Category: polemic

Cool and clear, maybe even sunny and warming later. Yesterday turned out quite nice. Sun stayed out, and it warmed up, but not so much that you started sweating. Having today the same would be great. Also great if I could enjoy it, instead of just moving through it.

Did a bunch of stuff yesterday, only some of it actually on my list. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, meeting with the tiger mom who is buying our piano, picking up the place–domestic bliss in other words. Then I did an auction pickup, went by the car repair and tried to get my Expy in for service. Nope, missed my chance, too busy. I guess I could try another place, but in my mind this guy has replaced my long time service place that shut down. Unfortunately he’s short staffed, which makes everything harder. Lotta that going around btw.

Went to a school thing later, a banquet for student athletes. BBQ was pretty good. More white coaches than there were white students in the room… My 5′ 8″ blondie gets a lot of attention from the short and dark student body. I’m getting the impression they think she’s “exotic” but not “wife material”. That’s fine with me. We’ve been invaded. It will only get worse from here.

I spent some time talking with my cleaning lady. She’s legal, but an immigrant. She told me that all her customers think really bad times are coming and they are getting ready. She is too. We’ve talked before about vac sealing and freezing meat, and she’s not dumb, she sees the stacks. She asked me what I thought, so I told her. Violence. Shortages. Upheaval. Massive inflation. Economic collapse. (something that is FAR from unthinkable for anyone from south of the border, btw. It’s the normal state of affairs they’ve lived with their whole lives. They have no reluctance to consider it as a possibility.) She said she is trying to sell one of her trucks, the one she considers a “personal” vehicle. “It’s just sitting there, not earning anything.” And she is thinking about taking her money and going back to Mexico, to one of the American expat communities. If she does, it will likely work out better for her than the expats, when the S hits the Fan. It’s easier to be poor in your home town, near family and friends.

Without considering any moral arguments, think about that.

And make plans. Because some of the invaders will be STRONGLY incentivized to stay, even if some do leave. Native born citizens are sorting themselves geographically, and a reverse dust bowl pattern is already emerging. I’ve talked to and seen other people who are moving back to family and familiar places. S is getting real, yo… (to use a meme.)

Who you are with, and where you are, is likely to make a huge difference in your life for the next 2, 5, or 10 years.

And what you’ve stacked, of course.

nick

Warmish, and certainly damp.   Although the national forecast shows clear for a while, I expect some minor precip at some point today or tomorrow, if only because it feels like it.  It was not bad at all yesterday, with highs in the sun in the low 80s.   Felt like spring.

I did get out of the house and made my trash run.   Went by my storage unit too.   Didn’t get half what I wanted to get done, done.  {wow, that’s an awkward construction}

It’s much easier to not do things than to do them.  Especially when you are tired, or bored, or melancholic… or you have unbalanced humours and too much black bile in your spleen.   Or it could be the siren song of teh intarwebs.  Whatever.   Slacked off again and got too little done.   The bill for that WILL come due, and be higher because of it.

It’s hard to maintain momentum and forward progress.  My whole working life was very project oriented, and the nature of the work was very ‘bursty’.   Work hard for a while, then have time off.   Even working full time for BigCorp I was traveling to customer sites where I’d work, or the office in Canadia, or fighting to get my expense and travel report in on time…. all of which took bursts of hard work, focus, and sometimes dogged determination to just get through it.  But then there would be some time where nothing was required of me or the level was so low I could phone it in.   Sprints rather than marathons (although the sprints could last as long as a marathon), quick anaerobic strength moves, not aerobic workouts.

Lately though, and coming after 3 years of not normal, it’s been a never ending slog.   Anyone else noticed we don’t do the ‘what have you done to prep this week’ topic any more?  Because we’ve been living the disaster for the last three years.   But this one is really fading to black, despite the spasms and paroxysms of the powers that be.   Problem is, no formal end.   No closure.   No doing the expense report, AAR, “lessons learned” meeting.  No putting the files away and cleaning up the workspace… and moving on.

