The View from the Pandemic, Day 99

Hooyah! My last double-digit day here! I did not really think about how long this all might last when I thought to myself that a quarantine journal would be interesting to keep and blogging seemed a good way to do it. I can tell people to look here if they want to know if I'm still alive and kicking.

Pandemics make for interesting connections or re-connections. I Zoomed this morning with someone I had not see in 30 years or a hair more. Her now-31-year-old son was a babe in arms when last we saw each other. I met her while I was in grad school; she was living with one of the post-docs in the psych department. They split, and she ended up back in Canada. Over the years, we've exchanged Christmas cards and become friends on Facebook. She's a fiber artist and does some amazing work. I wonder if I were to devote myself to the fibrous things with which I play if I could do amazing work. She was supposed to teach an in-person class on goldwork, but the pandemic turned it into a video class instead. She wanted someone to look at her first few videos and give some feedback. Which I did. It was great to reconnect more closely than Facebook, so at least the pandemic was good for that.

The pandemic has also been good for finishing a jigsaw puzzle. Younger son and partner gave it to us well over a year ago. We started it, but had to work on it using a card table, in the guest room, to protect it from the family cat. When we had guests, the table got moved to another room with a cutting mat on top of the puzzle. Then I needed the card table for the quilt show so the puzzle was moved yet again until the card table came home. I decided we needed something different, so I taped together the lids of some bankers boxes to make a shallow box large enough for the puzzle. The husband then cut two pieces of plywood, one to serve as a base for the puzzle and one to serve as the top. We finished the puzzle last night and, as you might expect given its history, two pieces were missing. I haven't found them yet, but I haven't looked seriously. I did order another puzzle, though I had to look to find one the same size or smaller so that we could use the same container. The puzzle we finished was antique world map; the one I ordered is a shot of the houses along one of Amsterdam's canals. It's by the same company and is the same size as the map puzzle.

The husband, older son, and I have had some good dog-walking conversations about the statues being torn down or removed. George Washington and Ulysses Grant were two of the latest. Those tearing down Grant's statue noted that he owned "a slave." Older son said he had read that Grant had inherited the slave and freed him before a year had passed. Washington also owned slaves, but so did most landowners in his day. The husband made the interesting distinction of a statue on Robert E. Lee in Lexington, Virginia, home to Washington and Lee University, which Lee helped found, compared to one honoring his Civil War service. The former would be okay to the husband, but the latter would not. He's got a good point. I'm waiting for someone to deface or try to tear down the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the UVA Grounds in front of the Rotunda. Yes, Jefferson owned slaves and may have taken one as a long-time lover. The statue, though, honors him for the University of Virginia, which would not exist without him.

Pandemic news remains the same. Case numbers are soaring in some states. Virginia's went down over the weekend, but weekend counts are sometimes spotty. It will be interesting to see the numbers that come out tomorrow. Cases her were rising last week. I seriously hope that if they keep going up the governor holds off on moving the state to Phase Three of reopening. He can be really clueless at times. There was a bit of a kerfuffle here when someone found his page in the medical school yearbook contained a photo of someone in KKK garb and someone in blackface. The governor said he did not remember that at all and had no idea why such a photo had been put on his page. He did admit that he had worn blackface to dress like Michael Jackson for some sort of costume party. He said, in a press conference, that he had even learned to moonwalk. He then started to come out from behind his podium before looking to his wife who had been sitting on his right. "My wife informs me it would not be appropriate to demonstrate it," he said as he went back behind the podium. Clueless!

Postscript to the blackface "scandal." Our attorney general admitted to appearing in blackface at at least one social gathering during his time here at the university. Like the governor, he declined to resign. At the same time, it came out that two women had made separate charges of past sexual assault by our lieutenant governor. He did not resign either. We do have an interesting state, er, commonwealth government here.