re enough about varieties of food nutrition, let's talk about varieties of food COLORS YES!!!!! Separated at birth! I've never "met" anyone else who focuses on food colors!!! Do you also choose your plates, based on what color the food is? That's where *I* have to bite my tongue and dial back on the micromanagement impulse. No no nooooo not the *white* plates, we're having pasta with alfredo sauce, take the blue ones or the greeeeeeeeeen!

Nah, not scoffing. Inviting anyone who has a lot of opinions on how I'm doing something, to share in the doing of the thing, is a pretty standard strategy for me. You have detailed ideas, let's do it together, or let's take turns. To my mind, that is absolutely a constructive way to approach a difference in viewpoints. [I do get why in this case that's not the approach @BaseballandHockey wants to go with.]

re fatal flaw in otherwise #genius solution of having BIL trade off the cooking Ah, yes, that trap. I am familiar; my husband is the same. On the gratefully rare occasions when he looked around at 7p, noticed that I was still full-on absorbed in gardening or a sewing project or something and have lost track of time, and he vaguely muttered something about "whipping something up" my kids came running to me MOM!! DAD SAYS HE'S GOING TO COOK!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO PLEASE COME RIGHT AWAY!!! (He's very good at other things.) Given all you've said about your grandfather in law, I get it. I guess I'd try to work up a repetoire of dishes with little parts -- rice and curry with lots of little things in bowls, tacos/burritos/rice bowls where people dump in their own stuff, loaded baked potatoes, etc. One of my kids is vegetarian so over the years I worked out a bunch of stuff that are easy to split -- I make jambalaya with a vegan sausage, then have spiced chicken chunks that the rest of us roll in; a base chili that the rest of us dump spiced beef into, a chick pea tangine thing that the rest of us dump chunks of lamb into, etc. Maybe if you think in those terms you can keep the range and the spices for your kids in the mix-it-in part (loaded with chipotle or paprika or whatever) but have a mild base for the littles?

I see. Perhaps he'd like to take the task on a few nights a week.

The "what counts" language is cracking me up. Who "counts"? Every meal... there's going to be another meal, in, like, six minutes or something. I definitely never aimed to get every kid perfectly balanced every time, just kept a vague eye on the big picture. That said... Tomato based sauce - I guess technically tomato is healthy fruit not a veg, but I anyway manage to "fruits and vegetables" as a category. And I make it up from tomato paste, so there's no sugar... but unless I jam lentils and carrots and stuff into it, I don't really "count" it as anything, just garnish. (Same, FWIW, for pesto despite the pignoli and cheese. The only pasta sauce I'd "count" nutritionally is Jimmy Kimmel's #genius hack alfredo, which is solidly a protein.) Sweet potato - I guess technically is a starch/carb, but sufficiently nutritious that I "count" that one as a veg. Legumes - protein. We have black bean soup probably once a week; it's definitely one of the go-to everyone-likes-it basics. Cheese - protein. Sure, with a lot of fat. Whether I'd "count" it depends on how much of it. A sprinkle of grated parm on top of pasta = calorie dense flavoring. Wisconsin cheddar beer soup, or fondue = protein, with a lot of fat. This is more or less how I view the world, except I think I may be a bit of an outlier in that I view raw fruit in much the same category as vegetables, not some lesser also-ran. Fruit is AWESOME. When the kids were little, I always put a pile of raw vegetables - cut up carrots, celery, broccoli, string beans, snap peas, red peppers, whatever was on hand -- so if they didn't like the cooked vegetable they could scarf up that. More recently during COVID I've updated the same basic hack to fresh fruit. Tonight along with shepherd's pie, buttered noodles, and broccoli we had... canteloupe. We ate the whole thing.

Yes. Apple pies, other fruit pies, berry pies, pecan pies all can freeze. Anything with any kind of custard -- pumpkin, key lime, boston, banana cream, etc cannot freeze. signed, Pam in CT who has long relied on baking mother, baking cousin and baking aunt for the pie effort and who has been largely bereft for most of COVID, sigh. Thanksgiving was a TRIAL.

