July 29

Goodness--almost the end of July. This year has gone by at a--seemingly--faster rate. l than any before. That even though my life is actually less cluttered and frenetic than at any time in the past. 

There have been many times when I wonder what language people are speaking and hearing. The sounds are English but for some reason there is total confusion as to the meaning. The news on mask recommendations and the "confusion" illustrates that observation. I keep wondering what is so hard to understand about "If you are in an area experiencing an increase in cases, are immune compromised, related to a vulnerable person, or are unvaccinated, wear a mask and keep your distance." It seems simple enough. We have basically followed that before the "new" advice came out. We are vaccinated (but are watching the latest info on how lasting the immunity might be), we avoid crowds (but we have done that for some years before the pandemic), and we keep our masks handy just in case we find ourselves in a crowd we hadn't expected. When we go to Mom's medical appointments we know the hospitals and offices still require masks. I keep coming back to the conclusion: some people simply want to be confused so they can reject the advice.

July 30

Tomorrow is the last day of July and the year will be seven months down. We have a break from the brutally hot and humid weather for a bit--we hope. Given how often the weather forecasts have been wrong over the last few years, I say that with fingers crossed. The gardens are in their later phases when some things look a bit past their prime but, on the whole, it still looks very nice. I will have to severely cut the petunias back or dig them out. I guess it will be cutting them because I don't have anything to replace them with right now and probably won't til next spring.

A thought occurred to me this morning as we watched a segment on the news interviewing four nurses in North Carolina who are refusing to get vaccinated. Actually several thoughts. First, one, when confronted with what most of would call facts asked "But are the really facts?" Once upon a time Patrick Moynahan (I think) told an opponent that he had a right to his own opinion but not to his own facts. Facts were facts. Not any more. Second, all four expressed a deep distrust of a once trusted institution: the CDC--and by extension the government as a whole. That is of a piece with a trend I have noticed with increasing frequently with regards to our institutions generally. Third, we make a mistake in thinking that just because someone is a medical professional they have the knowledge to make an informed judgement on any given topic, medical or otherwise. Nurses generally, and the four interviewed in particular, have no great expertise in virology or immunology or (name your specialty). One showed her ignorance by claiming that the vaccines were developed too quickly and  weren't fully tested before being deployed. Previously the record for shortest time for development was the mumps vaccine which too about five years. However that vaccine built on a body of work which had already produced vaccines for polio, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, etc. The COVID vaccine built on the techniques developed over the last 15 to 20 years in the fight against AIDS. Her complaint about the short time doesn't consider all of the years of work the COVID vaccine was based on. And on the testing--the pharmaceutical companies had the results trials with several tens of thousands of participants before asking for emergency approval and since then tens of millions of people have received the vaccines providing even more data. To date some adverse reactions were noted but they are rare and often occurred in the same frequency as in the general population.

Another thought occurred to me as I typed that. Some time ago I read a piece on the present state of physics which noted that particle physics had yielded some very strange results and that those results are well outside our everyday experience. So much so that most of us really don't understand them even when we read about them. I wonder if some of medicine isn't following the same route.

 July 28

I haven't posted for several days. Nothing much to say because nothing much is happening. The national legislature is still at logger heads over the infrastructure bill--can't even agree on what constitutes "infrastructure." Latest problem was whether and how much to include for mass transit (which largely benefits, mostly blue, cities) vs. highways and roads (which benefits mostly red rural areas). I read a small piece that said "Darth" Mitch McConnell floated the notion that he would be on board with raising the debt ceiling if it were coupled with the establishment of a "commission" that would closely examine all of the so-called trust agencies (highways, social security, medicare) and propose ways to deal with the projected shortfalls that congress would have to implement.

Often in the last five years I have been unable to recognize this country as the United States as the one I have lived in all my life. Stories like this one just solidifies that feeling. I read a number of prepper and/or homesteader blogs and several have warned over the last year or so that China's policy of "social credit" (for lack of a better term) closely surveilling its people for their "personal contacts", grades, social media posting and a host of other factors. The scores determine what government services you can access, whether you get a job or a promotion, you or your children get into a top flight school etc. The comments on their posts often express deep skepticism that the system can ever come here. Well, ... . I have see passionate articles urging readers to "deal" with "pre-cancer", "pre-diabetes", and "pre-hypertension." Now we have "pre-crime." Or at least the citizens in Pasco County, Florida do. I have a lot of words that apply but they are more than a bit salty and I am trying to cut the swearing down. 

