Sorry about the swearing, it’s a medical condition, Lalochezia.

2 months since my last blog and time is slipping away while we all keep watching the news and numbers of cases relentlessly. My phone helpfully tells me my screen time has gone up exponentially as I keep picking it up to update myself on anything and everything. It’s addictive in these times isn’t it, especially since I’ve joined Twitter and Instagram. I’ve gone out of my way to NOT watch Netflix’s ‘The Social Dilemma’, after making a pledge to myself that I wouldn’t watch anything depressing.

I did feel impelled to watch disaster and post apocalyptic movies when it all began, but now need totally mindless stuff for my own sanity, although I did watch channel 4’s Utopia recently about a virus like the Russian flu running rampant.

So, I thought I’d start with stuff which is going well….

I’m really enjoying volunteering at the Food Bank and getting on really well with my volunteer buddies. I see Andrea on Tuesday who is married to a Brit and whose daughter works in the Eden project in Cornwall. On Thursday I work with Matt, who I think works in sales (though not sure selling what), but he is great to share ideas and debate politics with. He gives me an historical view on politics and policy changes under certain governments, like that Reagan changed the process of supporting the mental health community, cutting back funds and working on getting people back into the community to devastating effect to the homeless numbers.

I’m what they call a runner (although I don’t run of course) and I greet the cars as they drive in. I take the info they’ve filled out on a slip of paper to the computer person at a desk under a gazebo (Matt and Andrea) who log the name and address and then I go back and signal to the people further on down the line, who put the food in the cars, as to the size of the family. It’s a good drive through system.

I really like meeting the people and most like to have a chat and are friendly. There are a few who moan or are rude, but they are few and far between, most people are so grateful. We have food donations from all the big stores and Gavin Newsom (the California Governor) told companies to donate rather than throw away, which has really helped us. When I started in August we used to serve 30 families a day and I was told the summer had slowed because there had been relief cheques (or checks as they say here), but now due to Trump’s evil immoral spirit, there is no more relief, so numbers have sky rocketed and we are seeing over 100 families a day and they only come once a month. The homeless either drive through (as they are living in their cars) or there is an area for them to walk up. They can come once a week and are given ready to eat food made up in the kitchen area. It can get crazy busy, but I find that I missed that aspect in my life, so it’s all good.

For the last two weeks I was asked to give out leaflets encouraging people to vote. Many people have voted early (lets hope those votes are counted) and a number are not citizens like me so they can’t vote. One Asian man raised his fist in the air and said ‘I’ve voted and I’m a Trump man, are you a Trump woman?’ – oh the irony that he would vote for the orange man despite having to get food from a food bank. I just laughed shaking my head and said ‘err No!’, but maybe should have asked him what Trump had actually done for him.

Pottery is also a tonic for the soul and we manage to social distance as well as wearing masks. I don’t think we will recognize each other when the masks come off (we make assumptions about what the rest of the face looks like and I find I’m usually wrong). Hanna who was originally from South Korea, owns the store and she is a very accomplished potter especially on the wheel. I’ve developed that aspect much more and am now no longer fearful of centering and throwing a pot, although I’m far off Demi Moore in Ghost.   Geoff has followed there as well when Bitter Root closed down and he and I talk about music and concerts. I’m also having good chats with Jeannette who has only just got citizenship and was originally from Hong Kong and a young man called DJ who has changed his name by deed poll from Douglas to Derek – personally I preferred the name Douglas. He loves British humour and is really into Simon Pegg and so he tells me lots of facts about them! Cathy is a lady whose husband is clearly very rich and they travelled a lot before Covid. She was also in Bitter Root and we had previously had a passing chat where I realized she was a Trump supporter when she said that Trump only tweets because the fake media wont report what he says…..cuckoo!

Anyway she seems like a nice lady apart from that and we’ve managed to stay off politics, but as the election gets closer and especially after the first awful debate, people couldn’t help mention it and Cathy felt the need to defend POTUS by saying he’d done a lot for peace – I felt at this point I needed to insert the Monty Python's "Life of Brian", ‘what have the Roman’s ever done for us?’ speech, where in the end John Cleese as Reg replies to someone saying that they’d brought peace…’Oh peace?..... SHUT UP!!!’

