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Tuesday Top of Mind 2/25/2025- It is a marathon, not a sprint

However you have arrived to the conclusion, you must admit that we are in danger.

Not only singular we as a personal group of one or two, but we as a nation.

This is mainly by design. Their design.

The chaos, the mass firings, agency by agency.

All those lives ruined.

All those career civil servants who keep the lights on, and the airplanes where they need to be, who kept the national parks open and safe for visitors – gone.

No matter where you sit on the political aisle, no matter who you voted for, or why you voted the way you did, does this feel good to you? Is this what you wanted?

The number one thing that was cited over and over and over and over and over about why the votes were the way they were was the price of eggs. I know that this was a red herring, after all, the price of eggs is higher than it has ever been.

How is that working for you? You realize now that this is a ridiculous argument, right? Right?

We can get mad and scream and shout accusations.

Or we can get to work.

After all, resistance is not a sprint, but a marathon.

I am ready to weigh in with my purchase power. Are you?

Time to let the companies know that the American people mean business. As in, no business to them on those days.

This Friday is the first organized pocketbook protest. It is a no-buy day.

Nothing.

Nada.

Not even a stick of gum.

One of my friends lives near a shopping center and has told me they are going to keep watch on the cars going toward the shopping center on Friday. They hope that the amount of cars will be less. Time will tell.

The Montgomery bus strike lasted over a year. 381 days to be exact. I am prepared to go the long haul.

I have emptied my Amazon cart and most of my lists. The only things that are left are things for school and books for school. I haven’t bought anything from them since Christmas.

We can do this; we’ve just gotten lazy with the ease and convenience of it all.

It is time to make a new plan. I have curated a list of places I will be buying from, of small businesses that get our money. I have made planting plans for the spring, summer, and fall, and plan for the utilization of our fridge and freezer.

And protest with our buying power. A world in which I can make purchases easily but have a boot on my neck politically is not a world I want to live in. This is how we protest, small ripples that become a wave.

My protest begins with a single action. No-buy on Friday. This is the first action step in what will be a marathon of protesting.

It is time to be prepared.

Sometimes the beginning of the protest comes at a shout, like at some of the town halls that happened this last week.

Sometimes, the beginning of the protest comes with a snap, like the closing of the wallet.

What 5 things did I do last week for my employer? I’m not going to tell you.

School Me Saturday 2/22/25- Taking a sick day is okay

‘Tis the season.

The season of coughing and sneezing and nose blowing and tissues.

Oh, my.

The best thing is a good defense.

These include

  1. handwashing
  2. Mask-wearing when in a crowded area
  3. Mask-wearing when you are sick
  4. getting your flu vaccine

But, Kate, what happens when all of this fails?

Time to go on the offensive.

  1. get plenty of rest
  2. drink lots of fluids
  3. procure supplies such as ready-to-heat and eat meals and paper goods such as tissues
  4. seek care if you have a sustained fever over 102 or are coughing up nasty green stuff
  5. seek care if you are coughing up a steady stream of red
  6. take that nap already
  7. cancel plans if you aren’t feeling up to them; people will understand
  8. take medications if you think they are helping

As my house has been enjoying ill health all week because our defenses were breached, I can tell you that the most important thing is number 9- clean up as you are using the tissues. Mr. Kate and I do this by having readily available receptacles for snotty tissues.

I am not a medication taker. No NyQuil for me as that may mask symptoms I need to pay attention to and also I am not a fan of the paradoxical effect after a few days.

Don’t worry about us. We are on the mend.

After all, Dot, the cat is taking good care of us. Not really, of course, but she is offering much needed comic relief.

FFS Friday 2/21/25-Fatigue

The tiredness you are feeling from the non-stop, nonsensical barrage of horrible news from this administration? The tiredness that makes you want to put up your phone, or to navigate away from the News app? The tiredness that makes you want to disengage from the news altogether?

Yeah, same.

I have to ask you not to.

This unrelenting flood of bad shit is by design.

Except maybe the planes. That is a series of disasters directly related to their actions.

But the rest of it is absolutely intentional. So much information into your brain can have a numbing effect. And a nauseating one.

But you must continue to pay attention.

Even if it rubs you raw and makes you sick. Even as it infuriates and makes you see red.

Because the pain and sick feeling you are feeling is the point. They want to make people so tired of the endless bombardment of shit that they take their attention off what is happening.

Imagine what they will do then. Bad things happen in the shadows. Worse things happen when attention is voluntarily given up because of the pain and sick feeling.

I don’t want to imagine that. My imagination is doing enough on its own dealing with the non-stop-daily-24-7 ream of shit.

But I know that I cannot look away, that someone has to keep paying attention and documenting this madness.

The same thing happened with covid. It became so much worse when no one was paying attention to it.

Let’s not go there again. Let’s not watch over a million Americans die because of this.

Let’s give them the attention they so desperately want. Even if we don’t want to.