My synagogue moved VERY quickly back in March to transition pretty much everything regular -- Friday services, Saturday Torah study, book group, religious school and Hebrew study -- to an online format. Some of it went smoother than others; moving the afterschool Hebrew study online was probably the rockiest, between a mostly-older group of teachers who never in their lives expected to have to work virtually and students who were, by 4pm after a long frustrating day trying to do their secular studies, thoroughly zoomed out. And singing... bah. COLLECTIVE SINGING ON ZOOM DOESN'T WORK. At all; the connection speeds are off and the voices will not blend, at all, just don't try, put one person on and the rest on mute and endure. Even *one location* with music from multiple But other parts worked surprisingly smoothly -- Torah study and book group in particular, which both have long-standing clusters of folks who've been showing up for years and already know each other really, really well; and a natural structure to the time spent together. COVID happened to hit just in the time of Passover, and Passover is the single most commonly marked practice among American Jews; so we along with communities and families around the world had a massive scramble to get virtual seder formats together. In hindsight this random timing turned out to be something of a blessing, because it created a real urgency to "train" all the disparate elders onto Zoom technology, Zoom manners protocol, and working out Zoom liturgy... all of which we could then build on in the following months. Other unexpected blessings: greater reach (snowbirds in our community whom we otherwise don't see coul carry on with Torah study even while they were in their Florida condo; elders who can't drive can join us to events they did not used to come to; folks sitting out quarantines have still been able to participate; almost-adult children off at college have been able to zoom in; friends and family in farflung places can pop in to events of interest -- a friend of mine did a latke cooking class this past weekend and her brother in Boston Zoomed in to it, which was adorable -- outside speakers in other locations can join without travel or expenses. I'm part of the national Women of Reform Judaism organization, which does national and regional leadership development conferences in alternate years. Our regional conference happens to be held quite close to our town, just ~30 minutes drive... but still, between travel time and conference fees, it's a rare cycle that more than 2 of us are able to make it; this year it was all online, all free, and you could sign up for whatever seminars or services you wanted... and at least 10 of us were able to attend parts of it. It was *great.* We've been able to connect in to film series held by organizations across the country and do workshops with farflung speakers at nominal or no cost. We've made up new kinds of online programs (Julia Child-style cooking class, Jewish-themed story hour for the little ones) that we never would have considered before, and which turn out to be Good Ideas. But. There is no substitute for in person. After no real-life contact *at all* from March through to ~July, we slowly and cautious resumed a handful of very-modified things -- postponed bar/bat mitzvot took place, with restricted numbers, under a newly acquired big tent in late summer; we did a series of outdoor movie screenings of vaguely Jewish-themed movies projected onto my house, and congregants brought their lawn chairs; over the September high holidays we did one shofar (blowing of the ram's horn) service on the synagogue steps and congregants stayed in or on their cars; and the following day there was an in-real-life hike out to a lake to cast our sins into the water; during Sukkah we had one Saturday night havdalah (closure of the Sabbath) service under the synagogue Sukkah (constructed tent-like shelter) and a number of families had limited-size gatherings in Sukkahs at home; and we did a couple of book group sessions on patios or decks. But then the weather got cold and the cases spiked, and now we're back to pretty much all online again. Just last week the synagogue held an outdoor menorah lighting on the synagogue steps, with folks in cars... to which I (regretfully, but firmly) did not go, and which was evidently very scantly attended compared to the similar-format shofar service back in September. Folks are really determined to get through this, and particularly now that there is light at the end of the tunnel: though we are weary, we are grimly carrying on. There is actually a type of spiritual community and faith, in such grim collective carrying-on. (Though in the modern era that may be more obvious to Jews than to other Americans.) COVID began at Passover: this is a plague; we are wandering; we do not know when or how it will end; we are being tested. Keep the faith, boardies.