This Crooks&Liars cartoon sums things up terrifyingly well.

 July 22

The morning news has a piece which illustrates why I don't pay much attention to the initial reports on medical or scientific issues/studies. Yesterday the story concerned a "study" which said that people who got the J&J vaccine should get a "booster" shot with one of the mRNA vaccines because the J&J was less effective against the Delta version of COVID. Today we get the push back. First the original "study" was not peer reviewed which is essential in establishing the reliability of any scientific reports. Second, the sample size was less than 30. Really?? Fewer than 30 study subjects against the millions who have participated in the earlier studies or received the vaccine.

Evidently I am not the only one with a skeptical and tepid response to the billionaire boys' space race. Gizmodo posted this this morning.

Has anyone checked on the weather in hell? I wonder it it hasn't frozen over. Republicans (pundits and politicians) have started urging people to get vaccinated and touting the vaccines as "safe and effective." The shift in attitude on the part of some of the most vociferous critics of the vaccines has been so sudden the news mainstream media have taken notice.

I heard this morning that Kevin McCarthy is pulling all of his picks for the January 6 commission because Nancy Pelosi rejected the two most obstructionist members, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. He is, of course, crying crocodile tears about how "authoritarian" Pelosi is and how unfair the whole set up is. Let's not forget how his chosen negotiator had basically achieved an agreement that would have given the Republicans an equal number of seats, the ability to issue their own subpoenas, and even a veto power over certain aspects of the process. He threw the guy under the bus and rejected the whole thing. He didn't want any commission in the first place. Question: What is that Ass-Kisser-Of-The-Former-Guy sycophant afraid of? I am no longer going to be polite in talking about these idiot going to Mar-a-lago or Bedminster to kiss The-Seditionist-In-Chief's ring. 

 July 21

I saw the headline for this story and hoped that the affected area wasn't one I knew. Unfortunately, I once lived in Ft. Collins and one of my favorite drives was through the Poudre Canyon. It looks like Mother Nature is mightily pissed off. Fire last year and flood this year. This isn't the only recent flood. Germany and Belgium are still trying to find victims of their floods and the clean up will take years. Then I saw this article about flooding in China as well. The NY subway system was flooded with the recent east coast rains. Often the floods followed unusual rains systems that dumped a month's worth, or more, of rain in the space of a day or two.

This piece on the aquatic snot weed choking the Sea of Marmara is interesting. It is a purely man made problem that is replicated across the world. Note the article mentions problems in the Caribbean, the Adriatic, and the Chesapeake--all areas, like the Marmara Sea, are overburdened by pollution.

And then there is the massive red tide hitting Florida. As the article mentions, red tides do occur naturally but this episode is not natural. Partly fueled by rising temperatures and man made pollution, this one is particularly bad.

Did you watch the two billionaires ride their own vehicles to the boundaries of space? I did--out of curiosity for the most part. The commentary ranged from disparaging to gushing. The disparaging comments centered on the notion that they surely could have spent all that money on alleviating the many problems we have now. Another variation on that theme claimed that if they paid their fair share of taxes perhaps the government would have the money to address those problems. The gushers raved about a "new space age" where ordinary people could be space tourists and we can move our polluting, heavy industry into space. I am not in either camp. No one will ever be satisfied with whatever those boys spend their money on. Our government is the source of the tax codes that allow billion dollar companies to pay no taxes at all and they could change it if they were not in the pockets of business and industry thinking that what is good for those interests are in all our interests all the time. The gushers assume that "progress" will always go in the direction they think it it going and that the direction can't change unexpectedly. I was very enthusiastic about the original space program but not so much for the billionaire boys' race to space.

 July 18

I hadn't decided to post today but this pissed me off. Why in the hell the grown men who run the Babe Ruth League thought that little girls would be happy and grateful for the "keepsakes" they gave out as awards for the softball champions baffles me. What is worse in all previous years girl champions got trophies. Why not this year? How many embarrassing episodes of bad publicity will it take before people (men and women both) decide to treat the achievements of women (of all ages) and men (also of all ages) with respect? Oh, that goes for the achievements of all differently abled people a well.

