Lostin76

I've not been paying that much attention to the death rate, but it is rising in many states. And we are seeing some lengthy hospitalizations in our three hospitals, with what looks to be some long-standing health issues. One of our faculty is staring to look at how long it's taking people to regain function after hospitalization. Seeing a lot of really long recoveries.

Yep, I'm a pour into glass person if can. The smell is important.

Re: #1 - Noooooooooooo!!! I've just got back to where I prefer beer in cans over bottles in the last few years.

Luckily, we have two other ice cream shops nearby and we were able to get our fix at a Blue Marble. It was a pretty strong urge!

Yeah, I figured that too, but just hadn't realized that they were still not doing it. Wait, that woman thinks she should get some of the donated money? Crazy. We had kind of a weird local experience yesterday. My wife wanted to take a short walk to get ice cream at a local place (Van Leeuwen). We masked up and headed out for a nice mid-day jaunt. At the door of the ice cream shop, there were signs saying "Masks Required Inside," "Maximum Occupancy of 6 People Inside," and "Please Maintain Six Feet of Distance Between Customers." We felt pretty good about entering, but had to wait until two people left before we could enter. We entered and as I was looking at the list of flavors, my wife was like "Abort, abort" and headed towards the door. I was confused at first, but looked up to see the lone ice cream scooper holding a customers cone about six inches under her unmasked face. The customers were masked, but the employee didn't have one on. Not even chin strap style or around her neck. Just nothing.

That was one of those headlines where I was all "Wait, they didn't require masks before now?"

I'm right there with you - a good spot in both the country/city. I love where I live now, but I still think *all the time* about a place in the country to spend a good chunk of my time.

That would drive me bonkers. Though I do like to plant marigolds as companions to tomatoes, as they repel some pests. I normally keep flowers on one end and then veggies and shorter cacti on the other end. I do loosely arrange my flowers by type/height, which means I sometimes move them around as some grow taller. I hope you don't come back to complete chaos with Mom in charge!

😂🤣

Just for you, my friend. Notice the sweet potato vine on the right starting to take over the pavement - it's also going between the metal railings. Also the cat mint plant by the white chair is really getting up close and personal when you sit there. I've usually got a bumblebee or two grazing my shoulder while I'm having my morning coffee. But the topper for sure is the star jasmine in the corner on the left (by the wall of cacti). If you zoom in, you can see its tendrils going everywhere. One of them was right in your face when you sit on the loveseat. I did trim them after the photo, but wanted you to get the full OCD effect for you! 😂

Yeah, there is no way I would decide to travel to FL and then quarantine for 2 weeks and THEN start my vacation. I just wouldn't go. We had decided two things early on when this hit - we were staying put in Brooklyn and that we wouldn't leave NYC to possibly expose others until it was under control here. We have a huge place on the water in MD, but never even traveled there until earlier this month when we felt that we were over the worst of it. Also, MD is doing pretty well with cases for the most part. If they were not, we never would have traveled there.

Yeah, it's a lot of things contributing. But his trying to blame it on people traveling from the north is also not looking at the whole picture. Like, if your state didn't really shut down, require masks, and many people weren't taking it seriously - then that's most likely the simplest answer. There's your surge. You don't need a boogeyman from the north to explain it.

Definitely, we have been to MD already this summer and are going back next week. We behave the same way there that we do here. Masks in public and keep distance from others. We are already germaphobes so hand hygiene is a given.

“We’re of the view that there was something else that was the driver. Maybe the Memorial Day, not weekend, but the Memorial Day week, where a lot of Northerners decided to go South for vacations,” Redfield said. He did not provide data to back up his theory that Northerners travelling South are to blame for the surge in cases. Redfield’s comments appear to contradict remarks by White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci. I'm not buying that theory. Sure there *could have been* some spread that way. But I would think the policies (or lack of) in many Southern states were what led to the spike. That and everyone deciding it was time to go back to bars.

