Half-masked, aka half-a***d

Yes, it's Thursday.  That dreaded day.  It feels a bit different since it's a short, holiday week, but it's still a long drudge till that exciting TGIF!  Rah!

It's been a few days, both because I've been busy and because I've had nothing I thought worthy to say.

But today, I've got one.

What the eff is it with people and wearing a mask, but wearing it under their nose?!?!?

This morning I went to the local bagel shop (which is a good place, quite a local boon), where they went to the whole "wear a mask, no eating inside, stand six feet apart" rules weeks ago.

But this morning at least 3 of the workers had their masks on BENEATH THEIR NOSES!!!

Just in case, I checked, because I thought "maybe they know something I don't."  But here -- wearing it under your nose is "don't #1" !!!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/well/live/coronavirus-face-mask-mistakes.html

So, WTF are you doing, people??!!?!?

This morning wasn't the only phenomenon of this.  I saw it yesterday at Lowe's (I said I'd been busy, right?) -- you have to wear a mask to get in (I suppose that person near the entry door is there to stop you if you don't have a mask), but I guess covering your nose with it isn't really what people think. 

I also saw this at the grocery store earlier this week, and earlier.  Mask, but under your nose.

I know wearing it over your mouth and nose isn't all that comfortable, but what's the point of wearing one at all if you are doing it in a way that makes it less efficacious?

Do they think that covid doesn't come out or in your nose? Really?!?!!?

Or are you just stupid? 

Remember, you're not wearing it for you.  You're wearing it for everyone around you!  You don't know you don't have it -- you can be asymptomatic (did we know this word 10 weeks ago?) many days before feeling sick -- if you ever feel sick.  But you can still pass it on. 

If you've missed this, they wore masks for the Spanish Flu pandemic a hundred years ago.  A hundred years ago.  And millions of them died.

A hundred years later, we should be able to get THIS right!

Wear the damned mask right!!!

That's today's harangue.  Look forward to tomorrow's.

When a Holiday isn't so Memorable

It's Saturday.  ICYMI.

Yes, Saturday. 

Of a holiday weekend.

True story:  my students had an essay due yesterday.  One didn't turn theirs in.  I emailed and asked and she responded "I thought it Thursday..." 

Yeah, really.

Is that better than "my dog ate my homework?"

I think we all can understand, up to a point.

Here we are.   Memorial Day weekend.

We often have gone to a baseball game this weekend.  Nope. Ain't happening.

We almost always go see the big ticket movie coming out for the summer (was it going to be Wonder Woman II?).  Nope. Ain't happening.

So, what do we do?

We have the stuff to cook out.  Just us.  Because many years there's been a cookout with friends over...or we have gone over to their place.  Nope.  Ain't happening.

A lot ain't happening.

The morning news shows showed (repetition intended) all these venues opening up.  Like the beach in Indiana.  With no bathrooms.  Which says "don't say stay long."  OC, they had a woman on saying "why aren't they open, I've got kids...they might have to...you know."  Answer: because you aren't supposed to be there long enough to "you know."  Go home!

It's going to be interesting to see, having flattened the upward curve, if all we're doing sustains the flat, or it bounces up more.  Or maybe a dip, then another spike? 

It's going to be interesting to see.

In the meantime, we all wonder what to do, how to make the time go by (did you see the article interviewing the philosopher of time?  turns out time passing is a mental thing.  Huh).

Good luck with the weekend.  And the holiday.  And making it feel special.

And don't forget why we have the holiday: a lot of soldiers have died for our freedom.  And I don't mean the freedom to not wear a mask.  Let's remember them.

Food wilderness; or how to keep my yeast a beast

It's Thursday.  Got that?

I took a couple days off.   Or, rather, I didn't feel the impulse to write.  It happens.

But I've been thinking A LOT about eating.  From my Twitter timeline, lots of people are thinking about food.

Where to start?  Let's start with dumb ideas.

I saw someone who wanted to make pancakes with 3 ingredients.  Cottage cheese, oatmeal, and egg. 

That is NOT a pancake!

Which leads to this observation: because of worries about food, there's a lot of people whipping up concoctions from what is "in the pantry."  Right.

