I honestly went into this post with no clue what I was going to write about. This week has been a crazy-busy blur.
Last week I had a rare Monday as my second day of the week off, so I've been working straight through since Wednesday until yesterday. I'm still trying to get back into the rhythm of getting ready for work every morning. Some days I run out of time for breakfast and have to bring it with me to have at my desk. Others I have to wrestle to tie my hair completely back because I ran out of time to dry or straighten it. Others still, I actually get ready with loads of time to spare, but STILL nearly run late for work because I get sucked into a project to kill that spare time.
By the end of the week, I think I've managed to FINALLY get my timing more-or-less figured out. Since Hubby started going into work at 6am during the pandemic, I've now gotten used to waking up at that more decent time, as opposed to the 7:30/8:00 we used to wake up at. I've been able to get ready for work within my usual 90-some minutes that I was able to do before coronavirus hit. Which usually leaves me with an hour or so before work, so I do most of my
Animal Crossing dailies as a means to kind of meditate and get myself in a good mood before work. Also helps cut down the amount of time I'm on the game post-work.
At least... that was supposed to be the idea.... I'll get to that.
While at work, there is still a LOT to play catch-up on. For instance, updating price tags from pre-corona that were up in March. Also, couple of years ago, my manager asked me to come up with info and customization tags for the different furniture pieces we sell, and then last year she asked me to also create sizing tags. So I had to go through and double check that they were all still accurate. Spoiler: a lot of them were not. The manufacturers have added or removed features on a lot of frames, so I had to update pretty much every tag. Meh. It gave me a chance to also spruce up the tag designs to make them more "fresh" looking. On top of that, we've received a bunch of new pieces to fill in the holes we had on the floor just before shutdown, so I had to research those to get the info and customization tags made up for them.
Lastly, we're getting ready for our Independence Day sale already, so I had to do up the promotional price tags for our mattress line-up, which took me two days because the coworker that explained the sale to me is TRASH at explaining anything, so I ended up having to re-do the tags a few times before I FINALLY figured out what he was trying to tell me.
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I'm also supposed to create a poster for a new base we're giving away as part of our mattress sale, but the only photo-editing program owned by the company is in our corporate office nearly an hour away, and I'm not about ready to give up a day off to go down there and create the poster, and I'm sure my manager isn't going to have her or my other coworker give up one of THEIR days off to cover one of my work days so I can go down to the office to work... so I've been trying to find other ways of creating this poster in a high enough resolution that it can be printed as a professional-quality poster.
AND I'm also trying to keep up with the company's social media accounts, including researching our vendors and products so I can throw up informative tidbits about them once a week, and trying to come up with cute little furniture-themed memes to engage customers and give them a reason to want to check out our page, even if it's for a weekly chuckle.
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My attempt to be humorous.
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While my coworkers are still complaining about the store being slow - although, we had a decent turnout this weekend - and how they're bored because their To Do lists are vastly shorter than mine, I'm running around all day.
And I had TRASH shoes to do that in - cheap things I grabbed at Walmart when that was the only thing open when I got back to work and needed closed-toe nice shoes again - so my feet and legs and hips were SOOOOOO FRIGGEN SOOOOORE when I got home each night.
I have since made it to a proper shoe store and purchased replacement shoes, as well as throwing out the ones that have been killing me... they were already wearing through! Feet are still sore as I break in the new shoes, but at least my legs and hips aren't as bad. So... win?
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Anyway, between my apartment being too hot to exercise in, my knee acting up and clicking badly just about any time I bent it, and now this issue with my legs, hips, and feet, I haven't Zumba'd in nearly a month. I'm going to be in a LOT of pain when I can finally get back to it.
My nights had therefore been spent with my feet elevated across the arms of my loveseat as I either played more AC:NH, watched Netflix with Hubby, or had a streaming Anime Night with Hubby and
Omnibladestrike. We had actually been doing the Anime Streaming Night once a week for the better part of a month now, as a way to try to get back into our social routine while still social distancing.
