The View from the Hermitage, Day 209

"If it were easy, it wouldn't be awesome." These were the words of encouragement from older son as I was struggling with my sixth mile this morning. I've been walking while he runs, though on weekends he runs carrying a 30-pound metal plate in his rucksack. I've been walking seven miles each morning; it will be a while before I move up to eight. Right now, the seventh mile is hard enough to tell me I should not yet try eight, at least not on a regular basis.

Back in April, the digit in the ten's place in my weight hit a number I really didn't like. I started seriously watching what I was eating and using the decades-old ski machine daily. I lost a pound or two most weeks, which was good. When refinishing the floors made us relocate to younger son's cabin, I started walking. I kept it up when we got home; it seemed more of a workout than the skiing. A couple of weeks ago, I hit a point at which I had lost the weight that I put on over the six years of three major joint surgeries. I'm trying to lose a bit more now without being overly compulsive about it. I no longer track what I eat, but I watch it very carefully as I go through the day.

HWSNBN spoke from a White House balcony this afternoon. The headline I saw on CNN said he gave a divisive speech to a mostly brown and black crowd. He removed his mask in order to speak. It looked as if most members of the crowd then removed theirs. He is still declining to say if he has had a negative covid-19 test or when his last negative one before the first positive one was. His even more erratic than usual behavior suggests he's still getting dexamethasone. Older son read that the normal course of that treatment is ten days. He's gone about eight days now. It will be interesting to see how steroid withdrawal is for him. His behavior may deteriorate even more, strange as that may sound. I am probably more scared now than I've been in the last four years. It seems quite clear that no one is going to try to stop him, and I don't want to know what he might do to try to get re-elected. I would not put it past him to start a war or try to impose martial law here at home. 

The local county is talking about increasing the amount of in=person instruction in the public schools. Right now, the only students going to their physical school are some English language learners, some special education students who need in-person instruction, and kids who cannot get an internet signal at home. The division's administration say that a recent survey showed parents wanted their kids back in in-person school. Teachers, on the other hand, do not want to go back to teaching in person. It sounds as if keeping your kids in virtual learning is an option, though no one has explained what that might look like. It's not clear, for instance, whether the virtual teacher a kid has right now will remain his or her virtual teacher if the family opts out of going in person. Once again, I am glad that my kids have grown out of K-12. Actually, it's nice they've grown out of college as well given the covid-19 issues at that level as well.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 176

It's Labor Day not that I have been laboring. I did get several more shelves of books finished though I abandoned sorting in the process. I will soon have to venture into younger son's bedroom and start rescuing more of the random things we put in there almost two months ago. Now that the husband is back to teaching, reorganization and replenishing have pretty much become a one-woman show.

K-12 education starts here tomorrow. Yesterday's Washington Post had a couple of articles about the travails that some families have encountered in K-12 education elsewhere. In one case, an early elementary school student was expected to sit and watch a screen for six hours with only one break, for lunch. In another, a grade 9 student needed to use the bathroom during geometry class and came back to find himself locked out of the class. Older son suggested that it might not have been the teacher who had done the locking out but the software being used to deliver the class. The software might have been programmed to lock should a viewer leave the screen. Either way, teacher or software, that is not what should have happened. I know that here elementary students will not be expected to sit for a whole day. Each class will be split in half. The teacher will hold a synchronous session with one group each morning and with the other each afternoon. When not in the session with the teacher, students will have assigned work to complete and submit. 

I've said it before, but I would just have pulled the sons out and home-schooled them. Younger son has always been a bit more social than older son, but there would have been extracurricular activities such as Scouting to provide social connections for him. I do realize that home-schooling is not an option for everyone, especially people who must work full-time and not from home. I would not have wanted to use what is supposedly becoming quite popular but which is also closely linked to one's socioeconomic status, the learning pod. In a pod, multiple families combine kids and hire teacher(s) to instruct them. I guess you'd call it formal home-schooling. The sons were very independent students and disliked group projects or, at times, even learning along with other people. I expect they would have likened the pod concept to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for which I'd give them points for creativity.

