3/31/20

A LIST OF AUDIO and E- BOOK RESOURCES FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

LA TIMES ARTS AND BOOKS - READ FOR FREE

Besides LAPL, LACL, PROJECT GUTENBERG, and others you may be familiar with, there is a long list at this link that you may have never heard about.  Some publishers are also offering 30 days of free audiobooks...

I've been reading more audiobooks as time passes because my hands are free to do other things, such as wash dishes and cook.

3/17/20

UNCLE VINNY : CORONAVIRUS HUMOR - the BEST OF on YOUTUBE #1

Because LAUGHING probably works better than Vitamin C...



Why do I feel like I know these people?

3/10/20

CORONAVIRUS - NOT PANICKED OR PARANOID - YET

Although I'm not paranoid or panicked yet, I'm concerned about the disinformation in the form of "fake news" that's being spun by people around me.
In a class I take casually a Donald Trump devotee announced to the rest of the class last week that there was such a thing as "fake news" and that when it comes to this coronavirus there was nothing to worry about.  If you felt sick the right thing to do was call your doctor or go to an emergency room.  End of story.

There are those who have no insurance.  There are those who will not get medical attention out of fear of being caught out as illegal.  There are those who are overly optimistic that they are not in need of medical care.  There are those who are walking around as carriers who will not exhibit sickness - or the most severe symptoms.  

I'm carrying tissues as well as wet wipes around with me.  I learned Saturday, when I had a long bout of travel, that these wet wipes are dry quickly.  I encountered multiple public rest rooms, door handles, bus poles, travelers that got off cruise ships who were on their way to LAX and then home. I used up all my wipes.

Then there was what I saw in my travels: A man putting out a box of apples and coughing all over them, not attempting to cover his mouth.

And experienced: A teenager walking behind me more than six feet who let out a sneeze. I felt the sneeze on my bare neck.

Why are there so many people out there without basic manners?

The LA Marathon with about 27,000 in attendance went on and then the people went home - to many countries.

A senior citizen I know who gave me a print out on the recommendations of a doctor - supposedly from Wuhan, China too, that suggested being out in the sun could prevent it.  This memo said six feet was not enough - try ten as in "I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole."  It said the virus lives on metal surfaces not for nine hours but twelve. This senior, who has been trying to economize on her water bill and gas and electric said she had put the temperature of the thermostat on the water heater up.


VIDEO OF ORIGINAL POST EXPIRED taken down October 27, 2020
C 2020 Christine Trzyna

3/3/20

VOTED EARLY ON the NEW COMPUTERIZED MACHINES LIKE THREE MILLION OTHER CALIFORNIANS

My friend and I were headed to an event when I suggested we just go vote on Sunday - a couple days early - on our way. Our minds were made up.  Why not?

Seems to me, last election, I stood in a line for over 8 hours - my dog beside me - and the next day paid the price. I was so dehydrated and hurting from this ridiculousness that I stayed in bed the whole next day aching.  I did, however, meet a woman in line who was in line with me for half of it - until finally a volunteer came down the line saying people who had their mail in vote in hand could just drop it off.   Four damn hours to drop off?!

She said she was the inspiration for Lou Reed's song Sweet Jane. She told me all sorts of things about herself and her relationship with Lou back in the day in New York and of course I loved every minute of it. 

Waiting in lines. 

I hate it.

At some point you think of all the time you already gave over to the effort and stick with it, like you do in a wrong relationship. At least I was in a park where there was shade from the trees and the day was not overly hot or cold. My dog stayed interested in life by watching for squirrels and salivating at the thought of a kill.  But once Sweet Jane left, I was bored and realized I was also hungry.  Why did I vote early in such an excruciating way?  Because I had a dentist appointment on the actual day to vote - with a dentist who often kept people waiting for hours too. ...

This time voting with the new computerized machines was almost effortless.  I walked in with my list of who I wanted to vote for and tapped a computer screen. The paper ballot paper was then inserted and printed and it slid back out so that you could re-read it.  But not to snatch it. The machine then swallowed the ballot and there must have been some place where all that paper wooshed to and was stored but I didn't see it.  My ballot had one of those strange scannable symbol maps (called a QR code) you sometimes see on products in the store or that you can download.  Voters have their own personal ISBN number.  I can be identified with this, via chip, instead of my teeth, need be. ...

These days I'm not too tolerant of people who don't bother to vote.  My attitude is if you vote then you get the right to complain to me.  If you don't vote, I don't want to hear it. 

Voting for locals is actually the most difficult part.  It can be a townie popularity contest.  The amount of information on any of these locals isn't much so you ask your friends who they've had good experiences with and go from there. 

I went for some years without voting myself.  I thought of my not voting as sending a message that "none of the above" candidates interested me.  Eventually I got re-activated. 

Last Presidential Election Bernie had withdrawn his candidacy and so you weren't supposed to write him in and so my vote was "wasted." Four years later, although I don't agree completely with any candidate, I feel myself more inline with his thinking than ever.  Saturday Night Live's parodies and mimicries have kept me laughing about politics in a damn-serious time.

Often, because I TALK TO STRANGERS, I meet more people who are in dire economic circumstances.

If you're reading this in California, you can now REGISTER TO VOTE the same day you do vote.  You can vote at ANY LOCATION (that QR code will put your vote in the right precinct) and you can even vote if you are street homeless.

Please VOTE!



C 2020 Christine Trzyna