Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Heinlein's stories about this always used to be particularly chilling for me because I could tell he had thought out his predictions very carefully and had researched them thoroughly .. including the particularly chilling insight that the general public had taken such a long time to figure out what Scudder was up to that the coup was all over before they realized anything was wrong. Heinlein was dead on the money with that particular part of his analysis .. I've seen evidence all around me that people just aren't getting how dangerous the dominionist movement is, partly because the most frightening public statements they make are encoded to sound innocuous to people outside the movement, just like this one, and most people in the mainstream just don't hear them for what they are, or they just plain don't want to know because they're afraid to think about the implications.

"I cannot stress enough that the dominionist movement needs to be watched very closely on a continuous basis, because if they *are* setting up to attempt a theocratic 'Christian law' coup in this country, there may be very little if any overt warning of it before it's too late to stop it. I'm basing that on past history, particularly the NSDAP takeover in Germany in the 1920's-1930's, as well as what I've seen from the movement itself .."

-- lihan161051, 2008-01-08

"Heinlein's stories about this always used to be particularly chilling for me because I could tell he had thought out his predictions very carefully and had researched them thoroughly .. including the particularly chilling insight that the general public had taken such a long time to figure out what Scudder was up to that the coup was all over before they realized anything was wrong. Heinlein was dead on the money with that particular part of his analysis .. I've seen evidence all around me that people just aren't getting how dangerous the dominionist movement is, partly because the most frightening public statements they make are encoded to sound innocuous to people outside the movement, just like this one, and most people in the mainstream just don't hear them for what they are, or they just plain don't want to know because they're afraid to think about the implications.

"I cannot stress enough that the dominionist movement needs to be watched very closely on a continuous basis, because if they *are* setting up to attempt a theocratic 'Christian law' coup in this country, there may be very little if any overt warning of it before it's too late to stop it. I'm basing that on past history, particularly the NSDAP takeover in Germany in the 1920's-1930's, as well as what I've seen from the movement itself .."

-- lihan161051, 2008-01-08

"String? I've got a string!"

*pounce*

"Okay, you've got a string. But you'll have to bring it back if you want me to swing it again."

Hmm. A slighly tighter grip next time.

"String? I've got a string!"

*pounce*

"Okay, you've got a string. But you'll have to bring it back if you want me to swing it again."

Hmm. A slighly tighter grip next time.

[It sounded more coherent in my head, too.]

Okay, no groceries today either. I started getting ready to go out, and my knees were wobbling in the shower. I rested a little, hoping to feel better enough to take the bus even though this is extra-un-fun weather for waiting for the bus, which I don't like anyhow, and even though the bus costs money (I figured walking all the way was out of the question today, especially if I'm going to walk to the doctor tomorrow where I can't get to by bus), but while waiting for my legs to feel better my head and neck started feeling like I'd been up too long ... which kinda makes sense since I woke up just before midnight. (I had crashed around 15:00 and slept through primetime without having programmed the VCR again.) So now I'm feeling crashy, and feeling stupid for still not having gotten out to buy coffee and eggs and bread and toilet paper and cheese, but also feeling like I would be stupid to push myself to do the walking (not blocks and blocks if I take the bus, but far enough from bus stop to destination each way given how my legs feel) and the carrying of stuff and the keeping my head clear in the grocery store despite feeling like I'm on the verge of falling asleep. (The major problem with that last point is that I'm already losing track of what I'd been about to do -- or at the moment, what I'd been about to write -- every three or four minutes, and that seems like a recipe for a shopping trip that takes three times as long as it should and still omits things that were on the list.) Something as routine -- as basic -- as picking up groceries should not be this difficult. But that's the kind of week fortnight I'm having.

If I'd been feling a bit better yesterday, going out then and resting today to be able to get to the doctor tomorrow would've been a good bet. At this point I think trying to do just about anything is going to screw up my chances of making it to my appointment tomorrow.

On the plus side it means not having to find out whether the sidewalks are as slippery as the street until tomorrow. (I've been hearing a lot of cars spin their wheels tring to climb Lombard St. -- and Lombard isn't enough of a slope that one would ordinarily even think to apply the verb 'climb'. A couple of them apparently even got stuck, with traffic backed up behinf them, around two hours ago. From my window the travel lanes just looked wet the last time I checked, with all the white stuff on the parking lanes and the sidewalk. But Weather Underground says the temperature is hovering right around melting, so the situation is probably pessimal for traction.)

(Perrine just reached out her paw and zapped my arm with static electricity.)

