What follows are the entries I wrote while we hermitted in younger son's cabin so that the floors of the home hermitage could be refinished. They look outstanding, though it means I need to put the furniture back as if we were moving in for the first time. That may take the next six months of the pandemic.
Read these or don't. That' why I put them all together. I'm putting yesterday and today in a separate post.
The View
from the Hermitage, Day 126 (Sunday,
July 19, 2020)
Settling
in at younger son’s cabin. Cell reception is sketchy. Texts come and go easily,
email less so. We brought too much food, but it was hard to think ahead for
seven days that might stretch into 10. Younger son and spouse equivalent also
left us provisions from gin in the freezer to the husband’s favorite Cadbury
Fruit and Nut Bars. Dinner tonight was simple ham sandwiches and the leftover
tossed salad brought from home.
Home
is bare with all the furnishings hidden from view. Older son thinks the house
looks smaller without the furniture. I think it may look a bit bigger. I look
at the bare walls and think how the furniture should go. I figure I won’t get
the chance again to completely start over décor-wise. I lose some flexibility
by being the grandchild who ended up with maternal grandparents’ player piano
converted to regular piano and paternal grandparents’ pump organ. There are
only so many places the piano can go. We did discover, in moving the organ,
that the ornate top part complete with mirror so the organist could see behind
came off. Both the husband and I think it looks much less imposing without that
piece and don’t plan to put it back on.
The
organ does have a story behind it. My grandfather ran a lumberyard in a small
Nebraska town. A farmer’s barn (I think) burned down, but the man did not have
the money to buy the lumber. My grandfather traded him the needed lumber for
the somewhat beat-up organ. Grandpa restored it, and I remember playing it as a
child. (I remember playing the piano as well.) The stool for the organ is a
reworked milking stool with a needlepoint top done by my grandmother.
The
olden days had many difficulties, but I think people trusted each other more
then. My grandparents lived through the 1918 influenza pandemic, though my
grandmother lost her hearing as a result of a high fever. Today’s pandemic
continues. Yesterday’s case count for Virginia continued the slow rise. I have
heard more than one public school teacher say that they will resign if they are
asked to teach in-person classes. They signed contracts two months ago, and it
is not clear that the divisions would release them from the contracts. With no
release, they could lost their licenses if they don’t stay on. Not a decision I
would like to make. One teacher whom I first met when he was a high school
student and we both did the same martial art reminded me that I can send an
email to the local school board as a concerned citizen. He made a good point,
and I plan to do just that. I can compose the email here, off the web, and send
it when we get home. The board doesn’t meet again until July 30.
Older
son read a report that noted the rate of virus transmission is highest from
middle-school and high-school aged people. Just the news one needs to hear as
the debate over reopening schools comes to a head. A case has also been
reported in which someone who had recovered from covid-19 caught it a second
time. Not the news we want to hear. There is also research out of South Korea
that suggests asymptomatic cases may appear asymptomatic due to the virus
acting in an analgesic way. It deadens the nerve receptors so that the effects
are not felt. If that is true, it makes me wonder what comes next. Every time
we think we have the virus even roughly figured out, it finds a new way to
surprise us. I picture the virus as a court jester with a painted face and a
peaked hat with baubles hanging down. As its act wears down, SURPRISE!!!!! There’s
a new act starting!
The View from the Hermitage, Day 127
Decompression
is a good thing. So are good books. I just finished The Detective in the
Dooryard: Reflections of a Maine Cop, by Timothy Cotton. That’s “Tim,” not
“Tom” as in the extreme right-wing Senator from, I think, Arkansas. I
discovered Tim Cotton’s writing through the Facebook page of the Bangor, Maine
Police Department and its famous Duck of Justice. Google the Duck of Justice.
It’s a very real thing, and I intend some day to have my photo taken with it.
I
thought that I would devour this book when it arrived. As I sometimes do, I
read the acknowledgements first. They were the most heartfelt acknowledgements
I’ve ever read. Simple and straight from the heart. I liked that. Then there
was the dedication directed straight at me and, I will admit, quite a few other
people. “This book is dedicated to anyone who was ever picked last—for
anything—and refused to let that day define them.” I was picked last a lot in
elementary school. High school, too, for that matter. I survived. In fact, I
probably learned a lot from those moments.
As I
moved to reading the book itself, I quickly knew I could not read it quickly.
