February 10, 2022

Is it normal to just want to sleep all the time?

I am mentally and emotionally worn out.

My brother died in mid-January. He was my only sibling and our parents died many years ago. Never married, no kids. He was 67. He was not in great health but I did not expect this.

He had two women living in his apartment to help with rent. Luckily they called 911 when he had trouble breathing. One called me on his cell phone -- I had no idea who these women were -- to let me know but was hysterical so a cop took over the phone and explained the situation.

I arranged for his cremation over the phone and email. Still waiting for his ashes. No cause of death yet - the medical examiner has a huge backlog and so does the lab.

He was always hitting me up for money, claiming he had no food left. It turned out he was not only getting paid $200-$300 a week plus a monthly sales commission at his job, plus collecting Social Security, plus having these roommates helping with rent, but he was also hitting up friends for money. One friend finally disclosed to me that he had never given up his cocaine habit, as he had sworn to me many years ago. I felt like I had been hit across the stomach with a wooden plank. Part of me is so damn angry at him.

Now his financial sob stories made sense and I feel like a complete fool. I knew he smoked a lot of weed as well as cigarettes, and I recently had told him he ought to cut down on tobacco as it was ridiculously expensive and not good for his health.

The "boyfriend" of one of the women contacted me about Pete's belongings. I can't drive well enough any more to drive 250 miles to Paterson NJ by myself. And I'm terrified to go there - there's a lot of violent crime. My husband couldn't take time off from work.

I told the guy they could keep or sell anything of my brothers but asked them to please mail me his personal papers and photos, and I would reimburse them. They sold his non-working car to salvage for a few hundred dollars, but my brother owned nothing of value to the best of my knowledge, just a disassembled motorcycle, and some crummy furniture and a tv, which they were welcome to. This saved me the nightmare of having to go there and clean the place out. Still haven't got his papers, but the guy texted that he'd been injured in a car accident a week ago and didn't have a car anymore.

Meanwhile our whole front yard is dug up to replace a badly eroded 50-plus year old sewer line. It's costing an insane amount of money. We can't do laundry and it's taking twice as long as they said, and a good part of my flower garden is destroyed, which depresses me even more.

And to my sorrow, someone I considered a long time close friend responded to my Facebook post about my brother with a short sympathetic reply and nothing more. No phone call, no email, nothing. I can't understand it and feel like maybe the few people I consider close friends aren't all as close as I thought they were. My husband and daughter have been great, but I've been taking long naps, even two a day, and never did that before. I just feel so lonely - my brother and I talked often and he always had a lot of great jokes.

I'm going to be 70 in a few weeks and I feel so old and tired. Everything seems futile.

February 9, 2022

That was then

Union Blue And Confederate Gray Veterans Reunite At Gettysburg In The Year 1913 — Standing By “The Bloody Angle” Where Pickett’s Charge Took Place 50 Years Earlier And Over 3,000 Soldiers On Both Sides Lost Their Lives — Now They Clasp Hands Over The Stone Wall As Brothers



If only...

February 9, 2022

Thank you to the nice person

who gave me a second heart!

February 9, 2022

Private

February 8, 2022

It's never too late

February 3, 2022

US alleges Russia planning false flag operation against Ukraine using 'graphic' video

Source: CNN

The US is alleging that Russia has been preparing to "fabricate a pretext for an invasion" of Ukraine, this time using a "graphic" video that would depict a fake attack against Russia.

A senior administration official told CNN that the US has intelligence suggesting that the Russian government, with the help of Russia's intelligence services, has been planning to produce a propaganda video depicting graphic scenes of a "staged false explosion with corpses, actors depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations and military equipment," the official said. The US believes Russia has already recruited actors to be involved in the fake attack.

The US believes that the military equipment used in the video of the fabricated attack would be made to look like it is Ukrainian or from an allied nation. The official said the video could include images of Bayraktar drones, which NATO ally Turkey has provided to Ukraine, "as a means to implicate NATO in the attack."

