Rules? What rules?

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 6 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

We enter a second quarantine, this time with you only being allowed to have essentials items sent in by drone. The drone can only deliver a week’s worth of food and it can’t weigh more than 20 lbs. What is the drone bringing you?

It was submitted by: https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/


****I just want to clarify that I know the person sending this in didn't intend to rile anyone up, and it's an interesting prompt. And I do probably sound angry. I'm angry at my state government. I'm angry at my family. I'm angry at the federal government. I'm angry that people keep dying at the hands of cops.  I'm angry that last week I saw someone shot to death at a protest and a few days later the live streamer I watched got hit by a car going 80 mph...while there were hundreds of people tuned in and then they had to make their account private because people kept cheering over another protestor's deaths and wishing death on them. I'm angry that so many people willfully ignore why protests have to happen and care more about whether they're inconvenienced slightly than why the police kill Black people at 2.5 times the rate of white people, and that it opens the door for people to be openly and grossly racist and kill or attempt to kill protesters creating a cycle of violence.

I'm not ok. We're not ok.

_________________

I live in Georgia.

I suppose what we're in right now is a second wave of coronavirus, but our numbers never really dipped enough for that to be realistic. Our governor, who stole the election in the first place, waited until too late to take things seriously which both influenced the populace to also not take it seriously and made it harder to control our numbers. And now he's pretending everything is fine even as we increase 3400 cases a day.

The point is that even under the strict circumstances outlined in this prompt, I would give anything to have an actual quarantine at all, for businesses to close until it's safe and for allocating my 20lbs a week to be my biggest source of stress since I need more weight than that in dog and cat food and cat litter alone than to be worried about dying and leaving my kid with no one.

But I'm not going to get that.

I have to worry every day about some asshole who won't wear a mask meaning my death. Mask wearing isn't about wearing one to protect yourself. It's about fucking wearing one to save everyone else and so we can get back to some semblance of normalcy. Other countries have done it for a long time to prevent an individual from getting others sick. Why don't we wear them during flu season, you might ask? I don't know maybe because we value individual feelings and faux freedom over the safety and freedom of everyone. Other countries have been doing it since their populations actually, you know, give a shit about other people. I don't know how to explain to callous, selfish pricks how to care about other people enough to shut the fuck up with the conspiracies and whining and politics and Wear. A. Goddamn. Mask. You. Soggy. Piece. Of. Toast. How did we get an entire couple generations of adults who are basically ready at all times to do "whatever it takes" to protect America unless that means wearing a mask?

If you think I'm talking about you, I probably am.

20 lbs? I am poor. I cook a couple times a week with few ingredients already because I have a tight budget. 20 lbs a week to feed my family is nothing. This week alone I've made two big meals (taco stuffed peppers and chili mac) that pretty much last all week long and for much less than 20 lbs given what I already had on hand. That part--the budgeting and scrimping and creativity--is what poor people have always done. Ribs, brisket, lobster, cereal, grits...we've always made do with what we could get and made it taste so amazing that within a generation everyone wants it and the price is driven up. Lobster used to be a poor man's dish. So give me 20lbs just for food and I'm good. I got this. I will make these rules my bitch.

But pet supplies? COFFEE? Oh god I have to have ginger ale. Got to have weed....

Honestly, you let me go without coffee too long while my pets slowly starve, and I'm going to beat the shit out of the first rich person I can find and make them let me have their deliveries. We all know they won't face the same stipulations anyway. Put people in a bind like this, and they will fight for life. I would.

Fuck around and find out.

_________________________

Baking In A Tornado  https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/07/word-play-or-nay-secret-subject-swap.html?fbclid=IwAR3c8aQ_ZewSsCUsTCgTH3EsQkuK22FRfm2815zLcDez7K0Otj0xg5qPxHc

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/?p=14917&fbclid=IwAR373-TroknNunp-Mb8oLnGaV8jIEj9ki-e51nA8afoSEUpaoZ9TFbJ20Lo

The Crazy Mama Llama https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/07/secret-subject-swap-cockroach.html?fbclid=IwAR2FJocxpTt2mascImcxRIBBK5VTJrO5RrBxo_v-4r2HLFK1NCQIaQ60LTc

These Days

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 6 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

You just returned from a visit to Ireland and brought back a bit of the ol' Irish luck. What great thing has happened as a result?

