Woot! 👏👏👏

You are not the bad one. She is the bad one, very bad. I hope you do not go on that vacation.

The dishonesty is a major point. Dishonesty and hypocrisy. The anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-protocol, anti-contact trace, let her rip crowd believes they are the only one with rights, and they will lie and defy any attempts to protect others. They sign up for this, that, and the other KNOWING what the rules are, and then openly flaunt their defiance, often being quite menacing about it. I don't think they have stopped to consider just how many bridges they are burning. Even at my husband's huge corporation, they are already rejecting applications for open positions from people based on their social media posts about covid, there reactions when informed of company protocols, etc. They don't want let it rip people who'd don't give an eff about their co-workers. We have family we will never speak to again. It.is.done. There reaches a point at which their utter disregard for humanity is not something we can look past or get over. Why should we? Our inner circle does not need to include such narcissistic people. But, already, the word on the grapevine is they are stunned and full of rage that they are cut off. Absolutely no concept of consequences for actions. I don't know how we recover from this as a nation. I know that I trust people on this board whom I have never met, more than the vast majority of people I once counted as family, friends, and colleagues. I think part of my malaise is just that feeling that being isolated is kind of a permanent thing, at least until we move. There is a UU church in Huntsville that has been really covid conscious, and from what we can tell, is a good groups of people. They are involved in a lot of community projects, good works for children, social justice. I have this tiny silver of hope that we might be able to make friends there when we move. Tiny. I don't want to get my expectations up there.

No, I live rural. The nearest ethnic market is about an hour away or more so two + hours round trip. Sigh.

This is what I face locally. More and more, I fear going into businesses. Meanwhile, my daughter has outdoor, socially distanced field trips and a science class for her son's secular group of home schoolers, and everyone wears KN95 or double masks for these, and are grateful to be getting together while making an effort at staying safe and not contributing to spread. No one gives her the slightest attitude about the protocols. I just cannot move from here soon enough. And my sewing machine is broken, and may not be worth fixing. So I can't quilt which would at least give me a distraction. The piano needs to be tuned, but while case loads are high, my tuner won't come, and it is getting enough out, that with my perfect pitch curse, I find myself not wanting to practice. I should have taken three classes instead of one so I would have a lot more homework and studying to help distract me. I keep reminding myself that today is the 20th, that leaves 11 days this month, and 27 days next month before I go get my college senior for spring break, and we have a quick ski day. Then after he returns, I only have about 50 days left before commencement, and we will spend part of that uncovering Ina Belle, and getting her sea worthy for our first spring sail. Plus, we leave the 30th of April after commencement for our vacation. When we get back it will be time to get the raised bed gardens cleaned out, and decide what to plant. The nurseries will be opens and I can get plants at my favorite outdoor plant market. I just have to get myself through this funk.

Wish I could, but the owners are "Covid is a hoax" people and barely tolerate me wearing a mask to go in. I would like to NOT give them the business, but our two other markets that so carry it are out of stock and do not expect to get any in the next month.

I am so sorry this has happened to you! That is some fricking awful selfishness on her part, and she deserves a tongue lashing from you! But I also understand if you are quietly stewing due to your mother in law's needs.

I am in a funk today.about it. Dh really wanted me to go get a box of cod loins from the fish market because they are getting harder to find, and his mom wants to have Friday night fish fry during Lent. Yesterday's covid numbers for our county over a five day period was 17,202 per day. The whole area is just a disaster. Yes, I have a KN95. No, I did not have the slightest motivation to put it on, drive over there, duck in, and get that fish even though I would not have been inside very long. I just feel like it is no different than diving head first into a sewage pond. Hopefully, I will overcome this. It would be nice to have the fish fry. Mark makes a wonderful gluten free breading, and mil doesn't have a whole lot of Lents left. I would not be shocked if this is the last one. I managed to pay attention during class. (Online, synchronous astronomy course.) But just barely, and I have read the same three paragraphs of the text three times, and mostly drew a blank which is NOT like me at all. So I am giving up for now because I don't need to have the reading done for a day or two, and will try again. If the wind wasn't howling like mad, I would go take a walk and see if fresh air would help.

That face! No one could help but love that face!

I mw.very glad you do not need surgery, and hope it heals quickly and without complication!

