Notices by Kim Possible :kimoji_fire: (kimlockhartga@beige.party), page 2

@skinnylatte @GayDeceiver It's crazy. I caught so much flak for being from California, when I moved to the South. Also, California friends and relatives had all kinds of misperceptions about the South. When I lived in the Midwest, no one cared where I was from.

@forteller weirdo me is allergic. 🙁

@GayDeceiver And they'll try to say "no wonder everyone is leaving California."

Same imagined exodus from New York.

@thomasfuchs Youth Pastors, also. Yet, no one is banning churches.

Why do I get the feeling that at least some DHS folks will work for free, because the cruelty is the point? It's like a drug. They can't get enough.

#ICE #DHS #US #USPol #GovernmentShutdown #News

I want to address something that happened here recently. I wasn't involved, though I did know the people who were. The bristly situation was not an isolated occurrence on this platform.

My main takeaway from that kerfuffle is that no one here owes anyone else a conversation. "But why can't we have a discussion; isn't that the point of this place?" has real "Debate me, Bro" vibes. It's not a discussion without mutual agreement.

This has nothing to do with the point(s) being made. If, at any time, you have been asked to leave by the person who started the thread, you have to leave the thread. You don't have the right to keep engaging after someone tells you to stop. Full stop. If you feel like you were possibly misunderstood, and want to clarify, you'll have to do that in a separate post of your own: "I was part of a discussion today, and here's the point I was trying to make . . ." That's fine, because it's your space, not someone else's. It's a bit like being in your own home instead of at someone else's front door.

The rules of discourse apply in this online space just like they do in any physical space. If someone doesn't want to argue with you, they don't have to, most especially in their own home.

#Bookstodon @bookstodon I find myself one quarter of the way through DEAD WAKE, about the last crossing of the Lusitania, by the incomparable narrative nonfiction writer Erik Larson, and I'm already certain that it's a five star read. Meticulously researched and told in incredible detail, it is absolutely mesmerizing. It's a clear window onto a world inhabited by people born a century before my generation, and onto a society on the brink of unprecedented change on every conceivable front.

@Quasit @PhoenixSerenity true that.

One of the worst lessons we learned from the Nazis is that there was nothing special about them. That means anyone has the capacity to become cruel. I'd like to think that Empaths would fight that, though.

What's the best thing in your life right now? It doesn't have to be a big thing: for me, it's the memory of a smile from my former dog: my fuzzy Baxter boy, the moment he gained confidence from wearing a thundershirt.

That memory fuels me at times when the tank is low.
❤️🐕❤️

The older I get, the more I identify with Missing Person's "Destination Unknown."

https://youtu.be/g1pahozFjK0?si=LiHgBhiwetQIoa_a

You may wonder why fascism runs in cycles of about three generations. It's because people lose the memory of what living under fascism was like, or the destruction it caused.

First they regret.
Then they forget.

@ATLeagle Our timing got delayed to dinnertime instead of lunchtime. More time to pack to go over there. It's bulky because I need cold weather gear for both of us, plus water and food. I think I'm all set, though, as long as I don't forget the power banks.

Are you all set?

Y'all doing okay in Texas (and thereabouts)?

I would like to put on both slippers, but the dog is resting his head. So, I guess one foot will just have to be cold.

There it is. 🙁

Article says G4 (out of 5), which is possible, but count on a G3 and be pleasantly surprised if it's greater. Please tell a friend. Every time there's been a really good chance to see the Auroras at lower latitudes for the Northern Hemisphere, or even in Southern Australia for the Aurora Australis, someone misses out and I don't want anyone to miss out on this X class solar flare with a CME actually pointed towards Earth, a perfect set-up. Professor Sam Lawler is a good account to follow for more educated discussion than I can offer: @ sundogplanets@mastodon.social (trying to keep her from getting a bunch of notifs). Please let me know of other astronomer accounts to follow, and separate the @ to also keep them from being bombarded.

Intense Auroras Are Possible Tonight | PetaPixel

https://petapixel.com/2026/01/19/intense-auroras-are-possible-tonight/

I don't know if anyone knows a lot about this kind of thing, but a friend of mine (my age) is hospitalized with a ruptured appendix. My understanding is that it's especially serious for an older woman? Apparently, symptoms can be vague until they are very acute. She's in one of the better regional hospitals, thank God.

I begged my surgeon to remove my appendix when I had abdominal surgery in my 40s, but they wouldn't do it.

I hate to immediately suspect arson, and I hope I'm wrong, but a historically Black funeral home is on fire in my area, and it looks like an unusually hot fire, like you would see with an accelerant. I would ordinarily just see it as terribly unfortunate, a historical building important to the community burning down, but I cannot disconnect it from the rampant racism of late.

@inthehands thank you for this, Paul.

Long biographical story of my mom, on the occasion of her birthday:

Today is my mom's birthday. She is 85 years old, which means she predates the entry of the United States in WWII by almost a year. That blows my mind sometimes

Imagine all the changes an 85 year old has seen over the years. Before marrying, her father had benefitted from FDR's CCC, a New Deal government work relief program that provided much-needed jobs as we crawled out of the Great Depression. Conditions took a long time to improve around the world. The little family started out in a small home in a rural area of the Midwest. Her mother had two vegetable gardens: one for the family, and one to sell to others. Her dad hunted for their suppers, which were often pheasant or squirrel. Her mom eventually got a job for Look magazine. Her father eventually got a job offer to work for a factory in California. They had few possessions when they moved and they made mom auction off her small shoebox of toys, promising her a new toy in California. That was her most cherished possession growing up, a stuffed Panda Bear she named Punkin.

