I Despise "420"

 Yesterday was April 20th, which is celebrated by a lot of people as "420 Day". The distribution, purchase and use of marijuana is legal in New York state. The state treats smoking a joint in public no differently than it treats regular cigarettes. Because of that, the Binghamton YMCA also allows its residents to enter and walk about the building while under the influence.

This, people, is where I just want to sigh a very deep sigh. For several reasons.

1- The smell of marijuana makes me very nauseous.

2- My fellow residents can walk in reeking of it, and high as the proverbial kite, as well. But God forbid I should have a beer with my hamburger at lunch. To enter the building after doing so is still against regulations. If I want to drink, which I do every now and then, I have to wait until the alcohol is out of my system before I set foot inside the building.

3- It's no fun for me to have to put up with that smell when riding a bus or sitting in a restaurant (I've walked out of a few places without ordering food and have not hesitated to tell an employee why). Restaurant owners and managers can legally refuse service to anyone, as long as the reason or reasons don't involve any sort of illegal discrimination. If I owned a diner or cafe, I'd put a sign right in the door telling everyone that being under the influence of any non-medically related substance gets you banned from the premises. 

4- And that damned "420 day"...for the second year in a row, a 1/2 block of Hawley Street was blocked off for those gathered to "partake" (a word I despise, let's say "get high" because that's what it is). This is right around the corner from Isbell Street, which is the side I exit on when leaving the building. This year, just as last year, I could smell the smoke and hear the obnoxiously loud rap music from several hundred feet away. Said "music" included the repeated use of profanity.  As it did last year.

I get it, honestly, I do. A lot of people in this country waited a long time to be able to do what they've done all along but without breaking any laws. But the way they just shove it in the faces of the rest of us sticks in my craw every single day.

To quote George Costanza:

"We live in a society."

Also, for the second year in a row, several adults and teenagers decided that they just had to use spray paint to deface one side of the Broome County Office Building. This isn't street art or a mural. It's graffiti and it's ugly.

Look. If you're doing something that really sets me off, but it's legal, I have to find a way to deal with it. I just do. But when it includes behavior that is in poor taste, or actions that are, strictly speaking, against the law, then you've crossed a line I can't and won't ignore.

This year, just as I did last year, I will be calling the mayor's office to register my displeasure with all of this.

This is where you might ask, and reasonably do so, why I continued to walk through the "festival".

One, it's my city as much as it is theirs. And it's my neighborhood, while for most of those in attendance, it's not.

Two, same as last year. I really wanted a burger and fries from a small bodega on Court Street and walking where I did is the only way to get there without detouring by several blocks.

So, there you have it. I'm upset and I've said why.

Am I Back? We'll See.

 Look who's back.

I have no idea if this is going to be a one-time thing or if I'll begin posting on a regular basis again. I just know that I have things I want to say, things I want to share. 

Where were you on Thanksgiving Day 2022? Which, as a reminder, I'll tell you, was on November 24th of that year. 

I was in the hospital, having been admitted the night before. More specifically, I was in Binghamton General Hospital in Binghamton, New York. I went to the emergency room there at a little after eight o'clock at night. 

I had been feeling ill for two days, with cold chills, fatigue, and nausea. And my left foot was badly swollen. From the time I walked into the E.R. until the time someone initially examined me was about twenty minutes. From the time that doctor asked me what was wrong till the time the podiatrist on call came in to see me was five minutes. 

Which is a good thing, because the foot was so severely infected that she drew a line on it. A line that as she told me when I asked, meant we would have a problem if the infection progressed past that line. I was started on intravenous anti-biotics just a few minutes later. 

The infection never got past the line. But it did require surgery. There were two incisions made to drain the pus (sorry, folks, but that's the only word that's right for me to use). 

I was discharged from the hospital on December 5th. In all that time, I had just one nurse who was unpleasant and unprofessional. Every other staff member I dealt with was professional and polite, and some of them were friendly, as well.

Dealing with things after I got home was extremely difficult. I had to go every day to the hospital in Johnson City to get my infusion pack serviced, because I was still on anti-biotics around the clock. Every single Saturday and Sunday was a nightmare because my Medicab rides were cancelled. So, every day on those days I either took a cab or rode the bus to the hospital. There were two days I couldn't go at all. Christmas Day, when there was no bus service and December 27th, when the temperature was three degrees below zero. I simply could not go out in that weather.

Also, getting someone to come out to change the dressing on my foot was a real nightmare, as well. It took having my podiatrist make several calls to get things set up.

On January 7, 2023, I had the initial symptoms return. First the cold chills, then the nausea and then the fatigue.  By the time I had enough strength to get out of bed, it was almost 10 p.m. that night. I packed a bag and tried to call a cab. 

None of the local cab companies even had anyone answer the phone when I called, and after a half hour of trying, I gave up. I walked to the hospital in sub-zero temperatures (a bank sign I passed read -5). By the time I got there, my hands were so cold I had to wait a few minutes before I could even hold a stylus to sign the admission form on a computer.

(Just a thought here- if there's even the slightest chance you're going to be admitted to the hospital, bring your laptop or tablet or something. I didn't do it the first time, but I sure made certain to do so the second time).

