I am taking Amtrak tomorrow; the mask mandate is still in place for Amtrak.
I do not envy the conductors and car attendants in this. I have a roomette, meaning I can take it off when I'm in my room, but will def. comply with the request to wear one in public areas of the train.
"I don't envy the conductors' - that said, they do have a pretty big stick, they are allowed to put people who refuse to mask off at the next station stop.
But I'm glad I have a roomette so I won't have to deal with any potential anti-mask complainers.
Nice piece. I live in the Southern Great Plains and some of what you said resonates for here; there are parts of my own state where I know you buy gas/use a restroom when one presents itself whether you need it or not, 'cos it might be a couple hours before you get the chance again. It took considerable adjustment moving here from the Great Lakes region where generally towns are self-contained and even a smallish town will have much of what you need - here, an hour's round trip for an unremarkable restaurant meal does not seem odd; where I used to live, you'd only drive that far for a very special reason.
I admit I'm still not fully adapted to this place, 20 years on; there are still spots I'm not comfortable walking into (first as a young woman, when I moved down here, now as a middle-aged woman). I still feel like an outsider a lot of the time...
yeah, in some arms of academia we've been talking about "is there some way we could have a virtual option on conferences/conference presentations forever?" For some people, it actually worked as an accommodation: I know some people with chronic illnesses or disability for whom travel is difficult, and others who are caretakers for small children or aged parents who find traveling hard. (Also people like me who have essentially zero travel budget provided and have to do most of their conference stuff either off grants, or out of our own pocket).
That said? In person conferences are much better if you're on the job market, or looking for new collaborators; it's very, very hard to socialize virtually, even with "Zoom mixers" and the like.
I will say teaching in person with an online option was hard and a lot more work (we received v. little logistical support so all the extra stuff was on us) and I have decided I will ONLY offer online as an official accommodation with a doctor's letter. And I won't "record for later viewing," in my experience, students SAID they'd watch it later but they DID NOT.
the "DO SOMETHING" sense is big; early in this we were exhorted to either have the students clean the classroom desks, or WE do it between classes. They even monitored how fast the spray stuff and paper towels were getting used up! We got nastygrams if they weren't getting used up fast enough!
We were also required to make seating charts, insist students sat in the same seat every day, and mark down who was present on any given day - we were the front lines of contact tracing. Once I did have to submit my seating charts when someone tested positive. (Luckily, the other times someone did, they were either already tuning in from home, or it was after the class had finished for the semester).
But there was very much a sense of You Will Do These Things And It Is Your Fault If This Fails, which made me paranoid.....to the point where now campus has dropped the mask mandate, I am going "no wait I think I need to stick with it a bit longer"
The surrounding city, FWIW, was a lot less strict. Groceries had "please wear a mask" signs but on any given day, between 60% and 85% of the people did NOT, even at the height of the pandemic. (I just went at low volume times, masked up, moved fast, and avoided humans like the plague). I hear tell the JoAnn's nearest me (next state over) was limiting capacity to 100 people but since I didn't leave town for like 8 months, I can't verify if that actually happened.
it's.....gonna take me a while to be comfortable being in public again, even if we don't see some horrific resurgence of the pandemic (which I, as a card carrying pessimist, fully expect)
you're right about the grocery thing! No more will I have to shrug and go "okay, guess I substitute then" because I was out of some thing and it was only 2 days since my last store trip. Once again I can stop off at the small local grocery on the way home from work if I feel like something different from what I have on hand.
I even drove down to Pottsboro last weekend and went to the enormous Brookshires for a better, fancier grocery experience than I can get locally. I think I will be trying to make time to go there for "big" grocery shopping this summer.
