Chickens and Unschooling

Sometimes shopping is just too damn painful. Will I eventually adjust, because the human mind can't stay angry indefinitely?

I used to hold all the prices in my head. I could easily answer the question, "Mom, what's a good price for [fill in the blank]?"

Maybe that's why I can see it so clearly.

I must admit, though, I do prefer raising prices over empty shelves. There was a suspicious number of items just gone at my Trader Joe's today. Keep thee away from me anyone suggesting externally implemented price controls.

Order of operations:

*I'd never heard of J.D. Vance when Trump named him his VP.

*Looked into J D. Vance, liked most of what I saw (a little too heavy handed with the Federal Government, but he's a Republican, not a Librarian).

*Watched his movie.

*Watched him trounce News Media.

*Started to fan girl for Vance

* Read this article about him in Reason.

* Discovered Vance is economically illiterate.

"You raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and you will sometimes hear libertarians say this is a bad thing. "Well, isn't McDonald's just going to replace some of the workers with kiosks?" That's a good thing, because then the workers who are still there are going to make higher wages; the kiosks will perform a useful function; and that's the kind of rising tide that actually lifts all boats. What is not good is you replace the McDonald's worker from Middletown, Ohio, who makes $17 an hour with an immigrant who makes $15 an hour." ~ J.D. Vance

Here's my response on Twitter.

Of course I'm still voting Trump/Vance, because the alternative is Communism, but how can anyone as seemingly bright as Vance, be that stupid on basic economics?!?!

I think I used to enjoy grocery shopping. Now it just makes me mad.

I'm not fond of cold. Today I had to resort to putting on socks and an extra long sleeve shirt.

If I ever move (which becomes a more likely prospect the further towards the dark side the politics of my state progresses), our wish list is a laundry room that does not make a 90 degree turn into the garage, a garage large enough to fit hubby's car and my truck, a wall oven, and a fireplace.

The fireplace is sounding more and more essential, seeing as we are unlikely to move somewhere with milder winters than we already have.

Plus, after the past few months, I'm seriously starting to believe we are going through global cooling.

Five Walmarts, no jelly. At the Walmarts I've checked, the jelly shelves are practically empty. Almost nothing left besides Smuckers and Walmart's brand of peach preserves.

For most of this year I watched as the supply of blackberry jellies/jams/preserves dwindled from grocery store shelves, disappearing completely from the ones I normally shopped at.

In an act of desperation I checked Walmart. To my pleasant suprise, they had several Walmart brand blackberry choices. I landed on a fruit spread, because it's made with sugar and it's first, of all of four ingredients, is blackberries. From Poland of all places. It's delicious.

I felt more secure in my jam needs, until the past few weeks.

Good thing I stocked up. My supply won't last forever, though.

Raining, cold rain.

Weather in the 80's.

In August.

Global warming is kicking our butts.


ETA: So, I had been planning to go to the feed store today (still raining).

Half the people I saw at the grocery store today were in masks. What the f*ck people, what the f*ck. I guess the fear porn about Omicron is paying dividends for the powers that be.

You know what's exhausting? Being angry and sad all the time while trying to act like you're not angry and sad. All the time. Oh, and being worried...about EVERYTHING.

So many things out of my control right now.

My need to control freak about something has led me to control freaking about my daughter's online class, that she doesn't even know how to log into yet, which starts on Wednesday. The vaguely menacing email she received about not being a digital no-show pointed her to canvas for the answers, but her class is not published on canvas yet, so no info forthcoming from that direction. Plus, control freaking from a distance, while trying not to overly control freak, isn't very effective.

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Does the screaming in my head bother you?

Either 80 million people voted for a man, obviously suffering from Dementia, who is pushing an openly socialist agenda or there was enough fraud to overturn the election and no one with any power to do anything about it will or probably even wants to. Either scenario does not bode well for our Republic.

Oh, and scared. Scared is exhausting, too. Last night the power went out and I panicked because we don't have a backup generator. The power came back on in about 20 minutes, but what if someday that isn't something we can reliably count on? Adopting national Green New Deal madness will turn us into California with rolling blackouts or worse; some areas were, with no notice, without power for weeks during the fires. Thanks to stupidity, ignorance, or evil, both legislative branches and the Presidency are controlled by the same political party. A party with members that actively encouraged rioting, act like they hate this country, and talk about re-education camps and stomping out contradictory opinions while claiming they are on the side of freedom.

1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.

Plus, does a blog post like this put me on a list? Was I already on one because of the folks I follow on Twitter? Because I voted for Trump (admitting to that will likely get me cancelled in some social circles if those folks still ready my livejournal, sorry kids). Because I subscribed to TheBlaze? Is it too late to keep my head down and stay out of the line of fire if things spiral as far out of control as some think they will?

My best hope is that politicians lie, and usually don't follow through with their campaign promises. How sad is that? I like my life. I was really hoping to continue plodding along, having M retire in a decade or so, and see where my Grand-kids were living by then and move closer if need be.

When I went to do my grocery shopping in freedom today I had an unpleasant surprise. A new sign was at the grocery store entrance: In accordance with the CDC, blah blah blah, all customers must wear a mask, blah, blah, blah.

I did minimal shopping in my shemahg, then did a longer trip at a store I hadn't shopped in since the mask mandate went down in my county.

In both instances I had a headache within 5 minutes of entering the store. In the longer shopping trip, in addition to the headache, I had serious trouble breathing, felt woozy, and my legs started feeling achy and wobbly. I began considering the possibility of my passing out, hitting my head, and having to have them call an ambulance.

I don't know how the girls do it for their jobs. They are rockstars. They deserve hazard pay.

If I were still on Facebook I'd be tempted to blow up some friendships by honestly and profanely responding to the various iterations of, "what's the big deal wearing a mask for twenty minutes, don't be so selfish, it's the least you can do to protect others, do you want people to die." that led me to flee Facebook in the first place.

Theoretically I could claim a health exemption to wearing a mask, and with HIPAA rules, I wouldn't even have to give details or proof. I'd prefer to avoid going that route, though. Seeing as any mask besides a well fitted n95 is basically worthless in filtering out covid-19, I decided to make myself a new, more breathable, mask.



Given that this meets the letter, if not the spirit, of the mandate, I don't expect to run into any trouble. If I do get challenged on the efficacy of the mask design, I may still fall back on compromised health and HIPAA.

Tired.

I need to get more sleep.

I'm not good at waiting for other people to do what they need to do before I can do what I need to do. Especially when they aren't proceeding in a timely fasion.

I am a control freak after all.