Blue Screen of Death

Saturday evening, my computer went berserk.

The screen turned sideways. It wouldn't go back to normal.

Then I tried to shut it down and reboot, to see if that would fix it, and the thing wouldn't boot back up.

Finally, it booted up, but then it started into an error message loop.

The blue screen of death appeared.

Stop: Critical Process Died.

That's what it said. I had no idea what that meant. I pulled out the laptop and looked it up. Apparently this was an error that could be fixed if one knew what to look for. Maybe. While it was a known issue with Windows 10 early on, apparently it wasn't supposed to be one now.

The computer was a Dell 3847, and I'd bought it in 2015. At the time it had Windows 8 on it and I upgraded to Windows 10 when it came out.

I hated Windows 10 at first, as it was not stable, but with time it has seemed more reliable.

No matter what I tried, I could not bring my computer back from the blue screen of death and into Windows 10. Finally, I hit the Dell Repair that was supposed to save all of my documents, etc.

It brought the computer back to factory default. Windows 8.

And it lost all of my data, although I have it backed up to an external hard drive.

So while I can use this now, it's Windows 8, which I never liked.

Instead of spending $140 to get Windows 10, I have purchased a new Dell tower. It will arrive via UPS one of these days.

I couldn't see spending that much money on a six-year old computer just to get back to Windows 10.

O Blue Screen of Death, I know not why thou visited me.

But thou hast cost me money.

Thursday Thirteen

President Biden wasted no time in setting about to undo the last president's edicts as quickly as possible. I do not agree with executive orders from either side, as I don't think that's a power the president should have. Rule by edict is not how our system was set up, but it how it has evolved over the last 40 years. 

It needs to be fixed by the legislative branch. Laws, orders, and monetary spending needs to be created and overseen by the legislature. Not the executive branch.

Things being what they are, I can only watch. Here are some things that happened on Biden's first day:

1. He asked Michael Pack, the acting head of Voice of America, to resign, and he did. Pack immediately turned what was a non-partisan news outlet for the soldiers overseas into a propaganda tool for the 45th president. He was also accused of channeling $4 million in charitable contributions into his own production company. He was only in the office for 8 months.

2. Federal officials last night unleashed tear gas against rioters in Portland, Oregon, where protesters smashed in windows of the Democratic headquarters there and declared Biden could not save them or make the changes they required. The New York Times called these people antifascists and radical justice protestors.

3. One of Biden's executive orders appointed Jeffry D. Zients as the official Covid-19 response coordinator. Additionally, he reinstalled the National Security Council, a group the last president disbanded.

4. He signed another executive order requiring masks on federal property. This is not a national mask mandate. He implemented a "100 days masking challenge." This asks all American to wear masks and urges state and local officials to work to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

5. He reinstated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protects immigrants brought here as children from deportation. The order calls for Congress to provide a path to citizenship for these immigrants.

6. He revoked the last administration's plan to exclude noncitizens from the census count.

7. He ended the "Muslim ban," which had blocked travel to the U.S. from predominately Muslim and African countries.

8. He halted construction of the border wall with Mexico, immediately terminating the 45th president's national emergency declaration that allowed for the use of billions of dollars of redirected funds, not appropriated by Congress, to build the wall. 

9. The United States will again become part of the Paris Accord, which address climate change. Additionally, he revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, reversed decisions that had slashed the size of several national monuments, and re-established a committee on the social costs of greenhouse gases.

10. He ended the 1776 Commission (the page was removed from whitehouse.gov within hours of Biden's swearing in), which historians decried as a distortion of the role of enslaved people in the United States. The report allegedly was a white-washed fairy-tale version of American history. I did not see it personally but by most accounts it was a white supremacists' rewriting of history. It was only released two days ago so I don't think many people saw it.

11. Biden extended a federal moratorium on evictions and asked other agencies, such as Housing and Urban Development Departments, to prolong a moratorium on foreclosures on federally guaranteed mortgages. The extensions run through the end of March.

12. Another executive order reinforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requiring that the the federal government not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, reversing policies put in place by the last administration.

13. He established ethic rules for those who serve in his administration. He ordered all of his appointees in the executive branch to sign an ethics pledge. Additionally, he ordered a freeze on all new regulations put in motion by the last administration in order to give his administration time to evaluate them.

You can read about all of these orders, and others, at the New York Times link.

I have no quarrel with any of these actions. I am particularly glad that Mr. Pack is no longer in charge of Voice of America. As for many of these other actions, I would have preferred a legislative solution, not an executive one, but things being what they are, I understand why these executive orders were issued and Biden is using that particular power. He is following the precedent set by previous presidents, including and especially the last one.

This is what happens when the legislative branch collapses, which it essentially did under President Obama because Senator Mitch McConnell refused to move legislation forward under that administration.

Additionally, I (a) have no clue what is going on in Portland and (b) consider all of this to create, at the least, a distrust of the United States from within and without.

If we are going to pivot every time we change presidents because of these executive orders, then we are not a country any nation can securely do business with. Such strident policy changes make planning difficult, even for folks like me. If the rules change every four years, that is an undue burden on the populace, especially the business sector. 

