KathyBC
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Posts posted by KathyBC
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On 6/6/2020 at 11:24 AM, alisoncooks said:
So...biscuit tangent.
Does anyone put cheese in their biscuits? Are some biscuit types better for cheese? The way my mom did them was a chunk of cheese inside each before they were baked. (Not shredded cheese incorporated throughout...)
All the time. Yummy.
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Pastry blender.
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Cream cheese! Totally forgot that one.
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Pretty conservative for cheese, but still adds up to a few: shredded mozza, medium cheddar block, shaved parmesan, and then ricotta or feta as required. Christmas/New Year's there are often some others.
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11 hours ago, Laura Corin said:
@soror- my food hasn't been great recently. Not junk, but just too much. My weight is up too. I'm trying to combine being kind to myself with working out how to make changes.
Today I'll try to do some vigorous yoga at lunchtime, and then a gentle walk after supper. I have book group after work.
Breakfast - berries, kerned zero fat yoghurt, marmite oatcake; Lunch - leftover lentils, apple, oatcake with pumpkin seed butter; supper - smoked fish in some way (Husband is cooking) with spinach or kale. Snacks - raw veg and toasted almonds (left over from last night).
Bunny trail: Does your book group work differently now? I'd love to hear how that is running.
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On 5/19/2020 at 9:08 PM, fairfarmhand said:
She was supposed to graduate this spring, so far She’s managed the disappointment ok.
Prom possibly in September. Fine, gives us extra time to finish the dress.
Didn’t want to walk at graduation anyway.
drama play postponed till...when? Actually just filming for YouTube. Fine. Ok. Whatever.
she hasn’t been getting any work at the tea shop where she works. They’re doing curbside so less business and hours for everyone and her coworkers need their paychecks more that she does. Ok fine. She loves them and understands but has really looked forward to getting back to work after Memorial Day.
theres been some whining about friends here and there but overall it was ok.
today she ugly cried. She heard that the tea shop dining room is closed indefinitely. They’ll still be doing curbside but being at 50 percent capacity just won’t work for a shop that holds 50 customers maximum. So nobody knows when they’ll open up normally. Her plan was to learn to serve this summer, work as many hours as possible to provide flexibility in her financial needs for when college starts in the fall.
not possible.
It all hit her at once, so many disappointments, and even as she was sobbing on the couch she was saying “I know it’s not that big a deal, and I’ve got a place to stay and all but I just wanted to go back to work.”
ugh.
her car needs work, she hasn’t heard from any of the scholarships she’s applied for, she’s worried about paying for books and things this fall.
what a crappy spring.
I could have written a fairly similar post for my dd. I really, really get it.
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11 minutes ago, barnwife said:
Oh shoot...is this where I admit that the idea is sort of courtesy of my mom? Our oldest is only almost 10, so I thought, "how many would my mom send?" And, truthfully, my mom would send maybe 3, with the advice above. She wouldn't even be above sending only 2 and expecting me to do that every day.
Then again, when my oldest sister was born my parents lived in a rental house/apartment in the country, with no laundry facilities. And this was before disposable diapers were a thing, so she was washing by hand as women have done forever and hanging to dry around the apartment (no money for a drying rack). So to do this would be NBD in her mind.
And I am nothing if not her daughter!
Not for college, but I bought my dd 2 so one could be washed and hung to dry while she wore the other. (blushing) Perhaps I have taken frugality and minimalism a bit too far?
I was thinking I'd buy more once we see how comfortable this style is, then adjust if needed. Honest!
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Got in my 12th trail run today, completing week 4 of Couch to 5K in 5 weeks - much faster than last year. Got word last week that our local half-marathon trail run for the end of August was cancelled. Even though not unexpected, it was still really deflating. I ran my first 5 km there last year and was hoping to come in much better prepared this year. It's so nice when there's a goal in the background.
