The View from the Hermitage, Day 77

The novel coronavirus accounts for only one smallish article on the front page of today's Washington Post along with an even smaller article about yesterday's first launch of US astronauts from US soil in nearly 10 years. (The capsule successfully docked at the International Space Station this morning.) Unfortunately, the rest of the front page was nothing but articles on the (quoting from the lead headline) "wave of rage and anguish sweep(ing) U.S. cities." I wish I had profound words to express how sickened I am by all this. I find it hard to comprehend the mindset of people such as the policemen who, with their treatment of George Floyd, set this all off. I use the plural because there is evidently some evidence that Mr. Floyd was killed not by the officer with his knee on his neck but instead by the two officers who sat on his back. Pressure on the two places--neck and back--results in different types of suffocation, and it appears that the type from which Mr. Floyd died was the kind resulting from back pressure on someone lying face down.

Because of how friends become friends, I can't think of anyone I know who would think this is okay. As I write that, however, I am reminded of my father's racism, something that got more extreme as he aged. I wrestle with whether that racism would have led to his taking the life of another person. I would like to think it would not, but I honestly do not know, and this frightens me. I know that attitudes such as racism come from nurture not nature, but I still wonder. It makes me thankful for the people I have met and the experiences I have had that help me keep my faith in human goodness, as unrealistically idealistic that may be.

Closer to home, I have three loaves of bread in the oven. I've made bread for the family for a couple of decades. We do buy bread if life gets in the way of my baking, but then I somewhat miss it. Working the hands kneading, smelling the bread as it bakes. My current go-to recipe is a whole wheat and oatmeal bread from The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking. That book has several recipes I have tried and liked. It's getting pretty dogeared, though, from frequent perusing if not using.

We went to the park again this Sunday morning. I'm not sure what the dog likes better, the car ride or the walk and different smells once we get there. There was a new Stop sign at the entrance and two people sitting there in lawn chairs (at least six feet apart) reminding people coming in to practice social distancing. We assured them we would and got a thumbs up when we held up the masks we were going to put on before leaving the car. The part of the park where we usually park had one or two more cars than are usually there, but there was still a lot of open space.

While the area around the softball fields was relatively empty, the area near the river was anything but. 

We don't know if the occupants of these cars were using the trail that runs beside the river for quite a distance. They might have been swimming; if so, I hope they stayed safe. Someone drowns in that river just about every year. We did see one car with two kayaks on the roof and another with two canoes, so at least some people were on top of the water rather than in it.

We did not go to the park last Sunday, instead visiting the university cemetery, so I can't say whether the crowds were due to the state's having entered Phase I of reopening or the nicer weather today than last weekend. Older son thought it was Phase I, which led to a rousing discussion of the metrics shown on the state health department's website. Our reading is that the arrows are not going in a direction that suggests Phase I has been a good thing. I can't see the governor pulling the state out of Phase I and back to staying at home; I don't think he has the courage (I really wanted to cite male genitalia here, but decided to stay PG-rated) to do so. I can see, and hope he does as well, extending Phase I for several more weeks. We'll find out on Tuesday or Thursday when he has his pandemic press conferences. In the meantime, I shall enjoy fresh, homemade bread sitting in an Adirondack chair on the front porch while I continue reading John Barry's The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 76

Several years ago, one of the local camera stores had a special in which you took them 150 photographs, and they would digitize them and return a CD of all the images. I took advantage of it but never really did anything with the CD. Since all my time now is supposedly free, I asked the husband to transfer the images from the CD to a thumb drive (I was too lazy to look for the portable CD/DVD device). Given the the file names were all of the form "some 17 or 19 numbers strung together with a .00# suffix," I decided to rename them after the person(s) shown. Older son and younger son can find the photos containing themselves, with the photos containing both of them named BOTH00#. I started an Excel spreadsheet with the name of the image and a brief description. This was going swimmingly until I slipped up and sorted the file names without having them linked to the relevant description. Did I do this and remain able to undo the sort? No, because I actually sorted the file that way a couple of times. Checking each image and giving it the proper description took a while and did not make me happy. It took until late afternoon to finish all 150 images.

Why am I mentioning all this? Because, as you might imagine, going through the images brought back a wealth of memories, virtually all of them good memories. Many of the shots were from family vacations, and seeing those brought back a flood of memories of that year or that place or whatever we were doing at the time. Events such as the husband and sons trying to (and succeeding in) robbing a Pepsi machine that had somehow caught and sucked in the hackeysack they'd been kicking back and forth. I think I had four of five different shots of that escapade. Not to mention the image of the fly younger son decapitated using a cheap souvenir shop "mosquito trap" that looked like a leg-hold trap. Younger son had me set it with a piece of orange when we went to bed. The next morning, the family awoke to my "Holy shit!" upon seeing the dead fly with its head off to one side.

Continuing with memories, I've been skiing to nowhere daily to DirecTV's music from the '70s feed. The second song I heard this morning was "Seasons in the Sun," a song that always has at least a minor emotional effect on me. The second line is "We've known each other since we were nine or ten." This morning, I found myself thinking that I can't say that about anyone. We moved across the continent after I'd completed Grade 5 (I was ten) and two years later moved one state over, which is where I went to high school followed by the local college. Did I retain any high school friends? I did not, though I have reconnected with some via Facebook. Friends from college? One, who was a bridesmaid in my wedding, but others only through Facebook. Because I've stayed in the city in which I went to graduate school, I've retained friends who were not fellow students. I do see one fellow student who also stayed here but only when she comes to vote at the precinct for which I am an election official. Considering all that, I may be more anti-social than I thought, not to have formed any real lasting friendships with peers.

Songs of the '70s, a time in which I was in high school (I'm high school class of 1973), college (class of 1976), and grad school (master's degree in 1980). As each song starts, I try to place it in its proper period. (Note: It may be notable how many songs come up that I do not recognize or are by musical artists or groups I do not recall at all.) To what event or person do I associate each song? Was it on my spring break trip to Florida? The year between college and grad school in which I worked at Vanderbilt University? Memories, some embarrassing, flood back.

I do not really listen to contemporary music now. I'm usually on an oldies-type channel or listening to an artist from a past life or a playlist based on some time in the past. Will there be music by which I will remember the pandemic of 2020 or the burning of Minneapolis? There is not a song I currently connect to the pandemic, but there is a song for Minneapolis. With every report--and there are far too many--of a black person being shot by a police person, I think of Bruce Springsteen's "American Skin (41 Shots)." I always wonder while hearing that song how differently I would have had to have raised by sons had they not been of the ethnicity in power. My heart skips a beat whenever I hear Lena getting her son ready for school.

