people who are "essential workers" and can't WFH or easily take days off wind up de facto at the back of the queue because they can't stand around HOPING someone in a "priority group" doesn't show.
Most retired people, who would have the freedom to hang around "on standby" would already have been vaxxed, hopefully.
I couldn't do that, I couldn't cancel class on the vague hope I MIGHT get a shot
with an actual appointment? Hell yes, if the only time open is during class time I am cancelling class that day, I don't care, they can dock my pay for that day if they want. I doubt i could even do a "we'll text you and you can come on down if we have extra vaccine" because of planning and paper work in re: cancelling classes
But yeah, the whole thing has been chaos. I am in 'group 3' because I'm a prof (until they change their minds and decide "hey you know you could all teach from home for another year") and at this point the timeline on that is "lol when we maybe get more vaccine" so I am thinking August, if I'm lucky.
At least my 84 year old mom was supposed to get vaccinated today.
I have been dreaming regularly about people who died up to five or six years ago. I don't like it. It opens that grief back up.
I had an old grade-school friend "find" me again to apologize to me for something that happened. I told them I had forgiven them and wrote a fairly long e-mail back. I was thinking maybe the friendship would re-start? But I guess it was just the person wanting to put their conscience at ease by being sure I wasn't still angry with them (It was a pretty big thing, and in some ways it affected the person I am now for the worse) and they were happy to fish back off our of my life when they heard that. Whatever.
(Maybe I really haven't 100% forgiven them, I don't know. As I said, it was a pretty big thing)
I got nothing on my docket again. I don't even remember January and I'm told my lack of memory of the past few months is a side effect of the "rat cage" I live in now lacking enrichment, and that makes sense, but I don't know how to GET the right kind of enrichment and stay safe. Eventually my brain will just become smooth and I won't be bothered by the fact that things are pretty much a giant blur since last March.
And no, watching movies or something doesn't count, that doesn't give the right kind of enrichment.
ThTh8: Congrats. I am greatly relieved to learn my mom (who is in her early 80s) got an appointment time on Friday to get her first dose. It was really hard to score an appointment in Illinois but between her efforts, my efforts, and a neighbor (who has already been vaccinated because of her work) helping out, she got a slot
here's hoping the rest of us don't have to wait that much longer.
I've seen kids in the store whose parents were talking to them, teaching them stuff, whatever, and that was fine. I've also seen parents dinking on their phones and ignoring everything else while their kids ran around and it always made me nervous because....while kidnapping is less common than in the 1980s scare-stories we got fed, it's still possible, or the kid could get hurt some how.
I have friends who did "practice run" restaurant meals - either going to a family casual place, or doing a "fancy" meal at home - and expecting their kids to have "proper restaurant behavior" and when the kids demonstrated they could, then they went to a fancier restaurant. I mean, I would never expect, I don't know, an Olive Garden or somewhere to have kids being absolutely perfect but also I don't expect kids screaming and running around the tables in a sit-down place.
then again, IDK, it's been a year since I've been in a restaurant so *I* may have forgotten how to behave in one.....
True. I remember my mom showing me how to check eggs in the store when I was quite young, and how to pick "good" produce.
I will say I rail as an adult about kids running in the grocery store and being noisy, and "why did both parents have to come to the store and drag the kids along" but maybe the parents were teaching that stuff and I didn't see it? Or maybe they really were just letting the kids run wild.
We also had a big garden, one year she bought a few peanut seeds even though Ohio is ill-suited to their growth because she wanted my brother and me to see how peanuts grow (they have a weird thing - the pods develop underground, after the flowers are done the peanuts develop in the soil). (My mom is a botanist so those kinds of things occurred to her)
also my brother and I had chores growing up: dusting, and vacuuming, and mowing the lawn, and weeding, and doing dishes. We were shown how to do it correctly when young, and then it was just expected we did it correctly. I learned how to make my own bed as a kid and to do laundry.
I also learned fun stuff - I learned to bake before I learned to cook, my mom would let me make chocolate chip cookies (from scratch) and even cakes. And learning to sew and crochet was fun because then I could make my own stuffed animals as a kid. (I also learned how to follow patterns that way)
Yeah, I'm often surprised at people not that much younger than I am who don't know some of the basic stuff. I remember teaching some of the girls I was in the college dorm with (fall1987) how to sort laundry to avoid dying your whites pink and the like. I was surprised people didn't know that.
