Coronavirus Daze

So last Sunday I woke up to find my sweet Squeaky was in dire trouble. She had just been diagnosed with probably carcinoma in one lobe of a lung. Probably why she's been ill for almost 2 years. But last Sunday morning, she had one droopy eye (right side) and what appeared to be a frightened look in her left eye. She was having difficulty walking and breathing. I called the vet's office expecting to be told she might need to be put down. I'm sure she was terrified, she kept reaching out her paw to touch me, which she never did before. As I was getting ready, the thought occurred to me that her symptoms were like a stroke. And that is what the vet told me had definitely happened. But after they kept her several hours for monitoring, they said she seems to be "recovering" somewhat, able to move about and able to chew and eat, albeit not very interested in food. She prescribed for her an appetite stimulant and doubled her prednasone dose.  She seemed to be rallying, a...

Yesterday was sunny but quite cold and very windy. Not a great outdoors kind of day. So I stayed in all day. Tuesday was great, I got out because Creekwatchers sampling resumed. For those who do not know what Creekwatchers is, it's a program affiliated with Wicomico Environmental Trust. Creekwatchers take scheduled samples twice a month for analysis of water quality, in a nutshell. It was suspended when the pandemic hit and has just resumed. The issue has been getting the samples analyzed in a timely fashion because university students are not on campus and are not even allowed on campus, and they have traditionally done the analysis work as part of their coursework in environmental studies.  Anyhow, that was good, and I drove out to Whitehaven to have a look at the water. But the wind had the water all roiled up and the wind was so strong I was afraid to walk out all the way on the narrow wooden pier. So much for that.  Today it's warmer and sunny, and less windy. It might ra...

One difficulty with this blog is finishing a post. I always seem to get interrupted. A Zoom meeting. Must make dinner. Masks need work. Someone comes in or goes out. Cat needs something. And yet it gets lonely. I talk to cats more than to people, it seems like. My weekly video chat with L is a highlight. Texting with K is great but don't hear her voice or see her.  And still I don't have time to get bored. What a strange world we live in today. Worst pandemic in a century. Almost a century to the year, actually. We should be better equipped to deal with this, and I suppose we are. But we, the mighty USA, are listed as No. 1 for having the most confirmed cases of COVID-19, and yet we are lagging WAY behind other countries in terms of adequate volume of testing. Which raises the question: Just how many cases ARE there in this country? Leadership muses that if we didn't test so MUCH we'd have far fewer cases. Huh? So testing creates cases that would not exist otherwise? I ...

It was a rainy, drizzly, chilly day today. I made masks all morning, caught up most of that work, actually, and never got to have my Google Hangouts chat with my daughter in law. That's OK, though, she was hanging out with C and I have no problem with that. The masks I rushed to make never got picked up, but they will be tomorrow.  I thought I could spend an hour or two a day on each of multiple tasks and get more done, but I am not so sure now. I seem to get more done by focusing on one project a day.  We had tuna steaks for dinner, thanks to R for buying them and to T for preparing them. Fresh broccoli topped off that meal, and a can of beets.  Another Zoom meeting coming up tomorrow evening, WET legislative/advocacy committee.  Today the bungler in chief said he was fine with having tens of thousands of additional Americans die in order to get the economy started up again (ie lifting restrictions). The problem with that is it makes the actual recovery of the count...

Does the right to go where you please without a face covering supersede the right of those around you to remain healthy when they are taking every precaution available to them? Does the right of a person to do his job by enforcing an order from the governor of his state requiring every retail employee AND customer to wear a mask carry less weight than someone's self-declared right to go into a store without a mask and put everyone there at risk? This should be enlightening. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/us/michigan-security-guard-mask-killing-trnd/index.html That link is to a CNN story published Monday (today, as I write this) where a 43-year-old security guard at a Dollar General Store (and this in itself seems odd) was shot and killed for not allowing the man's wife to enter (against governor's orders) with nothing covering her face. In my opinion the man who accompanied the husband into the store to confront the security guard and pulled the trig...

It's been hard to catch this up during the past week. Today is Sunday and I have a little time. I did mention that it would be awesome if both our new printer and my new sewing machine would arrive on the same day. They did! Early afternoon last Monday saw the arrival of my beautiful new sewing machine, and later that evening our new printer arrived. Both are miraculously functioning without flaw -- as they should, of course. I spent a half hour searching for the spare nibs that came with the smart stylus for my phone. I recalled having them in my hand just last week. You know how you start organizing and you put something in a safe place, and then you can't find it? Yeah. I did find it eventually and it's all good now. I finished half a batch of masks for postal workers. I've lined up a big batch of masks, all cut out and waiting, for DAR distribution, since it's their fabric (sailboat print). And I finished my writing assignment about connection to...