How Many Times Have You Had An FBI Investigation?

Or more specifically, ones that you knew about, either at the time or afterwards. I've had three which I know about, only the latest of which I actually asked for. 

The first was when I was 16, applying for my first "real" job at a Walgreens in the St. Paul midway area, working as a waitress at the lunch counter, back when Walgreens had those. I got very little real training, made terrible tips, but learned for the first time there was such a thing as a vanilla soda and I could make one by putting the right flavor syrup into a glass of charged water. I could make it a vanilla Coke as well, or other combinations. The FBI hook was in order to work there I had to be "bonded", meaning they had to check whether as a 16-year-old I'd managed to get a criminal record as one of my accomplishments. I had to take a slip home to my parents to give their approval for the investigation. Or I could just not work there. My parents debated it for a while before signing. But hey, it was just Walgreens. Bonding was just a more ubiquitous practice than they'd realized.

I passed. When less than a year later I switched to working for Montgomery Wards, no bonding was required. Nor was it ever again... that I'm aware of.

The last FBI investigation is much more recent. While living in Arizona I applied to get a concealed carry permit. I had no gun to conceal, much less carry. Nor did/do I ever plan to. But there were plans to travel through Texas on the route between AZ and MN each year, and I still believe to this day it would give me more "cred" if ever I were pulled over there by some trigger-happy Bozo in uniform. I passed this investigation as well, and promptly refused to ever drive through Texas again. Go figure. I still carry the permit, though with living in MN now, it grants me absolutely nothing. It doesn't matter to me, except that the slots for plastic cards in my pocketbook are getting too full to get all my cards into without a struggle. It still amuses me to carry the card, so it stays in its spot. I tossed out some Arizona-specific cards instead, like my Voter ID. I won't need that again.

During the time in between the 1st investigation in the '60s and the last just a few years ago is the one I never knew about while it was happening, would never have learned about if I hadn't passed, but would just have lost a source of income if I hadn't. These days I remember about it perhaps once a decade, along with its tinge of temporary paranoia which learning about it produced for a few weeks. It comes up right now since we're getting investigated before we can get into the place we want to live, much more on credit history and general criminality, no FBI involved. Not that I'd have a problem if they were.

It was in the early '70s, and I was a new mom in a trailer park with a husband and our first baby. We were almost at the point in this country where maternity leave was protected by being able to return to your job, but since that hadn't happened yet, I became self employed doing in-home family day care. There was my first, then a pair of siblings, then my second, and last in the group at this point was a young girl not quite in kindergarten, if I remember correctly. My second child may or may not have been born when she started coming. Such details fade in relation to the timing of others. Our little group took a lot of walks in the area, as we were near a nice lake with little traffic on the roads during weekdays.

I was told very little about the older child during our intake interview. There was an unnamed  kind of health issue revolving around immunity, requiring gamma globulin. If I recall correctly, day care was the first she was allowed around other kids with all their germ sharing. Mom, an RN finally able to return to work, managed the medical side of her care, hospitals and treatments,  no meds for me to give. The child was a bit physically awkward, a bit behind her peers by age, had some possible development issues from early illness and isolation, and shy at first. She was quiet, well behaved, and seemed to adapt fairly well to the younger children around her. More information filtered in as time went on. She was a surviving twin. Without any other details, I assumed she'd had the same health issues but a worse outcome. I wonder if the twin died before or after birth, but either way Mom was sure this child missed her sibling, who, aside from the the one comment, was never mentioned, never named. 

Daddy was a cigar smoker, and I made a conscious effort not to let the lingering odor in her clothing put me off to giving her the hugs and attention the others got. After about a year in my care, now that she was in school, her irate mother stopped in one day to ask why I hadn't said anything about the lingering smell, which now was separating her socially from her schoolmates, and not in a friendly way. 

