All cozy in bed this afternoon with a nice big cup of Trader Joe’s espresso tea. That was after friluftsliv which included opening up my window for a hour to let nice fresh air in, going for my strip mall fitness walk and working on my garden boxes. Pretty damn good for tropical person like me.
Gratitude
Whole Foods Delivery. Got my order in at 6:38AM and they delivered at 7:21AM.
So what is weird? COVID. The hospital is making final plans to vaccinate staff. And today we are told that the Asylum rats will most likely be getting vaccinated in January. That should be making me happy. Happy and getting ready to go to Hawai’i, hotel or no hotel. Or maybe Bermuda. Or maybe just a train ride around the country.
But. First I have to live through our current COVID surge here in the Asylum.
This doesn’t count the one resident who died last week. This time last week we had a total of 9 cases. This week 24.
looking for the light
I am not a fan of Xmas. But, I rather like these decorations. I found them when I was out on my 2.5-mile hike this afternoon. And I doubt that I can ever find them again. I think they are pretty special.
I have to extract data from “my” database and parse it out for feeding to another database. A picky government database. I was able to come up with the data. But the process was almost totally manual. Stuff was pieced together from two extracts and much data reformatting was required. It was an accident waiting to happen considering my age and overall mental alertness.
I have a very old program that dates back to Windows XP time. It would make the process smoother. So, when I woke up at 4:45AM this morning I started thinking about how to get my hands on a computer that would “safely” connect to the internet AND run my old program. I decided that running a bastard copy of XP with BootCamp on the MacBook was the only viable option. However, I am pretty sure that some of our residents have computers that still run XP or Window 7, it would just be a matter of finding the computer. And, convincing its owner to let me borrow it for a couple of days.
Well, somewhere between oatmeal, lots of coffee and barre class, I came up with a viable Plan B. The process still requires some TLC on my part, but it is totally doable and I am not embarrassed to show my backup person how to do it. The vendor has promised to magically do this entire process for a fee. Sometime in early 2021. Well, we don’t need it sometime. We need it now.
I was a really happy camper about noon today when I got this process all reset. But, there was no one to share my excitement with. The joys of working from home.
After lunch, friluftsliv. I went for a nice walk. Came home to a message that said my COVID test was negative. As was everyone in “Independent Living”. Then a little nap. A perfectly acceptable day.
Gratitude
Grateful for some outside time today.
Got an email from my hotel in Kona. They are not going to reopen until March 1 at the soonest.
Some of my neighbors seem to be looking for the light in 1.75-liter bottles. Whatever it takes to get you to the other side of this dumpster fire.
I spent all day working at the computer. Looked out the window and saw a lone snowflake float by. Not what I wanted to see. I want to see the sun. And palm trees.
life and coronavirus #237
At least I can cut my own hair. But, I hate to see the brown-mouse-colored hair go. I will soon have white-rat-colored hair. I had planned to go to our hair salon and have my hair washed, shortened a bit, and maybe tinted some outrageous color. But, fortunately, Covid closed the salon before I could implement that deranged plan.
Gratitude
Cookies. Trader Joe’s goat cheese with dried cranberries. Audiobooks after a day at the computer.
We only had 4 new covid cases here at the Asylum today. For a total of 18.
Got a covid test this afternoon.
Had two fine exercise classes today. One live and one zoom.
Got some clarification on my current work project.
I haven’t done anything really stupid today. (Yet).
But seriously, it seems to be time to stay home. Which means staying in the Old Bat Cave. Last time I did this I ate (and drank) everything in sight. And gained 10 pounds which I have since lost. Don’t want to do that again.
Gratitude
Grateful for a little unanticipated benefit of the smart lighting setup. I don’t get shocked every time I turn a light on during the winter.
The Elders – June 2017
This happens are here. Earlier this year we lost Virginia on the right. She was 100+ and just sort of wore out. We lost Phyllis on the left today to Covid. She had been failing for some time. Covid was too much for her. She was well over 90 and had been an Army nurse during WWII. She served in New Guinea. Which is where my father served. And she was from a little town in West Virginia not far from where I was born. She lived on my floor until she was overtaken by her years. Hope the ladies are enjoying a beverage and remembering the good times together right now.
Well, this sucks. More residents and staff are getting Covid. 11 staff and 3 residents as of this afternoon. And at about 6pm today, they started making moves to put us back in lockdown. No visitors, even with negative Covid tests for two weeks. And that is pretty huge around Xmas time. They closed the saloon and hair salon. They “requested” that we stay on the premises except for doctor visits. And, I suspect they will start sweeping residents out of the public areas tomorrow morning.
I thought something like this would happen. But, it doesn’t make it any more palatable. Trying to remember that the primary objective is to stay alive.
Gratitude
Grateful that they didn’t close the saloon until AFTER Happy Hour today.
I am having a bit of “Covid Fatigue” today. Without a doubt, this has been the worst year ever. No, that’s not really true. The worst year ever for me was Carlton’s final year. When he was clearly dying and I couldn’t do a damn thing except make his favorite sandwiches. This is the most unsettling, disorienting, alarming, confusing, disquieting year ever. And, I am ready for it to be over. But, I fear we have 6 months more.