Especially if they don’t want us paying attention.

Tuesday Top of Mind 2/18/25- ripping the wings off of butterflies and laughing about it

There is something laddish about going into government computers and programs and ripping out the guts. And leaving a big mess.

Of course, this time the mess equates to the suffering of many, many people.

It brings to mind the episode of Star Trek the Next Generation called The Naked Now. An affected by the virus that makes everyone act as if they are drunk leads Wesley Crusher to disable the engines just as the Enterprise is in dire straits.

Sound familiar?

It takes Data, the android, who is also affected, to rise to a goad to put the pieces that Wesley has destroyed back in working order.

If that isn’t a metaphor for today’s US I don’t know what is.

A kid gets drunk. Are you with me? Not unlike the teenage and young 20s young men who are playing havoc in our systems. Reminder, the frontal lobe doesn’t finish developing until age 25 or so. Of course, they are charged with this task by an older man who just wants to break things.

Not a perfect metaphor.

A kid disables the engine, leading to peril. If it hasn’t happened yet, see the plane crashes since inauguration day, it will soon.

An android, one who is a valuable member of the crew but one at first who was looked upon with derision and scorn and fear, is the one to right the ship. Oh, and did I mention that he struggles with identity through so much of the series? There is definitely a trans allegory there.

But, I fear, that we will no one who has been othered around to help. Because they have been deported or are living in fear.

They are pulling the wings off the butterfly that is the U.S. And laughing maniacally while doing so.

I wouldn’t be able to plot this and no one would read it because it is so implausible.

But here we are.

Our international reputation is shredding, not unlike the wings of the butterfly.

There is no one coming to save us.

People are suffering. Including people who voted for this madness.

I am trying to find sympathy for them.

I have no sympathy for the government.

But I have a real fear of our standing in the world and the utter trainwreck that Democrats have to right after this. Because it is always up to the Democrats to fix what the Republicans broke while giving billions and billions of dollars to those who do not need it.

School Me Saturday 2/15/26-universities and colleges are scrambling

This is not a drill.

Researchers are being fired.

Research is being canceled, mid-experiment, or even before the research gets off the ground. This is vital research that had to 1) pass the university’s stringent institutional review board to make sure that it didn’t harm the participants and 2) pass an even more stringent grant application process to get the money to do the research. This is vital research that often seeks answers to the things that are trying to kill us.

After doing a two-second internet search using the keywords research topic NIH pulls up many NIH sites. The first one is Research Topics. If you click on that one the resultant page is broken down into 4 additional sections.

  1. Heart & vascular research- arrhythmia, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, heart attack, heart failure, heart inflammation, heart valve diseases, high blood pressure, obesity, peripheral artery disease, stroke. The latest report, also readily searchable, shows that 121.5 MILLION or 46% of Americans suffer from these diseases and conditions. AKA probably someone you know.
  2. Lung research- ARDS (adult respiratory distress syndrome), asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, interstitial lung diseases, newborn breathing conditions, pulmonary hypertension, respiratory failure. 33.8 to more than 35-MILLION Americans suffer from a lung condition. This is being made worse every year by wildfire smoke that impacts those with asthma, and COPD and emphysema. AKA probably someone you know.
  3. Blood research- anemia, blood clotting disorders, sickle cell disease. This is tallied at 1 in 76 of us. AKA probably someone you know.
  4. Sleep research- sleep apnea. This is an obstructive sleep pattern that can have a huge impact on your overall health. This affects the fewest at 22 million. But you know and I know that many, many, many people affected don’t bother to go to the doctor or explore why they are tired when they just woke up.

Just for funsies, I searched for how many people suffered from erectile dysfunction. This wasn’t an NIH website search. 30 million. More attention is paid to that than maternal mortality in this country.

This science denial is dangerous. That is what it is, science denial. At the most charitable, I can call it denial of something that doesn’t impact me or mine.

Reminder, just because something isn’t happening to you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening to someone you love. Just because something isn’t happening to you and your loved ones doesn’t mean that it is not worthy of research. Don’t you want an answer when it does happen to you or your loved ones?

Canceling research means they are no longer searching for the answer. Any answer.

Apparently, we have to be content with the research that has been done since Johns Hopkins University opened its doors in 1976.

How has it only been 3 fucking weeks?

FFS Friday 2/14/25- F’ing cowards

Cowards.

Fucking cowards, the lot of them.

I am, of course, writing about the Senate and the Senators and the confirmation of the Kennedy who wants desperately to be relevant.

The man who is a lawyer, is not in the healthcare field at all. But spews misinformation and lies about vaccines and fluoride in drinking water and processed food.

Vaccines save lives and fluoride saves teeth. Ultra-processed food, often the only kind of food a person can afford, is probably not good for humans. But he says nothing about the root cause of the ultra-processed food. Which are food deserts and the price of food.

