VINTAGE GLASS CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS

 

These look like the ones that my parents put on their tree, along with a few that they had from their own families that were hung during World War II.  As a child I spent hours looking at the ornaments on our tree, as well as the glistening silvery tincil and big fat primary colored bulbs. 

HO HO HO and a BOTTLE OF RUM

Isn't it funny that we associate the term HO HO HO with Santa Claus, a gifter, and pirates - thieves?

I was thinking about this irony today, as I prepare for an iffy Holiday Season.  

I got into the holiday spirit a couple weeks ago.  I began to think of holiday songs and ran them in my head as I cooked and cleaned.  "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."  

I watched some Christmas shows meant for children with some wonderful animation but not holy or traditional messages; there was cartoon violence, compilated plots that are hard to accommodate.  I eliminated these as possibilities for a senior friend - her grandchildren.  Instead I chose "A Snowy Day." (Which is multicultural and about inclusion and neighborhood sharing.)

I wrapped some presents bought on an extremely low budget.

And then something went haywire with a bill I've faithfully paid for three years.  If I had sent too small an amount by error or the company had increased rates and a notice hadn't arrived, they had waited a month to tell me I owed more. They called a friend I had on as an emergency contact a couple years ago - who I'd instructed them to take off the account a year ago - a month after this.  I was startled to see her at my door after not hearing from her since before the Covid-shut downs. I'd sent a card and letter wondering if she was well and there had been no response. So, when I saw her at my door, at first I was happy. I had just purchased a Christmas card for her. But she tore into me about the phone calls she was getting from this place. I apologized and activated by putting a business letter in the mail - took it all the way into the post office - asking for an accounting and explanation.  I mentioned she was not to be called.  But they called her AGAIN.  End of friendship for sure.  Still, I feel bad.  

As I attempted to rescue the situation before ruin set in, I felt stressed out beyond reason. I felt fragile and scared. I didn't want to involve anyone or anger anyone. Whatever happened, short staffs and closures had hurt many businesses.  I didn't want to see or talk to anyone. 

I so wanted my life back.  And felt helpless to do that.

So I got up, got my dog, and took a slow three hour walk around streets that were mostly deserted, past businesses that were mostly closed.  I was careful.  Mask, Hand Spray, Doggie Bags, Social Distancing.  I did stop in here and there - standing in a doorway to say Merry Christmas to an old friend - running in to a store to see about catnip and having a key made.

I mentioned this long walk to another friend I went to visit. This morning she said if I did not agree not to talk to anyone (she meant strangers) or go into buildings, she did not want to associate with me anymore!  She is a long time antivaxxer and has regaled me in recent weeks with fears that non-organic food will give me cancer.

I'm reading everything I can about the vaccine. I'm just as likely to catch Covid as she is. It's just that when she and her husband see their children and grandchildren, some of whom are going out into the workplace, and her friends, she thinks they are all safe. She doesn't trust mine as safe.

My contacts are actually fewer. But she trusts the people she knows.

I agreed with her.  I said I would not.

But I was mad.  I knew I was going to have to do some things I don't believe in, if I wanted to maintain that relationship.  I would have to sneak, lie, or not tell her where I go and who I associate with.  Point being, I have a life and business to take care of and think she has become controlling and frankly, paranoid.  I wonder if she needs an evaluation for mental decline.

I have barely seen my friends in months. Covid-19 is stressful and I have to wonder what relationships won't be effected. My friend who got phone calls over a payment error shouldn't have but not for a moment did she consider the error was their fault.

And so it goes, on and on, this whole horrid situation we find ourselves in.

But the statistics are not fully stated.  

There are millions of people in my county.

Five percent of them have tested positive for Covid.

A small percentage of that five percent are sick enough to be hospitalized or die.  Yes the hospitals are overwrought.

I do not want to get sick or die (or make anyone else sick) either.  So I'm considering that by this spring I will take the vaccine and if I get sick (from Covid-19 or the vaccine) I will go to a motel to isolate rather than come in contact with anyone I know.  (I have a stack of unread books to eat through.)

It feels good to complain.

Psychologically, it is good for us to get out of the house and take those walks. Many of those people, who told me at the start of this plague how good they were being alone, how much they had to do alone, are now going a little crazy.  Some, a lot crazy.  

If you feel that way, you are not alone.

Seasons Greetings!

C 2020

Note: January 3, 2021

I've edited this rather miserable post for clarity. I thought maybe I should take it down but then I'm like you- part of this historic plague experience. Polls taken state that most people alive think 2020 was the worst year they've lived through.

ETHICAL USE OF DNA DATABASES BEHIND CAPTURE OF GOLDEN STATE KILLER - EXCELLENT ARTICLE FROM LA TIMES (UPDATED APRIL 2021)

The article by Paige St John which begins on the front page of the Los Angeles Times,  paper edition, dated December 10th, is detailed and excellent but at this moment I haven't found a link for it.  In my labels below I've listed the companies that figure in the process in which the killer's DNA matched others.  The Golden State Killer mystery was one that many a professional and citizen sleuth tried to solve. No doubt he needed to be caught.  But we all wonder if our DNA that we so willfully submit for the purposes of meeting long lost relatives and solving genealogy research problems, is really as private and secure as we desire.

I may have mentioned that I've never taken a DNA test myself.  My own research is off and on.  There are things that took many years for me to find, again not looking every day for twenty years but still.  

I remember the day I sat next to a new researcher at a Family History Center who got one spool of film and went back six generations in her German heritage family in that afternoon.  Because I was working on ancestors in a Central - Eastern European country and the records were sloppy and didn't have details of the German records it has taken me many years to get back close to 1800. I'm forever interested but not obsessed.

And so you must ask yourself what you are giving up about yourself in hopes of gaining in research.

I will search for this article again in the near future, hoping it's considered important enough to have a link.  If not, search out the paper edition.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

Here is the link LA TIMES UNTOLD STORY OF HOW THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER WAS FOUND

PEAR TREE

 

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