The View from the Hermitage, Day 228

We were expecting rain and wind from Zeta this afternoon, and darn if Zeta didn't split apart and leave us in the sunny weather in between the two halves. It did rain like the dickens overnight and this morning, but now it's wet out there, but nothing new is coming down. I did get a little bit of walking in. I find that if I spend some time on the heating pad, I can walk around for a while with no pain. I've also been ferrying things from the boxes in the basement to the other floors of the house. I still have not found my kindle, one of my cameras (which was, I think, last used by The Professor), or our newest heating pad. They have to be out there somewhere. It's going to be touch and go if I make the 304.2 miles walking set as my Apple watch's October challenge. I'm not going to hurt my back further by going overboard on that.

My mom has a week to go in her two weeks of quarantine. The facility did another round of point prevalence testing yesterday but did not test the people who tested positive last week. If any of those people tested negative this week, it would not be clear which test--last week or this week--was a false one, which means there would be no change to the two weeks of isolation. Mom still has no symptoms, which I hope continues as the virus runs its course. I should see if there are any statistics on how many people have had someone they know personally come down with covid-19. Until Mom tested positive, I had two degrees of separation with someone who'd tested positive, that is, I knew someone who knew someone who'd had it. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, anyone?

I verified that the absentee ballots belonging to The Professor and me were processed and counted. They won't be downloading any results from the scanners until election day. They will process absentee or early ballots before election day, but they will not download the data from the scanner until election day. And for those who like trivial things, each of the scanners operated by this county can process 10,000 ballots before a new scanner is needed. As of sometime last week, nearly two scanners had been filled by people voting early in-person. I'm looking forward to The Professor's report on how many people actually come in to vote on November 3. It could feel like a primary in terms of how few people show up. 

The governor yesterday touted Virginia as being one of the states not seeing a rapid increase in cases of covid-19. Put the emphasis on "rapid" there. We are seeing an increase albeit a slow one. The governor says that it's Southwest Virginia that is driving the increases. Having gone to high school and college in Southwest Virginia, I am not really surprised. In many parts of the region, pretty much nothing has replaced the coal mining that used to drive the local economies. There are large areas with no hospital at all, suggesting that there may be lots of people dying at home, having been unable to get treatment of any kind, let alone of the types The Orange Foolius got. 

I'm still feeling pretty much numb in the absence of news reports on the candidates' goings-on, but it's a good numb. I do read the newspapers and some online outlets, but I don't overdo it. There are moments I feel guilty about intentionally ignoring so much of the news, but it's in the interest of maintaining my mental health as well as that of The Professor. I think a slow walk would be of help in maintaining that mental health, and as The Professor has been sitting most of the day, it would likely help his physical health as well. And I will turn us around should my back start complaining.