what the fish? People are literally going to make up reasons why they can't do ANYTHING to help keep their loved ones safe? The "the test causes cancer" thing is a new one on me. Granted, I don't like having a swab jammed up my nose but if I had to do it in order to, I don't know, go see a cousin's new baby, I'd do it.
oh. That's a different kind of rotary cutter than what I use for preparing fabric for piecing quilt tops, I reckon.
(The kind I use looks kind of like a pizza cutter, but it's wicked shahp. I have a scar on my hand from where I nicked myself with one by mistake 10 years ago)
Yeah grocery delivery here is not a thing. "Grocery delivery" is "you are too ill to even drive to the store for pick up, and you have to lean on a friend/co-worker/fellow congregant to get them and bring them to you"
I've been teaching in KN95s and I don't hate it! I had been wearing cloth masks but they seemed to mold really tight to my face (I have a long nose) and made me feel uncomfortable, these kind of poke out from my face like a sideways duckbill and are actually less miserable.
True N95s ARE less comfortable; have worn them for some labwork with potentially-infectious-bacteria carrying soil. They're hotter and a bit harder to breathe in.
I dunno. I have about 25 points left on this exam to write, and I also have an....ahem....minor imaging thing this afternoon (Maribou may know it as "the big squish") that I almost forgot about, but maybe I can get the exam done and go in good conscience tomorrow.
Well, I'm waiting on news from my brother. He is fully vaccinated but cavalier about masking ("I'm vaccinated, why should I?") and is going out and circulating widely. His location (western VA) is not as much a plague-hole as where I live, but still.
You know what comes next. Yesterday he woke up with a bad headache, runny nose, coughing, fever. No loss of smell or taste, no GI symptoms. Could be sinus infection, could be a break through infection.
My mom is the one who called and told me (He rarely calls me). I basically yelled at her that he needed to go get tested ASAP and she was like "yeah I called you to get back up for when I yell at him" (I am a biologist, though not medical field). The good news is that it's been a solid 2 weeks since they were at her place, so she's safe (she's 85 and supremely careful these days, and vaccinated)
The biggest worry for me? His kid is 8. She can't be vaccinated yet. Both he and my sister in law are vaccinated, and so if this is a break through case he'll most likely pass an unpleasant couple days and then be fine, but my niece is now at risk.
So yeah, everything kind of sucks. I slept badly last night. Also this is my only sibling and one of the few family members I even have left, and of course I worry.
I WAS planning to make a quick run (even through the bad construction) to the JoAnn Fabrics (just for "time in the yard" so to speak) and to a nicer grocery store than what I have in town but I wonder if this is a cosmic sign I'm supposed to stick at home a while longer, sigh. (OTOH: I am paranoid about masking and always wear one, and also am careful to distance).
I do also have my first exam of the semester to write, was hoping to get a start on that today.
I'm so sorry. That's even worse than the simple disillusionment I'm feeling about things seeming to go backwards (so: I can't start going out and doing things again)
yeah, my thought is ALL this will do is enable some businesses/schools (not in MY state, though, I guess) to enact vaccine mandates/programs of "either show your vaccination card or agree to weekly testing." I have no hopes of this convincing a single one of the people who either couldn't be arsed (because they're "young and healthy" and think the risk is low) or are out and out anti vaxxers. I figure we're just going to be living with COVID forever at this point, and we'll all eventually contract it, vaccinated or not, and the only difference vaccination makes is you're a lot less likely to die and POSSIBLY less likely to suffer cognitive decline.
I admit, as a bibliophile who has never had the money for really FANCY fancy books, I am more offended by the fact that old editions - I suppose not *rare* or anything like - are being used that way. It's kind of like some rich dude buying up all the Monets or whatever and hanging them in his garage.
yes, I once had someone I thought was a friend tell me "nouveau riche (which she arguably was) is better than no riche (which I very much was, in those days)," so I may be being a bit of an inverted snob here but....yeesh, I would like some nice old volumes to have on my shelves, and I am slowly trying to replace the bargain "Barnes and Nobles editions" of things with nicer ones, but....
"We're all in this together" was such a dirty lie and my buying into it and then seeing what resulted it is what destroyed my remaining sense of "yeah I owe something to the random citizens out there." Please. They'd throw me under a bus if it made their lives even infinitesimally easier.
