captainsblog | SNNLFU....

If you don't know the etymological origin of the word "snafu," you could look it up. As we cross into Month Two of the Shit Got Real stage of this crisis,^* I'm modifying it to the less pronounceable version above:

Situation New Normal: LESS Fucked Up.

At least that's it as of today. These supposed groundswells of protest aimed at "reopening the country" could turn that L into an M-for-More at a moment's notice. A bunch of Amway distributors, egged on by their ultimate uplines in the DeVos family, crowded Michigan's capital earlier this week demanding their constitutional right to buy lawn tractors in a Walmart garden center, with cheerful cries aimed at their Governor of "Lock her up!" As one wise pundit promptly noted about Fox virus denier Laura Ingraham as she was cheering on the Michigan protests:

"Hey, let's take a quick trip in the Twittermobile back to the year 2014. What did freedom fighter Ingraham think about the Ferguson 'protests'? Well actually, she didn't even consider them 'protests.' They were RIOTS, because people were breaking the law and that's just not done."

I'd noticed the very thing around the same time:

All these people who are marching around State Capitol grounds with no social distancing, and bitching on the Internet, about all these new rules that are impeding on what they want or don’t want to have to do? By and large, they’re the same people who for years have been telling people, mostly people of color, that if you don’t want to get shot in the back by a cop over a busted taillight, you should shut the fuck up and obey their orders.

As I heard in a poem recently, Check Your Privilege At the Door.

I pounded that observation out just as I was leaving Wegmans for the first time wearing the COVID of Shame that our Guv had just mandated:

The new order didn't become effective until last night, but why wait? That's one Eleanor was given at the hospital two weeks earlier; Wegmans has provided them with even better ones, is checking their temperatures on a daily basis, and everyone's really trying to keep the asshattery in their stores to a minimum.

Our Guv, btw, has really stepped up in the effort to put Cheeto in his place. The video of his press conference yesterday, during which he learned on the spot of the latest whiny tweets about him, is epic. And it's never a good thing when someone from Fredo's family offers to send you flowers:

(True story: my original mentor in bankruptcy law once became trustee for a construction business operated by a certain fraternal organization ending in a vowel. One day he got a dozen black roses delivered to the office. He was last seen that day hiding under his desk.)

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The improvements on the fuckery front include our having as close as we've had to normal work schedules this past week. Once Eleanor cleared her two weeks and went back, I felt more comfortable spending more time in my own office, getting several annoying delayed projects off my desk and hearing some signs of life from some courts that had been virtually silent for the previous month. At least protections are still in place to do things remotely, although the technology is a bit behind. I did my first telephonic bankruptcy creditors hearing by phone on Thursday. Unlike some courts who'd previously contracted out to a private service to gouge the shit out of lawyers for appearing by phone (the leading one responding to the epidemic by graciously agreeing to waive late fees #ThanksObama), ours are done through the court system itself and at no cost. This particular hearing had over 70 participants on it, and on the first try calling in, it was, weyellll,.... have a listen....

The only words I could make out from that might have been "klaatu barada nikto."

Once we were instructed to hang up and call back in, it went better soundwise, although it still took 45 minutes to get to the first actual question and peoples' feedback and music-on-hold kept delaying things. Hopefully once I start doing them with the usual crowd of only three or four participants, it will go better.

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Although I did succeed in getting every due bill paid on time through this week, I'm down to single digits in some bank accounts and my take for the week was negative. That's because of the bounced checks that came from a bankruptcy trustee late last week. On Tuesday, an overnight envelope arrived from a distant zip code, which turned out to be her bank's check processor. Were these the promised replacement checks? Of course not: they were the Cover Their Ass forms that had to be signed and returned, only by regular mail, saying I will not deposit the original check (we were told to say that even if we already did) and if I try to I will be a BAD MAN AND WILL BE WISHED INTO THE CORNFIELD! The actual bounced checks (or their Check21 equivalents) didn't finally show up until today, and I emailed them, because I'm hoping they won't require originals of something that isn't an original. At least two other overdue account payments are still out there, but hey! Stimulus check, baby, right?

Thpppppppt.

When they announced these payments, they promised to send them by direct deposit to the last account used to send a federal tax refund. Alas, I'm self-employed, so we haven't gotten a federal refund in ages. But fear not! The King's Chancellor of the Exchequer promised an easy weblink to enter your direct deposit information by "mid-April." On April 15, it was there. Every attempt resulted in a "Who the Fuck Are You?" message. A Deputy Adjutant Minion informed the public that this meant, no, sorry, just too many people trying, so keep trying. But by April 16, they'd solved the problem: They lock you out for 24 hours if you make too many attempts! (And it's not a cookie- I deleted those.)

Still trying. Eventually, if I can't overcome the IT-Hell, they'll send us a paper one with His Cheetomeister's name proudly emblazoned on it. I just hope it won't bounce if I spit in the lower left corner.

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I'm sure all of this has been difficult for the dog. First we're home all the time, now she's alone with kitties again for long stretches. She's been off her feed, on and off including this morning, and I think she just misses having other life forms to interact with beyond our daily walk to check out their pee. These are from yesterday morning:

Left: a flower bed she'd checked out the day before, when that snow initially fell; they'd been smooshed down pretty badly by the overnight coating, but look now to have bounced back pretty well. I hope that's a sign of how we'll do, too. A few doors past that, the rainbow message- although it did remind me of a sign posted in a junior high teacher's classroom.

We are returning to Sunday morning walkies with a couple of her doggo friends- even though we're somewhat social distanced, she at least gets to hear someone bark at her other than us;)

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Some final moments of quarantine humor:

A couple of similar reactions to these "Operation Gridlock" assholes:

Me: Or just blast Coldplay nationwide.

Me: Don't blame it on Yokey!

And, after watching or trying to watch any number of online virtual concerts, I can relate to what the cat is feeling:

Me: Plz reskyoo me before the banjo comes out!

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Stay strong. Shoo stupid.

^* However arbitrarily, I've settled on Friday March 13 as the turning point. That's when orders started coming down, informal measures began to become formal, and even the Regime began to sit up and take notice.