Is it Janice who said, yesterday, that she doesn’t like washing dishes?
Do like Elvera’s sister. She just rinses the stuff off them and sticks them in the dishwasher. When she gets ready, she runs the washer.
Just two of us. I never use the dish washer.
Polly, Is just two also, she never washes a dish.
Depends on what you want.
As for changing lights. I have a small Christmas tree size bulb that I keep in the bath room. That is so I can see when I get up at night. A couple of days ago, I changed bulbs. I couldn’t get it to work. But the problem was not the bulb. That outlet has a button that turns power off. When the changed bulb didn’t work. I remembered that switch. I have never had such a switch on an outlet before.
Good morning! Today is Art’s birthday and our anniversary was on the 9th. We don’t really celebrate because it is tax season and there is never any time to do anything except hopefully get some sleep. The Birthday Tree is blooming but about half the petals are on the driveway. It looked rather gloomy with the dull cloudy sky background this morning. We are having seventy degree weather though so it’s a pleasant temperature outside.
So when I got home yesterday my husband commented something like, “You look defeated”. That’s because I am. I am exhausted, frustrated, stressed, and in general have not been taking care of myself. I went to see a different person for my taxes Monday. He is the father of my friend M. I told him I felt like I was in the principal’s office. I look at how much I made last year and how much I owe. What’s the point of working to earn more? Now my insurance is $583 per month and doesn’t pay anything until I am $7,100 out of pocket. Monday I also made the choice on whether or not to pay the highway robbery price of my insurance or $224 out of pocket for a 6 month call back on a mammogram. It’s rescheduled for next Friday. Last week I discovered that some of the medical bills I had last year have not been paid. Now I am playing catch-up.
There’s a joke about wanting to run away from home more as an adult than ever as a child.
Morning! Happy Anniversary two days ago Janice and Happy Birthday to Art! ❤️
That photo up there is sweet but I thought to myself that was an awfully large nest for such a tiny bird…I suppose that isn’t truly a nest is it?
I have been fighting of sinus congestion since Sunday so we missed small group last night…didn’t want to creep anyone out. One must be careful these days. But I don’t feel sick and have no other symptom other than the stuffy nose. I truly believe the cause is the stuff they lay down on our roads for the snow and ice. When we walk my eyes burn, I sneeze and when I come home into the house I am no longer experiencing that. Spring just cannot come too soon for me. Snow is coming Friday, next Tuesday through Thursday..more stuff will be applied to the road….. 😳
NancyJill, I am debating whether to call in sick. I thought for a while that my symptoms were allergies, but Sixth also has them, so I guess they are a cold.
Michigan’s governor reported last night the state’s first two confirmed Covid-19 cases, both hospitalized, both in nearby Detroit-area counties. There’s nothing surprising about that, but it does make it seem more imminent. I’m glad we found TP on Saturday!
Light bulbs and the little switch: we have that, especially on outlets around water, as in the bathroom. I don’t remember what it is called and could go look but have not started the fire yet and don’t want to move the lap blanket. They pop a lot, circuit breaker things. We have them outside too. Husband’s dad could not get his rv to work off of one of our outlet until we remembered it had that. When my brother added on to the place, he put a lot of those around.
Good morning. I am on vacation today as daughter is off so she has granddaughter. And son appears to be oversleeping. I told him a couple of days ago to make sure to set his wind up alarm clock. Funny as I had been in his room a couple days earlier and noticed he had taken it apart so there is no way he can use it. Just waiting for him to fess up. He will have to go to bed earlier tonight as he is so late getting up.
Feel better, roscuro. Working from home obviously isn’t an option for everyone. 😦
GFI — I have one now in the bathroom (old bathroom didn’t have one). Because the house is so old, it doesn’t have quite enough electrical outlets to suit me. One half-wall in the living room has no electrical wiring at all — and thus no lamp I can plug in there.
Kim, prayers sister. We could run away together but I’d want to go north and you’d want to go south. A cruise is out. I did see last night that the IRS may delay the tax filing date this year (due to the virus upheavals). That would help in my case. I have a whole lot of money going out-out-out in the next six weeks.
Meanwhile … I mentioned that I’m sorry Carol has let her phone service lapse this month, her health is declining and with the virus situation (and her being in one of the places where there are special concerns). I’ve been in touch with the man from her former church who has helped her so much (he bought her a new phone a couple years ago when she locked herself out of her old one and the carrier couldn’t unlock it for her). He wanted to pay for her phone bill but asked me in a text what the issue was, why she wasn’t paying her bill this month. When I told him she decided to buy herself a couple unnecessary ‘gifts’ and declined to return them (on my suggestion) in order to make sure she’d have phone service this month, he decided with me that she’d just have to live without the phone.
But she apparently told him that she might not be able to pay for her bill next month either and I have no idea what that was about. She’s been talking about wanting to buy a new kindle ($300), along with some other things that aren’t necessities but would make her “feel” better for the moment. I could just shake her sometimes, but her friend suggested we pay one month each as she needs to have phone service, it’s a necessity for her not an ‘extra.’ I agree about that, but I’ve paid for her phone bill in the past when this has happened and vowed never to do it again as she gets to used to people bailing her out financially. She’s been really good about paying her bill for a couple years running now, has told me that she realizes the phone is a necessity, not an ‘extra’ in her situation (they otherwise have no phone available to use there unless it is an emergency).