But there is another disaster coming.  There is ALWAYS going to be another disaster coming.  To riff off of JimB, the end will be ‘nearerer’ again sooner or later.  Flooding and mudslides in Cali, and an earthquake, barely ping our awareness.   Tornadoes and freak storms in the mid-South hardly register.  Maybe we’re all fatigued, disaster fatigued.   That would be bad by the way, because we wouldn’t be thinking straight, we’d be mentally pliable and subject to manipulation.   We’d be looking for someone to make it end.  And that ain’t good.

I’m not sure what the answer is.   Kinda making this up as I go along today, but I think some of us (me) need to reset our baseline expectations.  Accept that what we’ve got now IS normal, and move on to living in it, and getting ready for whatever comes next.  Just about everything is harder now, takes longer, and costs more than 3 years ago.   But humans are nothing if not adaptable, and adept at telling ourselves stories that justify or excuse or motivate.   In a sense we will our personal reality into shape around us.   We enter and leave relationships, surround ourselves with people and things, spend our lives doing stuff, and shape our experience of the world.

The world goes on doing its thing regardless of what we’re doing.   The elephants will dance while we mice hope we can avoid being stepped on.  And one day we realize that the dancing changed the shape of the world around us.   There are still mice in the world though even after the elephants have trampled everything flat.

And mice gotta eat, so stack some food.   Stack the means to get more.    Stack dancing shoes, if you think that will help.   Stack books on living with elephants while avoiding their big stompy feet.   And get ready to get through the NEXT disaster.

nick

Cold and damp again.  40s to start the day, warming a bit.  Sunny, if we’re lucky.   It was clear yesterday but the sun wasn’t out much.  We might get a high in the low 70s.

Spent the day sorting auction items.   Didn’t get anything dropped off at my auctioneer.  That slipped to today.  I’ve got a pickup this morning, so I’ll be out of the house and moving earlier than usual.  That will help me get my stuff done.

I got some paper work done, and some household stuff done.  Not much, but a little.   Perhaps today will be a bigger work day.

I haven’t been commenting much on the election, the war/ongoing money laundry in Ukraine, or any other politics, because I’m worn out.  My ‘give a flock’ is all used up.   A while ago I mentioned someone observing that people were ‘pulling in’ their circles of friends and attention.   They are focusing on issues and people closer to home.  I think that is what is happening to me too, and I didn’t really notice at the time.   It seems pretty clear now though.

When times get tough, your attention and what you care about condenses.   I once asked my mom what her experience of the Vietnam war was.  She married in 1965 and started having kids.   She replied that she didn’t pay much attention to it.   She had several babies in diapers and then toddlers and young kids for the duration.   Her brother was serving overseas, but not in country, iirc.   To look at media from the time, you’d think everyone was involved in the war in one way or another, but that’s simply not true.   It AFFECTED everyone, but didn’t dominate at home, for a new wife and mother anyway.

Times were tough, and her attention was focused inward.  It’s hard to care about other peoples’ troubles when you have troubles of your own.

I’ve also not been posting a lot of basic prepping stuff.   That’s mainly because at this point, Bob or I said most of it.  Have food, water, shelter, defense, and meds.  As much as you can.   Avoid trouble if you can.   Get your house in order.  That means relationships and networks and circle of friends too.  ESPECIALLY circle of friends.  They are the people who will help you get by, or dime you to the Feds.  VERY important to get that right.  Far more important than I ever thought it was when I started this journey.

Remember too that life is what happens when you are doing other things.   These are the ‘good ol days’.   Live them.  Pay attention.  Don’t be so focused on the future that you miss the present.   My prepping is so intertwined with my daily life that I barely think of it anymore as something separate that needs to be done.   Equipping and preparing the BOL brings some of it to front of mind, and I try  to share that, but otherwise, it’s just normal every day life.  As I meet more of my neighbors up north and talk with them I see that “prepping” is really just “what we’ve always done” for a whole lot of people.  If you aren’t one of those people, you really need to look for them and learn everything you can from them.

I am convinced more than ever that this is one of those times when everything changes.  There will be disasters along the way, and plenty of strife and hard times.    But there are still Romans in Rome.  We’ll get through this.   It just won’t be pretty or easy.

Preps will help.   Stack ’em up.

nick