Resist Stories

Clocks went back an hour this Sunday morning. Nice to get up at six knowing it will soon be light.
Well . . .  "soon" at this latitude = 6:55 a.m.

I'll be especially glad of it Tuesday morning, when I help set up and staff the Free Coffee booth at the park on Election Day.
Voting starts at 7, so we start at 6. It'll be cold, even once they get the fire pits lit.

I. Are we in the US all a little nervous? [And not just in the US...]

How not?

This is the first time I (we?) have been nervous not just about election results but about possible violence afterward.
Oh--wait, no--of course:
LAST presidential election that threat was in the air. And it happened! So this election, it's on the ground.
So weird.
This is not the way I thought my country would go.

I walked past Penzey's Spices yesterday and a sign said they're closed Election Day: "Everybody go vote!"
No reason given, and I found nothing online, but I'm guessing they want to protect employees from possible violence---because the founder Bill Penzey has drawn fire for speaking against Trump.
That that's even a thought...[UPDATE: 

On Facebook, Penzeys says Tuesday they are closed for voting. But they also say, we don’t know what will happen, will we be looted, or will we be welcoming democracy? So, yeah, it’s like that.]

II. Do y'all have a plan?

Just last night bink and I decided that if Trump wins, we will make a second edition of our resistance zine.
We'd made Baby's First Resist-story: An Alphabet Book in response to Trump's first 100 days in 2017.
[Posts on l'astronave about making it.]

. . . And here's the whole thing, online at Issuu (pages turn like a book).

A favorite spread:

This is the cover--featuring bink & Maura's dog, Astro:

The thing is, we never disseminated it very far.
If we need to, this time we will Xerox both the first and the second editions and pass them out more widely.

(This is if things are only mildly bad. More direct action might be called for. We'll see.)

And if it's Madam President Harris, pleasegodYes, we could do a different zine, for fun love.
_________________________

III. My Sugar Resistory

Cheerier news in my personal life:
a few things have come together nicely for my health.

First, after a sedentary summer, I was seriously frightened when I couldn't run up the path at a state park. So I started taking daily walks, which was a great start.
Walking is a complete movement for life.

Then I started working at the thrift store again, which has me lifting and carrying for 15 hours/week.
I was so sore last weekend, I worried I might not be up to it--but this weekend I'm only mildly sore.
Yay!

Third, two weeks ago I'd watched Fed Up (free on youtube), a 2012 documentary about the food industry pushing sugar/fat calories like the Sacklers pushed OxyContin.

It made me so mad––on top of being sad I couldn't run and rightfully scared of diabetes––I decided to take up the filmmaker's challenge to give up processed sugar for ten days.

And I did.
And now it's been two weeks!
For me, this is HUGE. I never went a day without eating something with added sugar--and often many things in large amounts. Weirdly, I consumed less sugar than some Americans because I don't drink pop. (I don't like it.)

Now I still eat a lot of sugar--but in fruit.
I laugh when I read warnings that some fruits are high in sugar. (Grapes have 15 grams of sugar in a cup; bananas, 14+ g).
So, yeah, something to watch if you're [pre-]diabetic.
Adults should get no more than 30 grams of sugar/ day.

But compare fruit to a movie-size box of Milk Duds.
The box holds 4.5 "servings" (10 duds =17 g).
I'd eat the whole box, for a total of 76.5 grams of sugar.

A pint of Ben & Jerry's (I'd eat an entire carton) = 105 grams.

I'd have to eat a lot of grapes to match that. And I just don't.
(I imagine everyone knows this--even if I did, grapes don't inject sugar into your veins the way candy does.)

* * * If people (you) have tips or stories about eating well, I'd love to hear them.

I almost hate to admit it, it's such a cliché, but I feel better.
I feel more... even. And while I swear this was not the point--at this age, health is the Big Motivator--I am not unhappy that my tight clothes are looser.
But truly, if I stay this size, I'm fine with that.
I JUST WANT TO BE ABLE TO MOVE.

Gotta be in shape to man those barricades, eh?