I don't get too broken up about deaths in the news, but this one stings. Such great work on, and more importantly off the screen.
57 thoughts on “September 7, 2021: MKW”
At the bottom of a long post earlier this weekend [Ed: Link] I finished with the thoughts below:
I will drop it again here for those who missed it. As there would be some travel costs involved for many of you, I would put out a spread of good vittles on the house. Also, if there is interest in lodging, I have a great relationship with the Hampton Inn across the street and could arrange a deal on any room stays needed.
"Lastly, next summer is pretty far away, but I would be totally open to hosting a caucus at the joint. The best days for me would either be Memorial Day or Labor Day if the amount of interested families is pretty large. If there is a lot of interest, I would could host it on Sunday or Monday of those two holidays and would close the joint down to the public and just have a few employees come in to sling some drinks and cook up some grub. I have met many of you over the years, but it would be super cool to meet many more and witness a large group of us interacting in person with our families."
I've stayed at that Hampton Inn; it has good restaurants in the vicinity 😉
I would love to make that happen.
Indeed. This sounds amazing, and I would do my best to make it work.
I would absolutely drive up to Alex for that
I like the sound of this!
It does sound fun! Knowing our schedule, though, I'm probably a 7-10% chance of being able to show up. (Incidentally, we tried to make a stop by happen as we went to Moorhead for a thing for my daughter. Unfortunately it just didn't work out.)
Yeah, I guess I could make the drive.
Nibs with the huge commitment!
I'd like to, but that could end up being the time I'm getting kids to or from college.
If I can make it work, I will.
Could do Memorial Day instead.
Just got back from vacation. Seems like enough interest to put something out there sometime soon so people can plan out their trips. I will post something in the next few weeks. Vacation was pretty darn relaxing. It was really only 3 full days in the valley, but it did recharge the batteries quite a bit and I found some pretty cool wines that may hit my wine list in the future.
I'm in, by the way. Half of my family has moved to Alex, so I have a ready excuse to visit.
It's a small world we live in sometimes.
Not sure if work is cracking down or otherwise, but I’m getting site not secure errors. Phone is fine.
Nevermind. Work issue.
How dare they. Glad my super secret crypto has beaten them back.
On Sunday the Poissonnière’s elementary emailed to inform us that there is at least one positive COVID test result in her building. (She is not a close contact.) This was after two days of school — one of which there were only three grades (4K, K, 1st) in attendance.
I've seen the ugly headlines from states that start school sooner than we do and I'm waiting for the shoe to drop once the kids go back this week. Big kids are vaccinated and schools will have masks. Here's hoping and praying we're doing something right.
Aquinas turns 12 on Friday. Planning to get an appointment for his vaccination soon thereafter.
We're supposed to have the Older Daughter's pre-K open house tomorrow. We're not going and unenrolling her.
Of the three large school districts in our county, Runner daughter's former district has a mask mandate, and three students are currently quarantined; a second district has 292 quarantined (1.7%) where only K-6 are masked, and the third with fully optional masking has 431 quarantined (2.5%) -- draw your own conclusions.
Our district doesn't require quarantining (though if you have symptoms it'd be awfully kind of you to stay home), so maybe we have zero quarantined?! We have a "masks recommended" policy, but 95% of administration and staff are not wearing them. #leadership.
Our daughter (9th) got a contact email 3 days after school started. We know about 10-15 people who have gotten the contact email now after about a week in school. They are from grades 2 to 12, in all sorts of different class schedules, etc. Rest assured the high school principal says there is just "one really small, isolated outbreak." Bleh.
Our school district started with no mask mandate. Then, they apparently got embarrassed (and maybe they had some legal counsel) about every other district around us having a mask mandate. So at the last minute, they enacted a mandatory face covering policy and broadly defined face covering to include gaiters, bandanas, scarves, etc. And then, because they have a face covering policy, they are not going to require quarantining or do any contact tracing. So if your child is exposed to someone who is covid+, you will not be informed and they will not quarantine.
Not. Impressed. The district has an online option. We enrolled our daughter in it. It was a tough decision, but when she toured the high school and saw the desks arranged in pods of five so that four other people would be within about 3 ft of her all day long, she said that she wanted to stay home.
The elementary school here requires masks for everyone. Its not in Dane County, so that mandate didn't apply but the school board enacted their own. Its merely encouraged at the high school. I am basically just waiting, similar to Zee, for that shoe.
I would appreciate your prayers for my Mom. She is in a nursing home and has tested positive for COVID. She has no symptoms so far, so time will tell what happens But again, your prayers are appreciated. Thank you.
My father is still in the nursing home recovering from a cracked hip, and one of the staff tested positive. Thankfully there was little close contact, but it's still scary. Hope your mom is asymptomatic or near so.
There have been a couple positives in the memory care wing of assisted living that my grandmother just moved into in July, and a couple more in the facility itself. They’re back to full masking and lockdown. My aunt, who is my grandmother’s primary caregiver, is adamant that my grandmother’s mental issues emerged during lockdown when she was unable to have visitors for over six months last year.
