Far Too Proud to Beg
Dec. 17th, 2020 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kimberlysteeleI just happened to get the head pharmacist on the phone, and he was exceptionally kind when I told him that I was a small business owner down on her luck because of the Covidapocalypse and $40 was the difference between me and two week's worth of groceries. Though he gave me a discount on Kiki's medication, I don't want a discount.
I want to be able to afford my cat's medication.
Last year at this time, I was doing great. I had money coming in from my usual side work -- recording vocals, PDF sheet music. Plus my music lesson studio had a line out the door. I'm extremely good at what I do. There isn't a singer who walks into my door who isn't a better singer in 6 months time. I also teach piano and guitar, and I know I'm exceptionally good at teaching those as well: as adults, my grown-up ex-students don't stop playing their instruments long after lessons with me are over.
Enough about me and my business. I'm one of the lucky small business owners. I still have a business to come back to. If I owned a dance studio, a gift shop, or a restaurant, forget it. Tracy Walker is (was?) a hairstylist in Alberta, Canada who did everything right. She's on the verge of losing her house, which will displace her, her husband, and her diabetic brother who depends on her for care.
Tracy managed to create a situation that I've always wanted but couldn't make happen: she runs her business out of the bottom floor of her house, which has been converted into a storefront. It seems the idiots running things in her neck of the woods are of the same breed as the ones in Illinois, because she is unable to do business under a second lockdown. Here's the thing: even though Tracy has made the decision to stay open against the lockdown order, much like I have done, there's not much one can do if only half the clients are willing to walk through the door. Fear is powerful, and Tracy, like me and so many other small business owners, can't do much if people are too scared to be in the same room as each other. There's also the not-small factor of economic collapse, which is cascading through the middle class right now and crushing people's abilities to afford luxuries such as meals out, karate lessons, cosmetic dentistry, hair cut & color, and exorbitantly-priced pet medications.
I don't want government handouts. There are people who should benefit from government handouts: all of those old, infirm, and chronically diseased people should be able to access the money they need. Me? I am of sound mind and able body and I want to work. If I were to come into a great fortune tomorrow, I wouldn't close my Studio. I would still go to work five days a week, though it would probably be via chauffeur as I hate driving.
There is a silver lining to the cloud: Notice there were no lines outside Best Buy this year and nobody got killed in a Walmart stampede on Black Friday. This will be the least commercialized Christmas we've had for a long time, and not because Big Retail wanted it that way, but because Big Government cut off its nose to spite its face in the form of self-induced financial collapse. There is a lot of garbage that won't end up in ocean and future landfills because there won't be as many toys bought this year. The desperation is palpable in Target and Dollar Tree -- I remember seeing Christmas decorations up in September because they all knew this would be a terrible year no matter how early they rolled out the BUYBUYBUY propaganda. I hope we never have a successfully commercialized Christmas again. I hope this year wipes out the frantic, Madison Avenue-driven urge to buy other people's love via material detritus in many individual souls.
I don't want money. I want bravery. I want people to stop following mask orders. I went into Aldi yesterday and I didn't wear my mask. When a shelf stocker said "Ma'am, put on your mask", I sweetly replied, "Oh my goodness, I must have forgotten. Thank you so much for reminding me." I put the mask on and as soon as I was around the corner, I took it off again. I am going to stop wearing masks when I enter large chain stores, though for smaller places and local chains, I will comply with mask orders so they don't get in trouble. How sad that it's up to a 4'11" inch woman to stand up to tyrants. I guess it goes to show how few manly men there are in the suburbs -- I married one of the only ones who can wield a hammer, a paintbrush, and a saw competently. I suppose I enjoyed myself a bit, gaslighting that poor Aldi employee in such a sarcastic manner. I don't usually like confrontation and will do anything to avoid it, but this is war, make no mistake.
Orgies
Date: 2020-12-17 08:16 pm (UTC)https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/pennsylvania-health-department-issues-preferred-covid-orgy-regulations-wear-face-covering-avoid-kissing-wash-hands-often/
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 01:21 am (UTC)I thank you for going against the grain. Without brave people willing to go mask-less and to question social distancing, we wouldn't have a chance and would be in a freakishly 1984-ish Great Depression already. Since Biden seems to be the one who is going to be in the White House, I feel preparing for a second Great Depression would be wise.