I may not have a song to pandemic by, but how will I remember these days in the Hermitage. One reason to keep this blog is to be able, if I want to, to see some of what I was thinking as the pandemic wears on. I get frustrated seeing the number of cases in a state head straight up starting two weeks after mitigation measures are loosened or done away with. Re-imposing mitigation measures such as stay-at-home orders will be harder than imposing them initially. I expect the resistance to re-imposing them will be greater than the initial resistance. I wonder in how many cities the frustration at pandemic restrictions is fueling part of the demonstrations, and how large that part might be. Thoughts for another day when I might be more focused on the present than the past.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 75

I'm calling it a day of rest here. I spent most of the day going through 150 photos, sorting them, giving them meaningful names (a string of numbers is not meaningful, but Name001 can be), and labelling them with who (else), when, and where. Lots of memories that made for a good day. Perhaps I shall wax philosophically tomorrow.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 74

Coronavirus cancellations continue! (I shall resist the thought of adding more hard C sounds to this sentence.) This morning, I modified the website of our local quilt guild to reflect that the workshops scheduled for early October have been cancelled. If that sounds as if it might be too far in the future, a quilt show scheduled for February 2021 in Atlanta several weeks ago announced it would become a virtual show. Among the reasons cited were the difficulty attendees might have in making and breaking travel or lodging reservations and the fact that making the switch from on-site to virtual was much cheaper now than it would be further down the road. I've been waiting to hear whether the early October Fall Fiber Festival at which I usually work might be cancelled.

Older son sent me the reopening plan put out by the Brazilian ju jitsu gym to which he sometimes goes. It is so well laid out not to mention so safely conservative. The plan runs from whenever the state enters its Phase III of reopening to January at the earliest. Meanwhile, the gym or fitness center to which we belong has offered no real specifics as to how they plan to reopen. They did note in the latest email that their summer camps would be opening on schedule and that registration for camp was ongoing. They offered no details of what mitigation measures they might have planned, but you can't tell me they will be able to keep 5- or 6-year-olds at a social distance all day every day. I certainly would not be sending my kids to camp this summer.

No complaints about the governor today. He announced that the state would remain in Phase I of reopening for at least one more week, and that moving to Phase II in a week was not a given.
I can live with that.

And Minneapolis burned last night. I'm sure the stress and pressures of the pandemic contributed at least a wee bit to people's being on a very narrow edge. Older son pointed out that the Los Angeles riots of his childhood did not occur until after the officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted. These riots occurred despite the cops in question having immediately been fired and an investigation started. I'm not going to visit the question of whether the riots would have happened if the cops had immediately been charged with murder. Not gonna go there.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 73

The university recently sent a rather long survey to three years of next year's undergraduates asking their opinions on various scenarios for next academic year, the one that starts roughly three months from now. Last night, the professor husband got the analogous survey for faculty. It's pretty clear from that survey that the university plans to be open for in-person instruction. The questions were all about scheduling classes save for one on possible mitigation measures. In terms of mitigation, a list was presented that included quarantining if exposed. Faculty were asked to comment on the list of measures and offer any not listed. I suggested that the husband respond that if he were supposed to quarantine, the university should pay for him to do so somewhere other than home. I haven't been hermitting so seriously only to have him bring something home when he comes to quarantine.

Some of the scheduling options sounded better than others. It was clear that online instruction would be an option. How about evening classes to deal with time zone differences? Evening classes up until now have traditionally been limited to continuing education and the rare graduate class or two. How about weekend instruction? Does this make anyone else think of Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday classes to go with the Monday-Wednesday-Friday ones? How about classes at different times, as in 1:00 pm on Monday and Friday with the Wednesday class being at 9:00 am? Also mentioned were shifting fall semester classes to the two-week long between-semesters January term or shifting spring semester classes to summer terms.

Bringing students back assumes that said students are willing to wear masks and practice social distancing. Apparently, there was a large party at a frat house just yesterday with students on a balcony standing shoulder to shoulder. Drinking beer--or any other liquid--through a mask might be difficult. I would love to know how the university administration plans to enforce mitigation measures. They can plan all they want, but I don't expect those plans to be successful.

In other news, today's Space X launch was scrubbed due to weather. The next launch window comes on Saturday. Fingers crossed all goes well.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 72

The governor, who left his mask in his car while visiting Virginia Beach over the weekend and who got up close and personal with some folks who wanted a selfie, today announced that as of Friday, anyone over the age of 10 must wear a mask inside any public building or brick and mortar establishment. Masks do not need to be worn if a person is exercising or eating and drinking. This did not make many people happy judging by the number of angry faces shown rising up on the Facebook feed I was watching.

So can a person be arrested, fined, or otherwise penalized for not masking up while inside a business? Not likely, given that the mask issue will not be enforced by law enforcement but will instead fall under the purview of the Department of Health. A reporter's question of how this enforcement might be manifested was given a somewhat rambling answer about how a business that did not enforce the wearing of masks might, at an uncertain point in the future, find their business license in jeopardy.

The governor announced that it was likely that the localities who did not enter Phase I of reopening a week and a half ago would enter Phase I on Friday. This of course raised the question of whether the rest of the state could move on to whatever Phase II might be on Friday. The governor hedged on this, which I hope means he's not going to move to Phase II that soon. He said that Phase I had not at this point lasted two weeks, and the time scale of the novel coronavirus suggested now was not the time to study what had happened in the last ten days. He said officials would be looking at the relevant metrics as the two-week point came closer, and he would be able to say more about that on Thursday. I've got my fingers crossed that he announces two more weeks of Phase I, putting the whole state on the same schedule.

My Facebook feed this morning showed me my post on this day in 2017. The husband and I were on a Treasures of Peru tour and visiting Machu Picchu. It was the afternoon that six of us with an average age of 67 hiked up the side of a mountain from the main tourist area to the Sun Gate. I was the baby of the group at age 60. It was not an easy hike but was well worth doing. Reading this memory reminded me that the husband and I have discussed how good it was that we did not keep putting trips off until some nebulous point in the future such as after he retires. Because of that, we've visited the places we most wanted to see which, for me, were Angkor Wat, Iceland, and Machu Picchu. If I had known how great it would be, I would have added taking the mailboat along the coast of Norway to that list. There is no way of knowing whether international travel will ever be the same or how long it might take for that to come to pass. There are international places I'd still like to visit--Nepal and Bhutan, Morocco, possibly some of the 'Stans--but it won't break my heart to not be able to go to those places.

I'm working on a new list of places to visit that are closer to home. The first on the list is Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories, a trip to be taken at a time when viewing the aurora borealis is probable. Except for the fact that I really have no desire at this point to visit Hawaii, it would be nice to knock off the US states I have yet to visit. There aren't many besides Hawaii: Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, and possibly Oklahoma. I can't recall if I went through part of Oklahoma while driving to Dallas, Texas back in my single days. And if we're going to knock off the US states, we might as well add the Canadian provinces and territories. And I have no desire to go to Mexico unless the safety issues there have been addressed.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 71

I'm taking a break today and remembering all those who have given their utmost in defense of, yes, in defense of us and the freedoms we hold dear. I shall particularly think about the uncle I never knew who gave his life in 1950, during the early months of the conflict in Korea.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 70

First, my apologies to He Who Shall Not Be Named. He did not request (order?) that churches reopen; he requested (ordered?) that "houses of worship" reopen and even noted that that included synagogues and mosques. I may not agree with him on almost everything, but I have to give credit or correction where due.

