Riptide

This weekend, after almost two months being alone, I went to my son's house and visited with him and my grandchildren. We found a local beach that was sparsely attended so the kids could go skim boarding. I know, this is breaking my own rules and I'm not going to make any excuses or apologies. For seven weeks, like most people I know, I've been on isolation and working from home and for me and my little bipolar shit, I needed to break from this to reset my head. It's that or the psych ward and I'm not exaggerating by much.

Seals popped up here and there, close to shore than I've ever seen them. They are curious creatures, but rather bitey when provoked, and we watched them in amusement as they glided around, when suddenly a herd of dolphins showed up not more than 30 feet from shore. They leaped and dove, maintaining the same general channel-line as the seals and we watched them with so much joy. What beautiful creatures there are in this vast waterworld and what a magic time to see them so close. My granddaughter found a tiny, complete sand dollar -- the first one I've seen on a local beach for many years. She and I sang a song for Yemaya, which she loved doing. And a funny thing is that the ocean was as still and calm as could be, until I decided to try to swim out at which point the waves came back and I got tossed like a ragdoll three times until I could regain my footing. I came up laughing cause I felt the message, but my poor grandson was so scared for me. I have lessons to learn. 

(disclaimer: this is not my photo, it is a Google image of a California Bottleneck Dolphin, 

but it looks exactly like one we saw leaping)

I will tell you this: This was a very conscious and calculated decision the foundation of which is that I was afraid I would get sick somewhere shopping for toilet paper and die alone without having seen my people for months and months and I start falling into a sinkhole of depression that brings up threads of thoughts in my head that are better left in the inner sanctum. No, no... can't go there. That's it; I decided this based upon what I would want as an end of life decision, but not an end of life right now. Now I'm home and while I love being home, I'd choose those kids over anything, any day. I will miss them again for a few weeks and then I'll swim up for air and there they will be, to save me from drowning.

This whole experience is a riptide pulling me away further and further from everyone and everything I know; the place on this planet where I am stabilized and whole. 

My mood was in the irascible range today, and I'm guessing based upon my very few interactions, that others are feeling the same way.

I ended up having an interaction with a young woman that neither shamed me nor made me feel good; she ended a long transaction at a small store where I also had to stand in line and when I finally got the door where I could do my business (quickly, as I had it planned it out down to the penny), the woman asked me if I could move my car, the car behind mine would move and then she could leave.

And I said No. Just "No. I'm at the front of the line and I know it's inconvenient, but the world is inconvenient right now" and I admit I was not polite. I was not kind. I was not patient, and I did not care about her convenience. To the point: I would not have asked someone at the front of the line to break the line for my convenience.  I would have waited. Her entitlement pissed me off.

She then began to lecture me that if I had just asked her nicely she would have been okay with it and that's when I just devolved on her. Just a moment after I got to the point of telling her to go fuck herself with a piece of redwood, I got my bag of crickets, which took seriously maybe two minutes, and walked to my car when some random millennial guy back in the line felt it necessary to say, "That wasn't nice of you" and at that point, I was like fuck these people and just said "I'm sorry you feel that way".  It occurred to me a short while later that he wouldn't have said that had I been young and pretty with my nipples poking out the front of my hippie dress and no panty line. Yeah, no, man-bun boi. You just enjoy your wait in the line. Hippie girl still ain't looking at you.

Two things: 1. I know I did not need to be that harsh perhaps, and 2. She should have just sat in her car after she discerned I was at the door and about to get my turn. Did she deserve my snark? I don't know. This Depression-era bread line shit is already stressful.

Life is too short to suffer fools or assholes, so there it is. I could have been different, but I spent half an hour in a line only to have someone young enough to be my daughter use her entitlement, across the board, to try to school me and waste my time, and I ain't having it. Naw, I'm okay, girl.. you can take that to someone who has more time to waste than I do.

Entitlement: Mike Pence goes to Mt Sinai Hospital and in spite of being informed that everyone must wear a mask;  in spite of everyone else both staff and patients are wearing masks, and in spite of the fact that he is supposed to model the behaviors we are supposed to exhibit, the Motherfucker Did Not Wear A Mask. I don't give a hot fuck if he tests negative seven days a week and twice on Sunday (when the rest of us don't have a chance yet of being tested even once). This entitled dried up ballsac motherfucker uses his authority, power and privilege to walk the entitled walk that he does.

"I need to look 'em in the eye and say thank you". Lord have mercy you dried up piece of chum, do you even know what if wrong with what you just said?

I wasn't right and I wasn't wrong. I was just tired and it's probably for the best I'm not trying to lead the country although I'm 99.99% sure I'd do better than Trump or Pence.

This whole experience is like living in an alternate Universe. Do you feel this? Every time I go out to run a necessary errand, it feels like every stoplight is ten minutes long and people are busting through stop signs, and everywhere are lines of people, looped around like they're waiting in a Disneyland line for a Dole Whip. There is literally a bread line at the local artisanal bread shop that snakes around the parking lot, and I get it because in spite of everybody and their mother and me trying on a sourdough starter it is damned hard work. I think twice about going out for that head of lettuce for a salad because it's not just a quick trip, it's a damned event, and it's weird to get used to wearing a mask, but on the other hand, I'm getting used to it like it's just *shrug* normal business, as is slathering my hands, steering wheel, credit card, and everything I've touched with hand sanitizer or saniziting wipe.

Meanwhile, meat plants are becoming hotbed infection zones where workers who are basically slave laborers -- many of them undocumented workers -- are getting sick, aside from their abysmal work conditions. The animals, who have already been raised and handled as if they are not living, sentient beings, are somewhere in their holding pens and God knows if they're being fed or watered or anything. Trump calls this an "essential business" and is forcing the slaughter houses to remain open with the same untenable conditions they've always endured, human and animal, but in the melee that is happening with the virus infecting the workforce, the animals are just being randomly slaughtered and thrown in the garbage.

Seems to me it's about time to end this system of meat production completely. For God's sake, let them just fail. We cast our judgment and our aspersions on Chinese wet markets, yet we raise animals in horrendous cruelty, handle them as if they are not feeling beings, we create work environments for humans that are dangerous, untenable, low paying, stressful and exploitative.... and this is not an "essential business".  Our meat production system is worse than Chinese wet markets, but we just cover it up and pretend it doesn't exist, but here it is and it needs to stop now.

Did you get this far, wow, I am grateful. For the sake of remembering, it's been quite a hot day here and my draughty house, which is cold in the winter and conversely hot in the summer, is my sanctuary.  I know everything in it and can find every little thing by braille.  If I get sick, my bedroom is where I will go to lay down, and if I die, it will be in the same room my mom called hers once upon a time.

I grow maudlin, I suppose, but it's worth a thought about last wishes. We should all think about that.