As a personal example, I have heard for most of my life that Social Security won't be available by the time I am of age to take it. I hope it will be, but it's not money I can count on in my senior years, even if I did work all of my life and pay into the system. 

A country needs stability of leadership, and that should be coming from the legislative branch, and not from executive orders that, as we have seen over the last four years, can undo 50 years of regulations at the stroke of a pen.

_____________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 691st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Pandemic Journal Day 136

I can't let a tornado in Botetourt County go by unremarked.

We did not see the tornado, though apparently it was just over the ridge. We went riding around immediately after hearing about it, though. We think it formed near the intersection of Haymakertown Road and Lee Lane and ten followed the Catawba Creek, mostly as a funnel cloud, but perhaps touching down.

The National Weather Service is supposed to be investigating today to confirm touchdown.

The alert went off on my phone while I was in the middle of watching a Melissa Etheridge concert online that I'd paid $10 to see. About the time the alert went off, my PC screen froze, but I was able to refresh it and continue watching. I wasn't getting up from that unless I absolutely had to and we don't, as a rule, have tornadoes here. 

My husband left my side and went prowling around the house to see if he could see anything. He reported rotation in the clouds towards my father's house, which is about where we think the tornado began. Photos began pouring in on social media and my friends Cathy and Teresa both say they felt the tornado and/or heard it.

The tornado apparently came through around 6:40 or so, and we hopped in the car at 7 p.m. and drove around to see if we could find its path. Nothing was visible from the road aside from the one spot at the aforementioned location, whether there were some downed tree limbs. That's why we think it formed around there.

As for the pandemic, we continue to have zero leadership at the federal level. Governor Northam has done a good job trying to keep things in hand in Virginia, but I'm not sure how you deal with so many stupid people and manage a pandemic all at the same time. Everyday there are utterly appalling videos of people who should know better having temper tantrums over wearing masks. You'd think they were all two years old and have never heard the concept of community and protecting others, the way they act. I would be embarrassed. The sad thing is, they think they are in the right and this is all some kind of hoax. A big world-wide hoax, I guess. Must be the best damn hoax ever, is all I can say.

More than 153,000 US citizens have died from this virus. I'm pretty sure a lot of them did not have to die and would not have died if we'd had appropriate leadership to begin with. But we did not.

Last night I started getting a sore throat and that continues into today. My neck glands are a little swollen. I also have a bit of a headache. The headache could be weather-related since we have a tropical depression/hurricane coming up the coast.

I was out a lot last week - I drove my mother-in-law to get her car, I picked up groceries Monday and last night (I do the online thing, I don't go in the store), I had to see the orthopedic doctor, I went to the chiropractor. I probably picked up something somewhere down the line even though I use a lot of Purell and wash my hands at every sink I see. I am not concerned it is Covid-45. I suppose it could be, but most likely it is either an allergy (my husband kept rolling down the car windows because they kept fogging up Saturday night when we were looking for the tornado's path and everyone had mowed their yard), or I picked up one of the many other little viruses that I frequently get.

In other words, it doesn't feel like an out-of-the-ordinary illness for me, although I am quite tired and more than a little depressed.  Time will tell.

The children are supposed to start back to school this month, some homeschooling completely, some going back two days a week, some doing a mix of both online and in-class learning. My niece is headed off to Radford University.  Hopefully she will be safe there and wear her mask and do the things she needs to do take care of herself.

My husband came in this morning fussing because yesterday he'd seen a woman and a child in a silver vehicle stopped a long the side of the road at the pasture field. He did not say anything to them - he should have - and for some strange reason he assumed they were picking up trash (nobody picks up trash, why would he assume that?). At any rate, he came back up ranting and raving because apparently the woman and child had decided to fly a kite and the string was wrapped around the power line and power pole and the kite is in the pasture field. Because of the way the string is wrapped around the power line, he is afraid to touch it. The kite is a hazard to the cows.

What a stupid thing to do.

Then he went to Walmart. Apparently the stores are still having trouble keeping stock; we can't find Clean Shower anywhere, not even online. I like using that to help keep the shower clean. I've considered a mix of water and vinegar but I'm afraid the vinegar will eat the finish off the shower head and the grab bars, all of which are covered with some kind of dark bronze. The Lime-Away has already eaten the color out of the water drain cover and I'd just as soon not mess up the other items.

He stopped by a body repair shop to let them look at a dent in the car. The car has several dents, including one acquired last night on the way home from a grocery store pickup. He slowed but the deer hit into the side of the car. The repair estimate for all the dents is a lot. I think I'll just drive a dented car.

The political divisions in this country are strong, deep, and sick. I read a post on the "Local Conservatives" Facebook group page that was sickening. (They have it open to the public, it is very full of hate. I'd be ashamed to belong to that group.) This one guy advocated separating the country into two nations, and anyone who wasn't a Conservative who wanted to stay in the real America (i.e., the Conservative one), "socalists will loose the right to vote here and be disarmed." [sic] So, in other words, fascism.

