THE LITTLE PRESIDENT WHO CRIED WOLF

It seems Trussia is upset that his official voice has not settled the jittery market regarding THE VIRUS fears.  

Couple things:  The market has been overdue for a correction. No one thought the correction would come about due to such an external force.  Most analysts would have been looking at the financial sector as well as mergers and acquisitions.  

The Fed is yet to be heard from, however they are currently at 2 percent and is kind of feels that meager offerings in the quarter percent range may well have little to zero effect on the decline the DOW.

Trussia has one real bullet in his arsenal and that is tariff. The current tariffs can be sliced and stir fried to aid the Chinese.  Pretty sure the Prez will hang on to that advantage with grim death.  Besides there is those Billions of bucks.  However, those bucks may well dwindle rapidly as Chinese factories close.  No parts to ship, no tariff to collect. No money, no money, no money.  

Now for a short discussion of Covid 19.  There is a lot of speculation the media.  I do not rely on Anything being speculated on the web.  I would seriously advise that everyone who I know and love, ignore that stuff likewise.

CDC says wash your hands using SOAP.  Sing Happy Birthday (Inside your head) twice which is 20 seconds. Keep your hands below your neck.  Try not to shake hands.  Wave if you must, bump elbows (Looks SO stupid).  Heck, carry a hanky to keep your hands occupied.

Masks only work in two instances; If YOU are sick, wear a mask to keep other people save from YOU.  Wear a mask in places where there are lots of people; shopping, church, hospital, etc.  TIP; one of the advantages of wearing a mask on the airplane is that the air onboard is very DRY.  You recycle your own vapor and cuts down on dry air nosebleeds.

Another point to make is that the Flu is a winter thing, it will die down during the summer.  

As far as the community infection is concerned, I am sure that when CDC digs deep enough, they will find the vector where that patient at UC Davis will have had contact with someone who was exposed and transmitted the bug. 

The VP in charge of the official response to the virus is interesting, it will keep the boy occupied.  How effective that will work remains to be seen.  In the meantime, try very hard not to self panic.  Drive sensibly, wear comfortable clothing, carry tissues. Stay hydrated.  Maybe pick up a few extra groceries if you decide to stay home a little more than usual.

If all else fails may I recommend a hot toddy?

Nomenclature

Of what importance is a name?

A few days ago, NPR was chatting about Trussia's decision that we need a Space Force.  'k

The narrators were wondering what they would be called collectively.  Their over all decision was that Space Cadet was ruled out, it sounds so Boy Scout.

Robert A. Heinlein wrote a book called  "Starship Troopers".  He wrote hard science none of this paranormal, space cowboy, alien pirates stuff.  Though there were some large gnarly spider things.
  
I am thinking that if the Space Force folk call their craft a ship, that many Naval customs will follow along quite naturally.  Given that it is a military craft, most enlisted people will be referred to as a private, sargent, lieutenant, captain,admiral and so forth.
  
Now depending on whether or not the outer space craft have a generated gravity on board will decide whether the crew salute each other.  In a zero gravity situation, snapping off a crisp salute will look extremely silly as each person is propelled away from each other from the force of the salute.  Marching in formation would be nearly impossible.  Kind of makes you wonder what a Drill Ibstructor would come up with.

I kind of assume that bootcamp takes place dirtside.

Now let's talk uniforms.  I vote for a relaxed yet crisp outfit loosely based on Star Trek.....because loose flowing uniforms tend to snag stuff and unless ship designers come up with smooth surfaces with counter sunk buttons, latches and hatches, lots of  space boos boos will ensue.  Snerk snerk.

dreamy

Diamond

To see diamonds in your dream signify the wholeness of the Self. You may be finding clarity in matters that have been clouding you. 

Alternatively, it represents vanity, conceit, and your unchanging or unyielding nature. You may be distancing yourself from others.  Can't say I particularly like this interpretation but  to me it was just a computer game that I liked playing.  Hmphh.

Oh dear.  Last night I woke from a very colorful dream.  I was somewhere playing a computer game.  It involved a screen where brown buttons drifted across the screen.  If I clicked on them with my mouse the buttons would either open a new game or explode into brilliant diamonds which would then float around and coalesce into a beautiful piece of jewelery such as a ring, brooch, bracelet, neclace or crown.   The metal was gold and this was absolutely gorgeous.  I remember explaining the game to another person and telling how much fun it was. Weird.

Tax

This past Valentines day I decided to attempt my annual Turbotax effort.  Oy.

First of all sometime in January I noticed that the vision in my right eye had worsened to the point that I gave up driving.  I discovred  on a recent shopping trip that on an overcast day everything is very gray and foggy.  On a sunny day it is very bright and glaring.  I found it difficult to detect movement of things in shadow such as oncoming  cars and pedistrians.  I was terrified that I would hit something or someone.  I told husband of my difficulties and he has stepped up the driver par excellence.  Thank you Darling Man.

