Day 255 of the Virus Diaries..

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. ( Read more... )

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.
( Read more... )

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.)

( excerpt - because I don't expect you take my word for it )

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.( Read more... )

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.

Next Day in Book Challenge...

Because I have no idea what day I'm on...in this seemingly endless challenge.

The prompt is A book that came out the year you were born

I've recognized more than I expected, and had actually read two of them.
But I'm picking my favorite...which I fell in love with in the Junior High, when I snagged it from my brother's room. My mother had bought my brother the book - and I stole it, devoured it, and read everything in the series. I also went to the movie by myself in 1983. (Didn't know anyone else who'd read the books until I was much much older.)

The Outsiders.

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S. E. Hinton, first published in 1967 by Viking Press. Hinton was 15 when she started writing the novel but did most of the work when she was 16 and a junior in high school.[1] Hinton was 18 when the book was published.The book details the conflict between two rival gangs divided by their socioeconomic status: the working-class "greasers" and the upper-class "Socs" (pronounced /ˈsoʊʃɪz/—short for Socials). The story is told in first-person perspective by teenage protagonist Ponyboy Curtis.

The story in the book takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1965, but this is never explicitly stated in the book.

A film adaptation was produced in 1983, and a short-lived television series appeared in 1990, picking up where the movie left off. A stage adaptation was written by Christopher Sergel and published in 1990.

I never saw the television series or the stage adaptation. Francis Ford Coopola did the movie, and bought the rights to all of Hinton's books, which he adapted. I was in the habit of reading whatever I could get my grubby little hands on as a child. Once I figured out how to read - I couldn't be stopped. I think I read every book on my brothers shelves, on mine, on my parents shelves, and what I could check out from the library. Kindles are a life-saver for me.

Watch on YouTube

The movie is notable for being the first film roles or notable roles for several up and coming future film stars - Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez are all in minor roles, Diane Lane (this was among her first major film roles as a kid), Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe...with C Thomas Howell, Dillon and Ralph Maccio in the leads (and we've seen little of them since).

Per Wiki:

The Outsiders is a 1983 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film is an adaptation of the 1967 novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton and was released on March 25, 1983 in the United States. Jo Ellen Misakian, a librarian at Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, and her students were responsible for inspiring Coppola to make the film.

The film is noted for its cast of up-and-coming stars, including C. Thomas Howell (who garnered a Young Artist Award), Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane. The film helped spark the Brat Pack genre of the 1980s. Both Lane and Dillon went on to appear in Coppola's related film Rumble Fish; Dillon and Estevez also starred in Tex (1982). Estevez went on to write and star in That Was Then... This Is Now (1985), the only Hinton film adaptation not to star Dillon.