Day 255 of the Virus Diaries..

[shadowkat]

The Fairy Christmas lights are cheery and ridiculously easy to put up, also not all that expensive. They are battery operated. I'm looking at them now, over the flowers, ceramic angle, candle and pottery bowls on my window sill. It's a deep new york 1920s window sill. NYC 1920s, pre-war apartments are kind of cool - they have tall ceilings, wainscoting, deep windowsills, and tall windows, and wooden floors. Much better quality apartments than well anything built since. Also there are fallout shelter signs on the side, and radiators that overheat them - a hold over from the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic - they over heated the buildings to get people to open windows to circulate air. (I turn on the air conditioner, and open windows.)

COVID rages onwards. Because I work for a State Agency, I tend to get information on it not everyone gets. Also bombarded. Lately I've been getting emails to join the Mask Task Force - basically to volunteer to hand out masks to customers. (Hard pass. I'm having enough issues keeping my blood pressure down. I don't need help raising it. It's come down significantly since November 4th, hmmm, wonder why? (sarcasm, folks.)

We're at a 5% uptick in the city, but only 3% in Brooklyn, and lower in my area - now that the rest of NY is having issues, my area is not in a red, orange or yellow zone. Yippee. Except I'm being neurotic or rather conservative and still in a self-imposed mini-lockdown. I got out for doctor's appointments, grocery runs, walks to the cemetery, and picking up mail downstairs - plus laundry and recyclables, but that's it. I still haven't gotten up the courage to set up a hair appointment - I think they gave up on me. They stopped sending emails asking me to set up an appointment. My hair looks awful - it three different colors - white, gray, brown and red. Okay four different colors. Sometimes it looks cool when the colors are threaded throughout. But mainly it's long, straight and the colors seem to be folding in on each other, with frizzy bits standing on end. I pull it back into a pony tail or bun most of the time - so you just see the gray. But hey, it's out of my face at least.


Family
My mother feels the need to get her hair done. She just did it about a month or so ago. I must be an alien child.

Me: So no more health-care workers coming in?
Mother: No, I need them if I want to go anywhere - to watch your father. I have to go grocery shopping and get my hair done.
Me: I haven't gotten my hair cut or colored since February. It's almost past my shoulders -
Mother: Mine is a mess.
Me: You just got it done two to three months ago. Mine looks worse.
Mother: I have to do it. It looks horrible.

Sigh. My niece apparently has died her hair again - this time it is black. I knew she was doing it - she hated the previous color - which had gone badly. But because she's dyed her hair so many times - she has to add oil and nutrients to it. I was amused. She's her parents kid - they shaved their heads at 20. And my brother was into doing weird crap with his hair - which by the way is the color of a copper penny, and most people would kill to have that color, and my niece inherited that copper penny color.

They won't get niece's COVID test back for a couple of days. They did a drive-through test at a CVS. She's remote now - so they couldn't get her tested at school - which has rapid testing. They think it may just be a recurrence of mono - or so we hope. (Yes, I live in a world in which I'm hoping my niece has mono instead of something else.)



New York Trying to Do Christmas with COVID

They are doing the Rockerfeller Tree Lighting the same way they did the parade and the fireworks during the Fourth of July - virtually. Everything in my life is virtual. Not that I've ever really gone to it, or the parade for that matter. I have gone to see the 4th of July Fireworks (now I see them just fine from my living room window - which is odd and unexpected.)

But, hey, after December 3, the lit tree will be open to the public for viewing at select times to monitor crowd control.

Dyker Heights is also doing it's annual lighting - it's the most light neiborhood just about anywhere - and apparently they compete to see who can light up their houses the most. One of the meetup groups had scheduled a group limo to view it - and I thought, how is this safe, exactly? Taking a limo ride with about six people I don't know? I mean I get it if you are all living together - but...they aren't.

And ...right now Western NY is experiencing the high infection rate, and increase in COVID cases that NYC experienced in the spring and early summer. The two have flipped. Western NY is at a 7% infection rate and steadily climbing.

US vs. COVID

In more head shaking news, according to the NY Times, New Hamphsire's legislature is meeting outdoors for their next session or from now on, since it's safer. Uhm, isn't New Hampshire kind of cold in the winter? I get it if you are in Florida - where it is in the 80s, but New Hampshire?

