Home alone?

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Speaking with my mother, I mentioned something about the commercial for Home Alone.  The neighbor boy who had that look on his face some time back.  Watching the commercial further, she admitted something.  I'm not exactly sure how to take it.  She said I was like that kid, when I was little.  She said, given half the chance, I would have or did those types of things.  She suggested that she kept me fairly well... regulated... for that reason.  I don't remember it, but who does?  I was surprised though.

What do you think?  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Is it just the way it is, neither good nor bad?  I'm thinking on it myself.

Yeah, well...

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I am pretty much done for a day or two.  Two days of working and a day of shopping, even at a slower pace, has me pretty much done in.  To add to it I nicked myself quite well today.  Even after taking normal care of it, the blood kept flowing.  It took an hour to slow that flow.  We had to add more material and wrap it heavily.  My left hand is barely usable as I type.  At least it looks like the blood has stopped.  I am taking a bit of a break from the little that went forward this morning.  I need to make some appointments this afternoon.

It has been fantastic having fresh cooked home-made food several times a day.  I help out there, too.  Chop onions?  I can do that.  Open cans, find corn starch, find a certain type of bowl, sure.  Tonight I will be making fried chicken.  I have been helpful but I can't keep up, at all.  I need frequent breaks, though I can get a lot done when she has a list of things I can do quickly.

It is snowing here.  It is off and on, some is sticking now.  I doubt if it will last though.  I sure enjoy it, if too I don't have to drive through it. 

Good day.

Work is going well.

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My mother has been able to get me going.  Of course I am missing some of the things I need/ed to do, but I will be picking those up.  She is sort of like a tornado, pulling in those near her, and she breaks my meager concentration with her will.  Still, she is doing things I want done so it works.  She isn't pulling on me too hard, mostly.  The thing though is that she never knows when to shut down.  She has given me time to recoup, but then she either starts up again or keeps going and then re-engages me.  The woman doesn't stop.

The kitchen is in perfect order (according to me).  Windows from the kitchen back have been de-cobwebbed and washed, inside and out.  Much of the laundry has been done.  She finished the bathroom.  Pillows have been aired out.  Two or three meals have been made and cleaned up after (including a huge, complex, chicken mole with corn, mashed potatoes, and cheese and onion quesadillas.  Boxes have been torn down.  The kitchen has been re-ordered.  I am sure that is only some of what has happened.  Oh, no fear, your fearless leader has had his hand in much.  While not a tornado myself, I make excellent large block debris which can help with the "destructive nature" of the phenomenon.  I am often the muscle, and do so easily.

The trip to my cousin's has been planned, weather dependent.  We expect rain/sleet/snow this weekend.  Hopefully that will be done and gone before our travel plans are ruined though.  I haven't seen this cousin in at least a decade.  And more, he was about an half a generation behind most of us cousins, so I never knew him well.  I won't say more than that he lives in what some are calling the redoubt.  Unfortunately, a bit far for regular contact.  I am not looking forward to the long drive, I am looking forward to seeing him and his wife again.

Today?  Probably shopping, setting up a couple of appointments, and whatever else my mom decides to get into.  I actually am doing okay.  I don't mind hard work, so long as I can take some breaks.  And she has the notion of what to do, so I only have to think about my little corner of it.  Now, while I am doing something, I often slide into extra, more, better.  I can think around corners, while I am doing something.  It is getting to thinking about them in the first place that is the problem.  Well, or getting to my thinking.  One side or the other is always enough off that nothing gets done.  Not so with someone around who has learned to negotiate my situation.

I best get a shower and get going.  She is napping.  I think she overdid, herself, a bit yesterday.  All good on my long and short count, we have three weeks after all.

Changes.