There was an interesting article in today's Washington Post about whether all houses of worship actually wanted to reopen now. Some smaller HoWs that did not traditionally have an online presence have found people all around the world tuning in to their broadcasts or listening as they wish to services posted online. Their reach is so much farther now, which one has to note is a very good thing.

Instead of our traditional Sunday morning outing of giving the family dog the car ride she loves and a walk in the park, we drove to the local university to check out the cemetery. The cemetery is much larger than I imagined. I never actually went into it in my time as a grad student or staff member. The university having been around for over 200 years, there is a section in the graveyard dedicated to alumni or friends of the university who served in the Civil War. Last year, the Daughters of the Confederacy put small Confederate flags on each of those graves. I wanted to see if they had this year as well. There was at least one complaint sent to the university's president last year.

We actually only saw one grave that had flowers and a flag on it, and the flag was the US one, not the Confederate one. Older son will check again tomorrow just in case the flags would not be put up until the morning of Memorial Day. I sort of thought they might be put up today. It could just be that they would not be put up until this afternoon to be ready for tomorrow.

I've always loved walking through cemeteries, especially old ones. There are so many things that catch my eye. There were also graves of university faculty and staff. The tombstone to the right below belongs to the Librarian of the University who was named to that position by Thomas Jefferson, founder of the university, in 1926, six months before Jefferson died.

I could have spent much longer exploring, but we also had to go from the cemetery to the physics building so that the husband could pick up a webcam he wants to try out for taping his summer school lectures. The husband had brought along an extra pair of latex gloves, so I was able to make use of the ladies without having to pull my hands up my sleeve so as not to touch anything with my bare skin. As we were walking out of the building, I noted that going out (the park does not really seem like going out since there's nothing urban about it) made me think even more about how I don't go out to the point that, at least then, being out made me feel a bit uncomfortable even with mask, gloves while inside, and not touching railings or anything outside. I felt better once we got back to the car.

Regular readers have seen me go from being very positive about our governor to being so not so. A Local Opinion column in today's Post lays it all out. We could be setting an example for other states to follow. Instead, we are one of the 24 states said to still be in an epidemic and, with Maryland and the District of Columbia, one of the fastest growing hot spots in the country.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 69

My first attempt at a Zoom call with my mom ended miserably yesterday. Neither of us could hear the other. The solution turned out to be the same for both of us: log out of everything, turn the computer off, and turn it back on. Once we each did that, our microphones worked like a charm. We had a nice chat this morning and are scheduled to chat again on Wednesday. Mom got the chance to ask me about various things I should have done or need to do, things such as move some of the house-plants out onto the deck and fill and hang the hummingbird feeder. I need to get those done before Wednesday when I may well get another list of chores.

Two days ago, it was colder here than in Bangor, Maine, home of my brother and sister-in-law, or in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, home of my brother-in-law. It was not a day for sitting out at a sidewalk cafe unless one was drinking a steamy hot mug of something. Today, it's in the 80s (Fahrenheit). I bet the sidewalk cafes are doing a good business even with the tables six feet apart.

We shall find out on Tuesday if the governor is going to issue an executive order requiring that a person wear a mask when entering a business. The governor wanted to make sure that everyone had access to masks before he issued the order. We have yet to have a pandemic "incident" here in the 'Ville; could a mask requirement lead to one? Assuming that a university town is full of people who have at least a rudimentary understanding of epidemiology and an understanding of the benefits of masks does not compute. There will be someone who does not want to wear a mask at some business, and it won't be hilarity that ensues.

He Who Shall Not Be Named, who does not attend church, has announced that churches are essential entities and must be open tomorrow. I wonder if "church" is any religious establishment such as a synagogue or mosque, or only a Christian one. He Who Shall Not Be Named will take action against the governors of states who do not comply. How will Virginia be viewed? Religious establishments can be open but not to capacity. There must be social distance between individuals or household groups. I cringe at the thought of a mega-church congregation, members sitting right next to each other, singing loudly. We thought it looked bad when the virus spread among members of a church choir after a single practice. How would the mega-church congregation look a couple of weeks later?

There are professional sports organizations talking about how best to start or finish their seasons. Almost all specify no spectators, which is not a bad idea. The television ratings will be through the roof. I can envision people who have never watched a hockey game tuning in because it's the only sport in town. And there has been talk that a future viral wave might derail the Olympics already moved from 2020 to 2021. Would I miss the Olympics? Since we're talking the summer games, not as much as I would miss the winter ones. To try at this point to predict what might come to pass in the next year or even next month would be an exercise in futility. We're really just along for the ride.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 68

From yesterday: Coming tomorrow: how one comic strip is slyly addressing some of the mental health effects of the pandemic.

Marciuliano and Manley have incorporated the pandemic into the Judge Parker. The filming of a television pilot in Cavelton (after many years, we were this year told the name of the town in which Judge Parker is set) was stopped due to the pandemic. This has affected various characters in various ways. To go into all of them would show what a comics nerd I can be, so I won't. Sophie, adopted daughter of Abby and Sam, was kidnapped three years ago in a very bizarre departure from what passes as normal in the strip. She is still in therapy working through what happened to her. In another nod to the pandemic, her sessions are now conducted via Zoom. Here is Wednesday's strip:

This seems like very good advice targeted at anyone who is foundering their way through dealing with pandemic-wrought changes such as working from home, not working, feeling cooped up, and so on. A lot of us are, I'm pretty sure, wondering how others are coping, and how our coping compares with them. The therapist's advice about not using general, even undefined, terms to refer to nebulous things or entities seems pretty sound. We can't define ourselves or evaluate our skills in relation to an unknown standard. And comparison even to a known standard can be dicey. That person we think we know may have expertise or experience we have not seen that allows them to manage in ways we might not have thought of.

Yesterday's strip was not so directly relatable to the pandemic and coping, but still had some words of wisdom. We should question ourselves every so often, and this period of, for many of us, less doing and more being would not be a bad time for that. I find myself trying to imagine what my life would be like without the pandemic. It would clearly be different than it is now, but would it be better? Introspection is not always without some discomfort but does offer insight we might be able to put to good use.

The governor speaks at 2:00, but I have a Zoom call with my mom scheduled for the same time. I'd like to think that the governor will address some metrics on which the state could look a hell of a lot better, but he most likely won't. Selectively picking and choosing is one of the easiest ways to lie with statistics.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 67

From yesterday afternoon's email about the content of that night's NBC Nightly News:

The dishes will never be done. Ever. It's the least of our problems, and yet a constant reminder that even on the undramatic edges of a crisis, we do not have our act together. Don't worry, though — you're not alone. Apparently we're all eating cereal from a beer stein with a butter knife. (Watch the video at the bottom of this newsletter for another reminder that it's not just you.)

No, I did not watch the video. I also did not watch NBC Nightly News last night. The husband's Zoom meeting was still going on, and I was too lazy to head to the basement to watch it there.