Like a good meal, it had to be savored bit by bite. The essays in it are short,
some not more than two pages long. Some I had to reread right away; others, I
know I will reread later. Some made me laugh out loud, while others made me
want to weep. Life is like that, and Cotton captures that so well. If you’re
looking for a good gift for a dear friend or even a parent or child, this book
would be one. Cotton writes in a talking fashion, and I’d like to get the audio
book when it is released. He recorded that himself, and I would love to hear
how he reads some of the entries. I’d also like to hear Ellie, his boxador,
vocalize the profanities present in some of the entries describing professional
police encounters. Rather than bleeps, they’re using dog sounds.
There
is intermittent cell coverage here, but I have resisted the urge to check the
news especially that related to the pandemic. I did see the status of a
Facebook-only friend, someone I used to work out with but now just have the
Facebook friend connection, no real social one. She was asking the Facebook
world if there was any place in a certain area at which she could get a
covid-19 test with the results back ASAP. Why? She wants to be able to hug her
mother. Her father just died; you can see why she might want to hug her mother
safely. The father’s death was not due to covid-19 though I guess there is the
remote chance it contributed to his death after cardiac surgery. I hope she can
find a quick test with quick results (that might be harder than finding a quick
test), and would hope that her primary care doc might be able to scare something
up.
I
find myself thinking of ways to arrange furniture when we return home. I also
think of things to donate, gift, toss. I can’t say that the desire to downsize
came with the pandemic, since I started it at the start of the year when we
were at repainting and maybe refinishing the floors, the good old days when we
commoners had no inkling of the novel coronavirus brewing in Wuhan. Putting
things into boxes makes you look at each and every object, some of which are
clearly not worth keeping. I don’t want to go all Marie Kondo and spout about
what brings me joy. Forget joy; does this object deserve space in my world?
Does it merit space in anyone’s world? Some things are easier to pass on that
others. I will not, for example, be passing on m copy of The Detective in
the Dooryard.
The View from the Hermitage, Day 128
Fortunately,
the husband is good at repairing things. Younger son warned us that the water
to the cabin occasionally stopped working, just as it did this morning. The
husband had just attempted to start the washing machine, something younger son
said they had never done. It is not at all clear if that had anything to do
with the missing water since the problem appears to be that some contacts in
the pump were not making good contact. Thanks to the husband’s being here and
younger son’s having a circuit tester and sandpaper in the non-weapons closet,
the problem may be no more.
Yes,
I said “non-weapons closet.” There is a closet here with various implements of
destruction on some level. All the trails that have been cleared including what
may be a road to their house site have been cleared with a sword. Younger son
and his souse-equivalent came by last night to see how things were going, and
younger son demonstrated his technique when we took a walk. It might be easier
to use an axe or a chainsaw, but not nearly as fun.
On
the home front, there were 996 new covid-19 cases in the state yesterday, after
the number reported for the day before yesterday was down a wee bit. How high
does the number have to get or how sharp myst the slope of that line get before
at least some of the reopening gets reversed. What this will do to all the
schools at every level remains to be seen as well. A large number of the local
child care centers have not reopened, which will have a huge effect no matter
what decisions the school systems make.
Someone
posted Dr. Anthony Fauci’s mailing address (the government one, not his home)
and was encouraging people to send him thank you cards or messages. Just in
case any reader is interested whenever I get to post this week’s entries, it’s
Dr. Anthony Fauci, c/o NIAID Office of Communications and Government Relations,
5601 Fishers Lane, MSC 9806, Bethesda MD, 20892-9806. I’m debating waiting
until I’m back at home versus doing a straight legal pad note now since I did
bring along some envelopes and stamps.
It
turns out that there is on-again, off-again cellular service here, enough to go
through emails and scan some news websites and some social media sites. That’s
how I learned about the thank you cards to Dr. Fauci. I also sent my mother
(hi, Mom!) best wishes for her 88th birthday today. I’m hoping I’ll
be able to visit her before her 89th. I can’t complain, though,
because her senior living facility has done a stellar job of keeping their
residents covid-free.
Scanning
the headlines on the news websites is all the news I can take right now. I know
how fast we’re travelling on that highway to hell. The husband is as relaxed as
I’ve seen him in a while. And fixing the water issue is keeping his mind
elsewhere today. No, I did not plan it. Yesterday, he read the three-volume set
of Gahan Wilson’s cartoons for Playboy. When he’d finished that and was
starting in on Facebook or the news, I handed him the book Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the
Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park. It kept him distracted
until younger son and spouse-equivalent arrived for their visit. I’ll have to
think of something else to distract him when he finishes that. I don’t think
that the book I’m reading on the 1918 influenza pandemic would fill the bill.
And
so continues life in the auxiliary hermitage. The family dog is stretched out
on one couch and the family cat is sleeping at my feet. I assume the husband is
still alive in the crawl space, and that there will be water in which I can
boil the fettucine for one of the recipes I’ve discovered during the pandemic,
a fettuccini and corn salad.
