Category: Madrona Grove

Day 51: Back to the Future

Shower Thoughts: The Swiss must have been pretty confident in their victory if they included a corkscrew in their army knives.

Week Seven. 
Let’s check-in.  Do you know anyone who has been directly affected by the virus? I personally know three people.  Two friends of mine lost family members; one a mother the other a grandmother. This week I learned that an acquaintance had a meth relapse.  One step farther outside my social circle, I’ve heard many more struggles, especially in relation to small businesses. It is a stressful time. Very sad.

Washington State is a small business hive. In Oct 2019, six months before the lockdown, Business News Daily reported:

Washington state hosts 608,956 small businesses that employ 1.4 million workers, which is more than half of the state’s private-sector workforce. These small businesses represent 99.5% of all Washington-based businesses, more than half of which maintain less than 100 employees. Washington’s economy is worth $563.2 billion, making it the 12th largest economy in the U.S. In 2018, real GDP grew by 5.7%, far outpacing the national average of 2.9%.

This week, talking with folks throughout my town, I believe the general consensus is that Washington State, much less Whatcom County, will continue to be conservative in its public gatherings well into next Spring.  How can we restore the entrepreneurial character of our state?  Also, I am beginning to hear plans for preparation for the second wave during the cold and flu seasons.  In WA that is roughly four months November – February.  I can see it now- folks not sure if they have a regular cold or CORVID-19.  Hopefully, there will be MORE tests available so doctors will know what to do.

I saw a “Beautiful British Columbia” license plate yesterday for the first time in almost two months.  I was shocked!  Around the mall and Costco areas, it’s normally a 40/60 mix of US/Canadian plates.  Bellingham is about a 20-30 minute drive to the Candian border and the exchange rate is favorable for the US.  The border is closed to non-essential travel right now.  TIL that there is a slight difference between the west coast and the east coast COVID-19 strain.  I am wondering if the virus has mutated due to isolation between Vancouver, BC, and Seattle.  What can citizens expect when the border re-opens?

What will the post-pandemic world look like? Well, for me, I never brought my laptop home.  I shared an office with three co-workers.  POST-Corvid my guess is work-life will be a hybrid of days in office & home. Many questions this morning.  The answers wait for us in the future.

***

Here is a poem I’m working on.  I wrote it last year on a day off.  I took myself out for breakfast and was sat next to a coffee klatsch of ladies.

TWO TABLES OVER
by Shannon Laws

Four ladies at the diner
I can hear the flowered hat
and lace blouse in their voice
A mental corset shape their words
Manners learned from a hard
covered book control the conversation

It is a lovely visit
A fine afternoon
Let us meet again next Friday

They are a dying breed, I think
Second hand on a hanger
Classic female behavior
Early 20th-century thinking

##

My mood expressed in a meme.  Stay safe, stay healthy.  Love each other.
-Shannon

 

National Helpline –
1-800-662-HELP (4357)

https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/8852-doing-business-in-washington.html

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/increased-border-traffic-likely-as-canada-u-s-economies-reopen-freeland-1.4934293

 

Day 48: Love Thy Neighbor

“Mr. Coal operator call me anything you please, blue, green, or
red, I aim to see to it that these Kentucky coal miners will not dig your
coal while their little children are crying and dying for milk and bread.”

— Aunt Molly Jackson, the ultimate Pistol Packin’ Mama,(1880-1960)

This morning I’m thinking about The Great Depression of the 1930s.  Over the course of four years, 1929-1933, the unemployment rate reached its peak to  25% of the population. Today, twelve years after The Great Recession of 2008, America’s unemployment rate is 25%.  This morning CNBC reported Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin acknowledged Sunday that the U.S. unemployment rate may have already reached 25% as the administration works to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The United States Unemployment Rate 1930 to April 2020, April 3, 2020, credit New York Times

I like that word “may”. As if they have no way of telling; probably because the system is so overwhelmed.  There is a good chance the government may not actually know how many are without work, without income, have no savings, have not received a stimulus check.