As for your brother, the final frontier of bravery tends to be losing the fear of what others think of you. I have Uranus as a strong natal chart influence, so it helps me forge my own path. It does frustrate me though that people 2x my size and with a great deal more money and power are terrified of polite confrontations with grocery store clerks when freedom itself is at stake.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 04:25 am (UTC)Whenever I get in my car to go to work, I see at least one Amazon delivery truck. It's fairly obvious who is benefitting from lockdowns and small businesses going under.
"Going to a store is exhausting and I've come to hate it 1000 times more than usual" Boy, do I feel you on that one. I'm one of those female unicorns... I hate shopping. I hate wearing a mask because I have a deviated septum. Since the plandemic began, I've cut my already sparse shopping habit to 50%. Most people have done this. I can't tell you how many times I have passed up a store where I formerly would have run in to pick up this and that because there is a line queued up outside it. Now I have no money to shop even if I wanted to, and I know I'm not the only one getting killed financially. If Biden shuts us down for eight weeks, we're all going to 1930s conditions, except unlike in 1930, nobody knows how to farm (including myself, I only grew 10% of our food this summer) and we're all dependent on petroleum. Not good. It will be especially not good for the PMC, who will see their pensions, alimonies, and other forms of non-earned income dry up.
I know someone who went into the hospital for a flu -- an elderly gentleman. He went into the hospital and a week later he was dead from "covid". Nobody was allowed to visit him. He died in the company of strangers. His wife, who has Alzheimer's, does not know he is dead. Keep in mind most hospitals get a kickback when a patient is admitted for "covid" somewhere to the tune of $8K - $12K and if they are intubated, the kickback is around $40K. Anyone who participates in this scheme is a monster, and of course that means there are unwitting monsters and well-meaning, kind monsters. Vera Sharav, who survived the Holocaust, says that the old and infirm were targeted by the plandemic just as they were in the time of the Nazis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_EDV_7s7Dc&feature=emb_logo
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 06:22 am (UTC)Annette
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 02:14 pm (UTC)Re: Orgies
Date: 2020-12-18 02:25 pm (UTC)These people are great fun to have along on a road trip. You're an idiot if you let them drive.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 02:52 pm (UTC)I had to go get a few things this week, and we were literally running out of the store when we were done. Just horrible. Didn't even get everything we came for, because at our last stop, in the frozen veg, a large and obviously deranged man had cornered an employee and was talking at him, very loudly and way too close, about all the languages he was just great at, and how great he was generally. The poor dude in the Mall-Wart vest had a hunted look. I made eye contact and tried to think of some way to extract him, while also looking for the frozen blueberries. Crazy guy saw my inattention and sidled over to try to talk to my kid, so I hustled the cart and kid out of there at a fast clip. Had a productive discussion with kiddo on the way home about the situation. Seriously bad energy though.
Farming: have you tried pumpkins or large squashes? They're very little work, they store for a fairly long time, and are a fair number of calories for the small effort. The vines can take up a lot of space, but you can steer them so it's not space that other plants need.
Re: Orgies
Date: 2020-12-18 05:15 pm (UTC)Trump was able to patch up our rattletrap economy into a semblance of prosperity but now the wheels are going to come off. And the Progressives are going to get their free abortions, their Hollywood vice-pushing, and their legalized drugs, but because they are incompetent boobs when it comes to creating stability, they'll begin killing off their own class as homelessness skyrockets (we saw in my last post's comments how well they handle homelessness) and the rich get richer. The middle class is going to become nearly extinct under Biden.
I don't have a problem with abortion, mind you, as I lived my entire young life from age 13 - 31 in fear of conceiving. Having a baby wasn't my choice this time around and that has to do with one of my past lives as well as other reasons. Abortion should be safe and legal, but I would make a rule that any woman who seeks a third abortion is forcibly sterilized. Once or twice is an honest mistake, but a third indicates there is something deeply wrong. Also, parenting should require a basic competency license, and if a person won't even hold the robot doll they're given as a test or change its fake diaper, they should be given the option of free sterilization and strongly encouraged not to become a parent.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 05:28 pm (UTC)Forget going in...Just driving to a store is miserable -- especially if you live in busy suburbs like mine. The drivers are unhinged.
