65 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-20-20”

  5. Canada experienced a horrible tragedy yesterday, the worst mass murder ever committed in our country, in Nova Scotia, in the area of the province where my father grew up, with 16 people killed, including an RCMP officer. The police were unable to peacefully arrest the perpetrator, who has been shot and killed. Thankfully, my aunts and cousins who live in the area are all safe. The communities affected are tiny and close knit. https://thelaker.ca/updated-enfield-rcmp-officer-killed-manhunt-portapique/

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  6. Daughter called from a friend’s house this morning. Seems she hit a deer on the way to work this morning and cracked the radiator. Husband has to go get her and take her to work, she will be late and unable to call as she forgot her phone and I can’t find it in her room. Tried calling it, went straight to voice mail. She does not know the work number.

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  8. Good morning! Nice refreshing and calming header. Almost makes me want to go tubing on the headwaters of the Chatahoochee River. Actually I opted to pass time reading a book while friends did that the last time I had the opportunity. I remembered what effort it took in the shallow water to restart the fun. That was not worth it to me. When I did it before, Wesley was with me and my friends so I was having his and my stuck tubes to deal with and that memory balanced out the fun floating times. But ducks don’t have those issues. Nor do they have to retrieve their child’s tube that gets away!

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  10. Good Morning Everyone. We had some bad weather move through last night. Mr. P has a weather alert set on his phone. He turned the TV on and watched it. He told me that if a tornado was to come through I should get in my closet. Really my closet is on the outside of the house. The safest places are the “potty room” inside the bathroom or the laundry room with the floor plane of the house. Luckily it all went north of us. Several of my agents have some damage out of doors, but all are safe so far.

    Michelle is spending time in the 1900-1920 time frame. I seem to be spending time in the WWII Era, from watching World on Fire to reading a book based in Australia (written by an Australian). It is fiction about three sisters whose grandmother dies, leaving then a bed and breakfast. In reading her journals they find out some family secrets and what her grandmother was like as a young woman.
    It started me to thinking. We all (except for my generation–whose parents were Boomers and Hippies) think the generation before them were prudes and fuddy-duddies. Sex, and sin, and drama has been around since the Garden of Eden. David sinned with Bathsheba. There truly is nothing new under the sun. It also made me think of our own WWII era resident here on the blog. He always tells us how lucky and blessed he has been in his life. What it has made me think about is the luckiest people are the ones who think they are lucky. The unluckiest are those who think they are unlucky.
    So what does that make me? I am a realist. I have been blessed and lucky and I have been doomed and unlucky. Somehow it all works out for the best. I always have to remind myself that things work out the way they are supposed to and this saying I got from a friend about 6 years ago:
    Things turn our best for those who make the best of how things turn out.

    Have a good one peeps. I will check back later.

    Liked by 6 people

  11. Good morning all. In case you missed it, today is Monday. It would have been my parent’s 73rd anniversary.

    Sad news out of Nova Scotia. As long as mankind is sinful and society refuses to acknowledge God, we can only expect it to get worse.

    On the bright side, we have the hope of salvation in Christ, and as long as He waits to return in judgement there is hope for mankind.

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  13. I’m sorry about that, Phos.
    I hear on TV that this went on for 12 hours. I wonder that it took so long.
    Seems that the decision to bring the man down would be executed promptly.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Chas, he had disguised himself with a police uniform and a car with mocked up police decals. Also, Nova Scotia is very sparsely inhabited in that area. I have mentioned before how there is only one paved road going through the valley where my father grew up. It is easy to get lost, and by all accounts, it seems that after his first car was stopped, he hijacked one, perhaps two other cars.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. FWIW, I just read that putting shaving cream on eye glasses and wiping it off is supposed to help keep them from fogging up. I have no idea if it works or how good it is for the lenses. My glasses are horribly expensive and I am very careful with the lenses. I would be careful, but it may be worth a try.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Kim,

    Vaughn Weedle had some damage from the same storm over in Georgia. He said on Facebook he lost a fence, some trees, and a green house to the storm, but everyone is fine.

    For those who don’t remember Vaughn, he was on World with us for a time.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Roscuro, I am sorry for the people in Nova Scotia and for you as well. What I found out in December it is really easy to be detached from these sorts of things because we all think “t\That doesn’t happen here. That happens somewhere else”. That is until it happens in your own back yard.

