I’ve tried various dry cat foods over the years. A cat or dog with a more sensitive stomach, or who may have had parasites (which can happen in the kennel situations at shelters, sadly, or in the puppy or kitten stages from Mom or wherever), might need Limited Ingredient Foods. Some foods can be too rich for some animals, even though they are high quality.  I am currently using Royal Canin brand, though I’d say they are not a ‘purist’ brand of pet food. I got their kitten food for my kittens, so they still get the dry food, while I now get their wet food from Merrick’s (pieces in gravy and pate style are their preferences). My older cat Darwin needs the Royal Canin Veterinary Feline Gastrointestinal Fiber Response because he gets constipated and this saves his life!  If you do need a pet food with Fiber, there are two kinds of fibers, Cellulose Fiber and Psyllium Husk Fibers, the Royal Canin uses Psyllium Husk, which can work both on diarrhea and constipation. I’m sure there are other aids in there, too, but that is the main one. To order a Vet Food online, you need to take a picture of the food prescription paper and then down or upload it to the purchasing site, either for the pet profile or at the buying stage. They might also call your Vet for verification if this can’t be done.  People often recommend raw diets for cats and dogs, but that has to be done with care and can’t be left out like other foods.  I have ants in my apartment, so I use those food containers with the big seal on top (the Gamma seal or container) for them, no matter the brand I am using.  

It can take years for the full effects of a toxic environment to really show up in people (generations of cancer, like Love Canal). It probably helps that everyone knows an accident happened and it’s not a factory silently pumping stuff out where people live. But still, it can be hard to know what to do really do in situations like this. Most people don’t have two full homes to just swap into if you need to drop one of them. If part of your retirement was a paid off home to live in, this screws that up as well. Water issues can go on for a long, long time. Just look at Flint, Michigan. They (the people who diverted their original water source, not the citizens) screwed up their water pipes and have yet to truly resolve the issue. 

My state currently averages around 504 COVID cases per 7 day average with about 5 deaths in a 7 day average. The interesting thing is that most of the state has low rates, but some counties are at medium and high rates. The most densely populated areas are low rated for cases, by the way.  I’ve become a sloppy mask-wearer, though I was never perfect. I tend to wear them mostly at work now. I did finally invest in a big air purifier at home, plus a smaller simpler one, which I’ve wanted for years now and just never got one. I do think schools, gov’t buildings, corporations, etc. need to invest in air system over hauls.  I really think the concept of Mutual Aid Groups and other ideas are great. 60 Minutes didn’t cover Mutual Aid or Group Prepping or anything like that, but they did cover city dwellers in Ukraine last Sunday, and how they are surviving. Many people are living in apartment buildings that in normal circumstances would be condemned buildings, using wood stoves (they punch holes to the outside), and generators, etc. I’m in an area where summer might not be a problem during a power outage, but winter cold might be an issue. We do get all 4 seasons, but very high temperatures in summer are pretty rare. But today in Feb., we are having a few days in the teens before temperatures go up again. I really think some kind of deliverable Power Outage Bags or Go Bags (wild fires, hurricanes) given to people ahead of time is actually a good idea. They might use them right away, instead of saving them for emergencies, or sell them, get them stolen, but for many, it could be a life saver and a stress reliever. I really like what they are doing in Sweden, which is the government and society in general, encouraging Prepping for the individual and families, so you really have prepping being established as almost a social safety net in case of a big emergency.  I did give my first Prepper Christmas gifts last year, nothing big, but I managed to get some Lifestraws on sale to use as stocking stuffers.