I do need to do a bit of cleaning up here, and planning, this weekend - Tuesday I leave to go visit my mom for the first time in nearly a year and a half (it involves an overnight trip on Amtrak, and I didn't feel it was safe until both she and I had been vaccinated, and then I had to wait for the semester to end)
I'm also guessing less access to fresh fruits/vegetables, and that vegetables were boiled like crazy, so maybe some of the fiber was broken down? And probably less of an insistence on whole grains or beans in the diet, unless you were a "peasant" or a "weird fad-diet person" (Vegetarianism existed but was far, far from mainstream)
Similarly, "old people eat prunes" was a stock joke, the joke being, I guess, "regularity"
Not such a joke any more for me - I am in my 50s and eat a few most days, though it's also partly that they have trace minerals that MAY help stave off osteoporosis....
Looked it up, realizing I was conflating it with cod-liver oil (which my mom talked about being given once or twice as a child, apparently it was a holdover from when bad vitamin D deficiency was really common) and, yikes: alleged uses of castor oil as punishment
Today I need to do yardwork, I guess (one of three graduations - you picked one, if you were going to any - was this morning. It was different from before, but not as different as I feared)
Tomorrow I *might* go to Sherman; I'm "supposed to" (per my counselor) do more driving out of town, especially over bridges, after I noted some fear about crossing bridges had returned recently (Why? I don't know why. But I always have disliked driving over bridges and recently it's got worse). Part of it is the main bridge I'd take there is undergoing some construction and is much narrower than normal. I don't know whether to go to a park that's down there and walk around, or go shopping, or just go to a larger grocery store than what I had been going to.
I do need to read the last paper (due tonight) for my two advanced biostats students and turn in grades for them; all my other grades are in.
At least this time, the end of the semester feels more "normal" and it feels like I'm marking it in the way I always did - going to graduation and then not too long after, going up to visit family. (I leave for that in about a week and a half)
I am old enough to remember Skylab and being worried about it as a kid.
I guess the bigger worry about 'space junk' is if you're an astronaut - lots of stuff floating around out there now. But still, it seems like better planning could prevent even the VERY remote possibility that someone might have their car flattened by a chunk of this thing
What I don't understand about guys like this: do they actually believe what they're spouting, that they're some brave truth-teller saying things that people who literally have the job of doing this stuff don't know? Or are they in it for the attention and money and don't care if it puts people at risk?
Like, I have certain expertise in certain areas. I'm a biologist (ecology), but I would not make claims about what PCR can and cannot do - because while I know how PCR works (basically), I recognize I don't know enough of the ins and outs of it all to feel confident making claims and instead defer to the people who actually do this for a living....
This is an evocative piece. I didn't get to visit my grandmothers as often; they lived far away, but I especially remember my maternal grandmother's house - we'd go there (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) for a couple weeks in August to escape the Ohio humidity. I remember her "snake room" (a joking name given to the closet under the stairs - she was deathly afraid of snakes), I remember the "front room" that everyone up there had, but no one used except for after-church or after-funeral visiting (but I was allowed to sit in there and read!). I remember her giving us pocket money to walk down to the Red Owl, which still sold "penny candy."
After she died, things were in turmoil - one aunt who had cared for her was suffering from cancer, the other had taken a bad fall and was suffering the after effects of a brain hemorrhage. My own parents were moving from Ohio to Illinois. We claimed a few things, a few pieces of furniture, and Aunt Chickie told us to take the tv we had given Grandma, but a lot of the things just sat in the house.
which was then rented out. Those things disappeared. The two things I mourn not getting were her "scrap bag" (she used to let me dig in it for fabric for doll clothes and once promised it to me) and some of the old Christmas tree ornaments, but those are gone forever, and you can't go home again.
My own mother, now widowed, has spent her year of isolation clearing things out (mostly old financial records and stuff my dad had from teaching) and I admit it gives me a frisson that some day my brother and I will probably have to clear out HER house.
I try to hang on to that "home is what you carry with you," but sometimes it feels like....well, I would like a place to GO, that when I go there, they have to take me in (another definition of home that I've read). It's hard being down here all alone with no connections.
