each day an adventure in alaska: November 2020

and November is nearly over. we have survived many months of this madness and several years of the political madness.

one hopes we are on the verge of putting it all behind us. i suspect that we are in the calm before the storm. trump still has a few months to inflict his madness and the virus is no doubt headed for a full swing before it relents to the possibility of vaccination.

of course, i'm pretty sure that many will refuse to get the vaccine and even if they do, they will not return from round two of the vaccine. idiocy will drag this out months beyond what is possible..idiocy already has quite frankly. so here we are.

idiocy is also at play in the post election shenanigans. trump continues to claim that he won but that there was so much fraud and trickery that Biden has falsely been called the winner. his surrogates also continue to push this line of foolishness. there are enough out there who are addicted to conspiracy crack that they hear nothing else but the madness and they have bought it. Biden will have to come in to office with a great percentage of the citizens not believing he is there legally. trump and crew are making a right mess of this nation.

just as they intended from the start.

it's with great sadness that many of us realize how easy it is to manipulate so many. they will believe nothing factual any more. they have chosen to wrap themselves in this fantasy world of the GOP creation.

no idea how or if this can ever be corrected.

the ice formations before the snow. it's been a bit dreary today out there. the dogs and i did manage a nice long trek around university Lake. perhaps tomorrow i can force myself to be more ambitious. i only have a few more days before i head back to work.

i did sign up for text messaging but so far i haven't really had any requests to work. may just put out there that i'm willing to do a half shift in ER if they need it. i'll wait until my next stretch.

i also made it to the post office. 13 calendars are in the mail. done, check...get the business end of Christmas out of the way in case it really gets nuts around here, which i expect it may.

it appears the numbers in the valley have spiked. they had nearly half of what Anchorage had for the past 24 hours in positive tests and their population base is a great deal less so not good for them. the report said we have 27 vented patients in the state. comments will still say these are all lies, overblown, faked. so now not only are nurses, Dr's and other healthcare workers no longer seen as heroes, we are seen as lying about the pandemic...lying to make extra cash. they say hospitals make money from covid..in actuality hospitals make more money i suspect from elective surgeries...but those are soon to be stopped again i suspect. we make no more money from covid than any thing else. we lose money as it takes up so much time, ppe and housekeeping hours.

i do not ever recall entire units being made into flu floors, but that is what is happening with covid. the 4th floor is all covid and soon another unit will have to open to accommodate the increased covid cases..so bull to those who love to claim that this is just like the flu. it's not.

i think many are feeling the impact of months of this kind of isolation. our lives are changed.

i am grateful that at least up here we have the amazing outdoors to keep us going. in other places, with greater populations, the outside spaces have become off limits. i think we need it mentally. especially in winter months. it's good to breath in the fresh air.

i want my lungs as healthy as possible in case i get this bug. i want my body to be fairly healthy...that doesn't mean i have been exercising as much as i should. i at least don't think i have gained loads of extra weight....i try to not weigh myself, but my clothes still seem to fit.

admittedly, i am often in my pj's again by 5pm...snuggled up watching brainless tv.

tonight i have been watching a few episodes of the crown.

in one they were talking about some distant relatives that were put in a mental institution but though they lived, they had been claimed to have died...the Queen and her sister had not been aware of this, though their mother was well aware. it is pretty crazy.

not sure if the plan was to make Charles less of a sinister character in all this...but i think that does come through. i mean he is one terrible husband. he was before they even wed, what with the whole Camilla thing. strange pressures on all of them. you can't love who you love. it's a strange world of obligation and pomp and circumstance.

hard to feel too sorry for those who have it all handed to them.

even Diana. she made choices and for that she does bear some responsibility.

many who have fame seem to have a love/hate relationship with the press. i think they were overly intrusive and they have become that way for many out there....but these same that complain about it use the press when they desire to advance themselves and their causes. so it can be difficult to feel to badly for them.

she saw the truth of Charles before she went through with it all...

i still think the bulimia may pre-date the royal family. she was a dancer...bulimia and dancing often go hand in hand. certainly she was not as stable as the public was made to believe from the start.

a tragic life for sure though. as they say, be careful what you ask for...often times our hopes and dreams are our greatest folly

i recall my mother almost cursing God. she believed that since she was active in church and paid a full tithe that she should or would be rewarded in certain financial ways...that she would not be struggling to pay the bills.

i recall many times saying to her that i didn't think we can determine how we will be blessed, that we can't demand those things of God. she had 7 healthy pregnancies and 7 healthy children. that was a blessing enough. she was never without food or shelter....

truthfully, i highly doubt that God has that much to do with our lives individually. it's quite egotistical and foolish of us all to think so. i still say prayers though. we need to believe in something often times. we need to feel there is someone and something more powerful than ourselves that will make the wrong, right.

i often think of those in Germany, in cattle cars, dragged from their family members and sent to death and death camps....i have no doubt that they prayed fervently. i think of other instances in history where no doubt many of our fellow humans prayed fervently. i know i prayed fervently when we were told to prepare for a crash landing. i'm sure most if not all on the plane were also praying fervently....we didn't crash but how many other planes have crashed, with all on board praying fervently. how many have died anyway, despite praying fervently...

it God did not intervene in the loss of all these lives who were no doubt praying fervently and in more dire circumstances than i've ever been...why should i believe that my words are really heard. they call things miracles because they are rare. none of us is really all that special in any Gods eyes. i know that sound negative but i just think we all get too caught up thinking God will sweep in and fix all our personal issues.

there are many out there living in intolerable situations...many are never spared or saved. that is just the truth of the world.

we are mostly on our own. we still pray because we need that hope and hope is a good thing to hand on to.

i think when things go right we also tend to believe it was Gods intervention when really it was us.

in the church growing up...if the kids turned out rotten the parents were somehow always to blame, but if they turned out well, all praise to God and the church. i always thought that odd.

i always figure it takes just as much faith to believe in God as to not believe in God. you can't prove the existence of God either way. one brother told me being agnostic was just laziness. i think you can pray and have some level of faith without having absolute faith. i never liked the constant talk of knowledge...one can not know these things, one can only hope these things, want these things, believe these things. you can believe strongly, but it's never actual knowledge as knowledge requires tangible facts.

leaving has always made me subject to being the reprobate...in truth my life has been fairly obscure. i have been decent. i have not become a drug addict or alcoholic or danced naked around a pole or been to jail or become a prostitute. i simply chose a different path, believed differently. there really is no way to rectify that. when you turn from something others believe it is always going to be seen as a bit of a personal attack.

love the flakes of ice. always so beautiful. i miss it a bit once the snow piles on. i really should make a drive and see a few different things over the next few days.

it's been two years since the big quake hit. there were so many aftershocks. it was really unnerving.

i wore the face mask this day because it added a layer of warmth...it was pretty cold up there this day.

with the snow came warmer temperatures.

Ivy was pretty sore today...it will be a long few months waiting for her surgery now that i have decided on it. i do want to keep her moving as i want her to not lose muscle mass. she is a trooper.