I was dumbfounded. I'd been raised to always be polite and not mention all kinds of things to others. It didn't seem to make a difference in our home, but yes, I did notice it. Her teacher didn't have the upbringing I did and made it a point within a couple weeks of the start of school to ask her mother to get rid of all cigar smoking inside their house and be sure to scrub all traces of the stink from everything inside, including this child's clothing. Mom had become immune to the smell but after hearing from the teacher made sure Daddy only smoked outside after that. He wasn't happy. Too bad. Their daughter was more socially accepted after that. And I got a needed lesson.

You've been patient but are probably wondering just what this has to do with an FBI investigation. Her mom asked to have a private chat with me after she'd been in my care a few months, partly because we were outside as much as we were. We discovered asparagus to pick and eat in early summer, found blackberry bushes to carefully pick berries from in July, walked along the lakes or to a nearby park, or whatever was right for the weather and activity levels of the kids. There were field trips, including a local library with story times, the grocery store to shop for food, even a trip to the zoo or the state capitol building. It was our being so active that brought on the conversation with her mom.

I'd no idea I had passed another FBI background check after taking on the care of this girl. But there were things happening that meant we might be followed while we were out and about, and I needed to be aware of who, why, and what I needed to do, and not do.

The biggest "not do" was tell anybody else what I was about to hear. I didn't for a very long time, until the people involved were no longer being threatened, protection was way past being needed, and I'd long since lost contact with the family, even to remembering their last name. When much younger, this child had been kidnapped. She'd been held as an attempt to influence the actions of a close relative of the family who was in an important position of influence in the CIA. I was never given a name or a job title. However, being related to the family, occasionally he would visit. As a result, in order to protect this child from any repeat attempts to harm her, any time the relative was in the area, or any other time a threat was deemed likely, she would have protection from high levels of the government. I might, in that event, without any notification whatsoever so as to give her as normal a life as possible, notice that I/we were being discretely followed. New cars would be in the area. It should be, I was informed, so discrete I'd never notice it, but if I did I wasn't to panic but just be aware. After all, I and the other kids would also be protected at the same time.  For the record, I never did notice any such activity. But I was informed that an FBI background check was ordered on me at the direction of the CIA, and I had passed. This child could stay in my care.

I was blown away. It was a hard secret to keep, but the thought I might be being monitored secretly kept me quiet, even if I were tempted. I became cautious of what I said even jokingly on the phone. There were sudden flashes of "OMG THEY INVESTIGATED ME!" My conscience dragged up every last tiny thing, wondering if they'd found out about whatever it was. Then that changed to wondering if they cared about whatever it was. After all, I passed. So were they stupid or indifferent? Were they still checking in on me? I did eventually get over myself.

Once she was in school full time, she left day care since a parent was home before and after school. I lost track of her because we moved a couple miles away.

I do wonder now if this child has survived to become a mother, even a grandmother. Were her health issues genetic, preventing children? How is she doing socially, assuming she lived to grow up? Does she remember our little day care? Did she grow up hearing tales of her powerful relative and the cost of being family? Or was she protected from all knowledge except whatever she may have remembered from a very tender age, perhaps reliving in nightmares? Of all the children who came and went through that day care, she is the one I have the most questions about with the least expectation of any answers.

Oops

 Just a little slip of the finger and OOPS!

I'm sure it's happened to you all at some time, right? You're online and hit the wrong key. Suddenly you've approved something, bought something, posted something you had no intention of approving, buying or posting.

Sometimes you can fix it.

Sometimes you can't. Or at least can't figure out how to fix it.

I did that last week. I was looking at an "untitled" post in my list of recent posts. In this case it was a blank page. I'd somehow pulled it up when pulling up another blank page to put a post on, and here it was, still sitting there. 

I tried to delete it. I'd just said all I wanted to say for the day. It was late, I was tired, and my fingers were telling me I really needed to go get some sleep, not fiddle with a screen I could put something on later. 

So......

I thought I deleted it. I shut my laptop down and got that needed sleep. Next time I wanted to post something, there it sat in my list of already posted items.

Wait! What? Already posted? No title, no content, just a big nothing-burger? I flipped back to my blog's front page and yep, there it sat, officially posted with nothing there, taking up an inch of space it didn't deserve. I went back into my working page, where I write and rewrite and proof and rephrase and correct until I can post something I'm not totally ashamed of, and there was no "delete" button. I looked at all the little symbols I ignore because I both don't know what they're for and haven't needed to use them... yet. Nothing gave me to power to make that nothing-burger go away. 