The View from the Hermitage Day 129
So
far it’s been quite an acceptable day, ignoring as it were, the state covid-19
stats (1,022 new cases yesterday, up from 996 the day before) and whatever
nonsense HWSNBN is generating. The husband is more relaxed than he’s been in a
while, especially if I keep his focus away from his smartphone. I was actually
hoping for less reliable cell service here than we have. We have yet to drive
down to the Baptist church to get a signal. I guess it could be the carrier. We
use US Cellular, while younger son uses (or used the last time I heard him say
anything) T-Mobile.
The
saga with the water or no water actually continued after I wrapped up
yesterday’s post. The husband had already showered from his first several trips
to the crawlspace, with his work clothes having been thrown into the load of
wash that kept upsetting things. He stripped to his boxers, went under one more
time, and everything has been working fine since then. The laundry got done
with no more issues, meaning I had clean leggings for this morning’s walk. It’s
pretty much too hot for walking in leggings, but there are enough biting and/or
sucking beasties out there that long pants tugged over high socks offers a bit
more protection.
I
managed to get the 10-inch SampleIt loom younger son gave me warped this
afternoon. The manual that came with it is written for a true beginner, which I
am. The manual for the 32-inch loom I got for Christmas last year assumes the
user knows more than I do. I tell myself that everything I weave right now is a
practice piece. I did order a kit to make kitchen towels that I will use as a
first “real” piece. For now, as Yoda might say, the learning curve is steep
with this one.
Being
here, with just the news headlines and few details and more want-to-dos than
must-dos, is more relaxing than I thought it would be. The family pets have
settled into their routines. We’ve learned where most things we need are. There
was a momentary power outage last night, off then back on about two seconds
later. It came in conjunction with a thunderstorm that may be repeated this
evening. I did bring stamps and some envelopes. There are two letters I should
write, but in the interest of those want-to-dos, I haven’t given any serious
thought to them. Tomorrow, tomorrow, is only what? A heartbeat? Something?
Away.
The View from the Hermitage, Day 130
Another
hot sunny day in paradise? I don’t know that I’d go that far, though it is nice
to only have news headlines to digest. Covid-19 cases in Virginia dropped a
bit; it’s not totally clear whether one would say cases are rising or falling.
I do know that most local people I know express fear at thousands of university
students returning in a month. Anyone who thinks that the majority of those
students will stick to the mask and distance rules is sorely mistaken. They
won’t. We’re fucked.
HWSNBN
is sending federal troops into more cities controlled by Democratic mayors. As
angry as HWSNBN makes me, the Republicans in the Senate enrage me even more.
They encourage HWSNBN by not taking any action that might suggest he’s in the
wrong with this. News now is that people in both parties are concerned about
what if HWSNBN loses the election but declares it invalid and refuses to leave
the White House. They’re only now thinking of that? I saw that coming years
ago. I picture soldiers escorting him down the steps at the front of the White
House, though since he would still be Commander-in-Chief who might order them
to do that is unclear. I used to dismiss claims that we would have another
civil war (lower-case since it’s not a definite event … yet), but I’m getting
less certain about that almost every day.
Spending
the day reading, writing, weaving, or petting the family animals really does
make this feel like the vacation we might otherwise not go on this year. It
reminds me when we used to take the sons to the beach each summer and rent a
cabin at a state park. We did things, but in a relaxed fashion. Dinners were
simple, often eaten outside, and followed by a walk on the beach or through the
natural area through which, interestingly, the sons now run a 30-kilometer race
every December. There was always a board game along and a jigsaw puzzle to be
done. There is a puzzle in progress here, but it was there when we got there
and assuming the cat doesn’t have her way with it, will be untouched when we
leave.
I’m
wondering how sharp the re-introduction to new details will be whenever we get
home. It might not be pretty.
The View from the Hermitage, Day 131
It’s
Friday, and word from the floor guys is that we can come home tomorrow. The
husband figures we should wait until Monday just to be safe. One thing that
means is that he and I will be restoring what furniture we can without older
son’s help. He’ll be working. The small educational consulting firm for which
he works has decided to close their physical office and let everyone work from
home permanently. Most of the staff is already working from home, spread over
at least two continents. Older son had his fingers crossed that this might
happen. He needs to fix up a more permanent home office, but he’ll get to that.
