Well, Thanks For Telling Me, Amazon!

No joke, I spent a lot of the last 24 hours thinking about what I would do after work last/Tuesday night.  Combining my principles (or OCD) of trying to use only cash or credit cards a day and not making four trips in my car a day (three is fine, five is fine, four is not because four is an unlucky number), I was figuring out whether I should immediately drive home after work or go out and get groceries.

Beyond the OCD principles above, the thing that factored into my decision was that the measuring cup I bought that I was going to use as my jigger for cocktails.  Amazon said it'd arrive Monday, but it didn't.  If it had, I would have gone grocery shopping yesterday/Tuesday at the discount food store close by to pick up a lemon and a lime.  I would only go there yesterday/Tuesday because on Tuesdays everything is an extra 10% off.  And since I would have gone there, I would have gone to the ATM to pick up cash, probably get gasoline for my car, maybe get some fast food to eat both last/Tuesday night and a future day, and, oh yeah, buy more cocktail items like ginger ale and ginger beer.

But yet, I got to thinking at work.  Why buy a lemon and lime if I don't have the measuring cup?  What I do is slice one of them in half and squeeze them into the cup.  That does two things.  One, I can see how much juice I squeeze, and that dictates which cocktail I would make for myself.  Two, I hear that you leave out lemon and lime juice sitting out because it tastes better about four to ten hours after you squeeze it.  It's a waste buying them without getting the jigger first, especially since this is (I think) the second time Amazon moved the delivery date of the cup.  Amazon said that instead of Monday, it would arrive Friday, and in fact, if it didn't arrive on Friday, I could ask for a refund.

So why am I doing all this stuff yesterday/Tuesday?  I could do it, say, today/Wednesday.  I get out of work early because I'm cutting.  For fast food, I could go to the last Godfather's Pizza in the state, which is going to close on Saturday.  Assuming I leave early enough (and that may be in jeopardy because we have been asked to work overtime because the shipments are still playing catch-up), traffic both on the road and at the restaurant will be easier to deal with.  Meanwhile, I took out a rack of leftover ribs from the freezer to the refrigerator on Sunday.  I see on the Internet that leftovers in the fridge are good for about four days before they should be thrown away.  Why chance it and just eat the ribs yesterday/Tuesday when, by the way, I can watch an NBA Game on NBC?

So just going home it is!  And then, once I get home, I check the mailbox and see a package.  I was able to push my thumb into its middle, so it was the measuring cup.  It was supposed to come last week, then Monday, then Friday, and then for some dumb reason it came yesterday/Tuesday.  I thought I should check Amazon before I started my car at work, just in case, but I still blame Amazon for not getting the precise delivery date right.

But I stuck to my guns and went inside to eat ribs and watch basketball.  My plan on doing everything I thought I would do yesterday/Tuesday today/Wednesday after work is still mostly intact.  Well, besides getting the lemon and the lime, since it's not Tuesday anymore.  And I guess I can make do with the alcohol I have now, so the ginger beer and ale can wait.  I just hope nothing goes wrong, like me falling asleep at the wheel or getting detained on my way home.

The Sleep Reset I Didn't Know I Needed

I didn't think I would pass out at 10 p.m., but I did.  My body told me I was real tired, so I listened to it, and I woke up around 5:30 and I feel good, even though I also feel a bit out of phase.  I back down to Day 1/10% bonus in Zynga Poker, but for a good night's sleep, I'll take it.

I really, really want to watch the EPL downtown.  I was going to do that yesterday/Saturday morning, but work called.  Also, I don't want to go to the bar on a day when a club whose supporters gather at this pub are playing.  That's most weekends when there is more than one Match going on (and on principle I don't usually don't go on a weekend when there is only one Match going on at a time), but yesterday/Saturday was one of those few times.  The next Saturday, I think I saw, was in mid-March.  However, there are three Matches going on this/Sunday morning, and none of them involve a club that meets there.  I didn't even think of going today/Sunday because they all kick off at 8.  But I'm awake now, so I can go!