Did you see the picture from the person who predicted what we'd be eating in Week 30 of Stay At Home?   A tortilla with peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, a pickle, and a raw hot dog.  Aka red neck sushi. 

I guess there's an app where you put in these items in your pantry and they give you a recipe.  (is this what you get when you put in hot dog, pickle, marshmallow fluff, etc?  or cottage cheese, egg, oatmeal?)

None of it seems all that edible.

Then there's this big question: why is everyone baking bread?

Seriously.

You know, you can walk down the aisle in the grocery store and get good bread, cheap?  Right?

Yet here are all these people uploading pictures of loaves of (not particularly appealing) bread.  In odd shapes and colors.

And tweet after tweet about how to find, keep, retain, etc, yeast starter.   This is why we buy it in the store.  😵

Here in town, there's even a taco truck that has opened.  Ironically (or maybe not), it has a hand printed sign that says "carryout only."  On a taco truck.

I have to end there.  We are all lost in a food wilderness. 

Till next time.

Monday...re-opening

It is Monday.  Get over it.

I survived the morning -- it's always a struggle.  You know, motivating yourself to get out of bed, generate momentum to get through the day, then the week. 

It's tougher during this quarantine thing.

Then there's the eternal confusion about what people are thinking.

For instance, New Jersey is opening up their beaches, with all sorts of supposed codicils, next weekend (it's Memorial Day, a traditional go-to-the-beach in the mid-Atlantic weekend). 

So, you think: okay, beach.  Lots of space, lots of room for social distancing.  You don't have to touch anyone.  Fine. 

Then I see a picture from a boardwalk in some small town I've never heard of and it is of a line of people waiting to get their beach passes.  It must be 100 people deep.  No space between them in line.  I don't see a lot of what look like masks.  What the fuck are you people thinking?!?!!?!?  You want to go to the beach so bad you're willing to risk getting this shit1?!?!!?!?!?!?

It's depressing.

Look, 85,000 people in this country of died (and that number is probably low, acc to all kinds of people who think we haven't counted everyone who's died of it) and over a million have had it, or still do.

It ain't nothing.  It ain't a hoax. 

It kills people.  Lots of them.

And if it doesn't kill you, it may ruin your lungs forever. 

But, what the heck, let's line up with a bunch of unmasked strangers for our beach passes.  La-di-da.

I wonder if our ancestors did this with the plague.  You know, "Everyone around has this thing that gives you a fever and kills you, but let's go down and hang out at the pub because I couldn't stand to go a night without me pint."  I wonder.

The thing is, even 100 years ago with the Spanish flu, virology was not as sophisticated as it is today -- they didn't know what they were fighting. 

You think if you told them "you stay home, wear a mask if you have to go out and meet someone, wash your hands a lot, stay six feet away" they would have said "but I need my beach pass" or "I need to party" or "my hair looks bad?"

One wonders.  If they had, I suspect we wouldn't all be here.

And that's today's Monday depression.  Good luck with yours. 

Oh, no!!! It's...it's...

Okay.  It's finally happened.  I awoke this morning, looked at my fitbit (845 on the clock hand version I have chosen) and wondered "why is K on her staff meeting?"  I was sure it was Monday.  I even laid in bed and thought about checking online on my new students -- because it was Monday.

It's Sunday!!! 

It is really Sunday.

It's stunning that 9+ weeks ago we all thought Sundays were good things. 

But that's a lot less so when everyday seems like a Sunday.  When the line between work day and every day is so blurred you can't tell the difference, Sundays lose their charm and potency.

It's Sunday.

They ran at Churchill Downs yesterday.  The star of the show, Monomoy Girl, did what stars do to become stars -- made everyone else look pedestrian.  Bottled up along the back stretch, her jockey (Florent Geroux) swung her out to three wide an she acceclerated like she had a gear the others don't (which she clearly did) and zipped pat them all to a 6-length win.  After months of little stardom in racing (okay, the Arkansas Derbies two weeks ago), it was good to see what looked like sports stardom perform.

Our big news here yesterday was this:

It's been since March since we've seen this in the stores.  Yesterday my daughter snared a package. Woo woo.