I know the advice here will be not to pay for her. But it concerns me she said she might not have a phone for 2 months, now; though she may have been saying that to manipulate this guy who is so sweet and willing to help her financially. But she constantly borrows money from friends at the residence (from one girl, a former roommate who’s Christian, especially — as in every month). She will pay those people back the following month but then she’ll turn around and borrow from them again. I told her people are going to start going the other way when they see her if she keeps doing that. It’s a lifelong issue she’s had and has been unable to overcome. As I said, I can just shake her when she does something like this. I’m still hoping she’ll be so miserable without the phone that she’ll reactivate it as soon as she gets paid next. But who knows.
I’ve been doing more hand-dish washing lately as I’m working from home and can wash dishes as I use them. But usually I do the thing of stacking them in the dishwasher and running that when it’s full. I do need to keep using it though — use it or lose it, I was told. They’ll work better if they’re used regularly.
DJ, why do you believe it is necessary to have a phone? Not really, as others have one in the event of an emergency. It certainly would make her life a bit nicer, but then, is that what she uses to waste her money? Does she buy things over the phone, since she can’t get out? The virus is not going to really make a difference in her phone needs.
Dishes: we have a dishwasher and I keep thinking of running it to see if the seals are still working. But I don’t. Haven’t used it in years. I rather enjoy dish washing, though I cannot say I always have.
DJ, it’s a hard call to say not to pay her phone. A phone is indeed a necessity, and it isn’t that long ago they’d have simply had a phone in each room and it probably would have been billed as part of the service (long-distance extra). There isn’t a way to make her phone bill be paid automatically? Her choice is selfish, but it sounds like it is more important to other people that she have a phone than it is to her, and that’s the reality. My own sister doesn’t care whether she has a phone and has had stretches in her adult life without it. Now that she is out in the boonies and she has children, she accepts the reality that she needs a phone, she just simply usually chooses not to answer it if others call her. So I can see her not bothering to have a cell phone if she were ever to live in such a place, unless her children insisted on it.
Well, I suppose it’s not a complete necessity but … I have no way to connect with her now. She can’t walk to the front desk if I were to call and she lives an hour away. I suppose it’s her choice to just be out of touch with folks “on the outside.” But she also can’t connect with her brother in NJ very easily or at all, really, unless it’s an emergency. It seems it will be very isolating for her and I suspect that’s not a good thing.
But you’ve got a point that she can’t purchase things on her phone this way, I suppose. Maybe that’s what will prompt her to pay up the phone bill when she gets paid next.
I say we wait until the end of March, see if she reactivates her phone, before intervening. But this man is asking me to “please let me help her.” Everyone loves Carol and wants to help her, she clearly has a lot of needs. But Carol’s also something of a manipulator; I love her, but she’ll eagerly live on other people’s dime(s) for as long as she can.
Question for y’all. I accepted a book edit from a publisher with which I have worked for many years (they’re the publisher I worked for before going freelance, though that was 17 years ago next month–yikes–and the last two of the people I worked with retired last year). He then asked me if we could have a handoff meeting (discussing the needs of the project) via Zoom. Well, I don’t keep up on technology and had to google “Zoom,” but apparently it’s the latest video-conferencing technology.
Technically I’m sure there is a camera on my computer, but I don’t like video (my husband and I never skyped when courting long-distance, though my brother who married a year before I did skyped all the time), didn’t want a video of my wedding, and have no interest in video conference calls. My office is in my own home, it’s my sanctuary, and even the thought of this is creepy to me. (It would be two men I’ve never met in person. As far as I know just two, but there are two names on it.) Anyone know if there is a good professional reply to such a request that allows me to say, “No, if we need to talk by phone or e-mail, I’m open to that, but not video, please?” Realistically I don’t want to put the capability on my computer, either. It just seems creepy to me. Yeah, I know people do it all the time, but I’m a middle-aged woman with bad teeth and a weak chin and my home is my sanctuary and I just don’t want to do this, and don’t see it as “necessary.”
Cheryl, I had to keep in touch with my clinical tutor when I was in Nunavut via video conference. It is becoming more and more common, and one of the things that allows working from home and distance to be done. I do not think it is creepy at all that this was proposed. Most people just find a space in their home where they can control what the other person can see. Note: this doesn’t always work, especially if one has pets or small children – I watched one live video podcast where the person’s cat stole the show; and a while a while ago, there was great hilarity when a newscaster spoke to an expert who was being interviewed from home, and the expert’s young daughter waltzed into the room, followed by her baby sibling, pursued by their mother – viewers found it endlessly endearing and amesing.
Zoom was suggested for my conference call, but I couldn’t get it set up, so we settled for Whats App instead, which was properly better in the long run, as it used up less of our precious bandwidth (Nunavut has satellite internet service only, and it is at a very high premium). Barring that, it would have been Skype. Now, it is possible, with both Skype and Whats App, to have a conference call without using the camera, just audio and microphone – I ended up doing that when the weather was bad and the signal wasn’t strong enough for video. So, that is an option.
