Author: acme

Hi all. I’m happy to say that as of March 26th I am fully vaccinated! Whoo hoo! I did have many side effects, but two days later I’m back to normal. I feel truly blessed to have received the vaccine. As you know if you have followed me, I work at a small liberal arts college and was able to get the vaccine when the state opened it up to those in education at the end of February. Now I just have to wait for it to become available for my daughter and then my little family will be much safer.

This past year has been a challenge. I miss seeing many people but I’m grateful that most I know have been playing it safe. Some have travelled out of the country or even out of state for “fun”. It is their life, but I know with the upcoming Spring Break there are some who are looking to do this again. I do hope that those traveling out of state quarantine on their return, especially if they have kiddos in my daughter’s class. I suspect they may feel entitled that they haven’t done anything wrong and under normal circumstances I would agree. But I would also say, wait until your summer when you won’t be making the decision for other families and will just be doing so for your own.

This pandemic has truly shown me how people prioritize. I don’t deny not travelling to say Hawaii for Spring Break is kind of a bummer, but there are so many other places within our home state that are just as beautiful and worth a visit. Of course we shall see. Whatever happens, I hope no one gets ill. And even if they don’t that doesn’t just make it okay.

In the meantime, stay well, keep your family safe and remember who you come in contact with these days can affect more than just you.

Computer crashed again. Got a new hard drive and am back online. Work is nuts but I hope to have a moment in the not to distant future to do some more “navel gazing” as my father would say. The kiddo is back in school for mornings 5 days a week. I’m still working from home. I don’t know when that will change. Grateful for the job, but pandemic life is old. Mom is fully vaccinated but I still can’t see her. Sigh…. I hope all are well. <3 “acme”.

I haven’t been working Monday’s regularly at work, but due to some changes in my schedule, I will be through the end of February. I’m grateful that we finally have a new president in the US and feel slightly less on edge. However it turns out after 4 years of toxic leadership, almost one year in a pandemic including work and school from home, with an aging mother who is cognitively not doing great, I’m feeling a bit depressed. I know this isn’t anything new but some days are just more trying. Not for any particular reason either. Some days I just have a rough night sleep or one too many requests to do something that I have told people to do 20 times before. Maybe it is my child trying to do PE in my “office” which is on the first floor of our home. Maybe it is because my binge watching of old “The West Wing” episodes has reached season six, and the characters get hurt or the fictional president is having just as hard a time as our real one. Maybe it is just because it is Monday. Who knows. It just seems some days are harder than others. Some days I wonder if I’m the only one who goes through this. Some days I wonder if there is anyone who DOESN’T go through this.

I’m 53 and no longer do I think I’m 17 in my head. For many years I felt younger than I was, but these days, I feel every day of my 53 years. I know I should be exercising more because I feel better when I do, but I find it hard to carve out the time everyday. I feel split in many different directions. I worry for my friends I haven’t seen in a year. I worry for my kid who is only seeing one friend these days. I worry for friends who have moved away during this pandemic. I’m grateful for my job, but I am tired. I’m frustrated. It is silly really because I know there are others out there who are sick or out of work or have lost someone.

So much of this feels gratuitous. Honestly I wonder why I even bother to write this. Why do I put it out there? I really don’t think anyone is reading. And what if they are? Does it help any? Maybe, if only to know they are not alone.

I wonder what my mark on this world will be. I wonder if it will matter? Ah to be George Bailey and know if my life has made a difference. So goes my brain on a Monday in January.

12 years ago today, it was 2009. I was happy. I was expecting my first child. Barack Obama was elected on the platform of “hope”. I was 41 years old and I was holding tightly to that hope. Today I looked at my country and asked where did that hope go?

12 years. 8 with a leader that I admired. 4 with one I have despised. Do not think of me as someone who looks at Democrats as perfect and Republicans as evil. I once supported Ronald Reagan for President when I was in high school. For my Junior year Government class, we had to volunteer for a campaign. The Democrats were cooler, but I liked Reagan back then. I was more conservative.