His insane belief is that covid was engineered to strike Caucasians and black people and not Chinese or Ashkenazi Jews. This has been debunked and is a bat shit crazy belief. He has tried to walk this back.

His non and incorrect beliefs in science and vaccines are getting people killed. And now that he is the Health and Human Services secretary.

Great. (heavy sarcasm)

Only one of the Republican senators voted AGAINST the confirmation of a known anti-vaxer whose misinformation led to the deaths of many on Samoa. When I write many, I mean above 10. Eighty-three Samoans died because of the Measles outbreak directly related to his lies.

And that senator that voted against him? Mitch McConnel. I didn’t have that on my 2025 Bingo card. But he did have Polio as a child. Anti-vaccination sentiment has brought Polio back to the United States. The Iron Lung, which was a treatment for Polio that some lived in for decades, is no longer in production and hasn’t been for years and years. So we are starting from rock bottom there.

Regardless, RFK Jr. is dangerous.

Like so much of this cabinet. But he can impact vaccines and so very much more. BTW- all of the Democratic senators voted against his confirmation.

I will be watching his office CLOSELY. And I will report back the insanity.

Are you paying attention yet?

Cookie Thursday 2/13/25- Ritz cracker caramel chocolate crack

This is the second Thursday of Baking the Baking Pantry theme. This means that I am using up some of my lesser-used ingredients.

Because I was hosting for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the little voice inside my head ensured I purchased enough crackers for the events. Even though my sister is gluten-free. The other voice inside my head said that I could never only buy one box if they were BOGO (buy one, get one). Twice.

We have a lot of crackers.

Normally, I keep at least one box in reserve in case I make pimiento cheese for a work event.

Yeah, we have four boxes that were unopened and 1 box that was only missing 2 sleeves. One sleeve for each night of the festivities, you know.

And the best Christmas crack crackers to use are Ritz crackers. I know because I’ve tried saltines, Ritz, matzoh, club crackers, digestive, and graham crackers. There is just something about the butteriness of the Ritz that puts the rest of them to shame.

But, of course, I wanted to do a little experiment. I made a ring of unbroken crackers around the cookie sheet, duly lined with parchment paper, and I crushed a sleeve of crackers to fill the center. The ring itself took half a sleeve.

What? I wanted to see what would happen.

I theorized that the caramel would make even a crushed cracker more interesting and the bigger surface area would make it adhere more.

I was half right.

Okay, three quarters.

Yes, the crushed cracker and the caramel interaction was interesting. And weirdly even more buttery.

Yes, the bigger surface area of the crushed cracker edges did make the caramel adhere more.

No, it didn’t adhere quite like I was picturing.

Not a total failure. I must increase the amount of caramel to account for the increased amount of edges.

I give myself a B. With the caveat to try again with more caramel.

Also, I used milk chocolate in the beginning over half of it and it refused to spread evenly while melted. Semi-sweet is the way to go here.

After all, Cookie Thursday is a Thing is all about experimentation.

Tuesday Top of Mind 2/11/25- the SAVE Act

Well, this is a piece of neo-mansophere trash.

If this vote passes the Senate and is signed into law as written, voting by women will be changed.

On the surface, this bill is about voting. Okay, fine. Not a demonstrable problem, no matter what some republicans think.

However, if you read the summary, voting will be permitted only if you are able to prove that you are a United States citizen. How to prove that? The easiest way is to provide your birth certificate. Your certified birth certificate.

Good on the surface, right?

Why did this not pass last year when it was first introduced?

Because it is a huge waste of time and resources. You already cannot register to vote unless you prove you are a US citizen. Usually by driver’s license or passport.

There is already a REAL ID that will be used by airlines starting in May. The SAVE Act is a belt to that suspenders. I got my REAL ID by showing my passport to the DMV. The same passport that I had to use my driver’s license and birth certificate to obtain.

I will note that I have a certified copy of my birth certificate. Obtained from the state where I was born. But what about the people out there whose birth certificates cannot be certified. What if they were born at home? What if they were born in a time before all of this nonsense?

To obtain a passport, you already have to show proof of residency. To get mine I had to have my driver’s license and my marriage license proving that the name change was legit. Same for the social security card.

Because this act shows their hand. 80% of woman who are married in this country take their husband’s name. I did. Does this bill mean that I would no longer be eligible to vote because my birth certificate and my driver’s license do not match?

I am afraid that this is the intention. In all the reading I have done these last 3 months I have come across a phrase in a couple of places that I thought was straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale. “Family voting”, wherein the man, whose name does match his birth certificate, votes for the entire house.

The real question is what exactly is this bill saving? Nothing. It would cost A LOT of money to implement. Imagine the lawsuits. Imagine the outrage the first time a woman goes to vote and is denied because she took her husband’s name.

For something we didn’t even need. Unless that was the entire point. To more than halve the number of women who are eligible to vote.

This is a feature, not a bug.

Are you frightened yet?

More importantly, are you paying attention yet?