But wait -- how about those damn people?  They had a goddamn checkpoint set up yesterday morning.  I don't see one now, so I hope there won't be one when I get back.

One other factor: The snow.  Only an inch fell, but it'd be just my luck if I get into a crash this morning.

Another Snow Day!!!

Alright, now this is getting ridiculous.  I wake up at my normal weekday time expecting to come in.  I check my phone, of course ... and I see that there has been a group text created with my boss and co-workers.  I still didn't quite understand it (or maybe I just didn't believe it), but apparently the shipment was expected to be so meager again this morning that not everyone had to come in today, either.  This text chain started a quarter after 4 this morning, so obviously I was late to the party, but from what I picked up, it was determined that there was such little work that, like yesterday, one person could come in and do my job and another person's.  It looks as though one of my co-workers volunteered to do that, and, after I texted my boss and another co-worker to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing, I asked, and was granted, today off.

Woo-hoo!!!  Hell yeah!!!  But damn, how bad is the storm down there?  Given the work we get is important, I thought they would need Sunday to recover, then be back fully functioning, or at least get up off the mat, by yesterday afternoon so they could at least start getting caught up with giving us a sizable shipment (if not more than a full day's shipment) this morning so we could, you know, work.  Guess not.

So we might get two days' worth of work tomorrow morning, and tomorrow is when I have to cut open packages.  I probably (unless the mid-South needs yet another day to recuperate) will be opening so many packages that I'll get carpal tunnel syndrome.  But that's tomorrow.  I have an interesting (at least to me) dilemma right now: Whether to work out at my gym.  When I got the day off today, I thought it would be a good time to finally get out and exercise.  But then I fell asleep again from around 10 till a bit before 2 -- much needed, by the way -- and now, I don't know.  It's above zero, which is miles warmer than what it was before, but it's still pretty cold.  I just saw on the map that these motherfuckers are still here; they just took a Latina woman this morning.  Finally, if I surprisingly don't have to work, do I want to start up my car?  Do I even leave the house?  You know, I think I should take advantage of this serendipity and stay at home -- completely at home, a one-day lockdown, like the weekend.  There's a bike that Mother used as a clothesline, but started using as a bike to help heal her knee.  I should get on it and just exercise here.  Yeah, I'll do that.  And I'll go out to the gym this weekend.

I Still Live In A Safe, Peaceful Neighborhood

So I ended my lockdown -- which, once I stepped a bit after 9 at night, totalled a bit more than 75 hours -- I was confronted with a very nice surprise.  Not one but two of my packages, comprising of several of the many items I ordered online at once, were at my stoop.  I thought they would get here after my lockdown, but apparently that wasn't the case.

So I checked online.  As is often the case, their initial days of delivery were moved up.  One package, which were two windshield wipers, came, according to them, on Thursday.  The other package, a two-pack of water filters, arrived Saturday.  So, if they're right about when they actually arrived, I had two packages, one stacked on top of the other, sitting outside my front door, for one and three days?  And no one stole them???  I've heard of the rampant scourge of package thieves, and I don't doubt it, but I have to be honest with you, it's never happened to me, at least not yet.  I've come home late into the night to see packages at my stoop and I've wondered how no one has taken them.  But one day would be a record.  Three days, though?  It's pretty much a miracle that both packages were still there.

Or, maybe I live in a neighborhood where people respect other people's stuff, and don't feel the urge to take things that are not theirs because they have stuff of their own.  For as unsafe and scared I have felt these days, that's a reminder that this place is still pretty safe and peaceful, Buddha bless it.

Snow Day!!!

I hate surprises, but when the surprise is an unplanned day off, I love surprises.  Well, it wasn't quite unplanned.  There's that huge snowstorm just south of us (I think that's the reason we've had below-zero weather for the past four days) that is (or was) dropping inches of snow and tenths of inches of ice.  That's where we get our work from every day.  There was a very good chance that no work would come in today since the mid-South is still dealing with the cold and ice and digging out of the snow.