Let's look at that blurb. Dishes? Yes, with the husband and I both eating three meals plus a snack or two at home, there are more dishes. This is not surprising considering that I have been trying new recipes. We are running the dishwasher more frequently.  I can say, though, that if the dishes that could not go into the dishwasher were not washed that night, they are washed first thing the next morning.

A constant reminder that we do not have our act together? I wouldn't say that. There are certainly days on which I feel that way, but those days happened before the pandemic arrived. And even when they happen now, I don't blame the pandemic or self-quarantining here in the Hermitage. While those could definitely be factors, it could also be hormones, biorhythms, low blood sugar, or I just got up on the wrong side of the bed.

And eating cereal from a beer stein with a butter knife? Come on! It would be an exercise in patience to try to eat cereal with a butter knife. If you get to the point of doing that and from a beer stein no less, you really do have too much time on your hands thanks to the pandemic and quarantine. Might I suggest reading a book? Taking up or continuing a craft? Walking your dog? I've been doing all three of those, though it's not just one craft but five.

As for the pandemic conditions in Virginia, we don't look too good compared to other states on the site https://www.endcoronavirus.org/states The data are a bit dated, from ten days ago, but at that point Virginia was one of if not the most worrisome state. That line is pretty darn steep and showing no real sign of turning downward.

I told older son and the husband that I was actually disappointed in the governor and his talk of using science and data to inform his actions. I thought his background in medicine would help him keep things slow. Older son responded that the governor might be afraid of an armed insurrection or at least a demonstration calling for reopening. We had a quite massive second amendment gathering earlier this year, so the seeds would be out there.

Coming tomorrow: how one comic strip is slyly addressing some of the mental health effects of the pandemic.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 66

I've been hiding in the basement today which is not bad since that's where my sewing room/studio is. I've got three more scrub caps in progress. I also did one of those "I really should do that" chores done, which was printing off each page of the quilt guild website I manage and making a website notebook. The dog came down to sniff me once, but I have not seen the cat.

The husband has turned the dining room table into his office as he participates in a proposal review meeting for--probably--the Department of Energy. Normally, this would have been done around a table in a room in Washington, DC or elsewhere. In the new normal, it's being done via Zoom. He came down on one break and noted that he missed being able to lean over to the person next to him and whisper something. He said that not being able to do that makes things go slower. The meeting is from 11:00 to 7:00 today; tomorrow's schedule will be determined by how things go today. I did warn the husband that I might, around 5:00, set a beer or glass of wine just off screen to tempt him.

The governor's presser was pretty matter-of-fact today. Phase 1 has been going on for five days, with Phase 2 being at least nine days away. I'll have to check the Health Department metrics next Thursday morning, since I imagine he will announce in Thursday's presser if Phase 1 will be extended. 

I'm seeing more and more colleges and universities say they will be person-to-person come fall. Most are more than tweaking the semester schedule, though. Several are starting in August, cancelling fall break and any fall holidays, and ending person-to-person mode at Thanksgiving. Exam review and exams will happen in December, but not in person. That schedule actually doesn't sound too bad. The kids aren't going home or away for any breaks from which they could gather nasty germs. They go home for Thanksgiving and then are gone until January. The other schedule template is to start in September, cancelling fall break and any fall holidays, holding classes on the day before Thanksgiving, and finishing everything else in December in person on campus. I can't say that plan thrills me. If someone goes home for Thanksgiving and brings the virus back, people would start getting sick as exams are starting. I think that plan needs work.

Survey people might be interested to know that the local university sent a survey to three years of the undergraduate student population asking about various schedule options. The response rate was 70 percent. Anyone who's done a survey knows that that is an incredibly high figure. That shows how important the issue is to students. The husband says no one has asked faculty members about what schedule option(s) they might prefer. That's probably to be expected. The students bring tuition dollars into the university while the faculty members take salary dollars away from the university.

Day 66. If I'm still doing this on Day 666, then everything really will have gone to Hell in a handbasket or via other transportation. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 65

One thing I am apt to remember from my time in the Hermitage is the furniture arrangement I put up with. In January, we had the interior of our house repainted for the first time since we had it built in 1985. That involved moving all the furniture away from the walls. To move bookcases, I packed all the books in banker's boxes that got put in the basement. They went to the basement since the plan was to have the hardwood floors sanded and refinished in March. I was not going to put all the books back on the shelves only to take them off again so soon. The floors got moved until May, and it seemed simpler just to leave the furniture sitting away from the walls, in the middle of some rooms, and so on. It will get moved out to a pod or truck for the week it will take to do the floors. May has become July (July 20 to be exact), so we're still living in general disarray.

In January, we moved to the guest room in the basement for the master bedroom to be repainted. When that had been done, the husband noted that we might as well stay on in the basement since we would be living there for the week in March it would take to do the floors. He liked the fact that it is darker in the basement; the master bedroom has a skylight over the bed. There are other differences as well. The guest room has a double bed; the master bedroom has a queen-size bed. The guest bathroom has a single sink; the master bathroom has a double sink. Whoever gets downstairs first in the evening or gets up first in the morning gets the sink to themselves.

On the plus side, the laundry is also in the basement, so there is no carrying laundry baskets between the basement and second floor. And as I said, the guest bedroom is darker which the husband says should help us sleep better. It may help him, but I'm not seeing any benefits in the sleep area.

On the coronavirus front, I got a notification on my cell phone from ABC News noting that besides the lungs, the novel virus can attack the brain as well. In one case cited, the effect on the brain was seen several days before there was any effect on the lungs. The patient did not get tested for covid-19 until the lungs got involved. Lungs, circulatory system, toes, brain. Is there any part of our human body that the virus doesn't like or won't adapt to? The picture gets a bit dimmer just as more states reopen or reopen even more. I know that at some point I will have to venture out into the world beyond my house or subdivision, but can I make that first time when I go out to get vaccinated?

Some weeks ago, I sent an email volunteering to participate in an NIH study on coronavirus antigens. They were looking for people who had not been tested. A week or so ago (the weeks seem to meld together) I got a follow-up email asking for some more medical info. Today I got an email acknowledging receipt of the survey I'd completed and returned and noting that I should hear very soon if I had been chosen to move on to the next stage. That may be the stage where I can go to NIH in Bethesda, Maryland to have blood drawn (not gonna happen) or draw blood on my own using instructions they'd send. Do something every day that scares you.

I worry somewhat that I am becoming numb to the pandemic's events. The footage of overcrowded hospitals in New York City, and the aerial photo of the mass graves had a visceral effect. They were shocking. It's become more businesslike. Numbers, graphs, projections, and the like just don't have the same effect, not that I want the examples I used to recur. Will the novel coronavirus become just another part of human existence, like influenza? Will it last long enough that the "novel" gets dropped?

And He Who Shall Not Be Named claims to be taking hydroxychloroquine. There's nothing so far to confirm or discount his statement. Now can we get him to inject or ingest a bit of bleach?