At this point, the steps I take are to protect me, my friends, my relatives. Everyone else can go pound sand.
we're also gonna see mass retirements of doctors, nurses, public-health folks, teachers....and on and on. People are burned out, people like me who took steps early on to 'flatten the curve' or whatever, who masked in public, who lined up for vaccines. I've said "miss me with asking me to help in 'rebuilding' after this is over; I stayed home for a year and a half, that was my contribution." The actions of my fellows has destroyed much of my remaining civic spirit. I despair of ever again seeing a stage play in person, or eating indoors in a restaurant, or feeling comfortable going out shopping. I don't think this will ever be "over" in the sense we thought it would be at the beginning of the pandemic. I am in mourning for my former life.
I am STILL masking in class - pretty much the only place I go any more - and *I* had a minor scare last week when a student came to class infected and unvaccinated. I have 10 students isolating, only one is symptomatic, but because we're telling the vaccinated they need not isolate if asymptomatic...that tells me none of them were vaccinated. These are all college students, all over 18, so it's not like they CAN'T be vaccinated; they are CHOOSING not to. All I can do is beg people to wear masks and get vaccinated; we are forbidden by law from compelling either. If people believe TikTok and FB randos more than they believe their medical professionals, we're lost.
Online knitting group Saturday, so I have that. Will have to make sure I have something low-enough concentration-requiring so I can knit AND talk.
May make a speedrun of the wal-mart early Saturday morning. Delta is super high and awful here (currently have 10 students of fifty isolating, have one who is okay to attend class provided they mask and do not develop symptoms, I had a possible exposure and am monitoring self for symptoms). But I'm almost out of the dark Ghirardelli chips I mix in my oatmeal in the morning and they're the only one who has them (Mail order is notpossible of chocolate when the heat index here is eleventy billion like it is now)
other than that: one week of classes under my belt, and the wheels are only mostly off the vehicle at this point. Hoping I can even post the Mr. Krabs "Give it up for Day 15!" on Sept. 3, or if we'll be online by then
Both my brother (b. 1974) and his kid (b. 2012) caused minor alarm from pediatricians because they were slow to talk, and from teachers, because they were slow to read.
they caught up (Well, my niece is still catching up on reading, but she's getting better at it; she has the added difficulty of the terrible eyesight some of us have). I don't like how sometimes parents are unnecessarily panicked that they're doing something wrong because their child just has their own timetable for stuff.
It's not like any of us humans need more stress during this time, or parents who have parented through a decidedly unfavorable climate for parenting to feel like they failed.
and this reminds me, in the next few months I need my 10-year tetanus booster. (My doctor once made noises about "maybe for you, every five years" because I work with soil regularly and am a klutz who often winds up with minor puncture wounds. But if I got a bad one I'd just go get boosted anyway)
actually I think tetanus is different because it's a shot against a TOXIN that the bacteria makes, rather than a shot to attack a virus itself. (I think the diphtheria shot is similar, IIRC - diphtheria being a bacterial infection with a toxin produced that is what causes most of the havoc)
I am definitely a "worried well" but I'm gonna watch what goes on with boosters; I would be due in November so we'll get a couple months of showing whether they are "omg, this is amazing, this absolutely is smashing COVID" or "eh, it's more essential if you're really old or really immune compromised but the added benefit to youngish otherwise healthy folks (I am 52 and in decent health) is not large"
THTh5: I remember HUGE excitement when the news of "cold fusion" came out in the late 80s (in fact, I remember my organic chem lab prof talking about it, I remember thinking "wow this could change everything for the better"). I remember my prof talking about how maybe a trashcan sized fusion reactor could provide all the power a household would ever need....
then it came out that that study at least, was fraud. Probably should have primed me for the next 30 or so years...
I do think controllable fusion might be the game changer in terms of clean, cheaper energy, but I'm not holding my breath.
WW5: a Texas school district (Paris) not too terribly far from me is trying out a loophole: temporarily adding masks to the dress code. So the twitter joking about "they can police the length of a girl's Bermuda shorts but they can't mandate mask wearing" may have come to something after all.
