First, apologies to Lesley Stahl for misspelling her first name yesterday. I did wonder as I typed it whether it was "ie" or "ey." I shall try to remember to check next time. It certainly would not have been difficult to do so.
Evidently, last night's Presidential debate was oh so much better than the first one. The moderator of the first one, Chris Wallace, complimented last night's moderator, Kristen Welker. Lest you think her success was due to one or the other mic being off at times, she was not the one controlling the mute switch. And the mics were only turned off for the initial two-minute statements by each candidate when the topic to be discussed changed. According to Son #1, Uncle Joe even let loose with a "Malarkey!" at some point. The Orange Foolius again cast himself as having done more for people of color than anyone else other than Abraham Lincoln. And the novel coronavirus will soon be a thing of the past. If you believe those last two things, we should probably end our conversation right now.
Yesterday's "Local Living" section of The Washington Post had an article with advice on how to form a "pod" to help make it through winter. "Pod" here has no connection with the pods in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original or the remake). Son #1, The Professor, and I are a pod. We do not live together, but our principal interaction is with only the other two people. I tried to think of other people with whom I'd like to be pod-mates. There aren't a lot, and I don't really know anyone keeping themselves as much of a hermit as I am. And the potential pod-partners all live a ways away, and I'm just not that into going other places these days.
Public schools in the city are staying all online for the time being; public schools in the county will start hybrid instruction for preschoolers through third graders on November 6. Kids will go to school in person two days a week and work at home the other three. There will be two groups in each class attending alternately. Some 187 teachers, or about 15 percent of the county teachers, requested to keep working remotely. Of those, 51 requests are related to the Americans with Disabilities Act and will be granted automatically. The other requests will be considered individually and may or may not be granted. Three teachers requested a leave of absence, while two teachers retired. I can't say that I blame the ones who would prefer to stay online. Some may have elderly parents living with them or spouses with compromised immune systems. It will be interesting to see which type of requests are granted and which type are not.
The 2020 election is but a week and a half away. This will be the first election of any kind--general or primary--since the 2004 Presidential election at which I will not be working. I'm going to miss it, even if it is going to be an hour longer than it has been. The polls will now be open in Virginia from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm. Arrive at 5:00 am and hope to be on one's way home by, now, 9:00 pm. I'll be insisting the husband sleep in the guest room the night before, though I may wake up at 4:00 am on my own. I expect that the official results in Virginia can be certified by noon on Friday, November 6, but this year you just don't know.
The state health department did not update its key metrics page for October 21 until it put up the today's October 23 update. The numbers were not good. There were 1,332 new cases on the 21st, and another 1,180 on the 22nd. The seven-day moving average is at 1,023. Those numbers are getting perilously close to the highest ever in the state. Offhand, I wonder what the new case number will be for Election Day.
1 comment:
I have previously worked the national election and done the count. 7am-10pm and then a drive to the counting station. I went back the next day to start counting the parish election. It was a double pay day, I worked for the council so was paid my normal wage, let out for the briefing meetings and paid to work for the election.
I think your pod is similar to our bubble, here if your son is a single adult household he could form a bubble with one other household of any size. You can't because there are two of you in your household. After that whether you live together or not you then become effectively one household. It threw up some difficult family situations where there was a widowed/divorced parent living alone who had several adult children locally. The parent can only bubble up with one of them and then after that there's no changing.
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