The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 176 (676)

Omicron is milder than Delta and the variants preceding it, right? There are some experts who say that describing it as "mild" is not a good thing. The chief of cardiology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine says, "What's mild about hospitals at or near the breaking point? What's mild about hundreds of healthcare workers per hospital out with COVID-19? What's mild about 1.3 million cases in the US just yesterday? What's mild about the rising titer of burnout? What's mild about an unprecedented number of children now ill and hospitalized with COVID-19? I think prudence would suggest that we reframe 'mild' and think more about 'self-limited.' We are likely at or near a plateau but how long will it last and how much more agony awaits?" Cheery, eh?

Speaking of children, the American Academy of Pediatrics reports that one in 10 covid cases among children in the entire pandemic has happened in the last week. According to the CDC, only 18.8 percent of children ages 5 through 11 are fully vaccinated; for children ages 12 through 17, only a bit over half are fully vaccinated. When vaccination for children ages five through 11 was originally authorized, there was a burst of vaccination action. After that, vaccinations fell way off. It seems that many vaccinated parents are waiting to see how things go before getting their younger children vaccinated. A pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases offers this for parents worried about sending kids to school now: "OK, then vaccinate them. We're talking about trying to keep them safe. Here's an idea: Vaccinate your children." Meanwhile, a vaccine for children under the age of five may be authorized within a month.

Some states are dealing with teacher shortages by activating National Guard members or calling in state workers. New  Mexico is relying on both groups as substitute teachers and child care workers. People serving as substitutes must become licensed as substitutes or child care workers and fulfill usual requirements such as background checks and a skills workshop. Oklahoma is letting state agencies allow workers to serve as substitute teachers without affecting regular job, pay, or benefits. According to Burbio, a company that tracks schools, in the past five says, an average of 3,621 of 98,000 public schools have been disrupted each day. 

Some European countries are shifting to treating covid as endemic and here to stay. They're going from crisis mode to control mode, something the WHO says it's too early to do. On the flip side--of both the world and the issue--New Zealand has again tightened border controls except for a small number of exempted visa holders and returning citizens. They are doing this by blocking registration at the official quarantine hotels for March and April. People already booked for January and February can still get into the country and into quarantine. 

Looking at cases per 100,000 people in the last two weeks, the big winner (or loser depending on how you define things) was Wisconsin where cases were up over 200 percent. New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia saw cases drop over 100 percent. Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida all saw cases go down between zero and 100 percent. 

Are we there yet? Not even close, says me the pessimistic realist. Maybe, says me the more optimistic. I've decided not to go to a quilt show next month. It would have required being in a hotel and crowds for five days. I'm not going to risk it. There's always next year. Or will there?

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 15 (515)

As the child of educators and as someone who went to school, college, and grad school for something like 19 years, I think "school year" before "calendar year." We're not having autumn weather here yet, but the back-to-school ads, the school buses learning routes, and photos posted on social media about someone's kids first day of school almost scream "Happy New Year!" to me. It's going to be an interesting one. Some areas have already switched to virtual learning at least on a temporary basis. And on Twitter this morning, I read a series of posts that made me oh so very glad that our kids are beyond K-12 or even college education. A mother in Richmond, Virginia wrote that less than two weeks into the school year, three fourth grade classes at the school one of her children attended had been sent home because three children had tested positive for covid. In the middle of the thread of tweets, it came out that a fourth child had tested positive. The parents of fourth graders were told that the children could not come back to school for 14 days. While the school was giving out computers to the children who did not have them at home, the real issue was a lack of answers from the school administration. A couple of parents wrote of phone calls not being returned or being told to call a different person who then did not return calls. It may be all downhill from here on out.

South Carolina has joined Texas and Florida in terms of a governor's saying that schools or school systems cannot issue mask mandates for the coming school year. All three governors have threatened to cut funding and/or salaries for districts that defy the order. The White House has said that it will look into whether federal funds could be used to make up any funding cut by governors. This just came as a notification to my cell phone: The Governor of Virginia has unveiled a public health order putting in place a universal mask mandate for K-12 schools. Unlike in states where the governor has banned mask mandates with some schools or school districts putting them in anyway, the order in Virginia came because some districts were acting against issuing mask mandates. 