It was submitted by: https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com


I needed to vent. thanks for reading.

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I guess in reality no one is going to Ireland right now. No luck of the Irish is coming to call, and I just have to hope that if I get this virus I come out of it alive instead of dying alone. I'm terrified. There's no luck here. Georgia is currently on a trajectory to see infection rates greater than 70% and an astounding death rate if our governor doesn't step in, and he's made it clear he has no intention to do enough...at least until it's too late. (since i first wrote this he finally ordered a shelter in place order after most projections indicated it was too late and only for only just over a week).

I don't know if I have it in me right now to hope for better. Our president knew this would be bad as early as January and did nothing. We have a large group of people in charge who care more about the stock market than lives. We're living in uncertain times. Not a single one of us has any idea what the future holds beyond the fact that things will never be the same again. Never.

How do you think about the luck of the Irish in a time like this? (And to be clear I know the person who sent this prompt in had no idea how things would be or maybe hoped it would be a good escape) I'm so scared and lost and feeling hopeless about the future that it's hard to talk about any sort of hope about things turning around and impossible to pretend that this all goes away with a little luck or that any change--major or minor--gets us anywhere. Because now we know. Now we know that accommodations could be made, that the government didn't step in when it should and could, that the poorest people were told they didn't need a stimulus check at first to help keep them off the street or feed them while on the street. Now we know how quickly things can get bad, how much we depend on "unskilled labor" (i hate that phrase) to function. Now we know that we're seen more as labor sources and stock market padding than anything by the people with power. Now we know how badly we do need universal healthcare.

There is no longer a normal to get back to. And while many leftists, actual leftists, never wanted that normal in the first place, we have no idea where we're going to land to try to make positive changes for the future. And all of us, absolutely all of us, are mourning the normalcy of our day to day.

There is no EPA oversight right now. None. In an environment already overwhelmed by humans.

With cfs, my immune system is compromised is ways that even the most informed experts on the disorder don't understand. Every time I have groceries brought in, every exposure is a risk. My stepdad won't close his store because Georgia isn't closing things down right now. He's exposing my mom every single day. They're still doing family things exposing the rest of my family. I might very well lose people. I already have friends with it. I've had friends denied tests because they weren't sick enough. The real numbers are very likely much higher giving us an invisible enemy around every corner.

We were told to sacrifice our grandparents and our sick (people like me!) on the alter of the Market in the Holy Economy temple. We were told to appease the capitalism gods. To sacrifice lives to keep people rich with no inkling of understanding that these bodies are needed to keep the economy afloat...to spend money and give labor.

White supremacists are using their infected to spread to the groups they hate and tried to attack a hospital with a car bomb. A hospital full of covid patients.

Maybe most people I know live will through this. Maybe I do so my kid isn't parentless or doesn't have to live with a parent and stepparent who don't love him. Maybe we will find a vaccine before millions die and can maintain social distancing until that vaccine is a reality. Maybe the people in charge finally start taking this seriously--and not after it's too late like in Georgia whose major hospitals are already overwhelmed with the ceiling for the number of patients we can take looming larger and larger by day. But none of that will be because of luck. It will be fought for.

If we're lucky, if we really want some of that Irish luck, I hope we'll still have some fight left when all this is done.

Fight for change, for universal healthcare, for better than what we've gotten from two parties who care about money more than people. Fight for the most vunerable of us to finally see equality so they're not treated differently when they're dying alone in the hospital, so someone's triage choice doesn't exclude the trans patient solely based on bigotry. Fight for every state and every local government to have plans already in place to address pandemics so we don't have SHITASS governors thanking chik fil a and praying instead of closing fucking beaches. We have to get through this and still have fight left even while everyday we feel like we don't have any at all. And we'll need luck and wits and strength and determination and the highest roll possible on our polyhedral dice to make sure this doesn't happen like this to our kids and their kids.

_______________________________________

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/04/call-me-pistachio-secret-subject-swap.html

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2020/04/changing-that-one-sss-april-2020.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/?p=14790

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/04/secret-subject-swap-long-day.html