I think I need to stay off that page but it is aggravating because I see people I thought otherwise knew better on it and not a single one pointed out to this nut case that he was advocating the same thing Germany did prior to World War II. Their silence implies compliance and agreement.

That's not to say I don't see stupidity on "the left" because I do. I do, however, point out when they overreach. I also am not active in any groups and especially not in any local groups. My father thinks I'm a flaming liberal just because I believe in a social safety net and equal rights for women. But that just makes me a moderate. We have no real left in this country. What used to be center is now considered left, that's how fascist we've become.

Maybe they'll wake up one day, when one of #45's paramilitary stomps on their mommas' faces or something, I don't know.

I'm getting off topic, I was talking about the pandemic, although the pandemic has been made political so it's hard to separate the two. A public health issue shouldn't be political. We should be gracious enough to take care of one another.

I guess that is too much to ask.

********

For those who need to know (and someone must because I felt very led to do this):

Fascism: a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism.

Socialism: a theory or system of social organization in which the means of production and distribution of goods are owned and controlled collectively or by the government

Democracy: government in which supreme power is exercised directly by the people or by their elected agents.

Democrat: an advocate of democracy

Capitalism: an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned.

Just for fun: if the governments/states owns the roads, and you transport your privately made goods over those roads (distribution), is it capitalism or socialism?

Think about it.

Take your time.

*Webster's Dictionary. Everybody ought to own a hard copy.

Pandemic Journal - Day 87

We continue to be careful with our outings here at the ol' farm. No eating out. No going to places just to go somewhere. No hanging out at Lowes. We go to the store when we have to - we're trying for every 10 days or so.

It is a good thing I like our home.

Late last week, I baked a cake from scratch - first time for everything, I suppose. I am trying to keep up with the bookwork for our several little businesses. Tedious work, that, and not a favorite thing to do. Actually I'm supposed to be doing that right now but I'm blogging instead.

Queen of procrastination, I am.

Last week the mattress saga finally ended when Sealy sent our replacement mattress under warranty. We had a Sterns & Foster with a 10 year warranty and it died in 8 years. I hadn't realized how much it had shrunk down and flattened out until we received the new mattress. No wonder I have back problems. Maybe this will help.

The new mattress did off-gas for a few days, which bothered me, but it seems to have stopped, or I have adjusted to it, one or the other. For the first two nights we had it, I woke up with my eyes swollen and my whole body feeling "not right," but that has gone away. Seems like anytime we bring anything new in the house, I have a problem with it anymore. It's frustrating.

My mother-in-law, who is 86, appears to have shrugged off the virus for the most part and is going about her routine of grocery store, pharmacy, etc., just as she did before March. We were shopping for her, but she decided to go herself and we can't stop her. I just hope she realizes that if she gets Covid, she will be alone because neither of us will be able to go care for her. But maybe she will be ok. I hope she is at least wearing a mask.

A friend who's been to Richmond said the people there are much more diligent about wearing masks and social distancing than they are around here. We are surrounded by a bunch of "me first" Republicans, so this is no surprise. It will show in where we spend our money. If a business is being careful and has masks on employees, that is where we will shop. I don't go into stores if I see many people without masks, especially staff. Besides, right now one is supposed to wear a mask in public under order of the governor. I think people should think of others and not be foolish, but I'm expendable so what do they care, right? Who cares if a fat ol' childless woman lives or dies? Not them.

I took some great photos of turkeys and a new baby calf, but the computer ate them when I downloaded them and also erased the SD card. I can't decide if something is wrong with the Windows Photo app or if my SD card is bad. It might be the card, as I took some other pictures and it wouldn't download those, either, but I was able to get them by using the camera to download instead of the card reader. I suppose it could be the card reader. This computer is five years old. I hate getting a new one anymore, they are such a hassle to set up. This is a Dell and I plan to use it until something major breaks.

Fortunately, I keep a backup of everything on the hard drive on an external drive. I also back a few things up to the cloud.

Really important things I email to myself - just in case.

Locally, last week someone vandalized the Confederate memorial at the county courthouse by throwing red paint on it. This does not surprise me, although the obelisk is not an ostentatious showing of the Confederacy like a statue of Robert E. Lee might be. I wrote several articles about the monument when I was with the newspaper. It probably needs to be moved to the museum and out of the public sphere. I don't want these statues destroyed, because they are art, but I think they belong outside of places where they are in your face. People are complaining that tearing down the statues is destroying history. Well, no. The history is there, in the history books, and in diaries and a multitude of other places. Taking down a statue is taking down a statue, not destroying history. So move them. It's rather like how I feel I can write what I want in my blog and not on Facebook. Facebook is in your face and you don't have a choice of what you see, sometimes. If you're reading my blog, you came here to read it and shouldn't be surprised by anything you see here, if you're a regular reader.

