Still fine. The news here is that the Governor announced measures to gradually reopen things. My office manager contacted me about whether I could drive to work if the office reopened, so I may be going back to the office sooner than I expected.
We saw garlic for sale in our online order at 1 cent per. So of course we ordered eight bulbs (we thought). And are now in the process of peeling/freezing/et cetera eight pounds of garlic.
Mandatory mask wearing announced for our city starting tomorrow. Everyone over age of 5 (neighboring city is age 2+). $300 fine, one week grace period where they'll give warnings without fine. Great, there have been a lot of joggers at the park not wearing masks, so this is probably useful.
The stupid part is they said it applies not only to public buildings and spaces but also shared areas of any residential building with 2 or more units. So technically the kids all have to wear masks in the yard, I have to wear a mask to get stuff from the basement or if I go in the back hall to do laundry (which is technically shared space even though people in the other unit have no reason to ever go there.) Obviously they won't enforce those but they could have thought it through a little better. And anything where the enforcers have discretion to fine vs. warn has the potential for abuse although I think the city is pretty good about keeping an eye on racial stats.
In Maryland it now looks like we have a sustained trend of declining numbers of deaths/day, as opposed to the temporary blips we had before. Also, we now have drive through testing.
3: That's why people can't afford a house. Expensive coffee and garlic.
Kids today would rather have 78 tons of garlic than a down payment.
we can now build a new house out of garlic, if we so choose.
On topic: We haven't upped our onion buying game to account for the greater amount of cooking at home. We keep running out of them before we run out of other staples.
There is something of a worldwide onion shortage due to a heavy monsoon in India and consequent ban on exports.
They're in the store here. I just only bought three.
I planted onions yesterday. We still have a small braid from last year's harvest hanging up in the kitchen, which I'm strangely reluctant to use because they make me feel like an earth mother or domestic goddess or something. Our new house will not have a garden [sniff] but at least I'll get one last lot of vegetables out of this one before we move. Though I think NW will be glad not to have to eat any more homegrown broccoli (at least until I reach the top of the allotment waiting list).
Nobody grows broccoli here. I don't think it's because broccoli tastes horrible because people grow zucchini which tastes even worse.
"Homeschool" while working is getting worse, and now I'm worrying about the terrible and aversive behaviors my kid will bring back to school, if there's ever school to go back to. There are a lot of quizzes and worksheets and little or no actual instruction, not that I know what that would look like at this age anyway.
Liquor delivery enables a surprising number of bad choices.
I had a two-day freakout about some chest tightness but I'm over that (the freakout; my chest still feels weird). Otherwise things roll along here. I might travel to a different part of the state and help a state biologist with some bird counts on an island for two nights, camping. She can't bring me in her boat so I have to bring my own boat, but it looks like it might work. So that will be a fun change of scenery. We have all the food we want, and more, we have good weather. The kids' remote schooling is going OK if you ignore the grades. No, alright, it's going horribly from the perspective of "are they learning the normal curriculum?" But psychologically it seems not any worse for them than their usual lives, so I am telling myself it's OK.
I had a two-day freakout about some chest tightness but I'm over that (the freakout; my chest still feels weird). Otherwise things roll along here. I might travel to a different part of the state and help a state biologist with some bird counts on an island for two nights, camping. She can't bring me in her boat so I have to bring my own boat, but it looks like it might work. So that will be a fun change of scenery. We have all the food we want, and more, we have good weather. The kids' remote schooling is going OK if you ignore the grades. No, alright, it's going horribly from the perspective of "are they learning the normal curriculum?" But psychologically it seems not any worse for them than their usual lives, so I am telling myself it's OK.
Doing fine in central CA. The bay area just extended sheltering through the end of the month, so we're waiting to hear what the state and our city are each going to do. We have a jackass councilperson who will sue the city because it's being uncharacteristically responsible, unlike neighboring cities.
https://gvwire.com/2020/04/27/bredefeld-says-he-will-sue-to-reopen-fresno/
If nothing is done, our current shelter in place expires May 6th. If in fact non-essential businesses are allowed to open in some format next week, we have some significant remerchandizing and rearranging of the store to do... depending on what the exact rules turn out to be. We'd be surprised if the state at least doesn't extend for at least sometime longer, but you have to be ready to jump whichever way the new rules point.