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  20. Thank you all for your kind words. The reason it hits so close to home is that community nurses face danger everyday. Community nurses have to go to patients’ homes or, as I do, see them while alone in a clinic. Not everyone we see see is harmless or has a clean criminal record. I have had encounters with patients that have made me feel very intimidated and so have my colleagues. We are always conscious of the danger. But, the danger of a random shooter is wholly unanticipated. Accounts suggest he was stopping people and then shooting them. These colleagues would have been going about their necessary work to serve others, only to be killed by a man posing as a police officer.

    Liked by 6 people

  22. “How to keep your glasses or sunglasses from fogging up while wearing a face mask”

    https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/coronavirus/2020/04/how-to-keep-your-glasses-or-sunglasses-from-fogging-up-while-wearing-a-face-mask.html

    “For those who do wear glasses, fogged-up lenses have become an issue over the past few weeks. If you are one of the many New Jerseyans who have been dealing with it, there are several potential fixes to combat the issue.

    Perhaps the most obvious solution is to buy a spray designed specifically to reduce fogging on glasses. There are a number of sprays and cleaners available for purchase on Amazon.

    If the prospect of sorting through thousands of product reviews and ratings seems like a daunting task, Environmental Design and Construction Magazine put together a list of the best anti-fog sprays, updated for 2020.

    If you are looking for a fix using household items instead, there is another ultra-simple method that actually has been proved effective in a scientific study. While most of us are only now encountering this problem, doctors and surgeons who wear face masks have been dealing with foggy lenses for decades.

    According to a 2011 study published by The Royal College of Surgeons of England, simply washing lenses with soap and water will prevent the buildup of moisture.

    An excerpt from the study states that immediately before wearing a face mask, one should “wash the spectacles with soapy water and shake off the excess. Then, let the spectacles air dry or gently dry off the lenses with a soft tissue before putting them back on.””

    Liked by 3 people

  23. I’m sorry, roscuro, saw that news yesterday and from the film clip they showed of one of the government or police officials it was clear that this was a close-knit community. 😦

    There are always troubles, one of my take-aways from yesterday’s sermons (though I disagree with Peter’s view that it “can only” get worse). But sin and the fallen nature of both the world and the people in it will ensure that troubles on this side will persist. Indeed, nothing new under the sun as Kim pointed out.

    I’m struggling mightily this morning, I think I’m hitting the wall again with the sameness, week after week after week — and, well, it’s Monday. I stayed in bed as long as I could this morning, having weird dreams and just dreading starting another work week, although I honestly am very grateful I am still employed.

    But still …

    Had another call from one of the other reporters yesterday afternoon, secretive discussions apparently are continuing with the union and they are trying to feel everyone out in terms of where they stand. I told her I remain in the ‘undecided’ column, not sure it would help considering the sorry state our whole industry is in financially right now. This would be for all 11 papers in our wider LA/OC area and is the same union recently ‘hired’ by the Times staff to represent them.

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  24. Yesterday there was some discussion about how we no longer honor our elders because we put so many in nursing homes. I do agree that that probably happens too much, but there is more to it, too.

    These days, with medical advances and medications, people are living longer even when they are infirm in other ways. Nightingale has said that the great majority of her patients need a lot of physical care, and most wear “diapers” and need to be taken care of in that way, too. (The kind of funny thing about that is that the staff are very careful to refer to them as “briefs”, but the patients themselves call them “diapers”.)

    Then there is the matter of the prevalence of both spouses working outside the home these days. Many elderly folks need someone at home with them, even if it is only for supervision. Some people with higher incomes could hire help, but most middle class to lower middle class folks, let alone the poor, could not afford that.

    If I had worked outside the home, my MIL would have been in a nursing home several years earlier. My mom might have been in a hospital for her last week or so rather than dying in her own home.

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  25. The death toll has been revised upward to 18 now as more discoveries are made. Not only is the area sparsely populated, houses in communities are also set much further apart – something that I have always noticed whenever I went to visit – so that neighbours may not notice anything unusual initially.

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  26. So sorry to hear even more of the sadness and loss of it all, Roscuro.

    My mother was in an assisted living home for several years. It was a much nicer arrangement for her needs than either my brother or I could provide. He lived in her home and could bring her home any time. We had Christmas dinner at her home the day before she died. She had social community and friends at assisted living that she never would have had in our homes. She was in a wheelchair at that time. I was very happy with her care. She had a sitting room and attached bedroom and bath..