The View from the Hermitage, Day 64

I just watched the governor's Monday presser. Next week, Monday-Wednesday-Friday becomes Tuesday-Thursday. I guess there won't be as much to report after that. The beaches at Virginia Beach and its neighbor to the north, First Landing State Park, will open as of Friday for certain activities including swimming and sun-bathing. Tents, groups of umbrellas, and other "structures" that might contain people at a less than social distance are not allowed. Beach parking lots can only take 50 percent of their capacity. There was no mention of the crowds that were out on the Virginia Beach beaches this past weekend; the media photo suggested that social distance was a theory rather than practice.

The governor also raised the issue of schools reopening come fall, both at the K-12 level and the college-university level. There's a committee or two (it was difficult to tell) to study the issue. Membership(s) include the State Secretary of Education, various division superintendents, and college and university presidents. The local university has said they will make an announcement in mid-June, but that even if they open for on-Grounds (the local university does not have a "campus;" it has "Grounds") all classes will be available online for students unable or unwilling to come in bodily fashion. It will be interesting to see if any explanation of the ultimate decision makes any reference to university athletics. If it is not safe for students to be here in person, it should not be safe for student-athletes, which would mean no football. Given that football and basketball, which also begins in the fall, revenues pretty much fund the whole intercollegiate athletics program, not being able to have them is a pretty big deal. I'm not sure which side I'd place money on right now--open as usual with sports, or online only without sports.

Some states saw an increase in the number of cases between this week and a week ago. Among those were Tennessee, Louisiana, and Michigan, the state in which armed protestors surrounded the state capitol. Texas is allowing offices and gyms to open at 25 percent capacity today after reporting its largest single-day jump in confirmed cases on Saturday. Cases in Georgia actually declined, two weeks out from the reopening there. However, it can take two weeks for symptoms or positive test results to appear, so it will be very interesting to see if the decline holds for another week.

I sent four more scrub caps out in today's mail, for a total of 17. I may or may not make more. My ER nurse friend says not to feel obligated. She also said that when she brings them in they are greeted similar to XBoxes at Walmart on Black Friday. I think I'd move from batiks to my collection of Asian prints for the next set should there be one. I've been working on a cross-stitch project more than 30 years old in the evening while the husband does crossword puzzles. I also want to weave a scarf from some Icelandic wool I have in my yarn stash and get back to some needle-felted ornaments. Finally, there's a quilt top I want to get pinned so that I can start quilting it. So many projects ... so little, oops, so much time.

Also on the ways to spend time list, today I ordered six books to be given to older son once I've read them. Interesting that in two cases the Kindle price was equal to or higher than the paperback price and in another, the Kindle price and the hardback price were the same. Is Amazon under pressure from publishers to try to make "real" books more competitive against e-books? I also exhausted the $500 Amazon gift card I earner in one of the university's health challenges. It was nice while it lasted.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 63

Day 63. Nine weeks. Had someone told me on January 1, 2020, that within five months I would spend nine weeks leaving the subdivision only to take the family dog to a park once a week, I would have laughed. Had I been seeing the daily intelligence briefings prepared for the president, I might not have laughed. I hope I would have seen this pandemic as a real possibility then, but hindsight is always 20-20.

It's been a bit of a do-nothing weekend, and a think-nothing one as well. I needed to wind down a bit. I also needed to bake banana bread (bananas getting too ripe more quickly than anticipated) and bread (stocking up on yeast and flour ten weeks ago was a good idea). Perhaps tomorrow I will again think great thoughts or do great acts. For this weekend, average or lower has been sufficient.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 62

Younger son came to town today, probably to get hay for his menagerie. He stopped at older son's house just long enough to drop off my Mother's Day present and a larger monitor the husband wants to try out. Both sons wore masks; older son lifted his just long enough to show off his pandemic beard. Older son will bring the monitor and gift when he comes by in the morning. I do hate that I could not see younger son in person, but he has noted that by living in a relatively large city, his chances of being exposed to the novel coronavirus are much higher than ours.

Older son heard this morning that the husband might go into his department's building to deliver his online summer school lectures in July. Older son did not like that and proceeded to show the husband how he could set up a very nice "classroom" here. I'll just have to lock myself and the family pets in the basement so that we don't interrupt anything.

The subdivision rabbit bearing gifts? Older son and I saw it this morning on walk number two with the dog. We left it as we found it, though the thought did occur to move it without opening it. Every party needs a pooper, and we're just not into the bunny party.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 61

Others have been making masks--three members of my quilt guild have made over 600 each--something I was somewhat dismissive of in a much earlier post. I apologize. There are still mask requests out there, meaning that the local world has needed and gotten at least 1,800.

One of the women with whom I once did karate works in the emergency room at the university's hospital. She said in an email that what they really needed was hats that they could tie over their hair, goggle straps, whatever was going around their heads. The brighter colors, the better. I looked online and found a scrub hat pattern that looked simple enough that even I could do it. (I think I mentioned in an earlier pandemic post that I am not at all an expert sewist.) I did manage to do it, though the first hat and several after vexed me more than a little. I made most of them from bright batik fabric. I also made one with goats on one side and cows on the other since it turned out that the hats are reversible.

Seven seemed like a good number, being the number of days in a week and a prime to boot, so I stopped at seven. I stuffed them all in a large envelope that I put in the mail addressed to friend's house. I know. It would have been cheaper to just drop them off, but again as noted in an earlier post, I'm engaged in serious self-quarantine. Friend loved them. Her colleagues in the ER loved them. She texted me a photo of her and six others wearing the hats. They noticed that the hats are reversible, with the goats and cows one being a big hit.

After that, I did a bit more sewing together of some random squares I made sometime in the forgettable past. Not finding the squares might have been better. They are more mismatched in precision than my work usually is. Not wanting to address that issue, I decided to make another hat or four. I texted friend and told her I was making a few more. She replied that colleagues had been asking her if I was making more because they really, really liked them. That settled it. I was making some more.

I had two fabrics I really, really liked but had never found a use for. They were the same loopy pattern--think the scribble pictures we did as children--but one was in black and white and shades of grey while the other was in colors. Recognizing that I had never found just the project for these fabrics, I decided they were clearly awaiting something special ... how about ER scrub hats? I cut the pieces for four hats from the two pieces of fabric.

I was going to make a couple of red and green batik hats, but the piece of red fabric turned out not to be long enough. Perusing my stash, I found a piece of gnome fabric left over from a quilt I made based on the letter "G." There was enough, when paired with the green batik, for two more hats. I cut pieces for four more hats from a blue batik print and a deep blue somewhat solid batik. I figured ten was plenty for now.

Because practice makes easier (perfection is for people who have more time than I), I got the four loopy ones done fairly quickly. They went into envelopes addressed to friend. I finished the two gnome ones in time for them to leave in today's mail pick-up as well. I'll do the four blues over the weekend. And maybe I'll make some more. The night is young! Well, to the extent the pandemic is similar to a period of darkness.