I hope and pray, that if I ever wind up in a situation like the driver of that car, that there's someone like you to stop, check on me, and talk to me while I wait for official help.
the distaste for cremation with me, I get that it's totally an emotional response. I lost a loved one to the after-effects of a fire, and so I admit I have a horror of the idea.
even though I'd be dead. I realize it's illogical. But I've thought on occasion if I were fixin' to die, and I knew it, I'd try to crawl out to a really remote natural area and just lie down and hope I wasn't found.
Embalming, it's all the chemicals and the concrete and everything, it seems very wasteful. I have no children, people will forget I existed three months after I'm gone, I don't need some monument to me sticking out of the ground somewhere.
Hard to say for sure; I only have contact with biology/Fisheries and Wildlife majors, who have a better understanding than average of both how immunity and disease work, and the mechanics of the mRNA shot. I had several students, in fact, openly express eagerness to get the vaccine - one said he wanted to hug his grandma again, which I admit, I had to take a deep breath so I didn't tear up over it.
I also gave people excused absences if their vaccine appointment coincided with my class, I think most other people did too. I know I saw a number of students on the afternoon of the clinic wearing their "I got vaccinated" stickers.
Anyway, if I keel over in Oklahoma (from sesame allergy or other), please drag my mortal remains into Colorado; I have a horror of both embalment and cremation so being able to be composted seems more ideal. (There was a company that wanted to put in a 'natural burials" place near here but of course people rejected it)
Here in OK, I got my vaccine before I would have been eligible (based on age), 'cos folks from Tulsa in the over 65 group grabbed up local vaccine appointments, then couldn't make it because of an ice storm north of us. My uni president somehow pulled some strings and about 50 faculty and staff were able to get vaccine appointments early as a result - I was fully vaccinated by early March.
they are currently doing on-campus vaccine clinics for students, any staff/faculty who haven't had it yet, and opened it to alumni in the area and any retired folks. Being vaccinated is not going to be a condition of employment or attendance but the president is *really* pushing for as close to 100% vaccinated by fall as he can, and frankly, that would make life on campus so much better and easier, I think, if we were.
We are the largest city in this part of the state but only like the 10th largest in the entire state. And I know our county health department really went over and above to try to get all the local seniors vaccinated; there were rides to vaccine sites for anyone who needed one.
Still, for rural areas - we need mobile clinics or some such. I think one of the tribal nations has got a couple they have kitted out and are sending to tiny towns to try to vaccinate people
Someone was commenting elsewhere about "why do old people look younger now than they do when we were kids?" (thinking of the fact that many of our parents are now the age our grandparents were at when we were kids, yet they look younger) and I said one reason was "better dental care."
I mean, I suspect the fact that dying ones hair has become more common (my mother, though, does not dye hers, and she looks younger in her early 80s than her mother did in HER early 80s). Perhaps better health care in general?
But yeah: improved dental care (especially in terms of dental work being faster and less painful) is probably one of the unsung advances of the late 20th-early 21st century. Also more of us may be able to afford that care thanks to dental insurance plans - I had a tooth crowned that I probably would have just had pulled if I didn't have dental coverage.
Wow, some folks just think they're special. Disney doesn't give a Mickey's ass about the guy; there are literal millions of people willing to pay the high entry fees and not complain about how the thing doesn't conform *exactly* to what they wanted.
You see this in a lot of fandoms; people getting all frothy when "their" tv show "ships" the pair of characters that they did not want "shipped" or when some character grows and changes in a way counter to what that particular fan envisioned.
I dunno, as someone who was taught early on by my parents that (a) my feelings were not special and privileged over others and (b) I won't always (or even usually) get what I want, I look at folks like this and just shake my head at how hard adulthood must be for them
I had some aches and pains and a headache after the second shot. It was a Saturday so I just relaxed but tbqh, if it had been a teaching day? I'd have gone to work. I might have griped about it, but I'd have been able to work.