And, I wonder what will remain. I am such an urbanite. I like public transit, little shops, coffee shops, music venues, yoga studios, food trucks, small museums, parks, and people. Not sure how many of my favorite things will make it. And, what will happen to our cities if people don’t return to work in the office towers? Will air travel recover without the business traveler? How many jobs are gone? Never to return.
I also have some concerns about the future of The Asylum. Everything appears to be OK. New people continue to move in. But, they have been coming from the waiting list. One wonders how many new people are putting down their deposit and getting on the waitlist. This operation is a plain and simple Ponzi scheme. We need new residents and their non-trivial buy-in monies. This was a business model that was showing signs of stress before residents of old folks’ homes started dying off in droves due to Covid.
Other than that I am perfectly cheerful. Even went for a walk around my strip mall course. The strip malls were busy. Not a great sign because the covid numbers are way up today in our surrounding counties today. (The Asylum is in two counties.) I don’t know if the numbers are way up because they are way up or because of reporting weirdness.
Gratitude
Grateful for my friends who made the nine months tolerable. Friends all over the world. I am one lucky old woman.
Love this arrangement. Not only is it attractive, but, it used 3 kale plants. And that is 3 less kale plants to end up in my green plastic dinner box.
Speaking of dinner, I was looking at next week’s “special” dinner options. Charred octopus was one of the featured specials. It still comes in a green plastic box, but you have to go pick it up. Or they will serve it to you outdoors never mind that it is currently 44° at 4:30 PM.
Gratitude
Grateful that I can still cook.
Grateful that I brought just enough cooking equipment when I moved here.
Grateful that I mastered grocery delivery and curbside sans car pickup.
Well, now I have a fireplace. A very small fireplace. I can run it off of an old power brick. It really kind of fun and it was a present from a friend. A friend who is most likely tired of hearing me complain about my fireplace deficiency.
friluftsliv It is getting wintery. Nevertheless, I went out for a long walk this morning. The older you get the more time you have to spend keeping your body functioning. And, during Covid, goodness knows we have lots of time.
Gratitude
life and coronavirus #236
Grateful for my bartender, Dennis, who is trying to make Happy Hour happy.
friluftsliv – This doesn’t look like Kona, Toto. But, I am out there. Not liking it. But doing it.
Thinking about the Covid vaccine and when or if I get it. What would change for me as soon as I figured it had had time to “take”. Ride the bus. I think that is one of the first things that I might do. But wait. They just announced that the subway and bus service is going to be cut in half. Because they are losing one million dollars a day. After a while, that adds up.
Also Covid – 7 new staff cases were reported today. All of the staff get tested tomorrow and all of the inmates will be tested next Tuesday.
Gratitude
Grateful for unexpectedly wonderful scones that showed up with lunch yesterday. I had the last one with a nice cozy cup of tea this afternoon. One of the pleasures of widowhood is eating in bed if I want to. Carlton allowed drinking in bed. But not eating. If you wanted to eat you had to be in a chair. He was pretty high maintenance. But, worth it.
I finished my Solstice decorating today. Some green branches. And some ilex branches. That’s it. Carlton would say that is too much. Heck the check out woman at Trader Joe’s told me that they cost too much and I should go cut my own. Well, I am trying to support the economy.
My big accomplishment today was to not be snarky to someone who asked me to resend an Excel xls file as a csv file. This was a major accomplishment. I just resent it as requested. After a 3 hour delay. (After all I was busy doing my Solstice decorating.) I am pretty sure I would not have let that go unnoticed in the past. I really am mellowing out.
I missed yesterday’s lunar eclipse due to rain. But, yesterday evening the moon and clouds put on a fine show.
Shot these two with my macro lens. Because that was the lens that was on the camera – but – I think it did a nice job.
Cold today. But, I went outside. Yeah for me. I wanted to take some of Mr. C’s papers to be shredded. Yes, Carlton, I spent $10 having that stuff shredded. No, I couldn’t run it through the machine downstairs. Or wait until the Asylum has another “shredding event”. I wanted that box gone. And it is. So, I did not waste $10.
Working on making The Old Bat Cave cozy. A fireplace, which is what it needs along with a balcony, isn’t going to happen. SO. I got a flannel granny-style nightgown. And, I dug out an insulated mug for my hot beverages. That way my coffee will stay hotter longer. Installed my old heating pad in my comfy chair. And connected it to the ZigBee net. When I say “Computer Good Night”, the heating pad will be switched off, if I forget and leave it on.
Next major addition to ZigBee is to convert the kitchen overhead switch. I have already done the under cabinet lights. It wouldn’t be cost-effective to convert the overhead lights since there are 6 spotlights.
Gratitude
Starting to feel a little optimistic about Covid. Science might beat it into submission in spite of us.
I didn’t venture outside today. It rained. That is my excuse. Took pictures of raindrops with my macro lens.
Don’t have much to say tonight. We apparently have one resident and one staff member with Covid. That’s not good.
The Asylum residents contributed over $500,000 dollars to our Employee Gift Fund. The money is allocated tax free to the staff based on some sort of seniority formula. Usually we give about $400,000. But this year everyone dug a little deeper. That is good.
