On Security Measures (Some Backfire, Natch...)

And nothing on "Paranoia" spoken out loud as a "shut-down" word:

Karen Melton-Stewart, today's sort-of heroine...

(One moral of the story: it's not fun to be a tattle-tale, but it could save lives! You might be the only one with the correct thing to say in the room!)

***

Stonyford, California (formerly "Stony Ford," or "Smithville," IIRC in Wild West days - always and to this day unincorporated - when my family's property was among other things passed through by itinerants with their own portable foundry), ZIP 95979, was pasture land, as well as cowboys and Indian territory - well, Stonyford has always been interesting to describe to others in terms of its geographic location: it's essentially, in this day of Google Earth and Google Street View, a town of 139 souls (as far as the census goes) just on the Glenn County and Colusa County borders, in the Western mountains, about an hour North of Clear Lake.

Now, San Francisco is home to a lot of non-Northern California people, and the name of "Colusa," named after an already semi-mythical Chief Colus, is pretty much unheard of by a city that has a lot of historical ties to it; the OG who shoeshines his box with his windex downtown might know of East Park and have fished for bluegill and catfish there, but Scott Wiener's staff sneers the name "Stony-ferd" quizzically, even though the stone from which the Ferry Building was built was quarried right here in Sites, California, off the I-5, and then bustled down the Sacramento River as it runs through Colusa, California, to the delta and beyond on steamboat; VIP families had second homes in the city of Colusa, or would weekend at, say, the Olympic Hotel on Eddy to catch theatre shows back in the day...

(Speaking of the former Olympic, it is now converted to low-income apartments by TNDC. I lived in unit 212 for 4 1/2 years; in retrospect, it was a fine personal security measure to tell neighbors at social events that I was from "Mendocino County, up North"; nobody, among the pinay, Chinese, or old white gay dragons had heard of Colusa - okay, maybe Michael had - but also, it was a WEIRD FOUR AND A HALF YEARS, and truth be told, I was just using old counter-espionage trickery: it's more convenient to namedrop a County that has immediate, everywhere recognition, and I WAS living in a holding pen for elderly CIA assets: Chinese dissidents, pinay who'd lived in Riyadh, divinity majors... You see where I'm coming from THERE. No disrespect to Colusa County pride!)

***

Perennially, almost traditionally, seniors and the disabled are taken horrible advantage of by scammers and grifters, so here's a public service announcement:

Note to special needs: do you know OCD people? Sometimes they annoy us, doing necessary stuff, but too often, and the wrong way... But we can learn a little lesson from our obsessive-compulsive friends and family: remember, not only be careful of phishing Web sites (ask a friend what phishing with that spelling of "ph" is, if you can't look it up...); and don't tell vital information (banking stuff like balances or your banking institution's name) to strangers; be sure to change your passwords and pin numbers on occasion: passwords for e-mail, social media, and banking you might change every two to three months; pins for ATM and Debit cards: change those, too, sometimes -  work out a schedule with your social worker/counselor!

SHIP'S SECURITY: "And remember: when going to the ATM or bank to get cash, take along a buddy you can trust! (Ideally not a redshirt yeoman, who might die on the way there or back!)"

***

PS links to my Gofundme campaign and Venmo (the latter 'cos I'm personally broke) site on the sidebar to the right.... If you're feeling "CRAIGSLIST hooker-CLIENT GENEROU$")...