Although, on Sunday, Hubby and I bought a TV for the bedroom so he can hide away and play his games in there when I need the living room, when I'm doing Zoom meetings for Zumba or family get-togethers or when I'm doing webinars, when he just wants to play something stupid in the background to help lull him to sleep, or when it's too hot in the rest of the apartment and it's cooler in the bedroom. It also means we can go back to properly snuggling while watching TV together. Which is what we did Sunday night.
Plus, being able to properly lounge instead of my awkward sprawl across the loveseat is helping my legs and feet.
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Speaking of lounging and playing AC:NH, Hubby and I are to the point where our islands are mostly about daily chores, but even said chores aren't really needed. We don't really NEED to find our 4 fossils every day since both of our fossil sections in our museums are completed, and I believe our friends' fossil sections are too, so there's not really much need of evaluating the fossils either. I mean, we both still need to have fossils evaluated to finish off the Nook Miles goal, and it's usually a Miles+ goal every morning, but both of us have over 100,000 Nook Miles anyway, and nothing to really spend them on.
We don't need to find our daily money spot or money rock, because we both have multi-million bells in our accounts, and not nearly enough to spend them on.
We don't need to find our two free items in the trees, because both of our house storage is close to maxed out and we're just selling nearly everything right now anyway. Plus, it's rare that we'll find something we actually like or is new to us.
Our flowers and villagers, with the programming for this game, are now fairly self-sufficient as well, and neglecting them for a day or two or three really won't hurt much of anything.
There's almost nothing new in Nook's Cranny, and Hubby doesn't buy up clothes like I do. Even so, aside from socks, which I barely buy, it's hard for me to find something at Able Sisters or with Kicks that I haven't already purchased. Right now I'm just spending bells buying items so they go into my catalog to re-purchase at a later date if I so wish, and then selling the items I didn't particularly like in the first place, because I just don't have the space.
So, yeah, neither of us truly need to play daily anymore. Hubby is done terraforming, and he seems pretty set on his villagers. I still need to re-arrange a bunch of stuff, but I don't have the energy to map out my island right now, so that project is on hold. Neither of us need fossils or bells or Nook Miles or free items. We don't really need to bother hitting up either of the shops or the traveling vendors; definitely not Leif since we're set on the shrubs and flowers on our islands, but MAAAAYBE Saharah even though we're close to getting all of her flooring and wallpaper options. Hitting up CJ or Flick would be nice, at least, to get the commissioned statue made, but otherwise, we don't NEED the bells, even if they're nice to get.
Truly the only real reason to log on each day is to see if Redd is visiting so we can try to get more artwork. We're finally up to, I think, five pieces each?
HOWEVER, right when I go back to work and really don't have much post-work time to play anymore, right when I thought I didn't NEED to play all that much anymore because I don't really NEED the fossils or bells or items or clothing or Nook Miles, right when I thought I could step away from the game and maybe transition to playing
Two Point Hospital more, or start up
Link's Awakening on the Switch, that's when we find out that June is Wedding Season, and you can earn Heart Crystals by visiting Harv's Island daily and stage wedding photos for Cyrus' and Reese's wedding anniversary celebration.
Staging the photos alone has been so much fun - I love weddings! - albeit a bit time consuming. And the fact that Reese asks for something new each day is also fun. Cyrus also added more wedding-related items to a special catalog each day for the first ten or so days. So you could get a new wedding-themed item daily, and use the heart crystals you earned to buy even more items. Between starting these dailies late and forgetting to hit up Harv's Island 2 or 3 times since I started, I think I've done the photos something like 10 out of the possible 15 days. Cyrus has stopped adding new pieces, and Reese has stopped giving me a new item, but I can still earn up to 15 crystals a day. At least, I haven't surpassed 15 crystals ever, so I'm assuming that's the max amount. There are a lot of items that I can only buy during June, and June is the only time I can earn crystals for them. So I'm currently in the process of earning as many crystals as I can to then splurge at the end of the month.
