Jeffrey D. Tharp's Blog, page 21

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. AFGE Local 1904. Here we are 24 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. So, we’re still grinding along with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if 30 months of operating nearly exclusively through telework didn’t prove that working from home works. All this is ongoing while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. It’s truly a delight working for the sick man of the enterprise. I’m sure someone could make the case that there’s enough blame to go around, but since the updated and perfectly acceptable policy for supervisors was published 24 weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for failing to deliver for their members (and those of us who they “represent” against our will) and for continuing to stand in the way like some bloody great, utterly misguided roadblock. No one’s interest is served by their continued intransigence. The elected “leaders” of AFGE Local 1904 should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

2. Scheduling. Short of hiring an assistant there simply isn’t a mathematical way to give Anya her medication as scheduled on days when I can’t avoid being in the office. I suppose I could take a two hour lunch every day and double my commute to two 40 mile round trips a day. Maybe I could do that for a week or two, but if the meds end up running for a month? Longer? Yeah. No. I’m fairly fanatical about getting these guys the best care I can find, but after all these years and all these animals, I’ve never cracked the code on how the hell to give them medicine every eight hours, or worse, god forbid, every six. At least three times a week there’s a middle-of-the-day dose that just doesn’t happen, so if you’ve worked out a solution, I’m all ears.

3. Russia. Are we really supposed to take a country that rolls out 60-year-old tanks to replace their “modern” armor lost in combat and then uses a manned fighter jet to sideswipe an unmanned drone seriously as a country? That’s before we even consider their questionable standing as a regional power, let alone their once held status as one of the world’s two superpowers. The Russians, like the Soviets before them, have always been a little bit “different.” Maybe it’s just me, but lately the tired old antics of the ailing Russian bear seem to make it much more an object of mockery and scorn than any kind of fear or intimidation. If they haven’t been doing the work to maintain even their most basic equipment in fighting shape, I’m left to wonder what are the chances they’ve had the time, expertise, and money to maintain anything more than the illusion of a strategic deterrence force. 

Slow progress…

The day to day of my world can be somewhat constrained at the best of times. It’s how I like it, so no complaints. For the last week or ten days, though, it’s constricted even more than usual. 

With Jorah, I spent the better part of six months keeping him contained in the kitchen. Fortunately, the kitchen here is spacious and well lit, so it wasn’t a particularly bad imposition in exchange for easy cleanup while we conducted remedial housetraining and cleaned up his all too frequent accidents. 

With Anya and Cordy, the confinement is considerably less spacious. It may be a generously sized guest bathroom, but the apparent space shrinks down considerably when you add in two cats, a litter box, scratching post, multiple food and water dishes, multiple beds, and some toys. At the moment, the confinement is mostly for the convenience of the repeated, daily rounds of medication I’m giving to Anya. Keeping them in a single space feels somehow more humane than chasing the poor girls through the entirety of the house thrice daily. Plus, she’s currently forced to contend with the cone of shame. Giving her the run of the house while the cone restricts her ability to squeeze into space that would let her avoid any unwanted canine attention feels distinctly unfair. 

The shelter recommended a two week decompression and adjustment period before introducing the new additions to the wider household and all of the additional room to roam. That would nominally end on Friday. The plan for the moment is to maintain the status quo at least through the weekend and Anya’s follow up appointment with her ophthalmologist on Monday. It seems that we’ve gotten a grip on the worst of the infection – her eye isn’t bright, weeping red – but there’s obviously still a lot of involvement with her conjunctiva. Assuming she’ll need continuing medication past Monday, I’ll need to reconsider our options. 

With stress being consistently listed as one of the causes for flare ups of her condition, getting her introduced into the house while also mitigating her symptoms feels like it’s going to be a fine line to walk in the coming days. I’d very much like to avoid a flare up resulting in another weeks long course of drops, ointments, and oral meds.

Anyaka has turned out to be quite the trooper. Despite our rough start and her being thoroughly annoyed with the current medical regimen, she’s purring up a storm and remarkably affectionate. Cordy remains uncertain of this new home. However, she has allowed me to touch her briefly while distracted with stinky food or toys. It’s slow progress all around, but it’s progress nonetheless. 

