I'm feeling more anxiety about the reopening than I did about the hunkering down.

"Hunkering" just sounds more reassuring.

Have to make our first Costco shopping trip in 7 weeks next week. We had a large stock of non-perishable things that we've supplemented with delivery or curbside pickup but now we need flour, sugar, bagels, cheeses, canned vegetables, frozen foods. Shopping list currently has 90 items and we'll have to use two carts. Our goal is to get through another ~8 weeks without in-person shopping again. Seriously might spend $1000 on food in one trip- planning on 100lb of flour, 10 dozen eggs, 25lb of rice, a few dozen bagels, and on and on.
Maybe this should go in the overweight thread.

Do eggs even keep that long?

They last at least a month, and we discovered you can crack and freeze them as individual egg-cubes using a mini muffin pan.

It sounds like more work than just keeping chickens.

How do you guys have storage for that much groceries? Is it just taking over the corner of a dining area or something?

||
Who is/was the architect around here? (Real architect, of buildings. Not neb.)
|>

JRoth's one, dunno if anyone else.

Basement, including a chest freezer. We've had that for many years because we used to do a lot of big batch cooking on weekends so we'd have meals ready to heat on weeknights.

And you've got a big family, so the amounts aren't that much in terms of how long it takes to go through it.

We used to have an upright freezer. It was our most moral appliance. My dad would buy half of a cow, already butchered, and freeze it. Eventually we stopped that because we decided there were parts of a cow we'd rather not bother with. They were started to freeze corn, which was a whole big deal.

Yeah, I mean if we spent $1000 for 8 weeks of staples and supplemented with $100 week delivery of vegetables etc. that's not much different from our usual food spend, especially considering that's all meals when normally some would be cafeteria or takeout or restaurants.

Anybody have a RothSignal?

I'll see if I can roust him for you.

And you've got a big family, so the amounts aren't that much in terms of how long it takes to go through it.

Cost is reasonable. Storage, we couldn't duplicate. Mostly because we don't have basement here.

I thought you had like a hectare of space under your stilts.

You could probably build a shed.

Or an acre-foot, I guess.

Fucking barbarians.

Those are good ideas. Is it good for food to be damp and hot?

You tape it up in garbage bags (dry) and let the floodwaters wash over them (cool).

Or just wire in the space and keep catfish.

Do you all like how neatly I turned the ridiculous sprawl of Texas into a "we are so deprived of space!" woe? And you all played along.

And between floods you can have ducks. Catfish can just burrow into the mud and suspend their animation, right? Perfect.

I'm not playing along. I'm mocking you for sinking capital into a floodplain.

So far it hasn't sunk too deep.

Just wait 'til those kids bulk up.

That's why we don't feed them as much as SP does. Texans are generally lean and lack space to spread out.

Texans have a lot of space in theory, but most of what's not built on is given over to cows or cars.

26: She rose more capital out of the floodplain than she sank into it.

Kids these days are definitely below-market return.

My local egg farm now has the fridge outside, and you can drop off cash and take them on the honors system.

Have I mentioned here how China casually exacerbated last summer's catastrophic drought on the lower Mekong for no particular reason and barefacedly lied about it? Now I have.

I know you mentioned the dam before.

Many dams, Mobes. Many dams.

And anyway that link is short, and enlightening. and incidentally spotlights the kind of constructive role US leadership can play when you don't elect fascist imbeciles.

Yep. Also how there will probably be wars fought over water soon.

Probably not there soon, because China is so much stronger.

9 Has JRoth been around recently? I hope he's ok.

He's on the other place often.

If you want to build a cob house, Mossy, Moby's right here.

I do not want to build a cob house.

So I'm really grumpy* and annoyed at myself, despite getting out for a long and very early morning walk with a wonderful friend and getting home and making a nice breakfast I got into bed read twitter for a few hours and slept the rest of the day, only getting up close to 6 pm here. I need to do better with my time.

*Apologies for my tone in that other thread.

VN-PRC, not so likely. VN-Laos/VN-Cambodia, I wouldn't bet against. But I'm mostly talking out of my spillway here.

I do not want to build a cob house.

