Weekend Plans Post: Thinking About What I’ll Miss

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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14 Responses

  1. fillyjonk says:

    I JUST said on Twitter I was planning my weekly trip to the grocery for supplies, and figuratively pouring one out for the before-times, when a Pruett’s run was something I did a couple times a week on my way home from work and I never thought much of it.

    One thing: I write grocery lists now, which I never did before, because the idea of missing that ONE thing is no longer a “grumble and go back out,” it’s more of a “meh, the risk of exposure for one thing isn’t worth it” and you learn to live without.

    Especially now, when yesterday my state had the highest R0 in the nation.

    So my energy today will be expended on getting food for the coming week. If I have remaining energy after that I might do some continuing-ed reading.

    Though I also have to call a florist today; one of the women in my women’s group at church lost her husband earlier this week, apparently they are doing services for him, and they are to be Monday, and I guess I am now the designated person to arrange for the floral arrangement. So I have to call a florist in town and I have no idea what to ask for and….yeah, that’s another thing that will eat some emotional energy for me.

    One thing this thing has really taught me is that I don’t like uncertainty, like, I dislike it a LOT, and also that a lot of the operating in this is just DEALING with uncertainty.
    Next month I am going to tentatively restart research, in the hopes that we’re not chased off campus again before I complete this project.

    The last week of this month I’m scheduled to help deliver Meals on Wheels and that’s another source of anxiety; what do we need to do to keep the (often ill and always elderly) recipients safe when we have to go to different houses and in some place go into the house to drop off the food?Report

  2. Marchmaine says:

    #1 Son is bringing home his (first) girlfriend for dinner; we know he’s a bit nervous… but ironically it’s not us (the parents) he’s worried about, but his older sister – their relationship is close and complicated as they transition into adults (the siblings, that is). It will all be fine, but the novelty of the entire situation and new family dynamics are just making people overthink everything.

    On the plus side, it’s a Solemnity today, so we can serve meat… will sous vide some flank steak and quickly finish it on the grill… honestly the sous vide a pure culinary genius for lots of temp sensitive cuts (and seafood… oh my gosh, seafood) plus a godsend for dinner party timing – everything is at exact temp at the same time and can be finished a’la minute.

    Otherwise, more pasture maintenance and the trails in the woods need beating back. Virginia is lovely but holy shit can we grow a mess o’ weeds right quick.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Marchmaine says:

      Oh, man! I went to the grocery store yesterday just to get some usual Friday fare. I guess I’ll slip it into the menu over the next few days.Report

    • Slade the Leveller in reply to Marchmaine says:

      I just had a hankering the other day for some London broil. Now that hankering has grown.

      Also, I was unaware that meatless Fridays were still a thing, other than as a personal preference. Is it still doctrinal somewhere?Report

      • Pinky in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

        Friday is still a day of penance. The method chosen is optional. As a practical matter, it means that most people don’t do anything. A few dinosaurs like us still keep it up, and anything that allows us to distinguish between days is welcome during the lockdown.Report

  3. Pinky says:

    Off-topic, but I need to complain somewhere. I saw yesterday’s USA Today headline, which was something like “Nearly Half the Country Shows Leaps in New Cases”. If you haven’t seen the data recently, it looks like this:

    https://www.google.com/search?ei=3tLsXovHHa3CytMPtMOQ8Ag&q=new+coronavirus+cases+usa&oq=new+coronavirus+cases+usa&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIFCAAQsQMyBwgAELEDEAoyBAgAEAoyBAgAEAo6BAgAEEc6AggAOgUIABCDAVDtSFjeVGCqWWgAcAF4AIABtQGIAYIFkgEDMi4zmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwiLru2kko7qAhUtoXIEHbQhBI4Q4dUDCAw&uact=5

    Looking at the underlying data, only five states (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas) can be said to be “leaping”. Oregon had a spike and the Carolinas are dangerously but gradually increasing. So, how do you get to almost half leaping? First off, by ignoring the increases in testing. But also by calling every increase a leap. But by that definition, any collection of random walks will show nearly half – or more than half! – of the paths leaping every day.

    Now, I’m not saying that the spread of a virus follows a random walk. It approximates an exponential spread in a small area, but if you do your darnedest it’ll approximate a random walk at an aggregate level. Sometimes an outbreak will be bad enough that it’ll show up at a higher level as exponential growth, and I’m of course hoping that no state experiences that. But it’s just – that USA Today headline is so much more ignorant than I would have expected, and I thought I had no faith in them at all. There’s no way a person could be expected to read the headline and picture the reality it was trying to describe.Report

  4. Rufus F. says:

    Tiger looks a bit like my Iggy. Admittedly, a popular breed, but if you’d like to see pictures of my cat, I can totally show you pictures of my cat!Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Rufus F. says:

      I would always like to see pictures of cats.Report

      • fillyjonk in reply to Jaybird says:

        (pounds rhythmically on table)

        OPEN CAT THREAD
        OPEN CAT THREAD
        OPEN CAT THREAD

        (and dogs, too….let’s be equal opportunity)

        (I do not have a cat. It was a big big deal last night at the “socially distanced outdoors” meeting I was at when the meeting-host’s neighbor’s cat sauntered over and deigned to let us pet her)Report