The View from the Hermitage, Day 165

The travails of 2020 just keep on coming. Hurricane Laura did her thing in Louisiana and Texas and is now on her way inland following a track very similar to the one followed by Hurricane Camille in 1969. Camille dumped over 25 inches of rain on the county just to the south of us and caused catastrophic mudslides. One percent of the county's population at the time died, some 124 people. There were some bodies that could not be identified, and there were other bodies they never did find. Last week marked the 51st anniversary of the disaster. There are a lot of people around here watching Laura with a wary eye hoping she will not emulate her ancestor Camille.

And then there is an asteroid that will be coming dangerously close to Earth on November 2. Could all the worry over the November 3 election be for naught? Probably not. NASA reports that even should the asteroid hit the Earth's atmosphere, it's too small, only about 6.5 feet, to do any damage. But wait! It's 2020! I'll believe the claim of no damage when I see it, thank you very much, NASA. 

My fingers are figuratively crossed (I could not type were they literally crossed) that the refrigerator does come tomorrow. The fine print warned that since Lowe's is making lots of deliveries these days, there may be delays. They will call with the exact delivery details, a call that has not yet come. Meal prep is okay, but snacking is difficult. We haven't wanted to replenish fruit, for example, so carrots or dry cereal are common snack, sometimes one right after the other. Older son says he'll do a grocery run as soon as the new refrigerator is installed and running. Wine will definitely be on the list along with some healthy snacks.

Tomorrow is decision day at the local university. Will it or will it not go all-virtual? The Student Council (known affectionately as StudCo) has sent the administration a letter asking that the university go ahead and go all virtual now, while allowing students who for safety, economic, or other factors should not return home to remain in campus housing. The groups that oversees all the social fraternities has warned chapters about the penalties of hosting gatherings that violate the mask, distancing, or crowd number guidelines. I hope that the university committee overseeing the reopening decision has included a student or two, but there's no guarantee it has. The university's covid-19 dashboard showed 14 new cases from Wednesday to yesterday. The new cases number it shows once it is updated early tomorrow morning may be the straw that does or does not break the reopening camel's back. 

I don't know what to predict might happen in Kenosha, Wisconsin tonight. Tuesday night, two people were shot and killed. Yesterday, a 17-year-old militia member from Illinois was arrested and charged with those shootings. One source said that he walked right by policemen while holding a rifle yet was not stopped and questioned at the time. All those involved, victims and shooter, were out after a citywide curfew had started. If HWSNBN has addressed either the initial shooting over the weekend or the shootings Tuesday night, I have yet to hear about it. The Democratic ticket, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, spoke by phone with the family of Jacob Blake, the man whose shooting set things off over the weekend. The Blake family have called for calm. I hope it comes soon.

And tonight HWSNBN will accept the nomination of his party from the President's official residence, followed by a fireworks display over the Washington Monument. Meanwhile, hundreds of former aides or staffers of George W. Bush or John McCain have endorsed Joe Biden. Pomp, ceremony, and fireworks matter not to them; I wish the same could be said of HWSNBN's base.