For Friends unfamiliar with this history, RantWoman offers previous moments:
How Fares the Truth According to our Bedbugs 2012 edition
Bedbugs 2016 plus or minus
To all Friends and Bedbugs everywhere.
Greetings from the Pugetopolis corner of our overheating planet, our overheated real estate market, and the land of traffic congestion conniptions. RantWoman was grossed out reading our draft missive from 2016 about refugee crisis issues; RantWoman is appalled to hink how much worse the baby jail / family separation / wait in Mexico immigration monstrous cruelties are now than in 2016. We the bedbugs are making RantWoman write down what she said about bedbugs probably having it way to good in all the corners of that Orange Freak's immigration system: People are not supposed to talk to their customers the way RantWoman talks to us, but since she works pro bono and we have not found anyone else with near her capabilities, we guess we need to put up with her commentary. Also we will remind her to look again for an appropriate Quakerese translation of "Orange Freak" and we will assum fierce holding in the Light regardless.
We understand communications channels between RantWoman and her Meeting are a little, just say it, fried right now. We will take our chances and do the best we can with what comes through. The way RantWoman tells it, it seems like people are more afraid of RantWoman than they are of the corona virus, sex offenders, the Trump administration and even the likes of us. We do not care. RantWoman is the only interpreter we have found. We can live with her quirks. We keep trying to make her write down the stuff she babbles about learning how to do teamwork and trying to stay out of the way for some streams of good energy. MAYBE we will be able to leave her in better humor than we found her but we do not guarantee that will help for others with sore souls! In fact, RantWoman keeps saying "Leave it Keep Praying. More bedbugs might just make things worse. But there has to be SOMETHING..."
Our testimony
Back to the main topic. Leap Day is once again upon us and we the bedbugs of University Friends Meeting are called, nay commanded in the holy Light of God to offer testimony of ourselves and our surroundings. We have asked our trusted interpreter / translator RantWoman to serve once again as our voice, though this year we are a little worried. RantWoman's tendency to blurt out uncomfortable Truth is as ferocious as ever and we pray that she will not only convey our sentiments carefully but also find the right words so that our thoughts can either be heard clearly or chewed upon fruitfully by readers.Frankly, times are kind of rough for bedbugs around UFM. The community replaced the carpet in the worship room. It tore down the bedbug highrises serving as sound muffling on the worship room walls. The carpet replacement occurred in conjunction with organizational hiccups at SHARE, the housing support entitdy usually credited with bringing us to UFM. The 20 people / night who came through SHARE to sleep in the worship room have been replaced by 50 people / night for whom space is rented by Operation Nightwatch. 50 people should definitely be better lunch than 20, but Operation Nightwatch rents space vacated by the exit of the American Friends Service Committee, space without carpet. In other words, space not guaranteed to help us thrive, no matter how many warm bodies there are around. But we are resilient and we survive if not in as large numbers as with the carpet.
Bedbugs in Greater Seattle
Life is rough not only around UFM. On one hand, suddenly there is construction everywhere and lots of places are unexpectedly getting quite tall. We keep pleading with RantWoman to see about entry, but RantWoman and Ambassador Thwack the white cane are usually so busy dodging construction mess that they are no help.The other venue for expansion locally is all the tent camps and unsanctioned homeless encampments EVERYWHERE. At first these places SOUND like they might be hospitable, but there is this thing called the Navigation Team that goes around driving people away and hauling all of everyone's belongings away. RantWoman says the Nav team is supposed to connect people with shelter and case management. But contract incentives reward cleanup of trash and obstructions, not actual housing placement. Plus there is a chronic shortage of housing and case management resources. What this means for bedbugs is nobody gets to stay anywhere long enough to get established. Plus we do not like the taste of stress hormones and we would much rather our hosts be warmer and closer to acceptable health standards even if that also means greater risk of lethal encounters.
The Bedbug grapevine is a little thin about our sister and brother bedbugs at local hotels. We assume there are many present but probably trying to lay low and stay out of social media. As for the jail, we note that the new Youth and Family services center has opened. Frankly, if less money were spent on spiffy sounding prisions there would be more money to bring people in and provide services. We bedbugs prefer variety in our diets and more people sound more digestible than more buildings. But typically no one asks bedbugs about such things. Local jailhouse dining options currently also include a flock of nice climate activists who got themselves invited to jail by overstaying a visit to a local bank. We guess we are glad to see them, but we would rather hang around the bank where the hosts are probably tastier. Oh, and we should not forget the nice clump of white supremacists also recently arrested. Bedbugs are declining to comment further.
Speaking of habitats, the cloud?.
No, as far as we know, bedbugs have not literally taken up residence in the cloud, but since some of us LOVE to nest in electronics, RantWoman is making us talk about technology. Continuing revelation seems to have gone interesting directions: many, excuse us, technologically uninterested elders are slowly wading in to the wonders of technology. We support that. There is more diversity of views in general about getting things done by email. People seem able to work in groups with some preferring email, some preferring voice or phone, and people managing give and take to work things out. All this keeps the gizmos circuits warmer which we appreciate if we are going to nest there.If we are around sometimes we have to tell RantWoman that people's eyes have glazed over. RantWoman actually sometimes appreciates this, but talking about accessibility and alternate formats and some other specific vocabulary is pretty much a necessity around RantWoman and we have no idea how to make that easier to tolerate for other people.
We know we are not the only ones trying to talk to RantWoman about the Still Didn't Get the Memo committee on Email Immoderation. Some of the time we know she can re-read and go oh, OW and a big I'm sorry thought bubble arises but we are not sure whether the thought bubbles reach their needed people. We try to make her sleep before clicking send. We let her make new subject lines whenever she needs to,. We try to make her write clear THANK YOU's when someone asks a question or offers even modest commentary.; we know she means it and appreciates it when someone goes from "I don't like it so please don't send it" to "Oh, I understood that one much better." We try to make her and her therapists calendars line up (not to be taken for granted) so less of what foams out of RantWoman's head gets splattered all over email.
RantWoman keeps saying and keeps saying and keeps saying that if she sends you email, it is because she values thinking of you in connection with whatever she is trying to communicate. RantWoman these days says all over email, please just hold in the Light and do not feel obligated to read further. Okay, in a few cases, the hold in the Light and skip has gone overboard and important communications have been badly missed. RantWoman also has "what could possibly go wrong?" twitches about gaps in some communications channels but that is all WAY too much for this dispatch.
RantWoman sighs when we make her tell us about people who have moved away to places with lower cost of living or moved away with more senior care and harder transportation paths to getting together. The Meeting has noted both deaths and growing children of different ages. We the bedbugs are glad for the people around tending to native plants and general garden and groundskeeping amenities. As for the rest of Meeting life, check in with God.
Until next leap day.
In Light and Faithfulness.
(bdbdbdbgbgbg) (the bedbugs)
I certify that I have interpreted this document accurately and completely to the best of my ability
signed RantWoman
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