I have a little stuff left in the fridge, just not a very appealling selection (and the little bit of milk still in the carton is just shy of the Perrine-won't-drink-it stage, but she's a little fussier about milk than I am) ... and whatever I do make has to taste good without curry powder (I wonder whether I've got all the spices to mix some up from scratch, and enough ability to focus to not get the ratios completely bonkers). I have to remember not to eat after 3:00 anyhow (appointment tomorrow is at 15:00, and the fasting period for a cholesterol blood test is twelve hours, right?) so if I don't get a decent meal in me a bit before then I'm going to be majorly uncomfortable while trying to remember what to mention to the doctor. I just hope my sleep pattern shifts enough that I'm not also falling asleep then. (It's been pretty random, so that bit might very well work out. As long as my body doesn't pull the "sleep for an hour and a half and then not be able to sleep any more" stunt that it did the night before last.)

I try to be good about clearing the sidewalk in front of my house when it snows, even if not terribly quick about it. I had planned to attempt it -- fearing how my injured wrist would tolerate it -- after returning from shopping. Y'know, between the crashy-enough-for-things-to-look-strange feeling (peripheral vision gets wonky when I'm this tired -- does that happen to everyone else?) and the painful wrist, maybe I'll let myself be irresponsible about the sidewalk this once. Hey, it'll match most of the rest of the block this way.

The current un-warm spell has lasted long enough that the house's thermal momentum from the warm spell before is starting to run out: on the 8th I was seeing temperatures around 295K (72°F/22°C) in the bedroom and bathroom, where I have electric space heaters plugged in, and 289K (60°F/16°C) in the kitchen (maybe a degree or two warmer when I was cooking); this morning the temperatures were 289K (60°F/16°C) in the bedroom, 287K (57°F/14°C) in the bathroom, and 282K (48°F/9°C) in the kitchen, and that's about how the last few days have been. It does make me more inclined to want warm food rather than just grabbing snacks out of the fridge. Other than my toes getting cold when I've been in the kitchen, and my arm getting cold reaching out from under the blankets to type, it's not too terribly bad. I would like a bit more warmth when drying myself after a shower though. And I'm mostly sticking to just those three rooms.

As with last week, there are things I really wanted to do this weekend that I haven't been awake enough/organized enough to try to arrange rides to and have no idea whether my body will cooperate at the right times anyhow. So don't count on seeing me (but if I get lucky with the timing of when my body inconveniences me which way, I would love to get to see people -- I could use the social time). Where I go and what I do is going to be pretty much last minute decisions and attempts to find transportation. Wish me luck. (Obviously I'm not headed north to Arisia this weekend. (I liked Arisia back when I used to attend it. I hope my finances and health sync up such that I can go to it again some year soon.))

If I lie very still, I can start to feel better enough to think that I really ought to run out to the grocery store after all. Then I try to move my head, or sit up, and that feeling goes away. (Writing this has killed enough time to make the idea of pushing myself to go out just to get it done more obviously more of a pain than I want to face right now. Er ... that sentence probably should've had some punctuation. I started typing ninety minutes ago, with frequent spacing-out breaks and changing my mind back and forth about a couple of paragraphs. And getting zapped by the cat, of course.)

Oh! Wait! I think I might still have a small butternut squash that I keep forgetting about. If so, that would make an appetizing, filling, and hot dinner. I think I even have a small quantity of red lentils left to stuff in the scooped out part. (I just have to pick something squash-compatible to do with the lentils that doesn't require curry powder.) And it'll involve running the oven long enough to make the kitchen a smidgen less uncomfortable. Yay, a plan for dinner!

[It sounded more coherent in my head, too.]

Okay, no groceries today either. I started getting ready to go out, and my knees were wobbling in the shower. I rested a little, hoping to feel better enough to take the bus even though this is extra-un-fun weather for waiting for the bus, which I don't like anyhow, and even though the bus costs money (I figured walking all the way was out of the question today, especially if I'm going to walk to the doctor tomorrow where I can't get to by bus), but while waiting for my legs to feel better my head and neck started feeling like I'd been up too long ... which kinda makes sense since I woke up just before midnight. (I had crashed around 15:00 and slept through primetime without having programmed the VCR again.) So now I'm feeling crashy, and feeling stupid for still not having gotten out to buy coffee and eggs and bread and toilet paper and cheese, but also feeling like I would be stupid to push myself to do the walking (not blocks and blocks if I take the bus, but far enough from bus stop to destination each way given how my legs feel) and the carrying of stuff and the keeping my head clear in the grocery store despite feeling like I'm on the verge of falling asleep. (The major problem with that last point is that I'm already losing track of what I'd been about to do -- or at the moment, what I'd been about to write -- every three or four minutes, and that seems like a recipe for a shopping trip that takes three times as long as it should and still omits things that were on the list.) Something as routine -- as basic -- as picking up groceries should not be this difficult. But that's the kind of week fortnight I'm having.

