The View from the Hermitage, Day 258

I am hoping that the number of newCOVID-19 cases Virginia posted yesterday involves another computer downtime meaning some cases got counted on the wrong day. If that is not the case, then yesterday marked the highest number of new covid-19 cases in Virginia since when? Since ever! And it would not just be the highest number yet, but the highest by almost 500 cases. Our 3,183 new cases yesterday were but a ripple in the pond of the national total of 205,460, just as our 10 deaths contributed little to the nation's 1,412 deaths. The hot spots continue to be concentrated in the Midwest (Kansas, the Dakotas) or West (Idaho, Montana), though no state has been without a recent or current surge. 

In about a week we should seeing what effect, if any, Thanksgiving travel has on the pandemic. I day "if any" while rolling my eyes. I know there will be an effect and not in a good direction. Anyone who takes the pandemic seriously knows there will be an effect, an effect that will be compounded by the Christmas and New Year's holiday.If we could be seeing 3,000 deaths per day in mid-December, what will we be seeing at the end of January, keeping in mind that deaths lag cases sometimes by a nontrivial length of time.

The Lame Duck seems to have dropped off the radar after this Thanksgiving address given at a desk way too tiny for his large body. He looked like an adult sitting at the kids' table. Or perhaps I have done a more thorough job than usual of avoiding news. There have certainly been some newsworthy items coming out of The Duck's administration. They'd evidently like to execute five more federal prisoners before The Lame Duck is no longer Lame. To help speed things up, they're proposing to use new alternatives to lethal injection, including electrocution, nitrogen gas, and firing squad. They can only use a method that is in use in the same state for state capital offenses. For example, Utah allows firing squad as an option, so the feds could use it there as well.

Interestingly, The Professor and Son #1 informed me that of all the methods of execution, nitrogen gas is the most humane. Evidently, there is no sense of asphyxiation or not being able to breathe. Someone who inhales nitrogen immediately goes unconscious after which lack of oxygen kills. Death does not happen immediately, but there is no pain or discomfort. This is why cryogenics labs have oxygen meters all over the place with alerts if the oxygen level in the air drops too far relative to the nitrogen level. Too much nitrogen and, bam!, you drop to the ground unconscious, and that is all she wrote. Nitrogen gas is an acceptable form of capital punishment in Oklahoma and about three other states, though it has yet to be used in an execution. 

Amy Coney Barrett, the newbie on the Supreme Court, this week voted in the majority to overturn the size limits New York had imposed on religious gatherings. Much was made during her confirmation hearings of her Catholic faith. Interestingly, Pope Francis disagrees with her on this one. He has noted that while religion is important, keeping people alive is also important, so if limiting the gathering of religious services helps in that regard, limits are good. I'm not Catholic, but I'm with Francis on this one. 

My back is slowly getting better. I am my own worst enemy. By late afternoon Thursday, after spending the day on my feet, I was in tears and ready to seek medical attention. Yesterday, I did move around some, going on two walks with Son #1 and The Family Dog, but skipped any prolonged standing. I also made liberal use of the heating pad when sitting. Last night, my back felt just fine, no twinges at all. I'm hoping that little by little it's getting there. Most of the websites I looked at said that back pain is considered chronic after 12 weeks, and I'm just now at four weeks. 

I survived the morning's Homeowners Association meeting conducted via Zoom. I would not be averse to having all our future meetings via Zoom.We have meetings once a year because our status as an official HOA requires at least one meeting per year. Last year's was the only one that I would say was more friendly than whiney; we met outside and one neighbor brought home-churned peach ice cream. This morning we were back to whiney. I tried not to make too many facial expressions that conveyed my distaste for certain people. As one of the few residents who has actually read the covenants of the subdivision, I was left to remind people that certain things could not be done or how certain things had been amended. At least reading sections of the covenants kept me from mouthing off as I might otherwise have done.

I go now to the kitchen to turn the heavy cream and condensed milk I did not end up using on Thursday into ice cream. It's a rough job, but someone has to do it.

Random Verbal Doodling

I work part-time, flexible hours, from home. At one point some years ago, I did have a desk at which I could work if I were in town and so inclined. Now I save my unit the cost of desking one more body. I do have to put on adult clothes and darken the door of the building from time to time, the frequency of which has been on my mind lately.

Our relatively new (two or so years) boss has tried to have monthly staff meetings but never set a regular day and time such as a designated day of each month at a designated hour. That made it hard to find a time that ten people all had free. A date and time would be announced then changed a time or two before being cancelled. We probably had a staff meeting only every couple of months.

I used the term "staff" intentionally in the previous paragraph. Recently, the university administration decided that our office should be combined with another office, more than doubling our size. That office will remain nameless here but has much more of a business team mentality than does our office, perhaps because they had "Business" in their name while we never have. They have matching notebooks, for example, which they all bring to meetings. They may have matching pens, but I haven't checked. When I turn on my work laptop, Microsoft Teams loads automatically now; it has even started loading on my personal personal computer. I have tried to see how one uses Teams, without success. Actually, I don't want to know how to use it.

What I have been pondering is that as a staff, we had only sporadic group meetings as noted above. Now, as a team, we have meetings scheduled for the next three months. I find this unsettling. For one, I must drive to and from the office, which takes around 20 minutes if traffic and lights cooperate. If we are meeting at what has been our office, I then must pay $2.50 per hour to park and spend 10 minutes walking from and back to the parking garage. I make myself feel better about this by noting that the steps I take coming and going contribute to any daily step goal I might have set.

Why has the team-to-staff switch changed the attitude toward group meetings? Are team members more closely joined at the hip than staff members? Both groups should be working toward a common goal, in our case the accuracy and flow of information to, from, and about the university. Is it that the "team" has twice as many members as the "staff" did? This seems more plausible in that the number of possible connections between individual members or groups of members may require more monitoring.

And maybe I just need to find something better to do during those meetings than doodling random thoughts on a pad of paper that matches no one else's with a writing implement that matches no one else's.

Note: I started writing this post some time ago, before I decided to retire from what was, admittedly, a very good deal. Staff vs. team meeting no longer matters. I like that.