She was ‘given’ a free ‘obama’ phone from the government some years ago and I always urged her to hang on to that as a backup since she could get spotty on paying her regular cell bill. But it just got trashed, it was in pieces last time she was gathering up things for a move, unfortunately.
Can you get a disposable phone like a disposable camera (do they still make those!) ?! 😜 then tell Carol that this phone is for contact with you only? I don’t know…seems she has always had the propensity to rely upon others when she fails to manage her affairs correctly. Do you make the decision to go forward in tough love? I know not the answer but I assuredly will be asking and trusting our Lord with the good and wise direction on this path for you DJ….
Yes, a disposable or cheap walmart type phone that all the spies and criminals use in the movies.
Sigh. Not sure what to do and I can’t even really contact her to discuss any of this, of course. I wouldn’t want to limit who she can call, but her minutes per month would be limited and she’d have to pay for it after the initial ‘gift.’ Hopefully she could hang on to it as a backup. I even wondered how much a landline would cost in her room??? Are those super cheap now? No one has them anymore.
A phone is a necessity if you live by yourself, but Carol does not. If she had an emergency wouldn’t she be able to get to a phone? Is there an emergency cord in her room?
Why would Carol reform her financial errors when she only gets rewarded for them? If one won’t do it, another will. She has an endless list of people she can go to. Someone new will pop up eventually.
Does she have social workers that work with her? Perhaps a discussion with them will clarify what is best.
If the phone will make your life better, DJ, that is a different thing. Praying for wisdom for you.
The phone here will not allow me to make long distance calls. A land line phone with that restriction might be good for her. Others can call me from anywhere, so you could call her as often as you would like.
We’ll see what Carol does at the end of this month, is my thinking right now. Yes, if there’s an emergency obviously I’d hear. But now that she’s unable to leave the place at all physically, it definitely cuts her off not only from her friends but from pastoral calls (he visits once a month but that’s all arranged by phone, of course; I suppose he would just call the front desk and they’d relay messages back and forth?).
I don’t want to get her set up with a backup phone that I’m going to have to pay for. It would just be something to tide her over for maybe the next month until she pays up on her regular phone service.
But I think it’s best just to let it all “sit” for now. We’re already almost half way through March, she should be getting more money in 2-1/2 weeks or so. We’ll see what she chooses to do with it.
Roscuro, I have a desktop computer with a large screen, so realistically it isn’t possible to move it. I’ve been doing freelance for almost 17 years, and in that time I have rarely even talked by phone with clients–nearly always it’s e-mail. I have one publisher for whom I’ve done 8 or 10 books and we’ve never talked by phone at any stage of any of them. I had a separate phone number for “work” calls in Nashville, and I largely had it so that when I got that ring, I knew it was a professional call, and I’d answer “Hello, this is Cheryl.” Also, if I happened to be doing something that made it inconvenient to go to the phone, I still knew to try to answer it if it was that ring. But that ring only rang a couple of times a year, generally wrong numbers, so it wasn’t really a necessity after all.
I think maybe I’ll just tell him I don’t have video capabilities and ask if he wants to communicate by phone or by e-mail.
Kind of what we are dealing with with twenty three year old. I gave her fifty of her dollars to fill the tank for work. Then one hundred for the trip to Boise for gas and emergencies. She got back gushing that she was able to take her two sisters and nephew out to IHOP and bought a baby mirror for the car…..I reminded her that was her gas money for the coming weeks to get to work. She was a bit crestfallen. But that is her spending habit. If it is in her possession it must be spent, preferably on others to impress them with her wealth. I reminded her that being in debt makes her a slave to her debtors and really, she was spending their money and delaying paying it back, extending her enslavement.
Zoom can be done on a smart type phone anywhere. Many people use video chat in a car or outside. A private space in the library or coffee house could work, too. We used What’s App when Wesley was in Switzerland and he was out hiking showing us the sights. I think some people might introduce themselves and then turn the camera toward beautiful scenery or paperwork or whatever they are discussing. We have even used it once for our Bible study ladies when two had to be out. I think one was walking a dog during our time of doing Bible study. I don’t think they would expect the call to revolve around looks . . . they probably have their own warts and wrinkles. You can always use a turtleneck or scarf over your neck and these days face masks are quite the fashion. You are at the right time and place!👩💻 Put a computer screen between you and the camera.
Janice, I don’t have a smart phone. I don’t think I’m ugly and would gladly send a photo of myself. I just don’t see that video is relevant to someone telling me what the book needs or how sensitive the author is or whatever. But he was OK with just doing it by phone.
Thirteen year old and I have been out gardening and noticed the roof panel flapping on the workshop. He climbed up and replaced the screws. He is a handy guy to have around.
I went to the store this afternoon, after telling my husband yesterday I’d like it if we could limit grocery trips to weekly (reduce our “crowd risk”). One lady was shopping in a mask and gloves, and I had gloves (though I’m not really sure how useful they were). That lady was bagging her own groceries at the next checkout when I was checking out . . . and at my checkout (which I didn’t notice till the last bag), my cashier was blithely licking her fingers to separate the bags! I told my husband and he called the manager, and said, “We aren’t trying to get her in trouble” and the manager said, “Oh, I understand. In this climate it’s inexcusable” and he asked her name. When my husband told him her name, he said, “Oh no, she and I have had this little talk before. Well, we’ll have to have it again.” We’re guessing she will be told, “This is your last chance. With people trying to get their shopping ‘over with’ and get out of the store because of a deadly virus, they won’t stand for seeing you licking your fingers! If anyone sees it again, you’re gone.” It’s probably a long-standing habit, but people who work with the public can’t have habits that endanger people. She’s probably already passed along a few cases of the flu if she has been doing this a few years.