Finished day 30 of the 30-day Yoga with Kassandra challenge last night. Not sure what to do this evening... probably just start over again.-
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2 hours ago, Matryoshka said:
Yesterday I did a "Power" OT workout with weights which included a 90 sec at a go of 'skiier swings' with weights, twice over, as well as other weighted shoulder stuff (but I'm suspecting all those skiier swings as the main culprit) and today my shoulders are feeling tight. I liked the OT workout that came out this morning, but it also has upper body weights so I decided to leave it for a later day when I'm not as crazy about that day's workout and try the yoga @EmilyGF suggested. I liked it (although I did skip one of the sun salutation go-throughs out of impatience because it seems like everything I've done lately that says 'yoga' is almost all sun salutation variations...). But then he did get on to other stuff, and it seemed just about the right level of challenge. I appreciated that the guy wasn't super-stretchy; I could usually do the poses as he did them. I also noticed that the site had pre-run and post-run yoga routines. I bookmarked those. I've been trying to run a bit over a mile or 12ish minutes (we'll see if I manage to go farther or get faster...), and those might be good to round that out. I did also do that run after the yoga today.
This year I've made sure to do one of the 10-minute yoga sessions at some point after my run, and it seems to make the difference in not stiffening up. Well, the new shoes sure can't hurt either. :-)
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12 hours ago, wintermom said:
@soror Your walk with a friend sounds really nice! Enjoy your physical activity and especially your nap today. 😉
@EmilyGF I like lots of slow stretching in my yoga, too. I figure I do enough vigorous exercise that yoga needs to be focused on stretching and relaxing.
For all you yoga people: How long are the stretches in your program? I once had a yoga instructor that had us hold a stretch for over 2 minutes. This was so painful and not helpful for me. I was really stiff trying to get out of the stretch. On my own, I'll hold a stretch for 10 seconds max. I try to focus on breathing and try not to over stretch or feel any pain.
Cow legs pose seems to do me more harm than good, for sure. ETA: Or is it cow face pose? Either way, I lock right up.
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On 5/4/2020 at 3:47 PM, wintermom said:
Great to see you again! Hope you were about to get out and enjoy the snow during the winter. Your running and yoga sound wonderful!
Nice to see you too. Thanks for the reply. DH and I got out downhill skiing at the little local hill once - all that snow meant they had their best year in a long time.
Only child left at home, middle ds, is very proprietary about walking the dogs daily, lol. But I was able to get out once a week with them during the winter while he was off skiing at the large resort down the road. 😀-
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8 hours ago, Matryoshka said:
Haven't checked in in a while - still just trying to get some kind of reasonably vigorous activity going 5x/week. OT's (Orangetheory) "theory" part is to get your heart rate up to 84% + of your max heart rate for at least 12 min a workout session - so that's what I'm counting as 'vigorous'. Okay, I've cheated a few times and if I do something a bit less intense (like gardening or taking a socially distant walk with one of my college kids) that my fitbit auto-records as exercise, I've sometimes counted that as one of the days.
Last month OT gave us a 'marathon challenge' to add up to 26+ miles of running over the month. I totally punted that. This month they have a 12-minute challenge, just run, walk, or whatever for 12 minutes and try to improve distance in that time over the month. That, for some unknown reason, seems much more doable to me, so I'm going to try that. And hopefully the weather won't be so cold and rainy this month - I'm ready for May flowers! Now I just need to figure out what app on my phone will accurately track miles with GPS. Seems I bought a fitbit that doesn't have that feature (why wouldn't it be tied to the app, which has my phone's GPS available, rather than be in the wrist thingy??). I think the default health app that comes with the phone might do it...?
Yesterday the OT workout was a 'fit test' where we had to do reps till failure (with no rests) or hold for a certain amount of time up to 5 min, and we're supposed to redo it at the end of the month to compare. I'm just trying not to backslide at the moment! It was a wall-sit (managed 1:52), push-ups (27, not knee ones, full plank), sit-ups (88 by the time the 5 min were up - could have kept going), and run or walk for a mile. I did a run/walk mix and got 11:35, so that kind of gives me a benchmark for the 12-minute challenge. Although the mile was just approximated on Google maps ahead of time; I still couldn't figure out how to accurately measure using an app.