Hawaii has joined California in requiring teachers to be vaccinated or tested regularly. The order in Hawaii applies only to public school teachers, while California's applies to both public and private school teachers. Minnesota has issued a vaccine or testing mandate for state employees. It is not clear if it applies to teachers.

The CDC uses a metric based on covid case numbers and positivity rates to classify locations in terms of the transmissibility of covid. Right now, 98 percent of US residents live in an area of high or substantial community spread, compared with 19 percent one month ago. Nationwide, the number of new cases has increased 86 percent in the last two weeks. The number of deaths is up 75 percent over the same time period. More than once in the last couple of days, in conversation with Son #1 or The Professor, I have repeated my early mantra, "we're fucked." I have trouble right now envisioning any way this is all going to end that isn't badly.

One in five US hospitals with ICUs, some 583 total hospitals, have ICUs that are at least 95 percent full. Over 10,000 covid patients have been admitted to Texas hospitals this week. At least 53 hospitals in the state have full ICUs. The President and Chief Executive Officer of Harris Health System in Houston says, "If this continues, and I have no reason to believe that it will not, there is no way my hospital is going to be able to handle this. I am one of those people that always sees the glass half-full, I always see the silver lining. But I am frightened by what is coming." There were 240 children hospitalized at Children's Hospital of San Antonio, an increasing number admitted with severe symptoms. There are even infants as young as two months on supplemental oxygen. Many children arrive with unrelated illnesses but then test positive for covid. 

Preliminary, not yet peer-reviewed findings from the Mayo Clinic suggest that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are preventing significantly fewer infections than before Delta become dominant. Pfizer itself says that its vaccine loses about six percentage points of efficacy every two months, a result consistent with research coming out of Israel and the UK.

Many police are refusing to be vaccinated. The Fraternal Order of Police estimates that over 500 officers have died from covid since the start of the pandemic. It is not known if they caught it on the job. The FOP recommends vaccination. It's a sticky issue because mandates might be a violation of collective bargaining agreements in effect in some place.

Coming up, the FDA is expected to announce that a third dose of vaccine be given to immunocompromised people, and the intel group looking into the origins of the virus is nearing its 90-day point. A draft report is supposedly under preliminary review.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 327

I've decided to rename Mr. Biden to POTUS as a dig at Xpot. I don't expect that Xpot will know or care, but it suits me to do it this way. Speaking of Xpot, his time in office was a boon for The New York Times subscription-wise. I guess people developed a real taste for the fake news he said it ran. Digital-only subscriptions rose by 6.7 million during Xpot's time in office, compared with 3 million for The Washington Post and 2.46 million for The Wall Street Journal.

There won't be a glitzy new Budweiser Clydesdale ad during Sunday's Super Bowl, but Anheuser-Busch is running an ad that might moisten your eyes a wee bit. Parts might make you laugh or smile, while others might pull at your heartstrings. It's a good commercial considering the times in which it is airing. 

The governor held a coronavirus briefing this morning, catching me by surprise. He says the covid-19 numbers are improving to the point that he wants all school divisions in the state to be offering some form of in-person instruction by March 15. He did concede that should things worsen, he is quite willing to revert to virtual only. He also called on school divisions to craft some sort of summer school that will help bring kids up to speed on what they should have learned last spring and this year. It will not be mandatory, though, which makes me wonder if they will suggest to some families that their kids attend or make it totally voluntary. I guess we'll see.

I watched the governor's briefing on Facebook with a comment feed open. A surprisingly large number of angry faces wafted up on the sidebar, but that often happens during the briefings. What really caught my eye were the comments posted while the governor was discussing vaccinations. A very large number of people noted that they were not going to get vaccinated because they were scared. A noticeable number of those posted that people had died, sometimes within minutes, after being vaccinated. I guess I'm not reading, watching, or listening to the same news sources these folks are. 

The US recorded over 5,000 covid-19 deaths yesterday, but I'm happy (?) to say that the magnitude of the number was due to Indiana's inclusion of a backlog of around 1,500 previously unreported deaths. Don't get your hopes up, though. A newly released model predicts over 630,000 covid-19 deaths by June 1. I haven't seen an analogous number for the US, but the UK covid variant now accounts for 6 percent of cases in Germany.