I looked at the stats accompanying all my posts, wondering if there were something on that page which would let me delete it. I could "update" the post, but how do you update nothing? One might think I could actually write something there so it becomes a something-burger, but one little thing stopped me. Seven of you had already been counted as reading it.

I do hope you all enjoyed it. Perhaps you found it a relief from the usual length of what I tend to post. Perhaps you credited it with being irony, or the quintessential meta message of "nothing to say". More likely your reaction was WTF? and you went on to other things in your day.

Anyway, it's not going to get fixed. It's not just I can't figure out how. But if I did ever figure it out, then I'd have to delete this post too as well, because what would be the point of leaving it up?

Rainy Morn

 It's been rainy for several days. Several weeks, actually, with a few breaks. Mostly they've been gentle rains, just enough to keep the ground moist and the plants growing. For a bonus, of course, it's been the most mosquito filled couple of weeks now in the recent years I've been in this northern yard. By bonus, I mean if you're a critter that likes them for breakfast. And lunch. Or afternoon, suppertime, and bedtime snacks. If so, you've been very well fed recently. If you haven't been very well fed on mosquitoes, maybe it's you I can blame for them being very well fed on me!

There have been winds going through as well, some times with the rain, sometimes without any rain. The driveway is lined with old birch trees, both paper and river birches. They tend to be full of dead twigs, and rubbing branches do an excellent job of tossing those twigs off in all directions. Some get dragged onto the street under the cars backing out. Sometimes somebody actually has a few spare moments before leaving the driveway to pick up a couple dozen and toss them on the twig pile. Some are just left where they land and get broken by car tires without becoming rearranged.

All those twigs are basically an excuse to stop and watch what next is blooming in the garden lining the drive. This week it's iris. The first of the bulb, or Dutch iris, already bloomed last week and are gone, except in photos. I marked their locations well, and plan to dig some up and move to our new home. Their blue was exquisite. Today, looking out the front window, yellow caught my eye. A closer look, after the rain stopped and I'd donned clothing, revealed them to be a blend of yellow and white, with grey lines. With raindrops of course.

Looking further away from the driveway I discovered a light purple and white iris emerging from dark blue buds. It was another Dutch iris, still fairly small, and hiding a second bloom right behind it. I thought about taking several shots to try to get a truly good one, or at least separate the two for more definition, but my stepping through grass and hostas to shoot even the first ones had awakened several dozen hungry mosquitos already.

I know, I should have gone inside at that point. I had summer pants on, denim only to the knees, with ankle high socks. Plenty of area for a five course banquet for the bugs, and the dinner bell hadn't stopped ringing. However, there were also large bearded iris in the garden, huge dark purple blooms, also full of raindrops,  and furry orange throats. I'd taken a shot or 11 of them a day or two earlier, before the rain.

Now I had to take a dozen shots of them after the rain. I just had to. I could run away from mosquitos later. Or at least try. So I stayed out and fed a few dozen more. just for this.

 As I type this, the bites have (mostly) stopped itching. I think it was worth it. Let's see now if the pale blue and the orange bearded iris have survived the winter. Should take about a week to find out.

Physics Or Falacy?

First, full disclosure of ignorance: while I have had an interest in many of the sciences  for nearly all of my life, from the time I hit Junior High on, I never had a course in physics. Not officially. I picked up bits and pieces throughout my life since, from science magazines, TV, and even science fiction. Some made sense, some were dismissed as pure baloney, and some still puzzle me to this day. Anything with "quantum" in front of it I freely admit I will never understand, nor does that bother me.

Many ideas - we can call them theories - didn't make sense when I heard them, still don't exactly, yet I can see a tiny window into how they might work. Of those, a couple still bother me in that they seem polar opposites yet both are widely accepted as true.