I grew up with one parent a Democrat and one a Republican. I admired Republicans and was wary of Democrats. For most of my life I was an Independent. That changed this year. I wanted to vote for my candidate in the primary and had to change parties to do so, or so I believed. My candidate is not the one who is President-Elect I might add, but looking at our nation today, I realize, my candidate would not have won. She is not a white male.

Today I saw a remarkable number of angry white men, and some women, storm the US Capitol building. Egged on by a “leader” who only sees chaos in honor of him. He isn’t looking out for our Democracy. He wants to tear it apart if only to build up his ego. I do not understand how people can follow this man. I don’t. I do know though that over 70 million Americans voted for him, even though he didn’t win. That is more than have voted for men who have won election in the past.

Our country is so divided. It is so angry. We can’t see someone else’s viewpoint anymore. 70 Million people voted for a man who would lock our borders to people who aren’t white. 70 million people don’t seem to care that this man is hell bent on doing anything for himself no matter who it hurts. Thankfully more than 80 million don’t. But how do we move forward? How do we become the America we should be? That America is not white I might add. That America has people from many backgrounds and faiths. They are rich and poor. They are looking for “hope”. How do we get back to that?

I’m hoping that President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris have a plan. I hope they can show us how to disagree again but not tear each other’s eyes out in the process. I don’t need someone I always agree with, but I do want an intelligent and decent human being to lead this nation. I know no one is perfect, but can’t we strive to be better than what we currently have?

I’ve been watching old re-runs of The West Wing lately and they really make me happy. No one is perfect, but at least they are trying to do the right thing. I see President Biden that way. He was not my first choice. He has made mistakes. I don’t think though he owes anything to other countries or will compromise our Democracy as our current “President” has. It is sad that the bar has become so low. Where are the Jed Bartlett’s of the world? Where are the Leo McGarry’s? I know they are out there, but what will make them run for office? Katie Porter? Ted Lieu? I’d love to see my own Congressman Mark DeSaulnier in the Senate but he is probably considered too old. Smart, articulate, people you can look at and see decency. I hope President Biden can do that. I hope with a Democratic Senate we can get things done. I have hope, for now.

Please don’t let me down Democrats. Please remember all the people that need to be governed. Listen to Stacey Abrams. That is one person who knows how to get it done. I’d like to hear more of what she has to say. Maybe that is our problem. We need more black women in charge. They would get things done and not lead us to sedition. But maybe the Rolling Stones were right. “You can’t always get what you want, but, well if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.”

This year I resolve to live. Even with a pandemic I have learned that one can get caught up in many things. Expectations of others or expectations of one’s self. I want to live. I want those near and dear to me to live. If that means I need to be away from them to keep them safe, I will. It has been hard. I’m tired of the limitations, but there are things I can do. I can travel online, I can find new worlds in books. I can write my own stories. I can write letters. Remember those? Emails even are considered old school but what if we wrote each other emails? I love getting messages from old friends.

I send out Christmas cards every year, but this year we had a two fold problem. We underordered cards by accident. When we went to order more, they didn’t show up. They are currently 3 weeks late. Then there were those who moved and we didn’t have their new address. We had a few of those. I guess we will just have to mail them next year. We have friends moving this year and I think all the cards landed locally.

It has been such a strange year. No travel. Staying at home a lot. I’ve gotten lost in so many ways. I don’t know if it is worry or trying to control what I can not. But I know I have done my best. I did my best not to cause harm to others, though I’m sure I failed somewhere as I am notorious for sticking my foot in my mouth. Great example was when I had my Mom over for Christmas. We went by to drop off gift’s at my Aunt’s. We kept our masked visit outside, six feet apart and under 15 minutes. In that time my Aunt told us she was trying to figure out what was next. I had been under the impression she wanted to stay in her house and die there. So I asked didn’t she have a place planned with my uncle who passed a number of years ago? No that wasn’t it. She is thinking of moving elsewhere. Here I was thinking she was thinking death as she is 94, but she is looking for somewhere to move that she can be looked over a bit.