My parents taught me the stuff you listed, and also how to change a washer in a faucet (not that useful any more given modern faucets), basic toilet repair (handy!), how to change the oil in a car (I'd rather pay someone to do that though). I also learned how to run a sewing machine and how to knit and crochet by my mom, I have made some of my own clothes, but I wouldn't expect most people to know how to do those things.
my brother and sister in law know how to do basic carpentry - she learned growing up and taught him, so they have done stuff like build sheds on their property.
yeah, I was told that was the best way to do a "rapid test" and I really wanted fast results so I could go back to work (sad lol except teaching online from home is worse)
the nurse said she had to "get into the 'mucus pocket' at the back" and I am claiming Mucus Pocket as my new garage band name.
Also, I think the way my doctor did it, she did it to maximize the chances of my insurance paying the biggest share of the test possible; in her "appointment write up" (which she posted in my online records) she used certain keywords like "symptoms consistent with" and "exposed to someone who tested positive" (I was, briefly, a student, but we were both masked and about 18' apart)
that said I wish the "spit on a strip" test that was supposedly based on home pregnancy tests had come to fruition, that would be so easy.
then again, in China they have apparently gone to using ANAL swabs, and....I'll take the one up the nose, thanks.
I may also have got an unusually gentle nurse, I think she realized how scared I was. Then again, 11 months or whatever this is into it, hopefully anyone doing testing has a LOT of experience at it.
I was really scared going in because I get nosebleeds easily, and I have a deviated septum (broke my nose twice in two separate accidents in my teens/20s. Never had the septum corrected because the ENT surgeon I was referred to said "if you're not having breathing problems, don't get the surgery; the recovery from it is miserable and you'll hate me after it for going through all that to see no improvement in function" and I was struck by his honesty and believed him)
It was weird and briefly uncomfortable but I did not get a nosebleed. The nurse said it was rare anyone did. I also told her about the deviated septum and she said unless it was BAD, it shouldn't be a problem (it wasn't).
I mentioned elsewhere that the discomfort level was not as bad as, but similar to, getting a Pap smear, but that's a gender-specific comparison (then again: one of my female friends laughed and said "that's exactly how I described it when I had it done a month ago")
The tl:dr: I am super squeamish and have nose and sinus issues, and it was not that bad, really.,
My docket is getting caught up on a few things I let slide this week. Tuesday afternoon I felt sick, went home early, had chills like WHOA, bundled up and went to bed, got up to use the bathroom, felt dizzy, took my temperature....over 100.
Uh-oh. Coupled with my having had a student (sitting in the back of class and everyone masked) who tested positive for COVID, and having gone out for "big shopping" (masked but still) just under 2 weeks ago, I quietly freaked out. Called in to work, taught Wednesday from home (still not feeling great), got a telehealth visit from my doctor.
She advised me to get a COVID test at the hospital. Now, at this point my temperature had gone back to normal and I had no other COVID symptoms (I was testing my ability to smell like every half hour, either with scented soap or one of my scented candles). I figured it was advisable not to come back to campus until I knew, so Thursday morning I taught from home, and pressed a colleague into service for the lab I could not do.
Went out to the hospital midday. I'll say the test (I had the standard swab-all-the-way-up-the-nose) is not pleasant but I've had far worse medical testing done. If I had to I'd do it again but I'd not want to do it on a weekly basis.
Late in the afternoon (the benefit of going to the HOSPITAL and probably having a hefty insurance co-pay later) I found out: negative.
I probably had either food poisoning, food intolerance reaction, or somehow, a GI virus sneaked past my masking and distancing. (The only symptoms I had were the chills/fever, some abdominal cramping, and SERIOUS hives, which, in retrospect, suggest food intolerance reaction)
Anyway, I am so relieved not to have the 'rona I don't even mind going in to my office on a Saturday
No, though, "the Crash put him out of work" seems more likely. But also - how easy would it be for him to keep being unemployed from her? Eventually the grocery money would run out...