Playing international whack-a-mole…

In the wake of Americans being killed while, advisedly or not, traveling in Mexico, there are calls to classify the cartels as terrorist organizations. Maybe they are but that’s probably missing the broader point. 

The cartels exist for one reason only – the immense, unquenched demand in the United Sates for their product. That’s it. Full stop.

With a fortune to be made in supplying that demand, going after the cartels is, in my estimation, one big, international game of whack-a-mole. Until we find the silver bullet to crush the demand curve, someone will fill the supply side of the equation. I mean drugs didn’t suddenly stop being a problem when Pablo Escobar was arrested and eventually killed.

We’ve been funding both sides of the War on Drugs since the day the phrase was coined back in the Nixon Administration. Fifty years later, you really have to wonder if decades of government policy have made any substantive difference. 

I hesitate to say we should just stop prosecuting this war. You won’t hear me calling to legalize heroin or meth, but it feels like we should at least admit that continual escalation of the war can be reasonably expected to deliver mixed results at best. 

At my most honest, I’ll tell you that I don’t really give a damn what a grown adult decides to put in their body. Personally, I like caffeine and nicotine. My only real objection to “drugs” as a policy consideration is when those who choose to use them start doing crime to feed the habit or when it leads to people blocking up the sidewalks and using the streets and parks as open-air bathrooms. It’s the same logic by which I don’t especially care how drunk anyone decides to get as long as they don’t get behind the wheel of a car or otherwise endanger others with their choices.

So, sooner or later I’m sure we’ll end up labeling the Mexican cartels “terrorists.” They probably are by any reasonable definition… but I don’t expect the words we use to make any appreciable difference in what’s flowing across the border and into every city, town, and village in America. 

Nowhere near the panic button

Maybe if I were more financially savvy, I’d be alarmed by the collapse of several banks over the weekend. As it stands, I’m mostly just preparing myself to ride out some choppy financial waters in the short term. The markets don’t currently seem to be in a panic, so I’m opting not to be either. After all, if the markets do decide it’s time to panic, it’s mostly too late for me to do anything about it anyway. 

Over the last 20-odd years, I like to think my approach to most financial contagion has been to shrug and keep buying every other week. As a young, new investor, I bought into the teeth of the collapse of the dotcom bubble, then through the Great Recession, and most recently through the panicked COVID-19 sell off. Not being a finance guy or an economist, most of what I know comes from history – and that’s that every squirrely period of economic chaos eventually ends. Over a sufficient enough period, every bad time, including the Great Depression, has ended with markets making new highs. 

The trick, of course, is simply to hang on and don’t even think about locking in your losses. It’s a trick, because, as they say, the markets can absolutely remain irrational longer than you the individual can remain solvent. Assuming the House of Representatives doesn’t insist on allowing the federal government to default in a few months, I’m not especially worried about staying solvent. If it goes the other way, how well my philosophy holds up gets a bit murkier.

In any case, I’m nowhere near the panic button despite how much the finical news reporters insist on wringing their hands.

Anxiety and frustration…

The internet is truly a font of information. Need to know how to replace the front end on a 1953 Buick? There’s a YouTube video for that. Interested in watching other people play video games? There are more streams than any one person could ever hope to watch. There are endless “how to” blogs and videos on every topic you can imagine. The thing is, they should all probably warn you that your mileage may vary. 

Every veterinary video I’ve watched in the hopes of picking up tips and tricks for making our daily routine of eye drops and oral medication more tolerable has exactly one thing in common: They each use the most quiet, docile cat imaginable for the demonstration. No hissing, no spitting, no teeth or claws, barely even a head bob while the person fiddles and fools with their test subject. Not one single video I’ve seen has featured an angry, hostile, animal who has had minimal handling and only basic socialization with people.

The other comment, popular throughout Reddit, is that giving medication to cats “can be a two-person job.” Hey, that’s fantastic information and all, but is the expectation that I’m going to hire my own vet tech to drop by three times a fucking day for two weeks or more? Advice, it seems to me, is best when it’s practical.

