Oh, LOL.
I just found why I got so sick this morning, playing Firewatch. It wasn't the yogurt. It was the damn game.

I played a little now, though I was prudent and again - five minutes in, nausea, need to throw up and diarrhea at the same time.

It has to do with the way I move in the game. Damn it. Because I really like it...

Felt really freaky, to be honest, going shopping for my parents yesterday. Really really uncomfortable. I've watched so many videos on the subject of virus spread, I am getting completely paranoid. I can't think of a way to make sure I don't bring them infected goods. If they weren't so stubborn to continue to want to go themselves, I wouldn't bring them anything that isn't triple packed and wrapped. Fucking bagels? Are you kidding me?

I ate something I shouldn't have today, an old yogurt or something. My tummy turned and I was weak for the rest of the day. While we went uphill to check on bees, I napped in the sun, kind of just chilling. This got G so worried, he kept checking on me. I was, like, dude, I ate a bad spoon of fruity dessert. I am fine. And all the while I am secretly googling additionally known symptoms to the plague. 

Politicians, mostly majors, are beckoning for people to please stop fucking around and understand en masse picnics are not okay. They will have to prevent people from leaving the house all in all. You won't even be able to go cycling, not so much for fear of disease but because ERs are reporting business-as-usual amount of weekend-related activity and pleading: we don't have time for your clumsy shit. Stay IN.

G complained nobody appreciates the mailpeople, even though they are working like crazy, so I made a thank-you post and it took off. My one good deed for the day.

Here are some funny picker-upper memes. 

Remind me why I bought padded rain shoes and am keeping them in the car on the other side of the city? Because I don't believe in April snow, that's why.

Or that March 26th is not yet April.

Well, out we go. Shoed for July in four inches of salty sludge. Great prepping skills there, genius. 

Perfect equillibrium

Has my life changed at all this past month? Not even a little. G still works chaotic shifts at the post office and I still marvel at the number of books I own and how sad it makes for everyone else to observe the behavior of truly callous and stupid people. As if it's the first time they notice. So cute.

Fist time?

For every beyond brilliant, focused, devoted and humane genius out there, working tirelessly to invent cures and aid to those in need, there are fucking morons bragging how licking toilets makes them a more influential influencers.

I wonder if going full dystopia on some people would be considered in poor taste? Like, for every moron caught on camera saying rules don't apply to them, and if they had it they would willingly spread it, making them pay a fine like 4000 bucks and serve 400 hours of community service cleaning sewers and if their family got sick and there weren't enough sick beds, the entirety of them would be denied medical care - would that be too cruel?

Would putting those who purposefully spread it and caused someone to die in prison for manslaughter be considered too much?

Would charging a fine everyone caught partying during lockdown to help the economy be considered radical?

then again you have politicians saying: "Those doctors, if it were up to them, they'd lock down the whole world!" Har har, har har. Those stupid doctors. What do they know? This is Muhrika! We don't stop for no virus!

So ye. I am a great believer in harsh and consistent punishment. Callous, vain, flippant attitudes and malicious negligence should be criminal during a pandemic. You can't have triage, leaving very old to die because there isn't enough medicine for the young ones, and "Fuck corona, party on!!" at the same time.

But we do.
Always have.
Always will. 

Paranoid about more earthquakes

Half the reason why tonight the General slept either holding my head down (occasionally petting me and tickling behind my ear (something I find very soothing) even though he was fully snoring at the time, so, sound asleep.) or his whole leg over me (remember we are talking 6'6, 250-pound linebacker) was to ensure he is protecting/shielding me, and the other half was to immobilize me because every time the house shook with wind (which it does), I sat up, holding my breath, looking at the chandelier. 

Happy birthday, you miserable old bitch.

And now an earthquake. Because, you know, the week's been kinda boring, disaster-wise ...

"The button jars are falling!"
"Could you just get dressed??"

Zagreb got hit with 5.3, which was enough to wake everyone up out here (150 km away) - we live in the second story and still we both woke up instantly (again), and down the ladder like firemen and into G's man cave, effectively the safest part of the building ...

Zagreb is a little fucked. I don't think anyone was hurt except a lot of buildings, hopefully, but still. Poor people. :/

Not sure the cats have come out from under the sofa yet. They keep looking at us as if it was something we did again, like me throwing a tantrum or sex or just something super noisy, like dancing. (You can't dance in this house, it starts to rattle, it's too old.)

