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo who got up in front of reporters the other day to announce that making childhood vaccines mandatory for school attendance was like slavery…I got your slavery right there you drooling moron. 

The sad truth is most of those lovely solar outdoor garden ornaments aren’t actually made for the outdoors…

I just brought in one of these from the front yard to figure out why it wasn’t lighting up anymore, as it was getting plenty of sunlight where it was. Turned out half of it was full of rain water, and the wires inside connecting all the little LEDs corroded and broke. 

I can try fixing it but why bother, it’s obviously not meant to be kept outside anywhere it rains. It seals pretty tightly but notice how the top where the solar panel is sits just slightly in from the rim of the glass bottom. Water is always going to seep slowly into that glass unless you seal it so tightly you can’t get it off to take out the battery…something I do to all my garden lights at the end of every season, and replace it with a new one at the beginning of the next.

This is just one small detour in a tale I’ll probably go into later, about how this year’s flower and garden lights display went badly wrong. A combination of the high heat, my return to work subtracting time from housework, and my aging body not having the energy needed to do everything I wanted to do this year.

Last Monday night in bed I felt a sore throat coming on. With me that’s usually the first sign I’m about to get a flu. The next day I was supposed to have a meeting with some of my co-workers but luckily I scheduled it as a web conference so I didn’t have to be in the office. Two-thirds of the way into it I had to bail out due to a rising fever.

I figured it was a flu all right. But it felt a bit odd for a flu. So just in case I used the second and last of a two pack COVID-19 home test kit I had to make sure it wasn’t You Know What after all. I’d used the first one in that box some months ago after going down to Disney World to make sure I was safe to go back to work. You can be infected and infectious for days, some say over a week, before your own symptoms show. That test came back negative.

This one…

I wasn’t terribly worried, as I’ve had a total of six vaccinations against it, starting with the two part Pfizer vaccine and four boosters spread out over the years. What bothers me mostly about this is I am a heart patient now, and I have an ablation procedure scheduled for just after my birthday. I’ve put a message up on the hospital patient portal to the surgeon asking if he would want to postpone it now and reschedule.

I was weak as a kitten, and running a fever, so I didn’t dare go outside, but I needed groceries. This brought me to use DoorDash for the first time. It’s a shopper/delivery service that will go to your local grocery store and buy things for you from a list you provide, and bring them to your door. Those of you reading this who are not single have no idea how massively this helps those of us with no close by family or significant other to bring food to us when we’re too sick to go get it ourselves. Running out of stuff in the fridge especially, since all that is perishable and you can’t keep a large supply of it on hand (I have a chest freezer for things that can withstand freezing), and also suddenly discovering that my flu meds are all out of date and now I’m too sick to go get more, was one of my big problems with getting sick and I’m all by myself. Now I don’t have to worry about that.

I keep telling myself I need to schedule a bi-yearly reminder to check all the expiration dates in my medicine cabinet and first aid kits.

Also…yes, I know…Amazon. I needed a new mouth thermometer because the one I had failed to restart when I put a new battery into it and I procrastinated about getting a new one. Things you don’t think about until you’re sick. Amazon got me a good one the same day and it was very helpful.

How bad was it/is it now? I did a little searching and found this list of common COVID-19 symptoms…per Google AI…

Fever or chills: Check. But as of my writing this it’s gone. Body temp is 98.6 on the nose.
Cough: Check. Not a very bad one though and it is going away.
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing: No
Sore throat: Yes, but only Tuesday
Congestion or runny nose: Yes
New loss of taste or smell: Oh Definitely Yes! Wednesday-Thursday it was all mucked up. Better now
Fatigue: Also definitely yes, but also getting better.
Muscle or body aches: Sort-of, but not very.
Headache: No.
Nausea or vomiting: No.
Diarrhea: This would be oversharing.

So all in all I think I’m okay. Had this happened before the vaccines I’d probably be dead by now. But I’ll need to wear a mask any time I want to go outside until I know I’m clean. I’ve ordered some more COVID-19 test kits and KN95 masks.  I’ll use one test kit every week until it comes back negative. Then I can dispense with the masks.