Monster.

46 Yeah, I get the feeling Mossy has not adequately considered the many advantages afforded by a cob house.

37: Damned needy foreigners! What do you want from us? We're doing our worst! Isn't that good enough for you?

Still ok here in the heart of the heart of it all. Our wise governor has proclaimed that pretty much everything will be reopening in the next few weeks with various restrictions to keep people from getting too close to each other. I have no idea how this will play out.

They are going to partially open things here soon. I think my household will still be home mostly.

Still doing fine. We've gotten some more details on how my office is going to transition people back in. It sounds like some people will start May 15, then another wave June 1. I won't be in either of those waves, so the earliest I would go back is probably mid-June. I'm going to hold off as long as I can.

44 has always been my problem with a lifestyle where I get up early. There's a first rush of feeling virtuous and energized, and then by noon I'm dead.

Not that I get up particularly early, but I get up early relative to when I work. Carefully titrating my caffeine throughout the day has helped. My first cup of coffee is full caf, followed by cups made with an increasing amount of decaf.

Alive and well still. Since the governor has approved curbside pickup for low risk businesses, my wife is getting things ready today for a Monday reopening. It'll be a bit tricky, and most of her peers are reporting only 20% or so of sales while in curbside mode, so it may be a bad place to straddle for long.

My work continues to pick up, but partially exacerbated by the various people that I depend on for scanning, etc. requiring more time, but clients often needing faster turnarounds for a squeeze from both sides. And pick up is still nowhere near enough to bring people back from layoffs yet, unfortunately.

What does her store sell? I've been curious for weeks now.

Non-essential things that can fit in a car.

Still okay. Excused myself from a particularly bad conference call after 1h15 or so. I texted a coworker 25 minutes later and it was still going on, so I guess I had the right idea. On the sidewalk by a neighbor's yard right now, watching Atossa play with his dog. We're definitely losing the social distancing competition.

56: So we know it's not toilet paper, alcohol, or a 747.

You know my methods. Apply them.

56: Possibilities include spatulas, garden gnomes, and Betty White bobble-heads.

Keep going.

61: But Moby, there must be literally dozens of possibilities!

It's probably clothing or propane tanks.

Ordered $200 worth of stuff from an Italian wholesaler, including 1lb of pancetta, 7lb of cheese, and 1 gallon of olive oil (they were out of the 1 liter portion). Excited.

Everyone's healthy here. the State Parks are partly open, and school is officially online-only all year. Surly Teen is a bit less surly, hopeful that the DMV will be open for driving tests by her birthday.

Here's where the preternaturally attentive reader thinks, didn't unimaginative call Surly Teen "he" or "my son" in one of these threads? And hasn't unimaginative been talking about his son in this forum for years, without ever mentioning a daughter? I didn't know he had a daughter.

Unimaginative replies, well, neither did I.

So Surly Teen is happy to be public with her gender dysphoria, or as public as a teen can be while sheltering in place. Her parents are relieved that no one ever gets beat up in the bathroom after an online class. Also relieved that a pandemic is not a practical time to begin new medical relationships. And flummoxed by how often pronouns come up in every day conversation.

Hey, congratulations to ST on her new pronouns! I never know how variable it is place to place, but the kids at my kids' high school were completely live and let live about the trans kids in their class, as far as I ever heard (one MTF like ST, and another AMAB nb kid, both seemed to be doing fine). (Well, the nb kid was a drama magnet, but not in a way that seemed to be due to their gender expression.)

Congratulations to your daughter on coming out! This always makes me kind of teary-eyed. Pronouns are stupid things and habits take time to break, but it'll get there. I'm glad this shitty world is granting her a safe and loving refuge for now. Best wishes to all of you.

Best wishes to ST! I've been looking for good online resources for my feminist theory classes, and it turns out that Kate Bornstein's website is really great if you or she is interested.

66: Similar experience with college students, or at least the ones who take my classes. They don't care. I hope Surly Teen is doing well.

Congrats and well wishes.

65: Congrats to your daughter! And I hope that when it does come around, the driving test isn't too stressful for her or you.

Aw, great parenting!