"What is our plan!?"
"I grab you, you grab the dog and we get the heck out!"
"Who grabs the camera bag?"
"Dog grabs the camera bag."

You wouldn't be able to say just by looking at him, at how nervous the General is about keeping everyone safe. We are talking about a man who would singlehandedly keep a post office running if need be and who continues to volunteer for just about anything anyone asks him. He gives food to the homeless and does not hesitate to lend a hand to anyone in need. And his most obvious feature is pretending to be absolutely and entirely calm and in control. I have known this from the earliest stages of our relationship - not being in control is his greatest worry - not being able to help if someone, anyone needed him.

So, just by looking at him, you would think it's just another Thursday for him. Especially to me. He is being the confident captain to me, as if it means anything. Of course it doesn't. I have no problem with great men showing fear or doubt or worry. But I can tell not everything is fine by the way he's a) stocked the fridge (never happens, we are just not that kind of people); b) allowed me to purchase almost half a dozen computer games (I am allowed perhaps one a year and even then only if I've finished the previous one); c) he continues to prohibit me from going anywhere, I am barely allowed to walk the dog for an hour - if it was up to him, I would spend that hour tossing a fetch ball to the mutt; d) he misses my dad and my dad's roast and admits to really wanting it, but would not even chance getting a piece from a bag hung on the railing at the estate in fear of dad instantly coming out to be with us (dad's kind of lonely, too, but that's just because he must stay in, otherwise you wouldn't get him off their hill for anything).

G came home from getting the food today and at the door shouted: NO! Fuck!! ... I ran to check what happened and he admitted, defeated: I just realized I forgot to buy your butter. (Lactose-free. Which I eat maybe once a month, but I put it on the list in case we make dumplings.)

Er ... I think I'll live, schnookums. But thank you. Now please calm down.

He sounds like those police officers or first responders who act all cool until they spill a little bit off coffee on their pants or something and it's the end of the world. 

Adorable dumb fuck.

The General and my late brother making fun of one another, back in the good old days

You will never see as many joggers, cyclists, couples and your families out cycling, strolling or basking as during a quarantene. 

My first thought, because I am a mean, miserable bastard, when something like an epidemic hits, is: are the rich purposefully hoarding all the helping stuff to ensure the poor die and the world will be a little bit better for it, in their opinion?

Oh, behold the reality that will come to bite them in the ass: the poor may be in more danger now, but when this is over and poor people are desperate and angry, you and your pretty cars and white horses and chandeliers will be the last thing you will have to worry about. 

Haha, a text from the government: we are not to leave the house. 

Which would not be quite so funny if the previous news about the government weren't how they raised their paychecks to the absolute existing maximum the third day of their enstatement. Rather cute in a socialist country, but, you know, it's a crisis. They'll be solving our problems while we are locked indoors. Like that one time last week, when they tried to buy 3 million face masks from a shady Balkan dealer to at least supply the health workers and the masks never came.

How the fuck do I walk the dog? I feel like the lady in Room.

Here's some funny memes on top:

Shockingly, but not surprisingly, when parents went to the hospital for dad's eye exam, they were given neither gloves nor masks. This surprised my dad so much, he didn't know what to say when doctors started touching him without gloves. I made him put on gloves in the parking lot, but the poor fool took them off, expecting some proper gloves will be supplied for them. 

I know that there is very little risk in the hospital, because we only have 2 or so contained cases there and it's in another ward, but I am starting to suspect: "No need to wear masks and gloves, they don't work" has a little bit to do with "Fuck, we don't have enough masks and gloves even for our personnel!"

I wear a construction worker's anti-dust mask and I look stupid, but people ask me all the time where I got it. I bought them for the pigments. I have no idea why they wouldn't work - they stop particles so fine they only glimmer in direct sunlight when I work, yet alone sneeze spray. The General needs to use gloves at work, so he bought some in the local farms' supply station. Things are getting so cute at his place - people no longer care to shop, they just order on-line, so yesterday he had tons of potato go though the distribution hall :D Ah, the work of a mailman these days.

The pharmacy was interesting, too. The line in the street is annoying, but once I got to the little glass window and put the card(s) into their reader, she gave me the medicine and then I had to pay with cash and she took the cash from me, via the little drawer, with ungloved hands and put it in the register.

Am I over-thinking this, but how does she know that money wasn't compromised?

Maybe I'm just over-thinking this.

