Well in the world of one small step forward, possibly a giant stumble back...my car won't start. Not sure exactly what is going on. Matthew was using it to run his mom to get her prescription (he just replaced the starter in his car but it was acting funny and he was worried about driving it) and my car wouldn't start. He ended up taking his car (fingers crossed they get back) and mine is possibly the starter, we don't know. He is going to have his brother or a friend come over and look at mine and he knows enough about car repairs for simple things if it's the starter we can get it fixed without taking it to the shop.

DH's aunt has died. I don't know when/how we'll mark her death.

Our niece is a nurse in GA. She's been diagnosed, but seems to be doing okay thus far. She has 3 kids. Her father (DH's brother) is now quarantining. He's got multiple underlying conditions.

A local s-i-l and her husband are essential workers. They both have to be tested. He was exposed at work (he works for the state and moonlights at a hospital; I don't know which job was involved). She works for a home improvement retailer. Their 3 adult kids and his elderly mother (with multiple co-morbidities) live with them.

I see these astroturf protests, and it really does things to me. I listen to Orange Julius and it does things to me. I have to find something to do that takes me out of my head, so that I don't become this bitter, vengeful person, but I don't want to do anything.

Sorry. Whinging done. I just had to get it out.

Cindy, I'm sorry about your DH's aunt.

And your family who is sick and quarantining. I had to step away from Twitter and Lindsay Graham, who is someone else I want to throat punch repeatedly and not just turn into a rage of profanities.

Curiously, my comfort watch lately has been The Prisoner. On the nose, much?

Also, I find myself wanting to live in the Village. It's so quaint and everybody's so well dressed.

"I'm not a Free Man! I'm an easily contented Number!"

I'm so upset that actual public health management has become so politicized. It's so dangerous to a functioning society.

That said, I read a Twitter thread yesterday about how in 1918, after the first wave of the influenza was over, the residents of San Francisco refused to wear their masks anymore, and the death rate began to go up again, and the public health chief had to make them mandatory, and it was a whole thing -- but it was the right thing to do, and even the people in opposition to the mandatory masks admitted so afterwards.

So I think this isn't new, and also: the problem with good public health management is that if you do it right, people complain and everyone thinks you're overreacting. Right now we're in the middle of it all and the complainers can't see how they're being helped by the restrictions. I do expect a spike in those areas in about three weeks, though.

due South is the best. One of my dS-related taglines comes from a fic:

"He doesn't snore," Fraser said, nodding at Diefenbaker, despite the fact that the Romanov brothers could have been wearing t-shirts that said, "We are not interested in making new friends," on the front and "We despise other human beings," on the back.

And another from an ep:

You're not going to get it. Sometimes in life all you need is that second chance, and that's the one thing you're not going to get.

Ironically, in light of earlier posts, when I stopped by the grocery yesterday evening, the only half and half they had was fat-free.

So I think this isn't new, and also: the problem with good public health management is that if you do it right, people complain and everyone thinks you're overreacting.

Yeah, 100% It's kind of like the Y2K bug, too -- so many people will say now, "It turned out to be no big deal!" Sure, because a ton of people you couldn't see worked their asses off.

Aske please unfollow or mute people on your twitter exposing you to Graham.

Connectivity at work kept going out so I came home. I have to go back in, I received 160+ paper applications that I have to cross check against a spreadsheet and the process any that are not already on there. Processing involves checking for sigs, stamping with another sig, scanning in, emailing to other dept., waiting for their scanned sig page back, entering on spreadsheet, emailing applicant, and filing electronically. Ugh.

Jesse, pretty much anything that's done right will go unnoticed; people notice - and complain - when something goes wrong. I work for a group that puts on conferences; every time, there's something that goes wrong, but staff run around and make sure no one notices. They complain if the rooms are too hot or too cold, if the coffee/snacks aren't up to their expectations. They never notice when someone had to do a fast correction for an A/V setup that wasn't working or when a microphone wasn't connected.