Single person living alone, and especially now, cannot get out to the grocery every day for the freshest stuff. I've used the bottled lemon juice. It's fine. Jarred garlic is FINE. (I more commonly use a good dehydrated powder as I have an iffy stomach and sometimes the fresh stuff upsets me).
Yes, I do splurge on a wedge of parmesan and I have a little grater for it, but the wedge parmesan keeps forever. But I wouldn't fault someone for using the powdered version.
And I can't BUY snob-salt locally. In fact, my current tube of salt was grabbed after a lot of searching and worry back in March when everything was starting to go to Hell, and an older woman at the store pulled me aside and quietly said "honey they have some on the next aisle, I don't know why, but they have it there"
A lot of these folks who would be so prescriptive forget that some of us live in areas where that stuff isn't available - or who can't afford it - or who can't use up the fresh-fresh stuff before it goes bad.
As for beans and cornbread? Love 'em, they used to be a familiar fixture of "simple so it's not too much work for anyone" after-church meals - suspended for now because of COVID. I hope sometime soon to be able to partake of them again. I don't make beans often enough because they are much work, and they make a LOT for just one person. (Yes, I know: freezer, but my object-permanence is so borked these days that the freezer is where food goes to die)
Another favorite: jarred sauerkraut (rinsed to remove a bit of the salt), a sliced up grocery-store smoked sausage, and little potatoes if I can get 'em. Boil the potatoes until just soft, combine everything else, add water (or white wine if you're fancy) and cook until it's all hot through and you're ready to eat it. Probably the German/Polish version of beans, greens, and cornbread, now I think of it.
Laundry here is doing right now. (Towels are in the dryer, cloth masks and other items are in the wash right now).
Mostly my plans this weekend are sleeping. I am BEAT. On top of teaching three classes (one, a graduate level class that is hard tot each) I had to re-record a lot of audio for the labs they videoed me doing (for a VR online lab thing, they got a grant for - would have been more ideal earlier in the pandemic, but whatever). Apparently their microphone had something wrong with it and they didn't catch it right away, so I had to listen to myself on headphones from the "bad" recording and basically repeat what I said for the "good" recording. Mercifully they mostly only had videoed my hands and not my mouth so lip synching was not an issue, that would have been harder for a non professional like me)
I think modern dentistry contributes to people looking younger now, too. I remember how "old" both my grandmothers looked in the 70s and 80s compared to how my mom looks now.
ThTh1: I confess I am not optimistic about "do it for other people!" and people continuing to mask or vaccine-skeptics going to get vaccinated. I've seen "masking" behavior in my town. So I despair of ever actually getting out of the new abnormal.
I wish I could be more optimistic but this pandemic has taught me too many horrible things about my fellow humans.
I fully expect "Oh you can't tell me to put a mask on in here! I've been vaccinated!" (whether the person has or not) to be the new "I HAVE A DISABILITY AND I CAN'T MASK AND YOU CAN'T ASK ME WHAT IT IS OR I WILL SUE YOU" that we saw in mid 2020.
I know it is perhaps exceptionally petty of me but living in J. E.'s home territory, I was moderately delighted to see no pardon listed. Even more so when apparently he had a limo and a hairdresser waiting for what he thought would be his triumphal return.
Like I said: I know it's petty and unbecoming of me. But after 10 + months of limited human contact, maybe my petty side comes out a little
I am, on the advice of my doctor, making An Excursion! this weekend. I am masking up (probably breaking out the KN95s I bought for lab this semester) and going to the JoAnn Fabrics and the Kroger (and maybe, if I go early enough and it's not busy, the Ulta right next door to the JoAnn's.
I had my regular checkup (I am on a six month schedule because of high blood pressure and allergies and some difficulty initially getting both under control) and it was a televisit, and she asked me - as she said she was asking all her patients - how I was doing emotionally and I kind of laughed and said "good days and bad days" and that I was feeling isolation hard, because I was only doing grocery shopping at the small local grocery and that only once every 10 days, and she was of the opinion that an early-in-the-day, well-masked and distanced trip was safe, and probably necessary for my mental health.
Also there are some things the Kroger sells that my local grocery does not. I laid in a supply back in October when I last got out there, saying to myself, "Well, maybe by the time I run out of these things I'll be vaccinated" but I've learned since NOT to say that (sigh). So it's a stock up and then hunker down trip.
