The streak is the space station as it flew over the house tonight. It was in the sky for about six minutes. I had to turn the camera around to catch it from north to south.
The weatherman said it would be 10% on the horizon but it was straight overhead. It's a bit wobbly in the first picture because I had originally placed the camera on a tripod and aimed it at the horizon. In the wrong direction.
At least I caught it!
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| The Old Jail in Fincastle, Circa 1896. Ready for a new prisoner? |
The coronavirus rages on, and the federal government is at a virtual standstill while the loser-in-chief pouts and other Republicans do things that, frankly, I consider treasonous, to try to keep his status as president.
Many of these people belong in jail.
Locally, today we have 41 active cases. We are averaging about 16 cases a day. The state is at 10% positive testing, so it is safe to assume that for every 10 people you meet, one probably has or has had Covid.
Overall, this county of about 32,000 people has seen 895 cases. That's 2.797% of the population. Fourteen people have died locally. I knew three of them. Two other people I know who did not live locally have also perished from this virus.
I know these figures don't seem like much, but this isn't the flu, I don't care what "others" want to say about it. They aren't medical experts, they're just mouths with loud opinions, and frankly I am so sick of their mouths and their opinions, I don't care if I ever see or hear or talk to another one of them again.
I am especially sick of the one who is supposed to be the leader of this nation, who only plays a golf game that he cheats at, while people drop dead around him. I have spent four years trying to refrain from calling him names, but he is a fucking moron.
This morning I watched a feature on CBS about a man who had coronavirus. He lost his leg, his other foot, and both hands. Still think it's the flu? Ever hear about the flu doing that to somebody?
One of the most troubling things about the virus and the election, in tandem, is that it has reminded of me of something that I have always known: a whole lot of people in this nation are the most selfish people on the planet and totally incapable of thinking beyond the itch on their ass.
I'm not talking about "take my ball and go home selfish." I'm talking about, "Fuck you, I don't give a crap if you die, but die so I don't have to step over you or be bothered about it in any manner whatsoever" selfish. I have known this all my life, mostly because of smokers. Smokers didn't give a crap if they were causing me asthma or if I had to alter my entire life around their bad habit. Not a single one cared that I couldn't eat in restaurants, couldn't go dancing with my husband, couldn't even walk into a place of business for a long time without becoming ill. They needed their smoke, and to hell with me.
That's the way the anti-maskers/anti-virus hoaxers are. I am going to do whatever the fuck I want and to hell with you. Selfish. Mean. Vindictive. Evil, noxious people.
I rejoiced with the laws finally stopped smoking in various places, one by one here in Virginia, or when the corporations did it themselves. I could finally go out and do things. (Apparently I've been in training for a lockdown most of my life.)
But you know what? I won't rejoice when all of these dumbasses who aren't wearing masks become ill or drop dead. I will be sad, and I will feel sorry for them and their families. I will be angry at the federal government for its terrible messaging and its total mishandling of this pandemic, and I will be angry at the virus for killing them, and I will pity the person who caught the virus because of ignorance, stubbornness, and willful stupidity. I already cringe every day when I see the death toll. Sometimes, I even cry over it.
As far as thinking ahead - the vaccine will be months - literally months if not a year - in reaching everyone it needs to reach. This is like when my husband repairs a septic tank, hauling in a big backhoe and other equipment, and then the person goes, "Oh, I never realized it was going to tear up all of my grass." What the hell did you think was going to happen?
No, they don't think further than tomorrow. If it isn't going to happen tomorrow, they can't grasp it. They expect instant gratification, a vaccine yesterday, a new president immediately, election results on the night of the election, can't figure out how anything works, reject science all the while typing angrily on their cell phone that SCIENCE created.
Covidiots, someone called them.
I'm just tired of it all. Tired of all of these mouths, tired of stupid, tired of caring, even though I know I'll never stop caring, even if none of them deserve a second of my brain space.
Because I have always tried to be a nice person, and nice people care.
The first photo is of the full moon through the trees. The second is a long exposure star-trail. The white streak in the middle of the photo is the moon rising up.
I like how the star trails are different colors, white, yellow, blue, greenish. It's rather amazing.
Thanksgiving passed quietly here. We had no company and I sent my mother-in-law a plate. She did not complain about eating alone after having had to quarantine because she'd been to church with someone who a day later tested positive for Covid.