I just heard, and saw the graphic, that 48 states were doing some kind of reopening in the coming days.  It's not clear what "reopening" means -- here it means no hair salons, tattoo parlors, restricted restaurants, and quite a few businesses not really open.  Reopened is stretching the defintion.

We are all trying to find a way to get through this.  Not just the zoom world we now live in, but the strange mixture of masks, distancing, half available tables, and lines, six feet apart, in stores, restaurants, and places of entertainment.

But it's Sunday!  We don't have to worry so much about that today.  It's a(nother) day of rest!

Enjoy.

TGIF -- and THIS Friday

Yes, it's Friday.  This is the end of my 9th week in quarantine.

But this is going to qualify as a good Friday (no religious connotations) -- there is actually a small menu of juicy live sports coming on this weekend.

There's been horse racing all 9 weeks, although the big races, the Triple Crown races, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes have all been postponed, with the Derby rescheduled for Labor Day Saturday.  The other two aren't.

Anyway, they have run on in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska (did you know they raced those places), and Florida, through it all.  You can ponder why those places, but I think you know why.

As of today, Santa Anita in California is open and running.  Tomorrow Churchill Downs is open and its races will be running on FS1 all afternoon.

It's something.

Let me just say this: it will be better next weekend, as Churchill Downs hosts the Matt Winn on Saturday, a race for three=year-olds that will now be a Derby prep, giving points toward Derby qualification.  That counts as juice.

On Sunday, we have golf.  Four golfers, who may or may not be household names, Dustin Johnson (former US Open champ) pairs with multiple major championship winner Rory McElroy against Ricky Fowler and Matt Wolff with two F's.  From one of the best courses in Florida, Seminole.  It's big news (ar ar) they aren't using caddies, but carrying their own bags.  Twitter wonders if it'll be the 50-pound burdens they make their caddies lug every day as pros, or something smaller.

No matter what, it's live sports.  On NBC, a major network.  Something to watch and not be too bored. Though it is golf.

It's a light at the end of the tunnel.  It's 9 weeks.  Finally, something is happening. 

Have a good day.  And hopefully a good weekend.

The Vast Wasteland of Quarantine

It's Thursday.  Gawd, I've always hated Thursdays.  It's a terrible day of the work week.

Not better now with the big Q.  This is ending week 9.  This blog is rather like the wall of the prison cell, like the Count of Monte Cristo, scraping another notch each day to make sure we remember the passing of the days.

It's Thursday.

ICYMI, the Cal State system announced Tuesday that they are going to almost all online in the fall, already.  I'm not sure why they decided it was time to pull that trigger, but they have.  Others have said they are close -- including noises out of Harvard.  We'll leave THAT to another day.

But the PA state system has already been on all online through the summer, which means at some campus till mid-August.  The Chancellor has said publicly they are wondering about online in the fall.

Without face-to-face (F2F) in the fall, I'm not sure when I'll "go out" again (this is except for trips to pick up food and/or groceries/prescriptions). 

I feel for my car's loneliness.  I haven't filled up with gas in forever, though I've seen the local quick mart's prices fluctuate slowly down to $1.72, now back up to $1.97 (from a high the first week of $2.49).  I'd fill my tank but it's still full. :)

Anyway, the title. 

There's nothing to really look forward to.  If you haven't read the blogs before this one, you won't know (and those who have can skip this) that all summer vacations plans, long made, are now off.

There's no work in the fall F2F -- I can start to think about revising my online shells. Woo woo.  Talk about juice.

I'm trying to find something to look forward to.

The Kentucky Derby is scheduled for Labor Day weekend.  This might be the thing.  Because it's not clear baseball will be back.  Or I guess come June I'll watch A LOT of golf, since they are planning on being back.  I don't imagine they'll wear masks, either.  LOL.

It's tough folks.  And I'm a lucky one -- I have a job that is secure, so does my partner, and therefore I have computer, multiple streaming services on the TV (my latest thumbs up is Upload on Amazon Prime -- it's both funny and rather touching), plenty of money, and multiple people in the house who can cook -- unlike the Tweet I saw this week of "quarantine in a few weeks" with a picture of a tortilla laid out with a pickle, hot dog, with a smear of marshmellow fluff and peanut butter in the middle. 