But yeah, I am really feeling what they call "third quarter phenomenon" right now - tired of being alone, tired of only short conversations from 6 or 10 feet away and then with a mask on, tired of the inside of my house and of my office, tired of my hands being chapped from constant washing, just TIRED. And the hell of it is? I don't know if it's really the third quarter or only the first still.
I have already said I refuse to acknowledge getting a year older (52! how did I get here) the end of February if it's not safe for me to go DO anything. And it almost certainly won't. So I am choosing to remain 51 for another year, or, hell, maybe start going backwards....
Oh hey, this is also Zoom knitting meetup this weekend, so I have that on Saturday!
Also might consider baking something, since (a) my blood numbers all came back good from routine bloodwork and (b) the tele-health checkup does not expect me to weigh myself or report a weight. (And anyway: though I am down a little, extreme fasting over the weekend wouldn't really do anything)
I dunno. Classes start Monday so today I'm doing the various bits of housekeeping (mainly fighting with BlackBoard) to get things ready.
I just sent an e-mail reminding one class they DO have lab on Monday (many lab classes just handwave the first week away as "oh things are still in shakedown mode) and I included "Don't forget, masks are still required" on it and now I just feel tired and sad. Oh, less than I'd feel if someone showed up unmasked and tried to play dumb about it, but still.
I didn't finish the pair of Christmas-yarn-themed socks before Christmas, and not even before Epiphany, so maybe I try to finish them this weekend? I don't know. It's going to be cold and raw and while I'm tired of being indoors, I guess "indoors" is my life for a while yet. At least I am in the nebulous queue to get a vaccine, when-and-if there are vaccines available for "wave 3" here. I'm just hoping that the mutant strains don't outrun the vaccines before we can have a few months of traveling and shopping without fear again.
yeah, I hope this is a future option: no $12 "box lunches" of a stale sandwich and an apple where there isn't a nearby restaurant, no paying thousands of dollars out of my own pocket (little travel support at my uni) for accommodations and travel, being able to fit it around classes if classes are in session, no having to navigate an unfamiliar city as a woman traveling alone, no wrestling a poster (if you wind up relegated to a poster session) onto public transport....
Yes I get the loss of in person socializing but some conferences I went to? If you weren't into drinking a lot or weren't a Big Famous Somebody, there wasn't really anyone interested in talking with you
I'm an introvert and I can't wait for the pandemic to recede enough for me to be sprung from my (largely self-imposed) isolation. Right now I mainly miss seeing relatives/friends out of town and just plain old in-person shopping. And I used to go to some plays on campus in the before-times, it was a nice perk of being here.
THAT SAID: academic conferences having a dial in function would be wonderful going forward. People with disabilities who find travel hard, people who are caretakers and also in academic (parents of small kids!), people with heavy teaching schedules (me) and little institutional support so travel costs are on their backs (also me) would benefit from greater ease to "travel" to see and even give talks (I could do it - I taught online all last semester, and if I needed a nicer set up to speak from, our campus' CIDT has a greenroom).
I have also been able to "go" to talks for a society a belong to, where all the meetings are on Thursday nights, at places 2 hours from me - I would normally never go because a four hour's round trip coming back home early Friday morning, and then having an 8 am class is a giant nope. But "going" from my comfy living room with no travel time? Great.
I WANT to go back out when it's safe, but I would also like some of the options we've developed to stay in place - for reasons of ease, inclusivity, and yes, environmental friendliness - not burning all that gas or jetfuel to get somewhere you might not want to go EXCEPT the conference is there.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Living in a Haunted House”
Well, I was hoping for at LEAST one more e-mail back (we are 1000 miles apart) but whatever.
On “Linky Friday: Money For Nothing, and Your Clicks For Free”
people who are "essential workers" and can't WFH or easily take days off wind up de facto at the back of the queue because they can't stand around HOPING someone in a "priority group" doesn't show.
Most retired people, who would have the freedom to hang around "on standby" would already have been vaxxed, hopefully.
