The View from the Hermitage, Day 296

I've been trying to stay busy today so that my mind doesn't wander to all the shit that may go down tomorrow up the road in Washington, DC. The police chief says everyone in the force will be on duty, and the mayor has requested National Guard troops to be on standby. The alt-right web presence is evidently full of calls to action tomorrow if the certification of Electoral College votes proceeds unchecked. The Lame Duck is saying that VP Pence can demonstrate loyalty by canceling or otherwise throwing a monkey wrench into the proceedings. No, The Duck has not read the Constitution recently or ever and so does not know that the role of the VP is ceremonial at best. I did like Nancy Pelosi's comment that "at the end of the day, which could be the middle of the night" Uncle Joe would officially be the Preseident-Elect no matter what else went down. 

The Lame Duck held a rally in Georgia last night to boost the campaigns of the two incumbent Republican Senators. He spent more time on his own electoral woes than he did on the Senate races. He promised to punish the Governor and Secretary of State for not doing as he asked or ordered. He also promised to campaign against them should they seek reelection. In terms of the weekend phone call and possible vote tampering, The Professor read the argument that central to tampering's being a crime was the intent of the perpetrator. If The Lame Duck's mental condition is such that he honestly believes he lost due to fraud, did what he was asking or ordering have "intent"? 

As for what might be coming for January 20, word is that The Lame Duck has reserved the Boeing 757 typically used by the Vice President or First Lady to fly to his resort in Scotland on January 19. It seems that the airport there is too small for the Boeing 747 that is typically used as Air Force One. US fighter planes have been doing patrols around the resort  just as they would for a planned and announced Duck visit. The Scottish government meanwhile says that Americans can't just show up there in the days of the pandemic. Of course, on January 19, The Lame Duck will still be a head of state, and heads of state are probably exempt from at least some of the restrictions on visitors. 

The pandemic quilt planning continues. Today I experimented with sewing two pieces of the striped fabric together and hiding the seam. One width of the fabric is 44 inches, and I need 46 plus whatever area I want around the chart itself. Tomorrow, I'll sew a bunch of bars of varying heights and see how they look. If they look okay, I may have no excuse other than packing and putting away for not starting on it. 

I did go through several boxes this afternoon. Two were filled with demo materials Son #1 developed and used for the semester he taught high school physics. That was spring 2012; I'm not sure he'll even remember what's in each box. If he no longer wants the stuff and there's nothing I can use, they will probably go into the trash; I don't think there's anything worth donating. I do need to figure out what to do with styrofoam coffee cups, paper bowls, and plastic utensils left over from decades of being a room mother or other organizer of social event such as going away cookouts. I think there are more plastic utensils than The Professor and I could use for three meals a day in a year, but I'm not going to count to make sure.

I did come across something yesterday that I shall use as needed. It was one of those motivational things people put up on social media. I've relocated the paper to which it is glued to the kitchen desk where I can look at it as needed.

Sometimes you just have to give yourself the pep talk like, "hello you badass, amazing human being, don't be sad, you're doing fucking great..keep going!"

The View from the Hermitage, Day 293

Just a quickie today. The Professor decided that it was a day to go through stuff. I did not have that on my list of things to do today, but went along with it since one of my resolutions is to get rid of a certain amount each month. I can now check January off, and any more I do this month is gravy.

More importantly, going through some things on my own before The Professor's proclamation,

I found my Kindle!!!

The View from the Hermitage, Day 102

It's been pretty much a do-nothing day here so far (and we're more than halfway through it). Older son asked me to update my Amazon wish list so that he and his father would have some gift ideas for my birthday next week. That took the time between the family dog's second walk and a needed shower before lunch. It was hard to think of things for the list. The pandemic and hermitting have made me look more closely at what I have, and it seems more than enough most days. The things about which I find myself thinking I need turn out to be wants not needs when thought about more closely. (I love the obtuseness of that sentence!)

Since then, I've watched the governor's briefing. He views things as under control enough that future briefings will be as needed. One of the health bigwigs there will soon be departing to a position with the CDC. She had the audacity to make the statement that using a seven-day rolling average, they were consistently testing the 10,000 people per day that they needed to. Do not make such a statement to a data nerd when the raw numbers are readily available going day-by-day through the chart released by the Department of Health. Looking through seven-day averages, starting on June 7 (I was not patient enough to copy numbers back into May), there have been two, yes, two seven-day averages over 10,000, and those were at the start of June.

I did spend some time going through "stuff." The basement family room has been something of a disaster area since we moved my mother out of her condo. The disaster area worsened when we had our interior re-painted and had to clean off shelves, take art off the walls, etc. In four weeks, we're having the hardwood floors refinished which means moving everything out. I'm working on make the family room more livable since we will be living there for a week. The family cat is getting very nervous seeing things boxed up and moved to the sunroom.

The assisted living place where my mother lives is arranging point prevalence covid-19 testing for all the residents and staff. There have been outbreaks (an outbreak is four cases at the same location) at four long-term-care facilities around here; I think it's three that have had deaths. No one where Mom lives has been symptomatic. The form letter I got indicated that the prevalence testing will help guide them in terms of planning for letting residents eat or socialize in groups, reopening for visitors, and so on. It will be interesting to see the results.

So I could now go move more stuff, work on a quilt, load more quilt photos to my website, or start the new jigsaw puzzle that arrived today. The puzzle will probably win.