My brother called right after 9:35 when he got home. Art arrived home around 10:00. We had pie for dinner. He liked the cards I gave him and the Paw-ty card from Miss Bosley.
Big-10 basketball tournament started tonight, with two games, and with fans, and they kept talking about how fans weren’t going to be allowed at any of the other games. I guess it was too late to not allow them today. The coach of the team that played IU was sick, and ended up going to the hospital near the end of the game. (And my husband and I were saying to each other, he did get tested for the virus before the game started, right?) In the press conference after the game, they kept saying “if” for IU playing a game tomorrow, and I kept thinking, they won tonight’s game by 25 points, what do they mean “if” they play tomorrow? But I guess right now we are in a period where we just don’t know what’s going to be cancelled even 24 hours from now. Will March Madness happen this year? They were saying they’ll play it without fans present. But it may get cancelled altogether, which would be a disappointment–IU has finally won a spot back in it, with a good season.
I was asked to be a judge at a homeschool speech tournament this weekend, and agreed to judge on Friday. Earlier today I checked again to see if anything was said about cancelling, and didn’t see such a word, but did see that it’s Ivy Tech that’s hosting it, and I thought, Yep, it’s going to be cancelled. Colleges are telling kids don’t come back after spring break; we’ll finish the year online. Which is fine if you’re a freshman, but what if you were supposed to have a few more weeks of class and then graduation? You just leave for spring break and your college career is over, just like that, and you’ll probably never see a lot of those friends again. There are going to be bigger tragedies in all of this, but that’s a grim welcome to the adult world for this year’s graduates. Anyway, the event did get cancelled this evening. Can’t say I’m not a little relieved. Under different circumstances I wouldn’t mind doing it, but I haven’t fully recovered from the flu yet (don’t have my energy or my appetite back), and going to a “public gathering” in this particular health climate wouldn’t be my first choice.
And I see also that nursing homes are being told (a suggestion, not an order) to not allow visitors other than those who are medically necessary. Friends and family, the thinking goes, can keep in touch with residents and “visit” by using phones, Skype, FB Live, etc.
Carol really did pick a bad month to give up her phone service. lol
Hoping this ends soon but it’ll likely get worse before it gets better.
Wondering about opening day for baseball season and so many other events that are coming up soon, right around the corner. We have the Grand Prix in LB in April, and a couple large Pride events during that same month. I’m guessing most if not all these events will wind up getting scrapped or postponed indefinitely perhaps.
And also Easter services and activities …
There’s a couple in my church — in their 70s and he recently had a bad bout with the flu and pneumonia — who told me they thought long and hard about attending church last weekend in light of all of this. I’m wondering how many folks will feel they need to stay home from church going forward, just to be safe.
Tests indicate coronavirus can survive in the air
BY JOHN BOWDEN –
Federally funded tests conducted by scientists from several major institutions indicated that the novel form of coronavirus behind a worldwide outbreak can survive in the air for several hours.
A study awaiting peer review from scientists at Princeton University, the University of California-Los Angeles and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) posted online Wednesday indicated that the COVID-19 virus could remain viable in the air “up to 3 hours post aerosolization,” while remaining alive on plastic and other surfaces for up to three days.
“Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of HCoV-19 is plausible, as the virus can remain viable in aerosols for 42 multiple hours and on surfaces up to days,” reads the study’s abstract.
The test results suggest that humans could be infected by the disease simply carried through the air or on a solid surface, even if direct contact with an infected person does not occur. That finding, if accepted, would come in stark contrast to previous media reports that suggested the virus was not easily transmittable outside of direct human contact. …
_______________________________
Wandering Views 
Good morning everyone.
Off to do the Wednesday thing.
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Is it Janice who said, yesterday, that she doesn’t like washing dishes?
Do like Elvera’s sister. She just rinses the stuff off them and sticks them in the dishwasher. When she gets ready, she runs the washer.
Just two of us. I never use the dish washer.
Polly, Is just two also, she never washes a dish.
Depends on what you want.
As for changing lights. I have a small Christmas tree size bulb that I keep in the bath room. That is so I can see when I get up at night. A couple of days ago, I changed bulbs. I couldn’t get it to work. But the problem was not the bulb. That outlet has a button that turns power off. When the changed bulb didn’t work. I remembered that switch. I have never had such a switch on an outlet before.
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Good morning! Today is Art’s birthday and our anniversary was on the 9th. We don’t really celebrate because it is tax season and there is never any time to do anything except hopefully get some sleep. The Birthday Tree is blooming but about half the petals are on the driveway. It looked rather gloomy with the dull cloudy sky background this morning. We are having seventy degree weather though so it’s a pleasant temperature outside.