I couldn't do that, I couldn't cancel class on the vague hope I MIGHT get a shot
with an actual appointment? Hell yes, if the only time open is during class time I am cancelling class that day, I don't care, they can dock my pay for that day if they want. I doubt i could even do a "we'll text you and you can come on down if we have extra vaccine" because of planning and paper work in re: cancelling classes
But yeah, the whole thing has been chaos. I am in 'group 3' because I'm a prof (until they change their minds and decide "hey you know you could all teach from home for another year") and at this point the timeline on that is "lol when we maybe get more vaccine" so I am thinking August, if I'm lucky.
At least my 84 year old mom was supposed to get vaccinated today.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Living in a Haunted House”
I wonder if it's a side effect of isolation.
I have been dreaming regularly about people who died up to five or six years ago. I don't like it. It opens that grief back up.
I had an old grade-school friend "find" me again to apologize to me for something that happened. I told them I had forgiven them and wrote a fairly long e-mail back. I was thinking maybe the friendship would re-start? But I guess it was just the person wanting to put their conscience at ease by being sure I wasn't still angry with them (It was a pretty big thing, and in some ways it affected the person I am now for the worse) and they were happy to fish back off our of my life when they heard that. Whatever.
(Maybe I really haven't 100% forgiven them, I don't know. As I said, it was a pretty big thing)
I got nothing on my docket again. I don't even remember January and I'm told my lack of memory of the past few months is a side effect of the "rat cage" I live in now lacking enrichment, and that makes sense, but I don't know how to GET the right kind of enrichment and stay safe. Eventually my brain will just become smooth and I won't be bothered by the fact that things are pretty much a giant blur since last March.
And no, watching movies or something doesn't count, that doesn't give the right kind of enrichment.
On “Thursday Throughput: TYC 7037-89-1, or Six Star Edition”
ThTh8: Congrats. I am greatly relieved to learn my mom (who is in her early 80s) got an appointment time on Friday to get her first dose. It was really hard to score an appointment in Illinois but between her efforts, my efforts, and a neighbor (who has already been vaccinated because of her work) helping out, she got a slot
here's hoping the rest of us don't have to wait that much longer.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Lifehacks”
I've seen kids in the store whose parents were talking to them, teaching them stuff, whatever, and that was fine. I've also seen parents dinking on their phones and ignoring everything else while their kids ran around and it always made me nervous because....while kidnapping is less common than in the 1980s scare-stories we got fed, it's still possible, or the kid could get hurt some how.
I have friends who did "practice run" restaurant meals - either going to a family casual place, or doing a "fancy" meal at home - and expecting their kids to have "proper restaurant behavior" and when the kids demonstrated they could, then they went to a fancier restaurant. I mean, I would never expect, I don't know, an Olive Garden or somewhere to have kids being absolutely perfect but also I don't expect kids screaming and running around the tables in a sit-down place.
then again, IDK, it's been a year since I've been in a restaurant so *I* may have forgotten how to behave in one.....
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True. I remember my mom showing me how to check eggs in the store when I was quite young, and how to pick "good" produce.
I will say I rail as an adult about kids running in the grocery store and being noisy, and "why did both parents have to come to the store and drag the kids along" but maybe the parents were teaching that stuff and I didn't see it? Or maybe they really were just letting the kids run wild.
We also had a big garden, one year she bought a few peanut seeds even though Ohio is ill-suited to their growth because she wanted my brother and me to see how peanuts grow (they have a weird thing - the pods develop underground, after the flowers are done the peanuts develop in the soil). (My mom is a botanist so those kinds of things occurred to her)
also my brother and I had chores growing up: dusting, and vacuuming, and mowing the lawn, and weeding, and doing dishes. We were shown how to do it correctly when young, and then it was just expected we did it correctly. I learned how to make my own bed as a kid and to do laundry.
I also learned fun stuff - I learned to bake before I learned to cook, my mom would let me make chocolate chip cookies (from scratch) and even cakes. And learning to sew and crochet was fun because then I could make my own stuffed animals as a kid. (I also learned how to follow patterns that way)
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Yeah, I'm often surprised at people not that much younger than I am who don't know some of the basic stuff. I remember teaching some of the girls I was in the college dorm with (fall1987) how to sort laundry to avoid dying your whites pink and the like. I was surprised people didn't know that.
