August 15

Charles Hugh Smith expresses something I have felt almost from the beginning of the pandemic: forget going back to normal--it ain't coming back.

August 16

As you can tell I didn't get back here yesterday. It has been a busy and surreal week. My brother's wife died about two weeks ago. She had been is precarious health for the last few years and was hospitalized three times since about the first of the year. However, it was a sudden heart attack that finally did her in. Her visitation and funeral was last weekend and Monday. Brother came by Friday to give me SIL's embroidery stash--a dozen+ stamped pillowcase pairs, dresser scarves and doilies and a collection of floss with a storage box. I will think of her with every one of the pieces I finish. I spent most of yesterday winding the floss on bobbins and sorting the pieces. Then I went on to the crochet centerpiece I have been working on.

Since I didn't get back to posting I didn't link to this continuation of Charles Hugh Smith's discussion of "denormalization." It is definitely worth thinking about.

CNN published this story a few days ago which amused me--evidently there is a shortage of sewing machines. It seems a lot of people have time on their hands and are delighted to rediscover a craft that yields something both beautiful and useful. The news media noted a boom in home gardening about 3 months ago.

And sewing machines aren't the only appliances in short supply. Schools are having a problem getting laptops for students who will ether begin this year distance learning or in hybrid (in person+online) schedules. As the report says "no device=no learning."

August 17

Good morning, again. As usual I listen to the news and shake my head in disbelief. This morning the morning news had this piece from Axios. The last time I read anything that mentioned oleander was a novel which described a (fictional) Civil War matriarch who invited her northern sympathizing neighbors in for tea--oleander tea. I checked my recollection and found I was remembering correctly what my herbals said--oleander is toxic. And when I checked on Oleandrin (the extracted chemical) I found it is used intravenously for certain cardia problems. That the head of the company making the extracted drug wants approval to market it as a dietary supplement is very disturbing.

This has been quite a weather year. I didn't get my gardens entirely planted til mid-to-late June--two to three weeks later than normal. And it wasn't because I am getting older and doing things more slowly. The soil simply didn't warm up and the night time temperatures were too low for the seeds and plants. Lately it has been the heat that has been the problem. I haven't seen a blossom on the tomato for three weeks or so. The derecho that barreled through here a bit over a week ago flattened some 10million acres of corn out west where it started and left a couple hundred thousand customers without electricity for as much as a week. Some just got their service back over the weekend. In late July a weather reporter on one of the local stations said that the rest of the year could be right on normal and the year would still be one for the hottest years list. California has fires to contend with (along with several other states) and rolling blackouts. This article has a bit more about the power situation. We have had a year in which several named storms in the Atlantic have been the earliest for their alphabetic position on record. It has been quite a year for chaos without talking about politics, or economics, or the coronavirus.

And on the virus, this LA Times article hits things on the head. I have thought since the stats came out on the racial differences in case load and mortality that we shouldn't talk about race primarily but about poverty. I don't mean we should ignore the racial differences but should recognize that "the doors" on one news reader has referred to them are the larges group of victims. And to call many of these people "essential workers" is rather an insult since they are given so little real support otherwise. It reminds me that slaves and serfs were "essential" also.