That’s all a lot of words to say that the best advice available online hasn’t been particularly useful in my current situation. In the struggle just to get the job done, I’ve fallen back on the very old school (and frowned upon by those endorsing the modern, kinder and gentler approach) method of grabbing this poor cat up by the scruff of her neck and getting the treatment done by brute force. I don’t like it. She very much doesn’t like it. I have grave concerns that I’m poisoning what should be our prime time for bonding and trust building… But short of sending her off to medical boarding for the duration of the treatment, I’m simply at a loss of how else to proceed. 

I’m ending this week full of anxiety and deeply frustrated.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. AFGE Local 1904. Here we are 23 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. So, we’re still grinding along with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if 30 months of operating nearly exclusively through telework didn’t prove that working from home works. All this is ongoing while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. It’s truly a delight working for the sick man of the enterprise. I’m sure someone could make the case that there’s enough blame to go around, but since the updated and perfectly acceptable policy for supervisors was published 23 weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for failing to deliver for their members (and those of us who they “represent” against our will) and for continuing to stand in the way like some bloody great, utterly misguided roadblock. No one’s interest is served by their continued intransigence. The elected “leaders” of AFGE Local 1904 should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

2. Tucker Carlson. According to Tucker, the insurrectionists who stormed through the United States Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021 were peaceful “sightseers.” I’m shocked, shocked, I say, that this well-known douche canoe would gin up a fictional account of the day’s events that just so happens to correspond to the schlock he’s been peddling in prime time. Yes, I’m sure he’s the seer of seers and prognosticator of prognosticators and not in any way a hack catering to the illusion he’s already created for his particularly gullible audience. By Tucker’s logic, if I go over to his house, kick in his front door, take a shit on his living room floor, steal some stuff, and threaten his family with grave bodily harm, I’m a “guest” and not a criminal. Make of that what you will, I suppose.

3. Utterly avoidable international incidents. Though lately I’ve been entirely happy as a homebody, there was a time I enjoyed the hell out of traveling. I did my fair share of visiting places both domestic and international. The thing is, I never went anywhere that the State Department listed as a “Do Not Travel” location. It’s all part and parcel of my policy of not being a dumbass American abroad. Once, many years ago in Mexico City, I found myself adjacent to some kind of march / protest / demonstration. I like to imagine what I did was more dignified than simply running away, but I do recall leaving the area in haste. It’s no business of mine what the people of Mexico choose to march, protest, or demonstrate about. Things happen, or so I’ve been told, but when you knowingly travel to places where violence is rife and then get caught up in a violent altercation, well, you can’t pretend to be all that surprised. It’s unfortunate, but entirely predictable… and also largely avoidable.

Frazzled…

Time is short, so I’ll say only this: My going-to-the-office day routine is well and truly out of tolerance.

I know this because, in my mad rush to leave the house, I managed to forget my building ID card as well as neglected to feed George. Both of those activities are generally hard baked into my routine. They’re things that happen in a very specific order as I move through the morning. 

This morning, of course, was not standard. If it were, it would go something like this: 1) Wake up (4:45 AM); 2) Take Jorah outside; 3) Feed Jorah; 4) Shower/Dress; 5) Feed George; 6) Fill coffee vessels; 7) Make sure bag contains all work essentials; 8) Read non-fiction for 45 minutes; 9) Depart.

This morning was: 1) Wake up (4:00 AM); 2) Take Jorah outside; 3) Feed Jorah; 4) Feed kittens / fight through giving  three medication); 5) Shower/Dress; 6) Fill coffee vessels; 7) Check weather and traffic report; 8) Fight through giving one additional medication; 9) Depart; 10) Backtrack 10 miles to pick up ID.

These are minor hiccups to be sure, but in a routine that generally flows flawlessly from start to finish, being that far from the mark is downright monumental. It’s safe to say all nerves are just a touch frazzled at the moment. 

Ron DeSantis is as asshole and other thoughts…

Ron DeSantis and his cronies in Florida want to require bloggers who write about him, his Cabinet or state legislators to register with the state.

Our rights protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution aren’t subject to “registration.” 

It says, in whole, the following:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Maybe Ron is confused in thinking that because the Constitution only mentions Congress and not the states, that such fuckery is permissible in his National Socialist State of Florida. 