I needed a second surgery, which involved the amputation of the middle toe on my left foot. Again, every person but one that I dealt with was very good to deal with. I was discharged on the 12th of January. 

My foot was pronounced fully healed on March 1st. 

Those fourteen weeks were, by far, the most difficult fourteen weeks of my life, because I had next to no help from anyone. No one to drive me to appointments. No one to do my grocery shopping for me (although a member of my mother's church did give me a ride to the store and home again one time).

I spent so much money on cabs I had to ask my mother for help with my bills in December. Which was the first time I'd done that in over four years. She came through for me, of course.

But what was worst of all? The fact that no one other than my mother and my cousin called me while I was in the hospital, both times. I did ask several people to call me, and those people made a conscious decision to ignore me.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Being alone is not easy.

Right Wing Traitors

 Today is a dark day in American history. Armed insurrectionists have stormed Capitol Hill in an attempt to violently prevent the official certification of President-Elect Biden's election. Donald Trump has incited these actions by refusing to concede and attempting to steal the election, even at this late date.

Members of Congress, all of them Republicans, tried and tried again to prevent the certification of the Electoral College vote. They have cloaked themselves in the flag, metaphorically speaking, claiming to be acting in the interests of everyone who voted for Donald Trump back in November of last year.

And now, someone has paid the ultimate price for these acts of sedition and insurrection.

 “Yes, the adult female that was shot inside of the Capitol was pronounced at an area hospital," per a statement by spokesperson Dustin Sternbeck of the Metropolitan Police Department. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you voted for Donald Trump in 2016, in 2020, or both times, this is on you. You put him in the Oval Office. You stood beside him for whatever sick and twisted reasons you had.

This is my prediction: that Donald Trump will not go peacefully. That he will need to be forcibly removed from the White House after Joe Biden is sworn in as our next president. He may even attempt to declare martial law to remain in power.

The really sad part is that so many of you are perfectly comfortable with that. Your hatred of whatever group you can't stand (LBGTQ, people of color, or whomever else) is so deep, and so ingrained that you will gladly trade our freedom to get more of what the last four years has brought us.

May whatever god you worship have mercy on your soul for your actions.

Welcome To 2021

 I am so glad to be over the cold that I dealt with for almost two weeks. As we begin a new year, I wish you the best.

My first meal of 2021: Stouffers Macaroni And Cheese

My first beverage of 2021: Mexican Coca-Cola in a glass bottle

First record listened to: "Living In America" by James Brown

And that's how my first 35 minutes have gone.

I'm Sick

 I've been dealing with a bad cold all week and haven't done much of anything, on-line or in real life. I've slept a lot, and drank a lot of water. Between being sick, and the fact that we here in Binghamton got hit by a record snowstorm, taking things easy has been the best thing I can do for myself.

Well, That Didn't Take Long

 The nine justices of the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the lawsuit that the Texas State Attorney General filed. 

The reaction to this has been swift, and quite honestly, not entirely expected by yours truly. I thought that conservatives, having failed at their last, desperate effort, might finally give in.

I was so very wrong about that. 

Yesterday, Texas Republican Chairman Allen West released the following statement:

“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressman, has decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law. Resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences. This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the US constitution and not be held accountable. This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic. Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”

And there, dear reader, you have it. The first, but not, I fear, the last call for secession by Republican controlled states. 

I Told You He Was A Dictator

 It has been thirty-seven days since Joe Biden was elected as the next President of the United States of America. I was watching MSNBC when the NBC election desk called the election for Biden. I was in a hotel room, enjoying a well deserved micro-vacation. I said these words out loud, "Please let it be real".

Though I was very tired, I stayed up to watch the speeches that Biden and Kamala Harris gave that night. I was on cloud nine, as the expression goes, at seeing how many people came out to attend in person and how jubilant they were. 

I was jubilant that night, but I'm not anymore.

Because, over the last thirty-seven days, Donald Trump has refused to concede defeat. He has, rather, pulled every single dirty political stunt and trick that he and his minions can think of. As they have suffered defeat after defeat in the courts (what is it now, forty of them?), they have grown increasingly desperate.

They have cast their proverbial net ever wider, embracing nutcases and fringe lunatics who, in a saner and more decent society, would be limited in their scope of influence to perhaps a few thousand people. Their rantings and ravings would be restricted, for the most part, to newsletters and mailing lists.

And now, in what can only be called an attempted coup, the Republicans have gone nuclear on us.

The Texas State Attorney General, Ken Paxton, has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the United States Supreme Court overturn the election results in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

This effort, if successful, would allow the state legislatures in those four states to appoint a slate of electors for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. 

Seventeen state Attorneys General have filed an amicus brief supporting the lawsuit. They are from these states:

Missouri

Arkansas

South Dakota

Florida 

Indiana

Kansas

Louisiana

Mississippi

Montana

Nebraska

North Dakota

Oklahoma

South Carolina 

Utah

West Virginia

Tennessee

Alabama

Also, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has filed formally a separate brief  "respecting" the Texas suit.

So, there you have it, dear reader. Government officials in eighteen states that have gone on the record as supporting an attempted coup here in our country.

I'd love to be able to say that I feel 100% confident that this lawsuit will fail. But, with Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all seated on the Supreme Court bench, anything is possible.

We are dangerously close to being totally f***ed.