There were multiple reasons I did not do a blog entry yesterday, the first day I've missed since April 1st, when the LJ resumed after a hiatus that had last from the middle of October. One reason was that it was the 26th anniversary of Elizabeth's suicide. Usually – maybe always – I have made sure to post that day (I actually did not find out about her death until August 9th, so I get two nasty anniversary's for the price one), but this year, this year being what it is, I just wasn't up to it. The other reason, we spent the morning at my doctor's office, and that was such a horror show that I spent the rest of the day feeling like the breath had been knocked from me. As I posted yesterday on Facebook and on Twitter:
Every hospital bed in Birmingham is full, and all our many hospitals are now diverting patients to other cities. I had a doctors appt. this a.m., and it was a scene from an especially frightening SF novel.
My doctor was in and out of the examination room, desperately trying to find a bed for one of her patients who'd suddenly grown very sick with the Delta variant. And there were no hospitals here to take her, and the best an emergency room could promise was a "wait of hours and hours," after which she might see someone. We're talking about someone's who's deathly ill. Anyway, my doctor drove home just how bad things are. We made plans for how I will be treated at home if I get sick (and counting on my vaccination to keep me from growing seriously ill). We had more than 3,307 cases statewide as of yesterday – we do not yet have today's numbers, but the tally from yesterday is expected to double in the next couple of days. We are already worse here than we were at the worst point last summer, and kids are (this beggars belief) about to go back to school. I do not have to leave the house again until the first week of November, and I may not. I wish Kathryn did not, though we have started having groceries delivered when we can, and I expect much more of that as we head towards the inevitable nightmare this winter will be.
I need to make an entry, at some point, about how much our state politicians have done to aid the spread of COVID-19, how far up their asses they have their heads, how far up Donald Trump's add is the head of our governor, Governor Meemaw (i.e., Kay Ivey). But not now. 529 people have died of COVID-19 in Alabama since April 1. The state has reported a total of 11,542 COVID deaths since March 2020.
So, that's why no entry yesterday.
I'm more than halfway through Donna Tartt's The Secret History Brilliant. Today I cranked up the Dremel and went back to work on Winifred the Tylosaurus proriger. It was good to get my hands dirty, so much more of that tomorrow. I listened to one story from the audiobook version of Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales. It was a decent reading of "The Dead and the Moonstruck." The problem, really, is that here's this story I wrote twenty-one years ago, a different me speaking from a different time, and...I'm just not particularly impressed. Fortunately, I got better. I grew as a writer. I also had email with Bill about Vile Affections, which was rather urgent.
Someone asked, and yes, I am actually a member of the American Society of Ichthyologist and Herpetologists (ASIH), a very worthy institution.
Also, today is Selwyn's ninth gotcha day. On this day in 2012 he came to live with us.
That was today.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
7:53 a.m.