The family started out in Compton. Mom experienced firsthand what racial inequality was like, and the injustice of it informed her politics for the rest of her life. (Much like the shock of coming across her great grandfather's marriage certificate which listed her Hopi great grandmother as "property.")

Just as the Depression lingered longer than history textbooks imply, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court ruling that made educational resources equal and ended segregation in schools did not have an immediate effect. Mom went to school before Plessy vs. Ferguson was even overturned, and the underfunding of Black schools was obvious. Not only was there no library at her school, but no books at home. Mom stole a dictionary and began reading it, to learn on her own.

The family moved to a different suburb soon after, a small home on a quiet street, with a surprisingly huge backyard featuring a grove of avocado trees. There was a cabin out back, where her dad and his friends would smoke cigars and play poker. At one point, he had to step away and he let mom take his place. She had learned by observing, and to everyone's surprise, she won. Besides learning to play poker, her dad taught her how to box, which came in handy when two mean girls wanted to fight her. The school wanted to punish her for defending herself, which they still do today, unfortunately.

She was an excellent student, and fulfilled her dream to attend UCLA, (several years ahead of Lew Alcindor). This made mom the first person in her family to have ever gone to college, let alone graduate school.

Mom met my dad in 1959, and they married a few years later. My dad was in the Air Force at the time, working as a cartographer. He had been stationed in Alaska before it had become a state, and he was so miserably cold there that it was the only state we were never allowed to visit.

Mom took time away from school while carrying me, and returned to graduate school only two weeks after I was born, with no help from anyone. They lived in a tiny apartment with a Murphy bed in the wall, and the only sink was in the bathroom, which is where she had to wash dishes. Our little family moved several times, to the beach and inland, until settling in a rented house and then buying the house next door, where there were often parties and extended family gatherings. Our next door neighbors were gay Nazis, which is a story in itself. Mom was very ahead of her time, and was already teaching me not to ever be racist, and that it was okay for men to be together, perfectly fine for a boy to wear a dress and carry a purse during dress up, and that there was no such thing as boy's or girl's toys.

My little brother was born shortly after my dad finished IBM school. IBM immediately moved us to Minnesota. There, dad worked as a computer programmer, and mom taught English, Speech and Drama at a local high school. She loved teaching and still misses it to this day. She realized that one of her students had run away from home and was living with a family who couldn't afford to care for her. After finding out that the girl's family didn't care that she was gone, mom took the initiative to get her moved in with us. We fixed up a room for her in the basement, and got her some much needed dental care. It was so hard on all of us that we couldn't take her with us when we moved, since we had never formally gotten custody. Mom arranged for her to stay with another family for her last year of high school, and she married soon after.

Mom divorced dad and we all moved back to California. Even though my dad had numerous affairs, my mom was seen by the family as a pariah because she moved into a apartment with her boyfriend, after the divorce He was kind, but didn't last.

Those were lean years. Because of the timing, in the middle of the school year, mom couldn't get a job as a teacher, and began working at IBM. Her supervisor realized immediately that she had untapped potential and she began moving up in the company. My first understanding of politics was when she was incensed that Nixon won re-election.

In a nearby city, she found a house for sale where the older couple were so anxious to sell that they let it go for what was left of the mortgage. Still working at IBM, she became a technical writer. She met a woman at IBM who seemed really cool, avant garde, a social norms rulebreaker. They started a relationship, in the not so welcoming 1970s. IBM sent us to Georgia. We sent the moving van ahead, and took two weeks in a Chinook camper to see the country. It was amazing. Mom directed our tour of the sights and experiences: of course, to visit the Hopi and honor them the best we could, to experience the unique fusion of Pueblo, Spanish, and Mexican food known as New Mexican food, Carlsbad Caverns, The Grand Canyon, the Space Center in Houston (which I thought was the most humid place on Earth until we got to New Orleans).

We eventually settled in Georgia. Two women could not buy a house together, so it had to be in my mom's girlfriend's name. Their relationship lasted ten years.

Mom had to move again, ('cause IBM) this time to Research Triangle Park where she became an information systems analyst, teaching technical writers the industry standards. She traveled extensively, putting the "International" in IBM. There, she met a man who wanted to marry almost immediately (red flag). They lasted four years. He had five children, including triplet boys, but only two came to live with them off and on.

When she retired from IBM, counting down to the minute during the last year, she returned to her first love: art. She had painted over the years, but it was in the fabric arts that her talent took off. She got into art quilting and was with a guild. She had a one woman art show and sold everything. To this day, she undersells her own jaw-dropping artistic talent.

That takes us up to today, where Alzheimer's is a bully that prevents her from doing things she loved, like reading books and creating art. She still has her movies, which she treasures and watches over and over again.

She has requested a small cake from a local specialty market. I think it's the least I can do.

If you've read all this, or even skimmed it, I thank you. I am biased, of course, but I think my mom has led an extraordinary life against all odds (I left out all the really bad parts.) And I'm lucky to know her. If she were not my mom, I would have sought her out as a friend.

More pics in next post.