I have asthma and I also have "fat," so I assume having had COVID would have been way way way way worse, not to mention the risk of transmitting the disease to other people (it looks promising that vaccinated people mostly DON'T, but I am still masking for now)
there was a news story here that allegedly a guy FINALLY found a PS5 on mail order, and it arrived, only to be porch-pirated.
I dunno, that would doubly hurt: the theft, but also that it's an incredibly hard-to-find thing. (The guy got a refund - I was surprised, I figured any seller would kinda shrug and go "not our problem, man, take it up with your homeowner's insurance")
Hm. Discovered there's a "Discount Grocery" that also apparently sells Amish foods about 35 miles north of me, on a small highway that does not have construction; am contemplating making a morning run up there tomorrow.
I feel like I need to do these things - I call it "rat cage enrichment" - so my brain doesn't just totally shut down from doing the same thing day in and day out
I would shop at more different groceries except we haven't many. Walmart has kind of pushed the smaller places out, or the smaller places that remain are really not that worth going to because they have so little choice
I moved far away from my high school and it's not worth going back. Also, the few people I would care about seeing are the sort who wouldn't go back for a reunion. And most of the faculty I knew and cared about are dead now. Hell of a thing getting old. (This year would be the 34th). I don't think they're planning a Zoom reunion. I am not even sure I'd do that. (I am awf'y sick of Zoom at this point)
No plans this weekend; the bright lights in my state's DOT and the DOT of the state just south of me decided NOW was the time to tear up literally every street and bridge between me and places I might want to be. So here I am with immunity I can't even use because you can't get there from here.
I plan to sleep a lot this weekend; for some reason I have been exhausted this week. I think it's the usual end-of-semester stuff with the added load of realizing I don't even REMEMBER most of 2020 because I was doing nothing worthy of laying down memories of. (The other day I said to someone 'when my dad died last year" and I had to stop and correct myself and say 'no that was in 2019')
It's need-to-have-eventually. But I don't trust my volition to do things between classes (during office hours) or in the afternoon after class any more, and all too often it seems as if some emergency (like the sink thing) come up just as I say "okay now I can sit down and work"
As for the docket, I still can't decide whether to go in to the office tomorrow and get caught up on stuff (I lost all of Tuesday afternoon to a kitchen-sink plumbing issue, Tuesday afternoon is usually my "get stuff done" time because I don't have afternoon classes that day).
But I'm also hecking tired. We're ALL hecking tired here. I had four (of sixteen) students attend (or "attend") one of my classes today. The other ones had better but not perfect attendance (well, the grad student class did). I think the students are just DONE and we need this semester to end. The good news is our uni president is cautiously optimistic we may be able to be more or less fully in-person come fall, and I am here for that.
I may also make my first venture to shop in-person at the local Mart of Wal tomorrow. I don't want to go into Texas for groceries; the route there is snarled up badly with construction and I'd rather avoid that until I can't. And I'm a little tired of the limited selection at the smaller local places. So if I get up and get dressed early enough (before the larger numbers of people are out), I'm goin' in.
it's a huge store. I expect to feel overwhelmed. I have been in a JoAnn Fabrics (the only other large store I've been in) but that is still smaller and it was DIFFERENT.
Might try to finish a quilt top if I don't go into work tomorrow.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “As Mask Mandates Slip, A Preemptive Plea Against Jackassery”
I am taking Amtrak tomorrow; the mask mandate is still in place for Amtrak.
I do not envy the conductors and car attendants in this. I have a roomette, meaning I can take it off when I'm in my room, but will def. comply with the request to wear one in public areas of the train.
"I don't envy the conductors' - that said, they do have a pretty big stick, they are allowed to put people who refuse to mask off at the next station stop.
But I'm glad I have a roomette so I won't have to deal with any potential anti-mask complainers.