Speaking of Facebook, I have blocked loads of people on there. Most of them I don't know. If people are particularly nasty in comments on articles I read, I block them so I don't have to see their nastiness. I have not "unfriended" anyone on Facebook although I have unfollowed a lot of people so I don't see their FB posts in my feed. I think I'm down to seeing about three friends and news media of varying sources. Sometimes I go back and follow people, only to unfollow them again. If there is one thing I have learned these last three years, it's that a lot of people around me are racists and bigots. They're nice people and some of them wouldn't hesitate to help me out if I asked, I suppose, just I wouldn't hesitate to help them, but their morality and my morality are very different and I'd just as soon not be exposed to it. Or know about it, for that matter. That's probably very ostrich-like, but I am not interested in starting arguments. I like peace and quiet and I want everyone to be happy.

Right now my county has 10 active Covid cases. We've had a total of 44, with 4 deaths attributed to the virus. The problem is, I don't know where those 10 came from, and probably neither does anyone else.

So I continue to stay home as much as possible. I'm trying to find a new routine again, which I have to do anyway since my husband has retired and is here. That has been enough of a challenge without all the other stuff going on.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. How many gravy boats do you have in your kitchen?

A. None.

2. Do the clothes in your laundry basket need ironing?

A. No. I do not buy clothes that need ironing. Ironing is a big waste of time.

3. What is the last thing you wallpapered?

A. It was either the bathroom or the kitchen and it was over 20 years ago and both are long gone. Wallpaper is evil. I will never wallpaper anything again.

4.  Wooden floors or carpet?

A. Wooden floors.

5.  Why do we put out guest towels if no one is supposed to use them?

A. I don't put out guest towels. I put out towels and expect people to use them.

6.  If your spatula could talk, what would it say about your duvet?

A. I broke my spatula the other day. It's dead. It doesn't say anything about anything anymore. That's what happens if you talk around me about my duvet. Who knows what all is buried on this farm?

7.  Have you replaced the batteries in your smoke alarms this year?

A. My smoke alarms are 30+ years old and tied to the electrical system, which I think is stupid because that means if the power goes out we have no alarms.

8. If you could put thyme in a bottle, what is the first thing that you'd like to do?

A. Smell it, I guess, since thyme is a spice or herb or something.

 

9. Do eggs really crack or do they merely have a nervous breakdown?

A. They crack and then they are thrown into a bowl and beaten until they are all gooey and yellow.

10. Why are you whipping the butter? What did it ever do to you?

A. I don't whip butter. I take an axe to the butter and use it on the bread.

11. Do your spoons spoon in the drawer? Have you ever noticed? And more importantly, if wooden spoons spoon do they get splinters?

A. I only have one wooden spoon, so I only worried about what it did with the spatula, but since I broke the spatula I no longer have to worry about that. As for my other spoons, they may spoon all they want. They can even have little spoons if they so desire.

12. You hear: "Dumpling, my Dumpling, come hither." The candles are lit, the fondue is dipping, the Godiva is pouring, the scallions are steaming and the music is playing.....but wait, the windows are open.  Why did you close them?

A. I don't even know how to answer that. But my windows are always closed because I'm allergic to everything outside of the house.

13.  Do you need a recipe to cook or are you a bohemian chef?

A. It depends on what it is. I make meatloaf without a recipe and it never comes out the same way twice but it's always good.

14. Is your pot black?

A. The one I pee in is almond colored. The ones in the kitchen are shiny.

15. What is the sexiest spice or condiment in your cabinet?  What makes it so?

A. Paprika. It's just so . . . pappy and rika gettin' it on on the low down.

________________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

(Some of these questions are the kind used as security questions, so those I will answer rather vaguely. There were also duplicate questions and I deleted those.)


1. Where did your name come from?

A. My mother gave it to me. I have no idea where she got it from, as she never said, and it is not a family name. My first name is apparently a form of Anna, which is a form of Hannah. The name appears briefly in the New Testament belonging to a prophetess who recognized Jesus as the Messiah. It was a popular name in the Byzantine Empire from an early date, and in the Middle Ages it became common among Western Christians due to veneration of Saint Anna (usually known as Saint Anne in English), the name traditionally assigned to the mother of the Virgin Mary. My middle name is French and comes for Joan of Arc. (The nerdy information comes from behindthename.com)

2. Where were you born?

A. In a hospital.

3. What as your house like, growing up?

A. We lived in a small suburb until I was 6. It had a nice back yard and tree in the front yard, and there was red carpet in the living room. There was also a ghost in the house. We moved to a farm when I was 6, and lived in a trailer. It was very small and cramped. Then we lived in an old farm house that my father added a room onto. I slept in the attic; it was very hot there in the summer as there was no air conditioning except window units. My father built his house where he now lives in 1976. By that time I was 13 years old. It was a big ranch. My bedroom had yellow and purple in it. A huge fireplace separates the family room from the formal living room and dining area.

4. What was your childhood bedroom like?

A. It was an attic for a while, and then after the age of 13 I had my own room. I hung love beads over the door and had a poster that said, "I am Me and I am Okay" on it, along with a Charlie's Angels poster. I had a white bedroom suite, and the bed was a double bed. I had a bean bag, my electric guitar, and an amplifier in there. I had two windows, and lots of books. I had a little hope chest in my closet. It contained some glasses and few other little odds and ends, nothing of consequence.