And now a couple of non-covid comments. The Virginia House of Delegates yesterday voted to end capital punishment. The governor has already indicated that he will sign the bill, which makes us the first Southern state to end capital punishment. Weatherwise, we are about to experience a Siberian front that will take temperatures in the Upper Midwest down to the -30F to -50F range. In Tisdale,he tiny Saskatchewan town in which The Professor's brother lives, the high temperature Sunday is forecast to be -24F with a low of -31F. Yes, the -24F is the forecast high temperature. When The Professor comments that he is from Canada, he cites temperatures such as this as one of the reasons why.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 222

First, apologies to Lesley Stahl for misspelling her first name yesterday. I did wonder as I typed it whether it was "ie" or "ey." I shall try to remember to check next time. It certainly would not have been difficult to do so.

Evidently, last night's Presidential debate was oh so much better than the first one. The moderator of the first one, Chris Wallace, complimented last night's moderator, Kristen Welker. Lest you think her success was due to one or the other mic being off at times, she was not the one controlling the mute switch. And the mics were only turned off for the initial two-minute statements by each candidate when the topic to be discussed changed. According to Son #1, Uncle Joe even let loose with a "Malarkey!" at some point. The Orange Foolius again cast himself as having done more for people of color than anyone else other than Abraham Lincoln. And the novel coronavirus will soon be a thing of the past. If you believe those last two things, we should probably end our conversation right now.

Yesterday's "Local Living" section of The Washington Post had an article with advice on how to form a "pod" to help make it through winter. "Pod" here has no connection with the pods in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original or the remake). Son #1, The Professor, and I are a pod. We do not live together, but our principal interaction is with only the other two people. I tried to think of other people with whom I'd like to be pod-mates.  There aren't a lot, and I don't really know anyone keeping themselves as much of a hermit as I am. And the potential pod-partners all live a ways away, and I'm just not that into going other places these days. 

Public schools in the city are staying all online for the time being; public schools in the county will start hybrid instruction for preschoolers through third graders on November 6. Kids will go to school in person two days a week and work at home the other three. There will be two groups in each class attending alternately. Some 187 teachers, or about 15 percent of the county teachers, requested to keep working remotely. Of those, 51 requests are related to the Americans with Disabilities Act and will be granted automatically. The other requests will be considered individually and may or may not be granted. Three teachers requested a leave of absence, while two teachers retired. I can't say that I blame the ones who would prefer to stay online. Some may have elderly parents living with them or spouses with compromised immune systems. It will be interesting to see which type of requests are granted and which type are not.

The 2020 election is but a week and a half away. This will be the first election of any kind--general or primary--since the 2004 Presidential election at which I will not be working. I'm going to miss it, even if it is going to be an hour longer than it has been. The polls will now be open in Virginia from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm. Arrive at 5:00 am and hope to be on one's way home by, now, 9:00 pm. I'll be insisting the husband sleep in the guest room the night before, though I may wake up at 4:00 am on my own. I expect that the official results in Virginia can be certified by noon on Friday, November 6, but this year you just don't know. 

The state health department did not update its key metrics page for October 21 until it put up the today's October 23  update. The numbers were not good. There were 1,332 new cases on the 21st, and another 1,180 on the 22nd. The seven-day moving average is at 1,023. Those numbers are getting perilously close to the highest ever in the state. Offhand, I wonder what the new case number will be for Election Day.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 171

On the pandemic cooking front, I have my first attempt at naan, an Indian flatbread, rising in the kitchen. Why, you might ask, does a flat bread need to rise? Oh, you don't ask that, though it's the thought that occurred to me as I typed the first sentence. Tomorrow, when I get a new 13 x 9 inch pan and some cardamom from Amazon, I will attempt No-Churn Saffron and Pistachio Ice Cream, a take on a traditional Persian ice cream. I got the rose water I needed for it last week, also from Amazon. Fortunately, I already have saffron and only need 20 threads.