Someday I gotta get up to your museum :)
On “Real America Is As It Is Made”
Nice piece. I live in the Southern Great Plains and some of what you said resonates for here; there are parts of my own state where I know you buy gas/use a restroom when one presents itself whether you need it or not, 'cos it might be a couple hours before you get the chance again. It took considerable adjustment moving here from the Great Lakes region where generally towns are self-contained and even a smallish town will have much of what you need - here, an hour's round trip for an unremarkable restaurant meal does not seem odd; where I used to live, you'd only drive that far for a very special reason.
I admit I'm still not fully adapted to this place, 20 years on; there are still spots I'm not comfortable walking into (first as a young woman, when I moved down here, now as a middle-aged woman). I still feel like an outsider a lot of the time...
On “As Mask Mandates Slip, A Preemptive Plea Against Jackassery”
yeah, in some arms of academia we've been talking about "is there some way we could have a virtual option on conferences/conference presentations forever?" For some people, it actually worked as an accommodation: I know some people with chronic illnesses or disability for whom travel is difficult, and others who are caretakers for small children or aged parents who find traveling hard. (Also people like me who have essentially zero travel budget provided and have to do most of their conference stuff either off grants, or out of our own pocket).
That said? In person conferences are much better if you're on the job market, or looking for new collaborators; it's very, very hard to socialize virtually, even with "Zoom mixers" and the like.
I will say teaching in person with an online option was hard and a lot more work (we received v. little logistical support so all the extra stuff was on us) and I have decided I will ONLY offer online as an official accommodation with a doctor's letter. And I won't "record for later viewing," in my experience, students SAID they'd watch it later but they DID NOT.
"
the "DO SOMETHING" sense is big; early in this we were exhorted to either have the students clean the classroom desks, or WE do it between classes. They even monitored how fast the spray stuff and paper towels were getting used up! We got nastygrams if they weren't getting used up fast enough!
We were also required to make seating charts, insist students sat in the same seat every day, and mark down who was present on any given day - we were the front lines of contact tracing. Once I did have to submit my seating charts when someone tested positive. (Luckily, the other times someone did, they were either already tuning in from home, or it was after the class had finished for the semester).
But there was very much a sense of You Will Do These Things And It Is Your Fault If This Fails, which made me paranoid.....to the point where now campus has dropped the mask mandate, I am going "no wait I think I need to stick with it a bit longer"
The surrounding city, FWIW, was a lot less strict. Groceries had "please wear a mask" signs but on any given day, between 60% and 85% of the people did NOT, even at the height of the pandemic. (I just went at low volume times, masked up, moved fast, and avoided humans like the plague). I hear tell the JoAnn's nearest me (next state over) was limiting capacity to 100 people but since I didn't leave town for like 8 months, I can't verify if that actually happened.
it's.....gonna take me a while to be comfortable being in public again, even if we don't see some horrific resurgence of the pandemic (which I, as a card carrying pessimist, fully expect)
On “Weekend Plans Post: Not Dreaming, Right?”
you're right about the grocery thing! No more will I have to shrug and go "okay, guess I substitute then" because I was out of some thing and it was only 2 days since my last store trip. Once again I can stop off at the small local grocery on the way home from work if I feel like something different from what I have on hand.
I even drove down to Pottsboro last weekend and went to the enormous Brookshires for a better, fancier grocery experience than I can get locally. I think I will be trying to make time to go there for "big" grocery shopping this summer.
I do need to do a bit of cleaning up here, and planning, this weekend - Tuesday I leave to go visit my mom for the first time in nearly a year and a half (it involves an overnight trip on Amtrak, and I didn't feel it was safe until both she and I had been vaccinated, and then I had to wait for the semester to end)
On “Castor Oil”
I'm also guessing less access to fresh fruits/vegetables, and that vegetables were boiled like crazy, so maybe some of the fiber was broken down? And probably less of an insistence on whole grains or beans in the diet, unless you were a "peasant" or a "weird fad-diet person" (Vegetarianism existed but was far, far from mainstream)
Similarly, "old people eat prunes" was a stock joke, the joke being, I guess, "regularity"
Not such a joke any more for me - I am in my 50s and eat a few most days, though it's also partly that they have trace minerals that MAY help stave off osteoporosis....
