The View from the Hermitage, Day 175

We approach being halfway through one full year. Truth be told, it would not surprise me at all to be sitting here at the one-year mark and typing "The View from the Hermitage, Day 365." I do think that by that time, there may well be a safe and reliable vaccine available and safe and reliable treatment(s) that can be used should the vaccine not take. As I typed "safe and reliable treatment(s)" the thought ran through my brain that of course a treatment would be safe and reliable. These days, though, in the wake of the short courtship of covid-19 and hydroxychloroquine, wanting a treatment to be safe and reliable makes takes on new meaning.

Students are now back pretty much in full force. Someone on the local university's subreddit asked when the university would suspend in-person classes and send students home. The first reply was that based on what the respondent had seen in two popular student areas the night before, it would not be long. The usual debauchery stretch is what on any other campus would be called Fraternity Row, but the student group overseeing Greek activity cancelled all in-person social activities at houses and put forward losing official status as a penalty. Sounds as if that may have been taken seriously.

The university does not update its covid-19 dashboard on the weekends, so tomorrow's numbers may be enlightening. The ones that come out during the coming week may be even more enlightening. I expect they will shed some light on what the timing of any decision by the university might be. Let's forget politics for a week other than how they might relate to the pandemic.

I checked off every item on my weekend to-do list save two. One is easily done in that it means opening a box in the basement and pulling out a specific sheet of paper. The other was the one "me thing" on the list, further play with my new needle-felting machine. Unfortunately, that's the way things usually work for me or, so I've heard, many other women. We occasionally or often have a tendency to do for others before we do for ourselves. Nice in theory but now always in practice. I think I'll put needle felting play at the top of tomorrow's list.

Also this coming week, I may well hear from the local university Tuesday in a continuation of my job termination, a process that started over a year ago. I heard last week from someone official that I had until Tuesday to watch some coping in the age of covid-19 presentation that all university staff had to view before they could be allowed back on campus. I emailed the boss who had said she wanted to keep me on the books until the end of the fiscal year, which was June 30. I somehow slipped through the cracks, and they are now "looking into formally ending (my) assignment." That somehow makes it seem a lot more complicated than it should be. People at the university come and go; it should be clear how to handle someone who has quit. I will have to think tomorrow how to respond should I get another email on Tuesday telling me to watch the presentation. As for being on campus, the last time I was officially there was about a year ago, when I delivered my computing equipment and paper files and sat down with the boss to go over my annual projects. I did go back for the retirement celebration of a colleague, but since I didn't put that down as time worked, I'm not counting it. How does this all relate to the pandemic? Without the required viewing of some covid-19 video, I might have thought my departure from the university was not an issue. 

Not a stellar blog post, but it's my fault for not getting to it until the post-dinner, pre-bedtime couple of hours. Notes to self: Use needle-felting machine tomorrow, and write earlier in the day.