Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The View from the Hermitage, Day 233

Election Day! I have turned on the television, but it's playing reruns of Law and Order. I will probably turn to some form of election coverage but not until early evening. There will be a bottle of wine involved, I can assure you. I do not expect any network will project an outcome, though it is entirely possible that The Orange Foolius will declare victory while I am still watching. That watching will likely end when The Professor returns home and has showered and joined me. I may be wrong, but he typically refuses to watch anything such as the State of the Union address or candidate debates. I was surprised when he wanted to watch Lesley Stahl's 60 Minutes interview with The Foolius.

Dropping The Professor off at the precinct at 5:00 was hard and not because I have not driven in the dark in over six months. It felt strange not to be getting out of the car myself. I felt as if I were letting the team down despite the Precinct Chief's telling me I was doing the right thing by not being there. I don't like feeling afraid, but that's pretty much what it comes down to. My 88-year-old mother can get covid-19 with no symptoms. I could get it and end up on a ventilator or worse. That's frightening.

I've tried to get a few unpacking type things done today. I managed to rehang a metal design we had over the fireplace. We had two similar ones on each side, but those flummoxed me. The two are basically the same, but there was one picture hanger on one side and two on the other. I also wanted to rehang the curtains in the bedroom. There are three windows there, one with two panes and two with one pane each. When I unpacked the curtains, there were three valances. Fine. There were two types of curtain panels, four of one type and six of the other. I used the four of one type on the two narrower windows, but six panels for the wider window? That seems excessive. I have no memory of using those curtains on the one-pane window in the walk-in closet, which is the only other window there. I did consider using one pair on the wide window and then use the other pairs on the two one-pane windows in the master bathroom. I wasn't sure what The Professor would think about that.

I do want to get curtains for the bathroom soon given that one of the windows looks out to the driveway. I found some I liked and in looking for those, found something I liked for the wide window in the dining room. I showed them to The Professor and got a very "meh" reaction. I'll spend another morning looking, I guess, which is about the length of time it took me to find the first sets I liked. If he's still "meh," he may be the one choosing curtains. He has wanted to put up the ones we took down despite the fact that they will no longer look good with an accent wall and different rugs. I know, though, that if those go up, they will not come down easily.

Back on the covid-19 front, the number of new cases in Virginia yesterday was back up. The seven-day rolling average went up as well. Every increase is to a new record at this point, and it's been rising for over a week. I can't find any notice that the governor will hold a briefing in the near future. I certainly hope that the powers that be are considering some sort of mitigation measures. Things are looking worse now than they did when everything was locked down to begin with. The local university has been touting their low numbers, but they only count tests that they give. What will be interesting are the numbers a week from now. There were photos from Friday night showing a crown of university students waiting to enter a local nightspot. They were shoulder-to-shoulder, with nary a mask in sight.

I just did my first election check of the day, calling up cnn.com. It appears that The Orange Foolius has neither an acceptance now a concession speech ready for tonight. If you believe that, I've got some swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell you. Do I think we might have a possible winner tonight? Only if it's an avalanche as opposed to a mere landslide.

1 comment:

Caroline M said...

When we moved here in 1991 I spent a massive amount of money on some really nice curtain fabric. I needed a roman blind for an odd little window looking into the porch, a matching curtain for the window next to it that is the width of the room and a matching floor to ceiling curtain for the patio doors at the other end of the room. I'd never made curtains or a roman blind but could follow directions and sew in a straight line. The lining on the south facing one has become very frail but those curtains and blinds are still up at the windows. I could replace the lining but it's not worth it on thirty year old curtains, when they come down they are staying down.

It's a nice safe subject, curtains. It doesn't raise my blood pressure or have me shouting at the radio. Nice choice Jean.