And, as far as I know, that is what's happening.  I woke up at my normal time, like I would be going in to work like normal, but I texted my co-worker, who works early, if there is any work.  I waited a while but, just before I headed out, I got a voicemail from my boss saying that there isn't work (or at least no work when she checked this morning), so she said I could take the day off.  And I am!

Now, for all I know, a shipment came later this morning.  But even if there was, the number of forms has to be so meager that my co-worker could take care of it by herself.  But assuming the South will rise by tomorrow, we are going to have to play catch-up.  That means longer hours, and it may be so much work that the day off I am enjoying now I will make up later this week.  But hey, until then, I am enjoying my day off here ... where I am taking naps, cleaning the humidifier, and getting scared they're going to knock on my door.

About non-violent resistance: I don't know if that's enough.  Apparently (and I could be wrong), protestors are observing and not getting in the way as they do what they're doing.  But what they're doing is violent -- abducting people based on race, separating adults from children, making those kids bait by forcing them to ask adults in a house to come out so they can be abducted too, and then pepper-spraying those protestors who aren't getting in the way.  What good is blowing whistles and recording them when the people getting kidnapped are being detained, tortured, and then thrown out of the country?

Yes, intervening is illegal.  But so is what they're doing.  And you say non-violence is going to stop this?

My Own Personal Lockdown

So I got home, without incident, at around 5:45 last/Thursday night.  I had to open the door again because I got a delivery.  But, once I shut my door at around 5:50 p.m., I did so with the firm intention of not opening it until Sunday afternoon.

Yeah, so like I said in a previous blog post, since I didn't get the Wild gig I thought I was going to get, that opened up the possibility that I could take today/Friday off in solidarity with the general strike (which is also in the vein of a nationwide walkout for which I did my best to participate in by leaving work Tuesday afternoon).  And, it just so happens that the most brutal cold snap in what seems to be at least a few winters is descending on us this weekend, the worst of which is happening right now through this/Friday afternoon.  When there is more than one sign pointing you in a certain direction, you best pay heed.  And so, with the blessing of my new boss and my co-workers, I am staying in from now through the weekend (which means that not getting the Wild job is a blessing in disguise; I would otherwise have to be running around the tunnels underneath Grand Casino Arena and driving around town, and then I would have to hang out during the Game at the compound where there is no heat while temperatures plummet).

I'll admit it: I don't want to get my ass kicked.  But how can I show my support against fascism without sticking my neck out?  By not working or shopping today, which many faith leaders in the Twin Cities has asked us to do in order to get these motherfuckers out of our safe, diverse community.  I could march downtown Minneapolis like a lot of people are planning to do, but dammit, the government will get my face, plus it's brutally cold.  (And I wonder if it would have been better to march through a part of the city where more immigrants reside, but I'm not marching, so who am I to scold?)  So I get to protest by going to bed late, getting up late, and not working?  That's a win-win!

I am in awe of the list of local businesses (as well a few places in Duluth and Rochester) that are shutting down in solidarity, which are listed courtesy of Bring Me The News.  You know this economic blackout (coming on a Friday, natch) is getting to be pretty fucking serious when even Dreamgirls, the downtown strip club where I have had a lot of fun before (even though it's been years), is participating in the shutdown.  I think people are getting the message that a lot of places they would go to shop and dine and, well, get lap dances won't be open today/Friday.  So, for those businesses, especially the local ones, that will remain open, will they make enough money to justify being open?  Remember that there is a polar vortex happening right now.  A shop or a restaurant may not care one way or the other about what's happening in our community, but it might not be worth it to open because it's so goddamn cold.  And I think there will be brownie points given if they choose not to open.  Does it matter if it's really because to save money when you can just say you're standing with your neighbors in the face of federal occupation?  It may not be for the right reason, but that's a compromise I'm willing to take.