I have to stop googling: How come Ebola never spread to Europe?... and stuff like that.

To me, this is just a big dress rehearsal. So far we are not doing too bad in this country. The curve is slowly flattening. And maybe the way Americans are acting, they'll be lucky. Although something tells me these odd times, this weird calm before the storm ... so quiet, so peaceful, so calm. This may still get interesting. 

So peaceful outside. Ah.

I desperately wanted some bread today, so I went to a story which I assumed was safe to buy bread from and got multicolored bagels in all colours - painted with charcoal, red kale, saffron, spirulina and so on, they were really pretty. So, of course, the moment I step out of the store a homeless man approaches me, saying their soup kitchen has been shut down and he hasn't eaten in two days. 

General asked how I managed to spend 30 bucks in a store again and, again, the only thing I brought home was Kraftiq Neskafe. 

Now I have to go intercept my parents on their way to an eye clinic, where they've been told they will be given masks and gloves, but my mum is skeptical and doesn't wanna chance dad. I'm taking protection stuff to them and taking his medical card to go get them medicine. Tons of people standing outside pharmacies, so it's better I go and they retreat back to their castle. 

While Italy is experiencing a shitshow and nobody knows what the fuck is happening and why (and why to Italy, when China handled it so much better - "Isn't it just a flu?"), our politicians have been sooo funny :D The dictator-wanna-be guy took over for the third time and started with his immigration and anti-abortion shit and everyone was like: Ye, dude, not now. ... He got shut down in a minute. If he had the sense to promise more hospital solutions and better care, he'd have won the people by now, but of course, that would mean actually delivering on the subject. At the moment everyone just knows he's gonna waste money on our shitty army and implementing religious bullshit in schools and same old. Nobody has time for that now. Now those who can steal will steal and those who get paid for doing so will point fingers at why money wasn't handled better and aww, poor people, taxes will have to be higher for a little while. Same old, same old indeed. 

The one thing that really had me laughing was the mayor of the capital, when smaller regions were shutting down schools, bars, and traffic, him saying he's not gonna fall for this race of "who's shutting down more" and making lives of people harder... He's, you know, the cool politician.

       Well, yesterday the day was super sunny and warm and tons of people were out and hanging in the parks and at hiking stops and being jolly, Instagram shots circling the IG... and he was like: what the fuck is wrong with you?! Which part of 'highly contagious pandemic we are trying to prevent before it gets insane don't you get?!'

Ah, dude. As long as you are the hip one.

The statistics game has been curious and since this is such a new thing, nobody knows much of anything for certain. For example, numbers are so super low in US, because people have to pay for their testing and it's not cheap. There are no cases to speak of in Africa while Iran is going wild. Italy is suffering the worst at the moment, but is it because a) it has high elderly population, b) a lot of them are smokers, c) they commonly greet one another by kissing cheeks, d) a lot of mild cases aren't being reported so mortality seems so dense, e) nobody remembers being paranoid, so people didn't think to care until it hit the fan?

If it gets resolved in the next few days, it will just be a dramatic scare, most people hardly having noticed it and for others a mere inconvenience. But if it doesn't get resolved in a few days... I have been stacking craft supplies for decades. I'm just saying. You gosta be prepared. I grew up in Yugoslavija. We were always trained for the next shitty situation. Generation of my parents still keeps enough food to feed a village in their basements. An adorable meme circling these days: We may have to resort back to the days of hunting ... but I have no idea where hamburgers live or how you hunt them down!

Well, if things get interesting, we have water for about six days, food for about ten, coffee for about a month and books for about ten or twelve years. I think we should be fine. 

Korona ninja

"Thundercunt gray"

I'm tired as fuck, but I refuse to sleep enough, because there is so much going on and I am riding a creative wave, looking for lost and forgotten pans in corners and under the couch, "inventing" shit while I wait for the third filling to dry. The General usually drags me to bed around one in the morning, angry I still have so much to achieve for the day - and then at around seven something I get up and pick right where I left off - some of it is playing games, some of it researching the plague, some of it self-promotion, some of it dealing with customers ... I managed to mess up an order the other day - luckily, albeit expressing disappointment, they were willing to resolve the matter in an amicable way. Now all I need is for the post offices not to close, either here nor there. They will be closing all mail to Italy come Monday, for now the only state going there. But US has been reporting an odd lack of cases, which may have something to do with the fact testing is rather costly and a day may come when they realize they are in a full-fledged end of the world mode and then what will happen to my pretty Etsy, mm?