Hopefully that works out, but once again, I see how one should always make sure they have enough information before proceeding. Without it, resolutions can really end up in the wrong place. I think to that end, I’ll just work on staying healthy and doing my best. No big plans, though I still would like to write more. But I’ll work on doing rather than talking about that one.

Happy New Year all! May 2021 be healthier and happier for us all.

Hello to my two readers out there who are actual people and not bots! Apologies for being away for so long. November crashed my computer, which now has a new drive and is in the hands of my child. It also brought Thanksgiving which I was going to spend with my Mom, brother and his family, but with the spiking Covid numbers in California, we had Mom just visit with my brother and his family who rented a home for Thanksgiving nearby while getting away from Los Angeles. We will, hopefully, bring Mom over to our home for Christmas and Zoom with them.

The year is winding down, thank God. It has been long and arduous. But since the election, I’ve felt a small bit better. I feel like at least our country stands a chance in the coming four years. If Trump had won, I fear democracy would have been crushed. We are far from being out of the woods, and I realize the Democrats are no panacea. I at least though feel that the Gestapo like direction of the current state of the Republican party has been tempered, all be it momentarily.

It is strange living in the US these days with a pandemic raging, people claiming “freedom” by not wearing masks and endangering others. Our world is so damn selfish right now it can be quite demoralizing. Yet in the meantime, I have a family who are friends of ours who are moving away. This is sad to our family but it has also shown an amazing coming together in our community.

The oldest child is in my daughter’s class and one of her closest friends. She has two younger sisters that in some way had become surrogate sisters to my child. During the summer we would occasionally go over to their house, or they would come to ours, and we would sit outside and barbeque. The kids would all play together. It was so very… normal in a very un-normal time.

So this family is moving away across the country to the home town of the mom. It has been hard for us to see them getting ready to go. It has been particularly hard for my daughter. This friend, supported her a couple years ago in school when other girls who she thought were her friends, were particularly mean to her. I became close to the mom at this time and the dad too who is a native San Franciscan like myself. This family, has had a profound effect on many in our community. The kids in my daughter’s class have put together a book of memories for the eldest daughter. They are arranging a car parade to go by the house with kids from all the girls classes. There have been well wishes in school newsletters calling out this family in particular as they have touched many. They will be deeply missed.

All of these actions have also reminded me of the good in our community. I am reminded that the little things that don’t make the “news” are really the moments that make up a life in good times and bad. While I as an individual often look for the big things going on in the world, it is really these little ones that make a life, and a life worth living. It isn’t glamorous, but it is real, and thankfully, kind.

This year has had so many challenges. People can be so mean to each other online and in person. It is an important reminder to me that it is the day to day that makes up a life and those people in the day to day that make that life worth living. They may not always be with us, but while they are, they do make life better. Those people on the East coast who get this family in their community, don’t know how lucky they will be.

Hi all you people who still manage to read my occasional posts here. I have been away due to a hard drive that failed on my now, former computer. I ordered a new computer and my husband ordered a new hard drive for my old computer which is now in the hands of my daughter. She has been playing games and I have been recovering music and photos from my backup. I didn’t back up my email though so that got purged. I’m not that upset though because I find things like this to naturally clean up old files. It also taught me that having an outside backup service is totally the way to go. My recovery of files was relatively easy though it took over a day to download everything. Fortunately I was able to get a loaner machine from work and I still have to turn that back in but will have to set my home laptop again for remote work. Ah the joy of 2020.