If I'd been feling a bit better yesterday, going out then and resting today to be able to get to the doctor tomorrow would've been a good bet. At this point I think trying to do just about anything is going to screw up my chances of making it to my appointment tomorrow.

On the plus side it means not having to find out whether the sidewalks are as slippery as the street until tomorrow. (I've been hearing a lot of cars spin their wheels tring to climb Lombard St. -- and Lombard isn't enough of a slope that one would ordinarily even think to apply the verb 'climb'. A couple of them apparently even got stuck, with traffic backed up behinf them, around two hours ago. From my window the travel lanes just looked wet the last time I checked, with all the white stuff on the parking lanes and the sidewalk. But Weather Underground says the temperature is hovering right around melting, so the situation is probably pessimal for traction.)

(Perrine just reached out her paw and zapped my arm with static electricity.)

I have a little stuff left in the fridge, just not a very appealling selection (and the little bit of milk still in the carton is just shy of the Perrine-won't-drink-it stage, but she's a little fussier about milk than I am) ... and whatever I do make has to taste good without curry powder (I wonder whether I've got all the spices to mix some up from scratch, and enough ability to focus to not get the ratios completely bonkers). I have to remember not to eat after 3:00 anyhow (appointment tomorrow is at 15:00, and the fasting period for a cholesterol blood test is twelve hours, right?) so if I don't get a decent meal in me a bit before then I'm going to be majorly uncomfortable while trying to remember what to mention to the doctor. I just hope my sleep pattern shifts enough that I'm not also falling asleep then. (It's been pretty random, so that bit might very well work out. As long as my body doesn't pull the "sleep for an hour and a half and then not be able to sleep any more" stunt that it did the night before last.)

I try to be good about clearing the sidewalk in front of my house when it snows, even if not terribly quick about it. I had planned to attempt it -- fearing how my injured wrist would tolerate it -- after returning from shopping. Y'know, between the crashy-enough-for-things-to-look-strange feeling (peripheral vision gets wonky when I'm this tired -- does that happen to everyone else?) and the painful wrist, maybe I'll let myself be irresponsible about the sidewalk this once. Hey, it'll match most of the rest of the block this way.

The current un-warm spell has lasted long enough that the house's thermal momentum from the warm spell before is starting to run out: on the 8th I was seeing temperatures around 295K (72°F/22°C) in the bedroom and bathroom, where I have electric space heaters plugged in, and 289K (60°F/16°C) in the kitchen (maybe a degree or two warmer when I was cooking); this morning the temperatures were 289K (60°F/16°C) in the bedroom, 287K (57°F/14°C) in the bathroom, and 282K (48°F/9°C) in the kitchen, and that's about how the last few days have been. It does make me more inclined to want warm food rather than just grabbing snacks out of the fridge. Other than my toes getting cold when I've been in the kitchen, and my arm getting cold reaching out from under the blankets to type, it's not too terribly bad. I would like a bit more warmth when drying myself after a shower though. And I'm mostly sticking to just those three rooms.

As with last week, there are things I really wanted to do this weekend that I haven't been awake enough/organized enough to try to arrange rides to and have no idea whether my body will cooperate at the right times anyhow. So don't count on seeing me (but if I get lucky with the timing of when my body inconveniences me which way, I would love to get to see people -- I could use the social time). Where I go and what I do is going to be pretty much last minute decisions and attempts to find transportation. Wish me luck. (Obviously I'm not headed north to Arisia this weekend. (I liked Arisia back when I used to attend it. I hope my finances and health sync up such that I can go to it again some year soon.))

If I lie very still, I can start to feel better enough to think that I really ought to run out to the grocery store after all. Then I try to move my head, or sit up, and that feeling goes away. (Writing this has killed enough time to make the idea of pushing myself to go out just to get it done more obviously more of a pain than I want to face right now. Er ... that sentence probably should've had some punctuation. I started typing ninety minutes ago, with frequent spacing-out breaks and changing my mind back and forth about a couple of paragraphs. And getting zapped by the cat, of course.)

Oh! Wait! I think I might still have a small butternut squash that I keep forgetting about. If so, that would make an appetizing, filling, and hot dinner. I think I even have a small quantity of red lentils left to stuff in the scooped out part. (I just have to pick something squash-compatible to do with the lentils that doesn't require curry powder.) And it'll involve running the oven long enough to make the kitchen a smidgen less uncomfortable. Yay, a plan for dinner!