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As my health has been figured out, I am sort of waking into a very dark world.  As I arrange my life, finally, the rest of the world is falling apart.  So be it.  I, like always, will live where I am as I can.  However, I cannot ignore the signs and portents.  I must consider my place in this new paradigm, or at least more open version of it.  I haven't completely decided what changes will take place, but I know some of them immediately.  Public comments on politics, or even politically affiliated considerations, must end.  That includes, and particular, with my family.  Life is now considered dangerous.  Who knows who would pass on what, even seemingly to them innocently.  There are other problems with communicating such.

I have to think there have been people in the past who realized the situation and tried to extricate themselves in order to save themselves.  I also know what I am considering is not good in the long term.  It has failed, for larger groups right down to individuals almost every time it has been attempted.  I don't have a long term.  And while there is the good of the whole to consider, as I see it, the whole chose their fate.  They were headed this way before I was born, they are simply on a faster and faster track.  I take heart in some of Christ's last words... Forgive them, for they know not what they do.  For my part and for theirs, as possible as not.

I must figure out, as a man who has lived quite openly for most of my life, to shut off some things.  Some information can no longer be transmitted, in any form.  Opinions and thoughts must be regulated.  No, they won't change, they simply cannot be shared.  If I had children, they too would be excluded to some degree, less so if home-schooling though.  At least I am not in the droves who are about to be added to the unemployment line.  And I already receive socialized medicine, so I won't have to face that as a new level of bureaucracy in my life.  And I am learning to live more and more off the grid, shut down, and simply do what I do.  I fear the cost increases in fuel, electricity, and such.  Though I am not sure it would have mattered who won on that score.  I think it has been decided, by both parties, to charge more for power.

The main thing, for me now, is to figure out how to live in a third-world nation.  That would have been going on either way, though a little less so in some ways with a different outcome.  I will only warn you, that if you disagree, disagree privately and quietly.  You are now a target.  That is the last time I will speak on any such matters.  Good luck

A day of some works.

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My mother has been doing her thing, and I have been helping when and where I can.  I can't do much more than I usually do, but I can be directed, or redirected, from time to time.  There is a lot of work to do.  The kitchen is back in play, fully.  Of course, everything has been moved, but that sort of has to be done to do it right.  For "slowing down" she still moves like a freight train.  Though I do see that she is slowing down some, fair enough.  She still moves faster and better than any common, and most uncommon, domesticated man-types.  Then again, she was still suffering from jet-lag, so I am not sure she actually has slowed.

I saw the election sliding into the toilet last night.  Before Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada were called, it was bed time.  I realized, however, that Romney had lost.  How much was due to malfeasance?  Quite a bit is my guess.  Enough?  In any case, since I believe Romney was aiming to win (unlike McCain?), and with his... acumen, I doubt he would have ceded if any false voting was undoable.  At this point what corruption exists is baked into the cake, as they say.

I don't see this as a personal loss, I see it as the beginning of the national decline and the return to world norms, tribal socialism.  At this point it is every man for himself.  Food is set to soar next year, unemployment will continue and grow as small businesses shutter, to be replaced by international corpa, who don't hire locals.  Taxes will soar.  Zerocare is now not just for veterans.  America is... dead.  The dream of free men in a free nation has been surrendered.  I wish you all luck.  We are now numbers for bureaucrats in Washington, they claim now to own us, our wallets, the rest.  The demographic bomb has exploded. Well, on to the rest of life, I suppose.

Later.  Or maybe not.  I suspect my mother will be keeping me busy, and I tire quickly, leaving little time for writing.

Done. For what it was worth.

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My mother was having jet-lag today.  All good, for me!  I woke at about 7:00-7:30, even after going to bed after 1:00.  I pretty much just tinkered, though coffee was ready for her right off.  The snack bars have been a boon as she gets her feet under her.  Yeah, it's a messy job, but she is good for it when she catches her breath.  Actually, she started in a bit tonight.  I showed off my larder, before heading out to vote.  My big canner showed up as well.  She... did appreciate the quality.  It reminds her of the canner her mother used.

I showered and got out to vote.  The line was non-existent, but then I went in just a bit after 15:00.  Around here that is usually work-time and school.  Perfect.  I voted as I said I would.  I couldn't hold my nose with McCain, I have to  with Romney, as I see it.

