The Beginning of a New Season

Above is the completed new patio with the teak gazebo (turned into an arbor) donated by our neighbors.  This was taken before the solar lights and the flower pots I need to add.

I have been taping the Convention via Cable.  I do not need to see all the ads and PBS seems to have too much talking before the speeches.  Therefore, I tape and watch at breakfast the next day.  I can fast forward through lots of advertisements which really shows how much money CNN (and other networks) make on this!

I know that it is all ritual and programming and well-crafted timing and allotment of time to those who have paid their dues.  But it is the way of politics. Trading and bartering and the Dems are the big-party umbrella of varied people who have lots of issues they want to be addressed.  I just hope that the far left can be patient with the changes they are demanding and have willingness to compromise.

I will probably not watch the GOP convention as I have seen the guest line-up and most of those people are either from the upper-middle class and have no history of serving their country or helping their countrymen.  They are mostly scandal headliners who got in the news for their extreme behavior or behavior not normal for an average citizen.  It will be a convention of hate and not vision or hope.  

This afternoon since the weather has cooled we will go out for a canoe paddle in an area that we have not visited via water.  I hope to get some later afternoon photos of wildlife or scenery and I hope you will enjoy my sharing on my other blog.  Hubby probably hopes to catch fish.  We have not gone out much because the parks and boat ramps have been closed due to the virus and the weather has been too hot and humid to sit in a slow-moving canoe.

Restrictions on life are not going to change anytime soon.  Colleges are now realizing that Americans are neither sheep nor passive when it comes to restricting their social behavior.  We are a spoiled lot.  It has been drilled into us about our rights and science has become so politicized that common data and facts no longer penetrate the beer fogged brains of the young.  They are also angry that their youth will be restricted.  They are shortly facing adulthood and feel it is their right to party these few years they have.  Besides they will not be the ones with inflamed organs or facing death.  Have you ever met a twenty-something who felt death was possible?

I have tried to get back into an exercise program and that process has been fraught with both success and failure.  For instance, I am VERY good a finding excuses to postpone the effort!  I do feel better (if sorer) after my exercise, but I still do not like it.

Currently reading the book "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable" by the NFL player, Michael Bennett.  It is rambling but reasonably well written so must have undergone some editing.  He confirms everything I have felt about both the NCAA and the NFL.  I am speed reading it since I am not a football fan and have not been for decades, but I want to know how he sees societal change and what he wants to do.

Well, my coffee is now cold.  So going to get out of pajamas and into canoe clothes.  Hope you set aside some time today to enjoy...just enjoy.

Are You Getting Enough Water?

The world goes around. The seasons change. I am fully aware this will continue even when I die and after I die.  There is nothing special about a human that stops the movement of the universe.  

My days are filled with less in the way of successes or progress or something to be proud of.  I cook and then I eat what I cook.  Pandemic or not, old white ladies must have our food.  I admit that I am eating far more vegetables because I refuse to throw out good food.  People are starving, you know!

Beets and fennel for roasting.

If you think you have the worst of it these days please watch this 12-minute PBS report on a desperate journey following people who REALLY have the worst of it this year.  I guarantee you will be very thankful.

I have completed my request for an absentee ballot.  Hubby is driving it up to the election office to drop off since we can no longer depend on secure and speedy mail delivery.  He will park outside the election office and phone from his car and they will come out to pick up the request.  We can vote fairly early and there are election boxes to put your ballot into.  We have quite a few spread across our county.

One of the counties to the north of us just shut down all their testing sites due to questions on the protocol they were using.  Everyone who was tested in the last two weeks must now get tested again! 

I have put in a request to see a specialist for my ongoing cough/allergy issue.  It has not gotten worse but has not gotten better.  I don't know if I can meet directly.

A TV doctor did say today that a child getting a serious Covid illness or dying from Covid is pretty rare, like getting struck by lightning or hit by a car.  He did not mention that the child would be standing out in the middle of a thunderstorm or in the middle of the street to actually validate this comparison to going to an enclosed classroom every day.

Well, I must go and fold the clean sheets.  I love having clean sheets on the bed!  I am so thankful that I can do that, and the water flow to my washer is phenomenal, thank you very much!

Boxes

I was trying to create a mental image of what is happening in my little world.  The Corona pandemic has put us in boxes. Some are big boxes and some are tiny boxes.  The boxes I leap into have high walls even if they are larger than the box I just left.  No matter how high I leap to bravely land in the next box, I cannot see the horizon or even check out the box thoroughly before I land like the timid house mouse I have become.  I will not be able to see the horizon for a year or more.

Hubby and I ate out TWICE this week.  The first venue was a card table on a patio of the restaurant at least ten feet from any other table.  The second venue was a picnic table on the lawn of the restaurant also far from other tables and with canvas on the side to prevent those on either side from sending their breath our way.  Disposable menus, masked staff, and one-way doors in and out were the rule.  I felt reasonably safe.  I have reached the time in my life where I feel this venture is a bit necessary or I will accept being a hermit permanently.  We used alcohol gel on hands before touching utensils and glasses and then washed when we got home and tried not to touch our faces.  I did eat the french fries with a fork and then used my fingers toward the end.

I live in Trump country and most of the people I encounter think this is all too much carefulness (nonsense), which means I have to be even MORE careful.  I will NEVER understand how science became the enemy.

My daughter and her family drove down to the Carolinas to spend a week with friends and a week in a rental house on the beach last week.  She left the dog for us to watch.  Below nice and clean after I gave him a bath in the sink.

When daughter and family return on Sunday to get the dog I will be cautious about making the visit short and not inviting them inside for refreshment.  If they are OK in 14 days, I may drive up for a visit....maybe.  My daughter said she felt safer in a house that they rented...not sharing an elevator, not sharing a hallway, not needing a restaurant or sharing a swimming pool with anyone but the family they are close to.  She was in a much larger box for 10 days that I have encountered...but still a box!

Regarding Isaias., my daughter's vacation was denied only one day due to rain.  They were able to pool swim and beach walk and it has certainly been a wonderful trip for them.  Here in our area, we also had no trees down and missed the three tornadoes that were just miles away!  No flooding, but one leak in the roof above the upstairs bathroom!  Now not sure if that was wind-driven and not a problem or if we need to inspect the roof.

As an update from my last post, my friend from Scotland who IM's me weekly through FB revealed that he is indeed a "trans."  I thought our messages had been somewhat odd and while I playfully teased him about wearing red spangles, I am so glad I did not mess up and embarrass him or me by saying something stupid!  I asked a mutual friend and she told me he came out a little over a year ago.  I am sure he is terrified of his decision...especially in conservative Glasgow!  I then immediately Googled information on this, because I have not a clue how not to say something unknowingly mean or non-constructive.  I feel painfully for him as he is in his 40s and alone.  So hoping he lives a good and full life.

Planning on staying in the "home" box in the coming week, although I may go out food shopping.  I can order it in, but sometimes my list misses stuff as I start to cook---like my cornmeal.  Where in the heck did that go?

Hope all of my readers are finding their boxes well-cushioned and full of views of green grass and views of summer and a tiny window in the cardboard to see the future.