I feel like there's been a big shift over the past 30 years of kids being kinder to each other, but that this somehow hasn't resulted in happier kids because at the same time late-stage capitalism has increased stress and anxiety among kids through unreasonable expectations around academics and college admission.

Kids are still assholes, but not in ways we can understand.

72: I know what you mean. I feel like parents today are doing a better job, being more thoughtful and careful about how they parent their kids, but economic anxiety and late stage capitalism has eaten up all the slack and just made teenagerdom fraught in entirely new ways.

I was just talking about this with Newt. His friends seem like sort of better citizens than I remember kids being. Nicer to each other, more responsible, less petty crime, less getting wasted. But a lot more of them are depressed and anxious.

75: Well, if they're not coping via substance abuse and petty crime, what would you expect?

Sorry, I keep clicking the box, but I'm not that memorable.

School told me that people who offer me free drugs, but school lied.

So, next week we are moving from "Red" to "Yellow" on the shutdown scale. As near as I can tell, this makes no difference at all to me. Retail is allowed to open more for curbside, I suppose like in 54, but I don't really see myself buying much aside from essentials.

Every time I snoop on my kid's Discord server chat, everyone is being wholesome and kind to each other. I don't get it.

Snowden generation, bro. They know you're snooping.

I was thinking of you when I heard that, Moby. I hope you can stay safe as we start to ease back in. Obviously we're nowhere near that on my side of the state. I'm currently getting ready for my father to move in with us, since his scheduled move in to a retirement facility is on hold.

Thanks. But you take care yourself too. Your end of the state is far more affected and I'm still working from home for quite a while. Hope the move goes well for your father. It's good that you have an option for the interim, because this is probably not a good time to enter a new retirement home.

It's snowing here, but I am totally fine. I actually quite like the snow: it makes the world seem clear and crisp and bracingly cold, it makes the world seem more understandable to me.

I am worried about my son, who is down in NJ, though. For the past two summers, he has worked as a lifeguard. For this summer (pre-pandemic) he was offered a position as a lifeguard-supervisor (still working as a lifeguard, but also supervising more junior lifeguards). Better hours; better pay; and a great opportunity to turn a summer job into a "resume-building opportunity" (totally ugh, I know, total BS, of course, but still I do want my boyo to have these opportunities). This is no longer happening, thanks to COVID-19. I now fear my son will spend his summer holed up inside, playing videos games and doing God knows what on Snapchat...

Can he leverage his CPR training into hospital volunteering or something?

Just back from another early more than two hour walk with my friend. This time around her neighborhood. These walks are going to have to get earlier since when I got back after 7 am it was already 84 degrees out.

65: I do remember comments about your child, unimaginative, and just want to say am glad that your parenting has assisted surly teen to find her path. Perhaps she will now be Serene Teen.

I ride an elevated train N-S on Saturdays. If I sit on the east the sun comes through the window and burns my back. If I sit on the west it reflects off the floor and burns my eyes. If I stand in the shade the AC blows frigidity in my face. In conclusion, all is woe.

I've basically been living with my parents for two months now, since my work went most-staff-remote on March 9 (followed a week later by regional stay at home). We're doing reasonably well here, even got out last weekend and visited some nearly empty outdoor spaces.

I'm about to visit my apartment for the second time since the crisis began. Just a worldwind trip to make sure it's ok, drop off my spare key at my sister's through the mail slot, pick up some more clothing, and come back to my parents'. I've worked out that I can pretty much avoid all contact on the trip. Just need to stop for gas. Unless something's wrong at my apartment, in which case I'd have to stick around and deal with it.

I am so glad to be an ocean and two closed borders from my parents.

Holy shit I just checked and we had another 1,311 new cases here discovered yesterday. We're now past the 20,000 mark.

late stage capitalism

I think you are all being way too optimistic here. I'm inclined to think it's early middle-stage capitalism.

Millenial capitalism.

79/82: Stay safe. While Allegheny County is clearly much better off than SEPA, looking at the numbers and comparing to other places it still seems a bit too early and makes me fear Wolf has decided for a sawtooth wave strategy. And good luck to you Witt, that could be really hard but it's good that you're there to take care of him for now.

