Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot

 Back in the early 80's a radio station in the Twin Cities (that's Minneapolis and St. Paul to those who are not familiar with the moniker) that played a song on WLOL every morning during the morning show with Heinz and Berglund.  I guarantee this Swedish jibberish will stick in your head.  Bonus points if you can translate.  LOL

Did You Gather With Others?

In scrolling through what's left of my social media accounts, I saw so many pictures of family gatherings opening gifts, having dinner, etc., all indoors and without masks.  Even the people who earlier in the pandemic self-righteously posted #staythefuckathome posted pictures of their kids crawling all over their aunts, uncles, and grandparents,. 

So much for staying home and not mixing households.  

People are playing with fire.  You know what happens when people play with fire;  people get burned.  Unfortunately, when the spike happens in about a week or so, hospital beds will be tough to come by and the medical staff simply too depleted and exhausted to care if you get treated or die.  

Quesadillas and Bean Dip with Corn Chip Scoops

 It's an unusual Christmas Eve.  Usually about now I'm racing around making preparations for our annual gathering after attending church service.  

Not this year.  The church service is online and nobody is coming over.  

Yesterday I made the trek to San Jose to drop off gifts for my son and his husband.  I did not even get to hug him or go inside his house.  Usually they come up and stay for a couple days over Christmas.  On the bright side, I got to see his face and not an image on a screen.  

Another tradition buster:  Mexican food for Christmas Eve dinner.  I'm going to make quesadillas and we will have M's bean dip with corn chip scoops.  It's been a long time since I've made M's bean dip.  I had to call her to ask what was in it.  It's been a long time for her as well and she had to dig through her memory bank to recall the recipe.  M's bean dip is *really* good.  I remember one party I had some years ago and M brought her famous bean dip.  One of my husband's friends commented, "I am going to marry whoever made this bean dip - even if it's a guy."  

At the time my husband's friend was, what he thought, to be happily married.  Nope.  The wife decided to run off with some guy in a motorcycle gang.  M is now single as well.  Perhaps the bean dip marriage will really happen. 

Age of Aquarius

Yesterday was a very special solstice.  There has been a colossal shift in cosmic energy the past week or so.   We had a lunar eclipse that was packed with energy along with Jupiter and Saturn conjoining on solstice.  What a TREAT!  We will be feeling the after effects for decades if not millennia.  

We are moving away from the material and into spiritual or virtual if you will.  Our whole way of operating over the last two hundred years with focus on amassing material things is dissipating.   It's exciting and scary all at the same time.  Like any transition, it will not be without growing pains.  Yesterday marked the door closing and locking on years of exploiting the planet and people for material gain.  It's over.  There is no going back.  Innovation and technology awaits us moving forward.  Feeling as though everything is up in the air is the new norm.  Aquarius is an air sign and it's also very intellectual. 

We've been hearing about it for decades - this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.  

The System is Down

 The system is down.  The system is down.  The system is down.  

I went to log on today and guess what......the system is down.  

It's been a while since the system has given me trouble.  Computers and associated programming are not perfect.  I had a flashback to when my son was in his early teens and he would have LAN parties in the garage.  This little song was one that stuck in my memory and still sing to myself when.....the system is down.  You're welcome for the ear worm.  

Cancelled Christmas

 Christmas has been cancelled at our house this year and I'm strangely OK with it.  Usually, it's standing room only at breakfast.  We're not even wrapping gifts this year.  They are going under the tree in their boxes or bags they came in.  One less environmental crime we are committing; the obnoxious waste of wrapping paper.  The presents themselves are of practical uses.  

It's the stay-at-home order that is allowing us to just be.  THANK YOU!!  It's puzzling as to how many social gatherings and in person meetings I'm still invited to during the pandemic.  Even invoking the stay-at-home orders reason for opting out draws mild criticism.  A fat percentage of the meetings are a complete waste of time, anyway. 

I'm loathing the end of the virus stay-at-home orders and when the world returns to it's hectic pace.  It's so peaceful not running around all the time and not having people in my face. 

COVID Vaccine

 Everybody is anticipating the arrival and distribution of the COVID vaccine.  Not so fast.  I'm no doctor nor scientist, but I do know that vaccines take years to develop with in-depth testing.  How did the COVID vaccine jump though all the scrutinizing so quickly?  Is it because it's an emergency?  Yeah, I guess I could buy that.  At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I know of nurses who work the COVID units who do not want the vaccine for that very reason - the long term effects are unknown.  

One theory is that the vaccine should not be given to younger people as the long-term effect will be sterilization.  This is supposedly on purpose as over population is what's going to kill us all.  We can't seem to control our own reproduction at sustainable levels so it has to be done for us.  The government will somehow think we will have a choice to get the vaccine, but the 'choice' will not be a choice at all.  Proof of COVID vaccination will be required to fly, attend events, etc. 

In any event, one of the most helpful things you can do is to get the pneumonia vaccine.  No, it will not prevent COVID but it can help you survive it.  I've heard that's one of the reasons the US death rate is so high; we don't vaccinate ourselves for pneumonia like other nations do.  The pneumonia vaccine has been around for a long time and I personally trust that more than some vaccine that has been rushed through the process.  

In the meantime please stay safe out there.  I don't wish the virus on anybody - even those I have angrily roasted in this dumb blog. 

 

California Taxes

 If taxing was the solution, why is California so poor?  We have extremely high taxes, but every agency keeps crying for more and more money.