(I am going to have to offer online teaching the rest of this week; a student came to class infectious and tested positive slightly after and they and everyone who sat around them is having to quarantine. Because I'm vaccinated and was wearing a KN95 mask and was 10' away I won't, unless I have symptoms, but it's being strongly suggested I get swabbed on Monday to be sure I'm not asymptomatically contagious. I am angry at the whole dang world this morning as a result)
I don't know what I'm going to be doing. We're in a "bruised red" zone now, plus the road construction between where I live and anywhere out of town I might want to go has ramped up into a much worse stage, so even if whatever "wave" of this pandemic is in were abating, I'd not want to go.
I may scuttle out, very early and masked, for in person shopping at wal mart. Their pick up has gotten to the point where they claim items are out of stock that are actually in stock if you go into the store, and that tells me the system's overloaded, so I'll put myself at slight risk (of breakthrough infection) to protect the service for those at serious risk and I hate all of this.
Other than that, classes start Monday and I have a giant bolus of anxiety in my whole body over teaching in a pandemic again and the extra labor that entails and the fact that my brain is absolutely toast after almost two years of unrelenting sad things and stress happening and I literally do not know how I will teach a four class load without failing horribly at it. (Yes, I called the counselor I had been seeing again; I have an appointment next week)
It's very hard to get out of bed in the mornings though with no promise of anything fun or joyful in the near future. It's been too hot here to even go out and hike, which is what kind of saved me last fall and this spring.
I admit if it weren't so deadly serious (as in: there might be kids who die because of the mask-mandate-ban leading to their getting infected), I'd kind of enjoy watching the drama as Abbott gets hauled into court over this.
My own state has banned mask mandates, I think a few districts up by OKC have as much as said as "let's see you try to enforce that" and I'm thinking maybe those officials all need masks printed with "Molon Labe" (the phrase beloved of 2nd amendment activists) but here it applies to the mask.
anecdotally, we did not see the levels of near-hospital-overwhelm last year that we are seeing now. And it's worse that apparently a lot of it is kids now - I am kind of dreading the first few weeks of the school year (I do not have children but I have colleagues/friends here who do).
Deaths are down but death isn't the ONLY bad outcome of COVID.
"One of the ironies of our society is that we have become so used to safety and long life that we’ve become suspicious of the things that got us there. "
OH MY GOODNESS YES THIS, THIS SO MUCH. I have low-level harassed a few people I know who started spouting the "but it could make people infertile to get vaccinated" (NO NO IT DOES NOT STOP READING FACEBOOK) and similar drivel.
My mom remembers having had the measles. Some of her older siblings were raising kids during the "polio summers." For us, the blessings of vaccination were not an abstract thing (I am kinda old, and both the previous generations of my family had their kids comparatively late in life - my grandmother was married right before the 1918 flu epidemic). My mom also remembers farm folks getting sick from unpasteurized milk, people having parasites from bad well water....having someone grow up poor and rural gives you a real appreciation for modern life.
Campus here is set to open fully on Monday. No more distancing and "thanks" to our governor, we cannot institute an on-campus mask mandate. I am going to mask myself in class, and tell students in my considered opinion that even IF you are vaccinated you should mask in public indoors (and if they're not vaccinated, to go do it ASAP unless it is medically contraindicated for them as an individual). We'll see how much the students respect my informed opinion....
An apartment building I used to live in would warn tenants when the window washers were coming so "you aren't surprised walking around in your birthday suit."
I'm guessing, people being what they are, at least a few *planned* to be walking around in their birthday suits on window washer day
it's happening in my state, people are buying up land in the Panhandle for weed farms. We are apparently the laxest state in the nation for regulations; we are "recreational legal in all but name". (https://www.denverpost.com/2021/08/09/oklahoma-marijuana-boom-colorado-cannabis-companies/)
My understanding is it's a pretty water-demanding crop, which makes me a bit concerned, the Panhandle doesn't exactly get a lot of rain.
I also admit I dislike the fact that in my town literally the only small businesses that have opened in over a year are dispensaries, and we have at least 4x as many dispensaries as grocery stores.
that said: it's more environmentally friendly than cryptomining, I'll give it that.