The paint I invented - well, I mixed three or four paints and bet on the sand within - is a trial between creamy darks and grainy c.mortuum. It is a weird, ugly, messy paint. My best so far, by far. I need more of this shit. Alas, I have no pans and no g.arabic and the othered supplies refuse to come. 

May be a good time to sleep two days and then pick up writing a novel for a little while? Library's closed and with a big warning poster on the front gate - one of those you see in the beginning of post-apocalyptic movies, blowing down the street among abandoned cars and swirling garbage empty bags in the air.

Can we please hurry with the zombie apocalypse, some of us have shit to do!

... I just jinxed my entire extended family, haven't I?
O.O

Stupid virus. No dentist :(

We've come to the point that my dentist cancels the appointment due to the safety measures and I'm not thrilled about it.

Stupid virus.
My teeth hurt :(

In light of adjacent Italy's shitshow, all public events are pending :/  No bee fair this saturday :( We were supposed to have a bee seminar today, got dressed up and everything. and all those bonus theater tickets available! Can you imagine a full theater and someone sneezes? :D

Sex robots

I just want to say, to the poor sex robot of the future whom I will probably eventually buy because I like well-made adult toys, and who will have to hold both my hands when listening to me talk about my recent dreams - and will probably look like Idris Elba or something - you, sir, are scheduled for a FUCKLOAD of long doggy walks. Possibly even some having to drop everything and listening to me read excerpts of my novel. But mostly looong walks in the woods. Fair warning. 

Bees are just too smart

I've said it a thousand times that bees are freakishly intelligent, haven't I?

They are scary smart. things that small are not supposed to be that smart.

I was phone-filming G today, as we were looking for the condition of brood in the hives. As is often the case, the closer you get to the queen, the harder guards circle you. Thing is, in my outfit, I have a tear in my glove, just by the thumb. now get this. I cannot tell you how or how the fuck, but one of the guards found the tear and no matter how much I bent my thumb to make it closed, the guard continued to tap the tangled fabric with its bum. Not with the stinger, just the bum. I knew exactly what it was doing - it was marking it with the signal hormone. I panicked and took the glove off, tossing it aside and just pulled my sleeve over the hand.

Picking the glove up later, once we were done, there were bee stingers in that exact spot. the tiny fuckers attacked the marked glove at the tear.

It is not even funny. They ignore pockets, shoelaces, zippers, even the rim of the jacket or the air vent lace, but they will go for the face and they will look for the tears. The General once had his zipper improperly closed. He was lucky to only get hit in the thigh, not the jolly. 

Like, how can they even tell the difference between properly and improperly tied shoelaces??

And today, for once, and not to jinx myself, albeit I dreaded the location and condition of the tooth, it was not at all horrid. He even checked my whole line and only found four more in need of work, some more, others less. I thought it was a lot worse, to be honest. Maybe because some look really ugly, but are not in truth at all corroded. This one looked terrible, but it was just a filling and some reconstruction, not like the last one, which was literally a corpse. 

General bought me a translation of Dune as a reward. I used to have an en English copy, but lent it to someone, I forget who, and never got it back. And I missed it. So, being a good girl today, I got Dune. It's 10:30 and so far a good day. 

Not to jinx it, just to stress that part again. 

Poop and purge and, you guessed it, dentist

Couple of weeks ago I complained to everyone who couldn't run away from me, that I dreamed of using the bathroom. Not one of those dreams where the body is trying to tell the brain to wake up and use the bathroom, but an actual dream of using the bathroom: I got off the bed, went to the bathroom, pooped and came back. There was nothing surreal about it, it was totally my bathroom, the time flow was normal and it was ... a realistic dream of going to the toilet.

And I thought: for the love of fuck, brain, of all the things in creation or yet-creation you can dream, THAT is what you chose to go photorealistic on??

The brain took this to heart. I've had several storeams since - for the uninitiated, stoream is a dream with a coherent story, start to finish, no bizarre bending and a satisfactory closure - much like a movie from within. Today, I dreamed of a night of Purge in the capital of my country. I had to get to the train station and get to my dentist, where G was waiting.