Hubby's in the mindset of "meh, I'll just snag things next June" but I don't know if I'll a) still be playing the game daily by then, or b) remember to log back onto the game in June if I have stopped hitting it up daily before then.
So... yeah... With all of that going on, I haven't had much middle-road down time. I'm either going full-steam and can't stop to do things like enjoy my own social media accounts, read, write, or even brainstorm further, or I'm so burnt out that I have to do something that requires little thought, like the
Animal Crossing tasks that are pure routine for me by now, or mindlessly watching something on Netflix, or focusing purely on reading subtitles while watching anime. The extent of my creativity has been working on those Facebook posts for work, and staging the wedding photos in AC:NH.
That said, I DID manage to get ONE thing read over the week. It was a relatively short fanfic that I read while on my lunch break (I may have unofficially made it an extended lunch break, but my feet were killing me, and I just needed to recoup for a bit).
You might remember me gushing about
mostlovedgirl during the Love Square Fluff Week event leading into Valentine's Day. Well, she posted a cute little slice-of-life fluff piece that I absolutely adored.
Summary: Preparation for Fashion Week is keeping Marinette at her studio tonight far later than she intended. She's about to go home for the night, but her plans are derailed when she discovers a giant blanket fort in her office.
It is so cute to see adult Adrien and Marinette happily married, and to see their children fleshed out. It's a small story, but you can still get a sense of their family life, and the individual personalities of the kids. You also get to see Adrien's own problem-solving skills, as well as how much of a leader their oldest has already become; taking after her mother. Plus, you see both Adrien's and Marinette's concerns about their parenting and balancing work-life. You just get this great view into their lives, and feel like you more-or-less know everything, as if you were still watching their day-to-day. There's also these really great one-liners... just... go read it. We all need some fluff in our lives right now, to get a brief break from everything, and I recommend this one, even if you aren't already in the fandom.
Sadly, while I got an email alert that
zenmisery posted her latest story
Dressed to Confess on the same day, and it just got a second chapter either last night or this morning, I haven't had a moment to go through that one yet. Next on the To Do list!
Dressed to Confess Summary: A lonely and forlorn Chat comes to visit his Princess and ends up keeping her company every night leading up to her last-ditch effort to capture Adrien’s attention.
I'm looking forward to getting to this one. Also for
Cyhyr's latest chapter of
Displaced by Time.
Now, with all of this being said, let's not forget that there are still battles to be had.
Yeah, sorry, I'm taking a turn for the serious again.
Last time I checked, which, to be fair, was Saturday, the cops that killed Breonna Taylor not only haven't been arrested yet, but they're also still on the police force with little to no repercussions for her murder.
Sure, there's now a law making no-knock warrants, like the one that resulted in Taylor's death, illegal in Louisville and it was named after her, but it's not a nation-wide law, and creating a law to help prevent more Breonna Taylor tragedies doesn't give HER justice.
Another young black man - Rayshard Brooks -
was shot and killed by police over the weekend after they confronted him while asleep and possibly intoxicated in his car in a Wendy's drive-thru.
The push-back against BLM by trying to villainize George Floyd - as if that justified his death, let alone HOW he died - has been ramping up. There is also confusion and push-back against #DefundThePolice and #AbolishThePolice and #8CantWait.
I'm far from an expert, but here's what I've been able to gather up in SUPER simplified and general terms.
While there may be extremists who do mean that they just don't want the concept of police to exist anymore, MOST people seem to agree that we do still need police, but just on a Much MUCH MUUUUUCH smaller scale than what we see today.
Basically, the idea is that part of the problem with the police as-is is that they just have too much on their plates, and they literally cannot be trained to handle everything they're forced to. They should be reserved for combating violent crimes where they are the shield for innocents most white people believe they are. That, and, of course, detectives to solve crimes that have been committed. However, cops are also called for domestic disputes, non-violent drug violations and offenses, mental health situations, homeless problems, guarding students within their schools, car accidents, and other such situations where an armed person might not be needed, or might actually escalate a situation instead of de-escalate it.