Pandemic Leads to Drop in Mass Shootings

95 We're living dril tweet

Just need to stop for gas.

We're now at two months on the same tank of gas. I even ran out this morning for hipster bagels.

When I first came to Pittsburgh, you could not buy a dozen bagels for $20 if the possibility had occurred to you. If somebody was selling bagels and you tried to give them $20 for a dozen of them, they'd assume you were trying to buy a sex act they never heard of and back away.

I'm so glad I didn't take up gardening. I knew it was unproductive, but I didn't know you could hurt your butt so bad you needed to be hospitalized.

I had the best hipster bagels with vegan smoked carrot salmon the last time I was in Pittsburgh.

Yes, same place. But I never tried the vegan salmon.

I figure that somebody could make vegan salmon by catching them after they have spawned and are just going to die regardless. Maybe the flavor is wrong by then?

102: I have actually done this. It tastes bad.

Thanks. You got me before I paid to register the domain "FishWasDeadWhenIFoundIt.com".

As a result of this experience, I developed a whole theory around why dolphins always look so happy and grizzly bears so irritated: dolphins are eating excellent fresh sushi and bears area eating spawned out (or otherwise would have been soon to be, but for their encounter with the bear) salmon. If my main food source was so gross I'd be bummed, too.

I think they mostly just eat the skin/fat layer.

||

NMM to Little Richard.

|>

Thanks, guys. My father and I get along well (although we do push each other's buttons from time to time, probably inevitably) and he's in very good shape for a 76-year-old, so I think the move will be a good thing.

Right now he's living alone in duplex apartment and extremely isolated, aside from weekly visits from his children. So it will be way better for him to be around people 24x7 and he can even putter around and do carpentry projects around my house with my furloughed partner, who has every tool known to humankind.

The thing that's causing stress at the moment is that my partner needed emergency dental work, which of course is NOT a low-contact experience, and now my sisters are worried that if he needs more, it will endanger my dad. We're doing our utmost to make sure his follow-up dental appointment happens 14 days before my dad moves in, but of course you never know what the dentist is going to say. They're not allowed to do any procedures other than emergency-type-stuff now any way.

But overall I try to be mindful that we have a lot better than most folks. I'm still happily employed and fully paid; my partner was paid for the first month of furlough and is now eligible for unemployment; and thanks to the low cost of living in Phila I am in a big old Victorian with plenty of room to add a third household member.

My main problem is that the Misfits Market produce delivery I signed up for has sent so much celery that I actually had a DREAM last night about too much celery in the refrigerator.

We can only use so much celery in this household. Maybe one bunch per month at most. Anything else would just sit in the fridge as a preparation for being compost.

We can only use so much celery in this household. Maybe one bunch per month at most. Anything else would just sit in the fridge as a preparation for being compost.

I don't normally use much celery, but I've been finding it useful as a way to freshen up leftovers.

Leftover chicken + pasta + diced fresh celery is an improvement.

I think we have different relationships to pasta.

I think we have different relationships to pasta.

[leftovers which may be heavy in protein or fat] + starch + diced fresh celery?

You could do that with rice as the starch. I don't know how well it would work with potatoes as the starch. But I've been baking potatoes, storing them in the fridge and then slicing and frying them as a way to start a meal and you could certainly toss in celery just before you take the potatoes out of the pan.

I want meatballs and spaghetti now, but we don't have any pork.

I actually quite like the snow: it makes the world seem clear and crisp and bracingly cold, it makes the world seem more understandable to me.

That's so funny. I know just what you mean, except with heat: it bakes the world in a way that I find very familiar and understandable. Like everything slows to a stop, and everything is permeated by this fact that we must take into account.

I'm not exactly fond of 100° heat anymore, but I used to be when I was 30+ pounds lighter, so I think it must have felt much less unpleasant.

Oh god, this latest Imperfect Foods delivery box gave us so much damn celery.

I have very mixed feelings about Imperfect Foods. I call it Columbia House Records for vegetables.

If you don't make back a postcard, you get celery and a BeeGee's LP.

I just wrote "Return to sender" and sent them back, when I remembered to. The first ten were only a penny!