My daughter’s school right now looks to hopefully go back after the New Year. I’m glad that they aren’t going back before because it helps me to feel safer about seeing my Mom over the holidays. She has continued to be locked up since her birthday in July. My brother and his family will rent a place for the week of Thanksgiving and then bring my Mom over. We have all been pretty strict and the kids have not been in school, so hopefully all will go well. Christmas will be extra small this year with just us and Mom, but I’m hoping Mom will stay with us for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

My in-laws are staying in NY. They have been taking a bus to go gambling in Atlantic City. I think they are nuts, but it is their choice. Grateful we don’t have to worry about them on a plane or interacting with Mom.

Halloween is going to be a socially distanced out door movie at a friend’s house who is in our bubble. Our daughters play together twice a week as they are both only children. There will be one other family of three there as well so hopefully it is uneventful.

My husband and I voted a couple of weeks ago so we will be curious to see how things go Tuesday. Fingers crossed it is a clear outcome and our country can move forward. I don’t expect the next few months to be too easy though whatever the outcome.

Hoping the numbers continue going down in our area. Our county is actually doing pretty well, but we still don’t really go anywhere. Things will probably get more interesting in the new year as schools open up. We shall see.

Hope everyone out there is okay. I’ll write more later. Meanwhile drop a line to let me know what is going on in your life!

Be well!!

As I’ve mentioned before on this site, I suffer from depression. I was officially diagnosed 26 years ago at the age of 27. I’ve been on medication for years. I share this now, because it has often driven many decisions in my life. A lot related to work and stress. This year, it has been visited on occasion by its friend anxiety. This is something back in the day when it was particularly bad, I would get medicine for as well. Unfortunately, the medicine I took is one that doctors don’t like to give out as much as they used to so I’ve had to try and learn alternative methods for dealing with anxiety. I don’t drink anymore, haven’t for 15 years amazingly, but have transferred some of my bad behaviors to eating. Mostly sugar. Before this pandemic, I went to the gym for the last 5 years, and it had helped. Since March though I haven’t been to a gym and I have fallen severely off the work-out routine. Amazingly my weight has not gone up by much, but even with 5 years of working out, I am still rather overweight. I only mention this because it is something I would like to fix, but have been incredibly challenged by my entire life.

My GOD this year is exhausting. This past week I worked full-time. I have been working reduced hours since the pandemic in an effort to help save my employer some money. To be honest, I’m happy to do it because the reduced hours help keep me sane and addressing my day to day Mom and wife chores. Not that they seem like chores, I just handle everything a bit better when I have a little extra time. But this past week we had a shortage of people so I had to assist in the Post Office on campus. I wasn’t much help unfortunately as I didn’t know all the procedures, but it was nice to get a different view of what is going on. Of course the reason I was there was because the gentleman who runs the post office was out as his wife had just passed away. The person who was the main back-up had to go to Mississippi since his mother was ill. Neither of these were related to Covid either.

I keep dreaming of living somewhere else this year. Realistically, I can’t due to things like family and work, but if I could New Zealand or Ireland would be my top picks. But I need a job as would my hubby and I don’t want to leave the Bay Area until my Mom passes. But still, America isn’t what it used to be. Trump and his racist followers have made it a disgrace. California, my family’s home for 5 generations is on fire in a way I have never seen. The air quality reminds me of Los Angeles in the 70s. These are not good days. I’m grateful mind you, for my family and our health. I’m closer to my brother and his family as he helps looking out for Mom in so many ways right now. But I’ll tell you, if there were a way to go elsewhere, I would strongly consider it.

After November though. I need to vote. Try to fix this madness in one small way. But I swear those who feel the same need to come out in droves. I sincerely believe the freedom and democracy of this country hinge on this election. If Trump wins, which I still think could happen, we will devolve into a darker place. If he loses, the next few months will be rocky as well, but there will be an end game. Dear God, please make my fellow country members see the light and vote Blue. I want a country that follows science again. One that keeps church and state separate as the constitution meant them to be. The fact that this is even up for discussion shows me how far we have tumbled in the last four years. So much repair is going to be needed and lots of work to make sure we don’t falter like this again. I’m all for the progressives out there, believe me, but we need to bring everyone along and that is why we still seem to have a white guy in the fight instead of a woman, person of color, or a woman who is a person of color! But please, let us hit this next hurdle and clear it. Then prepare for the next and the next.