The fake attack in the video would be aimed against Russian sovereign territory or against Russian-speaking people, the official said, and would "be released to underscore a threat to Russia's security and to underpin military operations," the official said. "This video, if released, could provide Putin the spark he needs to initiate and justify military operations against Ukraine."'

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/03/politics/us-alleges-russian-false-flag-ukraine/index.html

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The Washington Post also reported this:

U.S. accuses Russia of planning to film false attack as pretext for Ukraine invasion
By Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, Ashley Parker and John Hudson

Russia is considering filming a fake attack against Russian territory or Russian-speaking people by Ukrainian forces as a pretext to invade its neighbor, the Biden administration said Thursday, warning that the resulting propaganda footage could include “graphic scenes of a staged false explosion with corpses.”

Russia has already recruited the people who would be involved in the fabricated attack video, and Russian intelligence is intimately involved in the effort, a senior Biden administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the administration.

“We believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations, as well as military equipment at the hands of Ukraine or the West, even to the point where some of this equipment would be made to look like it was Western-supplied,” Defense Department press secretary John Kirby said Thursday during a briefing at the Pentagon.

Such a Russian disinformation effort would be “right out of their playbook,” Kirby said, noting that most activity of that nature is approved at the highest levels of the Russian government. Kirby said the Biden administration felt it was important, when possible, “to call it out.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/02/03/russia-ukraine-staged-attack/
(paywall)

February 2, 2022

do this

February 1, 2022

Tomorrow, February 2, is Imbolc, Candlemas and Groundhog's Day

February 2 is also known as St. Brigid's Day and the Feast of the Purification of Mary.

The groundhog's weather prognostication is based on on an old tradition of forecasting the weather on February 2.

If Candlemas day be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
If on Candlemas day it be showre and rain
Winter is gone and will not come again.
(John Ray, 1678)

Men were wonte for to discerne
By candlemas day what wedder shulde holde.
(John Skelton, 1523)

If Maries purifieng daie,
Be cleare and bright with sunnie raie,
The frost and cold shal be much more,
After the feast than was before.
(Reginald Scot, 1584)

Folklife Today
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/category/holidays/candlemas/

February 1, 2022

Imbolc marks the Irish pagan start of spring - something is stirring

Irish Central
By Kathy Scott
Trailblazery
Feb 01, 2022

The Wheel of the Year is a medicine wheel marked and celebrated by most indigenous cultures around the earth in their own ways. In Ireland, the ancient ones measured their cosmos in wheels, spirals, in the movement of the stars, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon.

The ancient Irish were deeply connected to the land, the seasons and the cycles of the natural world and honored these portals with ritual and ceremony. Our ancestors have gifted us with a rich cultural inheritance aligned with the rhythms and patterns of the natural world. This cyclical way of living offers great wisdom that can support and resource our wellbeing today as ‘ancestors-in-training’.

The word Imbolc derives from the Irish, ‘i mbolg’, meaning ‘in the belly’, or "first milk" in the old Irish Neolithic language. It heralds the birthing season, as the soon-to-be-born lambs are growing in their mother’s bellies. Another powerful metaphor to describe this time is ‘winter pregnant with summer’. The seeds of summer are still hidden deep in the earth, in the womb of the goddess and while the worst of the winter darkness is over, Spring has not fully arrived yet.

In the ancient Celtic tradition, there is a celebration of the relationship between the dualistic forces of light and darkness, between what is seen and unseen. These principles move in cycles - day and night, life and death and in every decrease and increase. Nature sleeps during winter and awakens during summer. The Celts saw the interplay between these two states as essential to the continuation of the cycle of life upon the land. The year is divided into two halves, Samos (summer) and Giamos (winter). For our pagan ancestors, the Giamos half of the year has its midpoint at Imbolc, this is the point at which ‘decrease’ turns to ‘increase’.

More at https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/imbolc-irish-pagan-spring