"No, Not the Mind Probe!!?!"

Yep, I Tested Positive

I thought I was coming down with the same bad cold that Bob was slowly recovering from. I don't get colds all that often, and I'd thought this one would pass me by, but nope, it appeared eager to settle in my head. Well, dang ... I headed for bed, hoping it wouldn't be too bad in the morning. 

Around 3 a.m. Saturday I woke up with aches that signaled a potential temperature. And indeed I had one; 100.7, significantly higher than the 97.9 I usually run. I knew that colds don't feature fevers so I tested myself for COVID. 

I didn't even have to wait the requisite 15 minutes, both lines were there in bright red within 30 seconds. 

Welp. 

I've felt like I've been hit by a truck ever since. I keep telling myself it's a smaller truck than it might have been, thanks to the booster shot I got last year (of course, I can't recall exactly when I got it, but I think it was in mid-summer.) but it's still a truck. I ran a lower temp on Sunday, and Monday and Tuesday, today, I haven't had a temperature since then and today I retook a test. At first, the only reaction was the control line. Huzzah! I was certain I'd gotten the first of the two negative tests I'd need to declare myself COVID free. As I said, Huzzah--

--except at the end of the 15 minute wait time, there it was, a faint but definite second line. 

Welp. Again. 

And it's still like being hit by a small truck. 

Ah well, I'm getting some work done on my NTBP* novel, escaping a corner I'd painted myself into. And I'm also making some bread. That always comforts me. 

And here, have something I wrote about cold decades ago. Since we're still in single digit temperatures with subzero windchills, it feels the same to me, although this was written after a relatively rare ice storm during a cold snap.

. 
* not to be published

Having Fun Yet?

Not really. Not with the latest murder in Minneapolis, a city I have connections with and memories of. I flinched when I heard the gun shots that killed Alex Pretti yesterday. So very loud. 

Only a couple of weeks earlier, again in Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good, was killed by ICE. Her last words were "I'm not mad at you guys." After - after - she was shot, one of the ICE agents called her a "fucking bitch." Professional attitude there, buddy. 

But let's not forget others who were shot, either killed or injured, across the country.

Last September, undocumented immigrant Silverio Villegas González, a 20-year resident of Franklin Park, was killed by ICE thugs in that Chicago suburb, after dropping off his children at school. The narrative from ICE was one we're very familiar with now: he "severely injured" an ICE agent, and dragged the agent with his car. 

That agent told his buddies at the scene of González' murder that his own injury was "nothing major." Oops. 

American citizen Marimar Martinez was shot five times by CBP agent Charles Exum, who later boasted about it in texts to friends. She survived, and charges against her were dropped. It turns out that she didn't ram any agent's car. Someone rammed her car. Quel surprise. 

There have been at least eight other shootings by ICE or CBP agents across the country since last September, of U.S. citizens,and non-citizens. They were lucky enough not to be killed, but some of them are still in ICE custody. 

They were all domestic terrorists who used their vehicles to ruthlessly hunt down blameless ICE and CPB agents. At least, that's the message that ICE Barbie and her Trumpian buddies like Greg Bovino have repeatedly given out at press conferences. Not only are they lying, they're not even creatively lying. 

Can we have the midterms next week, please, before That Man and his criminal team figure out how to shut elections down?

No? 

Well then, we'd best be on our guard.