A little more on groceries for slightly less-favored food (I've only done delivery or curbside since March, so no shopping whatever is on sale, no plucking out produce that looks terrific, much more gravitation toward sturdy stalwarts that I know will be OK even if they're not terrifically exciting). But vastly less on eating out. My husband and I used to eat out probably 2x/ week on average, and our off-at-school kids probably did as much or more than that. Now we're ALL HOME ALL THE TIME. We do curbside takeout or delivery maybe once a week, but even when we do it still works out to much less than eating out because we never get beverages and rarely get dessert; and do it from on-average-more-casual places. And overall eating more healthily as well. For the first few months I really missed eating out, but I'm feeling that less as it wears on. What I'm increasingly missing is *going places.* Other than 2 hours north to see my mother, and into NYC to see my FIL, we haven't gone more than 45 miles from town since March and I'm getting rather stir crazy.

re no good deed goes unpunished That's been rather a theme throughout this plague, hasn't it. I would not have expected that wearing a mask for the sake of the vulnerable in our midst would ever have become a symbol of hating America, and would draw derision and fury and outright physical violence from flag-bearing spittle-snarling fellow citizens. But here we are.

re logic of how "They" are prioritizing who gets the vaccine when I think I'm about equally cynical, but it seems to me that those essential meatpackers and produce pickers and grocery workers are ALREADY being coerced into their jobs WITHOUT meaningful protections of any kind, so arguably this is better. Also that the "They" doing the prioritization seems to be state level decisionmakers, for whatever that's worth. Agreed. [As a total apropos-of-nothing-in-this-thread aside, I don't think of the COVID risk of delivery drivers as anything within shouting distance of meatpackers, food processing plant workers, indoor grocery workers, and other employees of "essential" supply chain, retail and food establishments. Delivery drivers spend the bulk of their time alone on the truck; and largely leave their deliveries on the stoop or right inside the foyer of congregant apartment buildings. As IRL jobs go, it's on the safer end of the COVID risk spectrum. Similarly the WalMart employee quickly running curbside carts out to people's vehicles has substantially less exposure risk than the one inside all day running the IRL cash register. We really do *help employees* to minimize exposure risk by availing of delivery and curbside services; it's nothing to feel indulgent or guilty about.)

re what other nations require managed quarantine countries - my Singaporean sister-in-law, who now lives in the US, wanted to go back to Singapore to attend a funeral, but would have been required to do a supervised-quarantine for more days than it would have permitted her to attend. I don't think it was a full 14 -- I think between her being a Singaporean citizen and it being a funeral she would have been eligible for a shortened-tenure waiver based on testing. But she still would have had to do *some* waiting after the flight and would have missed it anyway.

re speed of deployment As I said, I very much hope for a speedy widescale deployment. 2.9 million vaccine doses is sufficient (with a 2-dose protocol) to vaccinate 1.5 million people. There are 330 million Americans, so currently available supply is not quite sufficient to vaccinate one half of one percent of us. There will be more coming! of course. And I cannot overstate how elated I am that we're in a position to vaccinate even one half of one percent of us in 2020 -- as I said, the timeline has accelerated beyond my wildest hopes. As Azar says, it *is* such a historic day. There *is* a light at the end of the tunnel. But global demand is huge; the vaccine effort that happened to play out earliest is not one of the ones that the US placed a big early bet on (the US contract with Pfizer is for a total of only 100M doses/ 50M people; and other nations have since leapt to snap up remaining supplies); the US is therefore not first in global line for this one; there are input supply constraints so capacity cannot simply be expanded now that its use is approved; the vaccine that happened to play out earliest has considerable delivery logistics as well. We'll get there. I hope we get there within a few months. I'll be grateful if we get there within a year. Dayenu.

Enjoy your hard earned time with your boy, @lewelma .

I'd certainly be delighted if that turns out to be the case; but given all I understand about currently available supplies and constraints on both vaccine inputs and distribution logistics, I expect a substantially more drawn out process. If my 80+ year old mother and FIL get vaccinated by February, my asthmatic husband by May, and the rest of us by summer... Dayenu. I will be very grateful. Back in August that would have been beyond my most optimistic hopes.

The first scenario makes the most sense. Sending soothing murmurs your way. You like and trust your contractors. Remember to breathe, it's super important.

