Critics

Critics are funny people. I mean, how is it even possible to be an "expert" at something that's so subjective? And critics are always looking for some hidden meaning in a film...or music or book. why can't it just be a great story? I've liked some movies that critics liked, but for the most part, I stay away from anything that a critic says is fantastic. Isn't the point of entertainment to be entertained? I don't always want to be made to feel something. 

Star Wars was an amazing movie at the time. I'm sure there are at least a 100 other movies that are wildly popular with movie goes that the critics hated. That doesn't even make sense to me. The critics hated Waterworld. I thought it was very entertaining. At least it was an original idea! 

My fella and I are trying to find things to watch on Netflix and Prime video. Even an original  Netflix/Prime series is ok. Some of those are actually pretty good. The critics liked The Marvelous Mrs Maisel so I wasn't going to watch. But Chuck's daughter said it was a lot of fun, so I did. It is fun. They also liked Fleabag, which I didn't. They hate Upload but I think it's fun.

It's the same for books. In general, all the critics dislike most of Stephen King's books. Honestly, I don't even like all of them, but still. MILLIONS of people DO like them! So who the hell cares what a 100 critics think? AND, why do you need somebody to tell you if you should buy/listen/watch something anyway.

Now for something completely different

I think I should be a bird watcher. I like birds. I like watching them. I like that they all have different ways of doing thing and I love seeing it all play out at our backyard diner! It's amazing that we have so many different types of birds at our feeder.

we have a few different varieties of Sparrows...in abundance!

These cute little Chickadees

Cardinals all year

Cardinals mate for life. We have 2 couples :-)

A Blue-jay occasionally

They are loud and bossy

Blackbirds

They stay on the ground mostly

These pretty little birds. They're Dark Eyed Juncos

This is a Common Grackle. Messy birds

Morning Doves!!

They stay on the ground too. We have a little flock that stops by

We also have a lot of these, House Finch

Like a Sparrow with flair

These little guys crack me up! They SWOOP in super fast, grab a sunflower seed and take off!

It's a Nuthatch

And I love the little Tufted Titmouse. Soooo pretty.

My least favorite bird, the Starling! They're pigs and they eat everything!!

Then there's this little Wren. One of these built a nest in my fella's motorcycle helmet one year!

This next one is new to our feeder this year. It's a Rose Breasted Grosbeak. Man is it pretty! So striking in person. But dang, they fling the food out of the feeder for a foot at least! Ugh.

And, we get alllll the woodpeckers!

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Red Headed Woodpecker

I can never tell if these are a Downy Woodpecker or a Hairy Woodpecker

and of course this GIANT dude!

Pileated Woodpecker

One year we had a ton of these, but not so much this year. 

It's an American Goldfinch

And last but not least,

a Bluebird

And of course we have Robins and  Hummingbirds, Great Blue Herrons and Red Tail Hawks. But not at our feeder. It's a nice pastime, watching the birds.

Pandem......blah blah blah

Last Saturday we went shopping, in real stores! It was fun :-) It's nice that businesses are opening up. 
Also, it seemed like about 1/2 of the people I saw were wearing masks and the other 1/2 weren't. And the ages were all different, of mask wearers. It was nice to get out and do normal things though.

I was thinking on my drive in this morning, about everyone's mental health. Admittedly, I don't read or watch a lot of news. I see the headlines. That give me the gist of things. Even at that, I was feeling a little depressed last week. It was more of a general sadness kind of feeling. Almost like, loss. Is that weird? I felt it a little more strongly this morning. As more and more people head back to work and more and more businesses open up, I see more and more headlines that say things like, "Things will never be the same again" and "Things you will never see again." Things like, X store is going out of business. X store will not reopen. X performer has canceled their 2020 tour. It's almost June. The year is almost 1/2 over. Over before it really started. Yep, I feel a sense of loss. AND, I still feel all the time like I'm under reacting and over reacting at the same time! 

I don't feel like the numbers add up. I mean, when the media says there is an increase in the number of COVID19 cases - they forget to say, but we're testing 10 times the number of people, so duh. When they talk about it in my home state they say, there were 300 new cases confirmed yesterday, making the percentage of people testing positive at 14%. Isn't that a better marker? Some states report COVID19 deaths differently than other states. Like, in Colorado, you can have COVID19 and die of something different so they don't count that as a COVID19 related death. But in other states, you could die of a heart attack but be positive for COVID19 and they count that as COVID19 death. Does that account for the decrease in stroke and heart attack deaths so far this year? 

The CDC says that during the 2009 flu pandemic, (H1N1) an estimated 12,469 people died in the US. The Hong Kong flu of 1968 killed about 100,000 in the US and 1 million globally. The Asian flu of 1957 killed 116,000 in th US and 1.1 million globally. Those were all "new" flus and pandemics. The whole world didn't just stop because of those. And all of those numbers are estimated by the CDC.

What the hell are you supposed to believe?

Pandemic life

Enough is enough! Don't you think??
Has social distancing been effective? Was decimating the American way of life and the economy, effective? Or was it even necessary? Isn't it mind boggling that in just a mere 60 days, you can essentially take down a whole country?! 

The head of WHO says the worst is yet to come. Dr. Fauci warns of "needless suffering and death" if we 'open' too soon. So what the hell do you want everyone to do?!?!?! There is already needless suffering going on. Have you been on social media? Do you have any sense of what 30 million unemployed people are going through? Or the millions upon millions of people that effected by those 30 million being unemployed!? You people better get your shit together because the average joe won't stand for this much longer.