Mom definitely developed some mental/emotional issues during the last lockdown. She's on medication for it and is doing better. She's ninety-six, and would probably have gone down that road anyway, but the lockdown increased the speed of it. But she certainly could be worse--we can have short conversations with her, she knows who we are, she knows where she is, she knows, to some extent, what's going on in the world, and she knows we love her. So we are grateful for that,
She (and you) absolutely are in them, Chaps.
You got them
Sending prayers.
All the best wishes and prayers for your mother, Padre.
I'll add my best wishes to you and her, Padre.
Prayers for your mother and yourself!
❤️
All the best to you and your mother, Padre.
Positive thoughts and wishes heading your way from Hartford.
Sorry, Jeff. Hopeful for a speedy recovery.
So glad to see summer in the rearview mirror. Cool fall weather is ba....
102 sunday and yesterday. Forecasts for 106, 106, 102 today through Thursday.
Here they flipped the switch to autumn over Labor Day weekend, right on schedule. Nothing but 70's and a couple of low 80's in the forecast.
United Airlines has a deal on flights to Spain right now. We can spend almost the entire month of November in Spain for just under $1,200 RT for all four of us.
We were super excited to see the news that that was being proposed.
Moving to Spain has gone between a "Man, that'd be nice" pipe dream to "F*(#*$& let's just quit, sell everything and move" to "Let's actually plan and see what would be necessary" and everything in between for 5+ years now.
This new visa would definitely make it easier.
👍
We have a little nature drama going on in our backyard, as well as an oddity. There's a squirrel couple in our yard that had a second litter of pups this summer, so there are 4 juvenile squirrels living in the oak tree by the deck, we figure them to be about six to eight weeks old. Yesterday they all climbed down from the tree. One of them wandered into the neighbor's yard and fell into a basement window well. The other three were at the fence listening to their sibling call for help. We didn't know any of this until Mrs. Twayne opened the back door to let the dog out and all hell broke loose. The dog sprindted down the stairs right onto those little squirrels. It took me a minute to get my shoes on and get down to them, by then two had escaped and were back on the tree, but the dog had one pinned to the ground with his paw. Mrs. Twayn was calling her and calling her but she ignored it. I stepped onto the deck, called the dog's name and she immediately let go of the squirrel and came up the deck. After a minute or two that one also made it to the tree and up to safety. Meanwhile, the neighbor was fishing the other little squirrel out of her window well. She put it in a box and gave it to me and I let it loose in our yard. It managed to climb up the tree but couldn't find the knothole and around dark it climbed back down. We didn't want to leave it outside and vulnerable all night, so we did a little research and based on that we put it in a cat kennel in the garage overnight with a heating pad on one end. We didn't try to feed it since we wanted him to be hungry so he'd look for his mama. This morning I put the kennel by the tree and opened the door. The squirrel crawled out, the siblings all climbed down and eventually all four were playing in the yard and trying to eat the acorns I've raked up. I'm not sure if they're really weaned yet, though, as the one we kenneled overnight was nuzzling the towel inside like he was looking for a nipple. I'm hoping today nature will take over and all four of the little dudes will make it up to their home before dark.
This is like reading about a rash of sad and unfortunate injuries to some minor leaguers, but they're on one of the White Sox' farm teams.
C'mon. They're not roof rats.
Luis with the trip-tix!
Twins shut out an opponent in a game that Gant started and Colome finished?? Unpossible.
its a Festivus miracle!
Anyone have guidance to share on water softeners? Because while our fridge is trying to die, our water softener has joined the party.
When the city switched to river water from groundwater about 3-4 years ago, that dramatically improved our water quality. We went from 531 mg/l TDS to about 120. That is still on the dividing line between "moderately hard" and "hard," but a lot better than "liquid granite."
fwiw, I ordered a 32k grain Rheem model from Home Despot. My plumber guy said he's installed a few and thought they were pretty good units. It's replacing a Culligan unit of indeterminate age.
We got a Culligan at the State Fair in 2019. It made a real difference with our water.
We're looking at a new whole-house filter. Three-stage w/ a spin-down prefilter
we had an RO unit in our kitchen in the old house. It was a real PITA to change the filters.
With the change from groundwater to river water, our water quality is now vaguely tolerable, unconditioned. We use a Brita and have an activated charcoal filter on the fridge line (water and ice in the door on the current, dying model).
Whole house filter would be nice, but probably more than we need. But we definitely need to soften.
My interwebs research suggests that Culligan is notorious for poor customer service and difficulty to service the units.
At our previous house, we had [brand whose name I forget] installed when we bought the place in 2000; it was still going strong when we sold in late 2019.
Our well water is insanely hard and has a bunch of particulates in it, so we need as much help as we can get.