They've discovered that the virus is less of a problem with young kids, than older ones. Apparently the younger kids are less likely to spread it?
Anyhow they've had an easier time doing in-session or in-person schooling with the younger kids. This virus is weird.

In other news, the White House summoned the head of the FDA to explain why they haven't approved Pfzier's vaccine yet for distribution. Apparently they are competing with Britain and are afraid that the British will get theirs out first, embarrassing the Trump administration. [You'd think the Trump Administration had already been embarrassed by their colossal mishandling of the pandemic, the election, and well just about everything since he took office...but apparently not.)


Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, called for the session out of concern that the British government may approve emergency use of a Covid-19 vaccine before American regulators act, embarrassing the Trump administration, government officials said. The meeting was reported earlier by Axios.

The F.D.A.’s approval process for a vaccine is generally considered more stringent than Britain’s because vaccine makers are required to submit raw data for review. British regulators, like some of their European counterparts, rely more heavily on the companies’ own analyses of their data, experts say, although they reserve the right to verify the accuracy of those reports.

“F.D.A. is one of the few regulatory agencies in the world that actually looks at the raw data,” Dr. Hahn said in an interview on Tuesday with ABC News. “We are going to do our own analysis.”


Read more HERE

IDK - there's no way in hell I'd take the British vaccine right now, I've scanned those articles - it's not reliable and has had all sorts of problems. I'd rather have it be thoroughly vetted first. Team#FDA, which weirdly, has been more reliable in this crisis than the CDC.

Apparently the White House has decided to host 20 Christmas parties over the holiday season. Of course, as insiders have jokingly stated - it's probably achieved immunity now considering the number of times everyone there has tested positive. So it may actually be safe now to hop over for a quick look at the decorations. Ironically, Washington DC has restrictions in place - no more than 10 at gatherings and all indoor dining closed, but since the White House is on "Federal Land" - it is exempt from the regulations.

Other Stuff

Halfway through the audiobook version of How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram Kendi - I'm sure I mispelled his name. It's fascinating, part memoir, part history lesson, and part handbook on the terminology and sociological roots of racism. He explores a lot of territory that I've explored or been exposed to myself - except as someone who is white, not black. Some of it is horrifying regardless. Such as the science of Eugenics (ick - where idiots like Dalton, determined based on broad generalizations and no biological evidence, and exceptions to the contrary, that whites had superior intelligence to blacks. Hogwash. Or Bull-crap. I had someone try that argument with me once, and I ripped it apart piece by piece. Someone's race is not a definitive factor in intelligence or anything else - outside of cultural heritage. And well, we all have cultural heritage. )

In addition, he addresses something I've argued for quite some time now - which is - everyone is racist. You kind of have to address the "racism" in yourself, before you can be anti-racist. Or work against racist policies, procedures, acts, legislation, and mindsets. And we have to do it across the board.

I'm reading for Church. They are doing a discussion December 15. Also it had been rec'd to me numerous times over the summer on FB, DW, and elsewhere.

One of the best ways to get yourself out of a racist mindset or challenge racist views is to become friends or work with people who don't look like you. Don't share your views. And are of a different race. It's taught me that at the end of the day, people are just people. I'm not colorblind.
I have had racist views - which I've challenged and continue to work on. Also I've discussed this with people who aren't the same race as me, and gotten their views - and determined people are individuals. They defy categorization. Which is a good thing.

Anyway it's better than expected and I wholeheartedly recommend. Been listening to it on walks and during work, when I'm doing mindless tasks.



I did the donating thing on Giving Tuesday - spent more than I probably should have, but oh well. Donated to MD's charity Hope Floats - which provides swim lessons to children in need, Pancreatic Cancer Association (by Beth - who was on the ATPOBTVS board and is on FB), Church (I think), Greenfaith - an Interfaith Association for Climate Change and the Environment, and City Harvest - to feed 8 families for a month in NYC.

Saw photos of folks frolicking about London, with it's Christmas Decorations up. And felt envious...although I could do it here, but I'm neurotic, so no. Also my diabetic blood count is 6.7/128 and I have high blood pressure - I don't know how my body would handle the virus if it got it - sides, they are cautioning anyone who is immune compromised (ceiliac) or over 65 to stay the frak home.

Anyhow, here's a picture.

Comments

[trepkos]

Okay - thank you. All useful, reassuring info.