The blower motor in the furnace started making a bad scraping noise this past week - bearings going out. A working furnace is important in Alaska. I watched a bunch of youtubes and I probably could have pulled out the motor assembly and done it myself, but then I'd have to gamble on buying the right part, figure out where to get it, maybe wait to get it, then after I get it and have everything disassembled, figure out I need some special $$ tool ... that's how projects go when you don't know what you're doing. So I called the heating company with service history notes already stickered to the furnace. Guy came out, checked the motor and replaced it same day. $900, ouch. :-( The fan cage was thick with years of dust and pet hair. He said he was surprised we had heat at all. Sure enough, with a new motor and a clean fan cage, the airflow through the ducts is drastically improved. Spouse said, well, good to get it done now because it would just be more expensive later. True! It was the original motor, so it was at end of life. Now IS better than later. That's why I like spouse, his kneejerk reaction is casual optimism. Fingers crossed our more efficient furnace will translate into heating savings. I'm really worried about this potential govt shutdown ...

Spouse has caught a very bad cold and has been in a nyquil/nap cycle for a few days, shuffling his box of tissues from room to room. I'm doing okayish, which is weird, because I always get sick first and hardest. He got the flu vax this year and I never got around to getting mine. By all rights I should be the one sick. I'm starting to feel off but I'm also on my period and sometimes it makes me feel like I'm coming down with a bug.

I did not go to the president's day protest on monday. Spouse is sick, I felt like crampy shit (period), potentially contagious and maybe not a great idea to stand in freezing temps for a couple hours. Figured I'll play it safe this time. I think in person protests are mostly morale boosting for the attendees, anyway. Don't get me wrong, morale boosts are super important, but I don't expect anyone in power to care until we make it hurt. I think orchestrated economic damage is more likely to get attention. Speaking of, there's a buy nothing day coming up Feb 28. All you gotta do is stay home and don't consume. So simple an american could do it.

Finally got my 10x10 canopy yesterday, which was the big expense for larger event vending. I made sure it has good height so nobody will feel like they have to duck inside, and I got full sidewalls so I can zip it up at night for multi-day events. Took close to a month to get here. I had to order off amazon because the company won't even ship to AK off their website (really tough to ditch amazon in alaska). I have just about everything I need for production and booth setup and the last remaining things are small things like hardware to make my own folding tables, which I don't need-need but would be nice to have. I want my booth to have an art deco bar feel, since I'm selling what amounts to luxury glassware. Dark background also helps the engraving stand out, and it reads gender neutral so I won't scare the menfolk away (I know manly men will spend $$$ on fancy glassware for their fancy bourbon, if they can be lured close enough to see the goods). I've settled on a black and silver theme with as much dark stained wood as possible. I got wood crates for display. I got wood closet doors to turn into shelves to put on the crates (cheap, lightweight, and they look good once they're cleaned up and stained). I got little battery operated RGB lights to spotlight everything (I will most likely never be vending outdoors in the dark since Alaska has such an abundance of daylight when it's warm enough for events, but glass and light go together like pizza and gaming and it's a way to give the booth some fun color without frightening the menfolk). I also ordered a power inverter that works with our snowblower batteries for portable power access. Potentially I could run my rotary tool at events to engrave things on the spot (the actual function is for short power outages, to keep the fridge going, or a computer, etc. - poor man's generator). I got my silver hexagon shimmer wall to make a eyecatching sign. I got what I need for product photography. I got stuff for nice pricing signs. I should have what I need for a killer booth and to make a business presence.

Now it's just ... make product, apply to events and hope things sell. No pressure, just flat out gambling with what monetary reserves we may have left before spouse gets fired or shutdown happens and they just stop paying him ...

Am I worried? Yeah, I'm worried. Of course I'm worried. If we end up homeless this is all my fault. But I'm going to do my best anyway.

Things are accelerating with Trump faster than I could have imagined. This is a nightmare. Every day is some awful new unprecedented boundary pushing thing. I know I was all "don't give the trolls energy" before but the trolls are actually ripping the roof off the house. But somehow I still feel like the crazy one when I tell my sister if she wants to move from MO, she may want to get her house on the market NOW while there are still people with money to buy it (her husband did resign from his federal job, and she hates MO). I tell her that spouse and I think we're headed into a great depression like scenario by year's end and I get nothing but crickets. I'm starting to think my sister isn't very bright. I knew she was self centered and only cares when something impacts her, but I thought she was smart. She's never caught on to things like I do, and we've always had very different interests, but I never thought she was "average". Until now. I don't get how someone can have three kids and not be concerned with how the political winds are blowing. Like, this is screwing your kids worse than anyone.

Well she's white and christian, so I guess a theocracy doesn't seem as scary to her because they're on HER side and christians are the good guys, right? Sure, sure.

And this has always been the problem, hasn't it? By the time things get so bad that the safer, wealthier people wake up and get all shocked pikachu, we're in up to our necks already. They're a bunch of placid moo cows.

It's super mean but I sort of hope my sister's husband struggles with his job search. My sister has (so far) sailed through life without issue. Things just fall into place for her. I think she isn't taking this seriously because she's always been able to coast. Her husband was at his federal agency (SSA) for a solid 19 years. My sister has never held any job longer than a year, never worked for a regular business where she depended on the paycheck for rent, and she's been a stay at home mom and homeschooler for at least 13 years. She's had the luxury of checking out and focusing on her kids. I don't think either of them have much clue what a modern job hunt looks like. Her husband worked in IT, but that agency isn't known for cutting edge tech. So I doubt it will look stellar on a resume, plus there's a bias against fed workers now. But with my sister's luck, he'll stumble into some perfect job opportunity after they've treated this like an extended vacation and my sister's life will barely change and she'll keep thinking "it's not that bad". I just want her to run face first into reality for once. Gently. Just a brief jaunt on the struggle bus, not a road trip to hobo town.

Maybe this makes me a bitch. Maybe I'm okay with being a bitch.

Once upon a time when I was a teenager I read a book about an older retired woman who was bored and started crashing weddings for fun. This eventually led to her crashing an event and shooting someone she hated (assassinating them). She kept waiting for the cops to catch her but as it turned out, as an older woman she was practically invisible and nobody could describe her accurately. She ended up becoming a contract killer because she had the perfect nondescript look. I don't really remember the ending - I think she ended up shooting the guy that recruited her and gave her the contracts.

Ah, I remembered the title. Miss Melville Regrets.

It's not that the book was so good (I remember not getting a lot of the NYC references), it's the idea that is interesting. As a middle aged woman, what could you get away with knowing people stereotype you as harmless and docile?

Someone has got to slow down this crazy train, and if it can't be done peacefully, if we can't trust we'll have fair midterm elections ... We've been trained to play by the nice rules so we're fumbling around with civilized solutions. Peaceful protest. Buy nothing day. Contact your congressperson. Wait until the next election. But law and order isn't a thing anymore.

I was thinking about how people are like seeds. Seeds sprout and thrive under different conditions, and for some, the right conditions are in disaster. Desert seeds wait for monsoon. Pine seeds wait for the heat of a forest fire. Some seeds have to be ingested by animals.

The ecology of our country has changed. I wonder what seeds will germinate and what new flowers will bloom.