Also I meant to say to Unimaginative upthread, hooray and good job being a loving parent to ST!

Another 1,130 new cases reported here today. Not good.

Thakn s for all of the support, good wishes, and resource suggestions. Just to be clear, everything is good so far. The school community is supportive; if anything bad happens there it will be from a few outliers. I'm worrying mainly because I'm new at being the father of a daughter.

Unless you have other children, you could go around theatrically saying "Son? I have no son."

One new case today, on 385 tests; two yesterday, all in Gallatin. We're down to 4 active hospitalizations, and there are only 20 active cases altogether, statewide.

Yesterday, I was on an unrelated conference call with someone on the County opening-up task force. The health people want to go slow. The hotel people want to go fast. Compliance with self-quarantining for visitors is said to be low. You hear about people coming to look at real estate in several areas. It sounds like the University wants to do in-person classes in the fall, although I don't think they've made any final decisions.

In sum, we've done well with Wave 1, but maybe we'll end up getting whacked in Wave 2.

In other news, good luck to UI and ST!

122- I have survivor's guilt about how not-awful it's been here so far and feel weird talking about it to friends in NY/WA/DC/etc

In sum, we've done well with Wave 1, but maybe we'll end up getting whacked in Wave 2.

The graph of confirmed cases in our county is interesting. Up through March 22st the total count was single digits. For the next two weeks the average was ~15 new cases per day. For the two weeks after that the average was ~2 cases per day. For the last two weeks it's been ~4 cases per day. So much less than the peak, but a disturbing upwards trend.

115: I know a Persian chicken stew recipe that uses a whole head of celery.

115: Celery Apple soup is good.

I have an ants on a log recipe.

125/6: Those both sound good! Links?

happiness to ui & st!!!

Not that you asked, but I have a recipe also. The only downside is that they are just fucking awful tasting.

Pennsylvania won't let you register for a mail-in ballot online if you are a robot.

The best one I had was at a restaurant. Spruce Eats has a roasted carrot celery apple soup, and they're pretty reliable.

Can he leverage his CPR training into hospital volunteering or something?

I maybe don't want him going in and out of hospitals right now, but yeah, we should be thinking about opportunities to volunteer. Maybe something with kids, in an outdoor setting? Unless everything is shut down for the summer, alas.

128:

I have the recipe as a couple of screenshots. Here are the links:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7ub7xj42dinx76/Screenshot%202020-04-20%2010.19.44.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jp53fudk5xkog7j/Screenshot%202020-04-20%2010.19.52.png?dl=0

(if you can't find dried mint, it still tastes great with just the fresh)

this latest Imperfect Foods delivery box gave us so much damn celery.

There are no doubt some really tasty and ingenious recipes which involve celery as a main ingredient. But I can't help but think that receiving too much damn celery in your delivery box is sort of like having been promised a choice assortment of lovingly- and locally-brewed, artisanal lagers and ales, only to be given a Bud Lite 6-pack ....

Years ago, I worked as a dietary aide at a long-term care home. This nursing home has seen 38 COVID-19 deaths so far, out of a resident population of about 250. That's, what? about 15 percent of the residents of that home?

Celery and Bud Lite are both really just water.

It's a good analogy. Banned, but good.

135.last is really awful.

If you think of a line of people who ought to be experiencing survivors guilt, surely our E is a whole helluva lot closer to the back of the line than the front.

Got my ballot in the mail today. Three choices for President: Biden, Sanders, Warren.

E, I'm not sure where you vote: there are better than a dozen precinct committee races in the county. If yours has one of them, and you're interested in an opinion about the candidates, send me a pm. (That's more contested precinct races than the total over the last decade. Apparently, a bevy of DSA members have decided that joining our group is a good use of their time. Those of us already there are looking forward to having some young folks to help carry tables at the summer picnic. If we have a summer picnic.)

so much damn celery

Is it Columbia House Records because it's hard to hit the window to log in and uncheck the celery? I've ended up as Imperfect Foods liaison for our house, and after a few early screwups I hit my stride except for this psychopathology where I want certain fruits from afar, but once they show up I neurotically avoid them until they shrivel.