DS uses the free Strava app.
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Snow finally left us, got to try out my new trail runners April 16. (DH insisted I purchase in late December/early January to have something to look forward to re: the winterblues. I thought he was crazy, but am so thankful now when shopping is A Really Big Deal.) I'm working through the same couch to 5K plan as last year but with cancelled Grad plans for DD and no way to visit my aging parents or aging in-laws, I have completed the first 6 runs much faster than I otherwise would have. It feels great.
Also started a 30-day Yoga with Kassandra challenge on YouTube, 10 minutes per day, so far up to day 19. She sets intentions, some of which are so ridiculous to me that I get a good belly laugh, another positive. Can't believe what a difference even such a short practice but done a bit more frequently, about 4x week, makes.-
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Actually, I take that back. I can't say anyone has specifically called for a complete 2-year lock down of the economy. But when they say nothing can change until there is a vaccine, it certainly comes across that way.
3 hours ago, Bluegoat said:I am convinced that the premier and medical officer who do a press conference every day have little or no idea how people are taking the things they say.
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3 minutes ago, Corraleno said:
Really, you have seen public health officials and epidemiologists calling for a complete 2 yr lock down of the economy? Can you link some sources, because the articles that were cited earlier as proof of this actually said nothing of the sort.
Our prime minister, our federal health officer, our provincial health officer have all made comments to that effect. I could likely dig those up, but honestly it's almost bedtime and I doubt it would lead either one of us to any sort of agreement.
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13 minutes ago, Corraleno said:
No one is suggesting that full stay-at-home orders should last 2 years, or even 1 year. But you said the best option is to achieve herd immunity as quickly as possible. This assumes that you can remove all restrictions on the "low risk" people so as many as possible get infected quickly, while still somehow protecting those at high risk.
My question is how do you protect the "high risk" people in a population where 70 million adults are obese, 68 million have high blood pressure, 34 million are diabetic, and 69 million are over the age of 60? How do you decide which high-risk people deserve "protection" (which is basically going to mean financial subsidies) and which are just going to have to take their chances for the greater good? I have read lots of blogs and editorials and op-eds saying the solution is to protect those at high-risk and let everyone else get back to business as usual, but no one ever explains how they would do that. It sounds like a simple, common sense solution, as long as the "high risk" population you imagine protecting is basically little old grandparents who are retired and sitting home anyway. When you look at just how large a percentage of the population is actually high risk, it becomes much more problematic, and I fear we are going to get into a situation where "protection" is limited to those who are considered most "deserving" and the rest — who are likely to be disproportionately poor and brown and employed in low-wage jobs — will be the canon fodder.
I think a gradual reopening, with continued social distancing (bans on large gatherings, limits on the number of people in stores and businesses at one time, continued reliance on working from home and home delivery as much as possible, required mask wearing, etc.) to keep the curve as flat as possible as long as possible, is the best policy in order to protect as many people as possible, not just a small percentage of high-risk people deemed "worthy" of protection. That will not achieve herd immunity ASAP, but it should lead to fewer deaths overall as we develop more effective treatments, get much better at testing and tracing, and work towards a vaccine.
There has absolutely been mention of until there is a vaccine. Absolutely.
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2 hours ago, kand said:
I think the original source matters. If someone shares an article from a reputable news organization, that’s different than if they share something from some wackadoodle‘s blog, or someone’s random Twitter feed.
YES! We need a more accurate term for that, because there certainly is some crazy stuff floating around.
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1 minute ago, StellaM said:
Ugh, sorry.
I just honestly can't handle it when people don't give a d*mn about what it's like to be one of the people protected under lock down, and whine, really, about something that's only gone on for such a short time.
And as that's my problem, I'll take myself off line for a time.
Sorry if I misunderstood you.
💕 I'm so sorry this is such a hard time. I really hate that you are suffering.