During The Great Depression, there was a union war.  The folks that were pro-union were among the bravest souls in history. They stood up for their rights in the face of dire circumstances including starvation and death.  Coal miners, exhausted from working +12 hour days, demanded an eight-hour workday, more safety features for the miners, and also a fair wage.  Many union members paid with their lives; the henchmen of the owners shooting some on-site!

Like the Aunt Molly Jackson story and song, today there is an injustice, a darkness, that is costing the lives of many, pressed by the heel of greed and power.  The worldwide shelter in place mandate emphasizes the hurt that was already here.  If the world ever needed the voice of a hero it is now!

Thor, Marvel Comics

Oh, how I wish justice could shine down from heaven like a bolt of lightning and solve all the world’s problems!  I am not political or a part of any militia; I am a poet.  Designed to observe and report.  This is the job of all artists.  Although I have no solution, I have an alarm to sound and it is saying the bent branch has split!  You can no longer demand buds, flowers, or fruit from what has died!  The devotion to the wicked will end quickly! Home of the brave you say?  The brave are in neighborhoods donating time and supplies to their neighbors.  The brave are working in grocery stores and hospitals.   While our leaders lay impotent, the common person once again helps the helpless.  Although I understand the solution to CORVID-19 & why we shelter in place, I am angered that the epidemic of homelessness, disease, and poverty has festered for decades.  In America, WHY is it a constant fight for equal rights, equal pay, a fair living wage, affordable healthcare?  Why is that?

All this week Aunt Mollys song played in my mind while processing some sad news about an acquaintance.  The stoic teaching tells me the obstacle is the way.  We all have our own gutters to climb out of, I hope I am brave enough to reach out a hero’s hand to those around me.

Here is an old poem I shared with the Poetry Discussion group on Saturday.

Lunch at the Sycamore Square
April 2019

Fountain water hits each tier
breaks off into the air
landing on my notebook paper
sprinkles a blank page

A cart of baked bread
rolls by through the courtyard
towards the Italian restaurant
A tourist asks when does
the shoe store open

A dog on leash pisses
on the floor
We all ignore it
even the owner
###

This photo really touched me.  It is my current mood expressed by a news photo.  -take care & be well, Shannon

Nurses week amid the coronavirus: Protest at White House honors the death of nearly 100 nurses, May 7, 2020, (Photo: National Nurses United)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Molly_Jackson

https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/dep1929.htm

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/10/coronavirus-mnuchin-says-unemployment-will-rate-get-worse-before-they-get-better.html

Day 47: Plague and Pestilence

Shower Thoughts: Vehicles today can surf the web, link to your phone, stream music and videos, etc.. but they still can’t perform a simple database lookup to tell you what the check engine light is on for.

My breakfast: strong coffee with coconut creamer, bagel, two hard-boiled eggs with my NEW favorite spice Tajin, which is chili peppers, sea salt and lime. What’s on your plate?

Good morning.  How ya’ doing today?  Are you up with the birds like me? If so imagine the two of us clinking our coffee cups together in a toast for a good day. *cheers*  Although there are many thoughts racing around my mind this morning, I’m just not too sure what to write about. It’s SO much–there are SO many topics.

The way I feel this morning reminds me of what my doctor said when he was mentally preparing me for the birth of my first child 30 years ago. He said something like, “As you know from the childbirth and newborn book I gave you the cervix will expand to 10 cm gradually.  The body will slowly open and prepare the way for the baby to exit the body.  Labor pains are just that—pain.  However, at the peak of labor, when the head and shoulders exit, that is the maximum expansion, alright.  Now, when that happens, the skin, muscles, and other tissue are SO stressed and at their limit, the nerves stop sending pain signals and basically the mother feels no pain.  Now, isn’t that something to look forward to?”  Sounds perfect.  Thanks, doc.  Men say this because they can’t possibly imagine a watermelon exiting their body from ANY hole, much less one that was made specifically for that purpose.  I know he was trying to be encouraging but, well, whatever.