Just so you know, fake snow flakes are also evil says the woman who dipped 100 silk white carnations in thinned out mod podge then in a container of the stuff then had to shake off the excess to created the ice/snow effect for a wedding followed by 100 white rose buds, and underestimated the time involved ad well as the continued clean up three years later thus under charging the bride and family by a significant amount for the horror endured. For what it is worth, when your stylist can't get it off your scalp and completely out of your hair, it makes a pretty effect in your French twist on the day of said wedding which looks deliberate, and produces many compliments, but for sure, get it out of your eyebrows and eyelashes before it dries. 😁

Wait, the PM thinks kids can drive forklifts???? Oy! My dad had a forklift for his business. Each of his operators took a special class and then only operated with his supervision until they had proven themselves. The office manager wasn't allowed to touch that thing! So.damn.stupid. I swear politicians, regardless of nation of origin, are some of the dumbest, most evil, pond scum, pus spewers on the planet!

I do not own one, but helped rear one for a friend on her fiber farm. I loved Danny, just adored him. He was high energy, super duper intelligent, and needed work. He was from a working dog line. So his happiest days were when he had a big flock of sheep to boss around, LOL.

I am the researcher too. It is my natural personality. I was not raised that way. My father treated my mother as "weak minded" and dictated to her. She obeyed. While he left the bulk of the parenting to her because it was "women's work" 😠, she did not make decisions about anything very often at all. No independent thought on her part until she got to about 52, and my sister left home. Something about that made her go "boing" and tell him the way it was going to be for a change. Very odd to watch from the outside. I don't mind being the researcher. I was the one who would have been a professional college student my entire adult life if that had come with a salary and benefits! 😂

Very similar situation for my mother, and she has zero self esteem because of it.

My brother was my father's golden child. And my brother is a colossal screw up when it comes to relationships. Four out of five of his adult children have chosen limited contact. They call him on his birthday, Christmas Day, and Father's Day, only one allows an annual 3 day visit, and only if step mom who is malignant narcissist is not along. The one who has contact with him and her mom on a regular basis is NOT mentally healthy because of it. So growing up, for most of our childhood, it was he and I, and he was golden with my dad regardless of his stupid behavior especially during his teen years, and I was hammered on emotionally by dad though mom did not engage in that. She also did not do a damn thing about the emotional abuse either so in adulthood, our relationship has had problems and will always have some strain to it. My sister did not come along until I was 13 and my brother 17. She has zero relationship with him. He went to college when he was 18, had a kid and was married by 19, and she was not a person he was interested in knowing. They have a just about zero relationship. Since she moved to France nine years ago, the most they have is an occasional text with one another. When she comes home, until covid once per year for a month, he spends one afternoon visiting with her at mom's house. That is it. I, on the other hand, was sister-mommed by my parents. So when I became an adult, went to college, and married she was still a little kid, and when ever she was with me, we defaulted into a mother-child relationship. It took me a lot of years proactively trying to change that dynamic as she aged. At some point when she was in college, we managed to forge an adult sister relationship and remain close to this day. We communicate A LOT on Facebook messenger, What's Ap, video calls, and I spent three weeks with her in France a few years ago. I don't know what normal is except to say that my cousin and her brother seem to be a regular, fairly close, health adult sibling relationship from the outside looking in.

This. My former boss's wife emailed me to let me know he has covid. Unvaxed, but she is vaxed. He took a home test and has been recovering without medical intervention. The health department is not logging positives on home tests. She has symptoms, very mild, and isn't bothering to home test. He was a special speaker at a seminar this past weekend - about 100 people in attendance with reception afterward and no masks in sight - and waited until three days after his positive test to let the organizers know he was probably communicable. His positive was Sunday morning. So two people not included in the data, a hundred people exposed. Our national response to this crisis can only be described as "totally effed up". This lack of clear data makes it impossible to truly tackle the issue of spread. Here, most parents are not having their kids tested. It is absolutely spreading in the schools and there needs to be a four week shut down/return to virtual in order to get it under control. But not testing the kids allows the schools to throw their hands up and say, " we don't have that many reporting covid so it isn't spreading in the school setting". 😠 Sure. Because it spreads in restaurants and bars when people are in there for only a couple of hours, but NOT at schools without mask mandates for six/seven hours per day, with 30 kids per room, a vax rate of only 11% for 12-17 year olds, and parents sending kids to school sick so they don't have to stay home from work! Sure. Dry that one out and we can fertilize the lawn with it! But we are a nation whose political structure has always been "head into the sand, pretend it isn't happening" until it is too late. Reactive, never proactive, and half the citizenry, for the most part, is totally all for that because god forbid someone tell them they might have to alter their lifestyle for a while or do something for the collective good.