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So when I got home yesterday my husband commented something like, “You look defeated”. That’s because I am. I am exhausted, frustrated, stressed, and in general have not been taking care of myself. I went to see a different person for my taxes Monday. He is the father of my friend M. I told him I felt like I was in the principal’s office. I look at how much I made last year and how much I owe. What’s the point of working to earn more? Now my insurance is $583 per month and doesn’t pay anything until I am $7,100 out of pocket. Monday I also made the choice on whether or not to pay the highway robbery price of my insurance or $224 out of pocket for a 6 month call back on a mammogram. It’s rescheduled for next Friday. Last week I discovered that some of the medical bills I had last year have not been paid. Now I am playing catch-up.
There’s a joke about wanting to run away from home more as an adult than ever as a child.
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Morning! Happy Anniversary two days ago Janice and Happy Birthday to Art! ❤️
That photo up there is sweet but I thought to myself that was an awfully large nest for such a tiny bird…I suppose that isn’t truly a nest is it?
I have been fighting of sinus congestion since Sunday so we missed small group last night…didn’t want to creep anyone out. One must be careful these days. But I don’t feel sick and have no other symptom other than the stuffy nose. I truly believe the cause is the stuff they lay down on our roads for the snow and ice. When we walk my eyes burn, I sneeze and when I come home into the house I am no longer experiencing that. Spring just cannot come too soon for me. Snow is coming Friday, next Tuesday through Thursday..more stuff will be applied to the road….. 😳
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NancyJill, I am debating whether to call in sick. I thought for a while that my symptoms were allergies, but Sixth also has them, so I guess they are a cold.
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Michigan’s governor reported last night the state’s first two confirmed Covid-19 cases, both hospitalized, both in nearby Detroit-area counties. There’s nothing surprising about that, but it does make it seem more imminent. I’m glad we found TP on Saturday!
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Happy Belated Anniversary, Art and Janice, and Happy Birthday to Art.
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Light bulbs and the little switch: we have that, especially on outlets around water, as in the bathroom. I don’t remember what it is called and could go look but have not started the fire yet and don’t want to move the lap blanket. They pop a lot, circuit breaker things. We have them outside too. Husband’s dad could not get his rv to work off of one of our outlet until we remembered it had that. When my brother added on to the place, he put a lot of those around.
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So, Kevin, have you seen the meme about Covid-19 being found on toilet paper? 😀
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Good morning. I am on vacation today as daughter is off so she has granddaughter. And son appears to be oversleeping. I told him a couple of days ago to make sure to set his wind up alarm clock. Funny as I had been in his room a couple days earlier and noticed he had taken it apart so there is no way he can use it. Just waiting for him to fess up. He will have to go to bed earlier tonight as he is so late getting up.
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GFCI: ground fault circuit interruptor
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They updated the electrical in this house as part of the upgrade. Now, it seems to me, each room has a different kind of light switch.
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Called in sick for tomorrow. Don’t want to risk it.
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Feel better, roscuro. Working from home obviously isn’t an option for everyone. 😦
GFI — I have one now in the bathroom (old bathroom didn’t have one). Because the house is so old, it doesn’t have quite enough electrical outlets to suit me. One half-wall in the living room has no electrical wiring at all — and thus no lamp I can plug in there.
Kim, prayers sister. We could run away together but I’d want to go north and you’d want to go south. A cruise is out. I did see last night that the IRS may delay the tax filing date this year (due to the virus upheavals). That would help in my case. I have a whole lot of money going out-out-out in the next six weeks.
Meanwhile … I mentioned that I’m sorry Carol has let her phone service lapse this month, her health is declining and with the virus situation (and her being in one of the places where there are special concerns). I’ve been in touch with the man from her former church who has helped her so much (he bought her a new phone a couple years ago when she locked herself out of her old one and the carrier couldn’t unlock it for her). He wanted to pay for her phone bill but asked me in a text what the issue was, why she wasn’t paying her bill this month. When I told him she decided to buy herself a couple unnecessary ‘gifts’ and declined to return them (on my suggestion) in order to make sure she’d have phone service this month, he decided with me that she’d just have to live without the phone.
But she apparently told him that she might not be able to pay for her bill next month either and I have no idea what that was about. She’s been talking about wanting to buy a new kindle ($300), along with some other things that aren’t necessities but would make her “feel” better for the moment. I could just shake her sometimes, but her friend suggested we pay one month each as she needs to have phone service, it’s a necessity for her not an ‘extra.’ I agree about that, but I’ve paid for her phone bill in the past when this has happened and vowed never to do it again as she gets to used to people bailing her out financially. She’s been really good about paying her bill for a couple years running now, has told me that she realizes the phone is a necessity, not an ‘extra’ in her situation (they otherwise have no phone available to use there unless it is an emergency).
I know the advice here will be not to pay for her. But it concerns me she said she might not have a phone for 2 months, now; though she may have been saying that to manipulate this guy who is so sweet and willing to help her financially. But she constantly borrows money from friends at the residence (from one girl, a former roommate who’s Christian, especially — as in every month). She will pay those people back the following month but then she’ll turn around and borrow from them again. I told her people are going to start going the other way when they see her if she keeps doing that. It’s a lifelong issue she’s had and has been unable to overcome. As I said, I can just shake her when she does something like this. I’m still hoping she’ll be so miserable without the phone that she’ll reactivate it as soon as she gets paid next. But who knows.