As for myself, I intend to just chill for the next, oh, 66 hours or so ... and hope that these people don't knock on my door.  I have thought about just not answering, which is what I hear more and more people are doing when they hear a knock on the door.  But that might not matter because these pricks have been given permission to violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and just bust the door down.  You know, I hate guns, but this is the point where I have to consider invoking my Second Amendment rights.  Maybe more on that later, if this siege continues.

It is profoundly sad that, as much as I want to feel safe at home, I don't feel 100% safe here right now.  I can't even enjoy sanctuary where I live because of this out-of-control Republican government?  We don't live in a democracy anymore.  And I hope my personal lockdown expressing that anger is a valuable contribution to the Resistance.

A Gig Or Democracy (Or Neither)?

I anticipated working a Wild Game this week.  I signed up for it and everything.  But I have yet to hear back from them confirming I would be working for them.  At some point, if I don't hear anything from them (and I swear I looked everywhere -- e-mails, texts, and especially the junk boxes for both just in case their messages went there), I have to figure they're not going to hire me.

I decided that yesterday/Monday afternoon was the deadline.  I checked everywhere one more time, but no one said, "Hey, can you work the Wild Game this week?"  I knew this was a Game for which they could use a runner, so a few months ago I blocked off two days this week at work.  Well, I'm not going to work the Game even if I get a late-night, desperation text right now asking me if I could work it.  Too late, you know?

That means I now can work this week ... however, you may have heard that there is not one but two walkouts planned for this week, one today/Tuesday and one on Friday.  I want to support democracy and protest our fascist regime in my own passive-aggressive way ... by taking those days off.  And I might as well give up the ghost to illustrate the absurd irony of this situation: The two days I had to block off to work the Wild Game are tomorrow/Wednesday and Thursday.  So I am going from taking tomorrow/Wednesday and Thursday off to taking today/Tuesday and Friday off ... well, seeing as last-minute as this change is, taking this/Tuesday afternoon off, which would coincide with a planned nationwide walkout this/Tuesday afternoon.

And, well, wanting to take today/Tuesday and Friday off.  This is very last-minute, but I tried reaching out to my new boss about flipping my days off this week.  I haven't heard back from her yet.  I hope I can still do it, and I hope this change doesn't affect all the plans she and my co-workers may have had when it comes to where they're working.  But, well, if I can't work a hockey Game, I may as well protest our freedoms being taken from us, right?

Living Like This

I just heard that there is an application that can pinpoint where people of color live in a given neighborhood.  All the information we have given through the Internet and our cellphones has finally been weaponized against us under this installed government.  Finally comes the surveillance state.  Meanwhile, the "small government" militias should be taking up arms now, but they're awfully quiet.  Turns out some of us knew all along: They're only small government when the people they don't like are in charge.  When people they do like are in charge, they're totally cool with that.  Shit, they might just take arms and become the hatchet men of the government.  Fucking posers.

---

I gave myself a nightmare whereby I have just shut the door on my way to my car in the morning and two of these pricks, standing against my house, jump me and try to hustle me into their SUV.  But I resist, punching and kicking and biting all the way.  Finally, I reach for some guy's gun and blast the two fuckers who were holding me down ... only to get shot by reinforcements standing a few feet away.

That might be how I go.

---

They got really close today.  These monsters were hanging out at the hospital, trying to get in.  Luckily, if I heard correctly, they weren't allowed in.  But they keep coming at us like this.

And now I hear they're vulturing around the elementary school.  What they're doing is kidnapping.  It's not lawful no matter what anyone says, it's kidnapping.  And kidnapping kids?  I don't care who they are, and I don't care what happens to them if, Lord willing, we the people finally stop them.  Disgusting.

