Happy New Year’s!
Let’s hope the new year actually is at least a little bit happy this time!
What are you all up to for New Year’s eve and New Year’s day?
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.45, surplus et al
I have to say I’ve well and truly had it up to here and beyond with bloody Covid. My husband’s in a nursing home so – having established a quite comfy living-apart-but-together lifestyle … visit as often as possible during the week depending on our incompatible doctors and therapist schedules, we had to adjust to no visiting at all, then through a glass barrier, now with immunisation securely recorded and verified, we’re stuffed. I used to turn up on weekend afternoons laden with our various favourite goodies and watch quite a lot of teev together. I’d stay until 7 or 8 then go home. Now? No admin staff on weekends to check immunisation credentials and take temperatures, so there’s no weekend visiting at all except for the last few hours or days of a resident’s life. My poor love can’t speak very much at all now – you really need to be face to face to work out (hopefully) what he wants to say – so maintaining casual conversation by phone is completely out of the question.
Now with bloody Omicron rampaging thru everywhere and anywhere, my half dozen auto-immune diseases plus 4 immune system destroying drugs means that I’m now right back where we started. Except I’m now double-masking.
My consolations are finding people on the tube and elsewhere who do good things. Saving seals and turtles from fishing detritus. Building or renovating water supplies. Caring for animals. All the climate do-gooders, tree planters, mangrove and seagrass expansion. Makes me happy even though I’ve got no one to talk to about all these wonderful people and their projects.
How do you added attachments of images? I want to show everyone the cute shoes I got for New Years!
in better news, Twitter has permanently suspended Marjorie Three-Names… cue right-wing tears, “they won’t let us tell lies!!!”
@Full Metal Ox: I bet Betty also had the Icelandic Evil Yule Cat with.
@Weird Eddie: Excellent news. Best thing to happen on Twitter since Jorts the cat. Who is still the best thing on Twitter.
@ Surplus to Requirements
Money ain’t everything. Meditation isn’t exactly expensive, for example. Of course, I am not you, and if mediation doesn’t float your boat, you’ll have to find something else. Similarly, I believe I have mentioned taking walks in the past, which also doesn’t you much good if you have medical issues preventing that, live in a bad environment for walking, or simply don’t like doing it. (I also have to admit I have tried meditation numerous times in my life and it never really seemed to help until now. Dunno why. Not going to complain.)
It may sound cheesy, but you are intelligent and thoughtful, I think you can and will eventually find something to be your muse or meaningful hobby. I don’t know what, since I have spent much of my life throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, so not sure how useful I can really be. As I said, if I had a quick fix, I’d be doing it myself.
@ oncewasmagnificent
My condolences. That sounds rough. I wish stories like yours meant something to the antivaxxing crowd. That is something that frustrates me to no end. According to them, as they run around living as if everything is normal, any concerns about getting people sick are stupid and we should stop living in fear.
CONTENT WARNING: Rant about antivaxxers ahoy.
That has been a big part of how I have whittled down family members I am on good terms with: If my worries are self imposed BS to them because I should just go out and do whatever, regardless of what it might do to other people… well, why should I even bother venting to them about it?
To basically rant and state the obvious, to them, you and your husband’s predicament is the result of government overreach, not anything to do with Covid. If the nursing home let some woman bring her kids in to see grandpa after they tested positive and people died, then obviously that just goes to show how short life is and how restricting our enjoyment of it is wrong. Our enjoyment of course referring to the young and/or healthy, because other people don’t count. If they don’t wanna die, they need to huddle up under a rock, by which I mean, how dare they not want to meet up with the antimask/vax family for the holidays!!! Obviously some people only care about themselves. /sarcasm
Did I mention I’m having problems with some of my family? Just by way of random example, can you imagine the gall of a son and his wife wanting an anti vaxxing relatives to wear masks when they come to meet for Christmas with their too young to be vaccinated child who has had some developmental problems? Time to cancel everything and get mad at them for not caring about family.
Sorry, I am not happy with a lot of people right now, and I feel betrayed by a lot of them for claiming they care about other people, then just… fuuuuu. If we could just cooperate, stand up for our fellow humans and our countries if patriotism is your thing, then this could be so much less horrific.
/END RANT
But hey, if you were to post the odd thing about people trying to help the environment, I don’t think too many people here would be upset about it (especially if it involves large rodents and/or otters apparently). I tend to avoid watching long videos and the like, but I would appreciate a reminder that some people are trying in these times, so I personally say post away.
