It’s the beginning of the 6th week of our stay at home time.
I haven’t written in a while, because it feels like not much has changed. The good news is that it appears that the case and hospitalization and death rates are leveling, with as much data and testing that we have available.
The bad news is that now that we seem to have leveled, there is more dissent being formed by a small but vocal minority of protesters. The protesters seem to want all restrictions be lifted immediately. This, to me, seems premature.
We have a page printed out and hanging in a couple of different spots of “things I can control” inside a circle and “things I can’t control” outside of the circle. Those protesters, no matter how much I think they could be wrong and could be harmful to themselves and others, are firmly outside the “things I can control” circle, so that’s where I need to keep them.
Really, I want to focus on my house and how we’re doing. Overall, it’s a solid “fine” that sometimes dips in to “sub-fine” with some occasional “good” mixed in. Last week, for me, seemed to be the roughest week thus far. I was cranky and short at times, which I don’t like. The kids have been fine, but still have their moments. Someday it’s hard to tell if more structure or less structure would be helpful. School success varies by kid, but that’s to be expected.
Also in the “to be expected” column, Ohio officially cancelled school for the reminder of the school year. This is fine; hopefully we can get things figured out for a plan for starting next school year, which we speculate could look like a blend of in school and home school. Maybe half the kids go half the days / time, while the other half stays home and does distance learning? TBD.
On the employment front, those earlier fears of layoffs or furloughs have been put to rest, at least in the short term. Our department heads have said they need all of us, and we’re going to have plenty of field work to be done once we can actually get back into the field. I’m very much looking forward to being out in the field; my only concerns are actually coming into contact with folks when absolutely unavoidable, and stopping while out and about to use the restroom. Now, the old timers who have gone through other slow times in State government have said there have been semi-furloughs, which looked like losing one pay period check per year, but then also given that time as unpaid leave. Not ideal, but better than actual layoffs.
So, we continue. The memes keep me going somedays, (I’ve turned into send-all-the-memes-to friends guy) but that’s ok.
CanalSide 