Ron is, of course, wrong… both about this and so much else this wanna be tin pot dictator pushes out as his grand agenda to save the world. Banning books, passing decrees about what colleges and universities can teach, and using the broad taxing authority of the government to attack political “enemies,” is, quite literally Nazi shit. Our grandparents fought an entire world war to keep those kinds of ideas, and the people who spout them from their vile, stinking mouths, from taking over the world.

So, the government of the state of Florida should go ahead and consider this my notice and “registration.” I’ll continue to call Ron DeSantis a blowhard douchenozzle and comment on his abject fuckery and unfitness for office in any way and on any platform I see fit to use. 

If that doesn’t suffice, I’d recommend Governor DeSantis find a nice quiet room and go fuck himself. 

Making introductions…

Tonight, we bid hello and welcome to the two newest members of the family. Both were adopted Saturday from Cecil County Animal Services. 

Anya, (AKA Anyanka; AKA Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins; AKA Aud), is a gray shorthair with very subdued tabby highlights. Her age is estimated at 6 months. She’s named for a powerful vengeance demon largely because she clawed through and escaped her temporary cardboard carrier on the drive home Saturday and promptly laid her vengeance on me while I tried to extract her from the truck. She then made a break for it and sent me on a 30+ minute wild goose chase through the garage, only to be apprehended when she snuck into the laundry room for the food I put down as a lure.

Cordelia (Cordy), is a brown tabby and about 3 months old according to the shelter staff. Her name derives from her being attractive, popular, and thus far, entirely untouchable. Her modus operandi for the most part is to burst out of hiding for a mouthful of food or a drink and then retreating immediately back to her spot. I get it. It’s a process.

We’re working through all the usual new home issues, but also fighting a pretty nasty eye infection for Anya. In the last 36 hours it went from a minor concern that we were going to address through the shelter’s vet partners, to being outright alarming to the point that I decided couldn’t wait. As of early this morning, we’re working with the local veterinary ophthalmologist to try getting things under control. I’ve got four prescriptions that’ll need to be given three times daily for the next two weeks. I fully expect to need a blood transfusion by the time we’re done with this effort.

I’m obviously quite insane to take on this project, but with my long history of pets with medical problems, at least I had some forewarning about what I was letting myself into – with absolutely no chance that she’ll just get turned back to the shelter for being too much of a project for someone and thereby further diminishing her chance of finding a permeant home.

For now, our newcomers are sequestered in the guest bathroom until they decompress and now recover. I’m willing to let that phase of things take as long as it takes. Jorah has been interested and makes regular trips back the hall to investigate all the new smells. So far, though, he has been unfailingly polite with not much undue barking or whining.

This wasn’t exactly the plan, but here we are. With no regrets and a whole lot of nerves.

Scheduled for a look see…

I’ve got an appointment tomorrow afternoon to meet some local shelter cats. Hershel had an iconic personality and I’m not under the illusion that he’s in any way replicable or replaceable. I’m going to miss him every day. Likewise, over the last two weeks, I’ve also missed the general presence of a cat in the house – chittering at the birds, the thump of its landing from some high place, and the pitter patter of little floof-covered feet on wood floors in the small hours of the morning. 

It could be I’m rushing through this, but I’ve found that with most activities, if you wait for a good time, the time never comes. Besides, having a house full of cat stuff with no cat in it, while the shelter is filled with cats with no stuff, feels just a little bit ridiculous. If it’s going to happen eventually, maybe getting it done early is best.

The real test, of course, is the resident dog. Jorah, from the time he arrived, was a Hershel super-fan. They paled around together when Maggie was too old and sick to be much interested in playing. Now, whether his love of cats was a one off or whether it’s a transferrable feature, remains to be seen. I need Jorah to be tolerant and a cat-to-be-named later that’s fearless. Maybe that happens tomorrow and maybe it doesn’t.

Even if I’m moving fast, I’m not especially in a rush. I’ve been very lucky over the years that most of the critters who’ve shared my home have picked me instead of the other way around. All that’s left now is to see if we can coax lightning to strike one more time.