We've only done shipments, deliveries and occasional curbside since March. It takes more advance planning, we don't always get precisely what we'd have chosen if we selected in person, and we can't lay hands on the goods / try stuff on etc; but we're in an area where we can get any essential that way. We're spending far less on non-essentials than we have in decades (and also are not eating out, going to plays or concerts, or traveling) so modest delivery fees don't loom large. We wiped down groceries and quarantined packages through April or so, but haven't since. Inside the house the cleaning regimen is more or less what it always has been. We get dinner delivered or curbside takeout about 1x/week with no COVID-specific heating practices. I haven't been inside anyone's house but my own since March except when we were out of power for 8 days and we cooked a few meals / used the showers at my aunt and uncle's vacant house (they'd left it for a month). In our real life we're pretty social. I actually haven't been inside any *buildings* since March other than working the polls at our primary and Election Day, and two quick opening-hour jaunts into Trader Joe's, which does not deliver or do curbside. No more of that for a while given where cases currently are. We were, over the second half of the summer and into the fall, doing outdoor dinners on decks and patios and parks in small groups; and meeting up with my mother for outdoor picnics; and inviting folks over for outdoor movies onto the exterior of the house, etc. It was *great.* But as cases spike we've dialed all that back. We ended up canceling our Thanksgiving plan to have a total of 8 of us pre-quarantined and pre-tested so we could all be inside and unmasked for an extended visit. It was wistful but the elders on both sides ultimately made the call. We all spend a HUGE amount of time on ZOOM -- only two today for me, one with ~15 fellow congregants for Torah study, one with ~12 people over 4 households for extended family Scattergories. It is both a sanity saver and a drain.

re defining what "bias" means Interesting question. Personally while I absolutely concur that "moderate" is a point of view/ orientation that drives worldview/ lens through which the world is seen/ approach to public policy/ conduct with people and etc, I would not necessarily see moderation as bias. Or, as I think about the distinction between "worldview" and "bias" -- I think there IS a distinction -- I do not necessarily see "conservative" or "liberal" worldview as necessarily implying bias either. "Worldview" and "biased" are to my mind related, but not synonymous. So to be more concrete, I would argue that while The Economist and Wall Street Journal both lean a bit more conservative in "worldview," and NYT and Washington post both lean a bit more liberal in "worldview," all four sources are reliable sources, with real live investigative journalists chasing down news stories, with fact-checkers corroborating, with published corrections when inevitable human errors of fact or attribution are made; and with opinion pieces and editorials clearly marked as such. I would not count the news coverage of any of those sources as "biased." (Opinion / editorial pages are different which is why they are labeled. ) There is "worldview" that may affect what reporters are hired, what topics are culturally ascendant or de-emphasized, what stories are assigned, style usage and so on. While all that indisputably has an *effect,* I would not, myself, label that effect as "bias." For me the distinction does get to something like "ability / willingness to permit inconvenient facts, that challenge or irritate the worldview, in." That, to me, is what "bias" is. It's not necessarily *qute* the orientation to quantitative data of my friend @Not_a_Number -- some inconvenient facts are housed in unpleasant closed camera footage, or primary documents, or autopsy reports or court filings or other more narrative forms. But something along those lines. To my mind, "bias" amounts to a disinclination or refusal to look at information that does not support the "worldview." Not the worldview itself. Such disinclination/refusal includes the sort of nihilistic, everything is possible and nothing is true position that there are no such things as "facts." THAT is indeed a bias, a deeply dangerous bias, which, to bring this back around, has to my mind laid groundwork for the current sedition risk. (As an empirical observation: people with very different worldviews can and do engage together. It's not easy, but empirically it does happen; and one of the tools for building the foundation for such engagement is the construction of a commonly-agreed to set of facts. This is where the river lies, this is the direction the water flows; this is our governing system and our founding document, this is ours; this is the census and etc.)

