Oh god, trying REALLY hard to not respond to my right-wing racist homophobic aunt on FB. She just posted a thing about how badly the Irish were treated (which is true) and finished up with (I am not making this up) "The blacks have NOTHING on us!" ("Us" = our family is part Irish.)

O_o THE HELL YOU SAY, WOMAN?

I'ma have to hide her on my feed or else I am going to lose my shit on her SO BAD.

WOOOOOOT! After some drama last night of stupid website failure and phone agent not being able to help, this morning it finally got worked out, and I am GOING TO CHILE! My friend Megan and I are going to go to the Atacama desert and to Santiago in March!

meara, that's excellent!

Steph, horrible relatives are horrible.

Ooh, excellent, meara!

Yay, meara!

So of course my new tv is problematic. It's having trouble connecting to the wifi, and my cable company remote is having trouble connecting to it! I mean, I can watch tv fine, but still.

So cool, meara! Are you going to see the Valley of the Moon?

That's the plan, Matt! We're planning to stay several days in San Pedro de Atacama, and do some of the crazy landscapes there, as well as some of the night-sky viewing (we checked the moon phases for when we're going, to make sure it would be dark). Hoping for excellent photography (my friend is super into that, I"m thinking I maybe need to take some classes before going??) And then we'll wind our way back down to Santiago for a few days.

I need to travel again. First gotta renew my *^{%!! passport.

Took Brian grocery shopping and to pick up his 'scripts. He got to use one of the motorized grocery carts. I got to mock his driving skills. Shopping with him is such the experience. Commentary on everything and everyone. Was markedly more efficient than normal because the cart was pokey so he wasn't backtracking. And it died in the checkout lane! But people are really extra nice if you're on crutches with a massively wrapped foot ( no cast until later) or if you're merely accompanying that person. Had wobbly old ladies holding doors open for me, shooing me in and an even more frail old guy help bag up B's groceries even though I clearly was able bodied.

It was a helper sorta day. Also got coffe for two vendors at the market. My two biggest flirts, but they asked. I just wouldn't let them pay. And even more nice was that when I mentioned who I was picking up the coffe for, Zeke' s gave me the vendor rate, taking me at my word (I'd forgotten there was one.)

Later, was listening to something on the radio and it reminded me of a kid, well, young guy, around here who has been befriending and helping the homeless, and who has been on my mind a lot lately....and I kinda wondered, was this a sort of unconscious reaction to all the ugliness? Or just happenstance? Either way, made things a little less doom and gloom.

Question in New Scientist this week: "If a dog's sense of smell is thousands of times more sensitive than ours, why do they have to get so close to smell each other's bottoms?"

NS is offering £25 for an answer to this burning conundrum.