I had a Genius Bar appointment because my Macbook Air's keyboard has been fubar lately; they told it will probably be a free repair! Amazing!

I may get together with my climbing partner this weekend, who has been out of town (and out of touch) since early March.

Just got two text alerts about protests in the East Bay this weekend, related to the Brianna Taylor grand jury indictments. And apparently 2 cops in Louisville were shot already.

I wish there was a way to tell people, "please stop with the violence!" but they're terrified and angry and why should anyone listen to me?

I suspect by election day I won't be sleeping at all...

Yay free repair, Suela!

Dana, that is internal fortitude to not murder him.

Apparently google tells me mirrors can be glued to walls. The question becomes do I try to wrestle the mirror off the wall and take the chance of breaking it while I do so, or glue an already-broken mirror (I mean just the one corner! But still) back to the wall??

I suspect by election day I won't be sleeping at all...

I'm just going to ask this, even though it makes me feel paranoid as hell to admit that I'm doing this:

Is anyone else worried enough about civil unrest around/after the election that you're buying extra nonperishable food and TP (and pet food, if applicable) in case supply lines get disrupted? I'm not super concerned about actual warfare in the streets or martial law being enacted (I'm not NOT concerned about those things, either, because every time during this administration I've thought "That's too far-fetched to happen," whatever far-fetched thing it is ends up happening), but I can envision a scenario similar to April (March? both?) where stores were just out of stuff and it took a ridiculously long time for stock to be replenished.

I'm trying to NOT feel like a paranoid fool, but, well t gestures at everything we do in fact have a stash of TP in the basement and extra cat food and non-perishable food (rice, beans, oatmeal, canned chicken, canned tuna) in the pantry.

My brother-the-ID doc has several weeks' worth of food in his basement...

Hmmm. That makes me feel like I've under-prepared.

Sue! Hello. Happy belated. And happy birthdays to Emmett and Matilda too.

Y'all right. I'll start preaching the idea and logistics to some people, see if anyone can take the heavy lifting from me. I am just so angry that it has come to this and the under-functioning government.

Well, he's worked with and for the military a lot, and I think he's become something of a prepper. It's a little weird.

Good to see your pixels, Sue! I'm glad the pandemic is treating your area lightly.

Happy birthday to all the board and board-adjacent Virgos.

Go Penny!

Dana, greater love hath no woman.

I try to have a month of cat food and a week of human food (my cats eat a lot less fresh veg) on hand as a general rule. It saves on trips to the store, impulse buys, etc. Might up that a bit the last week of October. And the local hippie grocery is having their fall wine sale right now, so I should be all set to celebrate/drown my sorrows.

Is anyone else worried enough about civil unrest around/after the election that you're buying extra nonperishable food and TP (and pet food, if applicable) in case supply lines get disrupted?

Not exactly, but similar. Last night I spoke to mom and sis in Louisville about having gas and charged phones and a go bag ready in case they should need to leave quickly. And I've talked to dad and step mom in San Francisco similarly re: the fires. And while I've made similar preparations during hurricanes and blizzards it's occurring to me that some cash, a few days of meds, etc in one place might be wise.

Sorry for interrupting any on-going conversations. I skimmed a lot.

It's the first year in forever in which I can try to write what became my once-a-year-only post, apologizing mostly for my absence, when it's not my one-and-only post during the year, and I don't have to start it with how much I skipped, because I haven't skipped! I've skimmed! Actually skimmed and even read a few posts, some of them from beginning to end, with all the letters and words and sentences inside. All it took was a global pandemic. Sigh.

Once my quarantine was over (goodness, six whole months ago), and I had to teach via Zoom for way-too-many hours a day, my schedule became so hectic I couldn't keep on regularly following Natter, let alone write. But I couldn't *not* skim. I had to know how y'all are doing. Both in the usual sense, of you being important and of how much I care about you, and definitely in the sense of extra-care-and-worry during these crazy COVID19 days.

And yet, it's that time of year again, and, yeah, still (and probably forever) in a risk of sounding a bit strange:

On Sunday evening (as most of you clever people probably already know) starts the Jewish holiday of 'Yom Kippur', which means 'Day of Atonement'.

This is a day of soul searching, of trying to better define our faults to ourselves, and try to accept it upon ourselves to become, at least a little, better people. A day of repenting past wrongs we did, looking and finding it in our hearts to forgive wrongs done to us, and trying to remember to learn from this process in the rest of the days of the year. The holiest day of the year for practicing Jews.

On a rough division, there are two kinds of wrongs people can do: against G-d, and hurting their fellow human beings. In Jewish tradition, if the person committing a sin against G-d is truly sorry for what they did, repenting and taking it upon themselves to try and avoid repeating it, G-d forgives those sins.

The deeds which hurt other people, though, are not so 'easily' and personally forgiven. If somebody did anything to harm another person, they would not be able to cleanse themselves from that deed, no matter how much they'd pray and be sorry and repent and try to do good in the future, unless they make amends with the person who was hurt by that deed. As long as peace between people is not achieved, the 'sin', so to speak, is not 'erased from the books' above.

Regardless of the date in the year, I'd hate to think I'd offended somebody, anybody, in any possible circle of my life, in so many circumstances. I don't think that the attempts of becoming a better person than one already is, is something that needs a date or a certain holiday for it, of course. It's just that, for me, having a certain day in the year to stop my daily runnings around, and think of nothing else but the really important things, is a good reminder of the order of priorities I'd like to have in my life.

(Well, I wish that were true. Frankly, I spend more time thinking about how much a sip of water would be just what I need, and wonder how long I have left until the fast is over and I can start hydrating again, than about the actual important stuff. And in between comes the whole being responsible for two still-too-young to fast and still-way-too-young-to-entertain-themselves-on-their-own-for-long-streches-of-time very lovely kids, so mostly the important soul-searching stuff has to be pushed aside by the practical and urgent stuff. But still.)

So, since Monday will be, for me, this day of at least trying to perform some soul-searching, of trying to create a new start in my on-going effort of 'becoming a good human being, or at least a slightly better one', I would like to ask all of you here, if I offended anybody, or hurt any of you lovely people, to tell me about it, and give me the opportunity to apologize, fix it if possible, and also learn from my mistakes, and try to not repeat them (there are so many new ones to practice, why repeat old ones, you know?).

In case I offended anybody, and can't communicate (continued...)