Why have I gotten a sense of fulfillment from the hats that I couldn't see connected to the masks? I really think it is that I know where the hats are going, and I know that they are appreciated. Seeing the smiling faces beneath the first seven hats was special. That more than anything else is the reason I did more. And I did not feel obligated to make them; I wanted to make them.

And so passes the end of two months hanging out in the hermitage. What the governor is calling Phase One of the reopening started today and will last two to four weeks or longer. I pray that those who, like me, think this is too soon will vote with their modes of transportation and continue to stay home. Should the husband and I ever release ourselves from the hermitage, I intend to make a point of patronizing the eateries that are continuing with takeout or delivery only as a means of keeping their staff safe. Be safe. Be sane.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 60

Today would have been my father's 91st birthday. He made it to 81 before he lost a years-long battle with multiple myeloma. Looking ahead to this day earlier in the week, I found myself wondering what Dad would be thinking today. He was a biologist by training, so I know the novel coronavirus would have been of great interest. I know, though, that he would have been an ardent supporter of He Who Shall Not Be Named. I have said on more than one occasion that it was a good thing he did not make it to the ascension of He Who Shall Not Be Named to the presidency. I managed to keep my mouth shut and not make waves when Dad told me that John McCain should be the VP nominee on Sarah Palin's presidential bid. I could not have done the same eight years later.

How would Dad have balanced the biology behind the virus with the many unscientific claims of He Who Shall Not Be Named? I do wonder, but at the same time, I don't want to know. I probably could not have kept my mouth shut on the question.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 59

We've tried two new food things this week. On Monday, the husband made a Peruvian rice and beans dish known as tacu tacu. It was a late Mother's Day present since we'd had leftovers the night before. The tacu tacu recipe came from Joe Yonan's "Weeknight Vegetarian" column in the food section of The Washington Post. It was quite good, and we will definitely be having it again.

Last night, we cooked steak on a rock. For Mother's Day, older son gave me two stones from a company known as Artestia. He gave another set to the husband as an early Father's Day gift. He also provided the steaks. You heat a stone for around 40 minutes in a 525 degree (F) oven. When you take it out, you plop the steak on it. You can cook the whole steak and then eat it or cut bites off to cook more quickly and eat the steak as it cooks. You can also cook eggs on them, though that seems a bit too much work for scrambled or fried eggs. We first had steak on a rock at a now-closed Caribbean restaurant in a city up north Route 29. Again, something we will be repeating.

In the old-normal, pre-coronavirus world, I would be packing right now and trying not to obsess over making sure all the paperwork was in order. Tomorrow, the husband and I would be driving up to Dulles International Airport and taking an overnight Turkish Air flight to Istanbul. There, we would get on another Turkish Air flight to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, the start of a 17-day trip through three countries commonly thought to be along the Silk Road of Marco Polo's day. We recovered the full cost of the trip plus insurance when the tour company cancelled things. It's hard to say if we'll have the chance to do that tour again or, if we do have the chance, we would take it.

Travel as we've known it may never be the same again. It's not at all clear when different countries might change their current border lockdowns. You can probably get out of your home country, but it's not clear what other countries would admit you right now. Even state-to-state travel can get complicated with some states requiring a 14-day quarantine period for anyone entering from another state. And should those state quarantine requirements be lifted, I'm not sure I want to get on an airplane. Will "Road trip!" be the new way to go? "Shotgun!"

The local paper ran an article yesterday reporting that a majority of local residents do not support the partial reopening of the state (minus Northern Virginia) starting Friday. I hope those people vote with their feet and stay at home. I hope that things work out and that the decline in the relevant metrics continues, but I won't hold my breath. We'll see what things look like after Memorial Day.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 58

Sorry to disappoint the three readers I know and know about, but I got involved with random other things and decided to take a break. Tonight we're eating steak cooked on rocks thanks to Mother's and (early) Father's Day presents from older son.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 57

I cut two articles out of this morning's Washington Post. Sally Jenkins wrote about three coaches who knew what messages to send and when to send them. The article began

The right call can swing a game sometimes, but it happens a lot less than you think. The right word, however — that’s infinitely more powerful. The ability to say the right thing at the right time, to lift a team out of a deficit or reach a player who is drowning in insecurity, to restore, rescue even, that’s real coaching. Real leading. 

You can read the rest of it here. It's worth reading. 

The other article was from the Couch Slouch, Norman Chad. "Pandemic is reminding us we don't need more sports in our lives--we need less" Humor is good at a time like this, and the Couch Slouch provides. Reading this column reminded me that flipping through channels one day not too long ago, I encountered the world dodgeball championships on ESPN. Dodgeball. Like in the movie. No, I did not watch it once I saw enough to ascertain that it was for real. 

True leadership. Something we need these days. Humo(u)r. We also need that.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 56

Happy Mother's Day to those who celebrate it today rather than in March. I've heard the March holiday referred to as "Mothering Sunday," which has a somewhat warmer feel than "Mother's Day." I contributed to the family Mother's Day history by totally not noticing a vase of flowers and a lovely potted flowering plant despite walking right by the end of the table on which they sat ... twice. We had been out walking the family dog. When we'd left, the husband had stayed behind to put food in the family dog's food rug and get out the flowers. When we got back, older son and I came into the house first, and I immediately went to pet the family cat who has been having some medical issues lately. She happened to be laying beside the invisible flowers. After I petted her, I went to hang up my jacket. The husband came inside and asked older son if I had seen the flowers. Older son said he didn't think I'd seen them. "What flowers?" I asked as I turned around to see them sitting on the edge of the table I had just walked by twice. I will not live that one down for a while, if ever.

Eight weeks of hermitting, and the news from the outside world is hardly encouraging. Two weeks after its reopening, Georgia (the state, not the country) has seen something like a 40 percent increase in new cases of covid-19. Rates are going back up in South Korea and China as they begin to reopen. In eight weeks, I may be writing "The View from the Hermitage, Day 112." I wonder what odds I should give that.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 55

Random musings as week eight in the Hermitage draws to a close:

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. Last year, my mom was in the hospital, in what started off a very bad nine or ten months. This year, to see my mom would have involved making an appointment for a 30-minute spot on the sidewalk conversing at a social distance as she sat in her wheelchair on the patio. We decided to give it a pass.

Mother's Day falling on May 10 has an unhappy history on my dad's side of the family. His mother's birthday was May 10 and, as can be seen this year, May 10 is occasionally Mother's Day. In the early 1960s, my grandmother's birthday was on Mother's Day which that year happened to be the day on which her husband suffered a fatal heart attack. Her birthday and Mother's Day were never the same for her after that, especially when they coincided.


I wrapped two birthday gifts for younger son today. His birthday was over a month ago. The husband's birthday was four days after younger son's. Celebrations are on hold during the realm of the novel coronavirus. Older son, whose birthday is in November, has suggested that we wait until the week between Christmas and New Year's, assuming we can at least be together by then, have a blow-out week-long celebration of everything and everybody. We might as well throw Mother's Day and Father's Day in there, too. The plan sounds good in theory; I just hope it can hold up in practice.