Yesterday I had a write out!  I met with a friend on her front porch for a mask-wearing, 6 feet apart sitting, write out.  She has a cute classic home over in the Sunnyland Neighborhood.  Builders back in the early and mid-1900s understood the value of a good front porch—they are the original SOCIAL PLATFORM.  Our activity feels like we transported back to perhaps the 1950s, waving at neighbors as they walked by, shouting at another asking if they want some tomatoes cages, stuff like that.  This neighborhood is fortunate to be within walking distance of a great grocery store, bus lines, and parks.  In Bellingham, we are allowed to walk outside without citation but advised to not travel too far or too much or with too many people. This is to help reduce the chances of accidents in an effort to keep the hospital free from preventable causes.  In addition to friendly foot traffic, my friend also has many bird visitors.  She throws out some saltines to a crow she recognizes and then says to me “LOOK! He’s going to burying it up in that houses roof gutter”, and he does.

Later she offers me some sun tea she made.  I accept…and then there is another sign that the times are not themselves.  The freshly poured glass of tea is placed on the table. I wait for her to sit down, and then I stand to retrieve it.  It is possibly too dangerous, too rude, or hostile to be close enough to HAND someone something with an unloved hand.  Are we two ladies enjoying sun tea on a fine May afternoon, or are we masked rebels toying with death?

 

Here is an old poem I found in my notebook.  Think I’ll play with it a bit more.

The Salting Room
or Watching Cooking Shows Home Sick with the Flu (April 2019)
by Shannon Laws

The butcher knows if the pig was happy

red cow parmesan from a free-range life tastes better
solid and liquid
curds and whey
the Salting Room
20 months- sweet and rich
30 months- amino acids start
40 months- salty-sweet bitter

mother sits at the chair
closest to the kitchen
Fat transforms in the pan
in the oven, in the crock

we laugh and cry cutting onions with friends
I keep my miso to two or three years
hidden and pressed

Roll the dough until
it resists your thumb.
Debone and roll to a
long round roast.

Salt the meat
give it time
###

Here is my current mood expressed in a meme.  Enjoy your day my friendly bot.  -S

Day 45: Secret Socializing

Shower Thoughts: What if Earth is like one of those uncontacted tribes in South America, like the whole Galaxy knows we’re here but they’ve agreed not to contact us until we figure it out for ourselves.

For the data geeks:

Are you experiencing Lockdown Fatigue?  I am.  Somehow I am exhausted.  Everyday living is so much heavier. There was stress in my life prior to the pandemic, but now, EVERYONE around me is also stressed.  Can two negatives create a positive? Sure.  I’m trying to keep to a schedule for sleep, work and get outside, trying to write, and reach out to a friend once a day.  Trying.  It doesn’t always happen, but I think about doing it.  That counts for something, right?

*looking left and right*  …So, want to hear something super secretive? Some secret folks are meeting in secret places and are having secret social parties.  It is not unlike the Speakeasys of prohibition; underground bars that served liquor after it was outlawed.  Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.  For every action, there is an equal reaction.  Yesterday a social post went out from Washington State Department of Health-

“We’ve been getting reports of “coronavirus parties” in which uninfected people are mingling with #COVID19 positive individuals intentionally to try to contract the virus. Bad idea! Gathering in groups in the midst of this pandemic can be incredibly dangerous and puts people at increased risk for hospitalization and even death. This kind of unnecessary behavior may create a preventable uptick in cases which further slows our state’s ability to gradually re-open.”

Stop the spread and stay home.  It’s hard and it sucks, but just do it.

Here is my current mood expressed in meme.  Take care and be safe. -Shannon

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States

https://www.facebook.com/WADeptHealth/

Day 43: Negative

Shower Thoughts: It’s adorable we thought 2016 was a terrible year because about 40 famous people died.  