19: Meant to say, The bay area just extended sheltering through the end of next month, the end of May.
We're coming to the end (probably) of a short session of within-house quarantine. My wife (who is can be prone to a bit of hypochondria*) was feeling poorly with some maybe symptoms (and it was 5 days after we did our last big out, shopping). So we have been doing the meals on trays things, Not sure how effective it would be. also we are kind of half-assing it because neither of us think she really has it. And given potential asymptomatic transmission and our closeness during those 5 days I believe we would be most likely to get it if she was infected.
*She herself freely admits that she tends in that direction. Not a great trait to have during something like this especially with all of the different symptoms that have been reported. On the other hand she reports that the decrease in her usual social anxiety has more than compensated and her mood (well other than everything about politics and the world in general) has been pretty good.
I should have waited to drop this in the new check-in thread, but we have 667 new cases here, a definite drop after the last few days seeing us climb towards 1,000.
Russia, one of the world's top wheat shippers, was among the first nations that moved to guard domestic food supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic. The window closed swiftly on the sales abroad that it did allow. A 7 million-ton quota the nation allotted for grain exports through June was filled over the weekend -- well before the quarter's end.
[...]
The world's big wheat importers are in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
Recent weeks have caused me to reconsider my subscription the The Atlantic. Apparently, the class of scientifically illiterate political journalists has decided that the way to signal "seriousness" to each other is to write absurdly overwrought "we're all doomed!" jeremiads, and so they're now all competing to write the most over the top one.
I've started avoiding the magazine because I just can't be bothered to read any more of that junk. Maybe there's some way to customize the main page to filter them out.
Counterpoint: We're probably doomed.
prompted by 24: So, I've been thinking of putting my money towards some new periodicals. Probably going to unsubscribe from the NYT, but I go back and forth on that. Is there any reason, ignoring cost, why subscribing to the FT and the London Review of Books would be a bad idea?
At the beginning of this whole thing, I posted about my worry that our pregnancy would be horribly derailed by what is going on right now. You all were so sweet. Since this thread just popped up, I wanted to let you know that things have not been anywhere close to worst-case scenario on that. We are going to have the baby in the next 1-2 days (so it would appear) and medical care is, if not absolutely normal where we live, close enough. Anyway, we still have a whole labor and delivery experience to go through (!!) so not to count our chickens before they've hatched, but just having a fully prepared and staffed hospital to go to is so much better than the nightmare scenarios I dreamed up that I thought I'd mention it now. Glad it sounds like Unfoggedians are mostly doing fine.
Glad you're doing well. May your wife's labor be easy and safe.
27: Not the worst of all possible worlds in some respects! Good luck!
Don't google how the baby comes out. It's better to not know.
I think the biggest reason witches in the Harry Potter books are more equal to wizards than men are to women in real life is because they can just magic the babies out.
Also the ability to kill with a spell.
27 is great news and I hope for even better updates!
My breathing trouble seems to be responding to antibiotics, which is certainly a good sign and also just plain good because breathing is a plus. Sleeping way more than usual clearly also helped. I didn't want to throw this in the other thread while I still wasn't sure what was happening, but I also had to get an x-ray yesterday for an ankle injury that turned out just to be tissue damage and a mild sprain. Because I'd had a COVID test, I had to do this through the ER rather than regular radiology, which felt strange and alien but worked out pretty much like any other ER visit. I'll get my nasal swab results by Thursday but I fully believe they'll be negative. I'm sheltering at home (making my girlfriend Odile the person who goes out to get groceries etc. when up to now that had been me, which shouldn't be too hard on her since she's currently taking the last of her exams for the semester) but not completely self-quarantining from family even though that's what's recommended from the point of testing. The girls have three more weeks of school and are not doing all their expected (busy)work. I'm very tempted to send "I was just tested and can't help with their schoolwork for the next two weeks" messages to the school but I don't think I will bother.
Ankles suck. People complain about hips and knees, but often forget how stupid ankles are.
Elsewhere, curve slowly flattening, lockdown to be somewhat eased.
37: Yeah, this wasn't the ankle I'd injured horribly before, but I already had a brace on hand that's nicer than the ace bandages from the ER. And after Mara's three breaks, I have lots of gear and get to feel very competent about having ankle supplies. I just don't want to need them, but shouldn't for long this time.
