SL 780

~ Laura

Everything is up for grabs. Will this pandemic bring about the next revolution?

Dead bodies in apartments in NYC.

This crisis is going to push struggling small colleges over the edge.

Parents and groups rush in to fill the education void.

Should college kids get a MAJOR refund right now? Yes.

I’m going to double the size of our backyard garden. Steve’s working like crazy, so I’m going to pay our landscape to build a pine 12 x 4 raised bed. I’ve been reading up on the best vegetables for semi-shady locations. The landscaper said he’s building tons of vegetable gardens right now. Wayfair has some nice kits. Everybody is doing it.

Looking at the Asian model, we could keep infection rates down and open the economy, by having more testing and making modifications, like smaller classrooms, staggered work hours, and more polling areas.

Bernie drops out, and nobody cares. 150 members of the royal family of Saudi Arabia have. Linda Tripp died. It’s all over our prisons. More here.

Okay, I’m signing out for the day. I’m going to roast everything for dinner on one tray: chicken thighs, potatoes and cauliflower. Want some ideas for one tray roasting meals? Try this.

Published by Laura

19 thoughts on “SL 780”

  1. Laura said, “Looking at the Asian model, we could keep infection rates down and open the economy, by having more testing and making modifications, like smaller classrooms, staggered work hours, and more polling areas.”

    A number of Asian locations that were doing well are having a surge right now.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/singapores-second-wave-shows-us-in-for-loosening-restrictions-2020-4

    “The new resurgence in cases has prompted the government to close schools and most workplaces for at least a month to curb.”

    I haven’t followed Singapore that closely, but it may be the first time they’ve closed their schools.

    “On Wednesday, Singapore reported 142 new cases of COVID-19 — the highest single-day record for the city-state. In the last week, Singapore had two record-breaking numbers of new infections”

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  2. David French discovers that after his kids came home from college, home turned into a dorm:

    https://time.com/5817007/parenting-college-coronavirus/

    “When my college kids returned home after the University of Tennessee canceled live classes for the semester due to coronavirus, my wife and I laid down the law. “You’re in a functioning home now,” we said. “This isn’t a college dorm. We’ll go to bed at a decent hour and get up at a decent hour.” Exactly 10 days later I found myself logging onto the online multiplayer video game World of Warcraft at 1:30 a.m., just minutes after we finished binging Tiger King on Netflix. I logged off at 2:40 a.m. My college son was already fast asleep. We fought the good fight against the college life, and the college life won.”

    We get to bed more or less when we used to (maybe a bit later), but it’s true that mornings have gotten a lot more leisurely. We were trying to do a Liturgy of the Hours reading before 9am, but it was more like 9:15 today. The big kids work between then and noon (when everybody suddenly turns up in the kitchen for lunch). The 1st grader tends to start working around 10.

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  3. Wow, professors are idiots. I sometimes forget, having been away from campus for so long. Let me assure you that (i) the revolution is not coming and (ii) if it did, it wouldn’t be the kind that most academics would like; in fact, they would be the first against the wall.

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      2. My previous neighbor, who left to become a professor at Rutgers, really wanted fresh greens and tried about everything to kill the groundhogs that were the main threat back then. He trapped lots of animals but another always moved in. That was before the deer came in, so it’s harder now.

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    2. I’m expanding the size of my backyard garden too, but remember that vegetable gardens are not dependable sources of food for amateurs. (There’s a reason farming is a tough business even for professional farmers.) They’re awesome and sometimes fun, though make sure you get the boys to do a lot of the tedious work; it’s a time suck and can be hard on the hands. Sometimes you get great yields for little effort – someone put in a couple raspberry bushes for me and they’ve done very well. Sometimes you get great yields after a lot of effort. And sometimes they tank – hours of work for 6 snap peas. This spring, so far, I have one single spear of asparagus. I assume that’s what the $64 Tomato is about.

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  5. I think I would have to build a literal cage with chicken wire between the bars. Deer, groundhogs, possum, raccoons, and various birds have lots of different abilities and you’d need to stop them all.

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  6. My sister says that in her hospital, when a COVID patient is extubated, they play “Just Breathe,” (maybe “Breathe” by Anna Nalick?) and when a COVID patient is discharged, they play “Here Comes the Sun.”

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  7. As a college professor, I am very worried about what campus is going to look like in the fall. There’s no way we will be able to avoid layoffs with declines in enrollment.

    As a parent of a high school junior, I am worried about the fall after that . The article about financial hits notes that many high school seniors are planning to take a gap year – what does that mean for Fall 2021? Is there going to be greater competition in admissions because far more people are applying?

    It’s going to hit many colleges very hard.

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  8. On the other hand it’s a cheaper college year for parents without the room and board, and 2020 freshmen (I have one) have nothing else to do if there are no jobs…and I mean nothing…might as well get gen eds out of the way.

    Delaying so we can pay more for the social life…not into it. We’ll take the 15,000 in savings on room/board instead. I’m sure they’ll make up for lost time later. It’s the seniors (I have one of those too) we should feel sorry for, missing the end of year rituals and entering the workforce in a terrible recession. They can’t even get stimulus or unemployment if they haven’t held a job.

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    2. lisasg2 said, “On the other hand it’s a cheaper college year for parents without the room and board, and 2020 freshmen (I have one) have nothing else to do if there are no jobs…and I mean nothing…might as well get gen eds out of the way.”

      Yeah, where would the jobs be?

      And it’s not like anybody ought to be roadtripping across the US or backpacking across Europe for the foreseeable future…

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    3. lisasg2 said, “They can’t even get stimulus or unemployment if they haven’t held a job.”

      I believe 17-year-olds are not counted toward the household check, either, although I may be wrong about that.

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    4. I don’t know what colleges are going to realistically do if they have to go online next fall. I do think there are many who would want to take the semester of in that circumstance, especially if anything is starting to open up again. And then, how do they afford it?

      I feel bad for everyone who was in transitional stages, building a life, and seeing it halted.

      In one family I know, whose child had interrupted her freshman year and was returning spring term, and is now returning online, a “pod” apartment has been rented for her. I other words, there are families for whom the transitional living away from home is a very important part of college.

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