My mom wanted fresh onions, so I decided to run to town.  I got a few other things while I was there, garlic, potatoes, a bit more soda.  I also got out from under her feet for a while.  She started in on the kitchen.  Yeah, it's a good time to go.  Plus, if I am too handy, she tries to have me jumping to do something every five.  This way she has a list of things for me to do.  Stop and go traffic kills me, but a small list is eminently doable.  Find space for these, glasses for the plastic utensils, put this up there, bring that up there down, all at once rather than this now, that in five minutes, etc.  Drives me nuts to try to help in 'her moment'.

She is rather put out with Sam and Sassy about them vomiting.  She tells me she wouldn't put up with it, and it would wear her out too.  But she would most likely put them down.  I simply won't.  Nor will I follow her suggestion of shutting them up in one room, letting them out when I want them out.  That... doesn't work.  She has never had a cat like these, she says.  Perhaps, or maybe she just doesn't remember?  Dunno.

Now to sit back at watch.  I'm using AoSHQ election site to track things.  He has done rather good in the past.  If you want to watch, if nothing else this site offers another option to check on things.

Have a good one.

Election day.

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The options are not optimal, and I mean that in every way.  Still, it is quite true that one of two will be the president when the election is completed.  Ron Paul will not win.  Johnson has no chance to be president.  Either Romney or Zero will be president.  Beside the 47%'ers, and the (at this point) 2% of election malfeasance, there is little room for a win, assuming most conservative type folks do what they usually do, stay home.  I don't like any of it.  I really don't wish to vote.  But it is what I can do in that forum.

While living your life your way is one way to vote with your wallet, feet, etc., what happens when the right to do so is taken from you?  Rights are, and have been, eroding for generations.  Though, to be honest, much of what passes for rights never were meant to be rights, too.  We were, I think, never quite expected to do, or be able to do, much of what we do.  Some libertarians, including myself, sometimes don't fully understand that.  I keep... bumping into things myself.  Libertine, libertarian, conservative, even liberal and left, have some very distorted views due to life in an age of technological wonders.  Those wonders are no more a right, let alone a good.  Texting?  Cell phones?  Transportation on demand?

I think, in forgotten times, men probably did have technology that came close to what we have now, I do.  I think either those times were lost due to the inability of men to keep the thing going, a series of natural disasters, or even a realization that such a life was not worth living.  We keep coming back to pinnacles, golden ages, then... surrendering them.  The extremes in either direction are... untenable.  In one we are forced to live like animals, and stealing and murder are just other methods of getting food and protect our food sources.  On the other end, everything we need and much of what we want can be delivered to our door in two days, less if we wish to pay just a bit more.  We have no real needs.  But too, we have to do exactly what we are told, when we are told.  We become cogs, numbers, just one of the many of the faceless masses.  We surrender our souls to have what we want, when we want it.

Is there a sane balance?  Can it be maintained?  When we do well we constantly improve.  When we get some, we find out how to get more, better, faster.  I don't know if there is a way to keep the drive while avoiding the excess.  The drive is so strong.  Our abilities outstrip our humility, humanity, sanity.  We try to climb on our humility to gain power, wealth, whatever else.  My health holds me in place, and is therefore a gift, save that it depends on... well... a world of cogs which can be milked.  Gah!

Never mind.  As I said, I have decided to lend my vote to Romney.  I don't think he is the best choice, if I think the Republican field for the office was thin anyway and the Libertarian choices were no better.  Perhaps my unhappiness is an extension of the more, better, faster notion the modern world has brought me?  Perhaps I simply can't be satisfied?  Dunno.  Lots of questions, no good answers.  Well, at least I could like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, should they happen to become social circle staples.  There is that.  And, that might not be all bad.

Not bad, not bad at all.

