More random ramblings

I don't have any one big thing weighing on my mind, so here are the handful of thoughts swimming around my head. And by a handful, I mean close to a dozen.

A deer probably runs in front of my car three or four times a year, right in suburban Pittsburgh. But for some reason, the instant I see a deer (and in yesterday's case, it looked like a fawn), I immediately think dog. Giant dog, usually. I have no idea why; it is not as if I never see deer.
As I was driving down a hill near my house this morning, a PennDot worker must have thought it would be amusing to keep switching the "Stop/Slow" sign back and forth, while three other cars were coming up. What a jag-off. C'mon, how hard is your job that you cannot or will not do it correctly? What if I would have started to drive down the hill as soon as I saw the sign switch to "Slow"?!
When I voted yesterday, I showed my driver's license, as I always do. I don't understand why everyone should not have to show ID anyway. But for me, it is more because of my hard-to-pronounce last name. And despite my saying I was a Republican, the man still tried to search for my name under the Dems. Yes, I get that puts me in a minority. It also made me a disappointment to the three or four people standing outside the polling place trying to hand me cards for their Democratic candidates.
Even though I am not really jazzed about either candidate running for governor of PA, I am glad we are finally going to have a governor from western PA. Let's hope this is a good thing for our region.
And speaking of western PA, I am still not quite over the Pens disappointing and early ending to their season. Today I drove by a car with a Flyers flag in both windows. I think that is the first time I have ever seen something like that around here. But you have to hand it to the Flyers; they are doing what the Pens could not. Sigh.
I can't believe that Lost and 24 are ending this year. What am I going to do with my Monday and Tuesday nights? As it is now, those days and Sundays are my must-see TV nights; I can take or leave shows that are on any other days. I do like Community, which is on Thursdays, if only I could remember to watch it.
Speaking of Lost, I wish the what-seems-like-8-hour finale was not on Sunday. That is the same day as our masterworks performance of Rutter's Requiem. I just can't see too many people missing out on the final episode to hear us sing. And I am not even sure our DVR will have enough room to capture everything.
Speaking of 24, as much as I have loved that show through the good and bad seasons since it began in 2001, the insanely violent path it is now on might be enough to make me not miss it.
And speaking still of 24, I loved David Palmer as president. He is my favorite president, real or fiction, ever.
I subbed for Spanish class yesterday. My knowledge of that language is limited to whatever I remember from Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer. Fortunately, I seemed to know just as much as the kids did; and despite my having no lesson plans, I think I managed to put together a pretty good activity, even if some kids were a little silly about it.
I need to get more sleep. Why do I waste my time staying up for the 10 o'clock news? Most of the news is bad, and the weather is wrong more often than not. If only I was into napping.

That is all. Laundry and vacuuming awaits me.

What a year 2021 has been (Day 7)

I have almost no words for what happened yesterday at the Capitol. Protesting is one thing (though I truly think it is and has been time to move on). But to storm the Capitol? A friend on Facebook said, quite simply, " Almost 20 years ago a group of people on an airplane sacrificed themselves to protect the Capitol. How far we have fallen!" Indeed. And, yes, it IS storming the Capitol. I have seen numerous videos of people knocking down barricades/fences, pushing police officers, and breaking windows and climbing through them. That is beyond protesting. And even if a protestor did not do those things, if they followed those seditionists past those barricades and into the building, they are just as guilty. I did not support the violent protests this summer that resulted in damages to businesses and public property (I was in full support of the actual protests). But I also acknowledged as a white person, I cannot truly put myself in the position of a black person who is angry a

Melancholy and Gratitude

A few days ago, I decided to do gratitude posts on FB. I was good the first two days. Day 3 I got a little snarky as I posted about "doing the right thing" in regards to Covid. The Covid cases in Allegheny County have been on the rise. For a while, we had daily counts between 50 and 100. After July 4, we saw a spike for a few weeks, and then cases were back below 100. Unfortunately, other than one "low" day this week, where "only" 288 cases were reported, we have had between 500 and 620 daily cases. Fortunately, only a few people have died this week. But of course, any death is too many. I started to keep track of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations on 6/12/20. On that day, since 3/12, Allegheny County had had 2,034 cases, 352 people had been hospitalized, and 172 people had died. On 11/19/20, the county has seen a total of 22,042 cases, 1,724 people have been hospitalized, and 465 people have died from Covid since 3/12. In just over 8 months, we have had

Hug your loved ones!

I hate to say that I am still working through my grief. I mean, in some ways I can imagine I will always be grieving. But I feel pretty confident it will get easier, and I will cry less and less. But, yeah, I guess I am still working through it. Yesterday, a thought occurred to me: I had not hugged my dad since the end of February, and that will now be the last time I ever did. I did not see him for almost three months because of COVID, and then at the end of May, he started his series of hospital visits with skilled nursing stints in between. I was always afraid to hug him then. What if I gave him COVID? And yet when my dad had really bad ICU delirium during a few different hospital stays, I fed him. If I could do that, why not hug him? So I cried a bit last night thinking about that. I am not necessarily a big hugger; I used to hate it, and then probably before Jordan was born, I got back to doing it again. Before COVID, I hugged my friends goodbye (and sometimes hello). I always wou

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