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7 hours ago, Pam in CT said:
re is it feasible to get to 5 million daily tests (to start phased reopening by early June) to 20 million daily tests (to fully re-mobilize the economy, ideally by end-July) as per the Harvard Roadmap
I don't know. It will entail a massive mobilization as well as associated massive cost.
(We have not yet touched at all on this thread, or much on other threads I've loosely followed, on the COST side of either what "orderly management of the Dance" or the ad hoc distribution of medical expenses of let-er-rip-Open-Everything-Up. Even mild cases entailing days rather than weeks of ICU rather than ventilators, will take a whole lot of even-insured households past their financial capacity. We have not discussed personal bankruptcy due to medical costs, hospital bankruptcy due to unpaid bills, the second stage of triage for the "routine mild cases" based on who's insured how. There are no good options, looking at this issue from a cost vantage point. But that is another thread.)
Oxford is doing a very good data roundup and visualization comparing different nations' testing, positive cases, and fatality numbers (though there are, inevitably, data issues as different nations' CDC equivalents track different metrics). One of their indicators is a rolling 3-day average of "tests per 1,000 people" (which is, I think, the best way to render apples(ish) to apples(ish) to correct for the relative size of economies, medical/research sectors, and manufacturing capacity; and population -- both the capacity to produce tests and the need to deploy them).
The Harvard Roadmap's 5M to 20M daily tests in the US would amount to about 1.3 tests per thousand (to begin phased commencement of The Dance) to 5.3 (fully re-mobilize the economy based on widespread public trust that The Dance is working). Right now, two months in, Italy and Estonia are approaching the bottom end of that range -- suggesting that yes, at least this level is within the range of plausibility. The US is still testing well less than 1/2 person per thousand per day.
But it will COST. To the extent that test deployment is fully dependent upon for-profit market actors to develop/manufacture/deploy tests based on their independent profitability calculations, it will cost considerably MORE. And I don't know if the will is there.
We want to re-open, but we also want to do so on the cheap. Those two (legitimate, understandable) desires are in tension with one another.
re COVID's looking more, or less, alarming now than it did back in February:
I'm also far more acutely aware now, than then, about the invisibility of transmission -- that folks who have it, transmit before they have any symptoms; and even more that folks who never have symptoms, transmit it unwittingly. Back then (when we were *panicked* about transmission to my FIL, who was in a rehab center in NYC for wholly unrelated issues), I was paranoid about anyone with a hint of a cough; I now appreciate that literally anyone who walked into his room could have been shedding it.
I also assumed, then, that it was only a matter of time before a vaccine was developed (a lengthy time, to be sure) and that in the interim folks who'd had it, would be protected and could resume normal activities. My husband and I presumed, eventually, that this would be us. I assumed that immunity would hold, and that ultimately control of it, via either vaccine and/or prevalence was possible. I am seriously concerned by the indications of relapse among patients who've had it, recovered, and then fallen ill again.
More than anything else, though, I'm alarmed that we seem unable, as a society, to perceive this virus on its own terms.
It's like we're so primed to receive anything BAD in terms of our usual blame categories that we are literally unable to see it clearly. This is a disease, is of a scale and transmission ease and -- thus, in combination -- lethality that literally no one alive has seen. It has already crossed all national and state borders. We do not understand very much about it. It has already incurred tremendous cost in lives, health, money and disruption. We have not begun to contain it and we don't have the information we need to be able to contain it.
It is a VIRUS. It is not an ideology.
I feel like we're so used to blaming the Other Party that we can't adjust to the REALITY that we are facing down an amorphous enemy that truly DOES NOT CARE about our partisanship problems or other societal fractures. Sure, I think this Administration made errors early on. Sure, the Chinese government did as well. OK.
But King Solomon himself would not have been able to see the outlines of this beast. Such a beast has never before prowled this earth.
Whether we like it or not -- absolutely no one likes it -- we are facing a war. Like all wars, it came on so abruptly that the mind has trouble adjusting. Like all wars, there is tremendous uncertainty on how it will unfold going forward. Like all wars, no government can promise when it will be over or on what terms. Like all wars, there will shortages, hardships, long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of heart-dropping panic. Like all wars, it will bring out the best and worst in us as individuals and as a society.