My parents taught me the stuff you listed, and also how to change a washer in a faucet (not that useful any more given modern faucets), basic toilet repair (handy!), how to change the oil in a car (I'd rather pay someone to do that though). I also learned how to run a sewing machine and how to knit and crochet by my mom, I have made some of my own clothes, but I wouldn't expect most people to know how to do those things.
my brother and sister in law know how to do basic carpentry - she learned growing up and taught him, so they have done stuff like build sheds on their property.
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yeah, I was told that was the best way to do a "rapid test" and I really wanted fast results so I could go back to work (sad lol except teaching online from home is worse)
the nurse said she had to "get into the 'mucus pocket' at the back" and I am claiming Mucus Pocket as my new garage band name.
Also, I think the way my doctor did it, she did it to maximize the chances of my insurance paying the biggest share of the test possible; in her "appointment write up" (which she posted in my online records) she used certain keywords like "symptoms consistent with" and "exposed to someone who tested positive" (I was, briefly, a student, but we were both masked and about 18' apart)
that said I wish the "spit on a strip" test that was supposedly based on home pregnancy tests had come to fruition, that would be so easy.
then again, in China they have apparently gone to using ANAL swabs, and....I'll take the one up the nose, thanks.
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I may also have got an unusually gentle nurse, I think she realized how scared I was. Then again, 11 months or whatever this is into it, hopefully anyone doing testing has a LOT of experience at it.
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I was really scared going in because I get nosebleeds easily, and I have a deviated septum (broke my nose twice in two separate accidents in my teens/20s. Never had the septum corrected because the ENT surgeon I was referred to said "if you're not having breathing problems, don't get the surgery; the recovery from it is miserable and you'll hate me after it for going through all that to see no improvement in function" and I was struck by his honesty and believed him)
It was weird and briefly uncomfortable but I did not get a nosebleed. The nurse said it was rare anyone did. I also told her about the deviated septum and she said unless it was BAD, it shouldn't be a problem (it wasn't).
I mentioned elsewhere that the discomfort level was not as bad as, but similar to, getting a Pap smear, but that's a gender-specific comparison (then again: one of my female friends laughed and said "that's exactly how I described it when I had it done a month ago")
The tl:dr: I am super squeamish and have nose and sinus issues, and it was not that bad, really.,
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My docket is getting caught up on a few things I let slide this week. Tuesday afternoon I felt sick, went home early, had chills like WHOA, bundled up and went to bed, got up to use the bathroom, felt dizzy, took my temperature....over 100.
Uh-oh. Coupled with my having had a student (sitting in the back of class and everyone masked) who tested positive for COVID, and having gone out for "big shopping" (masked but still) just under 2 weeks ago, I quietly freaked out. Called in to work, taught Wednesday from home (still not feeling great), got a telehealth visit from my doctor.
She advised me to get a COVID test at the hospital. Now, at this point my temperature had gone back to normal and I had no other COVID symptoms (I was testing my ability to smell like every half hour, either with scented soap or one of my scented candles). I figured it was advisable not to come back to campus until I knew, so Thursday morning I taught from home, and pressed a colleague into service for the lab I could not do.
Went out to the hospital midday. I'll say the test (I had the standard swab-all-the-way-up-the-nose) is not pleasant but I've had far worse medical testing done. If I had to I'd do it again but I'd not want to do it on a weekly basis.
Late in the afternoon (the benefit of going to the HOSPITAL and probably having a hefty insurance co-pay later) I found out: negative.
I probably had either food poisoning, food intolerance reaction, or somehow, a GI virus sneaked past my masking and distancing. (The only symptoms I had were the chills/fever, some abdominal cramping, and SERIOUS hives, which, in retrospect, suggest food intolerance reaction)
Anyway, I am so relieved not to have the 'rona I don't even mind going in to my office on a Saturday
On “Oh Man! Questions, Questions”
Could also be just a run-of-the-mill "lost his job or got seriously demoted, doesn't want to let on to her" and be not crash-related.
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No, though, "the Crash put him out of work" seems more likely. But also - how easy would it be for him to keep being unemployed from her? Eventually the grocery money would run out...
