No, I Wasn’t in Jail: My Unplanned SSHBBN Vacation

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

…The Mouse, Robert Burns (in “plain English“)

We all experience being brought down like Bobbie Burns’ Mouse!

Forgive me for being self-indulgent, but take me for example.

A month ago I posted here that I was going to Chicago for a few days to attend the DNC protests. About a year ago, although nothing was jumpin’ ‘yet, I’d been invited to join an old Yippie! contingent planning to be here, and it sounded like fun. Plan A: although I had no formal agreement, with the Columbus Free Press to cover the protests and other activities I would file daily reports for the paper. Plan B: try to keep up with Baby Box news and post one or two short pieces over convention week.

Alas! Well-laid schemes!

The trouble began at our hostel. No one else seemed to have trouble getting online, but my computer demanded that I take down all firewalls to get internet access. When I inquired at the front desk about this, no one knew what I was talking about. My phone worked fine, but I wasn’t about to peck out stories on it.

I adopted Plan C: enjoy myself and Chicago. After all, I’m hostelling in the Loop. What could go wrong?

My Neighborhood: Trump Tower Chicago Style. He wasn’t there. Not a cop in sight.

And then it started. Wednesday evening I got what I thought was a no-big-deal sinus infection.

By Thursday afternoon my no-big-deal sinus problem had grown into an annoying hacking cough, but still nothing much out of the ordinary for this vexing ilfelong malfunction. Just a big bother. This too will pass. Maybe all the traffic and its fumes on Wabash Avenue is aggravating it.

My Yippie friends and I drove over to Grant Park, the birthplace more-or-less ,of Yippie! and the site of the historic 1968 Democratic Party Dick Daley-facilitated police riots, where the march on this year’s DNC Convention HQ was scheduled to launch. I took lots of pictures; picked up some buttons, listened to some engaging Palestinian rap; and generally wandered around. A party atmosphere prevailed even though the focus remained strong on genocide in Gaza.

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The march to DemCentral should have been short, but the Chicago cops herded us around in a 2-3mile circle that never got near enough to the convention center to cause a ruckus.

Like most peaceful protests that lack the intervention of cops with tasers, pepper spray, and clubs, this march was excruciatingly boring. Many of us had no idea where we were exactly, especially when it got dark, so we just kept on walking mindlessly. Eventually, thousands of riot-geared cops (seriously!) boxed us in under a bridge where we…just stood and sweated. There were, in fact, more cops than protesters. I attended the demo at the the Israeli Consulate on Tuesday and a cop told us that about 2,000 police were there to control the few hundred Palestinian protesters and counter Israeli rotesters in their face-off, which pretty much was nothing more than a bunch of screaming. It didn’t take a genius to figure out ho many were herding us.

Leaders of the Thursday march on DemCenteral, wherever they were, wanted to keep the protest going despite the stall, so they failed to mention to us sweaty slogger- proles that we were at the end of the trail. All I could think about was “people are dying in Gaza; I can surely endure this for a few hours.” I got interviewed live by a Unicorn Riot reporter. I’m not sure what I said, except if Trump is elected adoptee rights will go straight in the sewer. I was wearing my Bastard Nation t-shirt. Eventually, most of us dropped out and after a surprisingly short walk, found ourselves back at Grant Park where we had begun the March to Nowhere! My feet felt like they were swelled to a size 24 that would fall off if I took one more step.

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The next afternoon I caught my train at Union Station (was Nosferatu filmed in its claustrophobic dank underground passages?) for San Antonio where I would take a Greyhound the next afternoon back home to Corpus Christi. (I refuse to fly.)

My “sinus” symptoms increased during the 34-hour trip to San Antonio—- 4 hours late due to a derailed freight train ahead of us and other smaller problems. A most humiliating and embarrassing ride. Double masked, with hands over my mouth, choking down coughs as much as I could so to not annoy others or spread whatever I had. At least my train car was pretty empty. I checked into my hotel in the middle of the night, and felt so awful the next morning that I stayed over 1 more night. Then 2. Then 3. I haven’t been so sick in 30 years. Covid? Pneumonia? Freaking whooping cough? To top it off, my on- and-off again sciatica (or whatever) acted up– cramping my right leg from hip to ankle. I couldn’t get out of bed much less walk. A friend in SA brought me some cough medicine, a netty pot, and an ice pack and Thursday drove me back to Corpus. As he rolled me out of the hotel in a wheelchair he said”You look like you belong in the hospital.” I hadn’t eaten in 4 days. (Sorry, it didn’t occur to me to take a selfie!)

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I planned originally to call this blog “Commies Gave Me Covid” since through the entire march no matter where I was situated in the mob there was a communist drum corps non-stop beating their drums and chanting, something like, “We want Revolution. Communism is the Solution.” I’m sure Gazans appreciated the sentiment. Not! I don’t remember which party they were affiliated with outside of it being pretty useless’ and for all their noise they refused to be interviewed by the press. It was not without irony that I told Unicorn Riot that nearly 32 years to the day I had been on the barricades in St. Petersburg doing my little bit to overthrow communism in the Soviet Union and now these goofuses were demanding its settlement in Gaza or some unnamed location. I was not the only person that wished they would just STFU. They were fun for a few minutes but not helpful after that. They would have given Lenin a headache.

The folks I spent most of my time with in Chicago all tested negative for Covid. I did 2 home tests when I got back to Corpus that didn’t register anything–positive or negative. Maybe I did them wrong, but it was probably too late by then anyway. The kicker is that I’d been trying to get a Covid booster for quite some time, but none were available in town. As soon as I got back I received a text telling me to come on down. (sigh!). Oh, that’s right. We’re not to concern ourselves with Covid anymore according to what a friend calls ( think) the Center for Disease Capitalism.

I am unsure that Covid, which I have carefully avoided for 4 years, was the culprit. While I had one Covid symptom nearly everything else points to an upper respiratory infection. It really doesn’t make much difference, of course. Whatever It was, I am sure I contacted it not at the super-spreader DNC but on the 3-hour bus trip from Corpus to San Antonio on the first leg of the Chicago trip. The temperature that day was 101 with a heat index of 108. The bus had no air conditioning (seriously!) and windows were sealed. No ventilation. Babies screamed straight through. Masking would have made it even worse. The cheerful driver said, “Sorry. this is the bus they gave me.” It looks fine in the picture. Who knew it came from hell?

So, today, I’m feeling good finally, and am back online here. I spent the last few days catching up on SHBB Inc activities–aka death by a thousand cuts. I have tech problems with the stats page, but other than that it is all up to date. There is a lot of dysfunctional-to-crazy Baby Box stuff to write about. Angelika, the Personal Assistant Cat, and I are putting together some new blogs. Some will be short and sweet hot takes. Angelika’s own personal assistant cat, Boba will be recruited to help since she shows signs of outrage, discernment, and writing skills. She likes to chews on a picture of JD Vance and wants to meet him if he comes to town.

Thanks to Carolyn, Charles, Chris, CJ, Michelle, and Richard

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