There have been some good TV programmes which have filled our evenings (we have given up on the jigsaws-we are all jigsawed out)! The Vow on HBO was brilliant and scary - supposedly intelligent people joining what seemed like a self-help group and finding it turned into a cult… seems USA has a lot of cults (Scientology being one and Trumpism being another). It’s as if people are looking for something that’s missing in their lives. Gullible/naive one might say… are we more cynical in the UK I wonder? We get a lot of scam calls at all hours on our mobiles and on the home phone, one saying 'press 1 for prayer!’ I wanted it to say ‘Press 2 for F**k off’!

Another great show is Ted Lasso about an American football coach going to the UK to coach a ‘soccer’ team – good fun!

My dog walking friends are getting very worried about the way things are going and we chat about the news and the latest really crazy stupid things that Trump is saying, especially in his rallies. Susan who I walk dogs with, her wife Carmen Lundy plays piano and has been performing supporting BLM virtual concerts. She was on a live jazz event for anti racism, which was amazing.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6qP_bY_ZKao

The weather had been extremely hot in the last couple of months, although we did have 3 days where the weather was lovely and cool, but now we are back to heat again although not in the 40s as in September, thank goodness. We had the aircon on full blast all the time and didn’t go out during the day if we could help it. It’s great having a door into the garage from the hall so you go from aircon in the house to an aircon filled car. In the time since I last wrote we’ve had heat up to 49 degrees - Hottest ever on record. Officials warned people to avoid outdoor activities. A woman in her late 40s was hiking on a trail in the Santa Monica Mountains in Calabasas when she began to feel sick and collapsed. She was pronounced dead at the scene.  It reminded me of how stupid we had been in going for a walk in Joshua park and how easily that could have been me. What with the heat, coyotes, rattle snakes and tarantulas, why would anybody go hiking? We’ve also had horrific fires which were north and south of us. We didn’t have it as bad as some areas, but certainly our skies were grey with the sun obscured – thank goodness we’re all wearing masks – another reason to stay inside! San Francisco had red skies – as if you couldn’t think 2020 could get any worse.

I have been making more quizzes for Mark’s work and they want me to make more. It’s nice to be wanted. I also took a quiz for the Chorus International conference as well as a Halloween themed quiz and 80s themed bingo. All on zoom of course.

So….to politics.

How can we not talk about it? Its intrinsic to life here and everyone keeps telling me that the last 4 years have been very unusual and it’s not always like this – perhaps it depends where you live in the US. Certainly, it’s all consuming now. I saw a Facebook interview on CNN with Nick Clegg who is now Vice President of Global affairs and communications about the new guidelines. He said there would be no ads on Facebook, in the week before election(although there have been so many on TV this week). He talked about lies in ads and admitted it’s happening, but American law dictates that politicians must have a platform. Facebook are adding fact check tags though. I really welcome this although some Americans I know are unhappy with it as it takes away their freedom to look like cretins, one getting upset that her post about the Bill Gates conspiracy was fact checked!

So far, Kanye West has spent nearly $7 million of his own money on what continues to be one of the most befuddling presidential bids in the history of American politics. Trump apparently hasn’t put any of his own money into his campaign.

On a journey home from the food bank, I saw a man driving along in electric wheelchair with large flags and Trump 2020 flag bellowing behind him. He looked ridiculous and one might ask yet again- what has Trump done for him-? He looked a wreck! 

The main theme of the news is that Trump won’t relinquish power – weird that they leave the president in the Whitehouse until January if he loses. In all US history each transfer of power has been smooth, but this could be very different – quite terrifying when you think of how his supporters will respond if he loses. Armed ‘Trumpers’ are in voting halls as Trump has called his Trump army to check voting is not fraudulent – intimidation many rightly think. Democracy – what democracy? There is a lot to be said about how we do it in the UK, where the removal van is outside Number 10 the following day after the Prime Minister has lost.