"Walmart and Target were eventually able to compel their customers to don masks. "
*Laughs in Oklahoman*
I NEVER saw good mask compliance here. Not early in the pandemic, not as vaccines were being rolled out, not now. Maybe in some of the bigger cities. (I wear a mask, I had a bad turn the last time I went into a store ummasked in March 2020 and some guy coughed in the same aisle I was in).
I don't blame the minimum wage workers at the stores for not enforcing it harder; I had about 90% good mask compliance in class but it got really old really fast constantly telling that one guy who pulled down his buff to pull it back up. I wouldn't want to do that for $7.25 an hour PLUS risk someone taking a swing at me for it.
I've heard some say "but working class folks can't get to the vaccine clinics when they're open, and they fear losing their jobs if they have to take a sick day after having the typical immune response to it" and I think that's potentially fixable (24 hour stations in easy to get to places, vaccine buses, require employers to allow for paid time off). The people who are suspicious, maybe social-group/church/medical professionals they trust talking to them will help.
But yeah. I got the vaccine as early as I could, I mostly continued masking up in public, was REALLY looking forward to a fall of teaching without a mask but NOPE. I absolutely share the frustration and even anger of other people over how we wound up with a stick in our bicycle spokes over this.
I don't really have any good solutions beyond increasing access for those who face some challenges timewise, maybe mandates at workplaces, and a big community push to encourage it. But for the people in hardened positions who refuse to vaccinate - yeah, keep 'em out of restaurants and theaters, and allow employers to tell them they either have to work 100% remotely or they are no longer working there.
of course this excludes people with a genuine medical reason they cannot safely be vaccinated - and those folks are why the rest of us need to, to protect them.
Having nothing to look forward to is the mind-killer. That was the worst part of 2020 for me, especially the summer - just a long, protracted blank with "well it's Saturday but I might as well work on updating class material 'cos there's nothing ELSE I can do"
I realized I ordered a ton of crap I didn't need online in 2020 simply because I needed that "hey, I have a package coming next week" to keep myself getting out of bed.
Most of the "fun" stuff I do is indoors, and indoors seems unsafe right now. I like to hike but not in heat indexes of 105, so.....
Just got home again after seeing my mom again for a few weeks - I feel like I need to make up for 2020. (My mom is 85, and while she's in good health and comes from long-lived stock, still, you never know).
I admit I was discouraged coming back - the restrictions have clamped back down hard (at least on Amtrak). I'm kind of discouraged by the fact that we're going BACKWARDS. And my campus is warning us we may have to prepare to "pivot to online" again (We cannot mandate masks or vaccines; orders of the governor). So we're "mask friendly" whatever the Hell that's supposed to mean. (I will be masking, if for no other reason to allow me to give a Hard Stare to anyone who teases a fellow student over masking).
My concern about the "well the 1918 flu was over in 2 years" is that back then, there were no intercontinental flights and most Americans didn't even have cars (nor was there an Interstate Highway System). I suspect higher mobility is just going to drag this out and while I feel like I"m *mostly* protected (being vaccinated), there's still enough of a question in my mind that.....well, I guess I clamp back down and do nothing Fun until caseloads fall. (I could go hiking but it's too hot for that).
Anyway, classes start in just over a week and I'll be extra busy, with four classes and, it looks like, still teaching partly over Zoom, which I well and truly hate.
when I started growing my hair long in the 1980s, my grandmother (who was born at about the turn of that century) was aghast, and asked me why I wanted to do that, when it was okay for women to have their hair cut short now. I guess she came up as a young woman through the whole long-hair-then-bun-after-marriage and was glad when it became the fashion to cut it short.
I recently cut my hair shorter (not short, but shorter - shoulder length) and I am struck by how much less heavy it is and how much easier it is to care for.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Third Gate of Summer (Edit: It is the weekend *BEFORE* the third gate of summer)”
oh ffs.
in reality you probably need to smoke a pack of them a day to appreciably increase your risk, not get the occasional brief exposure.
Do these folks eat hot dogs? Hot dogs are probably way riskier cancer-wise.
"
what the fish? People are literally going to make up reasons why they can't do ANYTHING to help keep their loved ones safe? The "the test causes cancer" thing is a new one on me. Granted, I don't like having a swab jammed up my nose but if I had to do it in order to, I don't know, go see a cousin's new baby, I'd do it.
