I finally came down with a respiratory illness - my first in 34 months. I've taken several tests, all negative, so I assume it's a cold or maybe RSV which is going around in my area. It's not too bad so far: started with a runny nose and sore neck (swollen lymph nodes) then progressed into nasal congestion, fatigue, loss of appetite, and a dry cough. I'm on day 4 now. I WFH so no worry about going to the office. I'm staying home until I am symptom-free and will mask after that for a few days.

We have a neighbor who is clearly well down the rabbit hole. He's a 76-year old white guy who watches Faux Noise 24/7. Yesterday my husband was having a chat with him and the conversation turned to the gate the neighbor built into his back fence. Our yards border an agricultural area, with no homes behind us. The guy told hubby the reason he built a gate onto the field is because he is getting old and can't run any more and he wanted an easy way to quickly exit his property in case antifa invaded our neighborhood. The conversation turned to how he is considering tearing up his back yard to plant a vegetable garden just in case things get as bad as he's heard they will. He's also convinced that the government is listening in on all of our phone conversations and snooping on our online activity. His wife has told him she wants to buy a gun. The kicker in all of this is that we live in an upper middle class gated golf course community in a semi-rural area of the SF Bay region of CA. Not wealthy but everyone here is doing well and has nothing to fear from antifa. After hubby shared this with me and my laughter about the notion that "antifa" was coming for us settled down, I reflected on how sad it was that this couple is living in fear because of their addiction to Faux and other RWNJ information sources.

So my anti-vaxxer cousin in Canada finally came down with covid. I knew it was only a matter of time. She refused to get vaccinated because she has "auto-immune" issues (she's a drama queen and while she does have some health issues she is fully ensconced in the naturopathy bullshit, etc.) and believed she'd have a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine. She told me her friend died from the vaccine - this story has changed over the months since her friend died. She is a firm supporter of the Freedumb trucker caravan in Canada. I still have a fb account but don't use it regularly. I heard that my good friend's mom had passed away yesterday so I logged in today to leave a message of condolence on her page and caught sight of my niece's post that her family was recovering from covid. Turns out my cousin got sick about 12 days ago and had to be hospitalized, got Remdesivir (at least she isn't so much of an AV that she's refusing treatment and relying on Ivermectin), developed bacterial pneumonia, etc. She is home with in-home nursing care but may be having a dead cat bounce as she had this to say: "I’m not out of the woods yet but I feel like I have turned a corner, I’m so grateful to be alive." I don't think she realizes yet what she has done to her health but not getting vaccinated and then getting covid was a really stupid move on her part. I hope she recovers but I suspect we will all be hearing about long covid now for the forseeable future.