A word, if you please

Nothing against the elderly (and remember, I voted for Bernie), but don't you think it's time for the higher septuagenarians and octogenarians {and wasn't Nancy Pelosi something like 90?) to freakin' step aside and infuse some new blood into the political arena? Even Obama was a Boomer. By the time someone from Gen X becomes president, we'll probably be in our 70s and 80s, too.  But seriously, Trump's status as a felon aside...neither of these men is really qualified, in my opinion, to make decisions that include things like the nuclear codes.  I really worry about their cognition.  And I know folks say that Biden at least cares about people and he's the lesser of two evils, but that's no reason to elect him any more than Trump.  As one of my buttons from the 80s says, 'If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates'. I hate feeling like I have to vote for someone I don't care for just because I hate the other candidate. And to tell the truth, the main reason I voted for Biden the first time was I figured he'd die in office and Kamala Harris would take over, which is no reason to vote, either. And I'm not thrilled with her performance, what little I've seen of it. Sigh. Just give us a capable candidate we can believe in, please, before the world burns.

Let's hope the USA does as well

As Europe turns right, UK voters reject Conservative populism

Another reason to like Ed Sheeran

He's funding music education and studios in high schools, which should be provided by the government, but sadly there were a lot cuts all over England (perhaps that will change under Labour).

Ed Sheeran reveals surprise career change as he takes a break from making music

Grrrr...

I'm in a foul mood having, once again, dealt with Kroger at Tates Creek. I'm tired of it. No more. Not until they get their act together, if ever, and I'm seriously considering getting my groceries and gas from Meijer's anyway.

A few days ago I called, after going to a Kroger that didn't have the challah we get for Sabbath, and asked the other store if they had any. I'd wanted to save a trip during rush hour from one to the other. I was told, after a very long delay in answering the phone, by either someone in the bakery or at customer service basically that the didn't have any bread at all and she couldn't look for anything for you' conversation which I reported to Kroger corporate, but of course it's come to naught as I couldn't get her name.

I went the other day to get a few things for our department potluck. Because it was before work, only U-Scan was open. I got to the end of my order, and went to pay and it was like 'help is on its way'. The lady (whom I suspect was actually the one who answered the phone the other day, as the voice was similar) had to scan her badge to go on.

Same thing today. I had four items, two orders. It stopped for each and the same woman had to scan her badge each time. I said something about how that was a little much and she said they're starting to crack down on theft. Here's an idea, have some lanes open for people with small orders. You have them. If an actual employee, who is being paid, scans it, I think we're good. I didn't say it, of course, I really didn't want to be rude, but it irritated me.

When I got to my car, I checked the receipts, and I have 465 June fuel points. You know, the ones that expire at the end of the next month, so in this case July 31st. I have gotten gas two times recently (at Tates Creek's fuel station) and was specifically told that I only had 3 cents off a gallon when I had enough for 40 cents. I will make sure I get my receipt from now on. That was on top of needing to wait 15 minutes to have them reset all the pumps because I wasn't sure I would get to the nearest Kroger gas station, since it was out of my way and I was pretty low on gas, and I thought I should have points by then (I hadn't paid yet...I don't use the pumps because sometimes it holds money).

I know, this is small compared with what other people deal with, but it's called customer service and they're failing immensely. It's bad enough they're making profits by jacking up prices way higher than they should be after the pandaemic [pretty much everywhere]. Or that they never have more than one or two lanes and the U-Scan open anytime I go (and I'm not working today, so I thought it might be a little better), and that's at Kroger, Meijer, Wal-Mart, etc., anywhere you go these days. Even CVS has a U-Scan now. But they all also put up barriers supposedly preventing theft or check receipts.

The only reason I've gone to Tates Creek lately is the only other Kroger near me is on Chinoe, a smaller store I prefer. To get to it now with the city's sewer work, I have to go to Centre Parkway the opposite way, Pimlico Parkway, Yellowstone, Alumni, Lakeside, Coltneck, Chinoe. Or go Armstrong Mill, Tates Creek, Albany, Montevista, Chinoe (overshooting it and having to go back up Chinoe towards the opposite way I'd been going). We've been doing this for months. It also affects how I go to work.