People are comparing 2020 to other years.  Is this the worst?  Maybe.  On a global scale, I would have to say “YES.”  The economic damage worldwide is like nothing we’ve seen.  The extreme pressures on a household to survive AND keep healthy is felt on every block.

Last week I took the COVID-19 test.  It came back negative.  I work with tenants, some of who are high risk for the virus.  Whatcom County has opened up testing for workers like myself.  After announcing the results, a co-worker mentions, “you are negative as of last Wednesday.” Gulp!  What the heck?  We’d need to be tested every day or week?   Wait, is there a Fit-bit app for this? The antibody blood test is what I am really interested in.  I’ve met many people, who, like myself, suspect that they had the virus between the months of January-March before the lockdown began.

Lockdown fatigue is noticeable.  Irritability leading to miscommunication is not uncommon especially with email messages, even video meetings.  I like the philosophy that it is a time of grace and space.  To give it out quickly and in love, to the folks we interact with.  Everyone’s situation is different.  It is easy for me to imagine that a small percentage of my neighbors have 3 to 6 months worth of monthly income saved up in the bank.  Desperate times.  The weight is too much to bear.

I wrote this poem three years ago.  Thinking about it today, looking at my “Apocalypse Shelf”

Apocalypse Pantry
by Shannon P. Laws

I have found the warm caves in the woods
filled them with boxes of mac n’ cheese
tuna fish cans and cheap scented candles
Innumerable goods
A possessed witch is misunderstood
no matter how frugal
I am such a witch
waved my nude arms at the townspeople
walked the streets, survived the shrinking dollar
I have been her kind

 

Here is my current mood expressed by meme.  Take care and be kind. -Shannon

 

Day 40: Light at the End of the Tunnel

Shower Thoughts: No other species is watched more while pooping than dogs.

Oh my goodness, day 40 has arrived!  It’s been 40 days since the official declaration from our governor to Shelter in Place, March 24th. We are in the middle of our 5th week. We learned on Friday, May 1st, the lockdown will be extended to May 31st.  How are you holding up?  Hope you are healthy and adjusting to your new normal.  As soon as we adjust completely, perhaps, going through all the stages of grief and loss, at some point we’ll be thrown back into the fire.  This morning I am thinking about the working class returning to dead-end jobs. I’m wondering what factors make a job a good job.

The 5 stages of grief and loss are: 1. Denial and isolation; 2. Anger; 3. Bargaining; 4. Depression; 5. Acceptance. People who are grieving do not necessarily go through the stages in the same order or experience all of them.

Many Americans will return to their jobs to face a brilliantly obvious discovery, a very REAL tried and true FACT- they are underpaid.  Their previous jobs were unable to prepare them for regular emergencies such as a new transmission much less a pandemic.  Middle-class life is now 30 percent more expensive than it was 20 years ago.  Meanwhile, salaries, which have stagnated for decades don’t go as far as they once did to cover the necessities.  Do we really want to go back to “normal”?

Michigan

People with guns are starting to freak out.  Last Thursday, April 30th, hundreds of well-armed citizens waving MAGA signs crashed the state capitol of Michigan demanding that the country reopen.  They wanted to get to the House floor where representatives were in session but were blocked by state police and sergeants-at-arms.  In Michigan, it is legal to carry firearms as long as it’s done with lawful intent and the weapon is visible.  Lawful Intent?  hmmmm… In my town, if this lockdown extends another two months, my biggest concern is folks might just start biking naked or something.  But, there are many parts of the US where the breaking point could result in converting Doug’s Toyota Tacoma into a freaking ISIS tank and start patrols!

I’m wondering about the demographic that stormed the capitol.  Are they the same that was studied in various reports over the last two decades?  Did you know that the suicide rate for white middle-aged working-class men has spiked?  This group of Americans appears to be the most pissed off and depressed.  Why?