We haven't endured a war that imposed real hardship across all segments of society since people my mother's age were children. Even then the war was Over There, not here.
And unlike other wars, this enemy is invisible, moving within us, here. That is a very different front line. Its ultimate defeat, if we manage to defeat it, will be a matter of science and collective action; and many of us distrust one or both of those. And -- like all wars -- developing and deploying the tools to defeat it will be immensely costly.
But it is what it is. It's a VIRUS, not an ideology. We really seem to be struggling with that reality.
Remember who the real enemy is.
This. I was shocked it took as long as it did for things to turn partisan. Didn't let me down though!
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5 minutes ago, StellaM said:
OMG what people get for flattening the curve is that their health system isn't overwhelmed. That's the reward.
Oh, and lots of people got to live.
It's not some kind of flipping punishment.
Context Stella, I was replying to another post.. Context.
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10 hours ago, SKL said:
There is also frustration because the restrictions got more strict even as the disease predictions got much less scary. So initially they were saying that even if we all hid in our bunkers for x weeks, the hospitals would still be overwhelmed and they were scouting hotels, dorms, etc. for extra space for when that happened. Now, as we all know, the actual hospitalizations in most places are so low that hospitals are actually underutilized. Yay! So the government response is to take more things away for longer. How do you expect people to react to that?
I'm not talking about going to the beach. People still aren't allowed to have funerals for the deceased. People aren't able to get preventative health services. And on and on. This is what we get for obeying the orders and flattening the curve.
The fact that nobody knows what to believe and nobody can make plans - with or without a current income/bank balance - is incredibly stressful for many people.
The phrase, "No good deed goes unpunished" must have come from somewhere.
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2 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:
There are a lot of words we still use that don't mean what they once did. People put cc in an email when cc means carbon copy. We're all aware that there isn't a carbon copy going to someone just as we're aware that the word newspapers probably means online.
Right. And when someone shares an article from the New York Times or the Washington Post on Facebook, now people are 'getting their news from social media'. So that phrase when used as a slight could probably be retired.
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On 4/20/2020 at 4:46 PM, Bootsie said:
I am definitely not of the mindset that I want to willingly expose myself to COVID. But, I know I have some college students who say they would, especially if that meant that they could go back to work and on with their life. They don't see a vaccine on the horizon. They see that we are beyond a point of eradication. They see it as simply a matter of time before they get it. They don't see it as reasonable to just sit around waiting for something that is inevitable to happen, The costs of waiting to get it are high and the risks associated with getting it at their age are low.
There has been a mostly-false narrative of Millennial vs Boomer. But if you ask college-age people to give up school, work, and all other opportunities for several YEARS so that senior citizens can live long enough to die of something else... of course it's not that simple. But that monstrous theory seems like a real threat, given time.
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3 hours ago, Farrar said:
My understanding was always that flattening the curve was step one, not a final goal.
Here's my understanding.
Step 1. Flatten the curve by staying inside as much as possible.
Step 2. Implement measures such as widespread testing and contact tracing as well as Covid patient isolation so that we can gradually re-open more and more businesses.
Step 3. Re-open but continue with some distancing measures and continue with testing, etc. The new world would be a little different. Fewer mass gatherings. More masks. More testing.
Step 4. Vaccine. As the vaccine is distributed, resumption of normal life, though hopefully with new pandemic response infrastructure.Currently we're still in step 1, but we're pretty much there. Which means step 2 could begin in many areas. But many places haven't gotten enough tests or implemented infrastructure to support it. So... that's a problem. Because we want to get to step 3 as soon as possible and the longer step 2 takes, the worse it is.
Step 2 used to be part of step 1.
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June 2020 - well-trained bodies
in The Chat Board
Posted
Congratulations on your scholarship! Fantastic achievement, with more success to come I'm sure.