Sigh. I don't think I'm going anywhere else today. I have medication at UK, and I wanted to get a haircut, but those are going to wait till tomorrow. I'm irritated and there's no sense in making it worse trying to park in the hospital garage or anything.

I feel better now that I ranted. I even made it through without any of the profanity bouncing around in my head.

I have been doing customer service work for nearly forty years. This is not how you run a business. So, what's your favourite grocery or gas station?

Since I'm off work and have time...

From Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Book II, number IV:

Why should any of these things that happen externally, so much distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing, and cease roving and wandering to and fro. Thou must also take heed of another kind of wandering, for they are idle in their actions, who toll and labour in this ife, and have no certain scope to which to direct all their motions and desires.

Sometimes we get caught up way to much in making it through life without actually living, including improving our own lives and our minds. I'm certainly guilty of that. I often find myself too tired to do anything that enriches my soul, even reading or hobbies. I think it's important to spend time with yourself, cogitating, or simply being, but I need to make more of an effort to do so, even if I have to set aside time in my schedule to do so. I think many of us are in the same boat, don't you? It's so hard to stand still in modern society. Too much information, too little time, and we are looked down as idle if we sit and think or otherwise enrich ourselves with study or art. It's very sad.

I know all this, but it's so hard to do it. It's definitely something I've been giving some thought to lately. And in an effort to keep afloat, I recently put in for a part-time job, which will really help me, but take away even more time. I really need to rethink how I spend time entirely, and reduce the distractions that keep me from really living.

Yay!

I am pleased to announce that a couple of days ago we got the air conditioning re-wired and working again. The company that came out, Southern Comfort, did so without charging a diagnosis fee (we knew the problem--a puppy chewed through the wiring, fortunately before the AC was turned on, and not the major grey one that's live all the time). It was only $250 to fix. It's so nice to have it again. I will unhook mine from the window, drain the water, and let it dry out for now, probably put it in storage for next time. I think the AC has gone out three times in the seven years I've lived here, as it's pretty old, and we do not begin to have the money to replace the system. As long as it works, we'll be happy, though. :) In the meantime, if you are in the Lexington area and need help with your AC, I highly recommend this company.

Today

A few weeks ago, training a new co-worker:
Here is the way to see our department schedule. Oh, the Fourth of July is on a Thursday. Friday would have been a good day to take off.

Looks again. Oh, I am off the 5th; I just didn't remember putting in for it.

You've got to love my (lack of) memory sometimes. But at least I remembered not to go to work today. 🙂

I actually slept in till 7:30 (my alarm was set for 8, but it's hard to wake up before or after 7:30), although yesterday I was so tired, I slept on and off till nearly 3 PM. I made coffee, woke up my roommate, got dressed, put on a new glucose sensor, and now I'm sitting in near-darkness, because it's so cloudy, fighting the urge to go back to sleep. After all, it's so dark, and I'm also getting ready to figure out exactly what I want to do today--I know it involves getting a haircut. But I like to-do lists to give a little structure. Caffeinating is first on the list. 🙂

Our very way of life is being threatened

On this Independence Day, take a moment or two to educate yourself on this. It is an attempt to steal the country from the majority, subverting our democracy and everything the United States of America has stood for, that my father and three of my grandparents who served in the military defended. It sickens me. I have worried for a long time that we are heading to a terrible time where our country (and others) are basically run by fascists and capitalists. It's a horrible combination that we cannot allow to happen. Don't be silent. And vote like your future depends on it--because it does.

From the Wikipedia article on Project 2025:

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said in July 2024 that "we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be." Paul Dans, the project's director, said in April 2023 that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, [of] aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state.

This is what is coming if we remain silent. Remember the excellent quote from Pastor Martin Niemöller in his poem 'First They Came':

First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

How my anxiety actually works, as demonstrated in the last 10 hours:

Last night:

1. There was a skunk in the yard, I can smell it.
2. There was recently a rabid skunk locally. 
3. I just set up a portable air conditioner [our AC has been out for some time, and it's so hot, in the 100s as far as heat index, and we are all suffering]. There is no screen over the exhaust tube. It just came with a cap in case you weren't using it for awhile
4. Oh, Gods, what if a rabid skunk climbs into the tube to the air conditioner?
5. What if it gnaws through the tube and gets into the house?
6. What if it bites me or my roommate or the animals?
7. Okay, Lisa, you're just being anxious. Calm down.

