An Excursion And A Chewing Out

The day finally came: Steve and I decided to plan a short trip north on I-17 up to the Sunset Point rest stop, and then back home. Nevermind the 114 degree temperatures, the nasty air, and the fact that my car AC is finally getting serious about announcing it needs a recharge. You know, every couple minutes it pops itself off so the fluid that remains can pool in its reservoir again so there's enough to work again. (Memo to self....)

A simple trip always, it seems, turns into something more complicated. No exception here. We started with breakfast at Mickey D's, then a trip to the post office. Steve had ordered online a printer compatible with his laptop, as well as a toner cartridge. The (refurbished) printer wouldn't recognize that such a thing as a toner cartridge existed within a block of it. Advice from a pro - after Richard gave up in frustration - was to buy a new brand name toner cartridge rather than a "compatible with" version. Was the fault the toner or the printer? Saturday was a trip to an office supply store for that. Result: 2 presumably perfectly fine cartridges, 1 non-responsive printer.  After a little back and forth with eBay, and much juggling of ways to get the printable return label they sent to his computer to be recognized by my printer, the printer got repacked, thoroughly taped, and put in the car, heading to the post office.

Heavy sucker. Lot of pushing across the floor in 6 foot increments as the line moved. Free return though.

On to the freeway to head north, both of us, at various times during this trip, found that we were unable to breathe enough to be able to converse during the trip. I think we were inhaling the O2-depleted air downwind of California's fires.

Along the way, we noticed spots where rain had actually fallen recently, and green abounded. Later we also noted that miles and miles of prickly pears, while still green, were cardboard thin and often the pads were floppy. Somehow the rain hadn't gotten the message. Kinda like at our house.

Upon arrival, we turned east rather than west at the bottom of the hill at the exit. An earlier fire, the Bumblebee Fire, had wiped out nearly everything in view up to the road on the east side, and possibly extended past the tops of the mountains. We'd brought cameras, and wanted pictures. Nothing survived except at the very edges. Prickly pears were brown, flat, and stacked, pad collapsed on pad upon pad along the ground. Trees were gone. It was so bad that the very ground had holes in it all over, presumably where whatever roots had been spread under it had all but vaporized. We had to watch our steps.

Five minutes was more than enough. This far up and away from the city was still not far enough to cool down. We crossed under the freeway and took the ramp up to the rest stop. Steve was exhausted and his knee in pain from his walk, so I was the only one getting out for shots from the other, untouched side.

By the time I'd taken three shots, I was ready for a confrontation. There was a cluster of 4 covidiots taking up lots of space for their photo ops with each other, all female, all about my age, all more expensively dressed, and none with a mask. Sure, they were outside, but the walks are narrow enough it's difficult to space 6' from another person, much less a clump.

Let me add what helped contribute to my ire at this point. The morning news had another! story of cops killing a black man, 7 shots, in Wisconsin, while his back was turned, he was getting into his car, with his 3 kids in the back seat watching the whole thing. More details were added later, that he had  been stepping in to try to intervene to stop two women in an altercation. When the cops showed up, he - possibly believing they were better equipped to deal with them - turned away to go to his car. Latest info is he is in the ICU. Of course a cell phone caught the event. Rioting ensued during the resulting protest. Nothing at all good there.

It has now been determined that those worst hit by the virus are what "Trumpanzees" feel are the "right people." A deplorable segment of RepubliKKKans think that the number of deaths (somewhere between 176,000 and 180,000+) is just fine, thank you. Those "right people" are living in blue states, and mostly black and latino. Newest leaking news is that Jared and Trump Co. decided to halt testing and whatever else would help slow the virus just to try to win this fall's election. Kill the Democrats!

Can I throw up now, please? Can we arrest them soon, please? Looking back, I see that I suspected this was planned way back in my May 3oth post this year. Not quite 3 months ago. I'm not patting myself on the back. It was too predictable. But the knowledge left me even less tolerant this morning of the covidiots I was watching. 

On top of that, as if that wasn't already enough, was the recent news that world scientists have determined that 80% of ALL people who survive Covid 19 wind up with cardiac damage. 80%! We don't know yet how long lasting it is, and they haven't released data on some of the other organ damage we know the virus inflicts. We do know it happens regardless of how ill one was from the virus. If they caught it, even without symptoms, 80% have heart damage detectable after 60 days.

All in all, pleasant though the outing was, I didn't need much to flip my switch. First, I overheard enough to know that these women were not traveling together. One had to ask where another was from. Phoenix.  Oh-ho, home of a county-wide mask requirement. True, we weren't in Maricopa County now, but wouldn't you think....? Apparently not.  Approaching within 20 feet, I raised my voice (to be heard, not with attitude - yet! Well, not that much yet, anyway) to ask didn't they have masks?

The nearest woman turned around and stalked to within 4 feet of me before I turned away and told her to keep away from me. Yep, attitude began happening. Another woman made shooing away motions with her hands to me. Now that I was far enough away from the first, I stopped and stared at the 2nd of the 4. I was trying to squelch my strong impulse to  yell at her "you must all be Republicans, eh?" but decided that wouldn't gain anything. It didn't need to become political, much as I still believe it was already. I settled for saying to the shooing-hands woman, "You're an asshole," before walking away.

After a brief but very pleasant conversation with a masked gentleman who was walking his adorable black and white shi tzu, had overheard the exchange, and totally agreed with me, it was time to head home. Well, nearly. There was still one stop - nope, two - before the carport.

Steve had to return some shirts he'd also ordered online. The size is the same as every other shirt he's gotten in the last couple years. Unfortunately, these shirts, button down rather than knit, overlapped in the front by over a foot! Before we'd left the house he was on the phone with the company requesting a trade for the same 3 shirts in one size smaller. The company has a local store, not too far out of our way. We picked the drive home for dropping them off, as they opened at 11, not 9 like the post office. The replacement shirts will be here in "a week".  We'll see.

Now that it was going to be noon by the time we got home, a stop at BK was also in order. Pleasant surprise: the price of a pair of Whoppers had dropped by a buck! And still just as yummy.

Maybe we should go somewhere next week....

Oh yeah, the car dealership for recharging the Ac.