On “Food, or Eating Your Beans and Cornbread Thankfully Like An Adult”
huh, comment went to moderation, that's a new one on me
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Single person living alone, and especially now, cannot get out to the grocery every day for the freshest stuff. I've used the bottled lemon juice. It's fine. Jarred garlic is FINE. (I more commonly use a good dehydrated powder as I have an iffy stomach and sometimes the fresh stuff upsets me).
Yes, I do splurge on a wedge of parmesan and I have a little grater for it, but the wedge parmesan keeps forever. But I wouldn't fault someone for using the powdered version.
And I can't BUY snob-salt locally. In fact, my current tube of salt was grabbed after a lot of searching and worry back in March when everything was starting to go to Hell, and an older woman at the store pulled me aside and quietly said "honey they have some on the next aisle, I don't know why, but they have it there"
A lot of these folks who would be so prescriptive forget that some of us live in areas where that stuff isn't available - or who can't afford it - or who can't use up the fresh-fresh stuff before it goes bad.
As for beans and cornbread? Love 'em, they used to be a familiar fixture of "simple so it's not too much work for anyone" after-church meals - suspended for now because of COVID. I hope sometime soon to be able to partake of them again. I don't make beans often enough because they are much work, and they make a LOT for just one person. (Yes, I know: freezer, but my object-permanence is so borked these days that the freezer is where food goes to die)
Another favorite: jarred sauerkraut (rinsed to remove a bit of the salt), a sliced up grocery-store smoked sausage, and little potatoes if I can get 'em. Boil the potatoes until just soft, combine everything else, add water (or white wine if you're fancy) and cook until it's all hot through and you're ready to eat it. Probably the German/Polish version of beans, greens, and cornbread, now I think of it.
On “Weekend Plans Post: A Shirt Worth Stealing”
Laundry here is doing right now. (Towels are in the dryer, cloth masks and other items are in the wash right now).
Mostly my plans this weekend are sleeping. I am BEAT. On top of teaching three classes (one, a graduate level class that is hard tot each) I had to re-record a lot of audio for the labs they videoed me doing (for a VR online lab thing, they got a grant for - would have been more ideal earlier in the pandemic, but whatever). Apparently their microphone had something wrong with it and they didn't catch it right away, so I had to listen to myself on headphones from the "bad" recording and basically repeat what I said for the "good" recording. Mercifully they mostly only had videoed my hands and not my mouth so lip synching was not an issue, that would have been harder for a non professional like me)
I am hoping next week is maybe a little less busy
On “The Feast”
I think modern dentistry contributes to people looking younger now, too. I remember how "old" both my grandmothers looked in the 70s and 80s compared to how my mom looks now.
On “Thursday Throughput: Covid Vaccine Army Edition”
ThTh1: I confess I am not optimistic about "do it for other people!" and people continuing to mask or vaccine-skeptics going to get vaccinated. I've seen "masking" behavior in my town. So I despair of ever actually getting out of the new abnormal.
I wish I could be more optimistic but this pandemic has taught me too many horrible things about my fellow humans.
I fully expect "Oh you can't tell me to put a mask on in here! I've been vaccinated!" (whether the person has or not) to be the new "I HAVE A DISABILITY AND I CAN'T MASK AND YOU CAN'T ASK ME WHAT IT IS OR I WILL SUE YOU" that we saw in mid 2020.
On “Pardon Me, Sir”
I know it is perhaps exceptionally petty of me but living in J. E.'s home territory, I was moderately delighted to see no pardon listed. Even more so when apparently he had a limo and a hairdresser waiting for what he thought would be his triumphal return.
Like I said: I know it's petty and unbecoming of me. But after 10 + months of limited human contact, maybe my petty side comes out a little
On “Weekend Plans Post: Hey Rocky, Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out Of My Hat”
I am, on the advice of my doctor, making An Excursion! this weekend. I am masking up (probably breaking out the KN95s I bought for lab this semester) and going to the JoAnn Fabrics and the Kroger (and maybe, if I go early enough and it's not busy, the Ulta right next door to the JoAnn's.
I had my regular checkup (I am on a six month schedule because of high blood pressure and allergies and some difficulty initially getting both under control) and it was a televisit, and she asked me - as she said she was asking all her patients - how I was doing emotionally and I kind of laughed and said "good days and bad days" and that I was feeling isolation hard, because I was only doing grocery shopping at the small local grocery and that only once every 10 days, and she was of the opinion that an early-in-the-day, well-masked and distanced trip was safe, and probably necessary for my mental health.
