The View from the Hermitage, Day 270

First, the good news. The Professor's covid-19 test came up negative! Needless to say, we were both very pleased. I did not jump up and down but only because he yelled the news to me as I was trying to fall asleep. We are staying apart for a couple more days just in case and to meet CDC guidance.

So The Lame Duck wanted to Make America Great Again. Usually "great" would mean the best (remember the "America First" inaugural address?) or first place. The other day, The Duck said things were going "incredibly." Was he celebrating that the US has 20 percent of the world's covid-19 deaths. We certainly don't have 20 percent of the world's population living here. As for how many deaths that 20 percent might be, it's probably going to hit 300,000 in the next week. Over 3,000 people died from covid-19 here yesterday. New cases? Yeah, we're doing our best to lead there as well. We had over 222,000 new cases yesterday. The total number of cases is around 15.5 million. Do I hear 16? Give it two days, three is we're lucky.

Virginia numbers continue to rise. We're seeing nearly 3,800 new cases per day here, and the percent positivity continues to climb. It's at 11 percent now. The governor had a briefing this afternoon. After briefly discussing the rising numbers, he announced the state's new or revised measures to deal with the increases, not that they really will deal with the increases. I think I mentioned yesterday the 10:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew in North Carolina. As of 12:01 am Monday, Virginia will have a midnight to 5:00 am curfew, with the only travel allowed being to or from work. That might mean something in terms of students at the local university, but they've all gone home and won't reappear until February 1, 2021.

Masks will be required for everybody even indoors. The police aren't going to break your door down and give you a ticket for not wearing a mask, but everyone in a grocery or department store must be wearing a mask. Masks are required outdoors if it is not possible to stay more than six feet apart. Since I don't go out, I have no idea what percent of people now might be wearing or not wearing masks in public. I do see news photos showing people walking together not wearing masks. If they actually enforce that, it might do a bit of good. 

Social gatherings were limited to 25 people before Thanksgiving. As of Monday, that limit will be 10. While this might mean something if an office is planning a holiday lunch for 20 at a local restaurant, the same 20 people could go to a party at someone's house with no chance of being "caught." It's nice in theory, but I'm not sure how much it will help in practice. And religious institutions are exempt from these limits.

Finally, they've changed crowd size rules for "recreational sports." I'm assuming that the "recreational" means things such as kids' soccer or intramural softball. The limits will be 25 people per "field" for sports held indoors. For outdoor sports, the limit will be two people per participant. The governor suggested that basketball games be played on a playground instead of in a gym; depending on the sport, more spectators might be possible outdoors as opposed to indoors. 

When I emailed Son #1 about the governor's actions, I told him I did not know whether these probably-won't-do-anything changes made me angry or sad. I seem to be alternating between the two lately. Angry that so many people are putting the lives of other people in danger, but at the same time sad that so many people are dying. It does not have to be this way. I read yesterday that half of Americans said they would not get vaccinated against covid-19. Again, I'm angry that half of Americans are idiots--I should not say that, but it is what popped into my head. More politely, I'm angry that the half of Americans who won't get vaccinated will prevent the development of any herd immunity. And, again, I'm sad that so many families will lose beloved members and probably not have the opportunity to say goodbye before they go. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 32

I think the world has finally gotten to me. I slept well but woke up feeling tired. I felt weary. I felt sad. I felt angry. I felt helpless. I just felt funny, as if I were on a seven-second delay with the life going on around me. The husband and older son suggested that after a month of the new normal, my body and soul are just tired of it. They are probably right. Running under everything else on my mind is a current of hows and whys and why nows about what is going on with the world. There's a little person in there throwing up her hands and proclaiming, "We so do not need this!" Would it help to be able to see a reason behind it all? Would it help to be willing to assign responsibility to a deity's wrath?

I've read that people in a high risk group (raising my hand here) should not let their guard down at all until there is a vaccine against the coronavirus and they have been so vaccinated. Maybe after a year or more of this life I'll feel better. Right now, though, it all sucks a bunch.

Cue Lil Orphan Annie music about the sun coming out tomorrow, tomorrow...

The View from the Hermitage, Day 20

Just about three weeks in, I am finally feeling a bit of routine here. I have almost stopped writing myself a nightly list of tasks to take care of the following day. There is nothing, really, that needs to be done on a given day save to put the trash and/or recycling at the top of the driveway Tuesday mornings. And whereas I used to feel discomfort on the rare day for which I had no list, I feel just fine without one now. Perhaps the novelty of the new normal is wearing off.