I don't have to worry about that.

But it's not a pretty landscape out there looking forward. 

Till tomorrow, which is yahoo! TGIF.  ICYMI. :)

Delayed gratitude, airline style

It's Wednesday.  Or, as Winnie the Pooh so famously says, Winds-day.  Actually, THAT is not too bad today.

But it's a happy non-Pooh day because I got through to Orbitz and I am getting a refund for my tickets to London for next month. 

Someday.

That's where the title comes from (sort of).

Actually, the title comes from a malapropism of my mother's from some years ago when my son wanted his Christmas presents early: "he needs to learn delayed gratitude" she stated.  I don't think he ever quite has.  Have any of us?

But a combination of Orbitz and British Airways is trying to teach me, in my 7th decade, some. 😡

I'll start here: we were going to London, then Glasgow, to see a Cardinals-Cubs baseball game (because who doesn't go to London for that, right?) and then a European Cup first-round soccer game.

The European Cup was postponed (till next year) first.  Weeks ago.

Then, several weeks ago, the baseball game.

There was no reason to go to London.

And British Air kind of knew that: I lost count of how many alerts I got from Orbitz saying the time or place of the flight was changed.  Again, and again. 

Hey!  ICYMI there is a travel ban from here to Europe.  Hello!

But they insisted on acting like they were flying us to London on June 11th.  Even if we had to stop 3 times on the way to do it. 😡

But now they have relented.

However, let's talk money.

When do I get my refund?  "It might take up to 8 weeks for it to show up on your credit card..."

EIGHT WEEKS!!!

Eight effin' weeks!!!

What can you say or do? 

Fortunately, we're not going anywhere anytime soon, but that money, which isn't insignificant for 3 tickets to London, could be used for something else.  Like retail therapy. 

Delayed gratitude.

My gratitude ain't coming anytime soon.

But it's Hump Day.  We're gonna make it through this one, right? 

Right? 

Till tomorrow. 

With gratitude,

Monday blahs -- a day later

It's Tuesday.  I've said one point of this blog is to remind us of the days.  Tuesday.

Funniest story oWilf yesterday (and many days, probably): we are sitting before the TV last evening, just having a chat, and my wife said that her colleague had told them all that they had postponed their canoeing trip from this past weekend to next weekend due to weather.  "At our meeting yesterday morning..."

Of course, yesterday morning was Sunday, so...I pointed this out and she said "well, it really WAS a long day."  No kidding!

In the never-ending, or rather hopefully soon-ending, saga, I spent two hours on "chat" with Orbitz, trying to get a resolution to next month's plane trip to London.  I found out the flight was actually cancelled, which I think changes my rights.  But I never got a resolution: after typing "I'm looking into rules, I'll be back to you" an hour later the session was closed without warning!  I will call back today.

I also got a phone call from the Royal Shakespeare Company, wanting to know about my tickets for next week.  I was on with Orbitz, so they are calling back today. 

Talk about bummers.

and I looked at London weather and it was great for the weekend plus we were supposed to be there (starting yesterday for this trip).

It's getting harder to distinguish day and get the motivation to move on.

College semesters are over.  So, what do we do to have shape to our lives?

I don't have an answer.  Horse racing might help, with Will Rogers in Oklahoma running on Monday and Tuesday.  But WRD is infamously hard to handicap: yesterday's two Pick 5's (if you don't know, I ain't explainin' here) started with a 6:1 shot winning, then a 35:1 shot winning.  I don't count on winning Pick 5's -- the odds are astronomical -- but a big part of playing them is the hope of winning -- you win a race and you begin to wonder what might happen.  Friday I got the first four right at Gulfstream and was in line for a $500 payout (on a series of .50 bets) if one horse came through -- it didn't.  Badly.  But there was that hope.  Losing the opening race to longshots (yes, 6:1 isn't one of the favorites in a race) destroys that.

There are things to do. The trim in the living room still needs painting from two months ago.  There are things outside to do, if the weather holds.  There might even be golf, again dependent on weather.

But there needs to be something to distinguish our days and give us something to look forward to.

