Monday, November 01, 2021

CoViD-19: Official Global Deaths Surpass 5 Million | Biden at COP26 | 'Skimpflation' Is Real | Overwintering Monarchs Population Increase |

Mei Ling, the Golden Takin (Taken 10.4.21)

Someone posted a super mansplainy comment to me about a post I wrote in 2007. Can you imagine being someone who probably googled a band and somehow found my post from 2007 and you felt the need to put me down about it? What would you do with that much time on your hands? I can't decide if I should publish it and reply or just delete and move on. The internet is so tempting that way. I

 went to bed at 11pm last night, but then Darren got home from work, sprung all the animals to life, and I was wide awake by 3am. After doom-scrolling and reading for a couple hours, I realized sleep wouldn't come back so easy, so I just decided to get to work for a few hours before knocking out a couple more hours of sleep. It was a pretty chill day anyway, maybe everyone was recovering from Halloween. I still have a bunch of work but we visited my dad tonight so I'm gonna have to get to it tomorrow.  

Last week, I read the NPR article where the author coins the word "skimpflation", where goods are shrinking and service is deteriorating in addition to rising costs and I didn't want to give it too much power, but I realized that is another reason we've been eating at home so much. It's nice to get tacos from Pancho Villa or Roberto's or El Panson, and I don't actually mind their prices going up, but when we try to eat other places, prices feel doubled or tripled, service is meh because the poor workers have to deal with assholes all day, and by the time we get it home the thrill is kinda gone and we know we just blew a ton of money on something we not only could make, but make better at home. So naturally I'll be rearranging the freezers so we have room for a fall Costco stock-up. 

Oh, and unlike the article, I'm not mad about it, because I can work around it. And while pundits are blaming this administration, the reality is that this is a global problem with inequity and slave wages and exploitation by billionaires and corporations and climate destruction and demanding and entitled consumers like me all contributing to this situation. I know I was trivializing the situation by saying we should all just stop buying shit, but the reality is that the Rao's Italian Wedding Soup that I love so much comes in a jar with a lid and those have to come from somewhere. And the schools offering free lunches don't have the luxury of requiring kids to bring their own silverware so all that plastic single-use packaging has to come from somewhere. And you can't get a job without a functioning computer and wifi and all that equipment has to come from somewhere, too. The global supply chain isn't just a train that we can step off of. But we can be conscientious and do our best with the economy we have and the things offered to us as consumers. Ideally our TV and microwave and fridges will last several more years and we won't have to think about their replacement, but that's not the situation everyone is in so excuse me for being so smug about the whole thing.

I can't get into COP26 or the BBB and BIB stuff because it pisses me off too much, but in good news I was happy to see that early counts of western migratory monarch butterflies are looking good this year, and on top of that, that little bomb cyclone that hit California very positively impacted our reservoirs. A long way to go, but good news nonetheless. 

Stay safe out there.  


Posted by Rosemary Bystrak at Monday, November 01, 2021
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