witchkitten

I liked it from the beginning but I actually think it got better too.

I love Schitt’s Creek. Their wins are well deserved. I’ve been meaning to watch Watchmen too. I’ve heard it’s really good. I read the comic book before the movie came out many years ago but I’ve forgotten most of the story. I watched the first episode of Succession because everyone raved about the series but I thought it was a little slow and I haven’t been able to motivate myself to watch the second episode but I plan to at some point.

I think he’s madly in love with her and so long as he stays madly in love with her they’ll stay together. I think she’s in it for the long haul regardless unless he acts up very badly and humiliates her. If feelings start to wane on his part it’s a toss up for me. I could see him either sticking it out so as not to be proven wrong, or as someone who has followed his feelings and whims his entire life not being able to keep up the charade and ending things. They say Harry is a lot like Diana and Diana wasn’t able to stay in a loveless marriage with all the pressure that was on her to keep up appearances, and Harry would be under considerably less pressure than she was. Then again, Charles and Diana’s marriage was particularly toxic and I’m not sure, even if things do go south, that Harry and Meghan would ever reach that level of toxicity.

I love Montecito. I got married there. It’s so beautiful.

That is the positive one coming out in August. There’s another tell-all, Meghan and Harry by Lady Colin Cambell, coming out next week. There’s not as much press coverage on that one. I don’t know who Lady Colin Cambell is. Apparently, she wrote a book about Diana as well.

There are two books coming out about Harry and Meghan. I think one of them is supposed to be much less flattering to them.

Science Magazine did an article which declared 536 the worst year to be alive. That year a volcano erupted and plunged Europe and Asia into darkness and triggered a mini Ice Age. All I could think was that I needed to add super volcano eruption to my 2020 disaster bingo card. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive

I haven't watched the documentary yet but I've listened to two podcasts dedicated to his case as well as individual episodes of other podcasts that have discussed it. It is very horrifying. Not only what he did to the girls directly but how the law enforcement and legal system allowed him to get away with it even after he was caught.

Our school district just announced we are going to start off the school year 100% distance learning. Most of the major school districts in California are doing the same (Orange County and Marin County are notable exceptions). I literally don’t know how my first grader and I are going to survive. She’s certainly going to fall even further behind academically. At this point there was no safe way to go back with cases rising so rapidly and huge budget cuts to education. As always kids and education weren’t a priority for our government (national, state, or local) and the kids and parents are going to suffer the consequences. I’m really worried about the low income and special needs kids who are going to be the most severely affected (some of those kids aren’t coming back from this), and also kids who are being abused. All because people had to go to bars, restaurants, gyms, and other crowded places where people couldn’t or wouldn’t wear masks and weren’t observing social distancing rules.

Sure, Jan. Totally believe it was an accident. ?

What about essential workers who don’t have the option of isolating themselves? What about others who can mostly isolate but still need essentials like groceries and prescriptions? Also, those people going to concerts cause the rest of us to have to isolate longer. And before someone says “but the protests” or “but you want schools to reopen”, education/school and institutional racism/police brutality are public health issues too just like this virus. No one is going to be at a higher risk of death, disease, abuse, prison, etc. if they don’t go to a concert or to the theater or a sports game. Social interaction is absolutely necessary, IMO, but it can be done in a safer way in smaller groups, and so can listening to music. As far as I can tell there was no safer way of affecting change in policing and institutional racism than protesting. People of color have been talking about and suffering the consequences of it for years and nothing has changed. These protests seem to be making a difference and I hope they do lead to lasting changes. In terms of education, there is no substitute for in person schooling. Distance learning doesn’t work for most kids, especially for those most at risk for poor outcomes in the first place. Kids who do poorly in school are at risk for all sorts of negative outcomes including early death, chronic illness, and prison. And right now kids are trapped at home with parents pushed to their breaking point, which is a recipe for child abuse, while at the same time those children have less eyes on them to catch the abuse that is happening. So, I support opening schools (with temporary closures if necessary by region) and the protests but I don’t support people going to concerts or restaurants/bars that are ignoring social distancing recommendations. I’ll step off my soapbox now.

From what I've read, the antibody test actually errs toward false positives so if you have a negative result you probably didn't have it but if you get a positive result it's still up in the air. The opposite is true for the test for an active infection. That test errs toward false negatives so if you get a positive COVID-19 test then you almost certainly have it but if you get a negative test then there's still a pretty high chance that you have it (30%, I believe). It's all really frustrating. This past winter was horrible in terms of viruses going around. Our family got hit with Flu A (me and my older daughter), Flu B (my younger daughter), and RSV (me and both my daughters). Our school district hasn't officially told us what they're doing but the most likely scenario is that each class will be divided in two with half the class going Monday and Tuesday and the other half going Thursday and Friday, and on Wednesday they'll sanitize. On the three days the kids aren't in school they're supposed to do distance learning. There may also be an option for full time distance learning as some parents aren't comfortable sending their children to school at all. I'm in the opposite camp. I would rather send my child full time and then have temporary closures when cases spike like they used to do with Polio and other infectious diseases. My older daughter didn't do well with learning from home, and, frankly, I didn't handle being a teacher very well either. We were both miserable, and she didn't learn everything she needed to. My younger daughter's preschool is opening in July with slightly reduced hours (to allow time for sanitizing, I'm guessing) but it's very small so they can comply with state guidelines a lot easier than the public schools can.