New
covid-19 cases in Virginia went way up yesterday. And Virginia has been added
to the list of states from which New York won’t admit people unless they spend
two weeks in quarantine. I wish that was something to be proud of, but it
isn’t. It makes me feel as if we might be a bit more fucked than I thought. It
also makes me feel even more afraid of the thousands of university students who
will be arriving in a month. They are supposed to self-quarantine for two weeks
before coming, something I figure fewer than half will really do. The husband
expects that many of them will get the covid-19 test the university is
requiring and submit the swab without having taken a sample. I’m not sure I’d
go that far, but he unfortunately may be right. C’mon, Atlantic Coast Conference,
cancel football so that the conference schools can go totally online in the
instruction department.
I
saw one news report this morning—from CNN I think but wouldn’t stake my life
savings on it—suggesting that the US needs to start over and consider this the
start of a pandemic. Close things back down; stop the sports that have
restarted; keep schools at all levels online only. Doing all of those things is
not really feasible, but any of it we could do would certainly help. I don’t
think for a minute that crowds will disperse or even maintain mediocre social
distancing. There will still be a large number of families who believe that
schools should reopen normally, full-time and in-person. I understand the
issues for families in which parents can’t telecommute and can’t afford to lose
their job and livelihood. I’m not sure what the solution for that is. Maybe
Andrew Yang’s universal personal income (I think I got that right) is more
relevant than anyone thought.
The
husband put a harness on the family cat and tried taking her outside this
morning. She slipped out of the harness within seconds. Luckily, she was too
scared to run anywhere other than underneath the front porch. She was more than
willing to go back inside when I opened the front door. Needless to say, that
was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Older son is coming tomorrow to see the
place. He saw it from the outside before the sale to younger son was finalized.
The family dog will be ecstatic. No one can walk her like he can, at least in
her humble opinion.
The View from the Hermitage, Day 132
Should
I cheer or weep that Virginia had its fourth highest number of new cases
yesterday? And that number was within spittin’ distance of the third highest. I
haven’t seen anything to tell me that the governor is planning any sort of
response, but it is the weekend. The city (at home, not here) is meeting Monday
night about joining the county in going back to Phase Two.
I
saw a tweet to the effect that the tweeter had asked three of the docs at the
local university whether the university should be bringing thousands of
students back in a month. The replies were “No,” “No,” and “Hell, no.” The
husband maintains that the university administration is listening more to the
accountants than to the doctors. He may be right. I have lost the reference,
but I read an article the other night that put colleges into one of four
categories based on their endowments, quality stats, etc. Each quadrant
represented the likely result were the university to go totally virtual for the
coming year. The local university fell into the highest quadrant, “thrive.” I
continue to maintain that they are bowing to the athletic side of the equation.
If you can’t bring students back, how can you ask student-athletes to come
back? I do recognize that many of the big financial donors are alumni whose
memories of and hopes for the university are tied to intercollegiate athletics.
If those donors truly love and respect the university, they should be donating
now to help it provide the best virtual education it can.
It
did just occur to me now and should have occurred to me a while back that if
the university were to go totally virtual or online, it would then be competing
directly with Southern New Hampshire, Phoenix, WGU, and the other online
colleges I see advertised on television. The purely online schools as opposed
to Liberty (Jerry Falwell’s legacy) which has a large number of online students
and advertises that it has the lowest tuition rates, but which still is
primarily an in-person school. Some of the universities the local one views as
peers (Ivy League ones) will be totally online, but I find the thought of the
local one having all the online ones as peers of a sort.
And
that appears to be the sum of my random thinking today. I’d call it a day of
rest, but I walked five miles this morning. Tomorrow may be a day of rest all
around.
The View from the Hermitage, Day 133
(Sunday, July 26, 2020)
We
are apparently not going home tomorrow. The husband thinks giving an extra day
for the floor to sit is not a bad idea. Fortunately, I was compulsive enough to
make sure we had a bit of extra food and reading material. Gotta have reading material.
We’re
at 19 weeks and counting. A week from now will be 20 weeks which pretty much
counts as five months. Maybe I should just start marking months and not weeks.
I’m not sure if that would be pessimistic or realistic. I don’t think it would
be optimistic.
Virginia’s
number of new cases was down a bit yesterday. And the governor put an
announcement on Facebook yesterday that he was monitoring the situation and
hoped not to have to move the state or parts of the state back in terms of reopening
phases. I have a feeling he might just move the beach area back a phase despite
the local governments here wanting to go back voluntarily. I wonder if they
think theat will help convince the university not to bring its thousands of
students back. Of course, those with leases starting August 1 could be coming
back next weekend regardless of whether the university will open for in-person
instruction. If they’re going to do only virtual classes, they could easily do
that here and still have the best of all parties.