For white men without a college degree, the average growth in median wages between 1979 and 2017 was a negative number (−0.2 percent a year), even as median hourly earnings for all white workers grew by 11 percent in the same period. This wage deflation has had well-documented cultural ripple effects, depressing marriage rates as men’s appeal as partners fell along with their earnings. Without a stable family life, these men are more isolated, with fewer of the sorts of social buffers that might inoculate them against suicide or drug abuse. As a result, the rates for both have gone up.

For what it’s worth, I was raised in a working-class neighborhood in South Seattle and my folks had small businesses.  A part of me recognizes these men.  They are the sons of my neighbors.  My personal interpretation is that these suicide rates reflect a group of men unwilling to seek self-improvement in the form of therapy or education. Perhaps in their culture it is a sign of weakness, or maybe they do not believe they are wrong, mentally injured, or perhaps it is a simple financial barrier.  Adaptation to our changing world is difficult but necessary.

So, let’s move ahead a few months.  We have a Presidential election coming up.  Is Biden going to go the way of Hilary or Barak in his campaign outreach?  Will he be able to identify, and connect with the majority of voters?  …also could folks start voting out the sellouts in the Senate?  Seriously.  Otherwise, in my view, Trump will simply be more fuel to the unpredictable, unstable, despair bonfire.
F*ck Trump!

 

Here is my current mood expressed in a meme.  Thanks for visiting.  Be safe, stay healthy.  -Shannon

 

https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are-not-saving-any-money-for-emergencies-or-retirement-at-all.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hundreds-protest-michigan-lawmakers-consider-extending-governors-emergency-powers-n1196886

https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2020/white-death/

My book of poetry:
https://www.villagebooks.com/product/fallen-shannon-p-laws

Day 38: Raw Poetry

Northwest Washington is experiencing some rain this week.  Most of us are well equipped for walking in the rain, but if you can find a sunshine break to get in a mile or more of a walk it is perfect!

The monthly poetry discussion group I’ve been apart of since October 2015 is meeting on a weekly basis during the shutdown.  We call it Poetry Club: Pandemic Edition, find us on Facebook.  Somehow we have been discussing the work of Robert Frost for ALL of April.  We got stuck on his work and can’t get off that bus.   The discussions are stimulating, nonetheless, thanks mostly to the host Ron Leatherbarrow, who taught Frost at a collegiate level.

Here is the rough poem I’m sharing with the group for critique.  It’s a poem I found in my writing journal from 2017:

Sawdust
by Shannon Laws

“And, as my way is, I begin to dream, resting my elbows on the desk and leaning out of the window a little,” -John Ashbery

As I stand to look out the windows of the factory,
I wish I did not have to sweep this floor on such
a summer’s Saturday.
I imagine, past the trees and along the waterfront,
people are walking with inner peace.
And I envy them—they are so far away from me!
No one has to worry about working five hours of
overtime to help pay their bills.
And, as my way is, I imagine myself small, a doll
in the hand of a god.
The mill—a toy house and the window fills up
with the freckled face of the child that plays.
If the real world is large and I just a toy, still I would
want to run free.
Freedom is better than shelter and care, I bravely think.
But inward I know I only have what others have given.
So, here I am, under the press of having to shovel a
mound of sawdust into the bin.

 

My Netflix queue is Peaky Blinders, Ozark, Dracula, Outlander, the very silly DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and the original Star Trek with special effects remastered.  Star Trek could be a drinking game; take a shot of tequila every time a woman apologizes for almost being raped.  Oh my gosh, I did not know how sexist that show was!

Have a good day!  Be nice to yourself and those around you!  -Shannon

 

Day 36: Writers Life

Organizing my poetry folder this morning, I found a little day-in-the-life story from October 2018.  It is primarily about the way fickle inspiration for a poem or a short story sometimes comes to you, and if you’re not disciplined enough, it flies away, forgotten forever.  Thought I would share it today.

A poetess friend of mine had an hour and a half to waste this Saturday morning between appointments.  She asked if I’d like to join her in the enjoyable, underrated activity of wasting time.  We wasted it well with a conversation at a Fairhaven cafe from 8:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. exactly.   I prefer to waste my time over coffee, conversation, and one essential sweet danish.