Corporations protect their money at all costs. We learned about the Ford Pinto explosions in school back in the day (not sure if they still do). Ford spent millions for the privilege of being able to keep killing its customers, as it thought it was cheaper than fixing the issue at factory-level.  As for Big Pharma, I don’t think anybody loves or trusts Big Pharma, esp. those who need it most. At least in American where the price gouging is insane. The other problem with drugs is that sometimes you have to work at which medication is correct for you, which can be a trying process. And sometimes they don’t, or there are no easy ‘regular’ answers.  With Mainstream Media and vaccines, I think they were in a position of reporting on the news and also advocating for General Health. They did report on the issues with Astrazenica during Trials, I remember that. As it is, thanks to Anti-Vaxxers, most nations never did reach the level of vaccination needed for Herd Immunity in the first round of vaccines. And it’s gotten worse since then, even though COVID19 rarely makes the news anymore (my state still has about 500 plus deaths from COVID reporting on a ticker tape on one channel) and mandates have evaporated.  Vaccines are not a failure if they don’t work 100%. What they do over time is get the system familiar with the virus in question, and primed to attack it. This is generally regarded as safer than say, contracting small pox and getting ‘immunity’ that way. Were the vaccines timed too early for COVID, who knows. But MRNA technology is built for easy changes for boosters, etc. It’s probably going to be used for treating cancer very soon. I’m guessing nasal vaccines are going to be a big new option for people that don’t want shots. But globally speaking, a lot of nations did their own lab work and their own vaccines. There are many different COVID19 vaccines out there, not just the MRNA ones.  While vaccines can have bad reactions in people (including paralysis or death), the majority of people won’t have extreme or even mild reactions to vaccinations. The Anti-Vaccine pipeline has been politically infected with Neo-Nazis, dark money and disinformation, if they ever had good information to begin with. I’d be extremely careful with any “information” from the Anti-Vaxxer Grifter Pipeline. There might be ways to get more in-depth information on vaccines and COVID vaccines in particular, but you have to make sure it’s not part of The Grift and is reasonably neutral. 

I’m a big sci fi/fantasy fan, so I’ve seen a lot of Dystopian Nightmare scenarios. Some have already been mentioned, so I’ll add a few others: Battlestar Galactica (both versions) Don’t Look Up (great look at the human, esp. American, inability to publicly handle a massive crisis) The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings (leave the comfy Shire for adventure and the weight of nearly pure evil) The Stand (I’m used to the earlier miniseries with the great Don’t Fear the Reaper opener); still mad at you know who being killed off. V the miniseries, the next miniseries, and the TV series (I saw these in high school and it embedded in me the idea that It Can Happen Here and here’s how it might happen). It made me very language sensitive to BS, shall we say. Kenneth Johnson also worked on The Incredible Hulk tv series (featuring the world’s saddest end credits music) The Impossible (A tourist family gets caught in the Thailand tsunami. Naomi Watts’ character has a leg injury so realistic it was making me nauseous when I watched in theaters). Everything Everywhere All At Once (A multiverse comedy, so it won’t be for everyone’s tastes, but I feel it really captures the stress and nihilism of modern life amazingly well. Mainly useful prepping wise for showing how to think on your feet and out of the box. It’s almost all powered by unconventional thinking, using what’s around you, and using Kindness as a ‘fighting’ method). A Handmaid’s Tale and The Purge series (I feel like some folks might want a combination of these two scenarios, and even small incursions into either will be misery and death in the real world, no thank you!). The Day After Tomorrow (It’s the usual Disaster Movie set up, but it made me consider the possibility that Climate Change might make things colder in some places, not hotter, etc. The truest thing is making the poor weather guy stand outside during a mega-tornado, you know they’d try and do it). Interstellar (Global crop failure leads to global starvation, etc., so they look for a new planet to live on).  A Quiet Place/2 (Aliens really really don’t like noise, at all. How to post-apocalypse by making as little noise as possible; it’s harder than you think).  