"
oh. That's a different kind of rotary cutter than what I use for preparing fabric for piecing quilt tops, I reckon.
(The kind I use looks kind of like a pizza cutter, but it's wicked shahp. I have a scar on my hand from where I nicked myself with one by mistake 10 years ago)
"
Yeah grocery delivery here is not a thing. "Grocery delivery" is "you are too ill to even drive to the store for pick up, and you have to lean on a friend/co-worker/fellow congregant to get them and bring them to you"
I've been teaching in KN95s and I don't hate it! I had been wearing cloth masks but they seemed to mold really tight to my face (I have a long nose) and made me feel uncomfortable, these kind of poke out from my face like a sideways duckbill and are actually less miserable.
True N95s ARE less comfortable; have worn them for some labwork with potentially-infectious-bacteria carrying soil. They're hotter and a bit harder to breathe in.
I dunno. I have about 25 points left on this exam to write, and I also have an....ahem....minor imaging thing this afternoon (Maribou may know it as "the big squish") that I almost forgot about, but maybe I can get the exam done and go in good conscience tomorrow.
"
Well, I'm waiting on news from my brother. He is fully vaccinated but cavalier about masking ("I'm vaccinated, why should I?") and is going out and circulating widely. His location (western VA) is not as much a plague-hole as where I live, but still.
You know what comes next. Yesterday he woke up with a bad headache, runny nose, coughing, fever. No loss of smell or taste, no GI symptoms. Could be sinus infection, could be a break through infection.
My mom is the one who called and told me (He rarely calls me). I basically yelled at her that he needed to go get tested ASAP and she was like "yeah I called you to get back up for when I yell at him" (I am a biologist, though not medical field). The good news is that it's been a solid 2 weeks since they were at her place, so she's safe (she's 85 and supremely careful these days, and vaccinated)
The biggest worry for me? His kid is 8. She can't be vaccinated yet. Both he and my sister in law are vaccinated, and so if this is a break through case he'll most likely pass an unpleasant couple days and then be fine, but my niece is now at risk.
So yeah, everything kind of sucks. I slept badly last night. Also this is my only sibling and one of the few family members I even have left, and of course I worry.
I WAS planning to make a quick run (even through the bad construction) to the JoAnn Fabrics (just for "time in the yard" so to speak) and to a nicer grocery store than what I have in town but I wonder if this is a cosmic sign I'm supposed to stick at home a while longer, sigh. (OTOH: I am paranoid about masking and always wear one, and also am careful to distance).
I do also have my first exam of the semester to write, was hoping to get a start on that today.
"
I'm so sorry. That's even worse than the simple disillusionment I'm feeling about things seeming to go backwards (so: I can't start going out and doing things again)
On “FDA Grants Full Approval of Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine”
yeah, my thought is ALL this will do is enable some businesses/schools (not in MY state, though, I guess) to enact vaccine mandates/programs of "either show your vaccination card or agree to weekly testing." I have no hopes of this convincing a single one of the people who either couldn't be arsed (because they're "young and healthy" and think the risk is low) or are out and out anti vaxxers. I figure we're just going to be living with COVID forever at this point, and we'll all eventually contract it, vaccinated or not, and the only difference vaccination makes is you're a lot less likely to die and POSSIBLY less likely to suffer cognitive decline.
On “The Books of Magnolia Market at the Silos: Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Monument to Decadence”
I admit, as a bibliophile who has never had the money for really FANCY fancy books, I am more offended by the fact that old editions - I suppose not *rare* or anything like - are being used that way. It's kind of like some rich dude buying up all the Monets or whatever and hanging them in his garage.
yes, I once had someone I thought was a friend tell me "nouveau riche (which she arguably was) is better than no riche (which I very much was, in those days)," so I may be being a bit of an inverted snob here but....yeesh, I would like some nice old volumes to have on my shelves, and I am slowly trying to replace the bargain "Barnes and Nobles editions" of things with nicer ones, but....
On “The Unvaccinated: Nothing Happens in A Vacuum”
"We're all in this together" was such a dirty lie and my buying into it and then seeing what resulted it is what destroyed my remaining sense of "yeah I owe something to the random citizens out there." Please. They'd throw me under a bus if it made their lives even infinitesimally easier.
