The View from the Hermitage, Day 247

As if my anxiety over The Orange Foolius's refusal to let things transition to Uncle Joe weren't high enough, it was reported yesterday that The Foolius wanted to go to war with Iran until a few of his advisors talked him out of it. I wonder if he thought that the country couldn't switch presidents in the middle of a conflict. Not so! Bush 43 started wars with Iraq and Afghanistan; Obama took over just as The Foolius took over from him. Son #1 opined that the rationale may have been that the US has made multiple arms sales to Saudi Arabia and another Arab country or two, and a war with Iran would give them a chance to use those weapons. Whatever the reason might have been, I'm glad there were people mature and sane enough to hold him back. I hope they're in the room the next time he wants to do something like this. 

The pandemic whirls around us. The high case number in Virginia that I reported yesterday was inflated a bit by the data system's having been down for maintenance over the weekend meaning that some cases got posted to Sunday that should have been posted the day before. That error does not, unfortunately, affect the seven-day moving average of number of cases which is approaching 1,700. The percent positivity rate was up to 7.4 percent. Further out in the world, the Republican governor of Iowa who until now has been against any sort of mask mandate announced one for Iowa last night. How serious is this? The mandate was announced yesterday evening and took effect at midnight. There may have been lots of Iowans shopping for masks this morning. 

I managed to go through the top drawer of the three that sit between my sink and The Professor's. It was enlightening. I now know why we were never able to find tweezers when we needed them. There were six in the drawer. They were mingling with three nail files, one (large) toenail clipper, and five (small) fingernail clippers. After an inventory, I kept the 18 (yes, 18) emery boards that appeared never to have been used. I relocated some bobby pins to the drawer beneath but rescued 19 safety pins and nine paper clips, of which five were small and four, large. I then got rid of the dust and scum what had taken up residence there in the years since I last cleaned it. That assumes that I ever have cleaned it; I really don't recall. The drawer now has shelf paper on the bottom and is inhabited by one of my albuterol inhalers, a subset of the nail devices recovered on the first pass, and various creams or ointments--hydrocortisone cream, athlete's foot cream, antibacterial cream, and a couple more. Having conquered that drawer, I rewarded myself by leaving the drawer beneath, the hair and makeup drawer, for tomorrow.

I realized as I was typing that paragraph that it was making me smile. A moment of levity! Thanks, self, I needed that. It hit me this morning that Thanksgiving is next week. Ordinarily, I would already have purchased many of the needed supplies. I would have bought cranberries as soon as they appeared in the stores, getting enough for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I would already have potatoes and sweet potatoes. I do have supplies for pumpkin pie save the cream for whipping. I usually buy a fresh turkey, so that would have been on the list to obtain over the weekend. I also had the cushion of knowing that should I realize on the day before Thanksgiving that I had forgotten something, a quick trip to the nearest grocery store was no big deal. This morning I passed a lengthy grocery list to Son #1 who has been procuring groceries for us. I'll learn tomorrow morning how he did. 

It hit me the other day that November is also known as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 or more word novel in one month of 30 days. If you get your novel finished during the month, you are a "winner" and get a link to a PDF certificate on which you can enter your name. I am a three-time winner at NaNoWriMo, those years being 15 or so years ago. I was struggling the first year, in which I had a real premise that might have worked for a better writer, when Son #2 informed me that everything went better with zombies. He was right. I added a zombie angle, and it all flowed from there. I also incorporated zombies the next two years, with the third based loosely on what I had happen in the second. Will I ever do it again? Probably not, since Bond, James Bond told me to never say never again. My favorite one was the second. I populated it with characters based on the young people with whom I was doing martial arts and even gave each of them a copy on a CD.

In viewing my USPS Informed Delivery email of snail mail to come today, there is something that I hope is not a Christmas card. It is too early for Christmas cards, though this is the time of year that I usually address them. I think I used labels in 2014, the year in which I had my torn right rotator cuff and labrum repaired in October. Otherwise, I'm sort of an old fogy and like to address them by hand. I do use return address labels. I also need to write the yearly recount of things that may bore most people but that some people might want to know. I for one like getting yearly recaps in Christmas cards. Otherwise, I'm looking at the card's signature and wondering just what that person is up to these days. I have retrieved the box of Christmas cards from its secure location for perusal this evening. I often buy cards post-holiday when they are on sale. I do hope I bought enough back in January of the year we may or may not laugh about someday.