Which leads us to this: the headline in the local paper yesterday was "County Commissioners May Defy Shutdown."  I think, having read the story, the headline is a misnomer, but still...one of the commissioners is interviewed and he talks about reopening as of Friday.  But he says they are going to talk about it and the consequences.

I don't understand this drive to reopen with the pandemic at our door.  My county hasn't had a lot of cases, but it hasn't checked any of the boxes the governor (or the feds) have set for reopening -- like 2 weeks of fewer new cases.  Nope, not any of these.

So, why are they wanting to violate the law and put a lot of businesses at risk -- the governor pointed out yesterday morning that they would be liable if something happened (like someone got the virus) and their licenses and certificates would be in jeopardy if they violated the governor's order?

I know a lot of people don't have enough money.  But I'm going to repeat this (maybe a lot): you aren't going to have anywhere near pre-covid customers if you reopen now, with no vaccine, with the wave still near its peak.  We aren't all clamoring to go eat in restaurant, get our hair cut, get our new tattoo, go to the movies (all examples often cited). 

I may not know what day it is, but I know that. 

Happy Monday...errrr...Tuesday.

Mother's Day during Covid At Home

It's Sunday!  I know you can tell because it's also Mother's Day.  2020.  Arguably the shittiest Mother's Day ever.

(And if you weren't quite sure about Mother's Day, I don't believe you, it's very much advertised)

Let's get this out of the way, because it's about me, not either of the mothers in my life (so much): my iPhone keeps reminding me I am supposed to be going to the airport today for a flight to London.  I'm not; it was cancelled back in March, but my iPhone, which can read the events when they appear, seems to be unable to pick up on the clues that events aren't actually happening. 😠

But that that was on Mother's Day was only coincidental.

Typically on Mother's Day we would take my wife out (me and the kids; these day only one near home).  Nope, none of that today.

Or we'd go do something special.  A ballgame?  A movie?  Nope. Nope.

So, here we are, week 9 of our quarantine, and Mother's Day is going to be a vase of flowers (thanks to one child) and a chocolate peanut butter cake and a nice dinner courtesy of the other child.

Low key.

But that doesn't include my mother.  Who is 86.  A little over a year ago she moved into an assisted-living place.  It's a nice place, with lots of stuff to do.

Or did.

She hasn't been able to visitors since late March.  They started letting them have visitors, but they had to come through the front door and be screened, but it wasn't long before they gave that up. 

So, no visitors.

And they can't leave their room.  Or, rather, they've eliminated all the reasons mom used to have to leave her room.  They used to not only have communal meals, but also a series of games, talks, movies, entertainment, and prayer meetings and bible studies that kept you active and chatty.  And, let me tell you from what my mother reports, they gossip more than middle schoolers. 😒

To top all this off, my mother lost her phone two weeks ago.  You know, she's an old, so it was a landline and there was weather and it turned into a crackling monstrosity. 

So, she went over a week with no phone. (I got her an iPhone, which she thanked me for profusely, but she gave it up for the landline like Sonic the Hedgehog chasing something).  She had a terrible time. 

So, here we are to Mother's Day and she has her flowers, and some texts, and some phone calls, but there's no big buffet lunch (like last year), no guests (like last year), no evening service (like last year), nothing terribly exciting.

A bummer of a day for everyone. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Places Covid doesn't go. Right?

It's Friday. TGIF. 

Hi ho.  Right?

Friday.

I was supposed to play golf today.  It was 45 and rainy. 

There's not much news in this.

But here's news: I sent to a bakery on the way to golf course.  "On the way."  You know how that goes.

Nowhere near anything, of course.

It is an Amish bakery (to use the vernacular) famed for their donuts.

And donuts they had.

But here's the thing: no one there wore masks.

Now, admittedly, this is in one of the famed yellow counties in PA -- those allowed to be less safe than the rest these days.  

But no one has permission to go maskless.  I was even wearing one to the golf course (up to a point, of course).

My daughter's informative response: they don't believe in anything discovered after 1645!  

LoL.  

I started this blog to talk about things covid and here we are: places opening, people wearing or not wearing masks, protests with camo and AR-15s.  

This does raise a big question: how good do donuts need to be (see picture) to risk covid for?  Huh?