The concept of Defund the Police is pointing out that, in most American cities and larger towns, the police force gets the lion's share of the budget, which leaves less than half to split between infrastructure, schools, mental health services, social services, homelessness solutions, public transportation, etc. Instead, these bloated police department budgets would be cut, and the funds would instead go to those other organizations/departments. Then, those other, now better-funded, organizations can take care of those situations where an armed officer might not be the best idea.
Schools could invest in keeping their students safer, and find alternatives to armed guards patrolling the halls. They can better educate students, and have the means to better handle students that might have hard home lives, or mental health issues, or are neurodivergent and don't learn by standard means. Educating the youth and creating productive after-school programs that are free for the kids helps diminish crimes, and helps lift the entire community.
Invest in the future, and all that.
Mental health facilities can bring on more employees and better training. They could provide free assistance for those who can't otherwise afford help. The police are woefully under-trained for dealing with people with mental health problems, so having people whose whole job is to be specially trained to help these people would also lower the need for cops. And, if the person gets violent to the point where an armed officer might be needed, it's easy enough for the assigned social worker to call in back-up. It could even set up on the same network as the police so back-up can be called in just as quickly as if a cop were the one requesting it.
Drug rehab centers, support groups, and other such assistance can either be better funded or just straight up BUILT to help people recover. And, they can have their own mental health care workers that are specially trained to find the causes of addiction and the best methods to help someone stay sober. Throwing drug offenders into jail - assuming it's consuming and not trafficking - isn't helping them at all, but having these services could very much help them.
More assistance for those that are homeless - shelters, food banks, job training, job coaches, drug rehab, mental health evaluation and assistance, etc - will help ease the homelessness problem. It will get people help that they most likely aren't getting in jails. It humanizes them instead of criminalizing and demonizing them. It could help them get back on their feet, give them back their dignity, and help them back into
productive society.
More money funneling into the DMV will help with road maintenance and can also go towards more traffic signs, lights, crosswalks, etc to help keep people safe and try to minimize the number of traffic accidents that police respond to. Also, if there's a shift so that DMV workers are the ones going to traffic accidents, calling first-responders to the scene, etc, it will cut down even more on what the police have to shoulder and train for on the day-to-day. And, if it's a situation that calls for the police to investigate, it should be fairly easy for the DMV employee to then report it to the cops.
For instance, when I slid off the road last winter, but was otherwise fine and just needed a tow back onto the road, I didn't really need the cops there except for their lights to alert the other drivers to be careful. The DMV could get hazard lights like that. The tow truck already has lights like that.
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
Also, as a post that's been floating around the internet has already said (I'm paraphrasing because I can't find the exact post now):
You are all so enraged by the concept of defunding the police, but none of you seem to mind that they've been defunding your schools for years now.
With regards to Abolish the Police, again, it's a spectrum of supporters. There are those who, again, believe the concept of armed guards patrolling the streets and answering calls about crimes - both real and perceived - is dated and should just end completely. However, it seems most supporters just wish for the abolishment of the existing police, and for a new, better trained and re-imagined department to replace the old.
While it is just one city, and probably shouldn't be used as the Gold Standard of whether or not this concept works, Camden, New Jersey is an interesting case study, as it were.
The police department in Camden was deemed too "far gone" to be properly reformed. The systemic issues - with race inequality and other problems - were just rooted too deep to get the existing officers to comply with any sort of reform. So, seven years ago, the entire police force was disbanded; abolished. The police were re-imagined in an attempt to get them to work alongside the community better and help everyone feel safer. Then, new recruits were brought in. The pre-existing officers were allowed to re-apply for their jobs, and around 100 of them did return to the force. Presumably, after proving that they were the "good cops" that people keep stating exist, and proving that they would gladly embrace their New Normal (see how I brought that back from last week? Eh?).