I saw something on this earlier this week on a TV news show. The talking heads keyed in on the 66% of Republicans in southern states but the actual story is more complex and more concerning. Significant percentages of Democrats and Independents also agree with the notion of secession. And it isn't just the southern states. All areas have a large percentage of respondents who agree though not a majority. One noted that some of the respondents might actually be signaling party loyalty and may not actually agree. That doesn't make sense. Why would Democrats and Independents agree? Riddle me that one!

Actually--on that last--I do have an idea. A character in a book I like to re-read every now and then, when faced with the very real possibility of sections of the country separating from the union, noted that people tolerated the Federal Government because it "won wars and provided them with needed benefits" and the government had't done either in a long time. That sounds like a good description of our current government. What has been done (effective vaccines in record time, the COVID relief bill) was good but too little made it down to Main Street level. And the totally dysfunctional administration of the Former Guy has led to an entrenched and amplified anti-tax movement. The dysfunction has penetrated to the current national legislature. Someone on a panel on the news this morning asked why the Dems didn't just give the Republicans what they say they wanted. I laughed remembering how often the Obama administration did just that only to find the Republican opposition changed the demands. We are moving quickly to get out of our latest war of choice without even the pretense we expressed when getting out of Vietnam that we won anything and all of the new measure to benefit ordinary people is hitting the brick wall of the filibuster. That seems to sum things up.

 Oh, my!! July 16 already!!

We have a heavy and steady rain today. I have a pathetic looking pot of dahlias that have been beaten and broken by earlier deluges. When things dry out I will try to create a support system for it. Everything else is doing pretty well. I did get several of the plants (roses, dahlias, bee balm) deadheaded earlier this week and moved a pot of the sun bells to a sunnier location. That pot had been overshadowed by the pepper and the tower with the chives and petunia. They created a little cave that was a bit too dark.

We have been out three days this week between doctor's appointment, oil change for the car and shopping--highly unusual. Several days we had rain but managed to skip between the rain drops and stayed fairly dry. This rain pattern is very unusual--more like April except for the temperatures. It feels like we are veering between April and August--cool and wet vs hot and dry. At least we don't have the triple digits of the west coast or the drenching flooding rains of the east or, worse, Germany and the Low Countries. I think I am going to have to read more of BBC and other outlets. I hadn't heard anything about that til yesterday.

Has anyone looked at the Drought Monitor maps lately? I just did because I got onto a story about more counties in Idaho being declared primary disaster areas. The entire state is in drought with significant parts in severe, exceptional and extreme stages (the most serious designations). Along with that I got into stories from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta Canada which are also in drought and have been for a while. Thanks to the last three weeks we aren't in any drought stage here but a swatch immediately across in Illinois is. The Drought Monitor map for the U.S. shows the entire west in the same condition as Idaho. That doesn't bode well for agricultural products in the near future. Expect more price hikes and spotty supplies.

Evidently parts of the country, mostly deeply Republican, are showing a drastic increase in Covid cases (California being the only exception in that respect) often the Delta variant. Interestingly, 99.5 (according to a couple of news stories) are unvaccinated people. And a larger percentage of the new Covid cases are in younger people and a fair number are children. 

Infidel753 has a good post today on the problem the willfully unvaccinated. I agree with him on the notion of vaccine mandates--they likely won't work. Where it is working to an extent is in the private sector where employers, entertainment (including sports venues), and transportation services have mandated vaccination however even that is spotty because with the exception of the last (planes, trains, and cruise ships) depend on the "honor system." Unfortunately among those who think their "freedom" to not vaccinate, to infect others, and to possibly die is worth the lives of those around them--there is no honor.

This is an interesting story which is at once astounding and unsurprising. The title is somewhat misleading because it implies that the problem with international travel is the vaccine certificates which isn't entirely true. I have read of accounts from travelers who had delays and difficulties because not all countries accept the certificates from other countries. But the other problem is the vaccines. Not every vaccine type is accepted by every country or every airline. It is going to be a long while before things sort themselves out.

The Tokyo Olympics is due to begin in just under two weeks--in spite of a COVID surge, the ban on foreign visitors and athletes families, and a strong opposition from ordinary Japanese generally. This article makes a good case for eliminating the games entirely.

 July 10

Cloudy with a bit of rain today so no gardening. And no cleaning up the shed. I probably won't get back to that til the end of the coming week. The weather channel predicted about five days strait with cool temps and rain. I tried to do some swing but that didn't go well. I thought I remembered how to thread my machine. I didn't. I hadn't used it since last fall when I made our last several masks. Worse I couldn't find the user's manual. I have no idea where I put it though I know it has to be in that What-not room. I did go on line and found a printable manual so I printed off another copy. The experience did make me aware that I really need to go through my files and get them thinned and rearranged. I probably won't get back to the machine til the end of the week. 

We have been watching the flight of the Virgin Galactic system with Richard Branson on board along with a couple other people who are not professional astronauts. It has been very interesting and, thankfully, completely successful. I guess next week Jeff Bezos will go up with his own system. I hope that goes as well. It is interesting that we have three individuals who have the wherewithal to fund the development of space vehicles which might lead to the commercialization of near space travel.

David Kaiser has a good piece this morning that reflects many of my own thoughts about the use of history (or misuse of history). What Kaiser describes as "wokeness" was described as "presentism" when I was a history student (undergraduate and graduate). Basically, that involves the application of present day moral values to people and societies of the past. His criticisms of The NY Times op ed are right on point. It is one thing to reassess the ranking of former presidents on the basis of their total record and the effects of their deeds is legitimate. However, to do so because of a few actions or words that go against our current moral or ethical standards is fallacious. I remember students at Princeton demonstrating to get Woodrow Wilson's name off one of the buildings. It didn't matter that he was a President of the U.S. or president of Princeton. It didn't matter what his other accomplishments might have been. What mattered to them was his views, widely shared in the society of the time, that blacks were inferior to whites and deserved a low status in society. We  shouldn't judge the past by its failure to meet our present day standards.

 July 9--OMG, one third of July is gone.

We have cool temps today--not out of the 70s so far. We have had some clouds that look threatening but then move off making way for the next batch after a bit of sun. We are expecting company a little later--Mom's step-granddaughter and her daughters. We haven't seen the girls for two years. That will be nice.

COVID keeps rearing its ugly head. Japan has decided that their Olympic Games will be held without spectators after declaring a health emergency amid another spike in coronavirus cases. Some new reports from Europe say that a new wave is building with the Delta variant leading the charge. Missouri has become our newest hot spot. Their hospitals are filling up fast and they had to beg for ventilators over the last week. Nearly all of the new cases (99+%) are Delta cases. Missouri is one of the states with low vaccination rates. I remember saying early on in the push to get people vaccinated that only about 45% of people the flu shot the notion of getting 60% vaccinated for COVID was probably a bit optimistic. The 67% reported over the last weekend was phenomenal. Unfortunately, that 67% isn't spread evenly over the country as a whole.

 Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark wonders at the seeming "insanity" of who choose to be blind to obvious risks. I also find the anti-vax movement perplexing. I have wondered often over the last 20+ years whether we have become very complacent about vaccines because the diseases they prevent are rare nowadays. 

July 10

It is cool so far and cloudy. I got a bit of the shed outside swept and straightened out. I should have done it last spring but didn't have much ambition or energy for much so I did what I could which meant getting the containers planted. Then the heat hit and about all I did outside was water the plants. I hope this cooler weather hangs around for a while. If it does I will get the shed completely cleaned up, rearranged and some stuff thrown away. I got rid of half a dozen trellis stakes because the plastic coatings had been badly cracked and broken allowing the steel core to rust. They aren't strong enough to support anything any more. I have plenty more so no need to think about replacements.

Continuing the last thought from yesterday--

I am 72. When I was a kid all of us got measles, chicken pox, mumps. The vaccines for those didn't come out until the 1960s. Whooping cough vaccines have been available since 1914 and in 1949 was combined with one for tetanus and diphtheria to form the DPT vaccine which is standard today. I and all of my friends and their younger siblings got over the diseases but though considered "childhood" maladies they could and did have serious, long lasting consequences. In my life I have seen one case of polio--a girl in my 7th or 8th grade class who immigrated from Eastern Europe. But before the vaccine was introduced in the mid 1950s it was a perennial summertime terror that hit all income groups and left many with serious disabilities. Over the last decade I have seen news reports of measles, mumps, and whooping cough. They had become so rare that a couple of doctors didn't recognize them at first. At the same time the incidence of autism in children has increased and a report of a study linking autism to vaccines caused a lot of parents to reject vaccines for their children. The report was later shown to be based on phony data but damage has been long lasting. More people today have experience with autism than have experience with measles, mumps, rubella, polio or pertussis. That provides a reservoir of resistance that has lately been augmented by political partisans. 

 July 8

Today is a bit cooler and cloudy. We had rain early this morning so I don't have to water anything. I got most of the deadheading done before I watered yesterday. A couple of hard rains fell so the watering was superfluous.  

I have been cleaning and rearranging the What-not room. Every now and then that becomes necessary as I use up some materials and have the space opened up to consolidate what remains. I am trying very had not to buy more of anything until a good bit more is used. In the process I found two items I was working on several years ago. One is a cute crib quilt that got put aside because I had no one to give it to and a unsettling encounter with someone over the price I wanted for my work on other quilts left me in a  sour mood for quilting. I still don't have anyone to give such a quilt to but I  have noticed a quilting itch rising again that needs scratching. The other is a cross-stitched Christmas stocking that I didn't finish at the time. It won't be finished as a functional stocking. Instead I plan to make it a door ornament for the Christmas season--when ever I get it done.

TomDispatch has an interesting article on our "age of unaccountability." On the whole I agree with the article but I would expand the time frame. Go back to Ford's pardon of Nixon. Although there was some small measure of accountability for Nixon in that he resigned the presidency rather than face a certain vote in the Senate to impeach him, he escaped legal proceedings for his criminal actions because of the pardon. He went back to California a free man with his pension intact. The argument Ford trotted out was the nation needed to get past the scandals and heal so instead of accountability we tried to forget. What we have now is a system that demands we side step forgiving and go straight to forgetting the wrongs of he powerful while ruthlessly punishing and never forgetting the transgressions of the powerless.

 July 5 (or as some have said "July 4th observed")

It is quite warm again today--High 80s right now with the highest temp predicted to be low 90s. I didn't get the gardening done. We had to run an errand this morning and by the time we got back the patio thermometer was already indicating 90+. That temperature is always way higher than the real temperature because of the white fence and cement. I watered everything really well yesterday so the plants should be fine til tomorrow morning.

July 6

Another hot day predicted with temps in the low 90s. I hope to get out long enough to empty the large pot I started on over the weekend. We don't have any errands planned today so I just might get it done.

Right now I am reading some of what has come into my in-box. I don't know how much I will comment on or even link to. So much is both repetitive and uninformative. We'll see.

I heard about this on BBC yesterday. It is covered more fully here. I never heard of "mud volcanoes" before.

July 7

As you can see I didn't find anything I wanted to link to or comment on yesterday.  Most often my reaction to what I read and hear is "My God, how can you be so stupid??" Just this morning comments on the controversy over police funding elicited that reaction. "Defund the Police" has become a meaningless phrase always been a meaningless phrase. But questioning the level of funding and how the funds are used--that is a legitimate activity. What ticked me off was the off hand remark that some unspecified towns/cities are replacing funds after a spike in crime. Was the rise in crime actually caused by the reduced funding? Correlation does not mean causation. We have done with police power what we have done with military power: applied them to circumstances for which they are unsuitable tools. Hammers are good for nails but not all problems are nails and we have failed, consistently failed, to make any distinctions.

I started reading this piece on TomDispatch yesterday but wanted to let it ferment a bit before commenting on it. It is another reminder that lying politicians aren't anything new. Check out the part on the Nixon administrations use of political lies on drugs to enact laws that targeted political enemies: the anti-war movement and blacks. It wasn't the first time in our history that happened. In the late 19th and early 20th century moralizing American politicians focused on opium (because of an association Chinese immigrants) and marijuana (associated with Mexicans) and claiming to protect weak-willed white people from those pernicious influences. Another idea surfaced which the author didn't deal with: the failure of prohibition. The Temperance Movement won that battle but lost the moral war and in the process created what Ken Burns in his miniseries on Prohibition called a "nation of scofflaws." The "war on drugs" has been as futile as our "war on terror."

Axios has a piece other news sites have picked up: Americans have increased their alcohol consumption over months of the pandemic. I am not surprised. When you need an anesthetic for social and psychic pain you find it.

 July 4--Happy Independence Day on this 246th birthday of this country

In my bleaker moments over the last six years I have wondered how many more it will have. I read a lot of history because it reminds me both of how bad things can get and how humanity can rise after falling to awful lows. It reminds me also that political entities come and go but people go on. Some years ago I took a German in translation class and a couple of the stories have remained in the back of my mind. One (sorry, I don't remember either the author or the title) started with a young woman giving a neckerchief to the young man she was to marry He tied it around his neck as he walked off to his shift in the local mine. The mine collapsed killing the entire crew. The local tragedy was followed over the years by large catastrophes all over the world including a massive earthquake that destroyed Lisbon, Portugal. Years/decades pass and the mine was reopened leading to the discovery of a man's body. When he was brought out a very ancient woman identified him as the man she would have married by the scarf she had given him. Lesson: shit happens (large and small) but life goes on.

I did get out into the gardens for a bit before the temperature in that hot box of a patio passed 85F. Yesterday I discovered that one of the two tomatoes had suffered serious damage from the hard rains. It was still alive but sprawling all over in a big mess. I decided to take both out, transplant the marigolds into their own pots, and start emptying the pot. I found long cracks along the upper edge and I think I put a hole through the side trying to put in support stakes for the tomatoes. I haven't fount any holes (yet) but for some reason the pot is drying out very fast. I watered everything well yesterday and the soil in this pot was dry down several inches. All of my other containers are retaining moisture well. Tomorrow I will empty the soil into another large container for later use with amendments.

This article from Vox by way of MSN caught my eye this morning. I know that all my life I have heard the warning that the robots were coming for our jobs. And most of the stories we saw in the news followed that script. I think back to an Isaac Asimov short story which described the encounter between a drunken man and a robot. The man hasn't had a job since he was replaced with a robot much like the one he meets. In a fit of anger he throws the empty booze bottle which bounces off the robot who turns and tells him "at least you can get drunk." The robot has been replaced by a newer model and is also unemployed. However the article I linked to said we should hold up on that thought because the situation is a bit more complex. Some automation has made some jobs better for the humans, others have totally displaced human workers but in-between is a large category of jobs actually made worse for the humans who still work in them. I don't know how many out there remember the "I Love Lucy" shows. The one I am thinking of is one of the several where Lucy and her sidekick, Ethyl, decide they want a job and are hired by a candy maker. As the candies go by on the conveyer belt they have to do task. At first the conveyer moves as a slow speed and they find the task easy. But then the belt moves faster and faster until they are overwhelmed and reduced to stuffing candies down their shirt, into their pockets and even into their mouths. Needless to say they didn't last very long. Unfortunately, the predominate modes seem to be "technological unemployment" or a technological "sweatshop." The middle ground seems to be shrinking.

 Welcome to July--

Well--half past 2021. So far this year hasn't been as stressful as last but it hasn't been calm by any definition. There are a few positive aspects to this year: the Former Guy is no longer in office (but he is still a pustule on our body politic), the pandemic is winding down here (but not in many other parts of the world and there is the threat of new variants), the economy appears to be coming back (but we are only beginning to deal with the aftermath.)

 Although the fever of our perpetual electioneering has lowered we no longer have lulls between election seasons. What is worse is that the politicians can't see beyond their narrow personal ambitions and the national good. The hypocrisy of so many (especially on the Republican side of the aisle) is stunning and infuriating. Consider how McConnell has suddenly rediscovered his fiscal conservatism now that a Democrat is President--a pattern that was established in the 1990s. But no one has suggested that we should examine our government spending priorities. Do we really need to shovel 3/4 of a trillion dollars to the "Defense" department? I put that in quotes because I have difficulty seeing how many of our military adventures make us safer. Or how some of the very expensive high tech toys our money pays for enhances our security (when they work at all which some of them). 

I noticed a brief article this morning which noted that many of the countries that closed their borders have been slow to open up. Several of countries still have severe restrictions in place and aren't likely to remove them any time soon. Over the last couple of days the first cruise liner set from a Florida port and jubilant passengers said they felt like they had been released from COVID prison.   But the ship sailed with less than 50% capacity. I have seen several ads from states trying to lure tourists back. I wonder how much of the travel industry has come back. I haven't seen any stats about that. We still avoid crowds but we did that before the pandemic.

Even though the temperatures here haven't been anywhere near what the Northwest or Northeast have had. But they have been high enough with the humidity to make being outside uncomfortable. My plants, for the most part, are easy maintenance and I haven't had to water anything. We have had rain, often heavy, almost every day for the last two weeks. So much rain that my tomatoes have split almost as soon as they start turning red.