The View from the Hermitage, Day 161

Should I applaud for 23 weeks? After all, 23 is a prime number, and I do tend to like those. Whenever someone asks me to give them a number, I always open with 17. In three more years I'll have a prime age, not that I can't now claim to be in my prime. And I have been known to enjoy prime rib, especially with horseradish.

My mind is all over the place today. Can you tell? Dealing with Homeowners' Association headaches (I'm the secretary-treasurer, a job I volunteered for so as not to have my name or that of the husband come up as a possible president). Realizing that a standard poodle who no longer lives in the subdivision used to charge at me barking and snarling if I were running and dog and owner passed on the other side of the road. The owner assured me that the dog was friendly. Just not to me I'd always reply. Feeling as if I'm getting nowhere on putting the house back together even though I am purposely moving slowly to see that things that need to be dealt with don't get put away and put off. Having to return the sports bra I bought because rather than send the exact size I ordered, they sent me the sister size with a larger cup and smaller band. I specifically ordered the one I did to get the extra length in the band. Grrrrr!

The dean of students at the local university put out a video yesterday warning students, incoming and already here, that the university would not be playing around in terms of penalties for not following the covid-19 restrictions of wearing a mask, social distancing, and keeping gathering sizes 15 or fewer. There would be no second chances, no warning shots across the bow. Screw up, and you're suspended for the rest of the semester ... at least. It was probably good that he could note that several other universities have already suspended so many students here and so many more there. Chatter on Reddit suggested that the university might be using last night (Saturday) as a test case. Too many large parties then, and the school goes totally online. They said any announcement with regard to going all online would come August 28 (Friday) at the latest.

Refrigerator shopping is on the top of my list for this week, though any shopping I do will be online. I fall back on my primary care physician's saying that keeping myself pretty much totally isolated is not over-reacting. HWSNBN supposedly has a press conference scheduled for 6:00 pm to discuss covid-19 treatment. Rumor has it he'll be pushing convalescent plasma and not his old favorite hydroxychloroquine. I've read that scientific study of plasma is difficult because so many doctors are just using it, with no experimental structure or controls. Having a reliable treatment is half of all that I ask. A reliable vaccine and a reliable treatment since we all know that vaccines don't always work. 

And now I go to cook the couple extra packs of meat that were hiding in the back of the dorm fridge the husband loaded up from the kitchen fridge. We're having either pork or chicken legs for dinner, depending on what we're in the mood for when cooking has been accomplished.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 158

I've had better days, and I've had worse days. Worse is when the dog that bites you breaks the skin and probably hasn't been vaccinated against rabies. Better is when the dog that bites you leaves a bruise but does not break the skin and has been vaccinated against rabies. Today was a better day. I also just heard from my mom that her covid-19 test came back negative. They'll be doing another round of testing next week and are supposedly working on contact tracing in terms of the two positive results. Both of the people who tested positive were asymptomatic. 

In terms of the dog bite, I was just about halfway through this morning's 5-mile walk and heading around the other cul-de-sac in the subdivision. Some neighbors there take care of their daughter's golden retriever during the day, and said golden came running out toward me. I stopped. The dog came up to me and started to bark loudly. I think I may have moved a wee bit, and the dog lunged at my thigh and bit it. The woman came running up to grab the dog's collar. Older son had been running while I was walking, and he came running up when he heard me shout that the dog had bitten me. It did not look as if the skin had been broken. The woman said that they were training the dog to their new electric fence, something I thought one did with the dog on a lead. Older son walked me home as I bawled my eyes out (it was an angry cry). The husband checked the bite and while the skin was bruising nicely found no break in the skin. The woman's husband phoned apologizing profusely and noting that they would not take the dog out without a lead until it had learned the new fence. In the interest of neighborly relations I did not tell him that my experience with electric fences is that any dog can go through them at any time. I did ask about the dog's vaccinations, and they're current. Once the phone call was over, I went back out and finished my 5 miles though at a comparatively slower pace. I'd dumped all my adrenaline in the whole bite incident. I still feel very drained.

But my mom's covid-19 test was negative, which is just the news I wanted to hear. I know the facility isn't out of the woods yet and likely won't be as long as there's no vaccine or treatment. Fingers crossed that next week's round of tests shows no new cases. Right now, my connection with covid-19 is two degrees of Kevin Bacon. I know someone who knows someone who had it. I'd rather not get any closer than that.

Non-coronavirus related, I have learned a couple of interesting things lately. First, I am looking forward to writing a letter or two on this.

Yes, it's a legal pad in landscape rather than portrait mode. Staples keeps wanting me to come back to shop and regularly sends me $5 off coupons. If they can be used online, I find something interesting but inexpensive, and this time it was a landscape legal pad. I must admit to not being sure in just what circumstances this would be better than the traditional portrait pad, but hey, it will be neat to play around with. 

And then there is the concept of "sister sizes." I don't know if this falls into the category of "my god, how could she not have known of these" or not. One of the things I ordered from Amazon yesterday was a sports bra. I have several but only one is all that comfortable and it is wearing out. I figured the safest thing to do was check what size I should order. Asking Mr. Google how to measure bra size yielded multiple possibilities. I skipped over the video ones, and used two of the checklist methods. I came up with two different sizes in terms of both band and cup size. This confused me until I read on a bit and found out about bra sister sizes. Here you go:

How to Calculate Your Sister Size

Go up a band size (if your band is too tight), but go down a cup size. The same rule applies in the reverse if your band is too loose: go down a band size, but go up a cup size. We promise It only sounds more complicated than it is, so we created a handy sister size calculator for you to reference.

Looking at the two different sizes I had measured, I realized that the two were sisters. I ended up going with the one with the larger band size since that tends to be what I find uncomfortable about the sports bras I have. You learn something new every day.

No coronavirus news or reflections today, no political mumbo-jumbo. I won't be walking up around the other cul-de-sac for quite a while, and I hope the sports bra that comes tomorrow is comfortable. And a big hooyah! on my mom's negative test result.