Online radicalization is remarkably fast and easy these days (there is a podcast about the Don’t Tread on Me flag-bearing woman who died on 1/6 by being crushed to death by fellow insurrectionists, and she was a non-Trump Republican who got ensnared by QAnon within 48 hours – 2 days of online scrolling did this to her), and echo chambers don’t do us (the national us) any favors, either.   My email listing, due to having watched multiple health and nutrition webinars/docuseries, is a rat’s nest of Fascist Shilling in the name of “freedom” and “patriotism.”  The scare-mongering from Anti-Vaccine Pushers is remarkable (it’s gotten worse the fewer mandates we have, which tells you something right there, lol) in its venomosity, I hate to say, and I’m someone who used to enjoy learning about Alternative Health. As with any medication, terrible side effects and allergic reactions are 100% real with vaccinations. BUT, vaccinations also work when enough people get them (3 million plus lives saved via COVID Vaccines has just come out) and people who want Polio back aren’t really thinking things through in terms of death and devastation wrought by infectious diseases.  I’ve also become fascinated by the existence of women who hate feminism, but seem to get their Lists of Female Heroes It’s Okay to Like from Only Certain Men (men/fans from the Manosphere), LOL. Anti-Feminism and Misogyny is used by all nationalities and religions over the world to lure men into Far Right Hate Groups. It’s a way to get people adjacent to racism and antisemitism, etc. in a more socially acceptable manner.  Anyway, I’ve been nervous about a lot of things since 2016, and the Permission Slip for a lot of groups has made them very bold and open about what they want and who they want to hurt. Not everyone will act, but I’ve been expecting another Timothy McVeigh for awhile now (he got radicalized at gun shows in the 1990s).  There are a lot of Americans/People who need Mental Health Support, including Preppers and Prepper Adjacents. I find I get Galaxy Brain from thinking of too many things at once, and sometimes you can only do small things, or one thing, and not all the things. But there are people with addiction problems, stress issues, financial issues, housing issues, PTSD, medical and mental health issues out there, and just poor IQ or EQ folks in the world. I sometimes think lack of Emotional Intelligence/Sympathy/Empathy causes a lot of unnecessary problems the world over.  I live in a smaller city next to a bigger city, so it’s very well populated where I live, but I don’t think I’d feel safer in a rural area, either, not unless I was very careful in selecting the area, etc. 

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, a classic, for sure!  The Twilight Zone has a lot of scenarios that are prescient or at least pretty clued into human nature (both good and bad, but always with a dose of irony). 

I was able to keep working normally during the pandemic, so other than doing big stock ups every so often, and not going to the movies until 2021, not too much was different. We did limit family meetings to Zoom/Facetime until maybe the holidays in November/December. My brother and sister in law work in music, so as with anyone in the Performing Arts, COVID19 was a painful experience in terms of figuring out what to do.  My big change was getting two kittens and then giving them my bathroom and bedroom, while my big cat was on the other side in the living room, for a long time (too long), and how living in a split house, essentially, practically made me neurotic after awhile. Sometimes something small can majorly disrupt your normal life patterns in a big way.  I’m not too worried about Spring/Summers here, but we do have Winters, and if power went out for a long time, I am not fully prepared for that. I live in an apartment, and finding something good for apartments that I can afford, is not easy. I started a little bit last year with smaller car starter/power bank combos, but now I need to look for the bigger items. 

Yes, there are some good Youtubers on prepping, but then something weird will pop up, or you’ll find a few in the comments wanting to go kill or lynch people, right now, not in the future, but right now, and it gets a bit disturbing.  I’ve found some channels like DW (German News) or CNBC or PBS have some good mini-stories on important or interesting topics, such as food, water, climate, weather, how inflation works etc.  I’m thinking I found The Prepared through an article or article resource or something. 