---

I was invited to a party this weekend.  Want to, mostly because one of my ATFs is going, but I won't attend.  For one thing, it's at an area that feels as though it'll be visited.  For another, there's football, and I want to watch both Games.  But I have to tell you, the stripper organizing the house party has turned into a fucking MAGAt.  I had no idea she was so racist, but ever since he was installed a second time last year, she hasn't been shy about sharing memes on her Facebook that make my stomach turn.  And I'm very surprised it's coming from her because she's mixed.  Who does she think she is, White?

I have dropped on occasional comment on her Facebook implying what she's posting is wrong and/or Republican, but she hasn't said anything back to me on that front.  But when I told her I couldn't go to her party, she gave me a sad emoticon.  Does she understand how racist she is, and I'm not really digging that shit?  But why am I being so strident?  If this fascism dies down, I'll probably go to one of her parties again.

---

It seems as though there wasn't a whole lot of activity yesterday/Thursday, attempted invasion of the hospital aside.  I could be imagining things.  Maybe this is a lull before another surge.  Or, they might be hesitating because it turned cold yesterday/Thursday.  It'll get even colder today/Friday, and it'll be that way for the next week or so.  By God, if this gives these assholes a second thought, we just might get out of this.

Should I See Her?

With my parents now gone, I feel free to see my All-Time Favorite at My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Division).  I tell her on Sunday I want to see her this week.

Big mistake now that these fuckers are trying to push us around.  I started to see videos on websites, applications, social media and the news about people getting kidnapped by faceless thugs, who then push and teargas onlookers, protestors and patriots trying to film their illegal kidnappings.  And I have heard that these motherfuckers have been on my street the past couple days.

So yeah, I'm freaking out.  I don't know if I should be out and about these days.  And I told my ATF so, apologizing for possibly changing my mind.  But I thought about this too: If I am afraid these assholes are going door to door ... do I feel safe at home?  If so, should I be home?  Could I, in fact, be safer somewhere besides my house?  (I realized when I was working yesterday/Monday that I, to my astonishment, felt safer there than I have felt the past several days.)  If that's the case, would it be better for me to go to the strip club?  I know it's bad odds, but maybe I will be out on a night where these assholes are invading our street.

I've been looking up a website that tracks this vermin wherever they go and whatever they do, whether it's detaining some poor guy who got caught up at the wrong place at the wrong time or if they're just eating shit at some gas station.  No doubt they're here, and they have been extremely close in the area.  So I am looking at how frequently they are where I need to be and would like to go (work, strip club, parks, where I exercise) and see, over the next couple days, if it's safe or not.  (One observation I have made: These pricks are avoiding both downtowns, at least for now.)  And still I know it's a crapshoot that wherever I go and whatever I do, I still might get attacked.

When I told her I am having second thoughts, she said, "Do what you think is best for you."  I am sad that she sounds disappointed.  I hope she understands what I'm going through.  But when I told her why I was hesitating, she asked, "Do you think you look like what they're looking for?"  And I am disappointed that she doesn't appear to think that what is happening to other people of color could happen to me.  That "First They Came" poem?  I hope she read it.

Shit, I might just give her the poem when I see her this week.

Apparently, They're Here

None of these reports are verified, but I have seen on websites and heard from friends of mine that they are in the neighborhood now.  One said they're going door to door.  I saw a video taken at the trailer park nearby that shows two guys wearing winter masks, those fuckers.

I've downloaded transcription and recording applications, just in case.  I kind of wish I have a dashcam now, but, well, it may be too late for that.

I am trying to balance my fear of getting round up in all of this with my need to stand up to bullies -- for my neighbors, for my community, for my state, for the good people governing it, and for myself.  Frankly, though, I don't know if I can do it.  I have thought about texting my brother, at least letting him know that these assholes are in the area.  You know, just in case.

So afraid going out the past few days.  Am glad I was still able to see my friend without getting hassled.  But with this fascist vice tightening, there's no telling if, for example, I'll get stopped on the way to work.

Goddamn this world.