Facie’s Ramblings

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...

 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...

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...

Much like my political leanings have changed over the years (conservative child, liberal college student and young adult, conservative less-young adult, and now more liberal middle-aged adult), my Covid feelings have gone back and forth. Now I am in the take-some-precautions-but-don't-lock-yourself-up boat.  At the beginning of the pandemic, I was all for staying at home, and I looked down on those who were hanging out with friends. I did not see my dad for nearly 3 months because I was both following the stay-at-home order, and I did not want to expose him to anything, even though I left my house about once every two weeks to pick up a prescription or something, and I avoided people as much as I could. (Thankfully he had a girlfriend at the time who took care of him.) We wiped everything down that came into our house. I bleached most surfaces daily, although my kid had a bad cold at the very beginning, so I was trying to avoid getting that as much as anything else. When my dad was...

Two weeks ago today, my dad died. At this time (9 a.m.) I was either getting ready to head to the hospital or on my way. The day before, we thought he probably had days left, which was good in that it meant we had more time to spend together and he was in no pain, but bad in that he was just lying there, not reacting. Why keep going on? Plus twice I had gotten a phone call saying he had hours left to live. Those calls are awful. I typically think about my dad when I first wake up. Today, he was not my first thought; it was, which cat is lying next to my feet. But he came to mind soon after.  Most days I have cried; some more than others. I had a run of 2 or 3 days where I did not cry at all, but then on Monday, I got some more sympathy cards in the mail. Even Verizon started their letter about discontinuing my dad's service/phone with "On behalf of Verizon Wireless we would like to extend our deepest sympathies to you concerning your recent loss." Verizon has made me cry ...

I more or less gave up blogging a few years ago. FB replaced it. But since my dad died on 10/8 (one week ago today), I feel that I might need to start back up again. I have things to say. A lot. So here goes. I will start with how we got to where we are now, which is my dad no longer being of this Earth.  My dad did not always make the best decisions. But during the last year of his life, I was there for him a lot. He needed me. He could not keep track of his many, many ailments, so I was the one who talked to doctors, nurses, etc. Frustratingly, he had two (main) competing health issues: congestive heart failure/blocked arteries for which he was told in November 2019 he needed open-heart surgery within a few months, and hematuria. For months, urology was afraid to put him under to figure out why he had blood in his urine, and cardiology did not want to operate on a man who was losing blood. I spent a lot of time going back and forth with those people. Then stupid COVID came. My hu...

I have so many disjointed thoughts about guns in America right now. I am sad, sick, and angry about what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida last week. I hate that I have to talk to my high schooler about what to do if someone starts shooting in her school. I hate that when the hubs and I dropped her off at the movies last week, I was feeling uneasy as we told her to be aware of her surroundings and pay attention to where the exits are. I hate that my daughter has many unanswerable questions about how what happened actually happened. I hate that my 11-year-old nephew in TX is afraid to go to school because he is afraid of a shooting. I hate that nearly every day since that awful shooting, I have had to read about threats at various schools, instilling more fear in children. Over 5 years ago after the shooting in Newtown, I said that I still consider schools one of the safest places. Despite the fact that we seem to read about more and more school shootings, ...

And so in continues. I went to work Monday and spent the day wondering if I was having an allergic reaction to one of the meds I was on. Cipro seems to have an endless list of side effects and reactions, though I am pretty sure I was on it years ago for a UTI. My head felt as if something was pushing to get out. It did not really hurt; it was more annoying. And my throat felt "fuzzy," as if there was something like a golf ball in there. After awhile that feeling moved down to the top of my chest. I was fine to work, just a little uncomfortable, and I really wanted to get some stuff done in case I had to call off Tuesday, which was seeming likely. Worth noting is these symptoms started as I was trying to fall asleep Sunday night. At work, I debated whether or not to call my doc, but decided against it because I feared she would just send me to the ER. After 6 pain-filled hours there on Thursday, the thought of going back made me shudder. I could also hear my bank account wai...

Last week sucked. No other way to say it. It started off on Sunday morning with my making Texas chili (cooking is a rare event for me), and a couple hours later my hands felt as if they were on fire, thanks to my cutting jalapeno peppers (I guess it was a delayed effect). I tried several different things, including alcohol, lemon juice, and milk, multiple times. After several hours of intense pain, I think the apple cider vinegar finally did the trick; I was fortunately able to fall asleep to just slight heat in my hands. Lesson learned: wear gloves when cutting up hot peppers (note that hub is able to cut peppers with no ill effects). But that was just a warm up (not pun intended). My left heel continued to hurt with every step I took, and fortunately, because of the craptastic weather (another reason for my January hatred) and people cancelling their appointments, the podiatrist was able to see me Tuesday afternoon. The result of that $40 copay: plantar fasciitis. The doc gave my f...