I remember once when I was at the movie theater seeing one of the Lord of the Rings films with my husband and there was an insane, gigantic dude that was almost about to pick a fight with someone over some stupid detail about the film series. Having read the LoTR books, I butted in with a side thread about the Tom Bombadil character. I went on at length. The savage beast was soothed and nobody got beat up. Nowadays it feels like everyone is on the same knife edge as he was. If such a person approached my child, I would have done the same as you.
I guess there's one good aspect to being broke right now and that is missing 100% of the Christmas rush. I'm going to make some homemade treats for everyone, no other gifts than that.
Farming: I have grown lots of zucchini but no hard shell squashes. I will try them this year! I love to eat them, that's for sure.
Re: Orgies
Date: 2020-12-18 07:28 pm (UTC)I'm very much not-OK with abortion, but I'm enough of a realist to see that it isn't going away, no matter what I happen to think about it, and there are better things to put one's energy into than fighting that losing battle.
It's clear, though, that the left's current no-boundaries stance on it has not been good for women. The rush to protect "rights" and "access" has freed clinics from following basic medical safety standards that any other surgical provider would be bound by: inspections, hospital admitting privileges, parental consent for minors, mandatory abuse reporting, etc. I vividly recall one night, my parents rushing off in the middle of a job, to take a family friend to the hospital. She'd hemorrhaged after an abortion. The clinic was a (dis-)assembly line, and they hadn't bothered to keep her in recovery long enough to make sure she was ok, or that there would be someone with her who understood the discharge instructions. She nearly died. And that wasn't some back-alley thing!
In my if-I-were-emperor-of-the-world moments, though, I'm with you on sterilizations. They should be free for anyone who wants one (no liability to the doc if they have regrets-- we don't have that kind of accountability for tattoo artists!), mandatory for people who've had more than two abortions or more than one drug-addicted or Fetal-alcohol kid, and aggressively pushed after a second c-section. It'd save a bundle in human misery, medical expenses, and tax dollars in the long run.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 07:57 pm (UTC)I thank my lucky stars I don't live in the burbs-- my town is a weird place that in many ways looks like a suburb (small city/large town), but isn't: it's five hours' drive to the nearest big city.
The shopping... this year, I doubled, and in some cases tripled, the amount of staple foods and basic necessities I keep on hand at the house-- enough that I now have to conscientiously rotate stock and feel antsy when we get below forty pounds of rice-- mostly so that I could make fewer shopping trips. I've never minded the Mart of Walls before, but this year it feels *oppressive*. It also happens to be the only thing remotely nearby for groceries.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 08:04 pm (UTC)My gloves are coming off
Date: 2020-12-18 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-20 02:53 am (UTC)Florida has supposedly opened up for business and we actually have a sane governor in DeSantis, but it seems that people just refuse to question the mass media. They refuse to fight back and instead he gets crucified for his relatively free thinking policies.
When this whole thing began last spring and flooded the media I could smell the stink of the lies. When they shut down greedy Disney, I knew that whatever they had in store for us had just become real. I refused to live in any kind of fear and have continued on in my own life with the same habits as before, trusting in the immune system given to me by the Creator of this magnificent universe and it’s ability to fend off what is essentially the flu.
My workplace has been a little paranoid and while it’s a policy to wear the face nappies, I’ve been pretty lacking on that and luckily they haven’t really come down on me about it. I’m not the only one, but I work next to an older woman who wears hers religiously. All day. Every day. I keep my thoughts to myself about the dangers of wearing those filthy things, it’s a lot easier that way because no one would listen anyway. For awhile there they were going around with the silly laser gun and checking our temps, sometimes twice a day! When I started offering my arm, they tried to push the issue about checking the forehead. I told them that I didn’t like the symbolism of it (gun to the head) and maybe they wondered if I had suffered some past abuse where someone held a gun to my head or something. I let them think that and the temp checks stopped. Sneaky me.
While I don’t think that they will push the vaccine for employment thing on us, I’m prepared to offer my refusal and cite the exact reasons why and if they fire me, so be it.
But in the public world, I have never worn a mask. I’ve made that decision and refuse to do it. I’m used to being a bit of an outcast anyway and being a tall skinny woman I’m used to sticking out like a sore thumb so I’ve had lots of practice. And now as an older woman I’ve become fierce about my freedoms and am prepared to have a screaming match with some Karen if it comes to that but so far it hasn’t.