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Oh, well, my home was still a bit rough when I left to pick my mother up from the airport.  But I did get in a last spurt of cleaning-fu before heading out.  Fresh bedding on her bed, towels washed and put in the dryer, all but the very last few dishes done, and even a bit of work on the Xterra.  In any case, I ran out of time so just hopped in and headed out. 

As I was approaching SLC, a good half hour to hour from the airport, my mother called to say she was just about to leave Denver.  Hmm?  I suggested she hurry up, I was almost there!  A bit of a chuckle on her end, but what can she do?  Either the trip had been changed, or... what?  I get to town and take the wrong turn-off.  That one catches me from time to time, I use it so rarely.  No matter, I wanted to fill the tank and look for a car wash.  After driving as far on that road, and not seeing a car wash or a station with one, I simply filled up and headed back out to the airport.  Time was getting a little tight, if she really was to be there on time.

The first load of passengers were disembarking as I took my seat.  Since she is given a wheelchair ride, I figured she would be the last.  And usually she calls me to let me know she has landed.  Cellphone dead?  I watch as the last of the footed passengers come and go.  Then I watch as the carted come and then go.  No Mom.  Well, as I like to do, when all else fails... wait longer.  And so I did.  Two hours beyond the time she should have arrived I finally get the call, but she isn't where she said she would be.  She has been wheeled outside.  A bit of searching and, there she is.  All good.  While discussing things I realized that while most idiots changed their clocks last Sunday, I proved once again, I am no idiot.  :p  One hour could have been the time change, but why where the rest of my clocks even an hour further off?  No, no, I changed them last time.  Perhaps the clock faeries where dyslexic?  Dunno.  All clocks save my watch (too tired to tinker with that for tonight) and my auto have been corrected.

She was... mostly satisfied.  She didn't expect much and was pleasantly unsurprised, or rough, about it.  She went to bed rather quickly.  I just couldn't as is often the case.  I've set the coffee for her, and will be heading to bed shortly.  She will be trying to get me up, along with my alarm, in time to wake, shower, dress, and vote tomorrow.  Yeah, I am voting.  I would have voted anyway, just I wasn't so sure about voting for the lead office.  I have, finally, decided that, yeah, there are only two real choices.  One might continue the wrecking of America, but one most certainly will destroy America.  Quick or slow.  I don't hold out much hope for more.  They both have advantages, though slow offers some hope of redemption (not economic, of course, that is nearly impossible at this point).  The other offers zero(tm) hope, and worse.  It's that simple.

Tired, so very tired, but I have things to do in the next few days, and my mom will want me to help with her things.  I don't have a lot left.  I tried to pace it but that isn't something I have full control over.  Oh, I'll limp through.  If I have to, I'll take long naps.  At least she is looking good, healthy.  Don't you worry, this place will be shipshape in no time.  Three days she says, just on the house.  Three days, I think?  Hmm, that would be like... two months for me.  Never mind.

Good night.

Slow but sure?

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I didn't wake until 9:00 this morning.  I woke twice in the night, which is rather unusual.  But as I was getting the girls fed I noticed the back door was wide open!  Someone had been in here.  I KNOW I didn't leave the back door open, it is winterish out there!  That, I realize, is why I woke up.  It is why whoever was here didn't close the door too, they were in a rush to get out as quietly and quickly as possible.  It sucks to be the only one here.  A woman would have heard that and woken me.  I just woke, didn't know what I woke for.

Hmm, things to do today.  Too many things, really.  I will begin sorting through the chores shortly.  I am still moving a bit extra slow though.  I managed to stub my toe this morning, letting Sam back in after letting her out (an open door) after feeding her.  The good thing is the toe hurt and bled.  I didn't hurt the bone, I scraped the skin on top.  While it is bad, it is good too.  It means my toes are still quite sensitive and bleed easily and well.  Both diabetes and heart trouble can leave the feet without sensitivity or blood flow, all of which is bad news.  Get a lemon?  Make lemonade. 

Just... waking.  Not much else to say.  Good day.