Nuclear war?

We live in a globalized world. What’s happening to a country on the other side of the world affects the lives of those living in countries on the opposite side of the world.

While bombs aren’t falling on my head, seeing them fall on civilians in Ukraine is nauseating and feels super close somehow.

I woke up yesterday morning to read my morning New York Times blurb and in it Putin was quoted as saying, “(if any other nations choose to interfere with (his) invasion of Ukraine, they will face) “consequences greater than any you have faced in history”.

!!!! Nowadays big-budget apocalypse movies have been focusing on imminent environmental doom as our planet shows explicit symptoms of its intolerance of our human actions… but it turns out that 80s culture had it right all along. My childhood fear was right on point. Nuclear war may in fact be imminent!

My fear of nuclear war wasn’t appeased when I read that Russian forces were attempting to take over Chernobyl, the infamous defunct but still technically active nuclear power plant.

It was then chilling to hear the Russian forces had succeeded in taking over the Chernobyl complex.

So, while Ukrainian President Zelensky had been playing down the pending invasion so as to allegedly stave off panic in his country, he said something much more forward in response to his military’s efforts to keep Russians military out of Chernobyl:

Essentially, he said that Putin has officially begun waging war on Europe.

Zalensky seemed to identify Ukraine as being part of Europe and… well, with 7000 American troops being deployed to Germany to defend NATO states, it seems Europe proper is hearing that message loud and clear.

Press reports have said nothing like this has happened since World War II.

That wasn’t that long ago. I guess we’ve had a good run in between that world war and this one… if War World III should properly manifest.

How absolutely terrifying.

David and I haven’t yet dug out our sub-basement shelter. So that’s been moved up on the old house task list.

Not to make light of a tragic, unacceptable situation, but it is surreal. And not a huge surprise. I guess it’s always been simply a matter of time before we humans destroy ourselves and the world we inhabit.

In all of the YouTube footage of the Russian invasion, there was also an interview with a young Ukrainian man wearing glasses who had two AKs in his hands. He said he had no idea how to use the guns but all he needed was “a quiet space” and he’d figure it out.

He held the two weapons out like they were archival objects, each gun simply resting on the palm of his hands.

Putting myself in his shoes, I guess I’d also grab two AKs given the opportunity if my country was being actively bombed by hostile forces and then I’d also feel like I just needed a little time to figure out guns.

I’m not a gun person.

But war is war.

And finding a quiet space is always a priority for me so… trying to find it in a war zone with two AK 47s is more of an insane upgrade on an everyday reality.

…Speaking of Mundane Questions of Life and Death

My appointment with my neurological researcher – the ALS expert – is on Monday. But what’s funny about it is how he’ll probably just reiterate what he said the last time:

“Don’t give up. People give up when they’re in this situation. Don’t do it. Don’t give up.”

It’s not like he can diagnose ALS/FTD in a person-to-person chat (well, not yet, at least… I’m sure it can get to that point). But, in our first meeting, it was rather disarming to have someone spend his time openly encouraging me to not commit suicide.

I’m not suicidal (I’m the Ukrainian guy with glasses getting guns to figure out) but I realized how suicide was always on the table so… I appreciated the neurologist assessing this option in such a passionate way.

Also, just finding his office was and will likely be an accomplishment in itself.

I feel like they simplified the instructions from my last visit. However, the comment about “construction” makes me feel it isn’t going to be any easier to find the guy. This is because there is construction everywhere in Milwaukee so it’s definitely going to be near and around this hospital. In 2020, when the city was shut down, one would think that was the time to embark on road construction projects.

But winter of 2022 also apparently seemed ideal to whoever is in charge of road maintenance here in Milwaukee.

Sure. Maybe they got that infrastructure funding recently so now they have the money to do all this but… it’s always a question of should you be doing this.

Right now.

Also, Milwaukee has finally received its first “winter weather” with an ice storm the other day and now – last night – a bunch of snow.

Consequently, earlier today, I was almost murdered by a truck with a plow which was barreling down our super narrow non-plowed alley (while not plowing it) and so I had to put our car in reverse to avoid impact but, since the side street was also not plowed, I didn’t really move back too far as I had no traction whatsoever.

But credit to the truck as the person driving it didn’t hit me.

Or make eye contact with me.

The situation inspired some anger and, though I had lost all the physical momentum I needed to get up the unplowed, narrow alley hill, Car felt my epileptic energy and magically – somehow – sprung to life and got up the alley hill and then also got up the hill of our driveway which was still coated with ice…

I was rocking back and forth inside the car, encouraging it as it spun, spun, spun

and the motion got Car the boost it needed to roar into our garage.

Despite all odds.

And I didn’t even drive through the back of the garage or anything.

I then got out of the car and grabbed a shovel to not only shovel the snow off our front porch and the stairs and sidewalk in front of our house but to also take the opportunity to violently use a corner of the shovel to chip away the ice below the snow.

My husband and I had purchased two containers of “dog friendly” salt but apparently that product didn’t melt the ice as much as weakened it enough for you to then look like an unhinged person as you hacked at and then broke up the ice with a corner of your shovel.

So I then came inside to receive an unexpected interview from an organization which has been rated/awardee Best Workplace three years in a row by the city. Since it’s a care-giving organization, that’s pretty incredible as care-giving is a brutally difficult field with low pay and high turnover.

But the HR person and I talked FTD and also what they’d pay me ($4K more than they would usually pay someone else) so… maybe I have a new job?

I’ll find out next Friday, I guess, as that’s when I’ll go in to meet everyone at… my new… workplace…?

It’s a small caregiving organization so, if I do start to exhibit symptoms of ALS/FTD, at minimum I’ll know people who will help.

Maybe they could eventually take care of me!

This sounds like a better plan than being eaten by wolves.

In any case, I continue to teach June Carter Cash to use her teeth:

Because it’s a wild world and it’s also nuclear.

So we need to learn how to use our teeth and to refuse to give up. Fight when we should. Rest when we need to.

And never ever give up.

It’s the 1980s again and this Cold War is heating up. There’s also a man sitting outside in his car in front of our house and the car doesn’t seem to be on.

It’s cold outside. It’s winter. And he’s been out there for at least 3 hours now. He was right there for my unhinged-chomping-ice-with-shovel-wildly activity so I saw him up-close and he was conscious then.

So… sigh. The other week someone called the police for a welfare check as a person was in their car looking non-responsive and then the police came and the person in the car jumped out of the car and shot the police officer and ran…

So I’m not super interested in calling the police due to the abysmal relations between them and the community.

But I’ll keep my eyes on this person. If he’s still out there by 3PM, I may have to go and check on him to see if he needs help.

And then I’ll probably end up in his basement.

Guns, lab rats, jobs, teeth, crisis situations, killers, homelessness, murderers, war… never really a quiet and dull moment in this life…

which makes life one big crazy mean adventure. 🖤