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  29. My husband’s aunt looked forward to the day she could move into Chicago’s Lutheran home. She was so isolated in her own house that she bloomed in the community, actually began a ministry there and up until the last year of her life (where her diabetes health fell apart) thought moving there was the best thing she had ever done.

    Liked by 4 people

  30. My current county of residence has not had any new COVID cases in nine days.

    My parents and three of my siblings live in the same county in which we grew up. The COVID statistics are worse there than here — the population of their county is less than half of ours (around 50,000 compared to ~120,000), yet their total cases number 61 to our 26, with 10 deaths compared to our 0. The first eight deaths, though, and maybe the ninth and tenth, were all within one congregate care facility, so that skews the big picture for the county as a whole.

    One of my sisters works at a care facility in that county. They have no COVID cases there, but her facility may be receiving some residents who tested negative at the facility where the deaths occurred.

    My one concern is what if there are false-negatives among the group of residents getting moved to her workplace? A newspaper report I read reported that one of the deaths at that facility was of a person who tested negative before death and positive after death.

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  33. The COVID-19 case number has gone up a little here, to 111, but the death toll remains at 33, with no new deaths at the nursing home. The hospital where Youngest – any day now she is past her due date – will go to deliver her baby, has reported an outbreak due to one inpatient admitted for other reasons being identified as positive, so now all the workers in that ward are having to be tested. The hospital also has several patients admitted for COVID-19.

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  34. My mom was looking to move into an assisted-care facility, and she wanted to. She’d been living by herself and largely homebound. There were reasons she couldn’t really live with any of her children (or at least reasons for several, and the others didn’t offer), but assisted living offers a good option for some. Standard nursing homes are necessary for some people with medical needs though–but not a happy place to live, especially when visitors aren’t allowed.

    Liked by 1 person

  36. And I just stay here living my quiet life. Still trying to get in touch with the library. The message said to call on Tuesdays or Thursdays, so I will try that.

    I am planning to go walk the golf course again. And on Friday I spent a day fasting. I refuse to gain more weight during this.

    Liked by 2 people

  38. My great uncle had to be put in a nursing home when the symptoms of his Alzheimer’s became too dangerous for his son and daughter-in-law to control, so I understand the need for facilities. On the other hand, he went very quickly downhill when he was put in the faculty, even though it was one he had chosen when still in his right mind. Something that needs to be remembered, as I have noted above regarding community patients, everyone gets old. Not all elderly were ever nice people, and not all of them have clear criminal records. There have been a number of deaths in long term care homes which have been shown to have been committed by other residents. Many of the perpetrators had dementia when they committed the crimes, though not all. When I was training in the nursing home, there was more than one violent incident that occured between residents. While I was there, a resident had been taken to hospital and died, and the staff felt that although the immediate cause if death was natural, that an injury the resident had earlier suffered at the hands of another resident with a violent background had probably weakened the resident and made them more vulnerable to the natural cause. Then there were the cases of sexual abuse, with cognizant residents sexually exploiting those with dementia, and those with dementia losing their control over their actions. It was all so ugly, but due to patient confidentiality and a complete lack of regulation concerning what to do about abuse between residents, except for family members, no one in the outside world knew anything if it. The staff endeavoured to limit abuse and alert family members to problems, but there were so many issues in one small facility, with so few staff that it was impossible to really control. The existence of ward rooms made the problem worse. Sometimes it seemed like I had fallen down a rabbit hole and landed in another world, one that was utterly twisted. I do not know the solution, but there is something very wrong with long term care institutions.

    In West Africa, even though the average lifespan was in the mid-50’s, there were still elderly people, some with dementia and/or debilitating health problems. Extended families lived together in compounds, so the elderly were taken care of at home. Some of those families were better than others at taking care of the elderly, and sometimes, while some members were good to their elderly, other members would exploit them. There was a simultaneous respect for elders, who were more rare, and also the same kind of dismissal and impatience of the elderly that is seen in the West. The limited resources that families did contribute to the elderly being treated as burdens.

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  39. Cheryl, I know (re the name). I’d never heard that as a name before! It does have a ring to it, but …

    Always so interesting to see these old news stories and how names and often times addresses were printed.

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  41. The Sweetest Woman In The World has dementia.
    Fortunately for me, she is still sweet. I care for her and she knows it.
    She often says, “I’m glad I have you. I will keep her as long as I can.
    It isn’t the $6000/month. It is that she would hate it there. When I take her to the senior center for four hours on MWF, after four hours, she is always glad for me to come get her.
    The Lord gave her to me and I will keep her as long as I can.
    But when it is time to go, I will not interfere with special effort to keep her.

    if the Lord hears my prayers, she will go first and I will be close behind.

