This afternoon is my second shot. By May, I will definitely be in shape to go out and about more or less as I please. I hope the library re-opens soon.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
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Arizona’s “water one-percenters”.
An intact petrified tree has been uncovered on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Drone footage of Iceland’s ongoing volcanic eruption.
A display of manuscripts in Baghdad that opened on April 4th includes some that are a thousand years old at least.
A kid on TikTok may have saved another one’s life from 800 miles away.
A recent experiment that involved baking bat shit has helped shed light on how artifacts are affected by being deposited in caves that hold bat colonies.
There may be a fifth fundamental force in nature.
A new review of a relatively old movie. Jennifer’s Body. Also, a critique of the critics.
I’ll call this a retrospective on Arpaio.
Why Japan can’t shake sexism. Lots of other places can’t, either. But this is a good article.
There’s been a small study done on combating loneliness during the pandemic. A surprising result or two.
The rice of the sea.
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My grandson has started back to in-person classes, four days a week — he’s in the afternoon session, with the other half of his classmates going in the morning. I am getting him there and back. This past week I got to drive, which is nice because my right hip is still giving me fits. Discernably better, but still — I walked him to school last Monday and it took an hour to get there and back; somewhat long for only a mile and a half round trip.
My daughter is working alternate weeks at home and at the office, so on the days she’s at home, I can use the car. Otherwise, we walk.
My granddaughter will be doing in-person classes two days a week starting tomorrow. I’m not sure if this will be all day or half days. She’s done rather well with the online schooling — I wonder how the rest of the year will play out.
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By Friday, my hip seemed to have worked almost all of the kinks out. I’m walking pretty much normally again. This is a very good thing. I will be a lot nicer to people than I have been. I believe I’ve mentioned that I don’t deal well with lingering pain. Since I have not actually been seeing very many people, I haven’t been feeling as guilty about it as I usually do.
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I got to listen to my mother feeling sorry for herself the other day. I don’t blame her at all — my stepfather is starting to fail physically as well as being totally unable to remember things for more than five minutes; but the feeling sorry for herself hasn’t been this bad since the last time they did a kitchen remodel.
I doubt my stepfather makes even another year and a half. He’s 92, and has been failing for the past five years at least. I will miss him — we’ve gotten along fine since it got through to him that I was not going to let him rearrange either my life or those of my daughters (he was: do this, do that, do something else; come back and he’d tell us what to do next, right down to the number of great-grandchildren). He stopped telling us how to live our lives, I stopped yelling at him. It worked for us.
My siblings went the polite route and avoided him — that didn’t work. I did occasionally hear about something he’d said or done involving them or one or another of their kids, and sometimes it was egregious enough that I would call and tell him what I’d heard and ask if I was going to have to start yelling at him again. That worked more often than not.
It has never been hard to tell that my sister doesn’t like him. She’s always polite around him, but she saves the grotty chores with inadequate tools for family members she doesn’t like.
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Love you guys!