I ordered rug tiles for the living room, dining room, and kitchen this morning to take advantage of a 25 percent off sale ending today. A company called Flor sells carpet squares, just over 19 inches on each side. The squares are held together by adhesive units that don't harm the floors. We usually get a couple of extra squares so that if one square needs cleaning (pets do have accidents), that square can be swapped out for a clean one. You can also get the squares cut in various ways. What we have in the dining area is an octagon made using four squares cut diagonally. And in the kitchen, we're just putting a couple of squares down in front of the stove, in front of the sink, and under where the pets' water bowl sits.I hope that this is the last major expense for a while, though we have yet to pay for the new heat pump being installed next week. I blame the new rugs on the painter who suggested we try an accent wall or two. Without those, we could have just kept using the rugs we had. 

There have been articles comparing the "Pandemic 15" to the "Freshman 15," weight gained while sitting at home as opposed to moving off to college. About three weeks into my time in the hermitage, my weight hit a number that I've seen before but never liked, so I decided to be serious about lowering it. For the first while, I used the ancient Nordic Track ski machine every morning; eventually, I moved to walking, which I greatly prefer. I also started using the MyFitnessPal app to log what I ate each day. As of this morning, I achieved the "Pandemic -15," which means I have lost the weight I gained in the aftermath of my knee replacement two and a half years ago. Right now, I'm walking six or seven miles each morning, which takes up a nontrivial amount of time. Fortunately, I have that time to spare, so I don't have to wrestle with the guilt monster. All my clothes but one pair of jeans still fit, though some pants look better when paired with a belt. 

There were no new university covid-19 numbers this morning. It's legally a holiday, but the university is still holding classes for students while giving staff (except for faculty teaching Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes) a day off. Who knows what numbers I'll see tomorrow morning. New cases from social gatherings held over the long weekend probably won't show up until next weekend. Now if students tied one on at home before coming back to campus, those numbers could show up at any time. 

On the covid-19 front, I did go ahead and watch the official video I was supposed to have watched by tomorrow. It was pretty lame but fortunately was only 11 minutes long. There were no questions at the end to verify that I'd watched it. I could have done any number of things while the video played, but I was good and actually watched it. I also went ahead and watched a data security video I'm supposed to have watched by September 24. With my luck, I still won't be terminated by then.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 38

A quilting friend noted on Facebook that she was isolating all by herself and wondering why Facebook was sending her so many bra ads. I don't think I've gotten a bra ad recently. What I have been getting are ads for (1) weight loss or exercise programs and (2) planners of all kinds.

On the weight loss or exercise front, I haven't seen an ad for Noom since they started advertising on TV, and I can't remember the last time I got anything from WW or Weight Watchers Rebranded. I have been getting ads from something like Eat Like a Bear, put out by a woman who moved to the wilderness--near Yellowstone, if I remember correctly--and lost a lot of weight eating all natural foods. Every ad notes that she has a PhD as if that is supposed to impress me. So does Peter Navarro. Actually, so do I, though I tend not to raise the subject in polite company.

As for exercise programs, I've been getting ads from Body Groove (or something like that) for over a year; it's a move however you want dance program from a woman with extreme dreadlocks. Frequently one of those ads is a testimonial from someone who lost 55 pounds doing it. Again if I remember correctly, this woman is in her 60s but could still do all the Body Groove moves though if you're doing these in the privacy of your own home it shouldn't matter what you look like doing them.

And then there's Figure Eight, the promo for which contains several women with no hips doing figure eights with what would be their hips if they had them. This cuts to a woman or a man with hips and a film showing their progression through learning the various moves and touting how good the program is. They all still seem to have their hips, though. The new promo from Figure Eight is a back view of a woman doing the program. She has no hips, so she is not one of the "users" of the program. The accompanying text notes that the rear view may be easier to follow as one learns the various moves and is included with the frontal footage.

Finally, there's a workout program featuring men doing exercises while seated. Some of the exercises they are doing look as if they'd give a good workout, but I see no reason these men would need to do an in-chair workout. There's nothing to indicate that the workouts are for blizzards that keep you inside for extended periods of time or, heavens how could I have forgotten, pandemics that do the same.

And I'll save the fancy planners for another day. On the coronavirus front, the Washington State death thought to have been the first covid-19 death in the US likely wasn't. The CDC director has said that there could be a second wave of covid-19 next year, in conjunction with influenza season, that may well be worse than the one we're in now. Demonstrations continue pressing states to re-open. I saw a photo of a protester holding a "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" sign. Yeah, you can have the death that right now will likely come with the liberty. They estimate it takes two weeks for symptoms to appear (in those who have symptoms); I wonder how many more new cases we'll see in two weeks resulting from the large protest groups.