FWIS3

pumpkinpi wrote:The governor just closed schools through the end of the school year. I completely expected that, and am happy that a decision's been made. I think it's the right one. That means we're almost halfway through--the kids were home as of March 16 (6 weeks tomorrow ) and school ends June 9 (6.5 more weeks).

What I'm really worried about is the summer. The kids are signed up for various camps, which I completely expect to be closed. But they are also signed up for their school all-day summer care. If that's not open I don't know what we'll do. Not necessarily activity wise, but figuring out what to do if MrPi and I have to be back at work.

Oh, and I forgot the main reason I came to post here. I asked the kids how they feel about staying home through the end of the school year. Buster said "safer." Rooster said happy to spend more time with family. What great attitudes they have!

pumpkinpi wrote:Oh, and I forgot the main reason I came to post here. I asked the kids how they feel about staying home through the end of the school year. Buster said "safer." Rooster said happy to spend more time with family. What great attitudes they have!

I'd say you're raising a couple a great kids.

geonuc wrote:

pumpkinpi wrote:Oh, and I forgot the main reason I came to post here. I asked the kids how they feel about staying home through the end of the school year. Buster said "safer." Rooster said happy to spend more time with family. What great attitudes they have!

I'd say you're raising a couple a great kids.

Yup

I was speaking to a local vendor. One of her regulars mentioned that her neighbors were having an "over the fence" part

Drinks, chairs, umbrellas, grilling - and using the fence for social distancing. Thought that was cool

In Holland our niece and nephew are going back to school starting May 11. It's going to be 3 hours each day to stagger the kids, and one of the teachers is going to be swapped for a substitute for the rest of the year because she has asthma. The Dutch year goes until about July 1, mind, so it makes slightly more sense to rejigger things like this (because honestly I suspect a lot of schools just aren't interested in doing this for two weeks here if they close beginning of June). So, it will be interesting to see how that goes.

Had a rough day yesterday here on this end- I made the mistake of looking at a few old pictures from when I lived in Holland (King's Day, their big national holiday, is this weekend so F has off), and the whole thing where I don't get to go there and defend in person and see all my friends and celebrate with them got to me. Probably also because let's be honest, this defense was also going to be a bit of a validation for all the BS I went through, and I'm sad I now don't get that as well as just being nostalgic for a place I was looking forward to visiting again.

I mean, let's not kid ourselves here, I married a Dutchman so pretty sure there are many, many Dutch trips in my future. But I guess I keep thinking about how there's no real good reason for me to not have done the defense already, most of which was well beyond my fault, so a lot of feelings to process there.

Loresinger wrote:I was speaking to a local vendor. One of her regulars mentioned that her neighbors were having an "over the fence" part

Drinks, chairs, umbrellas, grilling - and using the fence for social distancing. Thought that was cool

Yes.

"Can Estrogen and Other Sex Hormones Help Men Survive Covid-19?"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/heal ... n-men.html

Guess I was a bit ahead of the curve here.

More seriously though, holy shit, if this turns out to work the conspiracy theorists are going to go ballistic. (Though it probably won't work, for which reasons see the above article.)

Meanwhile, at Oxford, they have startedhuman trials on a vaccine they say is very promising. Apparently there are at least 5 studies that are starting human testing in the next few weeks.

Super sad story reported in the New York Times - an ER physician at one of the Manhattan NY-Presbyterian hospitals has died, but not from CV-19. Suicide.

I can't imagine the situation in NYC's hospitals or in other parts of the world slammed by this virus. The daily grind, stress and feeling of helplessness must be overwhelming.

Yeah, I heard that story. I'm torn, this isn't really affecting me personally. I'm trying to stay upbeat and mostly normal and avoid the constant bad news. But then I hear the super sad stories, or just the stories where people lost their jobs and are going bankrupt. And I feel guilty that things are going pretty good around here.

Yeah I feel the thing about my cabin fever is at the end of the day can I really complain? We aren't losing our jobs in the foreseeable future, can go for walks without wearing a mask at all times (in Cambridge, they've said masks at all times in all public spaces, at all times, including sidewalks), so yeah all in all the best quarantine situation possible. I still feel like it sucks, but it unfortunately just does for everyone right now.

Talking to the wedding venue later today about rescheduling our wedding from July. The trick is they of course want us to consider doing it this year- free rebooking then!- but good Lord, I'm not mean enough to make anyone fly to Boston in December.

@Rommie: Best of luck with the rescheduled wedding!

@Fisher: here's to hoping it works better than vaccines have for other coranviruses. And there was another vaccine that was found to be effective in Rhesus macaques:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04 ... ch-reports

That's monkeys though, other primates have different immune systems than we do. (e.g. chimps don't get cytokine storm reactions.) But we'll see.

Yeah, I have a pension, plus what I'm bringing in working with my buddy. Mrs. T is still working full time from home, They're talking about opening the office in the next couple weeks but they can still work from home through May. We live on 9 acres, it's hard in regular situations not to social distance. The Kid and her roommate come over every week just to sit by a bonfire and get out of their apartment. So we actually see her (from a short distance) more than we have in the last 3 years...

I had friends getting married next week. Postponed until August 29, so that's not too bad.

I think one of the things that is really a struggle is all the parents who are now trying to facilitate school at home and/or home school while also working from home and/or sheltering in place at home.