"
Looked it up, realizing I was conflating it with cod-liver oil (which my mom talked about being given once or twice as a child, apparently it was a holdover from when bad vitamin D deficiency was really common) and, yikes: alleged uses of castor oil as punishment
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Might Not Have Been A Train”
Today I need to do yardwork, I guess (one of three graduations - you picked one, if you were going to any - was this morning. It was different from before, but not as different as I feared)
Tomorrow I *might* go to Sherman; I'm "supposed to" (per my counselor) do more driving out of town, especially over bridges, after I noted some fear about crossing bridges had returned recently (Why? I don't know why. But I always have disliked driving over bridges and recently it's got worse). Part of it is the main bridge I'd take there is undergoing some construction and is much narrower than normal. I don't know whether to go to a park that's down there and walk around, or go shopping, or just go to a larger grocery store than what I had been going to.
I do need to read the last paper (due tonight) for my two advanced biostats students and turn in grades for them; all my other grades are in.
At least this time, the end of the semester feels more "normal" and it feels like I'm marking it in the way I always did - going to graduation and then not too long after, going up to visit family. (I leave for that in about a week and a half)
On “Mini-Throughput: Tumbling Chinese Rocket Edition”
so basically a cow magnet*, but for space?
(*for those unfamiliar: cow magnets)
"
I am old enough to remember Skylab and being worried about it as a kid.
I guess the bigger worry about 'space junk' is if you're an astronaut - lots of stuff floating around out there now. But still, it seems like better planning could prevent even the VERY remote possibility that someone might have their car flattened by a chunk of this thing
On “COVID, PCR and The Wrongness of Alex Berenson”
What I don't understand about guys like this: do they actually believe what they're spouting, that they're some brave truth-teller saying things that people who literally have the job of doing this stuff don't know? Or are they in it for the attention and money and don't care if it puts people at risk?
Like, I have certain expertise in certain areas. I'm a biologist (ecology), but I would not make claims about what PCR can and cannot do - because while I know how PCR works (basically), I recognize I don't know enough of the ins and outs of it all to feel confident making claims and instead defer to the people who actually do this for a living....
On “What’s Left Behind”
This is an evocative piece. I didn't get to visit my grandmothers as often; they lived far away, but I especially remember my maternal grandmother's house - we'd go there (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) for a couple weeks in August to escape the Ohio humidity. I remember her "snake room" (a joking name given to the closet under the stairs - she was deathly afraid of snakes), I remember the "front room" that everyone up there had, but no one used except for after-church or after-funeral visiting (but I was allowed to sit in there and read!). I remember her giving us pocket money to walk down to the Red Owl, which still sold "penny candy."
After she died, things were in turmoil - one aunt who had cared for her was suffering from cancer, the other had taken a bad fall and was suffering the after effects of a brain hemorrhage. My own parents were moving from Ohio to Illinois. We claimed a few things, a few pieces of furniture, and Aunt Chickie told us to take the tv we had given Grandma, but a lot of the things just sat in the house.
which was then rented out. Those things disappeared. The two things I mourn not getting were her "scrap bag" (she used to let me dig in it for fabric for doll clothes and once promised it to me) and some of the old Christmas tree ornaments, but those are gone forever, and you can't go home again.
My own mother, now widowed, has spent her year of isolation clearing things out (mostly old financial records and stuff my dad had from teaching) and I admit it gives me a frisson that some day my brother and I will probably have to clear out HER house.
I try to hang on to that "home is what you carry with you," but sometimes it feels like....well, I would like a place to GO, that when I go there, they have to take me in (another definition of home that I've read). It's hard being down here all alone with no connections.
On “Life, Legacy, and Divine Intervention”
I hope and pray, that if I ever wind up in a situation like the driver of that car, that there's someone like you to stop, check on me, and talk to me while I wait for official help.