5. Did you travel as a child? Where?

A. When I was quite young we went to Florida to visit my great-grandfather. I remember little about the trip. When I was 12, my parents drove across the United States and back. When I was 14 or 15, my parents took me to New York with them. When I was 16 I flew to Spain and France on a school trip.

6. Write about your grandparents.

A. My maternal grandmother was a kindly yet stern woman who told us constantly to stay away from the river, because it was polluted (of course we went there anyway). She kept me when I was ill, since she lived only a block away from my mother's office. She had a set of encyclopedias that I read. My maternal grandfather died when I was 11. He was very stern and he fixed TVs on the weekends at his workbench in the basement. We were never supposed to touch Granddaddy's workbench (of course we did). He worked for Kroger. My paternal grandparents lived in California and I did not know them very well. My paternal grandfather was a Democrat and so was my grandmother until she decided she could not vote for President Obama because he was black, and then she became a Republican. She talked very loud and I never thought she liked me very much. She lived to be 93 and died about two years ago. My grandfather and I exchanged letters after I became an adult until he died in 1992. He played guitar and liked to write poetry.

7. Who taught you how to drive?

A. I took driver's education in high school. Coach Co, as he was called, was known to feel up the girls so it was a given that we never went out on a driving lesson with him alone.

8. When did you first leave home?

A. I left home when I was 20, when I married.

9. What did your parents do for work?

A. My father was a policeman and then he became a salesman. He started his own company around 1977 and it has been successful. My mother worked as a secretary (but not for my father).

10. Who inspired you as you matured?

A. Book heroes, mostly, or someone like Kate Jackson, who played Sabrina on Charlie's Angels.

11. What was the best part of your 20s?

A. I married and I started going to college.

12. What as the best part of your 30s?

A. I finished college and began a writing career.

13. Where is the most fascinating place you’ve visited?

A. Paris.

14. What is your favorite family story?

A. Apparently I had a great-great grandfather who was a preacher who owned a whore house.

15. What was your most memorable birthday?

A. My husband gave me a surprise party when I turned 50.

16. What was your favorite food as a child?

A. I liked cucumbers and mayonnaise, lettuce, and cheese sandwiches.


________________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. Name a highlight of your day.

A. So far today, it has been a ride around the block in the car. Of course, a "block" here is miles and miles.

2. What made you smile today?

A. Nothing much so far.

3. What made you laugh today?

A. A running joke I have with my husband about nasal spray. You'd have to live here to understand it.

4. Recall a time when you needed encouragement.

A. Way back in 1985, as I was trying to figure out what to do with my life (a task I have yet to complete, apparently), I was encouraged to apply for and attend Hollins College (now Hollins University) in order to obtain my bachelors and focus on writing. The encouragers were my professors at the community college and a couple of friends.

5. What is a luxury you are thankful for?

A. At the moment, being able to go to the grocery store feels like a luxury.

6. Favorite childhood memory.

A. I don't have a favorite one. I remember though that there was an abandoned house up the street from my grandmother's house, and my brother and my two young uncles (one a year younger than I, the other four years older than I), along with myself, would ride our bikes there and then dare one another to go look in the windows.

7. Favorite song–and why?

A. I don't have a favorite song, but I like most songs by the Eagles. They have nice melodies, are fairly easy to play on the guitar, and I like their harmonies.

8. Where is your favorite place?  Why?

A. My favorite place is my home, because it is where I belong and where I seek shelter from the storms of every day life.

9. What is your favorite scent?

A. The smell of Nestle's Original Toll House Cookies baking.

10. What is your favorite topic to talk about?

A. Everyone's favorite topic is themselves. However, I also like to talk about writing, music, books, video games, nature, politics, and many other topics. I'm widely read and I know a lot of stuff.

11. What do you like doing so much that you lose track of time?

A. Write or read.

12. If you had 5 minutes and the whole world was forced to listen, what would you say?

A. Get over yourselves and think about other people. Go read the New Testament and forget about the Old Testament if you want to live a Christian life. Otherwise, just be a good, decent person. That doesn't take five minutes but it sums up everything wrong with the world.

13. Whose life do you envy the most, and why?

A. I don't envy anyone's life. I admire some folks who have more talent than I, but I don't actually envy anyone.

14. What would you do differently with your education if you got a chance to start over?

A. I'd go for the bachelors at 18 instead of 24.

15. What would you do with your life if you had no fear?
A. I have a hard time imagining that, no fear. Actually I don't think I can.

________________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

I Made This Up

My tooth ached. I was going to have to venture out.

I had no idea what I would find. I hadn't been off the farm since 2020, when the virus hit and people in the United States began to drop like flies.

Mama and me, we were in the hills on our farm. I had Internet, though, because we weren't that rural.

I was in my last year of school, and would turn 18 in June.

But I'd never finish that last year.

Mama made me stay home even before the officials began telling everyone to practice something called "social distancing." We stayed home as long as we could, but the sugar and salt and other items began to run out.

The day Mama decided to go to the store, I cried.

"You stop that now," she chided. "But if I don't come back, don't you leave this place. Don't you leave until someone you trust says you can."

She never came back.