At this point, the steps I take are to protect me, my friends, my relatives. Everyone else can go pound sand.
"
we're also gonna see mass retirements of doctors, nurses, public-health folks, teachers....and on and on. People are burned out, people like me who took steps early on to 'flatten the curve' or whatever, who masked in public, who lined up for vaccines. I've said "miss me with asking me to help in 'rebuilding' after this is over; I stayed home for a year and a half, that was my contribution." The actions of my fellows has destroyed much of my remaining civic spirit. I despair of ever again seeing a stage play in person, or eating indoors in a restaurant, or feeling comfortable going out shopping. I don't think this will ever be "over" in the sense we thought it would be at the beginning of the pandemic. I am in mourning for my former life.
I am STILL masking in class - pretty much the only place I go any more - and *I* had a minor scare last week when a student came to class infected and unvaccinated. I have 10 students isolating, only one is symptomatic, but because we're telling the vaccinated they need not isolate if asymptomatic...that tells me none of them were vaccinated. These are all college students, all over 18, so it's not like they CAN'T be vaccinated; they are CHOOSING not to. All I can do is beg people to wear masks and get vaccinated; we are forbidden by law from compelling either. If people believe TikTok and FB randos more than they believe their medical professionals, we're lost.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Alternate Babysitter”
Online knitting group Saturday, so I have that. Will have to make sure I have something low-enough concentration-requiring so I can knit AND talk.
May make a speedrun of the wal-mart early Saturday morning. Delta is super high and awful here (currently have 10 students of fifty isolating, have one who is okay to attend class provided they mask and do not develop symptoms, I had a possible exposure and am monitoring self for symptoms). But I'm almost out of the dark Ghirardelli chips I mix in my oatmeal in the morning and they're the only one who has them (Mail order is notpossible of chocolate when the heat index here is eleventy billion like it is now)
other than that: one week of classes under my belt, and the wheels are only mostly off the vehicle at this point. Hoping I can even post the Mr. Krabs "Give it up for Day 15!" on Sept. 3, or if we'll be online by then
On “Thursday Throughout: No, the Other Simpsons Pandemic Edition”
Both my brother (b. 1974) and his kid (b. 2012) caused minor alarm from pediatricians because they were slow to talk, and from teachers, because they were slow to read.
they caught up (Well, my niece is still catching up on reading, but she's getting better at it; she has the added difficulty of the terrible eyesight some of us have). I don't like how sometimes parents are unnecessarily panicked that they're doing something wrong because their child just has their own timetable for stuff.
It's not like any of us humans need more stress during this time, or parents who have parented through a decidedly unfavorable climate for parenting to feel like they failed.
"
and this reminds me, in the next few months I need my 10-year tetanus booster. (My doctor once made noises about "maybe for you, every five years" because I work with soil regularly and am a klutz who often winds up with minor puncture wounds. But if I got a bad one I'd just go get boosted anyway)
actually I think tetanus is different because it's a shot against a TOXIN that the bacteria makes, rather than a shot to attack a virus itself. (I think the diphtheria shot is similar, IIRC - diphtheria being a bacterial infection with a toxin produced that is what causes most of the havoc)
I am definitely a "worried well" but I'm gonna watch what goes on with boosters; I would be due in November so we'll get a couple months of showing whether they are "omg, this is amazing, this absolutely is smashing COVID" or "eh, it's more essential if you're really old or really immune compromised but the added benefit to youngish otherwise healthy folks (I am 52 and in decent health) is not large"
"
THTh5: I remember HUGE excitement when the news of "cold fusion" came out in the late 80s (in fact, I remember my organic chem lab prof talking about it, I remember thinking "wow this could change everything for the better"). I remember my prof talking about how maybe a trashcan sized fusion reactor could provide all the power a household would ever need....
then it came out that that study at least, was fraud. Probably should have primed me for the next 30 or so years...
I do think controllable fusion might be the game changer in terms of clean, cheaper energy, but I'm not holding my breath.
On “Wednesday Writs: A Case of This, A Case of That Edition”
WW5: a Texas school district (Paris) not too terribly far from me is trying out a loophole: temporarily adding masks to the dress code. So the twitter joking about "they can police the length of a girl's Bermuda shorts but they can't mandate mask wearing" may have come to something after all.