I want my daughter to have a world where she isn’t afraid to have kids if she wants. Right now, if the world were like this when she came into my life, I don’t know that I would have looked to have a child. This is not the world I want for her right now. Time to get to work, again!

As I’ve mentioned here before I work at a small Liberal Arts College in Northern California. It has certainly had its struggles this year with Covid-19. We have scaled back in a variety of areas and the college is struggling financially. I support one of the higher ups in the college and I have to say, that person takes a lot of grief. The decisions that are being made are not easy and I constantly see people questioning openly the decision process. This comes from people I wouldn’t expect to question and it just goes to show how communication and society has broken down. So many of us don’t see each other day to day and communicate more often by email then by phone unless of course we are on a Zoom conference.

Most of us work remotely but I do go in once a week. Next week I’ll actually be helping in the Post Office and will be interacting with students, something I haven’t had to do for awhile. I of course have been working at home with my husband and 11 year old daughter, working and going to school as well. Next week though I’ll be working with students. I’m a bit nervous because I have found college students often aren’t as careful as a fifty something year old Mom. I will definitely chat with the students though to see how they are managing.

Most of my communication these days is via email as the forwarding function on my phone doesn’t always work well. I also find it easier to go through communication with more awareness when writing vs. being caught on the phone. That is why I get frustrated by people who think they know what people who have more authority and pay, are doing day to day. See I actually interact with these individuals. Yes, they get paid more than me, by a lot. But they are making so very many decisions on a daily basis, it is mind boggling. They have to balance how to house students, provide classes and technology safely, keep the school afloat with revenue drying up. They take heat from people who believe they don’t know what the students are going through. That may be true but it isn’t because they aren’t listening. They are interacting with staff, faculty, board members, parents, student representatives, the list goes on. They are making daily decisions that aren’t always popular, but they are truly doing the best they can. There are areas that need to be reviewed around race and representation no doubt, but right now, keeping the doors open, lights on and payroll going has to take precedence. I will freely admit the race thing need further review. We have good people at the college for this, but we are also trying to keep things alive. I shouldn’t say we though because I am just a support person. Do I wish I made more? Sure. Do I wish I saw more representation? Yes. But how do you do this and keep a college going? The college is looking for a new President so maybe that will be the answer. A person of color there. But if that happens, it will be because the people who are currently working, taking salary cuts but still working full time, kept the college alive. I just wish that would get recognition as well.

So next week, I’ll go and work with the students. Pray that they are being safe and I don’t get exposed. I’ve been fortunate so far. Let’s hope my time doesn’t run out.

Welcome to September. We are in the second week of sixth grade here at LadyACME. Online learning is going well. Mostly. Everyone agrees it is better than the Spring, though I thought our Spring went okay. I think we are all worn down social distancing. I’ve encountered more wanting to get together and often feel a bit odd saying no. Maybe I’m getting too used to this isolation.

The gym I went to for five years, that had to shut down in March finally closed its doors at the end of August. It was an amazing place for women and my heart aches for the owner. She put her blood sweat and tears into that place. So many love her, myself included. I know she will rise again, but the pain is real.

There has been so much suffering this year. People of color being brutalized, good police officers being shadowed by the bad or untrained, people dying, people suffering, people isolated. There is so much hatred being thrown around. I feel so powerless. My own family is suffering. In the grand scheme of things we are okay, but we all deal with the stress differently and sometimes, it is problematic. My Mom has been struggling living on her own and seeing her independence stripped by age and the state of a pandemic where people who are vulnerable need to be protected. Often the protection feels worse than the unknown consequences. I keep reminding myself that we all are trying to do our best, but I’m tired. Everyone is tired. Lord knows there are so many out there going through way more than me.