Michigan has averaged 17,202 cases per day for each of the five last days. We didn't really get over the delta surge before getting hammered with omicron. I don't know how HCW's continue to marshall onward, but I fear that so many of them will have absolutely wrecked health when we finally see this subside. 😭

Tiggy, I am sooooooo sorry! If I had to hazard a guess, I would say your body is plum tuckered out, and is reacting to that. When I was caring for my eldest ds after our car accident even though I was far from recovered and shouldn't have been, I would run a fever and ache head to toe at the end of the day even if I had not been in pain earlier. I am convinced that my body was overwhelmed. Too much responsibility, too much work, not enough rest and recovery time. Many hugs! 💓

Love it!!

Wow! That is one lunatic doctor! Says the woman who is allergic to wheat, verified by allergist, and who not only has gastro problems when exposed, but severe skin reaction, and now has to carry an epi pen because it is marching towards anaphylaxis rapidly. Sigh. And believe me, the clown that poses as my "primary" has zero concept. Zero. So ya. I do once per year for the BP med, and the allergist once every couple of years when my epi expires, and then don't bother the rest of the time. Meanwhile, my sister in France, has a marvelous primary, nutritionist (sis has celiac), and immunologist. Just awesome team. She hasn't had all the nonsense getting to the bottom of her problems there like she did here. The medical culture there is different. I think it is because it is not a for-profit system with universal coverage, and doesn't cost so much to operate a practice. Med school is paid for, and I think that has a very positive effect on medical practitioners there. Sis would be dead if she was here. OP, what a 🦃! I am sorry that happened.

I have know idea. But Typhoid Mary was immune to the disease though a carrier. So I think there could be people who have that kind of immune system and just don't get sick.

Stopping in briefly to add our family experience. We dropped youngest ds (21) at his campus on the 8th. My mom trimmed his hair for him on the evening of the 7th. Ds had JnJ back in May, and a Moderna booster right before Christmas. He felt a stuffy nose and very mild sore throat with a limited cough on Thursday morning the 13th. His roommate had six Binax tests that his parents sent with him to school, and he offered one to ds. Positive. He packed his stuff, headed to the quarantine dorm, and then notified campus health. They sent a nurse to check on him, and he was doing fine. By evening his symptoms had ended except for a slightly runny nose, and that was gone by the morning of the 14th. So he was seriously not sick much at all. The nurse stopped by to check him out, and then told him if he tested negative on Monday the 17th, he would be released back to his regular dorm, and for extra special caution, to wear his mask inside his room (they have mandatory KN95 everywhere except in your own room and outside when not walking/gathering in a group). His roommate told him it was too uncomfortable to sleep in a KN95 and said to downgrade to s a soft, cloth mask. Ds slept okay last night in the cloth mask but not great. His roommate said that on Wednesday he would feel comfortable with ds not masking inside the room anymore. Knowing ds, he will still do the five days. He is very conscientious, and does not want to spread it. Ds says to tell you, "I am very thankful I had the vaccine booster". There was a student in the room next to him in quarantine, and he could hear her coughing so hard she was often gagging. It was constant. She talked quite loud when the nurse was there giving her what he thinks, from the sound of the machine, was breathing treatments, and apparently they would have liked to hospitalize her but no beds available. He also said when he left, he heard her say to the nurse that she wished she had been vaccinated. He said the nurse was very kind and did not make a snarky comment back as she was shutting the room door to leave. He thanked the nurse on his way out for talking good care of them, and for being so nice. I worry about that student being away from home and so darn sick. I am eternally grateful ds had a light case. Mark and I were unable to get tested due to the high case load here. Asymptomatic people have zero shot at a test, and there isn't a binax on the shelves for a 100 miles. But, my mom had been pre-scheduled for a month to get her PCR test 30 hours before she was to leave for France with a rush put on it by her doctor to make sure the results would be in before she left. It was negative. Given that the average from exposure to onset of symptoms for omicron is 2-5 days, and ds was symptomatic 5 days after being dropped on campus, we are guessing he got it eating in the cafeteria. It was so cold outside, windchills below zero, that he was not taking his food back to his dorm room to eat because then he would have had to walk in that bitterness right back to the building next door for class. His dorm is about four blocks from the dining hall he uses. He is in class today (the first day of in person classes because they did the first week virtual) in his KN95. He is a senior and none of his classes have more than 20 people, and are in large rooms so he is able to socially distance. His hope is vax, booster, now antibodies from infection, and KN95 will be enough to get him through the semester without getting it again. I worry about something popping up later, long covid symptoms, but try not to think about it too much. He is coming home for spring break, and so we will do an isolation here except for skiing. He and his brother will ski, but not go inside the lodge. Otherwise, we will stay away from mother in law the entire time, and then for five days after returning him to campus, wear KN95 around her while she wears her N95. This way we hope to keep her safe while also having ds home. Mark is mentoring three pairs of students from the campus through their senior projects since the professor who is in charge has been sick off and on, and they aren't getting enough direction and instruction. He is loving it! Ds will be working on his while he is home that week.