I think you dodged a bullet in not applying there. I really loved the physicality of my first jobs in Patoka, cleaned up a LOT of turkey shit in those white boxes. Even liked running the hatchery in Thorntown and especially interacting with our local growers. But that processing plant was a big nope for me. So you're like wet lab/bench work or on the farm at Rose Acre? And I didn't know that about the Zellers, at least Perdue gave us something!

Perdue Farms, started in Patoka, then in Thorntown. They tried to switch me over to a manager in processing plant in Washington, but it just wasn't for me.

Worked for several years in a hatchery for a big Midwestern company and remember the mind-boggling numbers flowing through on a weekly basis. My favorite work experience ever though was the night shift in a hatchery. I was the only person on night shift, traying eggs, checking temps, doing clean up afterwards, all powered by dragging my trusty boombox from room to room blasting Metallica.

I would have liked to have seen us do the following: Taking the risk more seriously, earlier, and not calling it a hoax (this is not aimed at anyone in particular, as plenty of leaders from both sides did this - looking at you though Deblasio!) Pushing masks earlier and leaders setting good examples of mask usage Serious lockdowns instituted as needed - and stick with them Real economic relief for those pushed out of work b/c of said lockdowns More testing earlier, more supplies earlier, more contact tracing That's just a start for me personally. You bring up a good point about resources being unused as well. Isn't it better to push for more resources or to be over-prepared instead of the opposite? I would much rather err on doing too much or having too much than the opposite. But also aware that resources are finite. Sorry, I mean all of us - leaders and not. I didn't really mean it to be political, but I will admit to being flummoxed why people expend so much effort on minimizing this. Yep, @IUFLA and I are cool. We know where we stand and respect each other's opinions.

Came back from our trip to Maryland and our cherry tomatoes had really turned. We picked about 20 or so that my wife could use for dinner last night. Talked to the neighbors who were kind enough to water our plants while we were gone and they said that they had picked a couple dozen while we were gone - I had told them that any red tomatoes were fair game. Slicer tomatoes were definitely a lot bigger, but not turning colors yet. All the annuals and perennials are really getting bushy. Need to take a picture of the wildness up here to give @Leathernecks OCD a bump!

Unfortunately, if anyone wants to try to defend our response as a country, all they have left is to argue over the crumbs or try to minimize the deaths.

Absolutely correct. We make our money on elective procedures and surgeries, which was totally interrupted by this. COVID has been a huge burden on hospitals. The stories about doctors and hospital falsifying are honestly a bit ridiculous and part of the larger attempt by a small slice of the media/politicians to minimize the extent/impact of the virus. We still have about a 100 COVID inpatients cases across our three NYC hospitals. We would like nothing more than to discharge all with a good outcome. And we certainly are not looking for more COVID patients.

EXACTLY. We can interpret articles and track numbers all we want, but there is more that we don't know than we know. But we know that the virus is real, we know that it is spreading, and we know that our individual actions matter.

I think we all agree on making this more palatable as a nation and I like they way you phrased this. Our actions can help collectively - or damage the efforts at recovery. I don't like wearing masks, but I do it and will continue to do so. I don't like having to think twice about a grocery trip or running errands, but I'll do it and not make unnecessary trips. Two things are getting clearer for me - that this is going to be a long haul and that the "United" States that I know and love is fractured over how to survive this. Would love some of that "post 9/11 we are all in this together" spirit about now.

We almost never go to Midtown - way too stressful with all the people. BUT, we always check out that area during Christmas. Another thing not to be missed are the windows at Bergdorf and a few other big department stores. My wife and I have a yearly ritual if we are in town for Christmas - we wake up on Christmas morning at 5am and run from our house, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and up Broadway to the windows. The city is dead quiet and no lines of people. They just started these a few years ago and they are beloved by everyone - really neat to see the calendar they have for why the lights are the colors they are.

Christmas in the city is one of my favorite times - the lights and cheer just make everything so magical.