That doesn’t negate that it is all exhausting. Please God this is a once in a lifetime thing. It does make me want to run away. I’m constantly looking at real estate I can’t afford and in locations I’ve never been to. A lot of these places have pools. I grew up with a pool and never wanted one because I would have to take care of it. But this year? I want a pool so we have something different to do. We live where it is warm enough to have one vs. where I lived as a kid. It would be justifiable to have a pool, but what happens when all this is over? I want a dog too but what happens when things end and I’m back in the office? I don’t know that I’ll be back in the office that I have now or somewhere else so I try to enjoy the fact that I’m always around my family. Something I complained about before all this started. Back when I just wanted time with my family. Now I have it and I just want to see other people on occasion. It is all crazy!!! Honestly I’m really not enjoying life right now. I’m having a hard time vocalizing how I feel so I write. I write and wonder if anyone reads. If anyone feels the same. I wonder how many others feel disconnected with their families they live with and see all the time? My husband go through periods where we don’t talk because it always devolves into politics or the virus and its effect on everything and neither of us want to talk about that. We actually agree on these topics too but we are worn down by them. He tries to talk to me about Disneyland, which just makes me sad and frustrated since we can’t go. I talk about real estate which makes him frustrated because he likes where we live and we can’t really move anyway. These are ways we escape in our minds though. These are the tools we are using since we can’t go places. I text friends and we have short conversations but this seems to frustrate him as he sees it as taking away from the here and now. Neither of us are wrong, we are both just dealing in our own ways. No one has ever experienced this in our lifetime.

The pandemic, the deterioration of our government, our children unable to play with all their friends. These are situations we can’t control. Sure we can make pods with friends we feel safe with and vote out those we disagree with, but these things seem so small. I find, the biggest thing any of us can do right now is to be kind. I try to be kind at the grocery store to those around me. Sometimes I run into others who are having their own issues and can’t see past them. I smile when I can but wear a mask makes that message a bit garbled.

But I’m not always kind either. Sometimes I just hold my tongue. My husband and daughter were Skyping with my in-laws today. I truly wanted to say “hi” and see how they are doing, but I was afraid that things would get political. We definitely don’t agree there. They were saying how some were “paranoid” and cited a cousin who was being cautious. I thought they probably would think of people I know and love as being “paranoid”. I thought I could be considered “paranoid” when in reality I think I’m just being cautious. I really didn’t want to start a fight, but I was so frustrated with the conversation too.

Later I was reading a post I saw on Linked-In. It was political. I don’t usually see political posts on Linked-In because most people I know keep that sort of thing off Linked-In to avoid conflict for potential job prospects. The people writing seemed to be retired which I suppose makes you feel more able to share politics in that forum. They started off with a fairly polite discussion of very different viewpoints. Unfortunately, as these things seem to do these days it devolved quickly. People blame one side or the other, but the reality is it is both. It is a total inability to see someone else’s viewpoint. I used to be much more conservative, but have become more liberal over time. (I’m told this is somewhat unusual.) But still I used to feel those who were more conservative could see the other side. Now that isn’t the case. Oh I’ve known those who are more liberal who don’t see the other side at all as well. Equally emphatic about their viewpoints. But now, everyone is so entrenched. There is no middle. I’m particularly saddened by this in my faith. Many in my faith are entrenched too, and it has really made me lose my faith. The inability to see suffering from one’s fellow human. Maybe it has always been there and I have chosen to ignore it, but now, it seems worse. It has really affected me too. I’ve lost faith. I’ve lost faith not because of God, but because of humans. I keep thinking we are supposed to rise above and find a way to come together and yet it seems we find more differences.

But, differences are important. I mean differences make life a lot more interesting. If we were all the same and thought the same, life would be dull. But it would be nice to get back to civilized discussion. Even civilized disagreement. But maybe we have to break things to evolve. Or maybe I’m just breaking things right now and am evolving. Growth hurts. I just haven’t experience so much growth at the same time as everyone else. How are you handling differences these days?