The lack of things on a list seems to be making me calmer. The husband has described me as a light switch--two extremes, on or off, when it comes to my reactions. I appear to be moving toward rheostat mode. After three or so days of mask-making, I cleared the mask materials up and picked up the quilt I had been quilting before the mask intervention. The quilt is basically one large piece of fabric over another. My quilting is following lines in the the top fabric. The fabric is a beige shade, a faintly yellow white. After cleaning up the mask detritus, I switched Xena (Xena, the warrior Bernina) to her walking foot, picked up the thread in the little catch-all to the right of Xena, and commenced quilting. As I was picking things up to go upstairs for lunch, my eye caught the fact that  I was using an ever-so-slightly different shade of thread. The difference did not really show up on the front, but it was evident, at least to my eye, on the back. I found the correct spool of thread to Xena's left. You can imagine the profane thoughts accompanying this discovery.

While lunching and reading some of the morning papers, I went back and forth as to whether I should take out the quilting I had done and replace it using the correct thread. And that's what I did after lunch. I descended to the sewing room/studio and picked out the off-color quilting. I then folded the quilt up with the proper colored spool of thread in the middle, and postponed additional quilting until a new day. No fuss. No muss. No profanity uttered out loud. I knew what I needed to do and did it.

Is the sheltering, quarantining, or hermitting making me more mellow? That appears to be the case. I wonder if that is because there is so much less in my life now that I can really control that I don't feel as bad when I screw something up. I let older son know what we need from a store; I choose what to wear each day; I decide what to make for meals; etc. I can control my own little world within the hermitage, but view the outside world as one in which what will be will be. Whether this state of mind will persist post-pandemic, I have no idea. That would be nice, though.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short?

I somehow got in the habit of posting my New Years resolutions here, thinking perhaps that it would give me more incentive to keep them. I do a half-year report on my birthday, which just happens to be six months opposite New Years Day.

I was not at all sad to see 2019 end. While the start of the year was particularly bright with fireworks in Tromso, Norway on New Years Eve, I'd just as soon forget May through August and am still struggling to stay on something resembling an even keel. I did manage to be successful on my 2019 resolutions to finish crafty-artsy projects and to earn the monetary award in my employer's annual wellness challenge. Get into good shape? I'm not sure I'm in any better shape than I was a year ago, but I am in no way in worse shape. I'm not sure I ever figured out how to slow myself down, though a month of pneumonia definitely helped. Finally, wasting less time evaporated after May. I know that my depression is drifting downward by how much time I can waste, usually on social media or computer games. While it is not one of my 2020 resolutions, I am going to continue the fight on this one.

So, just what have I resolved to do or not do in 2020? I started from the idea of centering myself, both physically and emotionally. I was doodling geometrically (think grid paper) and came up with a design that pleased me (photo below). Since that design lent itself to four things each containing two things, that's what I worked toward. The four ended up being Health and Fitness, Carbon Footprint, Emotional, and General. You can probably tell which one was added because I couldn't come up with another specific category.

I did not want to put "get in shape" or "lose weight" or anything like those under Health and Fitness. I've failed at those in too many years. I've been saying lately that I should drink more water, so that's what I'm resolving to do. Younger son has been a lacto-ovo vegetarian since Grade 5, and I've been thinking about this having read too many articles lately on the awareness or intelligence of certain animals. I thought about resolving to only eating meat only when eating away from home, but to be honest, that seemed as if it would be difficult on a daily basis. I fell back on resolving simply to eat less meat.

Carbon Footprint made the list because it's something I've been thinking and worrying about. Do not get me started on what the current administration is or is not doing. I've been carrying metal straws with me for over a year, and do not use any straws brought wrapped in paper or plastic. If I need a straw, I use one of my metal ones. There are plenty of times, though, when the drink I ordered is brought with a straw already in the glass. I will do my best in 2020 to ask servers to hold the straws. While many locations have banned single-use plastic such as shopping bags, where I live has not. I pretty much always remember to take my own bag(s) into grocery stores, but need to remember not to enter another type of store without a bag. I hope it helps to resolve to use as few single-use plastic items as possible.

I had to put Emotional as a category because that's where I've really been struggling. Something that is not at all important in the course of my life happens, and if I am alone in the house or car, I yell my response which typically is less than polite. I over-react and/or react too quickly. And, yes, the over-reaction often removes the possibility of dealing with the matter appropriately. I'm calling this resolution mind before mouth, and really hope it works even a little. Of course, the shouting mentioned just now disturbs the natural silence of the day, so my second emotional resolution is to seek serenity in silence. I need to calm myself and enjoy the sound of nothing happening.

Finally, there is the General category where I somewhat extended two of last year's resolutions. First, I want to work at remembering that slow is smooth. Most of life can happen without split-second responses being needed. This obviously relates using my mind before I open my mouth. Finally, to take the advice of Neil Gaiman, I would like to make good art. I would like to extend what I now do comfortably and risk that someone's reaction to what I make might not be positive. One can learn a lot from failure, whether that failure be real or perceived.

It's now January 2, meaning it's time to get working on these. I wish I could promise that my next blog post will not be the one in six months in which I discuss how well I might or might not be doing with or learning from these goals. After all, quality aside, writing is definitely making art.