The cafe is about half a mile from my home.  I bundled up in scarf and winter coat for a crisp October walk into town.  

We filled up the hour and fifteen minutes discussing many current events touching on local, national, and global headlines. Every so often, with this particular friend, our conversation travels to the topic of dealing with co-workers who are the adult children of alcoholics. My friend and I are adult children of alcoholics, who also married alcoholics.  We share a similar recovery.  In our 40’s we sought help, read books, attended Al-Anon. Today we have little patience for codependency, passive-aggressive behavior, and non-recovered addicts.  This behavior runs rampant and undiagnosed in the workplace.  We share about recent encounters back and forth and wished that more people would wake up and seek personal healing.  Rumi said, “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.  Today I am wise so I am changing myself.”  

At 9:45 we end our time.  I begin to walk down the avenue to my apartment.  The sun was up, it burned the scarf off my neck.  Often as I walk I also write…in my mind.  Too often, however, what I am composing with each step does not make it to paper.  By the time I get home the story slowly disperses into vapor.  

There is something about routine domestic actions that erase creative thought.  Walking through the door, after a long stroll, the draft, that was once bubbling in my thoughts, gets overpowered by housley chores.  The trash needs to go out, dishes scream to be washed and a, “by the way, it’s time to scrub the toilet!”  An hour later the concept I was crafting is gone.  

Writers value enduring concepts, those strong storylines, words, images, ideas that stay with you for weeks, even months.  These are the ones you should pay attention to, right?  With that in mind, coming home from another errand, at one block from my apartment, I challenged myself with a taunt, “OK, you got another great starter story here.  Now, what if you went home, avoided all domestic temptations, opened your laptop, and typed up what you just composed, like, as fast as you can?”  —OK, you’re on! 

Roll of quarters in my right pocket for laundry weighs down my winter coat on a slant as I make a second attempt to walk home “successfully.”  The extra weight feels like a limp.  As I walk I am at a perfect pace with a mother, child, and dog walking on the other side.  Maddening.  It is maddening to walk in perfect pace with another as you travel towards your destination.  Is that person going to mirror your moves until you reach your destination?  Will you discover that you are actually neighbors?  Will there be a moment when you cannot avoid the expected response about the weather? Maddening, absolutely maddening.  

We walked in unison for four long blocks. >A parallel of awkwardness<  Walking is sacred.  Don’t you know you’re in my church, mother?  Slow down or speed up!  Hold on to the story.  Hold on to the story.

So while I am walking, I composed a magnificent short story, possibly a prose poem.  But, I am sorry to say, after I got home, took out the garbage, had more coffee, started a load of wash, scrubbed the toilet, turned on, “Last Podcast on the Left” for background noise, sat at my desk and…I completely forgot the story.  I’m writing now hoping to trick myself that I won the challenge. So far…nothing.

Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into my daily life.  Remember the lesson is: challenge yourself and don’t clean the toilet!  -Take care and write often!

Day 35: Whats Bad for the Hive, is Bad for the Bee

Shower Thoughts: An “unlimited minutes per month” phone plan really only gives you 44,640 minutes per month at best.

What are some changes to your daily routine since lockdown?  Are there additions to your diet?  Perhaps you stopped doing something or perhaps started buying some new items?
I am eating more immune-building foods.  Adding fermented and spicy foods to my diets, such as drinking Kombucha and adding chili peppers, garlic or hot sauce to dishes (but not my oatmeal).  Also, I stopped shaving my legs.  Yep.  I went right from no-shave winter into no-shave lockdown.  If I shaved right now I could donate my hair to a wig charity.  No lie.  Werewolf time = freedom.