The Starbucks are coming! The Starbucks are coming!

It's Thursday.  You remember that one of the basics of this blog is to remind us what day it is.  Because it gets tough.  And, if you don't know what day it is, you're not any better off than my stupid cat, which has no clue.  (cut to vacant look)

It's Thursday. 

It's also The British Are Coming! day -- the day of Lexington and Concord.  No, not the street junction in New York City, but the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

But that's not the big news here!  No!  Instead there was an email from Starbucks, telling us they were opening some stores.  Yeah, rah!  Then you can check your zip code and lo and behold!  "our" Starbucks was open!!!

I was the sixth car in line when I got there (you didn't think we were going to let this slide past without taking advantage?!?!).  One quarantinee needed caffeine, one needed...well, I'm not sure what you need if you order guava lemonade, and one needed a way to get chocolate without being too obvious.

We never knew why they closed -- they were open after the quarantine started, but maybe it had to do with the extra level of "Stay At Home" at some point.

But why are they open now, then?

I don't know.

These things are strange.

But we have Starbucks!

A sign civilization might return someday. 

(Amazingly, wine keeps arriving in heavy boxes, so that's not a problem and, I suppose, a sign that civilization in some way is still out there).

Today's excitement is *Who Wants to Be a Millionaire* is on "live" tonight (ROFL ROFL ROFL) with Anthony Anderson, from Blackish most recently, the first contestant trying to win a million for their favorite charity.  I guess Anthony has won a bunch of money doing this before, so there's hope. 

It's at least live entertainment.

Enjoy.  I don't know what tomorrow brings.  Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to play golf.  How you do it in the age of covid?  Wear a mask and steal a few pars? Look forward to more, similar humor tomorrow. 😂

Seis de Mayo: modeling (and not the good kind :))

It's Wednesday!!!  Hump Day!!!  Even if there's no real hump.  Woo woo!

It's also seis de Mayo, in case you need further reinforcement after yesterday -- a real Mexican holiday.  Woo woo!

We decided we needed Mexican food to celebrate.  We called the most local Mexican place (by which I do NOT mean Taco Bell 😒) -- every decent sized, or even small (I remember the one in my uncle's "town" which is a crossroads), town in America has one.  Or tried. It was busy.  And busy.  And busy.  When we finally got through (this shouldn't have been a surprise, Sherlock!), we were told it was a 90-minute wait for our dinner.  Okay, we wanted Mexican.

For the record, it was good.  More food than we could eat and I didn't even get my side order of rice. 😦

So, yes, we are still in a state of stasis here.  We are in the "red" area of the state, bordering to the west on the yellow area, which some things are different.  Though, according to the charts and the news reports, not much.

But cases are down in PA.  A bit.  Actually, yesterday's tally was up from Monday's.

Which gets us to the title: modeling.  

If you've been paying some nerdy attention, you will have noticed that day-to-day reporting on cases is a funky thing to watch.  Some days it goes up, some days it goes down, then the next day it goes back up.   Given that this is human behavior and an erratic kind of spread, some of that is to be expected.

But there also turns out to be a "weekend effect" to watch, too.  It seems reporting is always lower on weekends -- it isn't till Tuesday that you get a quality count.  There is an analogy with teaching -- students tell you not to expect their best on Monday or Friday.  Or too early any day.  Or too late any day.  In other words, there's a really good window for half an hour on Tu, Wed, and Thurs that is worth hitting. 😂

So, we know not to get too excited about Monday numbers (thus, Monday's low count in PA wasn't the win it looked like)

Of course these tabulations matter.  We've had 65,000 people die in this country already, and the guesstimates on the final number widely vary.  It seems the White House prediction has fluctuated a lot, as represented by the President changing it publicly almost every time he talks, having missed the low end (70,000) and sometimes pushing a high end closing on 300,000. 

Depends on the model.  And your assumptions.

With states like Florida opening up (isn't Florida kind of the definition of an at-risk group?), the model has to shift from a spread rate of X to Y -- in other words from R<1 to R>1. ( I guess R stands for "rate" but I keep seeing R=Republican and am hopeful for less than 1 of them 😂).  I've seen figures that say New York is now down to R=.9, which means the virus isn't spreading.

