PP #19: Prepping Redux (Here Comes the Sun), Invasion, Bad Food
Project: Pioneer #19, March 2, 2024 Saturday 11am
Today’s post comes from the warm, cozy confines of the White House (RV edition) as the gloom and rain continue outside. Giavana just went visiting, and Pia is snuggled and snoring on her blanket next to me on the bench seat of this RV’s dinette-turned-Pioneer HQ. The rain provides an ongoing, gentle beat on our roof above. There’s a lot to cover, including a very distressing, difficult situation that has occurred.
Project: Pioneer is the live reality journal of a couple and their small dog as they leave their ‘normal’ life in a luxury apartment for a new semi-off grid life in a small recreational vehicle, just at the start of winter. We cover prepping, politics, spirituality, afterlife, RV life, and personal finance. Audio at this link, Apple, and Spotify
In this journal post:
Our Current Status and Updates
Prepping Redux, Here Comes the Sun
The Invasion
You Are What You Eat
What’s Next?
Current Status/Updates
It’s March! Yay. Here comes the sun (hopefully not in the disastrous way I’ll discuss later in this journal). A lot has happened since our last journal, both good and bad. We went down to the lower, wooded campground area yesterday to select which site we’ll be moving into next month. It was pretty exciting! We’re currently nested on top of a hill, parked on crunchy gravel with a corrugated roof shelter above. I posted a picture in Pioneer #17. It’s kind of ugly, sparse, and industrial, and we’re all packed in together to shield against the wind and elements, pioneer covered wagons suffering the winter.
We had a very small selection of sites to choose from. It was somewhat eerie, as the area is closed until spring. RVs sat abandoned and silent on most sites, waiting for their owners to return from snowbirding in the warmth. I thought I saw movement in one, perhaps a squatter? Spirit? Alien? Bigfoot? I didn’t dare tell Giavana—we would have been out of there fast.
The first spot had no sewer port, so we’d have to call the poopy wagon to purge our black tank at $22 a pop. No thanks. The next spot was a corner spot, seemingly subject to lots of cross-traffic. Another choice was just too small—no room to stretch out outside. We found a great selection (we hope) in a site that’s off the beaten trail, backed up to a peaceful brook, and big enough for a nice dog run for Pia. It has a nice picnic table and firepit, which I can’t wait to enjoy. The past resident had also left a nice supply of firewood. Bonus! There will be a mix of full-timers, seasonal, and vacation campers, so I’m sure it will lead to lots of entertaining posts here.
Site selection isn’t just about “camping comfort.” Everything we discuss in this journal factors in, especially prepping. I was evaluating each one in terms of cover, escape, and so forth. The stream is in a gully, which provides a good place to lay low in and shoot from, if necessary. So does our RV roof. We’re backed up to woods to disappear into, if necessary. The stream provides escape without leaving tracks, if necessary.
In other news, me and old Elmer made up. He caught me outside (I had been avoiding…) and rushed up to shake hands and make amends. I’m really glad, I don’t like being on the outs with anyone.
Little Pia has had a negative reaction to her grooming, apparently the part where they plucked her ear hairs and cut the hair quite short. It bothers her, so she’s violently flapping her head around every minute or so. It’s like a doggie Tourette’s thing going on here, except she’s not shouting out f-bombs (yet). So, we had to put her some Benadryl, and it’s starting to get better.
My surgery went well yesterday. There is a new bionic man component in my chest and a cool app on my phone to control it. It was weird because in addition to the usual team of surgeon, nurses, there was a company rep from the device manufacturer, all gowned and masked up. Guy named Vinnie from Bayonne. In the middle of this, he’s encouraging the surgeon, “Push it in farther, farther!” WTF? I felt like I was in a bad surgical porn movie.
Then the surgeon nicked a blood vessel that had grown around my old device, which resulted in a geyser and bit of panic, but they were able to apply pressure to stop it and cauterize. Teamwork. Yay. Nothing like the smell of your own burning flesh. The doc said, “Your body has fallen in love with this old device.” I don’t give up anything easily, see later comments. My CT scan results were good, the ascending aortic aneurysm (aka ticking time bomb) is still stable at 86% of the size that requires dangerous open heart surgery. My lung nodules are also stable, and I apparently have the arteries of a 75 year old, although much younger in actual years.
We are continuing our search for a piece of land to build a cabin on. Hey, the old pioneers used covered wagons like White House to find a place to settle, and then built cabins, right? Some things never change. We may be going back to that rustic, simple way of life (see, next section). The Amish may be the only survivors. Well, and us well-prepared semi-off-grid pioneers.
And lastly, something very upsetting and life-changing happened, which I’ll get into (sort of) later in this post. It’s hard to know how much to share, when we’ve made a commitment to share.
Prepping Redux, Here Comes the Sun
I’ve posted a few times on prepping. There are many reasons to, and more each day. We live in a time of rapidly increasing climate, sociological, political, and other unrest and danger. Nobody really talks about the most immediate, profound, and imminent threat—the sun. I was happy (?) to see this great new article in The New Yorker. (I didn’t hit the paywall when I found it through the Google News app.)