There is an exquisite poem by Kathleen Norris that speaks to this very thing - it's about her beloved grandmother's goblets that she was always afraid to use for fear of breaking them and thereby "losing" some part of her grandmother; and how she eventually came to change her mind and decide that, rather, her grandmother was with her whenever she used the goblets; she should use them all the time. I love that. I just searched for the poem and cannot find it online, so I will search down my hard copies later; but in the meantime I give you this jewel which I discovered in the search for it, unlooked-for serendipity which I will now mull over for the rest of this short dark day amidst a broken time... Mrs. Adam By Kathleen Norris I have lately come to the conclusion that I am Eve, alias Mrs. Adam. You know, there is no account of her death in the Bible, and why am I not Eve? Emily Dickinson in a letter, 12 January, 1846 Wake up, you’ll need your wits about you. This is not a dream, but a woman who loves you, speaking. She was there when you cried out; she brushed the terror away. She knew when it was time to sin. You were wise to let her handle it, and leave that place. We couldn’t speak at first for the bitter knowledge, the sweet taste of memory on our tongues. Listen, it’s time. You were chosen too, to put the world together.

re prioritization different across states This is my understanding as well. My 80+ mother, who lives in a congregant (not nursing) facility and is other than age in pretty good health, received quasi-official notice yesterday from state public health authorities in MA that her facility has been identified as eligible for vaccine that they hope to be able to provide in early January.

JHU includes antigen tests (not antibody, antigen). I believe that some states do as well, others only count PCRs. PCR v antigen v antibody tests

re newly released DHS dataset Just as of this week, DHS has been publishing hospital-level data and that same data aggregating to the county level, back through early August, and various folks have been starting to work out ways of presenting it, including this interactive map that NPR built that lets you see by county what percentage of total hospital beds are currently occupied by COVID patients. The University of Minnesota has the full data set up with many more metrics, and has been working on other forms of visualizations.

That sounds breathtakingly beautiful and mystical and magical, and -- much like climbing Everest -- I have NO ASPIRATION WHATSOEVER TO EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT , ever, myself. Nope, not even a little bit; I know my limits. Car camping with hot running water, please. You are blessed indeed that your life partner shares such majesty. Whereas like you I *adore* a good lively dinner party with six animated conversations running concurrently until every so often the whole group comes together on one for a while before spinning out in sidebars again. There's a magic there, too. COVID sucks.

re when Palantir is more trusted than the Feds... I know. But so long as they're only scooping up undocumented persons for ICE deportation... s'ok, right? It's not like they're coming for me. Curious to see what happens with the Palantir contract going forward.

Agreed. That we are as far along as we are, with 3 of them, is really beyond my wildest hopes of last summer. The next 2-4 months directly ahead are looking pretty lousy -- worse than I'd hoped last summer. But the prospects of next September are looking substantially better.

re adverse effects on folks with severe allergies (of a sample very heavily weighted to the very old). Exactly. People with severe allergies are also at increased risk for severely adverse effects from contracting COVID. Care is warranted. Attention is warranted. Caution is warranted. The development of specific protocols for extended observation of certain people receiving the vaccine is warranted (as my egg-allergic daughter had in her early childhood). There *will* be some population segments who will not be able to take certain vaccines (it is unbelievably awesome that it looks like there will be several different vaccines, working by different mechanisms, so some of that segment may be able to obtain a different vaccine). Even with extended observation protocols, there *will* be some populations who will not be able to take any of the vaccines for real medically based reasons. But this isn't measles: the option we all face isn't risk-of-vaccine vs no-risk-of-vaccine. The option is risk-of-vaccine vs risk-of-COVID. And the same segments of the population who are genuinely medically at risk of severe side effects are at medical risk of severe COVID effects. [I'm neither a medical professional, nor a statistician. But I am absolutely stymied by the simultaneous tropes that COVID isn't really that bad, held simultaneous to another trope that vaccine side effects are horrific. If COVID itself is no big deal because 99/100 people who get it, don't die... ...then surely vaccine effects are also no big deal if 1998/2000 people who get the vaccine, don't have severe adverse effects. Right? I'm not minimizing the seriousness of anaphalytic shock. The news of yesterday definitely warrants observational protocols at a minimum, and may warrant revising criteria for who gets the mRNA-mechanism vaccines at all. But I really can't follow the logic that says we're better off taking the odds on COVID itself.