I think 2020 is really, truly out to get me. The dog that bit me on Thursday lives at one end of our subdivision. The dog that came at me today, barking loudly, lives at the other end. Today's dog's owners were in the front yard and were telling me how friendly the dog was as they called it back (dog gets a plus for going back when called). I had stopped my walk and managed not to break down in angry tears and commented that the dog's being friendly was whatwas said about the dog that bit me the day before yesterday. I plan to cut my walks short on each end of the subdivision. I may need to walk an extra lap around it to make up the distance, but that seems better than tempting fate.
I go back and forth on whether I have a "sewing room" or a "studio." I like "studio" because sewing is not the only thing I do in that room, but it seems a bit pretentious. Artists have studios, and I have trouble thinking of myself as an artist rather than someone posing as an artist. An imposter artist. Whatever the specific room is called, I got it set back up a bit differently than I had it before the upheaval. Having actually used the room today, I can say that I do like the new arrangement. I also felt some inner joy that I've been missing lately. I liked being there making something. I started working on a scrub hat to send my mom. She says her hair is getting long and unruly since there is not hairdresser coming in right now. I should get the hat finished tomorrow and out in Monday's mail.
I get nostalgic for the days when the novel coronavirus held the news feed hostage. There was one topic and only one topic to which to pay attention. Now, in addition to the novel coronavirus, we have the postal service, the national party conventions, assorted senatorial or house of reps elections. Some states have state races as well, but here in Virginia we do those in odd-numbered years, with the gubernatorial election being one year after the presidential election. We have schools reopening in person or not and covid-19 cases rising in the wake of college parties, on or off campus. We have sports again, though not as many. Some sports that we still have may not last for long. There's almost too much news to digest at one time.
Speaking of sports, the student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Daily Tar Heel, announced that they will no longer use the term "student athlete" to refer to students who are also on the university's athletic teams. The rationale stated was that "to accept the term 'student athlete' is to accept the ... agenda that these athletes are not employees." Also pointed out was that the term implied that as much time was devoted to being a student as was devoted to being an athlete. Shortly after the decision was announced online, Sports Illustrated announced that they, too, would no longer use the term. Besides the fact that I've always disliked the term "student athlete," I enjoy seeing a student news outlet leading a national one.
It seems that many places that repair and sell appliances are not open on weekends, meaning the options for refrigerator-shopping were slim. Older son had an extra refrigerator that my mother had when she lived with us. It's smaller than a regular refrigerator, but it has enough room to mean we don't have to panic about replacing the broken one. One issue in replacing the fridge is that refrigerators weren't quite as large in 1985 as they are now. Many of the newer models are simply too wide to fit in the spot we have. One Facebook friend said that this gave us an excuse to renovate the kitchen, but enough is enough in terms of life and environment changes! The fridge also sits across the room from the water hookups, so we really don't need or want an ice and water dispenser in the front panel.
As we close out week 22 of the pandemic, I just want to say that I hope week 23 is a bit less exciting than week 22 has been.
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