The View from the Hermitage, Day 163

Needing a new appliance during a pandemic is not for the faint of heart. Just as lots of other things, appliances are having supply chain issues. Best Buy has several refrigerators that are of the size and style we want; however, the earliest any of those is available is early October. Ditto for Lowes. Davis Appliance can get one that fits our needs and wants but not until November. And the only old-fashioned appliance store in town is sold out of refrigerators but will get a new shipment in three weeks. The husband visited Davis and the local appliance store; the Best Buy and Lowes availability came from their respective websites. The husband will now attempt to diagnose why the smallish refrigerator that worked at older son's house does not want to work here. If we can get that working, waiting three weeks or even until October would not be the problem only having the dorm refrigerator is.

The Washington Post's Health and Science section had an article on coronavirus fatigue. The more we hear about the coronavirus and covid-19, the more desensitized we become. It morphs from being something novel (the novel coronavirus) and notable to something more common, and that is when we might stop taking the needed precautions. We leave the house without a mask and gloves (as the husband did when he left to go look at refrigerators; I caught him in the act of forgetting and corrected the situation), or say yes, we'll come to some social event without checking whether masks and distancing will be expected there. I say "we" there, but I have it easy since I go nowhere but the park for the Sunday dog walking expedition. It's easy to remember safety things once each week.

I've walked for three days now with no canine issues. I can pretty much do a mile loop without going by the homes of the two dogs that I've had trouble with. Much shorter than that, and doing five or six miles would be too tedious. I'd been leaving water in our mailbox and stopping to drink every time I went by it. Today, I tried one of older son's hydration vests, and it was wonderful not to have to stop, drink, then start up again. I'll be using that every day from now on.

I actually stayed up until 10:00 last night, which was when NBC coverage of the Republican National Convention began. There was no way I was going to stay up any longer and watch any of it. The few clips I saw on the network evening news about turned my stomach. HWSNBN claims that the only way he will lose is the election's being rigged against him. And he throws out there to think about 12 more years rather than four. I worry about the state of our democracy should he be reelected. 

My mom's assisted living facility is doing another point prevalent round of covid-19 testing tomorrow, and yet another one next Wednesday. The state health department recommended two tests a week apart. If all of those results come back negative, then they can start to allow residents to eat together or have some in-person social activities. I must admit that playing bingo by sitting in your doorway with the caller at one end just wouldn't do it for me. 

I have made a dent in the large cube of bankers' boxes in the basement. Most of the boxes of books that were in and will return to two bookcases in the living room are now spread out on the floor. Older son will bring a couple more up tomorrow. Then the trick is to organize them a bit better than they were before I packed them all up. I did set aside all the Audubon and nature guides for younger son to have at his cabin. When we were staying there, the question often came up of what sort of tree, what sort of insect, what sort of bird, and so on. Now they'll have the guides there to help answer such questions. I also put a box of books aside for older son, a set of classic works I remember going through as a child. The Works of Doyle, The Works of Longfellow, and so on. There is another set of books my parents had when I was a kid that will also go to older son.

Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of Refrigerator: Yay or Nay?

The View from the Hermitage, Day 160

I think 2020 is really, truly out to get me. The dog that bit me on Thursday lives at one end of our subdivision. The dog that came at me today, barking loudly, lives at the other end. Today's dog's owners were in the front yard and were telling me how friendly the dog was as they called it back (dog gets a plus for going back when called). I had stopped my walk and managed not to break down in angry tears and commented that the dog's being friendly was whatwas said about the dog that bit me the day before yesterday. I plan to cut my walks short on each end of the subdivision. I may need to walk an extra lap around it to make up the distance, but that seems better than tempting fate.

I go back and forth on whether I have a "sewing room" or a "studio." I like "studio" because sewing is not the only thing I do in that room, but it seems a bit pretentious. Artists have studios, and I have trouble thinking of myself as an artist rather than someone posing as an artist. An imposter artist. Whatever the specific room is called, I got it set back up a bit differently than I had it before the upheaval. Having actually used the room today, I can say that I do like the new arrangement. I also felt some inner joy that I've been missing lately. I liked being there making something. I started working on a scrub hat to send my mom. She says her hair is getting long and unruly since there is not hairdresser coming in right now. I should get the hat finished tomorrow and out in Monday's mail.