My mom says that the memory care (or Alzheimer's) floor at her senior living facility has had what seems like a lot of deaths recently. At least it seems that there have been more photos posted on the "in memory" bulletin board in the lobby than there usually are. I asked whether she knew if they were doing testing to determine if covid-19 might have contributed to the deaths. She didn't know for sure but did not think they were doing any testing. She said that a new resident moved in this week, something that had been on hold at one point. Mom, always the optimist, figures the facility has been losing money and needs more residents to make up the difference.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 54

My brother lives in Maine, as does my sister by another mother, and a fellow quilter friend. The forecast for Maine this weekend raises the possibility of 12 inches of snow. A foot of snow on May 9-10 with May 10 being Mother's Day. That actually doesn't sound all too bad given our Virginia winter of next to no snow. We never used the fireplace either. We're supposed to have near-freezing nighttime temperatures here, but it's not the same as the white stuff.

Weather aside, the governor says he anticipates and hopes that we will move into Phase One a week from today. Non-essential retailers that up to now have been limited to 10 customers at a time will be able to admit a number equal to 50 percent of their capacity. I understand how a restaurant would determine capacity, but I'm not sure what that means to, say, a department store. Eating establishments that have outdoor seating can serve 50 percent of the capacity of that seating. They can continue to offer take-out and/or delivery, but there will be no inside service. Restaurant staff have to wear masks, and diners must order from disposable menus.

Church services must be limited to 50 percent of capacity. I guess they can fill every other pew? Or do a sort of checkerboard arrangement of groups using all the pews? Gyms must stay closed though outdoor exercise classes can meet if the maximum size is 10 people and they exercise 10 feet apart. Beaches remain open for exercise or fishing, but no basking or swimming. Outdoor pools can open for lap swimming with one person per lane maximum.

Movie theaters, bowling areas, and other entertainment centers must stay closed. If you want your hair done, you will have to have an appointment, the salon must operate at 50 percent capacity (aside: My stylist works in a small salon with one other person. Does this mean only one of them can be working at a time?), and both stylist and client must wear masks. No services that would require mask removal can be done.

The above is all part of what they're calling Phase One. Phase One will last at least two weeks, possibly longer. The governor reserves the right next week to keep everything closed should the numbers head in the wrong direction over the weekend. He also said that he had no problems with ordering everything to close if the numbers went up after things reopened. I hope he keeps his word. The fact that he cannot run for re-election does, I'm sure, relieve some of the pressure about doing what people want rather than what is best according to the metrics. That said, do I think reopening is the right thing? Not really. I think the numbers will head back up, and a second closing will be harder for people to take than the first one was. But they don't pay me the big bucks to make big decisions.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 53

How do people stay entertained while staying at home? The husband and I have not had a problem, though since he's been working from home, he has fewer hours to fill. Monday's email brought a message from one of the neighbors (we live in a subdivision of about 17 homes, one of which just became vacant). She said that she would be hiding a bunny figure somewhere in the subdivision. Said bunny would contain small gifts of some sort. Who ever found it should email the neighbor group and announcing "Bunny found!" They should then put new small items into the bunny and re-hide it, emailing "Bunny is back!" There were various "rules," some of which seemed contradictory. Things like hiding it a certain distance from the road but not in an area that would be lawn-mowed. A person could only find the bunny once, but another member of the same family could then find it.

I was not prepared for the reaction to this attempt at subdivision entertainment. The bunny was hidden for the first time and found within an hour, by a nine-year-old girl. One the bunny's second hiding, it was again found very quickly. Both of these first two families have kids, so I was not surprised that they found some fun in it. The third finder, though, surprised me, in that the couple are almost empty nesters--kid is in college--and don't seem at all the type to play. That's at least the impression I get seeing the woman walk the family dog. She's never smiling and barely acknowledges you should you greet her. Finding the bunny, filling it, and hiding it again clearly made her feel happy, so who am I to wonder.

The husband is somewhat blase about the bunny enterprise. Older son and I are in agreement that were we to see the bunny we would not rescue it. Something that's been touched by a number of people with unknown contact experience, filled with similarly previously touched items. I just don't see the fun in that.

Should this seem to be an overreaction, there was a report yesterday that almost a third of the new cases in New York are people who were staying at home. They could not trace how these individuals were exposed. Wider transmission through the air than previously seen? From the surface of something brought in from the outside such as the glossy outside of a junk postcard? I don't want to find out first-hand period full stop. Life is scary enough right now without worrying that playing hermit might not in the long run work.

The pandemic continues and as it does, there has been a plague of locusts moving from Africa into the Middle East and South Asia. There have been a couple of earthquakes, albeit small ones. And now the Northeast and New England are about to be hit with a very unseasonable polar vortex from which some areas might see temperatures colder than at Christmas and, wait for it, 6 to 8 inches of snow. Yes, snow! In early May! I must admit that I find the thought, "Just who pissed the gods off so much that they start the end times early" amusing. No, we certainly did not need this. Now that it is all here, though, we will have to learn to deal with it to make it through to the other side. (Insert ear-worm here.)

The View from the Hermitage, Day 52

I was going to write something about the end of a medical task force and the beginning of an economic one until I read Thomas Boswell's column in this morning's Washington Post. What he has to say and how he says it beats anything I could have come up with. It's a very good helping of food for thought.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 51

I think the husband is experiencing some frustration with teleworking, though "frustration" may not be the best word to describe it. I was emailing a friend today and mentioned that I thought Blaine was missing two things: being able to get up and take a walk of some length whether it would be to the bathroom or to the main office for his mail. I sense he may also miss a colleague's sticking his head in the office doorway and asking how things are going. Those little chats can offer a little break and divert one's mind from whatever they've been concentrating on. When I went upstairs earlier, I told him hi and asked how he was doing. He thought that very strange until I told him why I was doing it.

I like the number 51. Way back in the day, I worked for someone who was turning 51. He said his daughter had told him it was a prime number. Without pausing--and to this day I still shake my head at the fact that I did not consciously think about this at all--I told him it was 17 times 3 and therefore not at all prime. He shook his head and commented that that may explain why said daughter did not seem to be doing well in the stat class she'd been taking in grad school. I did not try to explain that knowing whether a number was prime was not really all that useful in statistics.

And I'm going to keep today another worry-free (carefree?) day by stopping here and not musing on the pandemic other than to offer that I find it interesting that newspapers don't call it a or the coronavirus. It is always the novel coronavirus. I would think that by now we would know it was new.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 50

Our governor, the one with a science and medicine background who doesn't have to worry about running for re-election, laid out a tentative timetable for Virginia's reopening. Older son is not sure it goes slow enough, but it's a lot slower than most other states.

