I Have Come Back Home and The Funny Alexis Returns; Borrowing from Andy Borowitz and Rebecca Mead; Silly Story Comment on Instagram; Adroit Defined; Travails of Potential UK Travelers; UK Travel Restrictions Prove Problematic for Future Marriage Plans; Sad Written Results of MRI; Two Photos with Dolphins Kissing and Dogs Kissing

I awoke early this morning and opened a story line on Instagram posted by a young extremely privileged young woman. She wrote “Keep Palestine in your thoughts.” Or something like that. I responded – can no longer find the thread as it is in Story – but said something like: “I did what I could and took a strong stance with regard to Israel on my blog but that is all I can do. I must now tend to things closer at home and try to make a difference here in the people’s lives who love me.” She lives far away and it is MOST improbable that I will ever see her again or that she reads this blog.

I definitely needed to gird my loins as bad news emerged within thirty minutes. But in great story telling fashion you shall read about it at the end.

Alexis McBride, the funny one is back, for a little while anyway. The funny Alexis did not leave her personal life, nor did she leave her Instagram existence. It is just you, the poor blog readers that bore the brunt of my seriousness and righteous anger. It is still there, by the way, but if people have not listened to my logic as yet, they never will. I did at least try and possibly put this blog to good use – not just entertaining a bunch of strangers (to me).

It is back to Andy Borowitz for some borrowed humor. Republics Claim January 6th Rioters Were Middle Schoolers on a Field Trip appeared most recently. “Republicans on Capitol Hill are arguing that a proposed January 6th commission is uncalled for because the rioters were merely middle schoolers on a field trip.Speaking to reporters, Senator Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, said that, after reviewing footage of the riot, “It’s plain to see that this was just a bunch of middle-school kids who got a little rowdy.” His hilarity continues: “I’ve had teen-agers, and I know what kind of horseplay and tomfoolery they can get up to,” he said. “I didn’t set up a commission every time they raised a little heck.”Claiming that the rioters’ behavior should be expected of “a bunch of crazy kids looking to cut loose,” Johnson said that the responsibility for investigating them belongs “not to Congress but to their teachers.”
“I think the teachers need to find out who were the class clowns behind these stunts, and say to them, ‘Any more nonsense like this and you’re not going to the water park on the last day of school,’ ” he said” I almost fell off my bed laughing at “you are not going to the water park on the last day of school”. It is moderately easy to fall out of bed these days as the bed has been taken over by unicorns. I sent my most recent (most serious) blog off to Chris with a picture ordering that it not be placed on that blog. he Subject Line was Unicorns Making Love on My Bed.
Me: This obviously does not match the seriousness of the Palestine blog so do not post with blog – yet.

I seem to be back with my New Yorker again – Al Jazeera is most adroit, but not funny, Adroit is a great word with fabulous synonyms: adept, dexterous, deft, nimble-fingered, handy; able, capable, competent, skilled, expert, masterly, masterful, master, practiced, polished, slick, proficient, accomplished, gifted, talented, peerless; quick-witted, quick-thinking, quick, clever, intelligent, brilliant, bright, smart, sharp, cunning, artful, wily, resourceful, astute, shrewd, canny, ingenious, inventive;, wizard, demon, ace, A1, on the ball, savvy, genius; crackerjack. Once suggested (on the blog) that Al Jazeera hire me to do humor but nothing came of it. Oh well, what the hell.

So again turning to the New Yorker for a hot of the presses article dealing with cooped up Brits unable to travel because of covid. It has great relevance for my life suddenly as you shall read.
It was written by Rebecca Mead: What Great Britain Needs is a Vacation. “It would not be an overstatement to say that a pillar of the British way of life is the ability to get the hell out of Britain and take advantage of the way of life of other places, ones where the sun shines reliably every day, where you can enjoy a dip in the sea without donning a wetsuit, and where—why, yes, I’d love some tapas and sangria, muchas gracias.”

The article went on to discuss the travails of potential travelers. “This was the scene in February of 2021. “Meanwhile, a mandatory ten-day quarantine in a government-approved hotel, at a cost of almost two and a half thousand dollars, was imposed on travellers arriving in Britain from one of a so-called “red list” of countries, including the popular destinations of Portugal and the United Arab Emirates. Anyone who sought to evade the quarantine faced the possibility of a ten-year prison sentence. That, as the newspapers pointed out, put the transgression on par with making death threats, indecent assault, and the carrying of a firearm.”