But I wonder.  I saw the President in Arizona yesterday, sans mask.  I know *I* am not risking infection for Mexican food in a restaurant (or anything else).  I wonder about those who think opening is a good idea because there'll be enough business to make money from in-person service.

I just hope the models are right that think things are "normal-ish" come August. 

Fingers crossed.

May the Force Be With You (to kill time via streaming)

If there ever was a time we all needed the Force, it is now.  Obi-Wan, where are you?

It is Monday.  Another horrid Monday.  If you know it's Monday; if you don't, you're probably in even worse shape.

And it's May the 4th.  Which has become a thing.

I'm not sure why.  Someone was clever with the Star Wars chant -- may the force be with -- and connected it today.  A pun that has almost killed us.  😭

But tomorrow is May the 5th.  Cinco De Mayo.  Which is a real thing. 😁 I'll save that for tomorrow.

But let me use the Star Wars theme to take us elsewhere: TV viewing.

First, with Disney +, which is ubiquitous these days, we can watch all 11 Star Wars movies (yes, counting Rogue One and Solo -- Rogue One is my 2nd favorite Star Wars movie: my family groans when it comes on somewhere and I trip across it because I want to watch it).  And, given the time we've been quarantined this last two months, I don't doubt many of us have watched and rewatched some, if not all, of the series.  And you know, of course, Disney + has the latest one, where Kylo and Rae beat on each other off-and-on for most of the movie, for you to show.  (ICYMI, I'm getting a kickback from Disney + for this blog 😃)

Which leads me to TV viewing (hint: I've not rewatched any Star Wars, in fact, I haven't opened the Disney + app [whoops, there goes that kickback!] and I need to figure out how to not pay for it) --

What have you been watching?

One thing I have found is that Sunday's have become THE night for television (maybe because the others are so lame).  I have become a modest fan of PBS's new World on Fire, purportedly a WW2 saga about the people in the streets (it's not, really, but what the hey), and I have caught portions of *the Last Dance* because I'm a Bulls fan, or was (at some point I switched my NBA allegiance over to the Pacers, but when I was kid there was no Pacers, then they were in the ABA, then...).  Our PBS channel shows the Great British Baking Show at 7, which we've seen, but I don't remember which thing I can't pronounce from one season to another.  And last night CBS starting running Sunday night movies with *Raiders of the Lost Ark,* one of my all-time favorites.  Like the first Star Wars movie, IMHO, the best of the series.

 And then there is Monday viewing.  CBS tried to tell me in advertisements that what they are showing Monday night is interesting enough to make Monday stand out, but failed.  I have watched *The Neighborhood* off and on since its debut two years ago -- my wife is something of a fan (she's rarely dedicated enough to a show to make anything appointment viewing) -- and it's not that good.  Tonight's episode of *She The Judge* (that's not it's name) looks contrived, as it is doing a Zoom-look episode.  Who needs that?!?!!? I thought we wanted escapism.

Anyway, my point is, there's not much on broadcast TV to keep us interested these days.  So, just in case you want to know, here are my highlights from SAH in terms of streaming:

• Deadwater Fell (or was it Fellwater Dead?).  From Acorn (lots of good British-type stuff here, especially older material).  Starring David Tennant, aka Broadchurch and Dr. Who, it opens with a fire in his house and his wife and 3 daughters are dead.  Turns out all 5 have needle marks in their arms.  4-parts.  Kind of a disappointment in the who and the ending, but better than most this 8 weeks.
• Belgravia.  From Epix TV (free trials, right?) By Julian Fellowes, from his own novel, you know, the guy famous for Downtown Abbey, and joined by a couple of the managers of that series, it is set in 1840s London, with the same upperclass are backstabbing assholes and the people downstairs aren't necessarily wonderful, either (there's not yet a Mr Bates or Anna or Tom), but the Mrs likes this kind of costume drama with the cheesy manipulations.  
• High Fidelity.  On Hulu.  Based on the Nick Hornby book (he is listed as like an exec producer) but this time Rob is a woman, played by Zoe Kravitz.  Who has fans.  I hear.  Is it as good as the book or the John Cusack film?  Probably not.  But it's interesting and fun and different.  And I'm not giving out spoilers. :) 

That's not all we've watched, but it's all I would recommend.  We loved *Dead to Me* (I think it's Christina Applegate that's the funnier of the two) and a new season comes out Friday.  Something to look forward to.  