In my personal education, the concept of entropy was the first bothersome concept. Everything is winding down, in over simplified form. I can see that on a mega scale. We die, stuff decomposes. Speed without input of continuous energy will slow, because other factors like friction still exert their forces. One concept that was drilled into me very early is the conservation of energy. You can't destroy it, merely change its form. Entropy argues against that, to my mind, with its declaration that everything winds down. It doesn't say how energy changes to non-energy, different energy, or where it goes, just that it becomes gone.

Sure, I learned how to pass the test to get a good grade, without accepting it for a second except on a macro scale. But decomposing matter feeds different recipients like fungi, which in turn support other life, and/or become oil over the ages, which then gets brought to the surface and burned, creating again energy. New form, not nothingness.

Then there's the supposedly competing theory, popularized as the "butterfly effect". Remember the original "Jurassic Park" movie? One butterfly can create a hurricane, in over simplified terms again. It kind of makes sense in explaining unintended consequences, like a tiny piece of gossip can ruin a reputation of somebody who would have invented/accomplished/influenced something really big and important through a series of increasing consequences. But looking at it as a physics theory, the problem with the butterfly effect is that each subsequent effect requires a huge input of energy which has no source nor explanation. It tickles the fancy without standing up to examination, in my - again admittedly inadequate - education and understanding. I tend to see those effects dying out in the face of stronger forces, not getting a boost from them. The wingbeat from a butterfly won't change a breeze, but the butterfly will get knocked off course by that breeze.

If you've gotten this far, you're likely wondering just where all this musing came from. It branched off an online conversation this morning with somebody about climate change and some new research pointing in a seemingly very unlikely direction. Have you heard of the AMOC? OK, I hadn't either, but suddenly it's popping up with greater frequency in climate discussions. It refers to the ocean current tipping point, the point where the Gulf Stream slows to a stop and what we think we know about how our temperatures will change goes out the window. If that's too oversimplified for you, research it. (If you want extreme detail, try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH-Nb2N7WY8 for a fairly easy to follow presentation, or the 54 page document full of statistics and formulas it's based on. I'll see you back here in a month. Maybe 5.)

What stuck out for me is how places we expect to heat sky high don't, and how some actually get really really cold. I queried the person I was talking with about why the really cold spot off Greenland - or another in Hudson Bay - didn't change when everything around it did. I brought in effects like brownian motion on the molecular level plus the effects of our planetary motion with days and seasons bringing in atmospheric forces to affect change. His personal day/night schedules are different than mine so I haven't gotten an answer yet, though I suspect he'll come up with acknowledging those effects working, but on a much much slower time scale to bring a fairly even change over the planet into being. Like the difference between ten years and ten thousand, for example. Maybe ten million is more likely. But he often surprises me.

The answer to my question likely won't have any effect that many of us will be around to observe. The tipping point is projected to arrive possibly as late as 2095. Sighs of relief I hear? It also could arrive as early as ... 2025. These graphs are not straight lines but trends of where highs and lows are going. They're getting more extreme in depth of change as well as how long the changes last. That's why they can't pinpoint the exact when. Just the what and where. Tipping points mean there is no return. We are already in many feedback loops.

Also note that what you are hearing about planetary climate change, if you live in the US, is mostly about our own weather here. More spring storms with tornadoes, for now, though it seldom mentions climate change. There is a start of forecasting more and stronger hurricanes later this summer. Almost nobody tells you it's climate change AND it's our fault. Your home insurance rates are rising - where you can still get it - but nobody tells you the real cause, or the fact that insurance companies' profits are still very healthy. You're probably not hearing about Central and South America, the death of the Amazon rain forest, the end of bananas, coffee, and cocoa in those regions, and even,  because it "seems funny" to some people, the frequency of howler monkeys falling out of trees from heat stroke, dead upon impact. The howlers get some press, the other animals don't. The forests are going quiet.

Try some foreign news sources, like The Guardian. While groceries and other things get more expensive, also note, when you can find it, the profits the big corporations are making while raising your prices, and how high executive paychecks have gotten these last few years. Corporations are people too, my friend, and those "people" are becoming Oligarchs running what we think is still a Democracy.

