Monday, January 11, 2021

Still Here

and waiting for the call that says I can schedule my vaccination. How do things look where you are? They lowered the age to 65 here and I have gotten several emails from my local hospital telling me they would soon begin a schedule. 

Reading the new Willie Vlautin book-THE NIGHT ALWAYS COMES. Enjoying more stories from LIES OF THE SAINTS.  Also read WITH OR WITHOUT YOU by Caroline Leavitt which was pretty good until the end when she insisted on every character becoming self aware and able to right themselves. Do you want that in a book? That must be why it happens so much in mainstream literature.

Rewatched MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE last night. Myrna Loy and Grant are, of course, great but Melvyn Douglas really steals the show for me as their acerbic friend. Grant is sort of a bumbler in this part, but he does it beautifully. My favorite scene is the one where Loy describes what colors to use in painting the house.

Finished A SUITABLE BOY, which I have to say was disappointing. I had always heard how terrific the novel was but this probably stripped the novel of everything but the romantic story lines. I can say the same thing about BRIDGERTON. Although maybe that was all romance in book form. 

Don't need to say anything about this week, but I was never more ashamed of being an American. As more information dribbles out, it is clear just how vast and far-reaching the planning for this was. Has there ever been an American who did more harm to their country that 45. I don't think so. And his enablers are just, if not more, culpable by not seeing a mad man and working against him.


So what are you up to?

25 comments:

Steve Oerkfitz said...

Hope you can get your vaccination soon. I'm scheduled for the 21st. Getting the Moderna. Haven't watched much on tv other than CNN or true crime shows. Did rewatch The Outlaw Josey Wales. One of Clint Eastwood's better efforts. Chief Dan George steal the movie.
My reading was cut back because of an eye injection. It's usually about 36 hours after a shot before I can do any reading. Finished John Connolly's The Dirty South which I liked a lot and am finishing up When the Mountains Burn by David Joy, one of my favorite newer authors. Check him out if you are into David Woodrell, David Ray Pollock or Ron Rash.
Have had a fallout with my sister over Trump. She's a supporter which is strange since her best friend since childhood is the wife of Michigan Democratic senator Gary Peters. Must make for some interesting conversations.
I am too embarrassed for our country. In my mind Trump should be facing charges for sedition. I wouldn't be surprised to see another bombing like the Oklahoma Federal Building or some attempted assassination. Our Governor has already been threatened again.

pattinase (abbott) said...

And over some bitcoin thing? Which I don't understand at all. What it is, I mean. I will check out Joy but I am buying way too many books lately. Which is was easier to use the library.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Wish it...not which is.

Jerry House said...

Well. January 6th was Epiphany and it seems to have been an epiphany for many Americans. 45 is going out in disgrace and probably impeached again. I sincerely hope that a lot of the culpability will fall on his enablers even as many of them are dancing away from Trump. Time will tell. We have a lot of hard self-aware months ahead of us and I hope Biden can navigate us through them.

Meanwhile, things are going fine here in Quarantineville. I seem to be sleeping about forty hours each day. No major symptoms, I just feel like I have a very bad cold. Although Kitty also tested positive, she is asymptomatic. Her only complaint is loneliness because I spent all my time sleeping. Christina, Erin , and Jack have been doing grocery runs for us and leaving things on our front porch -- bless them! Jessie is out of quarantine and feeling great; neither of her girls tested positive. Walt should be out of quarantine in a couple of days; everyone else in the house has tested negative. Also on the plus side, I've lost ten pounds over the past week.

Christina took up crocheting in 2020. She decided to crochet a hat a month, each with a different pattern. Because of the pandemic she finished all twelve hats very early and donated them them to charity. She decided to start on a larger project -- crocheting reindeer for Christmas. She finished eight reindeer and gave them out on Christmas. She also decided that I needed a llama rather than a reindeer. Turns out the pattern for a llama was much bigger than that for a reindeer and she dropped off the world's largest crocheted reindeer on our porch yesterday. It is beautiful.

So today is January 11 and I have read only two books in the new year -- an Avenger pulp novel by "Kenneth Robeson" (Paul Ernst) and the new Reacher by Lee and Andrew Child. Wonder why my reading has diminished so much in 2021? Wait. The damned Covid!

We finished all six seasons of SCHITT'S CREEK and are now working our way through ALAN BANKS.

Despite the disruption to our lives over the past week or so, the damnedcat still insists on being fed. Go figure.

I understand it's been cold and rainy this week. I wouldn't know.

Hoping your life is warm and sunny over the coming week, Patti!

pattinase (abbott) said...

I had a flu last February where I slept around the clock. I still wonder if it might have been covid. But I also had a high fever. Funny how it seems different in each person in your family, Jerry. I have only finished one book since Jan 1 and have no excuse other than that I was glued to MSNBC/CNN for most of it.