Swedish Civilians have also been training and prepping for a potential Russian invasion for a few years now. They also have super bunker structures underneath their cities where people can go.  I’ve had an interest in Prepping since maybe the 2018? Climate Report, but it can all be overwhelming if you work odd hours and live paycheck to paycheck. Also, I hate to say the Youtube Algorithm really pushes fear-mongering/fascist-leaning Preppers, but it does. I get stressed just reading their ‘headlines’ over and over again. It’s not that things aren’t true, but designing stuff to push emotional buttons is truly not helpful. I’ve found some ‘news’ based videos give the same or similar information but in a factual manner or as mini-documentaries. This gives me the knowledge, but without the added emotional stress or product pushing.  I’ve found I really need to organize my life and home more, and get control of my finances, but it’s difficult with 3 cats, rent, etc.  I used to have a fairly tight control on my finances until 2020, and I’m still working on getting myself back to a tighter frame-work. But I’ve never been perfect, to be honest. I set my DVR to record tonight’s 60 Minutes, so I hope the Prepper Story is done well. I’m watching Mrs. Miniver on TCM, and they do a good job setting up normal life before it all starts going to hell with the Blitz in WWII. “You ought to put in some tin foods in case of emergency.”  They were encouraging “preparations” back in the day. 

The big glacier in Green Land is something to watch out for. It is melting faster than people thought, and could raise ocean levels by up to a foot. People in low lying areas on coasts will need to adapt or move away.  I live near the Great Lakes, lots of fresh water, but they could be hurt by algae blooms. There is always something to look out for!

There are now university courses in Climate Change, so I find the idea that there aren’t enough peer-reviewed articles and studies a bit dubious. I would say that Climate Models are probably becoming more and more accurate over time. If anything, I think even people who thought we were in immanent danger from Climate Change, didn’t realize how many glaciers would be melting this quickly already.  Many places are already caught in drought/flood weather pattern loops. Water has been an issue in different countries for decades, but now it’s coming to Europe and America.  Kids figure out that they are forked by about age 8 now. Which is how kids wind up becoming Climate Activists, because the adults sat on this for decades and did either nothing, or worse than nothing, or on the other hand, barely anything even if they wanted to do more. The Climate Report of 2018/19 is what got me interested in Prepping, by the way. There is usually a big international Climate Report every year or two that comes out. 

Italy, the birth place of Fascism, started with gangs beating up unions/laborers, anyone perceived as “left” wing, so “random” violence is definitely something to worry about currently. Nationalism and Fascist trends are global now, so the entire world is at a delicate balance, I would say.  I’ve thought about Canada, but I might be too old to get into the health care system, which I would have regarded as a great reason for being there in the first place. But other considerations are being able to visit family or friends in America via different methods besides just flying if you were in Canada. The Great Lakes Region in Canada would have similar benefits as in America, very large sources of fresh water if they don’t get contaminated with algae or pollution, or get too low (thinking of climate change).  I had a brief period where I thought about retiring in Scotland, because I like the landscape so much and I wouldn’t have to learn a new language, etc. Not sure about the whole Brexit thing, though. New Zealand is gorgeous, but very far away. 

It’s too late for me to watch, but this is good. Sweden is urging its citizens to learn preparedness and prepping, in case things heat up with Russia. A good, functional government and a good, functional populace are better together than having either side collapse. I had no idea FEMA had so many prepping type webinars, or that it had different levels, one of which is Individuals and Communities. 