Mama could have been killed in a car wreck for all I knew. I feared she'd been taken, though. I'd read stories in the far corners of the Internet that the government was using this virus thing to take people, to simply steal them away, and then declare them dead.

I don't know what they were doing with those folks, and I didn't want to think about it.

The world began shutting itself down. For a while I tended the farm and things seemed like they might be normal. School maybe would be in my future in a few months, according to the TV. I was still online, things were still working. Mama had lots of money in her accounts from when Daddy'd died in an accident at work. I kept paying the bills when they came.

Then after some folks went back to their normal, the virus hit again.

I think most everyone died.

The TV stopped. My friends quit posting on Facebook, with no explanation. The guy who delivered the gas, who was the only person I'd seen on the farm since just before Mama left, never showed back up so I began rationing that so I would have it. Fortunately, Mama had filled the big tanks down at the barn.

Bills no longer came. Some things kept working though, like electricity and my Internet connection. The lights flickered sometimes during a storm, and once the Internet disappeared for days but it came back. The stuff still worked and I still used it.

I hadn't seen any updated news or information from anyone since late in 2021. That was four years ago.

There were no new videos of folks doing silly things to cheer one another up. No new videos of cats and dogs.

I'd been alone for 8 months when I felt like the world had stopped and left me alone. I didn't need the things Mama had gone after and I was afraid to leave the farm. I didn't have anyone to trust, really. We lived off the road a good ways, and the driveway was hard to spot. The last time I'd walked up there, it was so overgrown no one would have known a house was behind the trees.

I lived off of what I grew and canned. I had peach trees and I kept the seeds from the vegetables so I'd have enough for the next year. The cattle ran wild except for the six or seven I could manage. Once a year I shot a wild one and cut up the beef, canning most of it in case the electricity went out.

Never saw a soul, though.

Didn't see airplanes in the sky, or hear a car. It had been so long since I'd heard that lonesome whistle of the train way down over the hill that I'd about forgotten one once ran through there to the cement plant.

I checked the Internet every day after I did my chores. There were so many youtube videos I figured I could sit there and learn new things for years even if no one was putting up new stuff.

Then my tooth started hurting.

I googled how to fix your tooth and found that pulling it was about the only remedy without a dentist.

So I decided it was time to go see a dentist.

The ol' Toyota truck hadn't been moved much. I'd used it to drive to the mailbox for a while, but after the mail no longer came, I only turned the engine over once or twice every few months, to keep her running. Now I had to hope she'd hold up for the 15-mile trip to Daleville.

Getting out of the driveway was harder than I'd expected it to be. The dirt driveway was overgrown and I had to stop and cut down a few small palmetto trees every now and then. Bending over made my face throb with that tooth. Boy, did it ache.

The chain had rusted across the drive, but a spritz of WD-40 let me get that open. I was on the road, and now anyone could see that someone had driven back into that nearly invisible spot in the trees.

I did not pass a vehicle on my way to town. Nor did I see children playing, or clothes drying on clotheslines, or see another farmer making hay or a woman working in her garden. Every house I passed looked vacant.

Pulling onto the main road, I saw that the businesses along US 220 looked about the same as they did along Gravel Hill Road. Empty.

Empty like in the morning someone might come in and do a little cleaning. Not empty like vagrants had moved in and broken all the windows. Empty like someone had simply closed the door and then, "poof," no one went back.

I moved on through the community. No movement. No dogs, even.

My scream was audible when a cat darted across my path. First living thing I'd seen the whole trip.

I pulled into the dentist office and looked at the shuttered building. The windows weren't broken. The doors weren't open. No lights on. I hopped from the truck and tried a door.

I was going to have to break in.

Thursday Thirteen

1. I found this intriguing page about air quality index that shows current air qualities. The nearest place of measurement near me is in Lynchburg. It shows a moderately bad air quality index rated at 69 (not sure what all that means, but I feel vindicated in noticing more pollution around here, since it isn't in the green and great range).

2. This website shows a list of polluters by area. It also shows other types of neighborhood information, like crime, schools, sex offenders, etc. The information appears to be a bit out of date as the list it has of polluters in my county is not correct. Some of the companies they list aren't located here; others have shut down and are no longer in business.

3. These are major causes of pollution in my county: Webster Brick Co Inc., Shaw Connex Inc., Roanoke Cement Co., Gala Industries Inc., Altec Industries Inc.

4. I live right in between Roanoke Cement Co. and Altec Industries. I didn't know Altec was a major polluter. I'm also not that far from the county landfill.

5. Information on pollution is rather scarce on the internet at the moment. For a while you could find more current information on pollution, but some of it dates back to 2012 and the most recent dates I could find doing a quick search stopped at 2017.

6. Don't we have a right to know who's tossing crap into the air and water?

7. I don't much trust the information on any .gov sight right now, but the EPA.gov sight says we have at least three superfund clean-up sites in my county (that was as of 2013). They aren't scheduled for any action, however.

8. I run two air purifiers in my house 24/7. The exterior carbon filter turns gray with stuff within a month of use.

9. Opening the windows is supposed to be the best way to help get clean air in your house. But if the air outside smells worse than the air inside, can that really be the case?

