Haven't been on here in a while, have I?
Well, since I was last here (I'm over on Facebook more these days) some things have happened.
I went off to California for Christmas, as per usual. The trip out was unpleasant, mostly because goddamn Amtrak insisted that everybody aboard wear masks at all times. When you're trapped on that goddamn train for 38 hours, this becomes very uncomfortable. I'd like to get ahold of whoever whipped people into a fear-frenzy about "the COVID!" and hurt them very badly.
At first, I could understand being wary of the Dread Disease. But more and more, my impression is that if one is not already health-compromised, or very elderly (which is about the same thing), it's not any more dangerous than a lot of the flu bugs that have passed through. I'm old enough to remember some of those that left a trail of dead behind them, and we didn't shut the country down and require everybody to wear masks.
Unfortunately, the whole thing got politicized. The Usual Suspects seized on it as a club to beat Bad Orange Man with, and no matter what Trump did, it was never the right thing in their eyes. First they screamed that he was overreacting and "racist" (one of their very favorite words) when he tried restricting travel from China; later they screamed that he wasn't doing enough and that this was the second coming of the Black Plague, or Captain Trips.
I've been here before. I'm old enough to remember when first genital herpes, then heterosexually-transmitted AIDS was supposed to be the Horrible Plague that Will Destroy Us All. When neither disaster happened (heterosexually-transmitted AIDS is rare enough to count as statistical noise) I don't remember the doomsayers ever apologizing.
But I see that I have digressed, as the late, great L. Neil Smith would have said. Once I was in California, things went very well, overall. I'd been delayed getting to California by various things, and had had to reschedule my train trip, but once I was there, my brother and his family made me as welcome as always.
John and I went out to the Patton Museum, out in the high California desert, and learned about the huge training camps that had been set up there, early in WWII. We both thought it was very interesting, and I took some pictures. This time we did the Sunday brunch at the Mission Inn, but it wasn't as good as before, thanks (yet AGAIN!) to fears of the Dread Disease.
On the way back, I thought I got some sleep in spite of that goddamn mask, but apparently I didn't. I nodded off driving home, and got involved in an accident. Neither I nor the other driver was hurt, thank God, but the car I was in was apparently totalled. (I have my suspicions about that, but I couldn't get a mechanic I trusted to look the car over---they towed it to a place outside of my hometown, and without a car, I couldn't get there.)
I was trapped on foot, in winter, and was not happy about it. At least, thank God, I had collision insurance (I was, and I admit I was, completely at fault about the accident---all I can say in my own defense is that after 60 or so hours awake I'm not necessarily the best judge of whether I'm still good-to-go) and had money to buy a new car. However, the pickings around here are slim at best. Finally a friend with a car took pity on me and took me to where there were cars for sale that I could afford, and I'm back on wheels.