George said...

The Buffalo Bills. won their first Playoff Game in 25 years. It was a squeaker and came down to the Last Play. The Bills were lucky to win. This coming Saturday brings the red-hot Baltimore Ravens to town.

According to the New York State vaccine program, teachers and police and firefighters and folks 75 and older will get the vaccine in the next month. So, it's still hunker down time for us. This vaccine rollout is way too slow! We have friends traveling to Florida where anyone can get vaccinated.

Our weather continues to be mild. Our temperatures will be in the mid-30s this week. Very little snow.

Like you, I was dismayed at the assault on the Capitol. Some of our friends who are Trump supporters expressed surprise while the rest of us knew an incident like Wednesday's riot was likely.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

Jerry-I thought the actor who plays Alan Banks was miscast.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I did too (Banks) but I got used to him over time.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Yes, the enablers who know better but supported him for their own cynical reasons are worse. He is a sick, twisted little man.

I don't see us getting a vaccine before April (?), what with the De Blasio efficiency we've gotten used to over the past eight years, plus the constant wrangling between him and Cuomo, plus the total fuckup of the Federal government throwing all responsibility to the states. It is 75 here for a minimum - maybe New York has more old people than Michigan - plus health care and essential workers and nursing home residents. It has taken an unconscionably long time to get any kind of system set up - they are first opening giant, 24/7 sites today. Or, we could drive to Florida, where it seems (from what my cousin was told) to be something of a free for all.

But anyway...

We did start three new series now that we've finished all the hour long series we've been watching. (That is, we finished series one of Mossad 101, etc.)

DEEP WATER (Prime). This Aussie series (stars Yael Stone, from ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK) is based on a series of murders (30 to as many as 80!) of young gay men in Sydney's Bondi Beach area in the '80s and '90s. Gorgeous scenery.

THE BREAK (Netflix). French language Belgian series. Cop moves back to his home town with his teenage daughter after the death of his wife from leukemia, only to be immediately faced with the murder of a young African soccer player.

MEKIMI (Prime). Israeli. A television star gets married, becomes religious. Twenty years later, she writes a novel based on her life story. It was adapted into this four part mini-series. So far, it is her and the guy but I think part two brings in the religious part.

We've been recording things to watch later - VERTIGO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, CABARET (we have a DVD of this). Network television today is a wasteland - horrible "reality" (The Bachelorette?) and retro cheapjack game shows (To Tell the Truth).

January 20 cannot come quickly enough.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I'm a big fan of Peter Robinson's series, and I generally like Stephen Tompkinson, but I agree he was badly miscast as Banks.

Todd Mason said...

My longest-term friend (we've been in touch pretty consistently for over forty years now, having met in October of 1979, when we were both sophomores in our Honolulu HS), who works as a research and office support person in Infectious Disease at Mass General Hospital (who's busy?), has allowed herself to be overworked and overstressed into a hospital stay. (Happily, as such things go, that just meant going downstairs and into the other wing. No Covid-19 nor flu, also happily.) That was Friday, though I found out on Saturday...despite being her health proxy, the hospital staff gave me a worse than usual runaround in trying to contact her through the day. They finally let her cousin-in-law get through to her late Saturday.

There is no reason to feel shame for being fellow citizens along with the deluded, vicious Trump-worshiping or at least Trump-energized thugs. We are not responsible for them, even if we could've done more (one can Always do more till one falls down for the last time in the corridor or on the lawn) to help make the world a better place for all of us, so that they would be less likely to be so gullible as to think a malignant narcissist embezzler and game-show performer (among his better qualities), installed by the Electoral College as president, is someone worth listening to, much less voting for, if they bothered to vote.

Almost as enervating as their being enabled to live out their fantasies of Storming the Steal Bastille (in part through the such charming facts as Trump being able to delay the deployment of the DC National Guard and Mayor Bowser being unwilling to call in too many police agencies in the wake of Black Live Matters brutality, which is not a positive mark for her mor for those agencies generally) has been the commentary after the fact, breast-beating or otherwise, that their activity was that of anarchists (fascists are the by-definition opposite of anarchists) while the fascists and their enablers tried to pretend that they were being misrepresented by anarchists of the mixed bag of "antifa" (which of course are the all-purpose demons of the aforementioned abusive police agencies and their mutual Trumpista enablers), or that the vandals were Impeding Democracy, when the activity they were impeding primarily was the rubber-stamping of the results of the essentially uniquely USian anti-democratic institution of the Electoral College, which, of course, has (again) been the agency of installation of the likes of Trump and Dick Cheney and has Never had any democratic as opposed to impeding-democracy purpose throughout its existence.

It ain't you or me, Patti, or anyone in this comment list. But it sure is a hell of a thing.