Hi Natalie, that didn't sound creepy, LOL! Thanks so much for the offer.

So ds caught covid on campus. He thinks he got it in the dining hall. Last Sunday lunch, the wind chills were -10, and temp zero, and the wind speeds were high, terribly high so walking around campus was draining. He was feeling out of energy, and instead of asking for his food to go, took his mask off and ate in the dining room. Tons of students, and of course, eating so no masks. Wednesday night he got a sore throat, and Thursday morning the sniffles. Tripped positive on a Binax test in his room, and went immediately to the health center where they told him to go back to his dorm and take ten minutes to pack up what he needed, and then straight off to the quarantine dorm. He has no symptoms today, and since the campus is all online this week and has Martin Luther King Jr day off, he only has Tuesday in person classes to miss before his quarantine ends. He is working with his professors on that. BUT, the snag in all this is that when we reported it to our family MD, he insisted we all be tested in case his actual exposure was before he left for school on Jan. 8. Getting testing is insane. I have spent all of yesterday and most of today trying to get appointments, and none to be had. I am out of Binax for home and cane buy any. So I am taking a break, and just wanted to let you all know. Ds had a Moderna booster while on Christmas Break. He seems fine. We have no signs of symptoms but could be asymptomatic. I am also trying to find a driver to get my mom to the airport tomorrow. She has a flight to France to winter over with my sister on the Riviera. She is not handling these bitter temps well at all. So I can't take her tomorrow for a 2.5 hr drive to DTW if I do not know for certain I am negative. Finding a driver is not turning out to be an easy task. Sigh. Damn #%#%$&$&$&#%$@$@ virus! I am going to go get some cold sparkling water and something to eat - haven't eaten yet today - and then get back at my stupid covid task of trying to find a needle in a haystack. I am sorry I won't get to any of the notifications I have on WTM. It is getting to be a long list, and if I don't find a driver, tomorrow I will be in an N95 with my window open in Michigan winter while driving my mom to the airport as she cuddles under a mound of quilts to stay warm. I am not MIA, but also too stressed and time short to take the time to see if I should have responded to something. Stay safe out there. You guys means a lot to me! Update: Ds had symptoms less than 24 hrs. He will be let out of quarantine on Tuesday, and the whole campus has moved to KN95 masks. The college managed to buy enough to give them all three for now, and have more on the way so they can have five. They provided bags for them to keep them in for disinfecting/alternating after use. We will see if that works. We never did find any tests locally or well, anywhere, though I greatly appreciate Natalie offering hers. I just couldn't in good conscience take hers. However, we never developed any symptoms and have been away from ds for 8 days now. Tomorrow mil really needs us to do some things for her at her house, so we are going to don KN95's, and we will have her wear her surgical make with her well fitted cloth mask over it while we are there, and then assume that the next day which 10, we are all clear. I really think he picked it up on campus eating in the dining hall. He did not transmit to his roommate. So that was good. My mom's covid test, which her doctor put a rush on, came back negative just in the nick of time. Mark and I donned KN95's in the car and cracked the windows, and drove her the nearly 3 hrs. to DTW. Delta was wonderful with wheelchair assistance, and helped her check in. The rep even helped her put all her paperwork in the exact order to present at customs in France, and the rep said she was making sure that the wheelchair assistant for her in Charles De Gaulle was fluent in English so if she missed her connecting flight for some reason, they would be able to communicate well and make new arrangements. After all the nightmare of getting all that paperwork done, websites getting so many hits that they would time out all the time, and wondering if ds had exposed her to covid and she wouldn't have a negative test, everything actually went very smoothly. Mark and I wanted to wait around Detroit until we knew she was at the gate and her flight had not been cancelled, so we found a Thai restaurant, ordered for pick up, drove to a park, and sat and ate in the car while watching a movie on my kindle. I guess that was our date night! 😂 Hey Catwoman, we finally got a "date"! I am having a wicked allergy attack today. I know it is allergies and not covid, because Benadryl causes the symptoms to go away for a while, and since itching nose and eyes, is not a normal covid thing, I think I am in the clear. I won't be back online here for a couple of days. I am behind on my college course homework, and need to hunker down on that as well as go do some laundry and housework for mil.