I
just remembered that the university has apparently added the cost of a meal
plan on to everyone’s bill regardless of whether they will be living in a dorm
and eating in the dining halls or living in an apartment and fending for
themselves. A lot of students and, I would imagine, parents are not too happy
about that. I find myself thinking that they could not have done something like
that in error. It’s too big a thing. I know that finances will be an issue
whether they open in person or not, but maybe they’re hoping some people won’t
notice? I know the question has been raised of why students should pay a fee to
use the gym and fitness facilities if those gyms and fitness facilities will
not be open. So many things to sort out. I am quite glad not to be in the
full-time position I occupied from 1983 to 1988. I might have to be writing the
justifications for things such as that.
Older
son came up from home yesterday, and younger son and daughter-in-law (I have
decided to begin to call her “daughter-in-law” rather than spouse-equivalent,
domestic partner, or some other artificial name. Both the husband and I think
of her as a daughter-in-law.) came up from Richmond. The family dog was
delighted to see older son, and they managed to nap together while I walked
through the woods to see the probable location of the house to be built. There
will be a special yard for the tortoise(s) they hope to get when they’ve moved
out here. Apparently, ten animals—four rabbits, three snakes, two cats, and a
parrot—are not enough.
I
feel shortchanged without news details on which I can pithily or otherwise
comment. There will also be the travails of moving back into an empty house
with which to deal. “May you live in interesting times” really was a curse not
a blessing.
The View from the Hermitage, Day 134
Working
on a not-so-good day all around. Over cereal,, I saw Virginia listed as one of
the dozen or so states with the fastest rising rates of covid-19 cases. Then,
hoping to walk 5 miles, I managed to roll my left ankle not once but twice; I
figured I might not be able to walk back to the cabin were I to roll t a third
time. I blame all typos on tying with my right wrist I a brace from thumb down about eight inches. I
don’t think weaving on a small (10-inch) loom has been good for the
DeQuervain’s tendonitis that has been plaguing me more and more lately. I’m
hoping I can find enough things to do that won’t worsen it further because, as
with my knee, I can only get so much cortisone, and after that surgery would be
the only option.
As
for Virginia’s quickly rising number of cases, yes, we’re fucked. Normally the
number of cases on weekend days is lower than weekdays probably since you need
to be feeling pretty bad to go to the ER on a weekend. Under that reasoning,
yesterday’s number of new cases being the second highest since the count
started is not at all a good sign. The sharp rise seems more due to the area
around Washington, DC than the area
around the beaches. There was no Facebook word that the governor is holding a
briefing today, but that may still come. I’m not sure the weak cell signal here
will be strong enough to stream it, though.
Older
son has commented on the number of shoppers at Wegman’s not wearing masks.
According to a post on the Charlottesville sub.Reddit (I know how to say it but
am not sure how to spell it), there was almost a brawl there over someone’s
refusal to put on a mask and anger at being told they had to. If we drop back even
to Phase Two of reopening, the general mood could get even edgier.
I
realize that our family has had it much, much easier than many, maybe most,
families during the pandemic. I’m (supposedly…it’s a long story) retired, but
the others have professional-level jobs that can be done at home. I fact, older
son’s job will remain a telecomputing one; the company is cutting costs by
getting rid of the office space they were renting. Things have been working out
so well with telework that they figure they can stay that way. The kids are now
adults, but were they still in the K-12 range, they would likely prefer to
learn at home or attend the local community college or university online. Since
I returned to work when younger son was in first grade, I worked part-time and
basically from home. Child care so that both parents could work outside the
home would not have been an issue. We also started before having kids putting
my income aside for saving or special things such as family travel.
In
other words, I can not really understand the pressures on families or single
parents who may be living from paycheck to paycheck and are worried about
keeping food on their table and a roof over their heads. I never had to
struggle with what to do with kids if I had to leave the house to go to work. I
never had to view school as child care. I can’t imagine what that must feel
like. At the same time, though, I think of the teachers I know or have know.
They are ready, they have to be ready, to take a bullet for their students, but
must they also be ready to take a coronavirus particle? They must also consider
that they could infect a student rather than be infected by one.
I
read an op-ed by a grade 5 teacher last night who described her normal
classroom. Desks in clusters, pillowed reading areas, antsy children able to
move as needed. My elementary years were spent in separate desks facing
forward, facing the blackboard. No moving around and no (I really did love
this) working in groups on a daily basis. This sounds remarkably like the “new
normal” classroom with social
distancing. Learning could occur in such an environment. But eating lunch at
your desk and having no recess were things I never had to deal with. Those
would not have helped my attitude toward learning.
We’re
still defining the new normal, and it’s hard to say when we might be done.
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