It’s long, so here’s the TLDR version:
The sun is actually a massive thermonuclear bomb that is continuously exploding. It’s not solid; it consists of incredibly hot, volatile plasma. There are constant solar flares and coronal mass ejections happening, and they often reach Earth. A bad one can instantly (takes eight minutes to reach Earth), without warning, take out our entire electrical grid, our satellites, GPS communication, all of it. Planes and satellites could come crashing down (see: Netflix’s Leave the World Behind, as previously discussed). Power, communication, and navigation could be out for quite a long time. Solar activity peaks and wanes over an eleven year cycle. A peak cycle of strong, frequent activity is now building, and on schedule for 2025. Buckle up.
Solar events like this, along with pandemics (oh, please, how alarmist, that could never happen!), are two events that would affect the entire nation at once (oh yeah, and autocratic overthrow/civil war). It’s happened before, in a major way, in 1859 (Carrington Event), 1921, 1967, 1989. That last one was a massive hit to the Quebec power grid, which took out a nuclear power plant in New Jersey, and caused outages in the U.K. and Sweden. Another one on the scale of the 1921 Carrington Event would take our our entire power grid out, and more. Want to protect yourself and your loved ones? See my post on prepping and survival.
The Invasion
I was talking to my old military buddy Hugo recently. He’s of Mexican heritage, lives in Texas, and is a die-hard Trump supporter. I asked about the “illegal” immigration “invasion” of “rapists and murderers” down there. He surprised me by saying the new folks have enriched his community. He said they now have far more delicious dining opportunities other than the old tacos/TexMex food.
This fits. Statistics show that every major city that has a large influx of these legal asylum seekers has seen a drop in their crime rate. Yes, there are very rare incidents that are immediately plastered all over Fox/OAN/Newsmax and your social media feed. But here on Earth 1, in reality, these folks stay in the shadows, working their butts off to do the crap work nobody else will, and commit almost zero crime. Our employers welcome them, our economy needs them, they pay taxes.
You Are What You Eat
Twice in one week, Giavana got sick from food. The first incident was some very good cheese (brie) from a very good quality, expensive, high-falutin’ grocery store. The second was some lobster at a high-end surf and turf (non-chain) dining establishment in our area. Both tasted off, but by the time she realized it and got to the recognizably bad part, it was too late.
We are being poisoned. Deregulation, getting rid of all that nasty “red tape” that gets in the way of massive, capitalist profits, means less safety, more dangerous products. Climate change means more dangerous food products. For example, lobsters are cold-water animals. The seas are warming rapidly, meaning fewer lobsters for the fishermen to haul. They must then choose smaller, or less suitable, lower quality, maybe diseased lobsters to bring back to port.
When we move to the wooded site next month, we are now motivated to learn about growing our own food, and on the cabin site as well, if that happens. Again, it may be a matter of survival. We are giving up all seafood, fish, and meat. It’s poison, it’s bad for you.
What’s Next?
I want to do a post on the financial side of prepping. Giavana and I are researching. What happens to your money if the country, our democracy, is overthrown? It’s presumptuous to believe it won’t happen. Every dynasty, every democracy ends at some point. Two examples of stock markets of large countries literally zeroing out and everyone losing everything are Russia in 1917 and China in 1949. Germany’s stock market lasted until 1942, after a dictator overthrew that country and destroyed it (hello…). Also, I’ll write about the current attempts to transform America into a Christo-fascist theocracy. Get your red robes and white hoods ready, ladies. These don’t end well for anyone.
I mentioned in the opening that something highly personal has happened to me this past week. Deciding whether to discuss it here has been an agonizing process. I happened it to myself, you could say (in an intentionally awkward turn of English). It would be easy to hide out and simply not share. But, sharing is a way of accepting blame, of asking for absolution, if not from others, at least from myself, for myself. Right now, I kind of don’t like myself, once again, and that’s not good for me or anyone else.
I’ve been very honest in this journal, as if writing it in a securely locked diary intended only for my future self (or kids, after I’m gone, an explanation of sorts), but also shared with you, to help you as well. Writing is a cleansing process, a way to work things out with oneself. And, sometimes, a way to hopefully educate others so they don’t make the same mistakes, so we together make a better world.
That said, I’m still on the fence about putting something this personal out to the entire interweb. So, I struck a bargain with myself and I’ll post it for those who have invested in us, those paid/foundation subscribers, and see what they have to say and how it goes. Maybe it’s TMI. It’s not click-bait or bait and switch, it’s just…personal. And it’s part of this personal journey, which is what this reality journal is all about. I’m not pimping out my pain, I’m just trying to find absolution and help others not make the same mistakes, to think twice about actions and consequences. Maybe I’ll pick up a few new paid subscribers to help pay for this screwup. I don’t want any of that on Giavana, she doesn’t deserve it.
So, paid and foundation subscribers, keep a look-out for that one.
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If you do not travel,
If you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.
You start dying slowly :When you kill your self-esteem,
When you do not let others help you.
You start dying slowly ;If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.
You start dying slowly :If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.
You start dying slowly :If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain
If you do not go after a dream
If you do not allow yourself
At least once in your lifetime
To run away from sensible advice
Don't let yourself die slowly
Do not forget to be happy!— Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971
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