The police force isn't perfect by any means, and things seem to have taken a turn for the worse in the transitional years between abolishing the existing force and fully staffing the new once, and there's the added caveat that there's a lot of other underlining factors that most reports aren't including, but the criminal stats for Camden have shown improvements since 2013.
Here are a couple of articles and a video I found on the concept of Camden and abolishing the police:
Again, take everything with a grain of salt, because Camden, I believe, is still the most dangerous city in New Jersey, but that's an improvement from being the most dangerous city in the entire country.... Right?
Point is, much like the situation with Camden, the arguments for Defund the Police and Abolish the Police are varied, nuanced, on a bit of a spectrum, but, as a whole, are good concepts and cries for a re-imagining of the police force.
For a much more comprehensive look at these concepts, here are some articles and videos on the subject to help get you started:
Now, the #8CantWait movement seems to lean heavily on the "fully abolish the police; we don't need people with badges and guns" camp, but their list of 8 police reforms that MUST happen NOW is still a good concept that should definitely be taken into consideration, as well as their view on how to prevent or otherwise deal with crimes in communities without a police force. Use that as a guideline to at least - as Dr. Goff mentioned in that Rachel Maddow interview linked to above - reduce the footprint of the police.
It is definitely a lot easier to understand what this movement is trying to achieve because they DO have a centralized website to explain it. The link is in the image caption, but I'll put it here as well:
So, the fight continues on. I'm still a bit drained from all of the information I'm trying to absorb and re-distribute. I again own my White Privilege by stating that I was able to grow up not having to know about all of this, or learn how to consume all of this daily. I was raised to be "color blind" to race, and thought that made me a decent and non-racist person. I've since learned how terribly wrong that practice actually is, despite the well-meaning intentions, but, still, I had the privilege to at least BELIEVE that it was a good practice while I was growing up. I also believed that calling America a "melting pot" meant we were unified. (I have since grown to love the idea of America being a salad: each bit is individual and unique, and can hold its own on its own, but makes up something better when combined; with the additions each individual celebrated and enhancing the whole.)
I hope we don't let up quite yet. I hope everyone keeps fighting and meaningful changes do happen.
I also hope we remember to keep fighting for the
LGBTQIA+ community as well. There was a major blow to the Trans community by way of
Trump revoking their health protections, allowing health care providers to deny service to transgendered peoples. On the plus side, though,
the Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act also prohibits employers from firing someone based on their sexual orientation or for being transgender. So, kind of a mixed bag of news there....
It also reminds me, with all the craziness that's been going on in the world this month, I totally forgot this:
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While there have already been such highs and lows this month, and it may seem awkward to be joyous and proud with everything going on right now, I want you do it up anyway.
Be proud. Be joyous. Enjoy who you are and help others embrace themselves as well.
Know that I love you, and I will Mama Bear for each of you.
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To finish off this crazy post, I want to warn everyone that I might have to find a way of reviewing comments before they post. I haven't found that option on Blogger yet, but I'll have to look further into it.
This past week I've been basically deleting a new spam comment on my posts daily. I'm actually up to 9 spam comments since the start of June, 7 this past week, and friggin' FIVE the past two days alone! It's the same spam message each time about "finding out your true name" or "find the true meaning of your name" or something like that.
There's supposed to be a fail-safe to make sure bots can't post comments, but clearly that has eased up, or the bots have been programmed smarter than the fail-safe. On the plus side, at least my blog has enough visibility for bots to find and attack it? Yay?
Oh well. I'm gonna end on a high note with these two pictures:
Mom: "Five years meant I could breathe [the cancer probably wasn't coming back]. Ten years meant I could ease up [on my vigilance]. Fifteen years meant I was probably safe. Twenty years meant it was highly unlikely it would return. Twenty-five years meant I could finally relax."