Also, a cousin close by has Covid, so we are all being careful and trying not to fall over one another. Not that we would, but now it seems even more incumbent upon us all to be careful.
I know people are being careful. I also know people are not being careful. Those are the ones I worry about. Then there is the decision about what "careful" entails. I am not going into the stores - but I will have to go into the pharmacy late next week to pick up my medications. The store I use doesn't have a drive-thru. While we are mostly doing food pick ups now - I call it adventure shopping - sometimes one of us has to go into a store.
My chiropractor is not seeing me now except in emergencies, at my request. I do better when I see her regularly, but I will have to get by as best I can. I am still having back issues and trouble playing the guitar, which is frustrating. I pulled out my little guitelele (which is like a six-string ukulele) and have been playing that. However, I put new strings on it and the thing simply will not stay in tune long.
Then there's the question of haircuts. I haven't had one in six weeks. I am contemplating one final trip to the hairdresser for this year and asking for a short cut. The woman I have decided to use assured me she could make me her first customer of the day and get me in and out in 20 minutes. We'd both be masked. No one else would be in her shop.
I do not speak often of how I feel about the pandemic and the things going on me. Not on a deep level, anyway. I am most fretted by my inability to simply pick up and go - make a stop at Walmart, for example. I haven't been in a Walmart since this started. Or go to the bookstore. I did not, as a rule, regularly visit people, but I did stop in and check on my mother-in-law and now I don't do that. My husband checks on her. This concerns me because he is a guy and they don't always get the hint that something needs to be fixed or changed.
People who do not take this seriously frustrate me. Yes, I know the survival rate is 98%. That means that two people out of every 100 people you know will die. Which two are you willing to sacrifice? Go to your Facebook page and look at all of those people who are Facebook friends with you. Which two do you want to see dead simply because you won't wear a mask or wash your hands, or stay home for the holidays? Odds are good that two of them will die. Will it be your fault?
Obviously, people don't think like that. I think like that, but it's an established fact that I'm not the normal sort of person and never have been. This is not a bad thing - it would be a boring world if we were all alike.
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| This picture makes me hear the theme to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my head. |
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| Pretty little five-point buck. He had a wide rack. |
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| A deer and a wild turkey. |
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| Red-headed woodpecker. |
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| The bandit squirrel doing a thorough job of self-cleansing. |
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| And then a long stretch on the side of the tree. Squirrel yoga, maybe? |
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| Run turkey! Run! |
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| And a partridge in a pear tree. Not really. I think they're doves. |
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| The woodpecker again. |
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| Old Mother Hubbard taking a nap. |
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| Deer tail. |
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| Ending as we began, with the Halloween moon. The problem with this photo is the moon is over-exposed. If I could have captured the horizon with the moon like in the top picture, I'd have had something. |
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| Lastly, some kind of finch I think. I am still not up on my birds yet. |
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I learned that my elementary school music teacher passed away recently. Her name was Mrs. Tingler, and she taught music from the time I was at Breckinridge Elementary School until I left there in sixth grade.
She did not instill my love of music in me - that honor belongs to my father, who has always sang and played the guitar. But she did impress me with the variety of music available, and opened my eyes to many different types of instruments.
She would bring in drums, bongos, triangles, recorders, tambourines, and other such instruments and hand them out to students to play.
Some of my favorite songs we sang were Senor Don Gato, a song about a cat, and Goodbye, Old Paint, a song about an old pony. Sometimes I call my husband "Old Paint," and he always looks at me funny when I do that.
Once Mrs. Tingler took me and another student to other elementary schools to sing. I also played the flute during the songs. The only song I recall that we sang was Morning Has Broken, but I know there were others. It was a big deal to be pulled from class to go around to other schools, riding in Mrs. Tingler's car from place to place.
A while back, I connected with Mrs. Tingler on Facebook and was able to thank her for her influence in my life. I am glad I was able to do that.
I don't know if students still have music at the elementary school level, what with the focus on STEM learning and teaching to tests. But hearing the sounds of young folks playing instruments and lifting their voices in song has to be one of the greatest delights of life.
I hope every young student has a Mrs. Tingler in his or her life at some point.
It's on a PVC pole that supposedly the squirrels can't climb. So far I haven't seen them trying to get into the feeder, although I have noticed that the squirrels and turkeys both like the seeds that spill from the feeder.
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| Memorial at Virginia Tech |