It started perfectly okay, nobody cared much about anything, nobody was wild, people were going about their business. Our country has an extremely low crime rate and nobody really feels like doing much of it, bar a bunch of confused teenagers who have always dreamed of smashing some glass or something. An elderly group - two brothers and their wives sort of adopted me in the rain to take me under their umbrellas to an underpass where a gallery and a cultural event was taking place. They were having some debates and the old man, once I said my goodbyes to leave, reached to me with 50 bucks in his hand. The mayor of the city, seeing this, wanting to be cool and friendly, also shoved 50 bucks in my hands for all those posh people to see. I considered the hard cash for a bit, but decided I am no longer a hitchhiker who needs hand-outs, and laughed, returning the money, saying: don't give me cash! Give me books! (In reference to a nice book one of them, I think the mayor, was holding.) Later, when we parted ways a few streets before the train station, the old man vanished for a minute, only to return with a thick folder-like book from an antique store. His brother, who did not seem to approve, cried: no, don't buy her The Leaves!...  It seemed that this was the biggest book the old man could find, an encyclopedia of vintage illustrations of foliage. I joked with the women that they are clearly brothers and they explained how they both work for the same company, of which the elder (the complaining one) was a manager.

I left to hurry on, but as the night was almost through, I began to realize that, albeit most people didn't care for outdoors at this hour usually anyway, those who needed a bit of chemical stimulation have by now gotten feisty and for the first time ever, walking around in unfamiliar, poorly lit streets in the transportation section of the city, I did not feel as cool as I would. I began being followed by people toying with kitchen knives, almost surprised to see a fool like me outside, and almost getting kind of tempted. It was like wild animals - if I ran, they would chase. The fog caused the train station lights to create a sort of a glow and I could see the silhouette of the landmark statue behind the buildings, but for now, I needed to get out of plain sight and stop posing as a temptation. Why risk one small thing following another? My train was in a few minutes, though.

In one of the apartments in the building I hid, I met with a girl who walked around with a broken piece of plastic, trying to match it against various objects, but it wasn't until we hurried outside that we found this was not something she was scrapping but a bit of a bender she tore off her boyfriend's car and he was now chasing her in rage with his gang. Things were getting more heated. We saw a man trying to rape a woman on the hood of his Audi, but the gang got to him and glued his dick shut with superglue. Cops started being active again and driving fast around the empty city, ignoring pedestrians, so it was kind of dangerous to cross some streets. A cordon of shield-wielding policemen faced off with some riot, and while avoiding their clash, we got into a kill zone of a sniper who was after my girl companion, though she was wearing a helmet she found. I left her to deal with her problems while I try to catch the train.

I finally made it to the dentist and the nurse was as friendly as always, but I caught a glimpse of the doctor and he seemed to be in a tremendous backpain. I thought great, nothing like an overworked, exhausted dentist to deal with my brittle teeth. As always the nurse asked me to wait outside for the pain medication to take hold. Outside in the waiting room, all the people from the night accumulated and were cranky and restless. I found the General among them, waiting for me, and showed him the pretty book I was given by friendly strangers, telling him about my Purge experience.

"Trials of Gabriel Fernandez"

Seriously, why do those people reproduce? If all they do is hate, torture and kill their kids, why doesn't someone smack a fucking clamp on their tubes and allow them not to reproduce? Not saying neuter them forever. Just .... why do they have a bunch of kids which then they hurt and hurt and hurt.

Oh, right. They get state money for having them. I forget. 

Kill pills

Almost done with the Trials of Gabriel Fernandez docu series. A little bit to go. How fast Americans are at sentencing someone to death. It amazes me. Right now the jury is deliberating execution and only this old, educated Asian man is arguing, the rest are, like, burn the bitch! Dude. You can't just kill someone. You don't think sentencing him to a life in a concrete box with bars is punishment? Even the judge told them, yo, you can't decide on something like that in two hours. It's not how a death verdict is imposed and you walk away thinking you avenged a dead kid. You don't think he is showing remorse? Look at the guy. He is done. You could ask him: do you wish to die? He would say yes.
I agree with the old Asian gentleman - it's the mother who deserves no more days. (IF you want to place blame, which is what these jurors seem to do. Other than that I am firmly against executions and would never impose them.) That huge moron was just a tool in his hands. He would not kill a kid had he not met her, but she would. She has never been good and never will. No matter how intellectually impaired she is from drugs and gang rapes. Fuck. :/ This is all just so damn sad.

But really, how come there is not an option for an inmate to end their own sentence? Would that seem like a cop-out? If others kill him that's justice, but if he is given the pill, that's an easy way out?