With no rain this morning, my head stopped spinning rain songs and instead worked on a list of things I want to or should do once the world rights itself and I can safely interact with it. Besides my family, there are people with whom I want to have dinner. There are other people with whom I want to have lunch or coffee. It's been almost six months since my last haircut and highlights. Since I expect my bangs will have grown out by then, I'll need to decide whether to go short again or keep my hair longer and bangless. My nails have held up surprisingly well without any attention from a nail professional. I trim them or file them and am actually used to their natural color. Older son has done a great job on the grocery front, but once the pandemic smoke clears, there's an ice cream parlor and a pizza joint I'd like to visit. I would call my hand doctor (doesn't everyone have a hand doctor?) about the De Quervain's tendonitis that will not get better without attention, which I'm hoping can be cortisone and not the surgery it may need. I'd also make an appointment with my PCP for a physical not to mention visit the dentist for the appointment I cancelled the same day they closed shop.

I guess I'm going to be busy, though it probably won't be this dumpster-fire year of 2020. I trust Dr. Fauci's suggestion that things will get back almost to what they were. We'll probably never shake hands again, and we may reserve hugs for those with whom we are very close. The election will have happened with whatever fallout there is to be. I will not now entertain what life will be like depending on who gets inaugurated in January. Either way, it will be different than what we have had the last four years, different in one way or another.

The K-12 public schools open here a week from today. I should look at some private school websites and see how they plan to handle things. Okay, I just looked at three, none of which was upfront about how they are handling the upcoming year. I guess you have to pay admission, er, tuition to learn whether it's full-time in-person, all online, or a hybrid model. I would think that the smaller, likely more cohesive student and parent bodies would make in-person instruction a bit less threatening, but that's not totally clear. Possibly even more so than with college, I would not want to spend thousands of dollars to keep my child at home learning virtually. I just checked the website of a fourth school offering grades 5-12. It appears that they are having two grades come for in-person instruction each day. 

Once again, I'm going to defer any political comment here and instead go check the naan. Expect a report on that tomorrow.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 145

It was somewhat shocking to see that there were 2,015 new covid-19 cases in Virginia reported yesterday. That was 400 more than the previous high of 1,615 on May 26. It turned out to be a reporting error; some cases that should have been reported on Wednesday and Thursday instead all got lumped in on Friday. Of course, spreading those cases out over three days instead of one doesn't change the seven-day rolling average of 1,142 new cases. The highest rolling average to date is 1,195, meaning that counts are not going in the "right" direction. As HWSNBN put it, "It is what it is."

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has announced that it is changing its in-person/virtual hybrid model for the first semester to a virtual only one. They are encouraging students with off-campus housing to stay at home and not come back to Baltimore at all. That makes sense on one level, but I would not want to pay several months of rent for an apartment I wasn't occupying. And if you manage to get out of the lease, what if classes are back in-person in the spring semester? There are no easy answers there, I guess. The university is also refunding 10 percent of the fall tuition students have paid. Part of me says that that's not enough of a refund, but then there are other universities that are not refunding anything. I don't think the local university would refund tuition, though they might refund some amounts for room and board.

The lead editorial in yesterday's Washington Post argued that we need to strengthen mitigation measures and stop talking about "going back to school" and other reopening strategies. It ended by noting that we could conceivably hit a year from now with no vaccine and the virus still running amok. If that happened, what would we, in the summer of 2021, wish we had done in the summer of 2020. Whatever we decide that might be, why aren't we doing it now? It's an interesting thought experiment. Of course, my first thought is that if HWSNBN is reelected, we may bottom out long before the summer.

I have seen the question raised online of whether HWSNBN will announce that a vaccine is ready in October 2020. An October surprise to help him wrap up another term? A large number of people say they will not take any vaccine that is developed, meaning that we likely won't progress to herd immunity. Personally, I would not get any vaccine touted by HWSNBN. I'd want the Anthony Fauci Seal of Approval on whatever vaccine I might take. My immediate thought of a vaccine that HWSNBN might put out there was to wonder if it could be a compound of hydroxychloroquine and bleach or hydroxychloroquine and Lysol disinfectant spray. 

The possibility of challenge trials may be increasing as a time-saving alternative or companion to the typical Phase 3 trial. Older son has volunteered to be a subject in such a trial. Were he to be selected, I would be maternally proud of him as well as scared as crap. There's a certain amount of risk in any sort of clinical trials, but that risk increases significantly for challenge trials. If they help get a successful vaccine more quickly, such trials might be worthwhile. Another decision I'm glad I don't have to make.