I watch a lot of webinars, so I end up on a lot of email lists, and any time some kind of “civil unrest” is mentioned, it’s the George Floyd/BLM protests from 2020, not any actual “terrorist” threats that might come from say, racist and or nationalist militias, and the like, which often target individuals or groups for harassment or violence. These types of emails or comments under Youtube videos made me question whether it’s actually safer in rural areas or small towns, vs the cities. And I think for women, as opposed to men, maybe neither cities nor smaller localities, are actually “safe” in the real sense, since women are often attacked by their own partners, or end up being stalked, or other issues, that men rarely have to deal with on that level. Look at what happened with Gabby Petito, living the Nomad Van Life and online, where she wound up being choked to death by her boyfriend/fiance, in a national park. There are different kinds of safe out there. As for protests, 2020 is the first time I’ve been aware of “evening” protests. I always thought they were done in the morning or afternoon, even if they blocked traffic or some other kind of ‘annoying’ action. Though I guess I did a short protest in the evening once, but it was intended to be short and then break up, which it did. These long, extended protests are new to me in terms of awareness. Even without bad actors instigating incidence or violence or damage, the “family friendly” flavor of a protest is naturally going to change and just get weirder the later it gets, probably.  Civil unrests related to lack of water, food, or fuel could crop up here and there. I’m not sure it would happen on a mass scale, but you never know. It’s also possible we’ll end up with people spending all their time in bread lines if they have to in order to feed themselves/their families. And speaking of bread lines, that one protest involving trucks in Canada (many of which were not actual Canadian truckers, 95% of which did their normal jobs), had people using the street as their bathroom and they high-jacked food pantries meant for homeless Vets and the like. And this is under relatively stable conditions, stable for a few years into a global pandemic, that is. My parents lived in one of the cities that had protests and property destruction break out in the evening. They were far enough away from the action to be safe where they were. But they did not like either the violent turn of businesses getting burned down or the suddenly big police/national guard presence in town. Protests and reactions to protests have their down sides. It’s probably better if they remain more local than have people floating in from both sides of the aisle or anarchists coming in all for their own purposes and actions. People who sign up for protests might be told the rules for behavior during the protest ahead of time, and act accordingly (BLM protests were mostly peaceful). Outside high-jackers aren’t necessarily going to come in following the established rules or marching locations, etc.  Mob behavior and mob violence isn’t the same as protest ‘violence’ but might be more dangerous. A crowd that turns into a mob has become a different beast.  One other thing about large numbers of people to watch out for is just how long it may take to travel anywhere, or find parking yourself, or watch out for pedestrians. We had an air show here recently, and I did not take that into account going into the bigger city (I guess I’m in a surrounding smaller city). Once you got near the beach and park areas, traffic slowed to a crawl, and it was in areas I usually regarded as easy parking, too, ha ha. You may think you know an area, but once it’s stuffed with people and cars, it’s slower and more difficult to travel through, and this was on a nice day where people were happy to be there. 

I use a carport where I live and it makes a huge difference. If it’s a hot day and I repark my car for even a little, I can tell the car has taken in a lot of heat from being out of a big shaded area. It also blocks a lot of snow from getting on my car in the winter. 

I have a lot of combined interests (plant based diet, holistic health, gardening, prepping) that has turned my email into a Disinformation Pipeline, even without Disinformation Algorithms jumping at people no matter what they might seem to look at. It started right on cue in Mid-March 2020. I am double vaccinated plus boosted with Moderna. Not sure when I’ll do the 2nd booster, or if I’ll go with Pfizer next time. I am a bit sloppier about mask wearing now, and I was never perfect, but sometimes you have to go with Good Enough and not punish yourself for being human. I believe the Swiss Cheese Model is the most humanly accurate, no mitigation is perfect, but use of them all can help plug in the holes along the way. Something people might not consider with Alternative Health and Wellness Based Practitioners, Businesses, or Influencers, is that they have a Business Model. They need to make money, too! And they do it by using Propaganda Methods designed to make people as angry and afraid as they claim Big Pharma or Big Media or Big Government are doing. I had a newsletter that went over night from telling people to do yoga and eat blueberries or what have you to improve their health and wellbeing, to some kind of Emotional Manipulation Horror Show, over COVID19. I was shocked and saddened and angered to see this spread all over the Alternative Health world, not everyone, but enough to make me feel like a LOT of them must be terrible liars or worse. At the very least, they are trying to cause stress meltdowns in people during an already extremely stressful situation (a global pandemic). Gratitude and Forgiveness are good for the soul, but I still hope there’s a Special Place in Hell for people who very deliberately created a Business Model based on FEAR that contributed to the deaths of thousands of people not only in America, but world wide. And they are *still* doing this, and in fact, I’d say it’s actually worse now, intended to push some individuals into violence at some point.  People will have to find Non-Toxic Lifestyle Medicine People to get more accurate information or advice. There will still be the Business Model (this is their job after all!), but it’s so much better if they are using it for good rather than evil. To me, Functional Medicine makes the most sense since it combines modern medical treatments with lifestyle ones, suited to the individual. Some people worry about the A Pill for an Ill model, but then they take 50 supplements every day, as if taking 50 “benign” pills is better than 1 “pharma” product. People just need to be careful out there!  A great bedrock to learn about how Authoritarianism/Fascism works is the old original V miniseries and series. I think I was in high school when I saw those, and it provided me with a bedrock of when to sense something bad is creeping into the world, shall we say.  I am very language sensitive, but not everyone is going to be when the “information” they receive is designed around stirring up their emotional level to a high pitch. They will read with their emotions, thinking that they are the true smart ones. It’s very tricky, and it is how conspiracies can spread, because it gamifies everything in the world. I remember looking up all the Paul Is Dead theories for the Beatles back in the day (but in the 80s and 90s, so more of a nostalgia conspiracy, lol), and darned if you couldn’t hear all the backwards messages and all that fun stuff! But just because you can “find” “clues” doesn’t mean it’s real information. Both the very smart and the very stupid can fall for the same Clue Hunts because they both feel more intelligent than everyone else for doing it. It probably becomes addicting for many. Anyway, Paul McCartney recently celebrated his 80th birthday! Disinformation and Misinformation comes in many forms, some funny, and some very damaging. In a global health crisis, it can be very damaging indeed.  

