The View from the Hermitage, Days 108 and 109

Yesterday was not the day I expected. The good news is that we had already postponed the birthday dinner until Friday, so the plan for a relaxing evening was not undone. I Zoom with my mother Wednesdays at 2:00. We were rudely disconnected mid-conversation when the phone started flashing "no line." No line means no Internet. Ten minutes later, it all came back, just not for long. It turned out that one of the box-like things through which the signals must passed got fried by lightning. The phone folks said we'd have phone and Internet back by this morning. That was the good news.

The bad news was that the husband had not yet taped the lecture he was to show today, nor had he uploaded the midterm the students would take prior to the lecture. Fortunately, at the outset of the home studio misadventure, older son suggested using his house in town and fiber optic connection as a backup should something go wrong. The husband packed up his computer and large monitors plus my laptop (in case he needed a spare) and went into town. I threw a peanut butter sandwich to him as he was packing. He got back about 9:30, exhausted. It looked as if all had worked, though. He said he ended up being able to do everything using my laptop.

The morning started a bit too early with a phone call form older son asking for the login code to my laptop. It was not clear the lecture had uploaded. It turned out all was okay (well, except my having been rudely awakened on one of the too-rare nights in which I did not need to get up and pee). Since we by then had phone and Internet, the husband went into town and retrieved everything he'd taken there last night.

So I did get my pancake breakfast. Younger son and his spouse-equivalent Zoomed with their own pancake breakfast, and we "partied" for two hours. Most of my gifts were spinning or weaving related since that's what I've been playing with lately. Older son emptied his "spare cat parts" container and brought me the contents in case I want to felt or spin yarn for a replica of his long-haired Maine coon cat. After telling me that he'd lend me his small "sampler" loom on which to practice things that had been giving me trouble on my larger loom, younger son gave me a brand new sampler loom. That stinker! We're doing a birthday dinner tomorrow night; older son is making the birthday cake.

We did fly the Canadian maple leaf flag at the top of the driveway yesterday. We attempted a rousing chorus of O Canada! that is better left unheard. When I was much younger, before I knew July 1 was Canada Day, I used to ask why I could not have been born on July 4 so that I got birthday fireworks every year. I've come to prefer birthday pancakes, knowing that many parks in Canada are hosting their own pancake breakfasts.

Finally on the birthday front, every year I clip from The Washington Post's horoscope the "if today is your birthday." I'm not sure how to take this year's entry:

Highly sensitive and giving, it is essential that you move out into the world to be fully successful. Once there, you are most often adored. That which you love generates a good income. I single, you can become depressed and must overcome this to let a partner know your personal feelings. If attached, marital bliss is assured as long as you can still feel emancipated. Capricorn is very protective of you.

As for moving out into the world, I'm just fine here. Yesterday's birthday added a bit to the risk factors I already have in relation to the novel coronavirus. Capricorn? That's December 22 to January 19. While I know some people born in that time frame, I would not consider myself especially close to any one of them. And a good income from that which I love? Not! That which I love to do usually involves outgo, not income.

Speaking of income, I need to find out if I'm still employed. Long story shortened: I resigned from my job in May 2019 as my mother's health and my life were basically in tatters. The boss told me to take leave for the summer and let her know in August if I wanted to come back. We're talking a part-time work-from-home job. Come August, I again said I wanted to leave. The boss asked me to at least stay on the payroll so that if anyone in the office had a question about something I'd done, they could email or call and I could get paid for the time it took to answer the question. This went on until May just passed, when I told the boss that the office had now done one complete year without me meaning that any questions should have been asked and answered. She said she wanted me to stay on through the end of the fiscal year, which was Tuesday. I have heard nothing to indicate that I have been "retired," leading me to believe I am still considered employed.

Okay, back to the current pandemic. I say "current" because there are bound to be more pandemics though I hope not in the rest of my lifetime. Of course, the current one may end up filling all the time I have left. There were more than 50,000 new covid-19 cases yesterday, and it would not surprise me to hear that there were even more today. The 100,000 new cases daily floated by Dr. Fauci sound all too possible. Speaking of Dr. Fauci, I saw a clip of the lieutenant governor of Texas slamming Dr. Fauci who supposedly has been wrong in all his predictions or specific statements. At least the governor there is rolling back some of the reopenings as are the governors of several other surging states. At least we are not surging yet, though the number of new cases creeps up a bit almost every day. The governor did revise the Phase Three order to prohibit people sitting at bars drinking. To drink alcohol, one must be at a table and consuming food as well as liquids.

Richmond, site of 33 straight days of demonstrations, took down the statue of Stonewall Jackson on Monument Avenue yesterday. It's not clear to me, or I missed it in the publicity, what will be done with the statue now. I keep thinking of Presidents Park outside Williamsburg. The park is home to 43 large (20-feet tall) busts of 43 presidents. They used to be in a park with manicured lawns and sidewalks; now they sit, seemingly abandoned, in a field. They could find a similar field and deposit all the removed Confederate statues there. For extra measure, they could add any other statuary deemed offensive, such as the Charlottesville one of Lewis and Clark standing above their guide, Sacajawea, as she could be reading the trail.

A belated Happy Canada Day and premature Happy Independence Day to all and to all a good...wait, it's not Christmas yet, is it?