It’s just a bad feeling, though and isn’t for the lighthearted. For example, the last trip I made to MallWart it seemed especially toxic. We were surrounded by the masked pajama people. The normies. The meat. A henpecked soul standing behind his wife in the woman’s clothing section was staring at me from a distance. I stared back, asking out loud “What are you looking at?” He probably didn’t hear me but hopefully he got the message written all over my unmasked face.
No more lingering and wandering around like we used to do. It was more like “Let’s just get the Hell out of here”. By the time we got back to the truck I felt almost physically ill. Psychically bludgeoned.
Everywhere we go, we are the exception to the rule and I refuse to cave in. I’m angered by those who refuse to fight back, especially in our relatively free state of Florida. I’m especially angry with the men. And especially with the cowards who dare call themselves patriots!
Stick with your decision to fight back. I don’t know if it will get any easier. In my case I just have this feeling that I must stay true to myself, my soul and fighting a lie. Even if no one else will. Anything else would make me a hypocrite. If it’s women like us that have to fight back, then fight we must. And fight, we will.
Colleen
no subject
Date: 2020-12-20 03:37 am (UTC)My husband and I went out to a Greek restaurant tonight. The Greek/family diner places were the first to stand up to our governor's lockdowns. There is a Facebook group for them called Stay Open, Stay Strong.
Whenever I go out, I can feel mass psychosis simmering all around. As we speak, I'm wearing a red bag amulet. It's a good idea to sleep with a bowl of vinegar near the bed too. This is what I believe Nazi Germany felt like before the Nazis really got the upper hand.
Shame on the men, indeed. They're collectively rolling over and wimping out. This is self-evident where church is concerned. What kind of father lets a bunch of tyrannical, hysterical Karens stop him from taking his family to church on Christmas day? Especially when it is our Constitutional right?
The gloves have finally come off. We are at war. I am at war with people who were my best friends in high school because they are the Professional Managerial Class mask-enforcers. I have, in essay form, let them know they are responsible for crippling my once-thriving business. They're responsible for so much more, though. On JMG's blog, a troll tried to bait me by saying she wasn't "responsible" if I caught COVID and gave it to all my friends -- what a scumbag! It was absolutely transparent that she got off on the idea people suffering. She's one of those who unconsciously hexes people and hopes they'll get sick.
But the thing is, she IS responsible. All the fearmongers are responsible. It's a hundred percent their fault 11 year old Adan Llanos shot himself in the head on December 4 during a Zoom class. They are the reason my elderly neighbor died surrounded by strangers instead of his wife and kids. Those things would not have happened without their fear. They are responsible for the terror and grief of thousands and even millions of people who have died or will die alone, including many children, because they were unfortunate enough to die during the Plandemic. I saw this early on and that's why I opposed lockdowns after the first 2 week one was supposed to be over. No sane spiritual person wants their karma. All of that karma for deaths, lost celebrations, ruined livelihoods, and pointless suffering is on the mask-mongers, and it is HEAVY. And they're the sort who already had bad karma headed their way for being generally clueless and privileged. I see many of them being reborn as the poorest of the world's poor in the next few hundred years. The thing is that being poor isn't the most terrible thing by a long shot, but it will be to them.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-20 09:28 pm (UTC)Stini
no subject
Date: 2020-12-21 12:04 am (UTC)The gods have already assisted my business in instances that were downright obvious as to which god was helping me out, so though I'm extremely grateful for the help and owe my current survival to the god's help, I don't presume they owe it to me now or in the future.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-21 12:55 am (UTC)From: "kimberlysteele - DW Comment" <dw_null@dreamwidth.org>
To: ceeteemcdee@gmx.us
Subject: Edited reply to your comment. [ kimberlysteele - 20055 ]
This comment was screened. From here you can:
- Reply at the webpage
- View all comments to this entry
- Go to the top of the thread this comment is part of
- View the thread beginning with this comment
Reply to this comment by replying to this email. Replies will be formatted using Markdown syntax. Your comment must appear before all other text at the top of the reply email. Do not change the reply-to address. It uses a secret address to identify you. Reset the secret address if you've accidentally shared it with anyone else.--
Dreamwidth Team
Dreamwidth Studios
If you'd rather not get these updates, you can change your preferences at https://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=notifications
no subject
Date: 2020-12-21 03:46 am (UTC)