10. I am going to plant more trees this spring. I doubt it helps much, but it sure won't hurt anything.

11. I wonder if one day the Blue Ridge Mountains will be called the Hazy Mountains?

12. Air pollution can come from places other than nearby. We've had smoke from fires in California drift this way before.

13. When the astronauts first went into space, the earth looked like a big blue marble. In 200 years, will it look gray instead?


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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 636th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Thursday Thirteen

1. Celebrate! I finished (more or less) a project that I began in late February - writing a keepsake magazine of Botetourt County for her 250th birthday next year. Still some editing and file arranging to do, but the writing is done.

2. My brother gives me the impression he'd like me to write more about him on my blog. But I don't see him very often. We talk on the phone once a week or so. He is a busy guy. I'm proud of him.

3. I'm not sure what it says about your life when you have an appointment to get your car inspected and the oil changed, and you're looking forward to it.

4. I belonged to a book club that I really enjoyed, but then it took a strange turn. New members, new locations (mostly in the homes of people with pets, and I can't do houses with pets), and a reading list that is cerebral but not fun. I haven't had time to read much anyway, what with working and taking care of my home, but I do miss my book club. I might have to do something about that in the new year.

5. My father wrote a song that I remember him singing when I was child, but I only remember two lines of it. I asked him to write it down for me but I don't think he can remember it, either. I am thinking about writing my own song using those two lines I remember.

6. We have lost a lot of trees on the farm to the emerald ash borer. This is an invasive pest that was first discovered here in 2015. The ash borers totally destroy the tree. Someone told me Hollins University lost a good number of trees to this, too.

7. We are having trouble coming up with decent dinners. I don't like to cook, which doesn't help, so it seems all we eat are chicken, pork, broccoli, carrots, green beans, peas and occasionally mashed potatoes. I need a cookbook: 365 different dinners for people who hate to cook.

8. Sometimes when the sun is just coming up, as it is right now, it reflects off the side of a distant house, and the structure looks like it is on fire. The glow against the windows is fierce.

9. After a big project, my office is wrecked. I guess a clean-up is on my horizon. I will put all my research in one spot and clear off my desk to make way for my next project. Know what that is? Working on the taxes. No wonder I put it off.

10. New moles itch.

11. What will you be for Halloween? It'll be here before you know it. There was a petition to change the date - people come out with that every now and then. Silly folks. Some traditions should be left alone.

12. The people of today are setting up the new mythologies for the civilizations of the future. That's a rather scary thought, isn't it?

13. Some of our literature will survive - there will always be a Frankenstein or a Dracula. Things that play to the darker side of humanity have staying power. I don't think that says much about us as human beings. We should instead have literature that outlives us that is good, like Annie of Green Gables, but only women of a certain age will even recognize that title. Maybe Harry Potter will be the mythology of goodness that lives on.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 625th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Thursday Thirteen

1. Many months have passed since I found myself have trouble making up a Thursday 13, but this morning my mind is mud.

2. Mondays are frequently difficult days but Thursdays generally are not, so I'm not sure where my brains are today. Well, I know, really. They're everywhere but here.

3. Monkeys are much like people, it seems. I've been watching Serengeti on Discover and they've had some very intriguing footage of baboons, which are not monkeys, but close enough.

4. Memories are things that make us who we are.

5. Muddled memories make for muddled people, I suppose.

6. My husband is mowing.

7. Microsoft is not making me happy these days. Windows 10 updates all the time. Get it right the first time, you know?

8. Mountains are my first love where geography is concerned. I love the height, the color, the way they reach up and catch the clouds. My Blue Ridge Mountains bring me joy.

9. Mastering something takes a lot of practice. I don't think I've mastered anything. I consider myself a Jill-of-all-trades sort of girls. From using a machete to growing mustard, I have many skills.

10. Mispronunciations plague me sometimes. I am supposed to be intelligent but I also frequently come up with my own forms of malapropisms. Usually I don't mean to it.

11. Meteorologists have hard jobs. Everyone expects the weather people to get it right but weather forecasting is not an exact science. (Actually, I'm not sure anything is an exact science. What do you think?)

12. Miniature items have always fascinated me. I once had a dollhouse that I wanted to fill with miniature furniture, etc., but like I do with many things, my interest waned and eventually the dollhouse was sold at a yard sale.

13. Millions of dollars in homes and infrastructure are being pulverized by Hurricane Dorian as I write this. Weather like that is a good reason not to live along the coast.

This Thursday 13 brought to you by the letter M.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 619th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Thursday Thirteen

1. So far this summer I've had an ear infection, strep throat, and now I have a blood clot in my leg. It's throbbing while I have it bent down to write this. Throb. Throb. Throb.

2. Writing at the computer is difficult if one is supposed to keep the leg elevated.

3. I have a laptop but I don't like writing on a laptop. I'm not even sure why I bought another laptop; I seldom use them. Mostly I just wanted to have something here as a back-up in case my desktop goes down. My last laptop had Windows Vista on it. It was old but my new laptop isn't any faster and nothing about it cries out to me, "use me, I'm the best!" That's probably because I bought the cheapest Dell I could find.