    This World is not my home,
    I’m only passing through.
    My treasure’s all laid up,
    Somewhere beyond the blue.
    The angels beckon me
    to Heaven’s open door.
    And I can’t feel at home
    In this world
    Anymore.

    Liked by 9 people

  42. Chas we are blessed to know your love story and we pray He allows you two to stay together until the end. My Mom cared for my Dad until the end of his life. He depended upon her and she did her level best to tend to his needs. He loved her for it and he brought us three girls together before he went to be with our Lord, asking us to care for our Mom after he was gone. He didn’t want to take his last breath until we assured him that we would care for her. Sixty years of marriage, and theirs was not the smoothest of marriages but they were committed….and for that I am thankful…

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  43. It would be ideal, for caring for the elderly as well as for caring for the children who end up in daycare, if our society was one of extended family being close by, and/or multi-generational living, with women tending to the home and family. But that’s not how things are anymore. (And they weren’t always like that in the past, either.) But even in private homes, elder abuse happens, just as child or spousal abuse does.

    I love the idea of the assisted living facilities. But they are expensive, and I don’t think either Medicare or Medicaid pays for them, at least not in our area. As for my own future, I know that Nightingale will take care of me as long as she can (with Chickadee’s help, hopefully).

    As you all know, I think, I took care of my MIL until it became dangerous to continue. She had always been resistant to my help, but she eventually became physically combative, which could have ended up seriously injuring either or both of us. Although it was a relief for me, it was also really sad.

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  46. Chas, you made me cry. As NancyJill said above you are a blessing to us in sharing your love and care for her.
    In August of 2015 a gentleman here in town was diagnosed with neoblastoma, which is an incurable form of brain cancer. He had a medical background and knew what he was facing. He got his affairs in order and took care of his wife. He set up all the finances, explained to her what all she would have and that she would not have to sell the house and would be financially secure.
    SHE through her posts on Facebook taught us all how to love our husbands are Jesus loves us. Theirs was a true love story.
    This past Fall she remarried in what she and her new husband call ordained by God. They both lost spouses, both were devastated and thought they would never love again. It has been a beautiful thing to watch. She is an inspiration.

    Chas, you are just as much an inspiration and we love you for it.

    Liked by 5 people

  47. I, on the other hand, am not a good wife. I have become short tempered and lack patience. Son came to help Mr. P with the yard work today. Dad had Son cutting back the wisteria that grows and sometimes even gets to bloom if no one cuts it back. I heard buzzing and saw Son cutting with with a tree trimmer. I asked where his dad was and I was NOT happy. I told them both they may as well cut all of it down, there is no point in having blooming flowers if you don’t let them bloom. I notice looking out the office window that they did not cut the rest of the fenceline down. So at least one end of the yard will have blooms.

    We got our first grocery delivery today.

    Liked by 3 people

  48. I was pleased today to see that one of our local hospitals is participating in the Mayo trial of plasma treatment for Covid patients, the treatment that apparently turned things around for AJ’s friend.

    Liked by 4 people

  51. I can not get a plain collar on Miss Bosley, but it is a pretty idea for those who have compliant cats. I see posts of dressed up cats on Facebook and immediately think I’d be dead if I tried to get that garb on Miss Bosley.

    Liked by 1 person

  52. Chas- You are an inspiration and example to us all.

    I told D1 (she has a BS in Nursing) that she would be the one to care for us in our old age. I think we’ll eventually help them buy a house big enough for their brood and us. Then Mrs L can see the grandchildren all the time.

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  53. I had my well visit with my doctor via Duo, a video call provided by Google. It went well. I still need to get all the routine testing that I never did last year. All the fun stuff like mammogram, colonoscopy, bone density, A1C blood test, and a dermatologist checkup. I told her I was all involved with my eyes last year and did not get to any of that. I can wait on most, but if I choose to do the A1C lab, she said the lab is open with few using it right now. I am tempted, but since it can wait . . . but maybe now would be a good time before the swarms of pent up people are let out of their cages.

    Liked by 3 people

  54. I have labs this week. I was willing to wait as long as they renewed my prescriptions, but apparently they will not without the lab work. I saw the doctor in February. The visit itself will be via telephone. Should be interesting.