I’ve been doing more hand-dish washing lately as I’m working from home and can wash dishes as I use them. But usually I do the thing of stacking them in the dishwasher and running that when it’s full. I do need to keep using it though — use it or lose it, I was told. They’ll work better if they’re used regularly.
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Happy anniversary Art & Janice!
Is there an Anniversary Tree?
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DJ, why do you believe it is necessary to have a phone? Not really, as others have one in the event of an emergency. It certainly would make her life a bit nicer, but then, is that what she uses to waste her money? Does she buy things over the phone, since she can’t get out? The virus is not going to really make a difference in her phone needs.
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Dishes: we have a dishwasher and I keep thinking of running it to see if the seals are still working. But I don’t. Haven’t used it in years. I rather enjoy dish washing, though I cannot say I always have.
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DJ, it’s a hard call to say not to pay her phone. A phone is indeed a necessity, and it isn’t that long ago they’d have simply had a phone in each room and it probably would have been billed as part of the service (long-distance extra). There isn’t a way to make her phone bill be paid automatically? Her choice is selfish, but it sounds like it is more important to other people that she have a phone than it is to her, and that’s the reality. My own sister doesn’t care whether she has a phone and has had stretches in her adult life without it. Now that she is out in the boonies and she has children, she accepts the reality that she needs a phone, she just simply usually chooses not to answer it if others call her. So I can see her not bothering to have a cell phone if she were ever to live in such a place, unless her children insisted on it.
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Well, I suppose it’s not a complete necessity but … I have no way to connect with her now. She can’t walk to the front desk if I were to call and she lives an hour away. I suppose it’s her choice to just be out of touch with folks “on the outside.” But she also can’t connect with her brother in NJ very easily or at all, really, unless it’s an emergency. It seems it will be very isolating for her and I suspect that’s not a good thing.
But you’ve got a point that she can’t purchase things on her phone this way, I suppose. Maybe that’s what will prompt her to pay up the phone bill when she gets paid next.
I say we wait until the end of March, see if she reactivates her phone, before intervening. But this man is asking me to “please let me help her.” Everyone loves Carol and wants to help her, she clearly has a lot of needs. But Carol’s also something of a manipulator; I love her, but she’ll eagerly live on other people’s dime(s) for as long as she can.
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She has no email access, either, without the phone.
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Question for y’all. I accepted a book edit from a publisher with which I have worked for many years (they’re the publisher I worked for before going freelance, though that was 17 years ago next month–yikes–and the last two of the people I worked with retired last year). He then asked me if we could have a handoff meeting (discussing the needs of the project) via Zoom. Well, I don’t keep up on technology and had to google “Zoom,” but apparently it’s the latest video-conferencing technology.
Technically I’m sure there is a camera on my computer, but I don’t like video (my husband and I never skyped when courting long-distance, though my brother who married a year before I did skyped all the time), didn’t want a video of my wedding, and have no interest in video conference calls. My office is in my own home, it’s my sanctuary, and even the thought of this is creepy to me. (It would be two men I’ve never met in person. As far as I know just two, but there are two names on it.) Anyone know if there is a good professional reply to such a request that allows me to say, “No, if we need to talk by phone or e-mail, I’m open to that, but not video, please?” Realistically I don’t want to put the capability on my computer, either. It just seems creepy to me. Yeah, I know people do it all the time, but I’m a middle-aged woman with bad teeth and a weak chin and my home is my sanctuary and I just don’t want to do this, and don’t see it as “necessary.”
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Kathaleena, your post cracked me up. I haven’t seen that meme, but I should go look for it.
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Flip phone. Temporary until she gets her finances in order. Just add it to your plan for a small amount and you are good.
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Cheryl, I had to keep in touch with my clinical tutor when I was in Nunavut via video conference. It is becoming more and more common, and one of the things that allows working from home and distance to be done. I do not think it is creepy at all that this was proposed. Most people just find a space in their home where they can control what the other person can see. Note: this doesn’t always work, especially if one has pets or small children – I watched one live video podcast where the person’s cat stole the show; and a while a while ago, there was great hilarity when a newscaster spoke to an expert who was being interviewed from home, and the expert’s young daughter waltzed into the room, followed by her baby sibling, pursued by their mother – viewers found it endlessly endearing and amesing.
Zoom was suggested for my conference call, but I couldn’t get it set up, so we settled for Whats App instead, which was properly better in the long run, as it used up less of our precious bandwidth (Nunavut has satellite internet service only, and it is at a very high premium). Barring that, it would have been Skype. Now, it is possible, with both Skype and Whats App, to have a conference call without using the camera, just audio and microphone – I ended up doing that when the weather was bad and the signal wasn’t strong enough for video. So, that is an option.
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Hmmmm, or just buy her a ‘burner’ phone? How much are those I wonder? I guess it’s preloaded and you’d get so many minutes for the month or whatever.
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She was ‘given’ a free ‘obama’ phone from the government some years ago and I always urged her to hang on to that as a backup since she could get spotty on paying her regular cell bill. But it just got trashed, it was in pieces last time she was gathering up things for a move, unfortunately.