That, for sure, is not falacy.

Is It Supposed To Require Torture To End Pain?

First business, the house sold, we got paid. Now to get into the new place.

Steve had an appointment with a pain specialist earlier this week. One would think that would be defined as somebody who knows how to relieve pain. It didn't quite turn out that way.

First he had a nice, hour long, appointment with a doctor to determine what, after all he's been through, might be the next appropriate thing to do to help, or try to help, relieve his back and knee pain. Knee replacements never helped knee pain. Back treatments uniformly helped either not at all from the beginning, or gave initial relief and then backed off from providing any relief.

Her referral was to a clinic down in the metro which did nerve ablation, under the theory that nerves radiating out from  between vertebrae spread pain outward into other parts of the body, and pinpointing exactly which ones are the first step to ending the pain. Then they get zapped or something, and pain gone.

Doncha love theories?

Steve has a very sensitive back. I have learned over the years to never, ever come up behind him and lovingly touch his back. For him it is nothing in any way, shape or form, loving. If I tell him first, he's ready and very receptive, starting at the neck and working down, especially for a massage or scratching an itch he can't reach. Otherwise, he jumps at a touch, and that jarring itself brings on more pain.

So of course he informed the people preparing to  do the procedure about how his back reacts. And of course, as soon as he was laying on the table they squirted cold gel in exactly the wrong spot, making him jump! And say a few choice words! Not a propitious start, to say the least.

Then came the needles. They are supposed to pave their own path with some anesthetic as they locate and travel either up or along a chosen nerve. If having root canal treatments is any sample of the procedure, the numbing has to come about 5 minutes before the rest of whatever they plan to do, or the result is pure torture. If you have no clue, count yourself blessed and just take my word for it. If you do know... I'm sorry.

Steve tried really hard to comply with their plan. There was no apparent anesthetic with the first needle. Nor the second. By the time they started number three, he insisted they stop, remove them all, and he walked out once he'd recovered enough to move.

Predictably he was in more pain coming out than going in, and for the next couple days it was worse than he'd been in for a while, bad as that has been. For two days he insisted "never again", and finally changed that to "only if they put me completely under first." That still sounds like only a "maybe" even if they promise a general.

Of course by the time he got to that point, we were crawling  down the throat of a big holiday weekend. Everybody for whatever he needed was short staffed, all communications mean either fighting with websites he hadn't gotten back with his new hard drive, or being on hold with circular voicemail systems that send one everywhere except to a live person. He finally gave up after long unproductive holds with several of them.

We'll start the process again after the holiday weekend is over, maybe Tuesday with some ambition and a little prodding. Just like we're waiting to see with hopes of hearing Tuesday if we passed our background checks to get into the place we want. Meanwhile, for some perspective, We've been up here 2 1/2 months and Steve has yet to go fishing, despite offers from both friends and family to take him to a good fishing hole.

'Nuff said?

"Agley" Means Postponed Some More

Just don't ask what else can go wrong, please. It's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The realtor called this morning, informing me that the closing now isn't expected to happen until Wednesday. I don't know if part of it was our documents getting late to the Fed Ex office down there. What I do know for sure is the buyer doesn't have the money... quite yet. So Fed Ex isn't that late after all, despite the notary's delays.

The information she passed on is that they are in the process of getting the needed loan to cover their expenses, but for some unknown reason it's taking an extra two days. "Everybody" is sure it will happen Wednesday, now. There were even addendum documents emailed to us to e-sign and send back, changing the closing date. That's all, just the closing date.

Hmmm, might it be the solar company and title company combined forces to make sure the six month advance payment got paid before closing was allowed to happen? Or was it just some random stupidity?

I'm glad I took the bother to go out and buy a bottle of White Out the other day when we were doing other shopping. The paperwork we have for the park management folks warns us on every page that incorrect information could result in our being refused residency. But they were all filled out with the expectation that the closing would be today, before we meet with them tomorrow. So I get to go very, very carefully through them all, page by page, line by line, to make sure they say what reflects tomorrow's truth... so far.

What fun!