Yesterday's excitement was a late afternoon tornado warning. We were, as usual, ignoring it. Then the wind picked up in a strange way. I can't really say how it was strange, but it did not seem to be blowing as it usually does. The husband yelled from upstairs to get to the basement storeroom, the farthest away from any glass that might shatter or walls that might be ripped apart. I grabbed the family dog; the husband grabbed the family cat, and for the first time ever, we sheltered in place until the weather alert on my phone showed the coast as being cleared. There was no tornado near us, but other parts of the county did see some. There were plenty of downed trees across roads, not that we drove out to see any.

Another weekend looms. Today is the second anniversary of the family dog's Gotcha Day. The celebration proper will be tomorrow and will include a fresh marrow bone and some new toys from Outward Hound. May a good time be had by all.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 138

Today looks like a win on the weather front. Yesterday was the 35th straight day of 90-plus degrees Fahrenheit. Today seems a struggle to get to 80 degrees, though it probably has. Every time I've checked the temp, it's been in the high 70s. Looking ahead at what I know can be unreliable, there's only one day with a forecast high of 90 or higher in the next eight or nine days. Now if we could only win on the humidity front.

Both local school systems are starting all-virtual, though the county system does plan to have some sort of in-person instruction for English as a Second Language students and special needs students whose educational needs cannot be met virtually. Both will reassess halfway through the nine-week term as to what they should do for the next nine weeks. The county school board did give the superintendent permission to, at any point, close any in-person teaching. Should the county make it through the first nine weeks okay, kindergarten through grade 3 students will have some in-person classes during the next nine weeks. I have not yet heard if parental outrage has risen its ugly head, though there would have been parental outrage in the other direction were the schools to go in-person in any way.

I was interested in how some of the local private schools were going to handle fall, so I checked the websites of three. One had a discussion of how they handled things in the spring, but made no mention if that was the way the fall would be. The other two had no mention at all, not even something left behind about the school's closing back in March. Do they think that putting something up about going online only will force applications down? The three schools I checked are not cheap; I know that a year at two of them costs more than a year at the local university for an in-state student. It just seems a bit dishonest not to put up on the school website what the plans for fall might be. Or perhaps they have yet to decide.

Several colleges and universities in the Washington, DC area have announced plans to go totally online for the fall semester. One is even refunding a small amount of tuition as compensation. The new case numbers in DC and Maryland are similar to those in Virginia, not rising steeply but not headed down in any noticeable way. The local university is holding on letting any students who want to come back come. They would be doing virtual classes from their dorm rooms. Given that all classes with 40 or more students will only be offered online, it's probably first- and second-year students whose large introductory classes won't be in person.

Older son and the husband were discussing the advantages that taped lectures and virtual office hours can offer. A student can stop the lecture at any time and try to work things out on their own. They can also make a note about what to ask the prof about the specific item. I do remember a class or two in which something just flew by me as I was trying to take notes on what had just been said. The prof who oversaw my dissertation research handed out copies of the notes at the start of class for that very reason. He wanted students to be paying attention and not taking notes.

The husband just left on his first trip to the university to meet with his graduate students. When he comes home, he will enter through the basement, shower, put on clean clothes, and deposit the clothes he wore into the washer. This is the procedure we're looking at for the coming semester. If I have to go into public for any reason, I'll do the same when I come home.

I go now to restock the liquor cabinet or at least the bottles back in their new location. We so rarely drink liquor as opposed to beer or wine that I'm not sure why we have as many various bottles as we do. After that, I may get back to reading Mary Trump's book.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 137

No news on what the local K-12 public schools will be doing in the fall. I'm sure there's some debate going on. I think one of the boards was going to meet this afternoon, in which case the 6:00 local news will enlighten me. New cases were down to 911 across the state. I wonder if local numbers will increase noticeably given that we're two-plus weeks out from all the student parties for Midsummers. And the beat goes on... I don't know why that melody just popped into my headspace. It's prettier than "same old same old."