Also there are some things the Kroger sells that my local grocery does not. I laid in a supply back in October when I last got out there, saying to myself, "Well, maybe by the time I run out of these things I'll be vaccinated" but I've learned since NOT to say that (sigh). So it's a stock up and then hunker down trip.
But yeah, I am really feeling what they call "third quarter phenomenon" right now - tired of being alone, tired of only short conversations from 6 or 10 feet away and then with a mask on, tired of the inside of my house and of my office, tired of my hands being chapped from constant washing, just TIRED. And the hell of it is? I don't know if it's really the third quarter or only the first still.
I have already said I refuse to acknowledge getting a year older (52! how did I get here) the end of February if it's not safe for me to go DO anything. And it almost certainly won't. So I am choosing to remain 51 for another year, or, hell, maybe start going backwards....
On “Rattle-Rattle-Bang-Bang”
Been replaced in modern times with "boom cars," muffler cut-outs, and diesel duallies that are just poorly tuned.
On “Weekend Plans Post: First Weekend after the First Real Week of 2021”
Oh hey, this is also Zoom knitting meetup this weekend, so I have that on Saturday!
Also might consider baking something, since (a) my blood numbers all came back good from routine bloodwork and (b) the tele-health checkup does not expect me to weigh myself or report a weight. (And anyway: though I am down a little, extreme fasting over the weekend wouldn't really do anything)
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I dunno. Classes start Monday so today I'm doing the various bits of housekeeping (mainly fighting with BlackBoard) to get things ready.
I just sent an e-mail reminding one class they DO have lab on Monday (many lab classes just handwave the first week away as "oh things are still in shakedown mode) and I included "Don't forget, masks are still required" on it and now I just feel tired and sad. Oh, less than I'd feel if someone showed up unmasked and tried to play dumb about it, but still.
I didn't finish the pair of Christmas-yarn-themed socks before Christmas, and not even before Epiphany, so maybe I try to finish them this weekend? I don't know. It's going to be cold and raw and while I'm tired of being indoors, I guess "indoors" is my life for a while yet. At least I am in the nebulous queue to get a vaccine, when-and-if there are vaccines available for "wave 3" here. I'm just hoping that the mutant strains don't outrun the vaccines before we can have a few months of traveling and shopping without fear again.
On “Virtual Conferences: Where Do We Go From Here?”
yeah, I hope this is a future option: no $12 "box lunches" of a stale sandwich and an apple where there isn't a nearby restaurant, no paying thousands of dollars out of my own pocket (little travel support at my uni) for accommodations and travel, being able to fit it around classes if classes are in session, no having to navigate an unfamiliar city as a woman traveling alone, no wrestling a poster (if you wind up relegated to a poster session) onto public transport....
Yes I get the loss of in person socializing but some conferences I went to? If you weren't into drinking a lot or weren't a Big Famous Somebody, there wasn't really anyone interested in talking with you
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I'm an introvert and I can't wait for the pandemic to recede enough for me to be sprung from my (largely self-imposed) isolation. Right now I mainly miss seeing relatives/friends out of town and just plain old in-person shopping. And I used to go to some plays on campus in the before-times, it was a nice perk of being here.
THAT SAID: academic conferences having a dial in function would be wonderful going forward. People with disabilities who find travel hard, people who are caretakers and also in academic (parents of small kids!), people with heavy teaching schedules (me) and little institutional support so travel costs are on their backs (also me) would benefit from greater ease to "travel" to see and even give talks (I could do it - I taught online all last semester, and if I needed a nicer set up to speak from, our campus' CIDT has a greenroom).
I have also been able to "go" to talks for a society a belong to, where all the meetings are on Thursday nights, at places 2 hours from me - I would normally never go because a four hour's round trip coming back home early Friday morning, and then having an 8 am class is a giant nope. But "going" from my comfy living room with no travel time? Great.
I WANT to go back out when it's safe, but I would also like some of the options we've developed to stay in place - for reasons of ease, inclusivity, and yes, environmental friendliness - not burning all that gas or jetfuel to get somewhere you might not want to go EXCEPT the conference is there.
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