Originally, beauty salons, barbershops, restaurants, and the like were set to reopen in late April. That got moved to May 1 and then to May 8. The date has been moved again, to May 15. There will be various restrictions put on specific types of establishments. For example, restaurants will only be able to serve half the number possible in pre-coronavirus days, and service personnel will have to wear masks. The May 15 reopening conditions will be evaluated in terms of disease incidence, hospital capacity, and so on before Phase 2 starts. Phase 2 will also last from two to four weeks, with certain restrictions relaxed further. Maximum group size, for example, will go up from 10 to 50. Finally, there's Phase 3 which the governor figured was 10 to 12 weeks away.That's when things will really open up.

All the phases strongly suggest wearing masks in public. And as the phases progress, "stay at home" is supposed to transition to "safer at home." I guess that means I can continue to hermit should I feel safer that way. Which I do, at least for now.

I watched the beginning of the governor's press briefing and conference on C-SPAN. When that feed got wonky, I switched over to Facebook. I was pleased to see that there were very few angry emoticons wafting up the screen. I think I saw one comment about reopening sooner. Several commenters agreed with older son that even this timetable moved too quickly.

While we have had some "liberation" protests here, they have not been as large as in some other states. One was combined with a gun rights protest. I can't really say why there has not been as vocal or threatening a reopening protest here as there has been in other states. We do have a large military presence. Northern Virginia is home to much of the federal workforce as well as a very tech savvy workforce. (Consider that Amazon.com is building their second headquarters in Northern Virginia; that should say something about the general climate of the place.) There is a large rural population several hundred miles away in the state's southwest regions. Is that too far away for people to travel to the capital to protest.

All in all, I'm happy with what the governor laid out. Even slower might be better, but we are at least slow in comparison to a lot of other places. How things proceed there will likely help guide the decision-makers here as we move through our own reopening phases.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 49

Forty-nine or seven squared or I've been doing this now for seven--count 'em!--seven weeks. Seven weeks into the future would be June 21, or 11 days past the end of Virginia's current stay-at-home order otherwise known as Executive Order 55. Older son seems to think that we'll still be staying at home here in Virginia then. I admit I have no idea at all. On March 16, when I started this blog series, did I think I'd be typing "Day 49" as part of the title? Honestly, no, though I probably should have seen the long-term potential. If I did I did not take it seriously.

The news remains centered on the economics of the pandemic or the aftermath of covid-19 cases or the lockdown. How does someone say good-bye to two elderly parents dying two days apart, not to mention pay for two funerals? A teacher in Northern Virginia organized a parade to take 28 students in a two-year AP program the special sashes they would have worn over their graduation gowns. Is it reasonable to think there might be a vaccine ready before 2021? Missing are the detailed descriptions of life and death in a hospital or the toll the pandemic has taken on first responders and health care personnel. Numbers and descriptions that might scare people into obeying lockdown orders are much less prevalent now than they were three or four weeks ago.

What is the likelihood that one of the reopened states has to issue new stay-at-home orders, and what percentage of citizens would obey or flout them? If I were a betting woman ... but then I'm not and given how accurate my prescription seven weeks ago was, I see not betting on this as the sensible course.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 48

Other than reading the newspapers, I've been trying to make today a virus-free day, a normal day in that the only stressors are things close at hand, not that there have been many of those. I finished a quilt by sewing on the label and putting it through it's coming-out laundry cycle. It's in the dryer now. I cleaned up my studio a bit but still haven't found the instructions for a bag I'm making. I took my third practice piece off my loom last night and need to wash it. And I picked up various things I've been meaning to mend and figure that's tomorrow's to-do list.

It appears that states are partially reopening, with rural areas leading the way as many cities stay closed. Unless there are roadblocks on the exit and entrance roads, I don't see this as ending well. City people heading to the outskirts to shop, access personal services, or just see other people are going to take the virus with them. The damned thing about all this is how many asymptomatic people there are. I'm guessing that they are spreading the virus though possibly not to the degree the more active sufferers are. It's scary, though. Is the healthy looking person ahead of you in the grocery aisle exhaling germs you'll be walking through?

I wrote the above sentence as if I've been going to the grocery store. Not so! Once again, older son took my list and this morning brought a bounty of foodstuffs to us. He wears a mask and gloves while shopping and changes clothes as soon as he gets home. He said this morning that half the shoppers at Wegman's yesterday were Instacart shoppers, only some of whom were wearing masks. He did not like that some of them would be traveling in the middle of an aisle and then stop to call their client about a substitution, forcing people to make a line behind since passing would be at too close a distance. I know. First-world problems.

It has been nice to have something of a virus-free day. I'll probably hear all I want to hear if we watch the news later. In the meantime, the mail needs checking.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 47

I watched most of the governor's press conference this afternoon. I missed the meat but made it in time for the side dishes, that is, the press questions. It was nice to see a positive relationship between press and politician. Reasonable questions followed by reasonable answers. The governor deferred to the specialized talking heads as needed. There were no insults, nor were there any raised voices except from the reporters who were apparently seated in the back row.

The state's numbers could be better; they are flattening but not yet headed down. The governor said he will announce on Monday whether his executive order that certain businesses could reopen on Friday would be altered. He also said he hoped that schools could be back in session in late August or early September, referring to K-12 schools, not colleges and universities. The husband is still predicting his university will open online; I go back and forth on agreeing with him or not.

Some businesses are still in operation. The window people are still coming this Wednesday to replace most of the main floor windows as well as those in the master bedroom and around our foyer. I've promised older son I'll stay in the basement, thereby not getting close to anyone. Luckily, there is a refrigerator down there. I think all that is in it now is beer, but hey, things could be worse. I'm not sure why, but we decided to make 2020 the year of multiple home projects. We sneaked the interior repainting of everything except the basement in before the pandemic started. I hate to admit it, but it was the first interior repainting since we had the house built in 1985. We were supposed to have the hardwood floors on the same floors sanded and refinished, but that's on hold for now. And now, the windows.

The Vice He Who Shall Not Be Named claims that the virus troubles will be largely over by Memorial Day which is but three weeks from this coming Monday. He must have blinders on, and I'd bet they are rose-colored. He Who Shall Not Be Named's son-in-law says things will be well on their was back to normal in June and will be "rocking" in July. What planet are these people from? I honestly do not think we will ever get back to what we used to call normal. Even with a vaccine and treatment for this coronavirus, we now know that a new virus can arise at almost any time. Keep that in the back of your mind. Everything we take (or took) for granted can be gone or greatly altered in a very short time.

I worry that I am getting numb to too much of this. The anger I feel at He Who Shall Not Be Named does not feel as extreme as it did several weeks ago. Nothing he has said or done lately surprises me. A lot of the time, I just shake my head and turn away. I fight getting complacent, but complacency is often the winner these days. Is it helplessness that is weakening my responses? I do feel some helplessness in locking myself away from things I might do to help, such as donating blood. Am I superstitious in being very afraid that given all the other life shit of the last twelve months of my life I will find the virus if it doesn't find me first? Pneumonia ten months ago was scary enough.

And the gears in my brain continue to turn in mysterious ways. I am hoping the weekend might provide perspective, which may be a vain hope in that one day now is very much like any other day.