Hi, all, I'm a lurker since 2005 (we're all coming out of the woodwork now) and have a couple of suggestions for using celery: 1) put it into the stockpot along with other aromatics and pieces of chicken and 2) use your chicken broth in a braise that starts with sautéing onion, carrot, and celery. I wouldn't be happy with a produce box filled with celery either and maybe you've already thought of, and exhausted, these uses. Where I live and shop at the biocoops in rural France, celery is sometimes rare, so I'm always happy to find it just to use for these purposes and the old roosters sold with their heads and feet attached can't be beat for a rich broth.

Lurkers appearing is maybe the only good thing about this whole global pandemic nonsense. Have a purely conceptual fruit basket!

Seconding 142. Welcome pomianne!

Hello pomianne!

The prepackaged produce boxes we've been getting include a couple of red delicious apples. That's a fucking crime against humanity right there.

Hiya, Pomi!

Is it Columbia House Records because it's hard to hit the window to log in and uncheck the celery?

It's because if you forget to tend to it, you get wave after wave of stuff coming at you, like an invasive species.

With the celery, I think what happened was that I thought a bunch would be nice, and I missed that they thought a different bunch would be nice, and so I got two large bunches and they're actually really woody and lacking flavor.

But throwing them in with a chicken broth is doable!

Welcome, pomianne! And I join the celebration for Surly Teen.

"Non-traditional instruction" ends this coming week and we return iPads and start the summer. I've signed the girls up for a summer program where they'll get the iPads back and be given more academic work but also fun stuff and ways to connect with classmates. I'll be even more halfassed about making sure they get it done but at least it's something.

Mara's violin came this week so I can make her leave mine alone. Selah got glasses and is totally adorable, plus able to see clearly. She had bronchitis back in March when the other girls had eye exams, but luckily hers got rescheduled then for the week when socially distanced regular appointments reopened. I'm starting to maybe have bronchitis symptoms a THIRD time, which is just cruel, but I'm hoping once the weather goes back from cold to hot I'll settle down? I'm taking the medicine I'm supposed to so I can ward off allergies.

Odile is still here and plans to stay through the summer, though she's gone back to her apartment for the night once and so clearly isn't LIVING here. I'm a little annoyed she's still procrastinating on a short paper for school but only because every day working on it is her plan and that keeps us from having better plans. She's a delight otherwise and is keeping the girls happy and making my life so much easier. I'm getting more done around the house. And we've started having snacks after the girls go to bed, so last night I made a rhubarb crumble. It's just so pleasant to feel connected and supported, all of which is pretty new. This week we have to figure out how to celebrate the dog's estimated first birthday, so that should be fun.

Another 1,189 cases reported here today.

That all sounds so lovely, and I'm so happy for you. And happy Mother's day, while we're at it.

150 to 149.

Happy mother's day also.

Hundreds of Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority from Myanmar, are stranded on at least two trawlers between Bangladesh and Malaysia, rights groups say, as Southeast Asian governments tighten borders to keep out the new coronavirus. Another boat, carrying hundreds of Rohingya who were starving and emaciated after weeks at sea, landed in Bangladesh in mid-April. Survivors said several dozen died on board.

Thanks for the welcome, everyone! I'm an American expat and found Unfogged during the Bush years when I was casting about for good political commentary and finding that and so much more here. I never had time to comment before the topic of conversation had already moved on, but, happily, that situation has changed and not just because of the pandemic.

Welcome fellow expat. Can I ask where you are residing, more or less, feel free to be vague.

135: At one of our Soldiers Homes 74 plus of the residents died of COVID out of 250 residents. That is just mind boggling.

We are thinking about takeout for our anniversary. We like a restaurant in Cambridge called forage which is also doing a CSA and selling whole milk and eggs from Rhode Island. They feature a lot of local foraged ingredients - so carrots and nettles with the roasted chicken - som guess is that their supply chain isn't too interrupted. They are also delivering wine and cocktail kits.