Hopefully, but don't trust them. Mine took close to three years to get better.
Hooray, Brody! Please keep us updated when you're home safe and sound with your baby, and you've caught up on sleep and mastered breastfeeding and the little one is, oh, I don't know, three.
Over a million reported cases in the US now. JFC.
Still doing fine. Stuff started opening back up here yesterday, but a lot of people and businesses are being very cautious and hesitant about it.
Governor Abbot officially made his big play yesterday - lots of businesses are able to open at 25% as of Friday, and if that goes well, it notches up to 50% three weeks later.
Most of my uneasiness comes from:
1. the untenable position of small business who can't sustain themselves at 25% but also can't get whatever loans/unemployment/etc I don't know the details.
2. He explicitly said that his rules override local rules, which is insane if there's a local outbreak.
Philosophically, we haven't had much of a hit in Texas yet, and so it's worth inching open businesses and seeing what can gingerly be started up again. I just don't trust Abbott and Dan Patrick one bit on the details.
How is Texas managing so well? I'm pleasantly surprised. I thought they had significant evidence of community transmission in San Antonio relatively early on, but didn't take anything like California-style containment measures.
his rules override local rules -- is there a reason for this besides right-wing virtue signaling?
Our state hasn't changed the stay at home advisory yet, but my employer extended work at home for those able to June 30. Of course, I could always get redeployed. There have been opportunities to volunteer to give out/ deliver food in heavily affected communities. Dropping off food at the door might be ok. Enforcing social distancing in lines for food seems like it would be harder -- especially since I don't speak Spanish.
24. Agreed-- the good stuff is mostly the smaller articles IMO. Good book reviews of Hilary Mantel and of an Augustine Sedgewick book that's apparently a concise history of 20th century El Salvador. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/michael-pollan-coffee/606805/
I have to admit I have completely lost track of who is who between here and the other place, but in case you aren't on the other place and have been wondering, I'm basically fine, modulo shared existential angst and job hunting. I am a little afraid my brain decay is being sped up somehow (my inability to track all my imaginary friends being one symptom) but I think that's somewhat paranoia.
44: "25%" meaning what? Hours open? People in stores? (Is somebody supposed to be enforcing that?)
45: My theories as to why Texas is faring well is:
- suburban sprawl and lack of public transportation
- significantly more insular for travel purposes than the coasts, and so we started with far fewer seeds than the coasts, when everything shut down. Now, Houston and Dallas certainly have a ton of travel and international travel, so you'd think those airports would be a hotbed. I just don't have any significantly good explanations so I'm groping for "remoteness".
25% occupancy of that set by fire codes, I think.
his rules override local rules -- is there a reason for this besides right-wing virtue signaling?
Nope. And to prevent cities from leveraging fines against failure to wear masks - he said that explicitly. There's a judge in Houston who this is aimed at, IIRC.
16 - broccoli is a pain in the ass to grow. If you don't make sure to thin it out so that each plant has like a square foot, you just get stems and leaves and no actual broccoli. (Ditto cauliflower). Whereas zucchini just grows and grows and spits out zucchinis and you can't stop it until eventually it gets some kind of disease and dies halfway through the summer.
I made some delicious broccolini last night.
One thing I didn't anticipate is that coconut milk would vanish from the grocery store shelves. There's a curried lentil recipe that's been a staple since the lock down, but I can't make it now. I'll have to stock up the next time I see some.
No news here except that my uncle continues to recover and is likely to end up in a relatively low-Covid-risk rehabilitation center when they move him. My employer laid off 7% of the workforce, but my team was spared, so I spent the morning in webinars about the reorg. I am cautiously optimistic that it will make my job seem less pointless.
I don't seem to have a normal range of emotions anymore. There's irritation, giddiness/silliness, anhedonic calm, and full-spectrum cortisol saturation. (Also, I guess, a volatile mix of grief and brick-smashing rage over stories like this, a reaction which kind of scares me and which I consequently try to tamp down. I can't tell if this quotidian slow-boiling anger is more or less acute than the state of sustained fury during the family separations in 2018; probably about the same?)