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Coronavirus is now officially declared a worldwide pandemic (which we already pretty much knew was going to happen soon).
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Can you get a disposable phone like a disposable camera (do they still make those!) ?! 😜 then tell Carol that this phone is for contact with you only? I don’t know…seems she has always had the propensity to rely upon others when she fails to manage her affairs correctly. Do you make the decision to go forward in tough love? I know not the answer but I assuredly will be asking and trusting our Lord with the good and wise direction on this path for you DJ….
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Nancyjill, I believe that is what she means by burner phone. Another excellent idea. Set for phone calls to DJ, the brother, and perhaps the church.
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Yes, a disposable or cheap walmart type phone that all the spies and criminals use in the movies.
Sigh. Not sure what to do and I can’t even really contact her to discuss any of this, of course. I wouldn’t want to limit who she can call, but her minutes per month would be limited and she’d have to pay for it after the initial ‘gift.’ Hopefully she could hang on to it as a backup. I even wondered how much a landline would cost in her room??? Are those super cheap now? No one has them anymore.
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Just saw also where one of our local nursing/retirement home centers is now on lockdown, Carol’s may be doing the same.
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A phone is a necessity if you live by yourself, but Carol does not. If she had an emergency wouldn’t she be able to get to a phone? Is there an emergency cord in her room?
Why would Carol reform her financial errors when she only gets rewarded for them? If one won’t do it, another will. She has an endless list of people she can go to. Someone new will pop up eventually.
Does she have social workers that work with her? Perhaps a discussion with them will clarify what is best.
If the phone will make your life better, DJ, that is a different thing. Praying for wisdom for you.
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My BIL regularly volunteers at a local nursing home. It was also on quarantine for the regular flu. It is not unusual at certain times of the years.
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The phone here will not allow me to make long distance calls. A land line phone with that restriction might be good for her. Others can call me from anywhere, so you could call her as often as you would like.
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Ah, no lock down. Much overall confusion, however, and no one can figure out what we all should be doing in terms of trying to control this bug.
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Wash your hands!
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Baby boy is home!
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We’ll see what Carol does at the end of this month, is my thinking right now. Yes, if there’s an emergency obviously I’d hear. But now that she’s unable to leave the place at all physically, it definitely cuts her off not only from her friends but from pastoral calls (he visits once a month but that’s all arranged by phone, of course; I suppose he would just call the front desk and they’d relay messages back and forth?).
I don’t want to get her set up with a backup phone that I’m going to have to pay for. It would just be something to tide her over for maybe the next month until she pays up on her regular phone service.
But I think it’s best just to let it all “sit” for now. We’re already almost half way through March, she should be getting more money in 2-1/2 weeks or so. We’ll see what she chooses to do with it.
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Roscuro, I have a desktop computer with a large screen, so realistically it isn’t possible to move it. I’ve been doing freelance for almost 17 years, and in that time I have rarely even talked by phone with clients–nearly always it’s e-mail. I have one publisher for whom I’ve done 8 or 10 books and we’ve never talked by phone at any stage of any of them. I had a separate phone number for “work” calls in Nashville, and I largely had it so that when I got that ring, I knew it was a professional call, and I’d answer “Hello, this is Cheryl.” Also, if I happened to be doing something that made it inconvenient to go to the phone, I still knew to try to answer it if it was that ring. But that ring only rang a couple of times a year, generally wrong numbers, so it wasn’t really a necessity after all.
I think maybe I’ll just tell him I don’t have video capabilities and ask if he wants to communicate by phone or by e-mail.
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Kind of what we are dealing with with twenty three year old. I gave her fifty of her dollars to fill the tank for work. Then one hundred for the trip to Boise for gas and emergencies. She got back gushing that she was able to take her two sisters and nephew out to IHOP and bought a baby mirror for the car…..I reminded her that was her gas money for the coming weeks to get to work. She was a bit crestfallen. But that is her spending habit. If it is in her possession it must be spent, preferably on others to impress them with her wealth. I reminded her that being in debt makes her a slave to her debtors and really, she was spending their money and delaying paying it back, extending her enslavement.
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Zoom can be done on a smart type phone anywhere. Many people use video chat in a car or outside. A private space in the library or coffee house could work, too. We used What’s App when Wesley was in Switzerland and he was out hiking showing us the sights. I think some people might introduce themselves and then turn the camera toward beautiful scenery or paperwork or whatever they are discussing. We have even used it once for our Bible study ladies when two had to be out. I think one was walking a dog during our time of doing Bible study. I don’t think they would expect the call to revolve around looks . . . they probably have their own warts and wrinkles. You can always use a turtleneck or scarf over your neck and these days face masks are quite the fashion. You are at the right time and place!👩💻 Put a computer screen between you and the camera.
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Oh, sorry. I guess it was already figured out by the time I posted. No need to read what I wrote.
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Cheryl, if you have to do video conferencing, you must get a cat. 🙂
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Janice, I don’t have a smart phone. I don’t think I’m ugly and would gladly send a photo of myself. I just don’t see that video is relevant to someone telling me what the book needs or how sensitive the author is or whatever. But he was OK with just doing it by phone.
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Thirteen year old and I have been out gardening and noticed the roof panel flapping on the workshop. He climbed up and replaced the screws. He is a handy guy to have around.