A friend of mine lost his dad in the Louisiana veteran's home. Nationally, we don't have enough PPE nor enough testing and as near as I can tell have had no program to catch up on those in a useful way. I don't see how it doesn't get into nearly every nursing home in America if it keeps circulating in the population. The staff go home, to the store, etc.

I just had a quick conversation with my brother and he unwittingly hit on three topics that just make my anxiety bubble up and out of my ears:

1. Their school district is most likely going to have kids homeschool 3 days a week and do staggered start times and all of that.

2. In the evenings, everyone on their street sits outside and lets the kids run up and down the street together. (I'm not judging this - it just hits a point of anxiety where Jammies and I don't know where we stand, and we keep gaming out different scenarios and wringing our hands.)

3. He's on team "everyone's going to get it eventually!" and I don't know if I am or not, but contemplating that also makes me anxious.

Gah.

Our neighbors are have set up the most massive bouncy-castle water slide in their backyard. Like they had to cut down some tree limbs for clearance. It's not yet a party, but it sure seems like one is going to happen this afternoon.

I feel so unable to tell what's acceptably risky and what's not.

I'm very worried about the fall. I haven't mentioned this here yet, but as of last week I'm the faculty chair. I'm getting such vertigo imagining all the decisions that have to get made wisely between now and then. Not that I have to be the sole one to make them, but contemplating the future makes me so agitated, and having to be in on the conversations is stressful.

Exactly. That is why I don't believe that the vulnerable in care homes can be isolated, as the Swedes are trying, or were trying to do. So far it hasn't touched my mother's home. Two people in this rather small town have died of it already, though.

159 to 157

LBJ, you might want to anonymise your pseudonymity

I'm getting such vertigo imagining all the decisions that have to get made wisely between now and then.

Yes. I'm getting slower deciding things the longer I stay home.

I came very close last fall to accepting a 3-year stint as Director of Undergraduate Studies starting this summer... It's hard to even fathom what it would be like to be locked into that now.

Responsibility is for suckers.

158: The isolation is really getting to my kids. And I'm starting to get to the point where if we're opening the rest of the state, and all of my friends have been home since mid-March, I'm not really seeing the problem if we all go for a hike. If middle-aged women can't be expected to refrain from getting their nails done, then why should my 4y bear the burden of this?

If you have good teeth, you can do your own nails.

Just got back from another two hour early morning walk with my friend. And it's almost 7 am here and around 88 degrees out. But I hope we can continue to go on these walks as long as possible.

Hi, Barry, I'm in Normandie and Bretagne and love living here. The only problem is that the Criterion Channel isn't available in my region.

168 That sounds lovely. Except for the Criterion part.

168: it is a great part of the world and I am currently desperately hoping that we'll be able to get over there in August.

Early June is traditional.

Exact day depending on the weather and the tides.

I'm a lurker, de-lurking. And life at home with a six-year-old is about to get a lot better when my grades go in this afternoon.

Note to people plotting to take over Venezuela: There's a reason Eisenhower didn't tweet before landing forces.

Early June is traditional.

Not so.

173 More fruit baskets!

176 thanks!

Delurking, hooray!

Hello again Sand! (I think have commented very occasionally?)

Hiya, Sand! And yes, I think they're an occasional commenter.

I'm an occasional commenter. I just have more occasions.

Yes. I'm an occasional commenter. Maybe I'll take the opportunity to become more frequent. And grades are now in so I can stop trying to convince the small one not to interrupt student conferences with urgent subtraction questions, and go back to worrying about what the future holds.

Plus 1,103 new cases reported here today. New plateau.

55,56: We own a game and toy store; lots of board games, roleplaying games, collectible card games, plus a few miniature wargame lines, plus now Melissa & Doug toys, puzzles, and similar "you like board games and have kids" type activities.

We opened it back in 2010, while we were both out of work; in 2012 I went back into engineering, while she continued working the register and managing the business. Last year we moved to a new location, taking on heaps of construction debt. Just in time for COVID closures 9 months after moving, in the first year of a 5 year commercial lease.

I want a Melissa and Doug dungeon crawl.

That would be really interesting, actually. If you've never seen it, No Thank You Evil is a roleplaying game streamlined for kids, that could probably handle wacky explorations well.