4. With Windows 10, one never knows when another update is coming, so I feel like the probability of a crash is always imminent.

5. I back everything up to a second hard drive, and sometimes if I'm working on something important, I send the file to myself in gmail.

6. I have tried to use OneDrive but apparently the Cloud is beyond my comprehension. I can't get the thing to upload. I don't blink my eyes in the proper sequence or something.

7. I'm still using MS Word 2007. I don't want to have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to Microsoft to use its products. I think you should only have to pay for it once and be done with it. It's not a visit to the doctor for an annual physical.

8. I believe that the cracks of our democracy are widening every day. When the earthquake comes, what will be left standing?

9. No wonder dystopian literature is popular. It is hard to imagine a utopian one. Human nature bends toward the dysfunctional.

10. I am feeling my age and feeling sad today, though I couldn't tell you why. It is a day to celebrate - 50 years ago we landed on the moon! And then we defunded the space program and lost all hope. Instead of reaching for the stars we reached for dollar bills and quarters. Watch the shiny nickel and dimes rain down. Enthralled by the chains of capitalism, we let our hearts and souls be derailed.

11. I like trains. Even the ones that jump the tracks.

12. In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gandolf gives his life so others may move forward. "You shall not pass!" he cries to the evil Balrog as the rest of the fellowship try to escape the mines of Moria. I wonder where our Gandolfs are today. Who will stop the Balrog? (Who gets to define what a Balrog is in today's world?) Who stole our better angels?

13. Gentleman may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? - Ah, but hasn't it been purchased? Aren't most of us playing with bread and circuses, slaving at our corporate jobs, not living our best lives because we don't even know what that is anymore? When up is down and sideways is straight, who can tell what is good, what is evil, what is bad, what is moral? Where will we go to find answers? We must look within, and if the answer is not there, then we must look to the past for wisdom. Not the Bible - but the past. Look at what has been, and swear it will not be again.


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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 613th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Thursday Thirteen #610

1. Good news! I'm a great aunt! No more information because I don't have permission from the parents to say anything or show photos, so I shall not, but it is exciting to have a new baby in the family. We've not had a wee one for a long time.

2. Other good news: I've been asked to give a poetry reading later in the summer at the local library. Publish one poem and suddenly you're a poet, I guess. Or maybe I've always been a poet, just unpublished.

3. My mother's birthday was last Thursday. She would have been 75 years old, but she passed away at the age of 56. Now that I have turned 56, that does not seem old at all. I was in my 30s when she died. She has been gone for 19 years, which is about as long as I lived with her before I married. There is no way to understand what someone else is suffering or going through, really. I tried but I was young, and even now, I can't know what she felt or thought.

4. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of my grandmother's death in 2007. She was 87 when she passed away. She outlived her daughter by seven years. My mother was her eldest child. I wonder what it felt like to lose a daughter like that.

5. This magazine project for the county is hanging over my head like a sword of Damocles. I feel like I have a grasp on what I want, but the process of getting there is like having paper cuts and hang nails. Sheesh.

6. In spite of the many balls I seem to be juggling in the air lately (far too many for me), I'm finding time to listen to books. I don't seem to have time to actually read them but I enjoy listening to stories whilst folding laundry or something.

7. Almost every day I dance to Uptown Funk. It is the quickest way to put a few "moderate activity" steps on my Fitbit. It's also fun. My Fitbit says I've walked 2,000 miles now since I bought it. Given the state of my health, this is good. I mean, it should probably be double that but I'll take the 2,000. I started using Fitbit on May 1, 2017. So two years for 2,000 miles. That works out to about 2.7 miles a day, or an average of around 6,500 steps. Not quite the 10,000 goal but my doctor seems ok with the effort.

8. A friend told me the deer were eating her flowers. It's a doe with a fawn so she is not taking drastic measures to stop the flower carnage, but I have noticed that some of these mother deer do like to eat odd things. Like my rose bushes. They have thorns. How do you eat thorns?

9. Speaking of deer, two just ran down the hill outside my window, moving lickety-split like something was chasing them, only I see nothing behind them. Maybe something over the hill spooked them. Last night while we were eating dinner, a gaggle of turkeys sauntered across the back yard. They were all toms. I think the mating season is over.

10. Sometimes when I see the animals looking in the windows (which they do, I have pictures), I feel like I'm the one in the zoo cage, and they're looking in on me. The introvert in her habitat, being spied on by curious deer, nosy bears, and noisy turkeys.

11. My friend gave me a Supergirl poster for my birthday. I am such a nerd. I have a Supergirl poster, a Lord of the Rings calendar, a picture of Gandolf, and a small collection of dolls that includes Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Arya Stark, and Xena: Warrior Princess in my office. (I don't play with them, they're still in their packages.) My brother tells me I was a nerd before it was fashionable to be a nerd.

12. I would like to make a video with dolls or clay or something, just to see if I can do it. I'll stick that on the bucket list for when I have time.

13. I also have a kitty cat that sings "Soft Kitty" to me when I push its paw. A friend gave me that, too. I think that goes with the nerd thing.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 610th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.