When I turned 40, I don't recall feeling older. I was in pretty good shape; I ran semi-regularly (I think!). I was still swimming and doing Zumba. But I was not working full time then, so I could be at the top of my physical game. I gave up my pool membership and Zumba mid-afternoon class once I went back to work, and I run only sporadically now, mostly because I am lazy but partially because my body fights me more often than not when I attempt to. Ah, that body of mine. As I sit here and type this, I am feeling a slight pain in my left heel. It started over the weekend, and has caused me to limp since then. Today I finally called a podiatrist. But unfortunately they can't see me for 2 weeks. Back in October I had a similar pain in my right foot. By the time my appointment rolled around (actually about 2 weeks prior), the pain went away, so I canceled. Why spend the $40 specialist copay? The hub blames it on running. I don't know. I was never a hard-core runner. At the he...

A handful of years ago, my attention span was greater. I looked forward to blogging regularly as well as reading blog posts of various people. But then at some point, FB took over that space in my brain, and because I had so many posts to keep up with, blogging and reading others' blogs took a back seat. I eventually started to tweet, but I mostly reserve that for commenting on or about sporting events, which I don't do with any sort of regularity. Mostly because Twitter is so in the moment; I can never keep up. But my lack of blogging means my writing skills have languished. When you type only a few sentences at a time, you can't expect greatness. And when you realize you don't have much to say beyond 6-10 sentences, but when you know that whatever can be said will take you double or triple the words necessary, well, that, folks is why I hardly blog. That and that my life is pretty boring. (Unless semi-regular Phipps flower and my dog and cat posts on Instagram excit...

This past Monday afternoon I had my biopsy. Up until Sunday night, I was not worried. In fact, I was never really concerned about having cancer; it was the needle part that bothered me. As it turns out, there is more than a needle; there is an actual incision. So it was not surprising that I only got a few hours of sleep. But on a positive note, I cruised right down the Parkway that morning, being the Monday before the 4th, so there was that. I got there at the prescribed 30 minutes ahead of time; in fact, it was probably close to 35 minutes! I had to wait about 10 minutes, during which I could feel my seat vibrate (still not sure about that; I was tired but I don't think I was imaging it). Then I went back, changed, and waited in the "gowned waiting area" for no more than 5 minutes. Not even enough time to find out whose twins Jennifer Garner was pregnant with! WARNING: What follows will be detailed, though not too graphic. Then I went back to a room, where someone a...

I used to blog pretty frequently. I think I stopped when I went back to work FT; it just became too much. I never had a big following, but a handful of people read my posts, and then another handful of people who would stop by on occasion. A few of those I consider(ed) friends. Now, since I barely write (and because, quite frankly, my topics are not terribly interesting and I am not a gifted writer), hardly anyone comes to visit, but that is fine. Preferable for this post, really. And here I go! I have heterogeneously dense breasts. And although I can't quite recall what that means, it does seem to make my mammograms show things that may or may not be troublesome. Usually the latter. Something showed up a few years ago, but once I had a follow-up mammogram along with an ultrasound, I was deemed fine. Last year, no issues; I went in one time for both and I was done. This year, however, was a different story. A few days after I went in, I was told that something showed up in th...

My kid graduates from 8th grade on Wednesday. When you have attended a Catholic school for 8 years, this is a pretty big deal. When you will be going on to a high school a few communities over with only a handful of your classmates, none of whom are your close friends (some of whom you don't even talk to), it becomes even more monumental. And scary. And just so very much. How did we get here? When you are enduring your 13th night in a row of a few hours of sleep because your infant does not sleep more than 2 hours at a time, you can't imagine ever getting past that. You are not thinking about the terrible twos, preschool, kindergarten, or even elementary school. You are just trying to survive . But eventually, your infant sleeps more, she grows into a toddler, and you worry about her getting hurt as she learns to walk, or putting something in her mouth that she should not. And the next thing you know, you are dropping her off at preschool, crying in the car, wondering where t...