(I am going to have to offer online teaching the rest of this week; a student came to class infectious and tested positive slightly after and they and everyone who sat around them is having to quarantine. Because I'm vaccinated and was wearing a KN95 mask and was 10' away I won't, unless I have symptoms, but it's being strongly suggested I get swabbed on Monday to be sure I'm not asymptomatically contagious. I am angry at the whole dang world this morning as a result)
On “Weekend Plans Post: Trust and Failing and Getting Over Oneself At The Climbing Gym”
Rock climbing as a metaphor for life.
I don't know what I'm going to be doing. We're in a "bruised red" zone now, plus the road construction between where I live and anywhere out of town I might want to go has ramped up into a much worse stage, so even if whatever "wave" of this pandemic is in were abating, I'd not want to go.
I may scuttle out, very early and masked, for in person shopping at wal mart. Their pick up has gotten to the point where they claim items are out of stock that are actually in stock if you go into the store, and that tells me the system's overloaded, so I'll put myself at slight risk (of breakthrough infection) to protect the service for those at serious risk and I hate all of this.
Other than that, classes start Monday and I have a giant bolus of anxiety in my whole body over teaching in a pandemic again and the extra labor that entails and the fact that my brain is absolutely toast after almost two years of unrelenting sad things and stress happening and I literally do not know how I will teach a four class load without failing horribly at it. (Yes, I called the counselor I had been seeing again; I have an appointment next week)
It's very hard to get out of bed in the mornings though with no promise of anything fun or joyful in the near future. It's been too hot here to even go out and hike, which is what kind of saved me last fall and this spring.
On “Thursday Throughput: Why Masks Are Coming Back, In 1030 Words”
I admit if it weren't so deadly serious (as in: there might be kids who die because of the mask-mandate-ban leading to their getting infected), I'd kind of enjoy watching the drama as Abbott gets hauled into court over this.
My own state has banned mask mandates, I think a few districts up by OKC have as much as said as "let's see you try to enforce that" and I'm thinking maybe those officials all need masks printed with "Molon Labe" (the phrase beloved of 2nd amendment activists) but here it applies to the mask.
"
anecdotally, we did not see the levels of near-hospital-overwhelm last year that we are seeing now. And it's worse that apparently a lot of it is kids now - I am kind of dreading the first few weeks of the school year (I do not have children but I have colleagues/friends here who do).
Deaths are down but death isn't the ONLY bad outcome of COVID.
"
"One of the ironies of our society is that we have become so used to safety and long life that we’ve become suspicious of the things that got us there. "
OH MY GOODNESS YES THIS, THIS SO MUCH. I have low-level harassed a few people I know who started spouting the "but it could make people infertile to get vaccinated" (NO NO IT DOES NOT STOP READING FACEBOOK) and similar drivel.
My mom remembers having had the measles. Some of her older siblings were raising kids during the "polio summers." For us, the blessings of vaccination were not an abstract thing (I am kinda old, and both the previous generations of my family had their kids comparatively late in life - my grandmother was married right before the 1918 flu epidemic). My mom also remembers farm folks getting sick from unpasteurized milk, people having parasites from bad well water....having someone grow up poor and rural gives you a real appreciation for modern life.
Campus here is set to open fully on Monday. No more distancing and "thanks" to our governor, we cannot institute an on-campus mask mandate. I am going to mask myself in class, and tell students in my considered opinion that even IF you are vaccinated you should mask in public indoors (and if they're not vaccinated, to go do it ASAP unless it is medically contraindicated for them as an individual). We'll see how much the students respect my informed opinion....
On “Real Window Washer At Home”
An apartment building I used to live in would warn tenants when the window washers were coming so "you aren't surprised walking around in your birthday suit."
I'm guessing, people being what they are, at least a few *planned* to be walking around in their birthday suits on window washer day
On “From Politico: An Inconvenient Truth (About Weed)”
it's happening in my state, people are buying up land in the Panhandle for weed farms. We are apparently the laxest state in the nation for regulations; we are "recreational legal in all but name". (https://www.denverpost.com/2021/08/09/oklahoma-marijuana-boom-colorado-cannabis-companies/)
My understanding is it's a pretty water-demanding crop, which makes me a bit concerned, the Panhandle doesn't exactly get a lot of rain.