I get nostalgic for the days when the novel coronavirus held the news feed hostage. There was one topic and only one topic to which to pay attention. Now, in addition to the novel coronavirus, we have the postal service, the national party conventions, assorted senatorial or house of reps elections. Some states have state races as well, but here in Virginia we do those in odd-numbered years, with the gubernatorial election being one year after the presidential election. We have schools reopening in person or not and covid-19 cases rising in the wake of college parties, on or off campus. We have sports again, though not as many. Some sports that we still have may not last for long. There's almost too much news to digest at one time. 

Speaking of sports, the student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Daily Tar Heel, announced that they will no longer use the term "student athlete" to refer to students who are also on the university's athletic teams. The rationale stated was that "to accept the term 'student athlete' is to accept the ... agenda that these athletes are not employees." Also pointed out was that the term implied that as much time was devoted to being a student as was devoted to being an athlete. Shortly after the decision was announced online, Sports Illustrated announced that they, too, would no longer use the term. Besides the fact that I've always disliked the term "student athlete," I enjoy seeing a student news outlet leading a national one.

It seems that many places that repair and sell appliances are not open on weekends, meaning the options for refrigerator-shopping were slim. Older son had an extra refrigerator that my mother had when she lived with us. It's smaller than a regular refrigerator, but it has enough room to mean we don't have to panic about replacing the broken one. One issue in replacing the fridge is that refrigerators weren't quite as large in 1985 as they are now. Many of the newer models are simply too wide to fit in the spot we have. One Facebook friend said that this gave us an excuse to renovate the kitchen, but enough is enough in terms of life and environment changes! The fridge also sits across the room from the water hookups, so we really don't need or want an ice and water dispenser in the front panel. 

As we close out week 22 of the pandemic, I just want to say that I hope week 23 is a bit less exciting than week 22 has been.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 159

Can we use Hermione's time travel amulet and just go back to yesterday? Today's problem du jour is a dead refrigerator. Initially, it looked as if just the freezer had died, but it soon became apparent that the refrigerator compartment was warming up as well. It's a Kenmore that we've had since 2008. I know that well because the husband and I picked it out together at Sears, and it was delivered a few days later by which time I was in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Interestingly, only one of the local appliance repair places or solo guys will work on Kenmores, and the one that will said that rather than fix a 12-year old refrigerator, we might as well just replace it. Sounds like what we were told about the heat pump.

Right now, I've got some chicken legs and pork ribs in the oven, and have already cooked five hamburger patties and two hunks of sirloin. We weren't going to refreeze the meat that had thawed, but now that it's been cooked, we can put it in the chest freezer in the garage. Tomorrow, the husband goes refrigerator shopping, possibly with older son. We've talked about the key characteristics they should look for. There's no guarantee, though, that they can buy a refrigerator and get it delivered all in one day. It might be doable if the husband had his pickup truck, but that's been loaned to younger son. For now, the things that needed cooling the most such as almond milk or yogurt are chilling in the basement beer fridge. Everyone needs a beer fridge.

I survived this morning's 5-mile walk with no dog bites. Someone was walking a dog I did not recognize--it was on a lead--so I cut through the woods so as to avoid interaction with unknown dog and barely known people. he family dog wanted two walks this morning, so I'd already walked close to three miles before starting the daily five. Older son runs 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) while I walk five; he offers encouragement whenever we meet each other on our laps around the subdivision.

I need to search for Joe Biden's acceptance speech to watch after hearing that Fox News called it a home run. HWSNBN and Fox News are having a real falling out these days. I wonder what channel(s) HWSNBNis watching while he rage-tweets these days. The husband continues to be pessimistic about Biden's chances. He figures that HWSNBN's base is a sure thing when it comes to voting, but he's not as optimistic about everyone else. He does feel a bit better every time he sees mention of a Republican someone endorsing Biden. I fully expect that should HWSNBN wins the election, the husband will start retirement proceedings and looking for a house in Canada. He says that I will have no problem being allowed to move there given that I'm married to a Canadian. I'm sort of hoping we don't have to find out if that's true so soon.

I just looked at the website https://www.endcoronavirus.org/states. I haven't looked at the US states assessment there in over a week. Several states and territories have dropped down in classification. Maine, for example, was listed as a state that had its act together. Now it's listed as needing to take action. Virginia remains in the needing to take action category; I don't see it moving up any time soon especially not as colleges and universities reopen. Guam was listed as having its act together and now sits as needing to take action with a new case line that is basically vertical. I haven't been too optimistic about the big coronavirus picture, and nothing I see is changing that. Fauci says that we will get back to normal, but I wonder what that normal will be. At least I don't need to wait until the pandemic wanes to get a new refrigerator.