Secondly the laptop computer had become extremely difficult to do anything on unless I wished to look like I had never tried one before this.

The Turbotax CD arrived in the mail I had received all of the tax documents needed to complete the filing so there ya go.

About the only thing I do on ine is online banking.  And after failing to type in the correct log on and password etc I asked husband to please my one or two bills that I had been paying.  Thank you again.

So I loaded the CD and tried to find it to install.  Um after not being able to read the menues I closed everything and went into accessibility mode.  I did some experimenting with size of font color of type face, color contrast etc and finally after about four of five times I arrived at font large enough and dark enough to feel confident that I correctly file the taxes by filling in the forms.

Step one:  Open the CD case which involved using a knife to cut open the security device (tape over opening).  Pop out CD, peer near sightedly at the big assed pass word thing which I would have to type in at some point.  Yay me.  

The CD drive on my lap top is accessed by a teeny tiny button the side which I finally found and the drive pooped open in goes the CD, close door by hand.  Nothing.  Look look look, Jane, I can't find Turbor Tax 2019, search keeps takibg me to BING.  Dammit!!!!

So I tried to eject the dics.  The Drive Popped open, no disc.  WHO ATE MY DISC!!!!

So I picked up the lappy and tipped to to the right and the disc slid out.  Phew.  Reinsert disc, push firmly into spindle holder thingy.  And  push back in machine.

Then began the search he the DVD drive etc.  Finally got the thing going and waited for the update thingy that took about five minutes.  

Got all my paperwork lined up.  Took a break.  Ack!  Commenced to go through menu and prompts.  Got to a point where the text on screen was the same hue as back ground color.  CRAP!!

Save file. Exit program.  Go back through accessbility and and adjusted high contrast and color.

Back into Turbotax.  Much better.  Engarde!!

The thing I love about Turbotax is that the program looks for last years return and imports all of the ID info for me and hubs.   Yay rah!

Mostly I just put in our  1099 from Social Security and got marched through the itemization and as itturned out, no surprise, we did not exceed the standard deduction so it went very basie.  Because I had withdrawn 401K for some debt payment, that boosted us enough so that I must write a check to Uncle Sam.  Not gonna happen next year.

Now onto state filing  Ready? And Go!!  Imported all the razz matazz and although the State of Oregon had some sort of surplus everyone got a kicker if they paid taxes 2018, which we did .  The kicker amounted to 96 bucks. Yay us!!!  Still owe paper check to great state of Oregon.

Okay print this mess.  Zip, zip, zip, repeat two sets.  Called it a day and shut it all down.  Now my next project is scrap up some large manila envelopes to contain all the paper work, the copy of tax forms and theTurbotax disc.  Must put manila envelopes on my list, or perha;s go shopping on Amazon.  Then mail this mess. Ugh.

Now for the tortuous details.  I have not been blogging because I could not type comfortably without crouching near the screen with glasses off trying to see what the Heck I was typing. After all the adjustments I have discovered that I can't find the spellcheck button. So this  all my fault, every bit of it.  Yay me.  

The last refinement. I discovered that if I put the top on an old ampty Amazon box, it gave  me enough height so that I can peer at the screen at a more comfortable angle to use the mouse.  However I have to remove the box in order to use the keyboard.  O bother.  Would someone there please invent a pop desk accessory that will raise the height of the lappy above the desk. I would pay for that. Until then  I will use the empty box.

Yay, me.  Oh yea

Last step, pick box up put back under lappy, play my hidden object game.  I have been playing this game for several years now. I know what all the blurry bits are actually supposed to be.  And if I get my nose about two inches away from screen I actually can see the hidden objects suprisingly enough.  And I am seeing the eye guy on the 27th and I also learned that according to Turbot tax I am not legally blind.  Legally blind is  20/200 best eye with correction.  Husband is standing by as my seeing eye guy.  

repeat after me.....

I was listening to NPR yesterday morning.  Susan Stamberg was interviewing the voice coach of the film Litle Women  All of the sisters are non American actors: One Ozzie, two Brits and and Irish Lass. 

She asked him to coach her to have an Irish accent.  He allowed as how it was rather crass and said to her, "Say these following words."

Whale 

Oil

Beef

Hooked

Now say them rapidly until you get the giggles.

Snerk Snerk. Yer Irish!!!

Today will probably be the last post for a while, unless I can get Alexa to take dictation.  My cataracts have progressed to the point that I have lost quite a degree of color sense and gray days are very very gray and bright days are grayish.  So....

If I start stumbling over objects at home, I will try to get my July optometrist appointment scheduled a bit sooer.  

Turbo tax is lurking, I have waited until February to order the disc and hope they have a large print version.

And lastly, I have to fill up my prescription pill box today.  That is always best done not too late on Saturday while I am still awake.

PS:  If you call me at our land line, be prepared to leave a message because I really have difficulty reading the itty bitty screen, we screen all calls because the clone calls have not tapered off very much at all.  Hoping to have better visual acuity at some point not too far distant in the future.  Love, me.