Money is constantly discussed on the news with regards to how much each party has raised for their campaign – money equals success. It turns out that many of the people running against the Republican Senators have had their campaign donations from outside the states. Billions of dollars!! What could be done with that money for the homeless, poor and sick!

The Presidential debate was monumental here - omg- where to start?

We didn’t watch the beginning as we were too scared for Biden, but after a few tweets from American friends we turned it on and watched Trump being a total d**k interrupting constantly. Saying proud boys to ‘stand down and stand by’ and refusing to say he would accept the election was so shameful. Trump’s side of the audience including his offspring had refused to wear masks- what total arseholes!

The moderator was rubbish and they should have had mics turned off. As a CNN commentator said immediately afterwards- it was a shit show! Fox News loved it, saying Trump dominated the room, which they liked and that Biden interrupted Trump- what planet are they on? It made Mark and I so livid and it isn’t even our country- currently on a daily basis when I wake up I flit between BBC world news, CNN, MSNBC and Fox (Faux News) and I say on a daily basis ‘this country’s f**ked!! Of course that’s just between you and me!

Other things are the Supreme court position being filled by a woman who has very questionable views on so many things…..Why has the unelected Supreme Court (who has life time posts) got so much power, why are Americans so obsessed with celebrity??? It’s all unfathomable to me! Thank goodness I know wonderful sane liberal educated people here, or I’d think they were all nutters! Still I suppose we have our fair share of British nutters too!  

And then of course….. the stupid orange man got it and his doctor who had signed a NDA (non disclosure agreement) spun his condition (definitely politically influenced). ‘Doing very well’- a technical term - you can hear Trump telling the doc what to say. Turns out he’d had it for a few days after the debate and didn’t tell the Biden camp ( even after the debate), he may have been on oxygen then- although doc says ‘not now’- he’s a super-spreader. Consequences not Karma as Trevor Noah says!! The next day when he got out, he sent videos saying he’s beaten it, he’s immune and people have got nothing to be afraid of. He has a messiah complex I fear….

We go through a rollercoaster of emotions over Christmas. Mark heard of a German lady going home around August and getting back into the US. She had a letter from her government. Mark’s work lawyers are now saying it’s a possibility, but they are still investigating. It turns out she had a green card, so it wouldn’t apply to us. If Biden gets in, he says he’ll change the visa bans, but he may have other things on his mind…

Sorry this blog has been somewhat bleak, but I’m writing this with 2 days to go before the election day, whilst the news is filled with: Republican’s taking a State to the supreme court to deny counting thousands of drive through votes (as they believe that they were Democrat votes); Barr who seems to get more corrupt as time goes on; a Biden campaign bus being harassed and surrounded by trump white trash truckers; police pepper spraying peaceful North Carolina campaigners outside a voting hall; armed trumpers at voting halls; the Bob Woodward’s phone interviews; Trump’s new medical advisor (who knows jack s**t about viruses, but believes in herd immunity) made a TV appearance on the RT Russian propaganda network, saying that the Covid numbers were fake and no one should have to wear masks (he later apologized) and the orange git himself saying doctors make money from people dying from Covid at his rallies.

I have seen trucks riding round with trump and confederate flags and driven past trump supporters shouting out, one of which had a 6 foot wooden cross at the front and emblazoned on its sides it said, ‘in Trump and God we trust’, ‘Trump is chosen by God’ and on the back ‘Biden is a commie”– it does feel intimidating!

A shining light was Borat and I never thought I’d say that. The pure joy that Giuliani got caught with his hand down his trousers. Small pleasures in a very scary and mad world…..

My next post will either be:

a) filled with joy as it’s all gone smoothly

b) scared and moving because it’s a civil f**king war or

c) scared and moving because we cannot live in a country that is run by the evil stupid immoral narcissist!

I want to send love to all my UK family and friends and say that I’m thinking of you in this lockdown. Take care, keep safe, and wear your masks – you are important to me!

PS. Sorry about the swearing, it’s a medical condition, Lalochezia.