Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Friday, January 22nd, 2021

Flower Arrangement

Tonight is the first book club of the new year and for a change it is a book I have read years ago and very much enjoyed, but then I have enjoyed every book Allende has ever written and the Sum of our Days is no different. I had meant to reread at least parts of it the last week or so, but just have not gotten around to it so I will need to wing it from memory.

Tonight’s hostess also has her birthday today, a round one. Some of us will show up in person and inaugurate her fire pit, the others will join by Zoom. I of course plan to be there and pressed for a gift decided I would make a flower arrangement for her. I love flowers and always have at least two or three vases with fresh cut flowers in my house, which I find far nicer than pot plants, of which I only have those I have been presented. Bouquets of flowers are so rarely presented these days that I thought this may make for a nice gift, especially as at our age we typically have everything we desire. It promises to be a fun evening.

Otherwise today was a regular workday interrupted only by my daily swim. They let us in early again so got a solid 40 minutes!

EM has been contrite as she came home (again) past her curfew again last night. That I do not mind so much, I am more upset by her lack of household contributions. Currently I am the one who does everything. She does not seem to see what needs to be done and her chores are minimal as it is. How hard can it be to refill and bubble the water bottles, take the laundry down and occasionally start a load? And ideally not forget about it but move the load into the dryer. Her mail has literally been lying on the floor in front of her room for three days now. I understand school is keeping her super busy and she does need to decompress and see the BF as well as BFF, but we are I hope still a family and I miss spending time with her. At the beginning of the pandemic we would have game or movie nights. It would be nice if these returned rather than us hanging in different rooms of the house and doing whatever all the time. Same with our walks.

I am trying to help her as best I can. I have organized a way for her to do surveys in Bangladesh for her environmental science assessment and offered to review her TOK prescribe text. She has been accepted into Pennsylvania State University and has personal interviews with University of Uitrecht as well as IE Madrid and I have offered to coach her for those or put her in touch with people who have done these interviews. I am very much hoping she will get into IE Madrid as well as Uitrecht and Tilburg, so she has choices. Penn State is at the bottom of my list as I am not willing to pay USD 75k every year.

I have joined the BCC PTA graduation committee. We want to make this special for our seniors nad help them to create lasting memories.

The virus is continuing its spread. I read an article today by a journalist who crossed the country and found that, while there are signs asking people to wear masks, almost no one does. It is rather shocking and explains why today saw another 19k new infections bringing the US total to 25.3 million today with over 423k deaths on record. President Biden expects the USA to reach 500.000 death by the end of February and of course the GoP is wasting no time blaming his administration for these record numbers. Given the UK strain of Covid may not only be more infectious but also more deadly and that the CDC expects this to be the dominant strain in the USA by March this is terrible news.

Not surprisingly the previous administration has left behind a major mess with regards to vaccine procurement and distribution. It is unclear where about half of the doses procured are. Some 18 million doses have disappeared and there is no record where they were delivered to. The Biden administration now faces a huge challenge in delivering the 200 million doses it is set to receive by March.

The aftermath of January 6th riots is no felt by the national guards as hundreds have tested positive for the virus. This is an avoidable tragedy, as US Capitol Police forced them to leave the Capitol they were guarding to take their breaks in a garage with only one bathroom for 5.000 men. I have no idea what these people were thinking! Downtime in a parking lot? Seriously? This is outrageous not only from a health perspective. Here I had thought that there might have been an upside to the troops who were the only members of US society personally attending the inauguration with front row seats (beyond the 1.000 officials).

Instead of gratitude they are being shown disrespect. Outragous!