The View from the Hermitage, Day 329

Day 329 ... Week 47 ... Year 1? While I fully expect not to have been vaccinated once let alone twice by the one-year mark for this blog, I hope like hell I'm not still going strong this far into a second year. I do know that I won't be jumping right back out into the world even after a second dose of vaccine. I cannot, for example, envision eating out in a restaurant. I can envision going back to working as an officer of election if enough time has passed after the second shot that I feel it's had its full effect. 

Mother Nature, however, may have other ideas. South Africa has halted the rollout of the AstraZeneca covid vaccine because it has shown minimal efficacy against what's here being called the South Africa variant. Fortunately, the vaccines in use here in the US appear to work against what is called the British variant--the more contagious possibly more deadly variant--because the prevalence of that variant appears to be doubling every week and a half. 

I have been told that since The Professor and I have registered with the State Health Department as well as the regional health district folks, we'll get an email telling us when it's our turn to get vaccinated and how to make an appointment. This obviously varies from state to state and, possibly, locality to locality. I read this morning how some other countries are notifying people that it's their turn for the vaccine. Britain is apparently using a letter or phone call, while Israel is relying on text messaging. Notification in Germany varies from state to state, while India is using neighborhood lists. 

As schools locally move to increase in-person K-12 instruction, there may be a new controversy brewing. Some districts appear to be hiring "classroom monitors," to, what else, monitor classrooms in which students will sit at desks for the same virtual instruction they would get at home. They would not be going to school to be in a classroom with a teacher present and teaching. They would just be following on a screen in a classroom rather than on a screen at home.

The Super Bowl, the climax of the season, is this evening. Noteworthy is that the game was scheduled for February 7, 2021, before the pandemic happened. The National Football League, unlike the other professional sports leagues, had no games canceled due to covid. Some were delayed, but all were played. Perhaps more noteworthy is that the season did not happen in a bubble. There may have been a couple of games that were not played in the stadium they had been scheduled for due to local regulations, but only a couple. What the NFL did that other sports leagues did not do or did not do as well was to stress the public health side of the pandemic: distancing, testing, contact tracing, isolation. and so forth. League officials expected there to be cases of covid; the goal was to minimize the spread of those cases. 

The surprise to me was that there was never a case of the virus being transmitted across the line of scrimmage despite large, sweaty, huffing and puffing men crouching nose to nose. There was no transmission even in cases in which players tested positive for covid after having played in a game. The league used genetic sequencing to verify that such a player did not transmit whatever viral strain he had to someone else on the field at the same time. 

Moving on to the Capitol insurrection, researchers at the University of Chicago have been analyzing the backgrounds of the people arrested so far. The average age of arrestees is 40. Almost 90 percent have no known links to militant groups. Forty percent own their own business or work in white-collar jobs. They have one common denominator. They all support Xpot. He is the reason they were where they were on January 6. Having watched video of Xpot's remarks to the crowd that day, I view those remarks as incendiary when delivered to one's supporters. Will enough Republican Senators agree with me? Not bloody likely.

We had snow again today. I left my phone at home when we walked The Family Dog, but I took a shot of the dogwood tree out back through the dining room window.

When we reached the other cul-de-sac, the flakes were large and fluffy. Standing still, looking straight up at them as they fell was magical. I had not realized how much I missed a good snowfall. Now, eight or so hours later, most of the snow has melted. It was wonderful while it lasted, but it didn't last long enough.

I found a recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Pie in the book Son #2 gave me for Christmas, Pie Academy. It seemed like something that might go with the Instant Pot chili I'll be trying to make after I post this. The Professor's favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin, and the description of his pie was that the top was like a huge cookie. The Flaky Cream Cheese Pie Dough used for the crust was a bitch to make since I don't have a food processor. I made two batches, one using my stand mixer and the other using an immersion blender. I ended up using the immersion  blender dough. I don't know how it tastes yet, but I do know I'd never enter a pie using it in a county fair because getting it to look as good as it doesn't in the picture below was not easy.

Here's hoping I don't struggle as much with the Instant Pot chili as I did with the Flake Cream Cheese Pie Dough crust. And here's hoping both the chili and the pie are tasty.