The extremely well researched article moved on. “In April 2021,, when the average minimum temperature in the U.K. was the lowest recorded since the tail end of the last global pandemic, in 1922, and farmers and gardeners alike were faced with the frostiest spring in sixty years, the government announced that it would devise a “traffic light” system to permit the resumption of international travel in mid-May. Countries were to be categorized as “green” (minimal tests required and no need to quarantine upon return to the U.K.) “amber” (a ten-day quarantine at home and a battery of PCR tests), and “red” (handily identical to the already stipulated restrictions upon arrivals from a red-list country). By the middle of May, when the U.K. had experienced almost as much rain as it usually does for the entire month—with flash floods, hailstorms, and dead rats and dirty diapers washing up onto the streets out of sewer drains—the entire nation was ready for a mini-break at the very least.
Unfortunately, the green list, when it was announced, offered little succor to would-be British tourists, nor did it assuage the homesickness of more than six million foreign nationals who live in the U.K., including more than three and a half million Europeans. The permitted destinations included several countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, that aren’t allowing visitors from the U.K. to enter in the first place. Brunei was on the list, but the last time that small nation tried to promote tourism, human-rights activists, including George Clooney, called for a boycott, citing a penal code that includes the amputation of limbs for theft and stoning for adultery. And let’s not even talk about travel to another country on the green list, Israel. One of the green-list destination was the South Sandwich Islands, part of a remote British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic, which have managed to keep their rates of coronavirus vanishingly low by being uninhabited by humans. The islands are accessible only by sea and offer no accommodation facilities, unless you’re a penguin, in which case there’s plenty of bleak, gray shoreline to perch on”

Mead continues to expose the massive mismanagement of the governing folks. “Within hours of the borders being opened and the gates at Heathrow being operational, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, told the House of Commons that “people should not travel to amber-list countries for a holiday.” A day later, another minister, George Eustice, appeared on the BBC’s flagship morning radio program, “Today,” and contradicted this statement, saying, “There will be reasons why people feel they need to travel either to visit family or indeed to visit friends.” Eustice—whose nickname, George Useless, is so irresistible that one of his parliamentary colleagues, the Conservative M.P. Peter Bone, called him by it on the same broadcast—was quickly slapped down by Lord Bethell, a health minister, who described travel as “dangerous” and urged people to stay home. Eventually, the Prime Minister weighed in. “I think it is very important for people to grasp what an amber-list country is,” he said, though his own ministers had flailed around the question like ill-prepared novice drivers failing the written test at the D.M.V. “It is not somewhere where you should be going on holiday.” The whole performance did not inspire confidence, and commentators at even reliably pro-Conservative organs were dismayed. “Is eating tapas in Alicante or linguine vongole in Puglia now deemed as unpatriotic as listening to Wagner at the height of the Blitz?” asked Judith Woods, a columnist at the Telegraph.

Now this is funny! Here is the link so that you can read the entire article. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/great-britain-needs-a-vacation?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker.

But this is the reason why travel to and from the UK is of great interest to me. There is a new man In my life and guess where he lives? London. Well oops, but there is good news about this man who is MOST handsome, only 34, looks great on a horse (he has more than one and races his stable throughout the world). I did explain the situation to him – me being a Muslim and in need of marrying a man before any love making could occur. It ends up that he too is a Muslim and did ask me to marry him. I responded that I could share and he could have more than one wife as I cannot have children. He was funny, he has a great sense of humor.
He: A threesome in the bedroom?
Me: Of course not. The Qur’an says a man can have more than one wife if he can afford it and if he pays equal attention to each of them. I will keep my US apartment and travel here frequently so she can have time with you. Then I will come back and you will be most glad to see me.
He: It sounds like a plan.

Well, the plan has been postponed as he cannot travel at the moment and it looks like left knee replacement is going to be taking place. Here are the results of the MRI of the knee. I do not understand it at all but it does not look good.
IMPRESSION:
Advanced medial compartment arthrosis with maceration medial meniscus.
Advanced lateral compartment arthrosis with tearing of posterior horn and body segments later meniscus.
Chronic anterior cruciate ligament insufficiency
Cartilage fissure to bone in patella and torchlea. .

That cannot be good news. Oh well. Took matters into hand, called to make appointment with surgeon just in case. She has retired but made an appointment with her replacement for June 28, 2021. So my life is back on hold but am surrounded by a great deal of love and support.
Today is an absolutely beautiful day so I did get the news at exactly the right moment. Had breakfast on the patio, visiting with many. Took the picture of these two dogs kissing and have their owners permission to place it on the blog. Darling dogs – one just three months old.
Alexis picturing kissing dogs and dolphins on her blog? Yes indeed! And the man? Well you will have to take my word for it. I made him laugh, he texted that he was busy but would get in touch tomorrow.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *