Pandemic Journal - Day 87

We continue to be careful with our outings here at the ol' farm. No eating out. No going to places just to go somewhere. No hanging out at Lowes. We go to the store when we have to - we're trying for every 10 days or so.

It is a good thing I like our home.

Late last week, I baked a cake from scratch - first time for everything, I suppose. I am trying to keep up with the bookwork for our several little businesses. Tedious work, that, and not a favorite thing to do. Actually I'm supposed to be doing that right now but I'm blogging instead.

Queen of procrastination, I am.

Last week the mattress saga finally ended when Sealy sent our replacement mattress under warranty. We had a Sterns & Foster with a 10 year warranty and it died in 8 years. I hadn't realized how much it had shrunk down and flattened out until we received the new mattress. No wonder I have back problems. Maybe this will help.

The new mattress did off-gas for a few days, which bothered me, but it seems to have stopped, or I have adjusted to it, one or the other. For the first two nights we had it, I woke up with my eyes swollen and my whole body feeling "not right," but that has gone away. Seems like anytime we bring anything new in the house, I have a problem with it anymore. It's frustrating.

My mother-in-law, who is 86, appears to have shrugged off the virus for the most part and is going about her routine of grocery store, pharmacy, etc., just as she did before March. We were shopping for her, but she decided to go herself and we can't stop her. I just hope she realizes that if she gets Covid, she will be alone because neither of us will be able to go care for her. But maybe she will be ok. I hope she is at least wearing a mask.

A friend who's been to Richmond said the people there are much more diligent about wearing masks and social distancing than they are around here. We are surrounded by a bunch of "me first" Republicans, so this is no surprise. It will show in where we spend our money. If a business is being careful and has masks on employees, that is where we will shop. I don't go into stores if I see many people without masks, especially staff. Besides, right now one is supposed to wear a mask in public under order of the governor. I think people should think of others and not be foolish, but I'm expendable so what do they care, right? Who cares if a fat ol' childless woman lives or dies? Not them.

I took some great photos of turkeys and a new baby calf, but the computer ate them when I downloaded them and also erased the SD card. I can't decide if something is wrong with the Windows Photo app or if my SD card is bad. It might be the card, as I took some other pictures and it wouldn't download those, either, but I was able to get them by using the camera to download instead of the card reader. I suppose it could be the card reader. This computer is five years old. I hate getting a new one anymore, they are such a hassle to set up. This is a Dell and I plan to use it until something major breaks.

Fortunately, I keep a backup of everything on the hard drive on an external drive. I also back a few things up to the cloud.

Really important things I email to myself - just in case.

Locally, last week someone vandalized the Confederate memorial at the county courthouse by throwing red paint on it. This does not surprise me, although the obelisk is not an ostentatious showing of the Confederacy like a statue of Robert E. Lee might be. I wrote several articles about the monument when I was with the newspaper. It probably needs to be moved to the museum and out of the public sphere. I don't want these statues destroyed, because they are art, but I think they belong outside of places where they are in your face. People are complaining that tearing down the statues is destroying history. Well, no. The history is there, in the history books, and in diaries and a multitude of other places. Taking down a statue is taking down a statue, not destroying history. So move them. It's rather like how I feel I can write what I want in my blog and not on Facebook. Facebook is in your face and you don't have a choice of what you see, sometimes. If you're reading my blog, you came here to read it and shouldn't be surprised by anything you see here, if you're a regular reader.

Speaking of Facebook, I have blocked loads of people on there. Most of them I don't know. If people are particularly nasty in comments on articles I read, I block them so I don't have to see their nastiness. I have not "unfriended" anyone on Facebook although I have unfollowed a lot of people so I don't see their FB posts in my feed. I think I'm down to seeing about three friends and news media of varying sources. Sometimes I go back and follow people, only to unfollow them again. If there is one thing I have learned these last three years, it's that a lot of people around me are racists and bigots. They're nice people and some of them wouldn't hesitate to help me out if I asked, I suppose, just I wouldn't hesitate to help them, but their morality and my morality are very different and I'd just as soon not be exposed to it. Or know about it, for that matter. That's probably very ostrich-like, but I am not interested in starting arguments. I like peace and quiet and I want everyone to be happy.

Right now my county has 10 active Covid cases. We've had a total of 44, with 4 deaths attributed to the virus. The problem is, I don't know where those 10 came from, and probably neither does anyone else.

So I continue to stay home as much as possible. I'm trying to find a new routine again, which I have to do anyway since my husband has retired and is here. That has been enough of a challenge without all the other stuff going on.