Now that businesses are starting to open up again, the mix of emotions in workers is all over the place! They want to get back to work, but what's the cost if they do? The media has made it nearly impossible to make an informed decision. UGH 

I think the next couple months are just going to be hell.

Pandemic life

and now for something completely different; good news!

The North Face is giving 50% discount to health care workers through the end of the year.
Crocs is giving away 10,000 pairs of shoes a day to healthcare workers!
Adidas is giving first responders and health care workers 40% off until May 12th
Kroger is donating 200,000 gallons of milk to local food banks, through the summer
Nike is donating 32,500 pairs of shoes to health care workers
Jet Blue is giving away 100,000 round-trip flights to health care heroes.
and ingenuity abounds!!

https://www.wthr.com/article/anderson-senior-creates-free-ear-saver-straps-frontline-workers

and so many other great stories. Look for those stories, instead of spending your time reading doom and gloom!!

Pandemic life

Well, now that things are starting to reopen, there's a whole new set of disgruntled people. One of the local malls opened - with 2 entrances and staff counting how many shoppers were coming and going. But a lot of the shoppers were pissed off because only a handful of stores were open.  😲

Still, to this day, I always feel like I'm under reacting and over reacting at the same time. Also, I want people to do the right thing but still feel like I shouldn't be forced to do it. I get the whole stay at home orders but honestly, you can't make me. Also, because I'm always under/over reacting, I just have a hard time believing that this will change the world forever. For instance, Disney is a cash cow and completely bottom line driven. I find it hard to believe that they will lower their max occupancy permanently. I'm not sure about buffet lines. That's a staple in Vegas. Do you think they're willing to give that up? Or in small towns? Maybe, if millions of people had died. But they didn't. 

I'm happy things are opening back up but I don't want to stand in line to be one of 50% of the people that gets to go in. I don't want anything that badly. Not even cheese balls at Menards! I'd rather just order it online. 

And what's going to happen in the Fall when the '2nd wave' hits? Americans won't do this again. So I guess if you get COVID 19 and die, you die. This is SO WEIRD!

Pandemic life

I know there are probably other things to talk about, aren't there?

On May 1st, our Governor laid out his plan to put the state back into action. Finally! 

Yesterday, retail store and restaurants could open at 50% capacity. That didn't stop people over the weekend though! Granted, the weather was super great but holy wow! There were TONS of people out and about!! We had a couple things we wanted to do but there were lines everywhere. So we just went grocery shopping instead. And I don't mean, just went and picked some things up. I mean full on, pantry was bare, shopping. Well, except for those few extra things, like ice cream. LOL It was fun. But look! The TP isle was almost normal!

I can justify the extra $$ spent though...I've saved over $400 in gas by working from home! That's awesome. I think we should get a bigger discount than 25% on our car insurance for the month though. 

Speaking of working from home. I'm going in to the office on Mon Tue and Wed now. I'm hoping that by the time it's time for people to start coming back, that could be my permanent schedule. I could work from home on Thu and Fri.  I would only have to commute 3 days a week!!!! Man would that be heavenly! There was a lot more traffic this morning too. Complete with at least 2 serious car accidents! Everyone is just going too fast, because there are less obstacles in their way. 

Oh! Saturday, my pregnant with twins niece in Utah, had a virtual baby shower on Zoom! Very creative and actually, pretty fun. I see more of those in the future :-) And mom and I did our home version of Wine and Canvas. Also fun. We can drink more and take more breaks at home. Good times :-)

Pandemic life

Today in my home state, the Governor gave us his plan to get back on track. 
He's going to reopen the state in phases.
He's hopeful that if everything goes well, all restrictions will be lifted by July 3rd. JULY!!! Holy shit. Yeah, I get it but dang. I feel like we've just lost 6 months of our life. Like waking up from a coma. We won't even know what to do with ourselves! And they haven't made up a plan for the next school year yet. Ugh.
Anyway, I was sitting trying to remember the time lines. I needed Google's help;

12/30/19; A Chinese Dr. sounds the alarm. He died on 2/7/20 :-(
1/4/20 - WHO start tracking illnesses in Wuhan
1/11/20 - the first known coronavirus death is reported
1/13/20 - the virus spreads to other countries
1/20/20 - the first American case was confirmed
1/23/20 - Wuhan is locked down
1/30/20 - WHO declares a public health emergency
2/2/20 - first death outside of China
2/11/20 - the disease gets a name, COVID 19
2/14/20 - first death in Europe, Paris
2/23/20 - COVID 19 explodes in Italy
2/28/20 - First US death
3/11/20 - WHO declares COVID 19 a global pandemic
3/11/20 - US bans travel from Europe
3/13/20 - US declares a national emergency
3/15/20 - Europe shuts down
3/23/20 - UK locks down
3/24/20 - India locks down
3/26/20 - Global cases of COVID 19 top 500,000
3/27/20 - Nearly half of all Americans under lockdown
4/2/20 - over 1 million confirmed cases worldwide
4/13/20 - over 2 million confirmed cases worldwide
5/1/20 - over 3.2 million confirmed cases, 233,000 deaths

when I look at those last 3 dates, clearly people aren't in lockdown or following social distancing guidelines. But they sure are bitchin' about not having anything to do!