The View from the Hermitage, Day 232

I just realized that I never finished or published yesterday's post. Life seems like that these days. One thing right after another, bam bam pow! I probably thought I'd published it in that extra hour I was supposed to have had but never seemed to find.

I wish I could say that tomorrow is the moment of truth, but that moment might not come for several weeks, if then. The Orange Foolius is having a "non-scalable" wall erected around the White House. Is he worried about the huddled masses trying to crash his victory party? Uncle Joe could be leading in landslide fashion, but I still expect The Foolius to declare victory because Uncle Joe's surplus votes will have come from the same millions of illegal voters who voted for Hillary in 2016. Are the Mexicans paying for this wall? And can it be constructed to keep people from getting out, not in? 

Since I have not had to get myself ready for a 4:40 departure tomorrow morning, I'm trying to get The Professor ready. I refuse to be standing here ready to take him to get there on time (5:00) and hearing, "I still need to _______." I'm dropping him off so that (a) I have a car should there be an emergency need for one during the day and (b) he can ride with the Precinct Chief to turn in the ballot drop box, a task requiring two sworn officers of election. The Chief will have to pass our subdivision on her way back to her house, so she'll just drop him off on the way.

Normally, we do the food at the precinct as a potluck of sorts. The Chief brings a huge slow cooker of the bestest chili ever; the rest of us bring salad or chips or desserts to go with it. No potluck this year. The only communal food/beverage item allowed is a coffee percolator. At least I don't need to sit here thinking of The Professor lunching on the chili I'd be missing. My plan as of now is to spend the day working on a Christmas present for The Professor's brother, who is notoriously difficult to buy for. He needs nothing but in the past has appreciated the things I have made for him. I hope this year is no different. 

The number of new covid-19 cases in Virginia was lower yesterday than the day before, but the seven-day rolling average continues to increase. The governor apparently had no 2:00 pm briefing today; maybe he figured the day before the election was not a good day to be announcing anything let alone new or more covid-19 restrictions. I don't expect him to have any sort of gathering tomorrow either.

"Fire Fauci" has apparently replaced "lock her up" as the rallying cry of The Orange Foolius. I expect that, win or lose and perhaps with more vigor should he lose, The Foolius will fire Dr. Fauci in the wake of the election. Could Dr. Fauci be fired by The Foolius and rehired or reappointed by Uncle Joe? Would he even want his position back? Could he instead be an outside consultant? He's one of the only things keeping my confidence up that we will eventually vanquish this thing. It is not going to disappear nor can we turn the corner on it. We can fight it and we can protect ourselves and others, but we can not just send it packing. 

I am still babying my back. In some random probably pandemic-induced fit of lunacy, I ordereda collection of bulbs that should be planted before the ground freezes. The likely won't happen for a while, but it would be nice to plant them before it's too cold above ground. Before I plant them, I need to clean out a flowerbed. At the immediate moment, leaning over or squatting down to pull exiting plants or plant spring-arriving plants in bulb form, does not fill me with confidence that I can do it all without further aggravating my back. 

Time to thaw something for dinner. An early dinner is more amenable to an early bedtime, and when you're getting up at oh-dark-thirty...