Spouse is in the late sept class.

He told his boss that he might not be going in 3 weeks because of the missing waiver/HR debacle, and apparently he's built up some real goodwill, because his upper ups weren't having it. In the span of his shift yesterday, strings were pulled and calls were made and he was contacted by an anxious deep state vogon saying that his boss told him that spouse's timetable is good and the waiver won't prevent him from going even if it's not completed before training starts. It's a formality, but HR has to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is. Spouse just won't be required to twiddle his thumbs in limbo while they do it. Spouse says he feels bad because he thinks one of the deep state vogons had their day ruined (classic spouse - personally, I hope there was pants shitting), but he never asks for special favors and he's been so very patient through this whole long process. The fact that his bosses stepped up for him and made the problem go away is quite deserved, imho. Thanks, bosses.

So we're good. All lights are green. Spouse works through this weekend and then he's on leave for a couple weeks to quarantine and get his ducks in order. There's a supply list of things we need to buy and such. I'm glad he's done after 9/11 because I expect Biden's vaccine mandate will send the red hats into a furious tizzy and things might get more unpredictable. Good time for spouse to transition from his old job to the new job. Get a break from the madness.

I hear rumors of a govt shutdown at the end of the month. Fantastic, super great. If there's a shutdown that means spouse's paychecks stop (no idea if there would be any impact to his new job training). The shutdown in 2018 taught us to make sure we have savings to cover the gap and ever since then we always get a little nervous in sept. It's like if it were a normal thing for companies to whimsically decide to withhold pay on the months going into the holidays. Spouse kept working like normal and when the shutdown ended we got his delayed paychecks. We didn't get screwed out of any pay like govt contractors. So hopefully it won't cause the training to pause and at worst it means some delayed income. We can handle that for a little while without harm.

Obvs spouse and I are vaccinated and the vaccine mandate isn't a problem for us. I dunno what these people thought was going to happen, but covid vaccines being required for military and healthcare seems like a given at minimum. I don't mind people questioning vaccines, or willingly shouldering the risk of not being vaccinated including being a lower priority for medical care or losing a job. Hard reality: govt + big medicine has done some truly awful things to certain groups of people. Being able to question and choose is good. Just don't be surprised if nobody wants the liability of having you on the payroll. Making a stink about refusing vaccines but then running to the ER and begging them for whatever drugs or experimental treatments they can get shows a lack of forethought and commitment. I wish someone would start a chain of woo-woo hospitals and let capitalism sort out what works and what doesn't. Like, do it. You don't trust western medicine? Go sit in the crystal room and realign your energies and see if that fixes your kidney stone. Go to a hospital where google experts will hook you up with horse dewormer and pray over you 24/7. Do it. Take the ambulance ride there. Bet your life. You believe or you don't. It's the spoiled teenager "rebel without a clue" attitude that rankles me. When the reality of eminent death punches them in the face, they beg modern medicine for the biggest aborted fetus cocktail they can jam in their veins. That's just weak songwriting, Petey. Bet your life on your principles or sit down and shut up. We got no follow through in this culture. We post whatever sounds good in the moment on instagram and then wonder why we don't get any respect. We're spoiled teenagers able to throw a temper tantrum and scream obscenities at our parents only because deep down all parties know know they won't kick us out in the street. Grow up. Of what value is your life if you're just a loudmouth whiner with no real principles, anyway? You think we need those people around, so they can carry on with their precious mission to work middle management and hold court at the local sports bar? Live how you want to die, fuckers. It's the best we get as far as dignity goes. It's the only real coin we ever spend.

Personally I'm a lot more worried about the long term health effects of things like artificial sweeteners or pesticides or some of the drugs that are on the market, than vaccines. You want something scary, look at birth control. Also, call me paranoid, but it ain't right for something to be zero calories. Eventually there's a price to be paid for cheating nature. Whenever I have a delicious coke zero I wonder if I'm rolling the dice on brain cancer (but so delicious). All that fake sugar can't be good. And I trust the food corps much much less than I trust the medical community that came up with the covid vaccine. There's loads of ridiculous stuff we put in our bodies every day with no idea what it's going to do in 20, 30 years. Freaking out about a tested vaccine seems like the least of our problems right now. Shit, climate change might do us in way before anything else has a chance.

Why do we freak out about one boogeyman danger (vaccines) and meanwhile flip the bird at real danger (climate change)? I don't get it. Either life is precious or it isn't. Either you hold principles or you don't. Pick one and live the consequences and shut up.

I tried to make a chicken gravy treat for the cats. Total failure, F-. They didn't even acknowledge it as food. Not even so much as an interested sniff. Spouse had a good laugh, at least, as he watched them flat ignore the cup of glop on the way over to their crunchie bowl. Did you try to make us food? No. That's not a food.

Clearly making a tasty wet treat is going to be more challenging than I thought. I have underestimated the sophistication of the tuna juice slurpers. I have to do more recipe research, and get another chicken.