I also admit I dislike the fact that in my town literally the only small businesses that have opened in over a year are dispensaries, and we have at least 4x as many dispensaries as grocery stores.
that said: it's more environmentally friendly than cryptomining, I'll give it that.
On “Giving Up Our Shot: Dealing With the Unvaccinated”
"Walmart and Target were eventually able to compel their customers to don masks. "
*Laughs in Oklahoman*
I NEVER saw good mask compliance here. Not early in the pandemic, not as vaccines were being rolled out, not now. Maybe in some of the bigger cities. (I wear a mask, I had a bad turn the last time I went into a store ummasked in March 2020 and some guy coughed in the same aisle I was in).
I don't blame the minimum wage workers at the stores for not enforcing it harder; I had about 90% good mask compliance in class but it got really old really fast constantly telling that one guy who pulled down his buff to pull it back up. I wouldn't want to do that for $7.25 an hour PLUS risk someone taking a swing at me for it.
I've heard some say "but working class folks can't get to the vaccine clinics when they're open, and they fear losing their jobs if they have to take a sick day after having the typical immune response to it" and I think that's potentially fixable (24 hour stations in easy to get to places, vaccine buses, require employers to allow for paid time off). The people who are suspicious, maybe social-group/church/medical professionals they trust talking to them will help.
But yeah. I got the vaccine as early as I could, I mostly continued masking up in public, was REALLY looking forward to a fall of teaching without a mask but NOPE. I absolutely share the frustration and even anger of other people over how we wound up with a stick in our bicycle spokes over this.
I don't really have any good solutions beyond increasing access for those who face some challenges timewise, maybe mandates at workplaces, and a big community push to encourage it. But for the people in hardened positions who refuse to vaccinate - yeah, keep 'em out of restaurants and theaters, and allow employers to tell them they either have to work 100% remotely or they are no longer working there.
of course this excludes people with a genuine medical reason they cannot safely be vaccinated - and those folks are why the rest of us need to, to protect them.
On “Weekend Plans: The Eye of the Hurricane”
Having nothing to look forward to is the mind-killer. That was the worst part of 2020 for me, especially the summer - just a long, protracted blank with "well it's Saturday but I might as well work on updating class material 'cos there's nothing ELSE I can do"
I realized I ordered a ton of crap I didn't need online in 2020 simply because I needed that "hey, I have a package coming next week" to keep myself getting out of bed.
Most of the "fun" stuff I do is indoors, and indoors seems unsafe right now. I like to hike but not in heat indexes of 105, so.....
"
Just got home again after seeing my mom again for a few weeks - I feel like I need to make up for 2020. (My mom is 85, and while she's in good health and comes from long-lived stock, still, you never know).
I admit I was discouraged coming back - the restrictions have clamped back down hard (at least on Amtrak). I'm kind of discouraged by the fact that we're going BACKWARDS. And my campus is warning us we may have to prepare to "pivot to online" again (We cannot mandate masks or vaccines; orders of the governor). So we're "mask friendly" whatever the Hell that's supposed to mean. (I will be masking, if for no other reason to allow me to give a Hard Stare to anyone who teases a fellow student over masking).
My concern about the "well the 1918 flu was over in 2 years" is that back then, there were no intercontinental flights and most Americans didn't even have cars (nor was there an Interstate Highway System). I suspect higher mobility is just going to drag this out and while I feel like I"m *mostly* protected (being vaccinated), there's still enough of a question in my mind that.....well, I guess I clamp back down and do nothing Fun until caseloads fall. (I could go hiking but it's too hot for that).
Anyway, classes start in just over a week and I'll be extra busy, with four classes and, it looks like, still teaching partly over Zoom, which I well and truly hate.
On “The Bobbed Hair Question”
when I started growing my hair long in the 1980s, my grandmother (who was born at about the turn of that century) was aghast, and asked me why I wanted to do that, when it was okay for women to have their hair cut short now. I guess she came up as a young woman through the whole long-hair-then-bun-after-marriage and was glad when it became the fashion to cut it short.
I recently cut my hair shorter (not short, but shorter - shoulder length) and I am struck by how much less heavy it is and how much easier it is to care for.
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