Thursday Thoughts - plunged back into reality

1. I was expecting a tough first week back after two weeks out of the office and over 10 days away from home but christ on a crutch both of my eyes have a twitch and I'm hanging on for dear life for the weekend. I have dropped every basket I have at this point.

2. It did not help that I scheduled things for Tuesday (Lola visit and later a massage), Wednesday (hair appointment and Target trip), and Thursday nights (Geege vet appointment and library trip). Dumbass, party of one. All of the things were good and enjoyable or necessary, but it was stupid of me to load up most of the weeknights this week because my house looks like a bomb went off in every room on every level. You know the damn dining room table is on that list. Michelle saved me a Friday trip to her house to pick up linens. Praise the lort.

3. Thrive Market, who uses it? They had something I wanted, so I placed an order. Then I did a little more research on them. Fair warning: if you use the link I gave you get 15% off of your first order and I get $25 if you end up signing up after the trial basis. If you do join for $60 a year, you get discounted prices on healthy, organic stuff and you sponsor a low-income family so they get a free membership. Get good and do good. This is right up my alley. And since ordering most of my stuff online is how I buy myself more time, I thought I'd share it in case that's how you buy yourself time too. 

4. I kept my Amazon Prime Day purchases to books. I also have a bunch of books on my kindle so I think I'm officially on a library fast. I don't buy new books often but when I do I do it in bulk. I am more likely to buy used paperbacks on a more frequent basis.

5. This weekend officially marks the halfway point of the rental season at the shore. It's been easier this year than last year - I have less anxiety about the entire process and know better what I can control and what I can't control. We've been blessed with really great people who treat our home like their home. I haven't been to the shore since July 3 and I'm anxious to get back there this weekend.

6. Yesterday MFD attended the National Sit-In at the Capitol Building with some Philly-area healthcare warriors. This link takes you to some footage outside of Toomey's office yesterday. In the last video, MFD is the guy in the white shirt walking out first. He was arrested along with over 150 other people from around the nation - Joe Citizens, doctors, nurses. It's kind of weird to see your husband being arrested on video on a CNN reporter's Twitter feed. He was sprung a few hours later. Here's some footage of his testimony on The Hill.

I don't even know how to talk about this healthcare debacle. The shitstain of a replacement plan failed, yay. Your president wants to repeal without replacing, which will plunge many into despair, dire straits, and death, boo. And I actually think that's the long game, the TRUE intent...so that what would have happened under the shitstain plan will still happen if there is an ACA repeal without replacement but can then be blamed on the failing ACA which has been the conservative banshee wail for the past eight years instead of placing the blame where it belongs - on the people who are choosing greed and corporate welfare over actual people. Instead of improving upon anything that was conceived under President Obama, they will choose to let people DIE. What is more devastating than that is the comments from citizens who support it. They don't fully understand what a difference the ACA made for all of us, even those on employer healthcare, and there are people out there who will not understand a damn thing until it happens to them or their family. Health is a fickle thing...you have it until you don't. People are more worried about people mooching off the government (I'm not even going to go into how that is not the case in regards to the ACA, in any way) and by extension, them, than they are about fellow human beings suffering terribly and dying. If I had to choose between giving someone I didn't know who I didn't think deserved it $100 or watching that same person die because I didn't give it to them, I'm giving them the goddamn $100 because that's the human thing to do. Are you? If the choice is my money or someone's life, I'm going to say take my money, every time. 

If you refuse to give poor or even "lazy" people affordable access to healthcare but don't bat an eye when CEOs collect millions in bonuses because their companies pay very little in taxes, something is very fucking wrong.

Here's the thing...we both have jobs and pay taxes and are lucky to be covered under a generous healthcare plan through an employer. This healthcare thing is important to us even if we are the least affected individuals because we are younger and healthy (for now). There seems to be some misinformation on the internet (say it isn't so) that people demonstrating on this healthcare issue are jobless miscreants that just want to take from the government. Or that people demonstrating and showing up are being paid. We are proof that neither of those scenarios is the case. Why are those ridiculous notions more preferable and comfortable for people to believe than the fact that the people showing up to demonstrate on any issue are people who care about their country and their fellow citizens - indeed, they care enough to use time off or personal time and to knowingly risk arrest to be heard? Instead of being hateful to people who care about something, turn your energy to your congress people and ask what the hell they're doing for you while they're in their offices avoiding constituents ON YOUR DIME. I will keep fighting for medicare for all because fuck, what if you get sick and somewhere along the way you lose your job and then you can't get insurance because you now have a pre-existing condition? You're not dying on my watch because you can't afford care. Fuck that. This is America for Christ's sake. Don't fucking tell me Europe can figure this out and we can't.

p.s. Thoughts to John McCain and family. A survivor, a hero, and one of the last respectable moderate republicans. Stay strong. Be well.

7. Local friends, I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for a place to donate school supplies. Here's where I'm doing it this year. You can also use this wish list to send supplies direct to the most poorly funded school district in the country: Reading School District here in PA. From the Reading wish list, the items needed most are colored pencils, pencils, colored copy paper, glue (glue sticks are best), markers (thick, thin, whatever), and lined paper.

8. Since MFD was in DC yesterday for the Senate Healthcare sit-in and I forgot I had a hair appointment right after work, my Mom let the dogs out for us. She always sends video and gives a poop report. She is the poophawk. Good thing because I was a half hour late to my hair appointment because of a fatality on the train tracks. Someone died somewhere down the line, had to get on a different train track, took a short walk through a small dead town, got some blonde in my hair, and my husband got arrested so I had to uber home. Last night was a verse from a country music song.

9. Reminder:

10. E-card of the week...since we already introduced poop as a point.

Hasta la vista, baby.