On “Wednesday Writs: Compost, Human and Otherwise Edition”
the distaste for cremation with me, I get that it's totally an emotional response. I lost a loved one to the after-effects of a fire, and so I admit I have a horror of the idea.
even though I'd be dead. I realize it's illogical. But I've thought on occasion if I were fixin' to die, and I knew it, I'd try to crawl out to a really remote natural area and just lie down and hope I wasn't found.
Embalming, it's all the chemicals and the concrete and everything, it seems very wasteful. I have no children, people will forget I existed three months after I'm gone, I don't need some monument to me sticking out of the ground somewhere.
On “Fearing Immunization Gap, West Virginia Tries Incentivizing Covid Vaccinations”
Hard to say for sure; I only have contact with biology/Fisheries and Wildlife majors, who have a better understanding than average of both how immunity and disease work, and the mechanics of the mRNA shot. I had several students, in fact, openly express eagerness to get the vaccine - one said he wanted to hug his grandma again, which I admit, I had to take a deep breath so I didn't tear up over it.
I also gave people excused absences if their vaccine appointment coincided with my class, I think most other people did too. I know I saw a number of students on the afternoon of the clinic wearing their "I got vaccinated" stickers.
On “Wednesday Writs: Compost, Human and Otherwise Edition”
WW4: link is to the Schneiderman story.
Anyway, if I keel over in Oklahoma (from sesame allergy or other), please drag my mortal remains into Colorado; I have a horror of both embalment and cremation so being able to be composted seems more ideal. (There was a company that wanted to put in a 'natural burials" place near here but of course people rejected it)
On “Fearing Immunization Gap, West Virginia Tries Incentivizing Covid Vaccinations”
Here in OK, I got my vaccine before I would have been eligible (based on age), 'cos folks from Tulsa in the over 65 group grabbed up local vaccine appointments, then couldn't make it because of an ice storm north of us. My uni president somehow pulled some strings and about 50 faculty and staff were able to get vaccine appointments early as a result - I was fully vaccinated by early March.
they are currently doing on-campus vaccine clinics for students, any staff/faculty who haven't had it yet, and opened it to alumni in the area and any retired folks. Being vaccinated is not going to be a condition of employment or attendance but the president is *really* pushing for as close to 100% vaccinated by fall as he can, and frankly, that would make life on campus so much better and easier, I think, if we were.
We are the largest city in this part of the state but only like the 10th largest in the entire state. And I know our county health department really went over and above to try to get all the local seniors vaccinated; there were rides to vaccine sites for anyone who needed one.
Still, for rural areas - we need mobile clinics or some such. I think one of the tribal nations has got a couple they have kitted out and are sending to tiny towns to try to vaccinate people
On “Grand & Glorious Uppers”
Someone was commenting elsewhere about "why do old people look younger now than they do when we were kids?" (thinking of the fact that many of our parents are now the age our grandparents were at when we were kids, yet they look younger) and I said one reason was "better dental care."
I mean, I suspect the fact that dying ones hair has become more common (my mother, though, does not dye hers, and she looks younger in her early 80s than her mother did in HER early 80s). Perhaps better health care in general?
But yeah: improved dental care (especially in terms of dental work being faster and less painful) is probably one of the unsung advances of the late 20th-early 21st century. Also more of us may be able to afford that care thanks to dental insurance plans - I had a tooth crowned that I probably would have just had pulled if I didn't have dental coverage.
On “Disney Must Scratch My Itch Or Else, He Huffed At The Keyboard”
Wow, some folks just think they're special. Disney doesn't give a Mickey's ass about the guy; there are literal millions of people willing to pay the high entry fees and not complain about how the thing doesn't conform *exactly* to what they wanted.
You see this in a lot of fandoms; people getting all frothy when "their" tv show "ships" the pair of characters that they did not want "shipped" or when some character grows and changes in a way counter to what that particular fan envisioned.