This is great!  There are also pre-made medical binders or books people can get to fill in the blanks like this. Medical binders for pets with chronic issues can be good, too. I have a cat with low blood platelets!  They can also be good for other family members. I’m not sure if my parents have one, but they do think ahead quite a bit. They are the only ones on my Dad’s side (lots of siblings) to still live in their own home and do gardening and drive and things. My Dad has had two Sciatica flare ups recently (a few years apart, one side then the other this year), and this is a very painful condition, so I’m not sure why they joke about it so much on TV to show someone is old! It goes right through your nerves, from the lower back and into your legs, not fun at all! I like the information on doing bullet points vs paragraphs, as not everyone would think of how medical professionals like to read. 

I thought pulse oximeters measured by pulse, etc. and not skin tone, so this is interesting information. I have one I stick my finger tip into, and never considered it might base measurements on a white skin tone base line. I think some Smartwatches might measure oxygen levels now, so algorithms could easily be based on white skin tone without adding in tan or dark skin tones.  I know some visual algorithms can either over or under *see* darker skin tones. There have been some documentaries about this issue.

I now have 3 cats, and figuring out what to do with them will be a big problem-solver for me!  I do have one cat that might work with a leash, but he’s also a maniac sometimes, and likes pet carriers even less than my itty bitty female cat. My other cat is a giant chonker who might be a Ragdoll, but I’m not 100% sure. He might be the most docile, but he’s also the heaviest.  I’m not sure how things work with backpacks, but there are all kinds of pet backpacks available now. Taylor Swift uses a space-bubble style backpack sometimes when she travels with her cats. Cats can see out of the little window-bubble. If a multi-backpack scenario doesn’t work, a tote or collapsable crate might be helpful. I know the hard plastic carriers are generally considered safer than soft ones, but those are also heavy in themselves.  I have seen cats ride on top of shoulders/backpacks and bike buckets for pets, but usually, they have the be the right personality for such an active lifestyle. Some of these owners will also have cats that stay at home because they would not travel well like that, or go walking like that.  I’ve seen the store flat, expandable wagons out there. And just recently saw one that is higher than usual, and I wonder if a higher sided one might work with pet carriers better, esp. if you have multiple cats/dogs/animals or kids to transport. I am not sure what brand the higher sided one was.  Some women might want to run away to Canada or Mexico now, so if they take any animals, those animals will probably be quarantined for a set amount of time. If people go to another country, they should look up the quarantine laws for pets there.  One other thing to consider is animals in very high heat or very cold/snowy weather or wind/rain (hurricane season, tornados). If you would freeze to death outside, it is very likely your pet will freeze to death outside, too. A wild animal is more likely to be built for the local weather ups and downs, but not a pet.