weeks 30 and 31, campaign BS, yardwork, and a leaky sink

 

The sky this morning looking east.

I should be writing my covid post. I have 5 windows open in my browser and other things have come across my scrolling but there's no real different news so here's an abbreviated version. Dr. Fauci warns that deaths could rise to 400,000 and that he will get a vaccine as soon as the FDA clears one but that a vaccine won't start making a difference until late summer next year at the earliest, the White House was blocking stricter guidelines from the FDA for when a vaccine can be released but the FDA stood firm and says no vaccine until all protocols are met, the CDC drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all personnel and passengers on all public and commercial transportation...buses, trains, planes, subways as well as all airports, stations, and depots...with the support of HHS Secretary Azar and the head of the White House coronavirus task force VP Mike Pence would not even discuss it even though most employees and passengers are in favor of it, the CDC finally agreed that yes covid is airborne transmitted, a new study concluded that most hospitalized patients with covid suffer from neurological symptoms, we still have the most cases and deaths per capita, everyone is getting weary and in danger of being foolish but Dr. Fauci says do not despair, the White House is controlling when Dr. Fauci can speak to the media, we're having a third wave and more people are being infected and more people are dying while Rudy Giuliani is out there claiming no one dies from the virus anymore, the living are hanging on by their fingernails because this administration is over it and Mitch McConnell says we can't afford another stimulus package, we still need to carry on with the new reality, current US statistics as of today 10/19/20, 17:24 GMT: cases – 8,397,993; deaths – 224,884.

Trump is over it, if he survived you will too (of course you won't get the level of care he got but never mind that), going for herd immunity except he doesn't understand what that means. It means that enough people are vaccinated so that the virus's effect on the population is minimal, not that enough people get it and the weak ones die until it has minimal effect on the population. I suppose they both eventually get to the same result but in the latter it's achieved by killing off a significant proportion of the population.

Trump is so far down in the polls that his entire campaign is centered around smearing Biden and his son and anyone else who speaks out against him with ridiculous made up slanders that smack of desperation. His latest charge against Biden is that, if elected, Biden will listen to scientists!!! I didn't realize that was a bad thing.

Friday was chilly and wet. 56˚ when I looked, real feel 46˚. Not my favorite. I had to go to the grocery store as it turns out the grocery list was incomplete when I went earlier in the week but that's about all I did. Saturday though was warm and mostly overcast even a little drizzly off and on but it was perfect for weeding so that's what I did and got the end of one of the long flower beds weeded working under the stalks of the tall cosmos. And I mean tall. They're easily 8' tall if they stand straight up but they don't. They fall over so I had to get a stake and tie some of them up first. 

The love-in-a-mist is already sprouting, some anyway and way early. I had to do a fire ant remedial first. The little bastards want to occupy the edges of my flower beds. Sunday more of the same, got the nut grass out of another flower bed and planted two crinum lily bulbs that have been in a pot for several years. I have no idea what color they are, they were in a box of mixed unlabeled bulbs someone brought to a garden club meeting free for the taking, but they finally got big enough in the pot that I think they might bloom next year so in the ground they went.

Also Saturday Rocky finished getting the sink in the studio room hooked up and all seemed well when he turned on the water but this morning there was a lot of water on the concrete floor so there's a leak somewhere. I've just been over there and two of the connections under the sink before going into the wall are wet and the connection from the water line to the faucet is also wet. We went with the hose that was already attached to the faucet and just attached that to the water pipe but apparently that was a bad decision on our part and I think that's where most of the water on the floor came from. I've got the water to the shop turned off and the lines drained waiting for Rocky to come by this afternoon.

One last thing, my night blooming cereus is trying to give me one more chance as it has put out one last bud.