I dunno, as someone who was taught early on by my parents that (a) my feelings were not special and privileged over others and (b) I won't always (or even usually) get what I want, I look at folks like this and just shake my head at how hard adulthood must be for them
On “Weekend Plans Post: Post-Vaccination Normalcy?”
I had some aches and pains and a headache after the second shot. It was a Saturday so I just relaxed but tbqh, if it had been a teaching day? I'd have gone to work. I might have griped about it, but I'd have been able to work.
I have asthma and I also have "fat," so I assume having had COVID would have been way way way way worse, not to mention the risk of transmitting the disease to other people (it looks promising that vaccinated people mostly DON'T, but I am still masking for now)
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Still Looking for a PS5”
there was a news story here that allegedly a guy FINALLY found a PS5 on mail order, and it arrived, only to be porch-pirated.
I dunno, that would doubly hurt: the theft, but also that it's an incredibly hard-to-find thing. (The guy got a refund - I was surprised, I figured any seller would kinda shrug and go "not our problem, man, take it up with your homeowner's insurance")
On “Weekend Plans Post: The High School Reunion (Invite Version)”
Hm. Discovered there's a "Discount Grocery" that also apparently sells Amish foods about 35 miles north of me, on a small highway that does not have construction; am contemplating making a morning run up there tomorrow.
I feel like I need to do these things - I call it "rat cage enrichment" - so my brain doesn't just totally shut down from doing the same thing day in and day out
I would shop at more different groceries except we haven't many. Walmart has kind of pushed the smaller places out, or the smaller places that remain are really not that worth going to because they have so little choice
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I moved far away from my high school and it's not worth going back. Also, the few people I would care about seeing are the sort who wouldn't go back for a reunion. And most of the faculty I knew and cared about are dead now. Hell of a thing getting old. (This year would be the 34th). I don't think they're planning a Zoom reunion. I am not even sure I'd do that. (I am awf'y sick of Zoom at this point)
No plans this weekend; the bright lights in my state's DOT and the DOT of the state just south of me decided NOW was the time to tear up literally every street and bridge between me and places I might want to be. So here I am with immunity I can't even use because you can't get there from here.
I plan to sleep a lot this weekend; for some reason I have been exhausted this week. I think it's the usual end-of-semester stuff with the added load of realizing I don't even REMEMBER most of 2020 because I was doing nothing worthy of laying down memories of. (The other day I said to someone 'when my dad died last year" and I had to stop and correct myself and say 'no that was in 2019')
On “Weekend Plans Post: Champing at the Bit”
It's need-to-have-eventually. But I don't trust my volition to do things between classes (during office hours) or in the afternoon after class any more, and all too often it seems as if some emergency (like the sink thing) come up just as I say "okay now I can sit down and work"
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As for the docket, I still can't decide whether to go in to the office tomorrow and get caught up on stuff (I lost all of Tuesday afternoon to a kitchen-sink plumbing issue, Tuesday afternoon is usually my "get stuff done" time because I don't have afternoon classes that day).
But I'm also hecking tired. We're ALL hecking tired here. I had four (of sixteen) students attend (or "attend") one of my classes today. The other ones had better but not perfect attendance (well, the grad student class did). I think the students are just DONE and we need this semester to end. The good news is our uni president is cautiously optimistic we may be able to be more or less fully in-person come fall, and I am here for that.
I may also make my first venture to shop in-person at the local Mart of Wal tomorrow. I don't want to go into Texas for groceries; the route there is snarled up badly with construction and I'd rather avoid that until I can't. And I'm a little tired of the limited selection at the smaller local places. So if I get up and get dressed early enough (before the larger numbers of people are out), I'm goin' in.
it's a huge store. I expect to feel overwhelmed. I have been in a JoAnn Fabrics (the only other large store I've been in) but that is still smaller and it was DIFFERENT.
Might try to finish a quilt top if I don't go into work tomorrow.
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