55. Do I remember right that you're in Baltimore ? Korean markets out on 40? They have a bunch of things the US chains have sold out of or deplete quickly down here.
A quick little tale of two small businesses. I have an LLC, but basically operate as a sole proprietorship. After 3 weeks of drama, I just finally got notice (and a Note) that my PPP was approved. I'll have to be a lot more diligent about accounting for those funds than I usually am, but that's kind of a silver lining anyway. Actually, I don't have the money yet, so there's probably more drama to come.
My friend has an S corp and one employee. He laid off the employee a month ago -- with enhanced unemployment, the employee is making more than he did while working. My friend (unlike me) pays himself a wage, and contributes to UI etc, and so applied for unemployment himself. ("They" told him he couldn't get a PPP without bringing the employee back -- with nothing to do, and for less money -- which would have been pretty risky, since there's a lot of uncertainty about getting PPP money.) Although he pays in to unemployment, apparently because he owns the stock, they won't approve (or apparently even process) his application.. But, they haven't actually said no yet, not formally. Using the federal money, they've now created a separate unemployment program for owners of small businesses, but he can't apply until he gets a denial of his current application. It'll ultimately work out for him, I suppose.
57:
Thanks. But I got rid of my car several years ago to embrace the pedestrian lifestyle, since I can easily walk to work/stores.
Normally, I'd just zipcar, but I have low confidence in any of those vehicles being virus free.
On days when I am overcome with ennui, I think that I, too, have a pedestrian lifestyle.
I find it helps if I get in my car and take a drive.
Trump's uncharacteristically proactive use of the DPA to keep slaughterhouses running despite a bunch of their workers getting sick is maybe a little too on-the-nose.
That's what I worry about killing my mom or other people I know back home. The numbers in Nebraska are really bad.
Hope everything turns out okay there.
62: More like the PRC every day.
The point isn't the food supply. The point is farmers are finding it hard to sell animals which means they'll find it hard to buy corn which means my mom will get less money.
I thought Trump's great trade deal meant that China was going to buy all the corn. No?
That was the beans, I thought. Anyway, both prices are down quite a bit.
Weird immigration weirdness. shiv's supposed to need a new biometrics according to protocol, but received a letter from USCIS this week saying basically "yeah, um, about that, we're not refunding your fee but we're just going to use your old biometrics and advance your petition to the next step." Which should mean a green card shows up in the mail sometime in the next month. Unqualified good news, but... a decade ago they told him that they needed to update biometrics every ten years because "honestly, we don't have a way of keeping all these on file."
What is biometrics? Does it involve hand stretching?
They have you sit on one of those new bidet's that maps the spokes on your butthole.
Shockingly, China is buying neither beans nor corn. I don't understand the mechanism for Hickmom impoverishment. The non-slaughtered cattle have to be fed. Or are there mountains of dead cows feeding the Plains vultures?
I guess all the people who get new fingerprints every ten years will be able to crime easily.
+643 new cases here, a definite downward trend, albeit for only two days.
26. A bit late, but as a former subscriber to the LRB, the problem is that once you're allowed out again you won't have time to read it; or you'll read it and virtually nothing else.
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Several Page names referenced the Fatimid caliphate and the return of their rule; this was something Muammar Gaddafi had promoted during his rule in several speeches. He claimed that a second modern Fatimid caliphate would eliminate the Sunni and Shia divide between Muslims which enemies always exploited.Anyone know if the Gaddafi thing ever got traction?
I think his only cultural export is the female body guard corps.
My COVID test came back negative and I believe it to be true negative. I'm breathing pretty much normally today and can put weight on my ankle. Last night I made margaritas for the first time and they were fantastic (blackberry jalapeño simple syrup was a great idea) and that should be an amusing hobby. I haven't really kept alcohol in the house, getting it one bottle at a time and not mixing anything more complex than a g&t, but with another adult and quarantine I figured I could justify it.
My grandmother, my last living relative from that generation, turned 98 yesterday. The girls haven't met her and presumably never will because it would shake up her routine too much, but it's nice to see her doing well.
I feel like if a new caliphate was in effect, people would have noticed.
There's whole countries most people never noticed.
My COVID test came back negative and I believe it to be true negative.
That's great! And I'm glad to read that you're now breathing more normally.