The Atlantic Coast Conference is going to allow fall sports which means I can't--so far anyway--test my theory that without football, the university would close to any in-person classes. There has been some debate on the Charlottesville and university sub.reddits about what might happen in the fall. Evidently, if you leave university housing before six weeks of the semester have gone by, you get a refund. A large number of commenters have offered that closing the university on the six weeks and one day timetable would be too obvious, so just how long after six weeks will they wait. The suggestion has also been floated that since the university will close at some point in the fall, students should party hearty as often as possible until then, social distancing and mask wearing be damned.

HWSNBN has suggested delaying the November election until all the voter fraud issues he sees can be handled. Fortunately, it appears that the Republican leadership in the Senate does not agree with him, since it is only Congress that can change the date of a national election. And should no election be held and the results certified by noon on January 20, then the Speaker of the House will become acting president. I'm assuming that should Nancy Pelosi win reelection to the House, she will continue as Speaker. That would be so pretty to see...Pelosi refusing to pardon or offer any legal protection to HWSNBN.

Unpacking the house is proving difficult. The husband did locate the shelves for the pantry closet, so I reloaded the pantry, tossing expired things as I went. I did the same thing as I put the small jars of herbs and spices back on their racks. I also divvied up sharp implements so that the rack on the counter contains those we use most often. The others can sit in a cabinet. My goal is to have fewer things on the counters than I did before. The de Quervain's tendonitis in my right wrist makes it hard for me to lift heavy things without the wrist brace (and I know, I shouldn't be lifting them even with the wrist brace on), and wearing the brace limits the fine motor movements I can make with my right hand. I'm stubborn for now and refuse even to email my hand doctor (doesn't everyone need their own personal hand doctor?) to let her know what's happening.

The story of Noah's ark maintains that God promised never again to subject the world to 40 days and nights of rain. I don't think there was any mention of 40 days of 90-plus degree (Fahrenheit) days. I think we're into the 30s here now, and the old record was 21 or 22 days. Unless one wants to walk or run in the dark, it's wicked out there even should the humidity be on the low side. ("Low" is a relative term here. We do not have "dry heat" or "dry cold.") At one point HWSNBN suggested that the virus would disappear in hot weather. I have news for him: It's not going away even in this heat!

I just checked the forecast, and the forecast high for tomorrow is only (?!?) in the 80s. I'll believe that when I see it.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 86

Early morning highlight: The 1970s channel on DirecTV this morning followed Carly Simon's "That's the Was I Always Heard It Should Be" with Mac Davis's "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me." It was probably unintentional, but it did engender some interesting thoughts given the lyrics of the two songs.

On the coronavirus side, the governor today laid out the plan for K-12 schools; the one for higher education will come on Thursday. State government must like the three-phase approach to opening, because schools have to go through their own three phases. After hearing just a summary of what will be involved, I can say for certain that I would not want to be on a school board or working in the central office of a school division at this time. Divisions (or private schools) will have to submit detailed plans of how they will manage each phase. One of the central points is the maintenance of social distancing. Desks must be six feet apart. Kids on buses must be six feet apart. Kids are supposed to be kept in the same group as much as possible. Forget the cafeteria--kids will eat in a classroom. Schools will have to stagger kids, maybe having them come every other day. It seems as if it will be much easier to implement everything for the elementary grades, but less so for middle and high school. Thursday's briefing will include the state plan for colleges and universities. I told the husband we could watch it together.

The WHO kept things interesting by announcing that there was very little virus transmission from asymptomatic people, that the real contagion came from folks incubating the virus before their symptoms appear. Not too much later, WHO announced they had misinterpreted the question and there was virus transmission from asymptomatic people. There is so much we're still learning about the virus, its transmission, its effects, that it would not have surprised me to hear that early models had been incorrect about asymptomatic transmission. So many things seem to change from day to day.

Protests continue but are becoming more peaceful. Are protestors tired of violence, or are they realizing it doesn't get them anywhere. "Defund the police" is the new mantra, though it's not clear exactly what defunding the police would involve. Will they have to hold bake sales or car washes or  stand in the median with large boots as firemen sometimes do? That would actually be somewhat humorous in a demented sort of way. There used to be a button or magnet to the effect that it would be nice if schools got the funding they needed, and the branches of the military had to hold bake sales. Only in our dreams, I'm afraid.