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I went to the store this afternoon, after telling my husband yesterday I’d like it if we could limit grocery trips to weekly (reduce our “crowd risk”). One lady was shopping in a mask and gloves, and I had gloves (though I’m not really sure how useful they were). That lady was bagging her own groceries at the next checkout when I was checking out . . . and at my checkout (which I didn’t notice till the last bag), my cashier was blithely licking her fingers to separate the bags! I told my husband and he called the manager, and said, “We aren’t trying to get her in trouble” and the manager said, “Oh, I understand. In this climate it’s inexcusable” and he asked her name. When my husband told him her name, he said, “Oh no, she and I have had this little talk before. Well, we’ll have to have it again.” We’re guessing she will be told, “This is your last chance. With people trying to get their shopping ‘over with’ and get out of the store because of a deadly virus, they won’t stand for seeing you licking your fingers! If anyone sees it again, you’re gone.” It’s probably a long-standing habit, but people who work with the public can’t have habits that endanger people. She’s probably already passed along a few cases of the flu if she has been doing this a few years.
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That is such a sweet photo, Kim!
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I have three cards and Key Lime Pie for whenever Art makes it home. These are long days and nights. And my brother has to work similar hours.
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Tom Hanks!
Tom Hanks & Rita Wilson Test Positive For Coronavirus As Outbreak Hits ‘Elvis Presley’ Film
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Sky is now falling
Or maybe that’s just my plaster ceiling …
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I think it’s getting quite serious now. I need to make a toilet paper run for sure for our home and office.
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My brother called right after 9:35 when he got home. Art arrived home around 10:00. We had pie for dinner. He liked the cards I gave him and the Paw-ty card from Miss Bosley.
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Big-10 basketball tournament started tonight, with two games, and with fans, and they kept talking about how fans weren’t going to be allowed at any of the other games. I guess it was too late to not allow them today. The coach of the team that played IU was sick, and ended up going to the hospital near the end of the game. (And my husband and I were saying to each other, he did get tested for the virus before the game started, right?) In the press conference after the game, they kept saying “if” for IU playing a game tomorrow, and I kept thinking, they won tonight’s game by 25 points, what do they mean “if” they play tomorrow? But I guess right now we are in a period where we just don’t know what’s going to be cancelled even 24 hours from now. Will March Madness happen this year? They were saying they’ll play it without fans present. But it may get cancelled altogether, which would be a disappointment–IU has finally won a spot back in it, with a good season.
I was asked to be a judge at a homeschool speech tournament this weekend, and agreed to judge on Friday. Earlier today I checked again to see if anything was said about cancelling, and didn’t see such a word, but did see that it’s Ivy Tech that’s hosting it, and I thought, Yep, it’s going to be cancelled. Colleges are telling kids don’t come back after spring break; we’ll finish the year online. Which is fine if you’re a freshman, but what if you were supposed to have a few more weeks of class and then graduation? You just leave for spring break and your college career is over, just like that, and you’ll probably never see a lot of those friends again. There are going to be bigger tragedies in all of this, but that’s a grim welcome to the adult world for this year’s graduates. Anyway, the event did get cancelled this evening. Can’t say I’m not a little relieved. Under different circumstances I wouldn’t mind doing it, but I haven’t fully recovered from the flu yet (don’t have my energy or my appetite back), and going to a “public gathering” in this particular health climate wouldn’t be my first choice.
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And I see also that nursing homes are being told (a suggestion, not an order) to not allow visitors other than those who are medically necessary. Friends and family, the thinking goes, can keep in touch with residents and “visit” by using phones, Skype, FB Live, etc.
Carol really did pick a bad month to give up her phone service. lol
Hoping this ends soon but it’ll likely get worse before it gets better.
Wondering about opening day for baseball season and so many other events that are coming up soon, right around the corner. We have the Grand Prix in LB in April, and a couple large Pride events during that same month. I’m guessing most if not all these events will wind up getting scrapped or postponed indefinitely perhaps.
And also Easter services and activities …
There’s a couple in my church — in their 70s and he recently had a bad bout with the flu and pneumonia — who told me they thought long and hard about attending church last weekend in light of all of this. I’m wondering how many folks will feel they need to stay home from church going forward, just to be safe.
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Great.
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https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/487110-tests-indicate-coronavirus-can-survive-in-the-air
Tests indicate coronavirus can survive in the air
BY JOHN BOWDEN –
Federally funded tests conducted by scientists from several major institutions indicated that the novel form of coronavirus behind a worldwide outbreak can survive in the air for several hours.
A study awaiting peer review from scientists at Princeton University, the University of California-Los Angeles and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) posted online Wednesday indicated that the COVID-19 virus could remain viable in the air “up to 3 hours post aerosolization,” while remaining alive on plastic and other surfaces for up to three days.
“Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of HCoV-19 is plausible, as the virus can remain viable in aerosols for 42 multiple hours and on surfaces up to days,” reads the study’s abstract.
The test results suggest that humans could be infected by the disease simply carried through the air or on a solid surface, even if direct contact with an infected person does not occur. That finding, if accepted, would come in stark contrast to previous media reports that suggested the virus was not easily transmittable outside of direct human contact. …
_______________________________
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