The View from the Hermitage, Day 255

The day before Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Cook as Much as Possible Day or Wednesday. I had the list ready! After the morning walk with The Family Dog and showering, I accomplished Item 1: Pie crust with no problem. Washed all the dishes from that adventure and proceeded to Item 2: Cheesecake: 2A Graham cracker crust; 2B Cheesecake. The Professor handled the crust while I worked on the cheesecake filling. We were nearing the end of the filling, adding four lightly beaten eggs one at a time, when the phone rang. It was Son #2 informing us that he was feeling fine but he was running a bit of a temperature, not high but higher than his temperature usually is. Daughter-in-Law Equivalent said he was noticeably pale, so they had decided that they shouldn't come tomorrow. I thanked them for not putting us, well, me at increased risk. We'll Zoom around dinnertime just as we Zoomed for my birthday pancake breakfast. We can think about getting together at Christmas, though we will likely need heaters if we want to eat on the deck. Still, I remember more than one Christmas here when shorts could have been worn comfortably.

On the national front, there were more than 2,200 deaths yesterday, the highest since May 6. New cases numbered north of 250,000 again. There have been more than 2 million new cases in only two weeks. And the seven-day rolling average number of new cases went over 175,000 for the first time. Our seven-day rolling average in Virginia is knocking on 2,500's door and may be getting in and over that today. The slope of that line right now is the steepest it has been. I have heard nothing lately about contact tracing in Virginia; I don't know if that's good or bad. Contact tracing for the nation as a whole is dropping according to the CDC. In some states, cases are rising so fast that contact tracing is simply not possible. In North Dakota, people testing positive are told to do their own contact tracing and just let everyone they were with in a certain time period that they'd been in contact with someone who tested positive. Do-It-Yourself contact tracing. Does Lowe's or Home Depot sell a how-to manual for that?

At least with the official start of the Presidential transition, Uncle Joe's pandemic people can now talk with Dr. Fauci. Uncle Joe is, I think, giving a speech today about the pandemic. The Lame Duck, who yesterday pardoned a turkey, was supposed to go to a voter fraud rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with Rudy Giuliani, but the trip was cancelled after Giuliani was exposed to someone with covid-19 for the second time in a week. It looks as if now he will be quarantining at a Washington, DC hotel, something he should have started doing after the first exposure. 

The Lame Duck's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner have not really been seen since the election. I've read several articles positing just what they'll do next. Pundits tend to think that they will not go back to New York City because they won't be able to enjoy the same social status they had before 2016. There are big-time renovations being made to a house they have on the grounds of The Lame Duck's New Jersey golf course, so perhaps they plan to move there. There's also word that they might relocate to Mar-a-Lago with Daddy. I don't really care where they go to live as long as it is not on the grounds of the Trump Winery which happens to be not that far from here. While I've seen a couple of the well-known people who live around here--John Grisham and Sissy Spacek--I would not want to see Jared and Ivanka walking on our Downtown (pedestrian) Mall. 

While I am disappointed at not being able to see Son #2 and Daughter-in-Law Equivalent tomorrow, I am glad they had the sense to cancel. The Professor said he would have expected no less from them. Maybe I've been reading too many horror stories about people doing dumb things such as going to a large gathering when they know better, putting their own lives and the lives of other in jeopardy. 

The Health & Science section of yesterday's Washington Post contained an article I may find myself reading daily. In the Perspective piece "Don't waste time pining for pre-covid life," Steven Petrow reflected on how people might waste the time the pandemic has given us to slow down and reflect. Beginning with a friend's question, "How do you think we'll adjust to life when it starts up again?" he reflected on several earlier periods in his own life. He noted having read a book on mindfulness and meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh that contained a passage on washing dishes. He noted that at one stage in his life he would never have recognized the wisdom he now sees in the passage: 

“I enjoy taking my time with each dish, being fully aware of the dish, the water, and each movement of my hands. I know that if I hurry in order to eat dessert sooner, the time of washing dishes will be unpleasant and not worth living. That would be a pity, for each minute, each second of life is a miracle. The dishes themselves and that fact that I am here washing them are miracles!”

Over the summer, Petrow practiced washing his dishes mindfully and carefully, feeling "the warmth of the water and the slipperiness of the suds." It brought back memories of his grandmother using the same dishes he was washing. Memories of the past blended into the present. He then tried to be mindful about other things in his life. He concludes with offering his answer to his friend's question. I'd share that here, but I don't want to keep you from reading the whole article. It is worth the time.