December 12, 13, 14

Good Morning. We had snow flurries yesterday though little, if any, stuck. We had to take the car in because we got a "check tire pressure" warning light. We don't have the tire pump any more--another thing we don't do ourselves. While there we asked the service people to check all the tires for wear. The last time they were checked was about five or six years ago. As I told Mom, if we followed the milage recommendations for maintenance we would never have any maintenance done. We just don't drive much any more. Well, we an appointment next week to have all four tires changed. We will also have a burned out head light replaced.

I finished a large crochet doily yesterday. It will be the last crochet project for this year. Not a bad tally for this year: four doilies and four lap/baby blankets. I changed things a bit putting all the needlework in progress in the 5-drawer dresser we rescued from a neighbor's trash and put the crochet blankets which had been in the dresser in the ottoman where the needlework had been. In the process I found several pieces that were half finished. I should get the almost completed pillow case done before year's end. I finished the mate to it a couple or three months ago.

Another episode in the on going saga of American "crapification" comes from Robert Reich. 

13**********************************************************************************

It looks like in and out sun today. I am a bit sluggish today. Didn't sleep well last night and decided to read a bit rather than toss and turn. I finally got to sleep somewhere between 12:30 and 1am. At least I finished reading THE VOYAGE HOME by Pat Barker. It continues her story of the Trojan War told from the perspective of the Trojan women which started with THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS and continued with THE WOMEN OF TROY. Historical novels are chancy for me--I either like them or hate them. These I like.

Stray thought: evidently Trump has walked back a couple of campaign promises in a couple of interviews recently. He told his interviewers that lowering grocery prices and negotiating an end to the Ukraine-Russia war were "complicated" and would not be done on his first day. I wonder who gave him a dose of reality.

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Well, here we are--half past December. It started out sunny and cold but the clouds have moved in. I spent the morning starting another scrap lap/crib afghan. It will probably be finished sometime in the new year. Like a lot of fiber crafters I keep several projects going at the same time using several different techniques. The new scrap project is in Tunisian treble and Tunisian single stitches. I learned the basics of the stitch when I was 14 or 15 and a very nice lady working the sewing/notions counter in an old Ben Franklin 5 & 10. Most of that chain are gone now.

Stray thought: evidently one of the people vetting possible employees of for the Department of Health and Human Services if RFK, Jr., is confirmed is a lawyer who is noted for doing the legal work for anti-vax groups and has filed a petition to make the FDA rescind its approval of the POLIO vaccine. He claims that the process was flawed because there were no null groups in the trials. The idiot was born long after the vaccine was approved and long after the last big polio outbreak in the U.S. in the early 1950s. I doubt he knows any person who has had polio--unless he knows Mitch McConnell. I am 75 and in my life time I have known only one person who had contracted polio. The girl was in my 8th grade class and had just emigrated from one of the Eastern European countries which tried to throw off Soviet control and been suppressed by the Red Army. Usually she was in a wheel chair and her clothing was a couple of sizes larger than she would normally wear so it covered her body brace. She also had heavy leg braces and used crutches to stand. The 1952-55 outbreak infected a bit less than 60K and killed a bit more than 3000 with many of the survivors paralyzed. The vaccines (Salk and Sabin versions) were introduced in 1956 and incidents of polio have almost disappeared in this country. I call that effective.

Second stray thought: RFK, Jr., and his ilk seem to have an absolutist definition of "effective" which ignores the fact that no medical technique or medication is absolutely 100% effective. It is always a matter of percentages: what percent of people exposed to a disease get it if they have no vaccine vs. what percent of vaccinated people get the disease if exposed and what percentage of vaccinated people have side effects of what severity.