But it's Monday.  Blahs are big.  Chin up, Tuesday is sooooooooo much better.  😂😃

Yesterday. Or is the whole world garders? Who knew?

It's Sunday.  I can tell because I just watched Willie Geist, the CBS Sunday Morning, and had French Toast (a Sunday staple here), so it's Sunday.

Don't be telling me any different. 😡

But let's go back to yesterday. 

After an early morning toilet paper and bagel run, there was the usual morning.  Okay, not so usual because I did some study of the various cheat sheets and picks for the horse races at Oaklawn (Arkansas) yesterday.  Yes, I ended up ahead.  Nicely ahead.  But it was a tough day -- couldn't quite get it right for the big cha-ching!

Anyway, around lunch time I was hungry and the grocery run hadn't included a focus on lunch food, so I suggested we go pick up Panera (a family favorite -- the others like their salads 😕), so it was decided I'd pick up while my partner (to use the generic, PC term) went into Lowe's, looking for plants.

I pulled up the hill and around the corner into the Lowe's parking lot and came to an immediate halt! 

The parking lot was in some way full!  Not as in car on car, but with some social distancing between cars, but still the cars (or rather trucks) went all the way to the far limit of the lot.

I ate my sandwich (salad!  the food my food eats), while waiting on K to get out of Lowe's.  She finally did, only to report that there were NO vegetable plants (the plan was tomatoes and peppers)!

So, here are all these people, excited to be at a Lowe's, and seemingly excited to be planting vegetables.

Who knew?

I've gone many years to do this and NEVER had a crowd.   Or no plants. 

A sign of the times.  A trip to Lowe's is exciting.

We went on to Home Depot (you can almost see one from the other) and they had plants, but it was also a crowded lot and a bit of a line. 

This is amazing.

I know we'll see all kinds of recipes in the late summer for what to do with all this stuff planted in the pandemic quarantine; I look forward to them.  Because, if you've never grown a tomato plant, a healthy cranks out more tomatoes than any sane person could eat in real time, so you have to do something with all the extra.  You don't want too many friends who grow tomatoes because you'll end up with enough tomatoes to eat marinara from now till Thanksgiving.

Who knew?  Hopefully, today and tomorrow and beyond will bring something else as mind boggling.

Times, they are a changing.

Our TP crisis...still...again

I missed a couple days.  It's Saturday.  Woo woo! 

But I was out early this morning and got toilet paper.  At 635 I got the next to the last package -- and it was generic.  Not Charmin with the obnoxious bears, not Northern, not even Scott.  Generic. 

I don't get it.

But then it's not really my area of expertise but I've read a couple stories and seen a couple on TV.  I guess there are two kinds of toilet paper, consumer and industrial, and the twain don't meet.  You can't switch overnight from one to the other.  And no one keeps a backlog of TP because it's a low profit, high volume kind of good.  You know how big the packages are.  Takes a lot of storage.

And it doesn't matter that there's a Charmin plant in the next county.  I kind of get that. Kind of.

Things are better, right? 😀

But it's good to see that people are wearing masks.

And I did get Clorox wipes, which we haven't seen in a store since early March.  Wow.  Excitement.

We went out for ice cream last night.  Everyone was wearing a mask.  We hadn't been for ice cream since before the quarantine.  Maybe before winter.  It was good (my idea, so I get credit).

But I live in a county just east of the line where Pennsylvania where they are beginning to normalize.  That has to be in "".  Not sure based on our governor's guidelines how much changes 10 miles away from where we are.

Can't claim to be getting used to it.

But today is Saturday.   Derby Day.   Arkansas Derby day! 

One thing I've done too much of is watch horse racing -- the one sport that is actually going on live and for real these days.  In fact, I was ahead for quarantine (betting -- why else would you watch?) until yesterday.  ):

Arkansas Derby.  So many horses that they had to break it in two!

Should be fun.

So, that's Saturday.  Week 8 of quarantine.  Sigh.