    We visit many of our nursing homes and assisted living places, since the musicians perform at many of them. There can be some big differences in the care at each. Management makes a big difference. Then there is a difference over how sick the residents are in each facility. There is also a big difference over whether or not someone is visiting and looking out for the best interest of the resident. I would not want to be in any of those places without family to visit. We have a lot of people who are in that situation, however. We have some missionaries who have made it their mission now to do bible studies and bring gifts on holidays to those residents. They used to work primarily with children, but have found this to be a bigger need right now here.

    Some older people prefer to live in assisted living, while others prefer to be with family. This is not a “one size fits all” situation, for sure.

    Liked by 5 people

  55. Annie used to wear a bell collar which also is supposed to alert prey, but didn’t always in her case. Then I read that coyotes had gotten wise to the little collar bells — in their minds, they were dinner bells. 😦

    Interesting piece from USAToday on a possible ‘2nd wave’ – most at risk could be the Midwest as the two coasts were hardest hit this time around. Those areas less impacted this time will offer more opportunities for a new spread.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/19/coronavirus-herd-immunity-vaccines-determine-covid-second-wave/5151957002/

    _________________

    Will the coronavirus go away in the summer?

    Another factor is whether the virus survives longer in cooler, drier weather. That’s why the flu is more common in winter, its virus survives longer and people are more likely to be indoors in close contact.

    “We have no idea really whether this is going to bounce back the moment people start going back outdoors or if the warmer weather is actually going to help us out,” said Michael Mina, a professor of epidemiology at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health.

    “If it doesn’t happen in the summer, we’d all be very surprised if we don’t see some reemergence in the fall,” he said. …

    … COVID-19’s sweet spot could be the same as influenza, roughly October to May, with a peak between October and November, modeling suggests. If it does behave like influenza, it will move to the Southern hemisphere for winter there, then return to the Northern hemisphere for its cold months.

    “To anthropomorphize, the virus will come back here looking for new victims,” Poland said. …

    … As states begin to ease restrictions, the United States will effectively become a massive series of experiments. Epidemiologists will be watching carefully, Lipsitch said.

    Some areas will reopen schools, while other will have staggered school days, so not all students are there at the same time. The same will happen in workplaces, even as more work from home.

    Some areas will “cocoon” the elderly, taking special care they are not exposed. Others may create “passports” for people who are immune, if there’s data showing infection confers immunity.

    “There are many things we can do, and we don’t know how any of them will work yet,” Lipsitch said. …

    … Vigilance will be key, experts say.

    “No one can say when the coast is clear,” said William Hanage, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health.

    COVID-19 is easy enough to spread and has a long enough incubation period it’s possible to go from 100 known cases one week to 65,000 a few weeks later. “One slip and we could see it resurging,” he said.

    There’s a cautionary tale from the 2003 outbreak of SARS in Toronto, which infected 375 people there and killed 44. The city took expanded precautions beginning in March, but they were lifted in May when it appeared the outbreak was over. It wasn’t.

    “Toronto took the brakes off,” Hanage said. “They had a flare, and it took them weeks to get it back under control.”
    ____________________

    Liked by 1 person

  56. Well, I finally broke down and put windows 10 on my computer. I will miss windows 7. I had bought a copy of windows 10 pro. When I put in the usb drive, after a minute it came up blank. Then I just went online and downloaded. I think it worked.

    Liked by 1 person

  59. I think I’ll watch “Hunt for Red October” tonight.

    The cat threw up on her bed under the window in the living room, so I had to clean that up tonight. Gross.

    Liked by 1 person

  60. This is cool — our pastor’s birthday is coming up so as a surprise they’re asking everyone to send a photo of themselves in to be taped onto one of the chairs in the sanctuary (he still preaches from there for the live feeds every sunday). 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

  62. Ha!

    Well there is that. My cat can go outside anytime she wants. We have a doggie door that she uses with great finesse.

    But does she go outside when she’s going to get sick? No.

    Liked by 4 people

  63. We’ve never a cat throw up in our house. But then, we’ve never had a house cat. Or dog. Or llama. Or orangutan. Or elephant. Just children who did their part to keep us busy. In a time like this I wish they were still at home.

    Liked by 4 people

  64. I am getting stronger, I walked the first nine holes without stopping. Actually today I went from eighteen back down to nine and then one to nine. Have to vary it up a bit!

    Liked by 1 person

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