So excited for this. I saw both touring casts that came to San Francisco but it will be great to see the original Broadway cast. I have two young kids and am a total Disney fangirl myself so we paid for two years of Disney+ in advance before it launched to get the discount. No way we won’t be subscribing as long as the service exists. Hoya, Disney got rid of the Disney+ free trial week ahead of this launch. I think they anticipated that a lot of people who normally wouldn’t subscribed to Disney+ would sign up to see Hamilton so they did away with it.

I can’t see her as Diana either. For one thing her voice is very distinctive and deep, nothing like Diana’s, and I’ve never heard Kristen Stewart use a different voice in any of her roles. Also, there have been a lot of embarrassing attempts by American actresses at pulling off an English accent of any sort. She also doesn’t look much like Diana to me. If she pulls this off it will be a huge surprise.

Horrible casting choice.

Apparently, he has been cheating on her for a while.

Yep. This is definitely about Meghan Markle’s speech to the graduating seniors of her high school. https://www.ccn.com/meghan-markles-speech-was-inspiring-but-twitter-says-it-sounds-familiar/

The Tatler article that Lainey references was rich. I don’t even know what the author’s intent was. Clearly, they wanted to expose Meghan and to a lesser extent Harry for being terrible people but it’s not clear what they meant to do with Kate. Was that supposed to be a flattering article? In some respects it was and in others it wasn’t. Very odd. https://www.tatler.com/article/the-duchess-of-cambridge-is-the-julyaugust-cover

I think they copped a plea now because they know they probably won’t do any time due to COVID-19.

@fykeylicious So your family turned out to be positive? I’m glad you have all recovered. I would have loved quarantine if I didn’t have kids but I’ve found it to be one of the most challenging experiences of my life because of them. I was not cut out to be a teacher (remind me why teachers don’t make a million dollars a year) and while I love my children dearly I need space for my own sanity. I wish I were wealthy enough to have the income and space to have a live in nanny. I’m dreading the summer and I’m so anxious about the district possibly not reopening schools in the fall. I’d rather they open the schools and then have temporary closures throughout the year as needed when there are surges with plans for distance learning during those times. It would be better than just staying home the entire year.

I loved Xena Warrior Princess back in the day. I have very fond memories of watching it. I hate all sports. I'm weird like that. But I would love to see the Michael Jordan documentary because I do like a lot of documentaries. The OJ Simpson one ESPN did was one of the best documentaries I've seem. I'll have to wait until it comes to a streaming service because we cut the cord and no longer have to pay for ESPN as part of our cable package.

Our main issue (among many) when it comes to choosing our president is the stupid electoral college system, which disenfranchises more people than all the voter suppression tactics combined. Seriously, there is no such thing as the “popular vote” anywhere else. It’s just called the vote. The electoral college system was created to protect slave states, who had the biggest populations and the most wealth at the time but had very small voting populations since they didn’t allow slaves to vote. They awarded electoral college delegates based on the total population (including slaves though they were only counted as 3/5ths of a human being) but then only allowed the non-slave population to vote. Now it weighs the votes of people from less populated states much higher than more populated larger states. It’s even worse now but in the mid aughts a person in Wisconsin’s vote was worth 33 times as much as a person from California. Since the more populated states are more diverse it overall weighs white votes more than votes from people of color so even if every person of color had the same opportunity to vote as white people in all states their vote would still be worth less as a group. Also, the winner take all allocation means that states where the margin between the winner and loser are smaller become more important than the more ideologically homogenous states. It just seems blatantly obvious that everyone should be worth the same but here you are worth more or less depending on where you live. Trump didn’t really win. Neither did Bush Jr. in 2000 even without the cheating that went on in Florida. What we have in the U.S. is minority rule and until something drastic happens that’s how it’s going to be and it sucks.

They have to ignore Trump because he says it's the state's decision when people question why he waited so long to recommend shutting down the economy, and he says the states are on their own when they question why he is not doing more to treat the people who already have coronavirus and stop it from spreading to those that don't. Then when the states do start making their own decisions because of his lack of action and direction, he says the decision is up to him. He's an incompetent buffoon.

That cannot happen here. Seriously, my kids need to go to school in the late summer or fall or I will need to be institutionalized. On a more serious note, I also worry about the rates of child abuse during this time, and all the kids who are being abused already who no longer have people outside the family with eyes on them. The number of children abused is probably going to go up while the number of reports will probably go down. I’m a former social worker so I can’t help but worry about these things.

I'm glad you're feeling better and I'm glad they're testing him. I would have killed for a test when my two kids and I were sick. The lack of testing is one of our biggest issues in getting a handle on this thing. Please keep us updated.