SciFiFisher wrote:I think one of the things that is really a struggle is all the parents who are now trying to facilitate school at home and/or home school while also working from home and/or sheltering in place at home.

Nah, it ain't too bad. This is what a typical day is like.


That's all before 9am....

I confess I always feel weird in all this without having kids and still feeling unproductive. Like what the hell is my excuse?

Rommie wrote:I confess I always feel weird in all this without having kids and still feeling unproductive. Like what the hell is my excuse?

Because your priority is to stay healthy and figure out how to live life daily life in a way that's completely different than ever before. You're achieving that, right? I'd say that's productive! Everything else is secondary right now. And everything is hard right now, no matter your situation.

pumpkinpi wrote:

SciFiFisher wrote:I think one of the things that is really a struggle is all the parents who are now trying to facilitate school at home and/or home school while also working from home and/or sheltering in place at home.

Nah, it ain't too bad. This is what a typical day is like.


That's all before 9am....

We feel your pain. I have a special needs kid. He is wonderful. But, he doesn't do change well. He doesn't negotiate worth spit. He is as stubborn as his grandma Brite. I am not stubborn or unreasonable. I am firm and unswerving in my purpose.

pumpkinpi wrote:

Rommie wrote:I confess I always feel weird in all this without having kids and still feeling unproductive. Like what the hell is my excuse?

Because your priority is to stay healthy and figure out how to live life daily life in a way that's completely different than ever before. You're achieving that, right? I'd say that's productive! Everything else is secondary right now. And everything is hard right now, no matter your situation.

... the annoying thing is I would totally give this advice to everyone else, except can't seem to allow myself the same!

Seriously, it's like me and discussions about imposter syndrome. I'm always all "that's ridiculous, you guys are amazing and your position is well deserved! Except me, I'm the only one actually a fraud here."

I have no idea if that all makes any sense.

Yes it does. I feel like a total fraud. I get high praise on my annual reviews, and all I can think of is the multitudes of failures I exhibit on a daily basis.

pumpkinpi wrote:Yes it does. I feel like a total fraud. I get high praise on my annual reviews, and all I can think of is the multitudes of failures I exhibit on a daily basis.

perfect sense. we're introspective and analytical and have high standards.
.

pumpkinpi wrote:Yes it does. I feel like a total fraud. I get high praise on my annual reviews, and all I can think of is the multitudes of failures I exhibit on a daily basis.

I'm not a total fraud. 80, 85% tops.

I suspect in the next week or so we will be able to go back to work, but I am going to continue to work at home for as long and as much as I can. I have a feeling that a lot of states are going to be regretting dropping their stay at home orders in the next couple of weeks, as we see a big increase in cases.

Speaking of, New Hampshire is opening!

To be fair, it's in a much more careful way than some states, and it never got as bad as down south in MA, and I think there's severe pressure to at least let hospitals do non-elective surgeries because they're in dire financial straits being so empty (ain't that a messed up system). So the idea is it'll be some things opening but in very limited capacity- I believe on May 11 is retail/ hair salons, but at 50% capacity and both employees and customers must wear a mask at all times (that'll be fun for a haircut), then the week after restaurants but only for outside table service/ no bar areas, tables 10ft apart, etc. My favorite though (and probably only one we'd do) is drive in movie theaters can also open this month, of which there are three in the state, and one of those is quite near us. I am pretty sure sitting in our car is about as safe as that can be (pay in advance, BYO snacks), so we're totally going to be doing it. A lot of the stuff like state parks, campsites, and golf courses are restricted to NH residents only, in hopes that it'll minimize travelers from down south (and hotels, attractions, etc can't open at all), but not sure how well that will go- I think plenty of people are going to be happy to drive less than an hour to southern NH to eat in a restaurant.

I mean, on the one hand I don't think we are going to be going out and about much with our newfound freedoms. On the other, my summer shoes are totally done from last year and the towns around us all only ever reported 1-4 cases, none recently... so I think running into the shoe store the first week is going to happen, because on a practical level my winter boots and hiking boots aren't gonna cut it now that it's getting warmer. So we will go to the local shoe store the week they open at what should be a non-busy time, and after two months without stepping into a store I'm sure essential shoe purchasing will be quite the thrill to last me awhile.

So yeah, I guess we will see how this goes- it may well be too early, but as I said we're not exactly planning to paint the town red. And this might sound dumb, but after about two months of all the same I'm kind of happy to see something change even if we aren't going to be changing much our own lives and def won't be "back to normal." But at least we are out of the beginning, I guess- I keep thinking about that Churchill quote how this isn't the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.

I had an evil thought today.

I'm seeing more stuff, both online and the protests at state capitals, where people are saying that the Covid-19 virus thing is completely overblown (no worse than the flu) if not a complete fraud and conspiracy. It all reminds me a lot of the stuff the Russians were doing before the 2016 election, and I wonder if they are behind a lot of this, particularly online. No, I'm not saying all the Trumpers with their AK47s are Russian spies, but the Russian have shown that they are very good at stoking the embers that are already there.

It is a double win for them. They get to rile people up like in 2016, dividing the country more, and making more people doubt scientists, other leaders, and the media. Plus, if they get the states to rush removing the stay-at-home orders, and there is a second spike in cases and deaths, it does more to hurt the US and the economy.

@Swift

I don't think that's paranoid or far fetched at all, considering the established precedent.