Better times for us all.

Todd Mason said...

Also, the notion that atop all else they have been throwing away some of the vaccine doses since they didn't have enough people handy to give all the shots in a thawed-out batch to is indicative of the Continuing Crisis. We can only hope this turns out to be an Unfortunate Antifa False Flag Urban or Town and Country Legend, but stupid is never in short supply. Call in people passing by on the street.

Nor, not mor.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I saw the first two of those, Jeff. But will look for the third. Although I know of people who live in FL and can't seem to get it. A real free for all.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Enough pain for a century not just four years.

TracyK said...

I am glad to hear good reports (relatively) from Jerry, and hope that things stay that way. Christina must be a crocheting whiz. She inspires me to get out my yarn and needles and at least work on a scarf or two.

In Santa Barbara County, the schedule for vaccines shows "Persons 65 to 74 with underlying medical conditions that place them at high risk for COVID19" will be vaccinated by Mid-March 2021. Those in the 65-74 age group with no unusual medical conditions (which I think my husband and I fit in) come after that, but with no specific dates set. I don't think the vaccine will be available for us that soon here but maybe with a new President things will improve.

Still watching Schitt's Creek. Still planning to watch DCI Banks. On DVD, we are watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent and Babylon 5. I have read four books so far in 2021. One Louise Penny, and two Hercule Poirot novels. The Poirot novels are very quick reads. And BLACK ROBE by Brian Moore. Not what I expected but very good.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I can't believe I forgot to mention one more we're watching, though probably not your taste:

30 COINS (HBO). The coins are clearly supposed to be the ones Judas got for betraying Jesus, and they are wanted back by some (apparently) dead Cardinals (I guess they are supposed to be). One has turned up in a small town in Spain (it is a Spanish show) after a cow gave birth to a human baby (they quickly prove it wasn't really), and spooky supernatural stuff starts happening, centered around a disgraced exorcist exiled there, the local newly elected Mayor, and a veterinarian who seems to have an attraction to the married Mayor. Let's just say you will not be bored and it really holds your attention.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I was wondering about that. The Tiger Woods doc was the second scariest thing I saw all week. His Dad was guilty of child abuse in a major way. Also just watched John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, which was great if you don't mind an arty sports film.
Love Brian Moore.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Brian Moore wrote some thrillers under the names of Bernard Mara and Michael Bryan.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I've been aware of the Tiger Woods thing, because it was here. His father was stationed at the Fort Hamilton Army Base and learned to play golf at the local Dyker Beach Golf Course, which is just the other side of the Army base.

TracyK said...

Patti, thanks for the information on Brian Moore's thrillers. I now remember reading about some of them on Brian Busby's blog, and I just pulled out his book, THE DUSTY BOOKCASE, and read about them. I will have to look around and see how easy it is to find copies.

Margot Kinberg said...

Sorry I'm late to the party. No word yet here on when a vaccine will be ready; I hope it's soon. In the meantime, I'm sheltering. Let's hope this week will be a better one...

Kevin R. Tipple said...

Horrified by last week.....and absolutely freaking disgusted with those who still support the big lie and all the rest of it.

As to the virus....here in Dallas our positivity rate is trying to get to 30 percent, case count is running about 3K a day, and the ICU bed usage is around 84 percent if one counts, as the Mayor does, all beds no matter whether or not they can be staffed. At one point, we were down to eight ICU beds a couple of days ago and yesterday we have 15 mid afternoon.

Despite being disabled with stage two heart failure and other issues, I do not qualify under the state guidelines because I am 59 and therefore not over 65. The county currently has over 125K on the vaccine list before they closed it. Allegedly, they hope to get 10K doses a week. So, it would be quite awhile for those already on the list.

Other than all that, doing okay. No great, but not horrible either. Next week is Sandi's birthday on Tuesday where she would be 61 if things had gone like they should have so this, like all holidays, is rather hard right now.

Gerard Saylor said...

I'm not four days late, I am four days fashionable.

Good new for me: my mother is 76 and booked her vaccination in IL.
I'm on my second ALAN BANKS novel in a row. I had not realized that it was five years that I last read one from the series.

I started watching LOVECRAFT COUNTRY and THE DEUCE on HBO. I'm watching DEUCE in pieces because my children are often around in the evening. LOVECRAFT has been pretty good and has Michael Kenneth Williams.

RTD said...

Slow rollout here on Gulf coast .... lucky though and got first shot on Monday 1/11 .... the national picture is not very good ... just heard someplace is putting smokers on priority lists .... really? ...
https://novelsuspects.blogspot.com/

Rick Robinson said...

Out of hospital after 5 days of lying there. Now recovering from that. Feel pretty lousy, but will improve, if only the medical people will leave me alone. Being home is blessed relief.