As for Ms. Jew Space Lazers there, yeah, I’m predicting a lot of whining about free speech. Of course, isn’t Twitter a company or corporation and there is a free market where people can vote with their wallets and stuff? Eh, whatever, it’s only fair and right when they do it, not other people.
@.45; @Surplus to Requirements:
Oh, the COVIDidiocy keeps getting even better. Here’s a physician’s account of the last straw that drove them out of treating patients: they were physically beaten up by a dead anti-vaxxer’s grieving relatives, who accused the doctor of murder for failure to administer bleach, Vitamin C, and horse meds.
https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/comments/rakxun/my_career_of_treating_patients_has_ended/
@.45:
Oh, I have hobbies. My dissatisfaction is in not really being able to share them with others.
As for anti-vaxxers, there are way worse ones than the “it’s just a bad cold!” ones. Some of them will acknowledge that COVID poses a severe risk to the old and infirm, and then say that if they can’t survive it then they don’t deserve to live, and other social-Darwinist crap like that. Of course, every so often one of the more outspoken such Nazis will turn up dead from COVID themselves, and I’ll have a little laugh …
Oh shit, Oh poop. Oh fuck. Oh DAMN.
Daughter just sent a message – one of the nursing home staff has returned a positive test. Peter’s test has been taken but PCR results are now taking 3 or 4 days to come back. So his home is now operating in complete lockdown. And will be for at least a couple of weeks.
@oncewasmagnificent, I’m so sorry you got this horrible news. I hope with all my crossed fingers that nothing further comes of it for anyone – that negative test results come back, and that you’re not left waiting long for them.
Happy new year all!
New year was pretty awful here actually. A lot of people lost their homes due to three wildfires, one of which may have been started by a Christian cult. Thankfully I still have my apartment (I was really close to the fires and was waiting all Thursday night to see if my pet mice and I had to be evacuated). But I have been crying a lot over the last couple of days because a lot of people lost everything, including their pets.
Saw my great grandma for the first time since my sibling’s graduation yesterday. Her mentation has gone downhill a bunch: at graduation she was sharp and with it, and yesterday we recycled the same conversation four times, because she kept forgetting.
Like, she sounded like she was understanding, but she’d forget what we’d already covered so she’d say thing like “from what you’re describing, I take it you work as an X” after we’d already done the “yeah, I’m doing X now” just 15 minutes ago and then been sharing stories of x since. Several times.
Really glad I saw her, but I’m worried that by the next time I can afford to travel to see her, she won’t be around to be seen.
And sort of afraid she won’t remember I’ve seen her, either, and will wonder why I haven’t visited in forever. She was so happy to be seen, and it hurts that she might not get to keep that joy.
@Weird Eddie: I’ve made a few tshirt quilts myself and found that light-weight iron-on interfacing is the best way to stabilize any knit fabric. Once you’ve cut out the design from the shirt, iron it onto the back, and now you have a bit of fabric that doesn’t stretch out in when yo sew it. The stuff’s magic. Hope that helps for your future projects!
@ GSS:
… no disrespect intended… but that’s not a very high bar 🙂 🙂
@ Surplus:
Best I can do is share with you what works for me. If I wanted to, I could commiserate, as I “am there, and am doing that” relative to a great deal of what you’ve shared about your situation. That’s not productive.
A long time ago, a dear friend shared this wisdom. When I get down, I have two choices; accept being down, or get back up. F***ing harsh, but absolutely true. No matter what I want, my situation is what it is. Your friends here have recommended meditation, and I do meditate, 30min twice a day. Without that calming time, I would be unable to function. I also practice my hobbies. Yes, I would LOVE to share them with others, but that is not feasible. So I practice my hobbies for my own pleasure. Above all, I DO NOT DWELL on the negative aspects of my life. My daddy told me decades ago, “when someone shits on your doorstep, BE GRATEFUL you HAVE a doorstep!” It took years and far too much pain for me to get to the place where I understand that.
If you are online, and willing, I would like for you right now, to tell us three things you are grateful for.
Then, next time you are despondent, get on here and give us three more things you are grateful for.
It works.
That story keeps popping up everywhere. I saw a nurse* note on Twitter that it sounds vaguely fake, and probably shouldn’t be shared. I also feel it sounds a bit too perfect, even if resembles various real incidents.
*Cliff Jerrison, former WHTM commenter and generally well-known internet personality with a long nursing career.