Before the lockdown, way back in October last year, I joined a monthly Stoic discussion group.  The group is hosted by a gentleman who applies stoicism to his daily life to help process his epilepsy.  Absolutely stimulating and thought-provoking discussions!  I really enjoy learning about the ways to apply stoicism to my everyday.  So, to help keep my mind focused on this new way of thinking, I signed up for a newsletter dailystoic.com .  The message this morning jumped off the page!  The author is responding to Christians in the bible belt continuing to attend church because “the blood of Jesus will protect me.”  Allow me to share a portion of it with you:

A Stoic is rational enough to look at the numbers and realize that most of us are likely to survive the coronavirus, if we do in fact get it. Most cases are very mild. If you’re a healthy, relatively young person, chances are you’re going to be fine. Who knows, maybe believing in Jesus will insulate you further. But that’s not why we’re locked down, why we’ve inflicted trillions of dollars of losses to the global economy in an effort to “flatten the curve.” We’re doing these things to protect the most vulnerable amongst us—people for whom the mortality rate can be up to ten times higher. It’s to protect people with preexisting conditions, people battling cancer, people who are recovering from a lung transplant, people with only one kidney, and our elders from whom we would be remiss not to take this opportunity to learn from.

Remember what Marcus Aurelius said: What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee. A society that is callous and indifferent to the weak and the vulnerable destroys itself. A society that betrays its elders—even if those elders have been indifferent and callous themselves—betrays itself. *

Here is my Monday mood in meme form.  It doesn’t have a pun, but does it REALY need one?  Thank you for visiting.  Stay safe! -Shannon

 

reference:

dailystoic.com for 4/27/2020.  Read the complete article here-

Daily Stoic

Day 34: Where The Sun Don’t Shine

Shower Thought: It’s crazy that’s there’s this giant thing in the sky all the time that we’re not supposed to look at.

So my friend has a great idea for a CORVID-19 cure.  It is a rectal suppository of sunlight, UV rays.  At last, if marketed, you could buy some for your mother in law and tell her to “stick it where the sun don’t shine!” with no repercussions.  New puns are being developed as I type…

 

WA ST curve as of April 15th

The future is full of possibilities. like going to out to dinner with friends, hanging out at the coffee shop writing all afternoon, going to a concert.  Yes, it is possible we could do all of that again, one day.  Washington’s lockdown is supposed to end May 4th.  The state will reopen in stages.  Our curve is pretty low.  Good job everyone!  My questions is will phase two involve temperature testing incoming traffic at our airports, bus lines, trains, and cars?  I’m sending some suspicious eyes at those anti-mask types in Idaho right now.

It reminds me of the freeway off-ramp search checkpoints in Southern Arizona. Arizona was a confusing place for the police.  They really wanted to stop any driver that “LOOKED Mexican.”  A co-worker of mine was often stopped, but sorry cops, he is Filipino, born and raised in America. My dark complexion, a gift from my Cuban father, also caused confusion driving to from home in Rio Rico to work in Tucson. Every morning, border patrol flagged me over to be questioned and have the drug dog sniff my car.

After about the 6th time they remembered my car and let me pass. So, in the time of CORVID, people don’t necessarily LOOK sick. It’s such a difficult virus to nail down and finding an enemy, a group to blame, well, fingers are pointing in every direction.  Why can’t we be more creative in our hate and distrust?  Could a new license plate prejudice develop? (again looking at Idaho…)  When the British Columbia, Idaho and Oregon plates return to our state, let’s hope they all have notes from their doctors.

Out for my evening close-to-home walk, I was delighted to stumble across the Happy Valley Howl at 7 pm last week. Every evening at 7:00 pm neighbors walk out to their front steps and let out some serious primeval therapy into the skies for about 5 minutes! Reached at least out & over three blocks in both directions. I understand that neighborhoods in Wisconsin and California also howl.  I joined in and I must say…I really needed it!  A howl can say so much more than words.  It symbolizes your location, you’re here, you’re well. It can also be a shout to the virus to leave our neighborhood- disease and want get out! Be gone!

That is all I have today; satire. *long sigh* Here is my mood expressed by meme.  Have a good day, players.  -Shannon