This morning:

1. Realises that there's no way it can happen.
2. Tells roommate in jocular way about it all and how silly it was, because after all, it operates with the WINDOW screen in front of it.
3. Roommate shakes head.
4. Goes back to room. Gives the air conditioning vent a long, hard look. 
5. Realises that while installing the vent and assembly, I forgot to put down the screen. Does so, forgetting I taped the window to the assembly. 🙂
6. All is right with the world.
7. Realises a skunk really could have climbed in and gnawed through the tubing. 
8. Go back to the beginning and repeat.

Goodness. Anxiety sucks. But that screen is down. Thank you, rabid skunk..

It has been so freaking busy lately

*Warning, long, somewhat whining post, even though I have so much to be grateful for, and others are going through so much more than I*

Up briefly in the night. I'd struggled after a long day of work with way too much stimulation with fraying just a bit but not actually breaking down, had to go to two stores to get challah, came home and crashed for two hours, came out to make and eat a sandwhich, and went back to sleep shortly thereafter. Essentially I was utterly exhausted; my roommate virtually sent me to bed when I got home at 7 PM (I'd started my day working at about 7 AM, scheduled till 5 PM). He even did a couple of my chores. It's 4 AM now and I finally feel human again. Although we were very busy and the flow of the front desk, which I was covering all day while training a new person, is different, I don't think today was what did it, but a combination of weeks of too much stimulation with lights and crying children and happy ones, and other noise and all the stress of being 'on' all the time., plus a lot of personal life stress. Plus we're in fracture season, the numbers are up, and it's difficult to fit people into the schedules [although thank goodness I can overbook on the computer now, rather than having to call others to do it]; I feel like I'm constantly juggling and I'm just trying not to drop any balls. And today things just were not so much chaotic as crazy, with weird stuff that happens but are involved all while other people are coming in. I was scheduled for a 10-hour day and had had one on Monday as well. I used to do that all the time when I was working two jobs, but it's somehow not the same. I finally ate lunch at 3:30. My legs are killing me from sitting even more than I do at my desk. I think I had taken two bathroom breaks and got up a total of five times during the time I was out there. I just felt a little tied to the desk. Don't get me wrong, I love my job in many ways. I am also very grateful to have it, as I have been laid off once and partially so (hours cut back or position eliminated twice) over 27 years and they've always done their best to keep me on, bring me back, or move me to another job. I love where I work, and the health insurance is outstanding, which I need badly. But I was much more suited to being a librarian and I know it. Even the insurance job, while stressful and a lot rode on it, was quieter and less stimulating.

I'm sure I'll feel better about it once I've had the weekend to decompress and recharge. I feel better already now that I've gotten some rest. It's not like I'm the only one who has days like this, and a lot of people have much more stressful jobs that they have to take home with them or have to make decisions with a lot riding on them. I don't. But I just recently began to understand a little more of why days like today nearly make me shut down, and while that's great to know, it's also very frustrating, because it takes so much effort to do things when it shouldn't, but I just have to try to deal with how I'm wired. And I have always been able to hold work, and do a good job, and a lot of people with similar issues struggle a lot more than I do. And while I came close to breaking down today, I did for the most part manage to keep it together, so that's a plus. I don't normally feel this way every day.after all. But today surprised me. It wasn't one of our super-busy days. In some ways, the job I was doing was easier than the one I usually do. I don't know why today was just so much in terms of feeling overwhelmed, but tomorrow, as Scarlett O'Hara would say, is another day. And I'm back at my desk and it'll be a busy Friday but slower than the rest of the week. It'll be okay, although I have to get up early again due to physical therapy. For now though, I should just go back to bed for a bit and let my dreams hopefully wash away the day and allow me to get some rest. Thank you for listening.

*whine off*