Most years for Lent I have given up sweets. I was successful only once, in 2001, I think; I forget the year, but I had devoted myself to fitness in an almost obsessive way. It was a tough 45ish days without a piece of candy, cake, or bowl of ice cream. But I was doing that more for myself than to bring myself closer to God, which is a big part of doing (or not doing) something for Lent. I don't have nearly the faith I did then, but I do try most days to be a decent human being. If everyone strove to do that, the world would be a pretty great place, and it likely would not matter so much which religion people were, or if they had a religion. But I digress. This year for Lent I have decided to do a few things. Try to lessen my "saying the opposite" of what the hubs says. I do this. A lot. It is not so much that I have to be right. I am pretty sure I AM right most of the time (he would disagree). But I am going to try to let things go more. This one is going to be toug...

Litter is my biggest pet peeve. It bothers me even more than when someone uses a hyphen instead of an em or en dash, and that is really saying something. I have said many times, in many mediums that there are only two acceptable reasons to litter: Someone is threatening to kill you if you don't throw your empty McD's bag, water bottle or losing lottery tickets out of the car. Continuing to carry your grocery bag of wing bones, bag of chips, or half-eaten burger will impeded your ability to run away from a would-be assassin. I am tired of people having no regard for their community. But I am even more tired of having to look at it when I walk my dog nearly every day. So most days (not including a couple of winter months) I pick up things along our 1-2 mile neighborhood stroll. Fortunately, because I do this so often, most days I have just a couple of things to pick up. Unfortunately, last year, my perception of litter became more heightened, and I started to become bother...

At this very moment in my life, I feel okay. Overall, I am a pretty positive, optimistic person. When I get down, it rarely last more than a couple of hours. Even when someone does me wrong, depending on the person, I am usually over it within an hour (my kid) or a few hours or a half a day (the hubby) or a day or so (coworker or friend). I used to hold grudges much longer. But life is short, and I have learned to let things go. But lately, I have these days, sometimes fortunately only half days, where I feel overcome. This usually happens to me as I am lying awake at night, fretting about something. Mostly it is my kid and various things around that, not the least of which is her going to high school in the fall a bit of a distance from our house. I fret about my job, which is not stable. I fret about the husband's unemployment. After more than a half year without work, he finally starts a job in two weeks, but that brings with it some different anxieties. I fret about my variou...

Last month while I was getting my driver's license picture taken, I tried to change my political party affiliation. For whatever reason, my choices were Democrat, Republican, Other, and None. But first, how I got there. I registered as a Democrat when I first registered to vote, just before the '92 election. At that time, I was "kind of" liberal (for growing up in a somewhat rural area in western PA), and pretty much all of my relatives were registered that way, so it made sense. I was not really into politics at that young age, however. As I got into my late 20s, I started to realize I was becoming more conservative, so a few years later, when it was time to renew my driver's license, I changed to Republican. I still remember the day at work when I told my coworker Anne that I was really a Republican. She told me she had known it for years. During the 2008 election, I was on board with John McCain running for president, mostly because I thoug...

I have been really lousy at blogging during 2016, for several reasons (some of which I don't even know). One big reason is time: Between working full time and helping promote Calamityware, plus having a small family and doing the occasional social thing, there is not a lot of time left to put thought into blogs. [Sadly, I can put hours into FB, but that is mostly my reading and not thinking, and perhaps writing short comments. :-)] Anyway, since we are now in the middle of the holiday (shopping) season, I thought I would again promote Calamityware. If you are like me, you have a few people on your gift list who are really challenging to buy for. That is where Calamityware may come in handy. Following are the unique, quirky, fun, and even some beautiful items you can purchase here : Various porcelain plates adorned with fun things like frogs, zombie poodles, pterodactyls, tentacles, a volcano, a vortex, and more; buy a plate or one of the series of four Soup bowls with fly (1 f...

Life just keeps zooming by. Not sure how it happens. Would love to slow it down (except during an awful workday or a painful conversation). But, alas, on we go. And speaking of living life, I have found a way to spend even more time on my phone (the hubby did not think that was possible). I finally replaced my iPhone 4 with an iPhone SE. It is nice to be on an operating system that came out in the current year (My 4 was still on OS 6, which was updated in 2013, just not by me). And to have actual memory on the phone (I went from 8 to 64 GB). I can have more than 12 apps! My desktop computer (on which I am typing this post) is older than a lot of grade schoolers, and I keep clinging to XP, but at least I have made technical progress somewhere! So what else? Hockey season is back. Yeah! Please just no one else hurt Sid (including Sid). The Steelers' football season kind of hit a skid with Big Ben's injury, but it ain't over yet. And Penn State beat then #2 OSU in a specta...