The single filter + softener just isn't cutting it really
At the bottom of a long post earlier this weekend [Ed: Link] I finished with the thoughts below:
I will drop it again here for those who missed it. As there would be some travel costs involved for many of you, I would put out a spread of good vittles on the house. Also, if there is interest in lodging, I have a great relationship with the Hampton Inn across the street and could arrange a deal on any room stays needed.
"Lastly, next summer is pretty far away, but I would be totally open to hosting a caucus at the joint. The best days for me would either be Memorial Day or Labor Day if the amount of interested families is pretty large. If there is a lot of interest, I would could host it on Sunday or Monday of those two holidays and would close the joint down to the public and just have a few employees come in to sling some drinks and cook up some grub. I have met many of you over the years, but it would be super cool to meet many more and witness a large group of us interacting in person with our families."
I've stayed at that Hampton Inn; it has good restaurants in the vicinity 😉
I would love to make that happen.
Indeed. This sounds amazing, and I would do my best to make it work.
I would absolutely drive up to Alex for that
I like the sound of this!
It does sound fun! Knowing our schedule, though, I'm probably a 7-10% chance of being able to show up. (Incidentally, we tried to make a stop by happen as we went to Moorhead for a thing for my daughter. Unfortunately it just didn't work out.)
Yeah, I guess I could make the drive.
Nibs with the huge commitment!
I'd like to, but that could end up being the time I'm getting kids to or from college.
If I can make it work, I will.
Could do Memorial Day instead.
Just got back from vacation. Seems like enough interest to put something out there sometime soon so people can plan out their trips. I will post something in the next few weeks. Vacation was pretty darn relaxing. It was really only 3 full days in the valley, but it did recharge the batteries quite a bit and I found some pretty cool wines that may hit my wine list in the future.
I'm in, by the way. Half of my family has moved to Alex, so I have a ready excuse to visit.
It's a small world we live in sometimes.
Not sure if work is cracking down or otherwise, but I’m getting site not secure errors. Phone is fine.
Nevermind. Work issue.
How dare they. Glad my super secret crypto has beaten them back.
On Sunday the Poissonnière’s elementary emailed to inform us that there is at least one positive COVID test result in her building. (She is not a close contact.) This was after two days of school — one of which there were only three grades (4K, K, 1st) in attendance.
I've seen the ugly headlines from states that start school sooner than we do and I'm waiting for the shoe to drop once the kids go back this week. Big kids are vaccinated and schools will have masks. Here's hoping and praying we're doing something right.
Aquinas turns 12 on Friday. Planning to get an appointment for his vaccination soon thereafter.
We're supposed to have the Older Daughter's pre-K open house tomorrow. We're not going and unenrolling her.
Of the three large school districts in our county, Runner daughter's former district has a mask mandate, and three students are currently quarantined; a second district has 292 quarantined (1.7%) where only K-6 are masked, and the third with fully optional masking has 431 quarantined (2.5%) -- draw your own conclusions.
Our district doesn't require quarantining (though if you have symptoms it'd be awfully kind of you to stay home), so maybe we have zero quarantined?! We have a "masks recommended" policy, but 95% of administration and staff are not wearing them. #leadership.
Our daughter (9th) got a contact email 3 days after school started. We know about 10-15 people who have gotten the contact email now after about a week in school. They are from grades 2 to 12, in all sorts of different class schedules, etc. Rest assured the high school principal says there is just "one really small, isolated outbreak." Bleh.
Our school district started with no mask mandate. Then, they apparently got embarrassed (and maybe they had some legal counsel) about every other district around us having a mask mandate. So at the last minute, they enacted a mandatory face covering policy and broadly defined face covering to include gaiters, bandanas, scarves, etc. And then, because they have a face covering policy, they are not going to require quarantining or do any contact tracing. So if your child is exposed to someone who is covid+, you will not be informed and they will not quarantine.
Not. Impressed. The district has an online option. We enrolled our daughter in it. It was a tough decision, but when she toured the high school and saw the desks arranged in pods of five so that four other people would be within about 3 ft of her all day long, she said that she wanted to stay home.
The elementary school here requires masks for everyone. Its not in Dane County, so that mandate didn't apply but the school board enacted their own. Its merely encouraged at the high school. I am basically just waiting, similar to Zee, for that shoe.
I would appreciate your prayers for my Mom. She is in a nursing home and has tested positive for COVID. She has no symptoms so far, so time will tell what happens But again, your prayers are appreciated. Thank you.
My father is still in the nursing home recovering from a cracked hip, and one of the staff tested positive. Thankfully there was little close contact, but it's still scary. Hope your mom is asymptomatic or near so.
There have been a couple positives in the memory care wing of assisted living that my grandmother just moved into in July, and a couple more in the facility itself. They’re back to full masking and lockdown. My aunt, who is my grandmother’s primary caregiver, is adamant that my grandmother’s mental issues emerged during lockdown when she was unable to have visitors for over six months last year.
Mom definitely developed some mental/emotional issues during the last lockdown. She's on medication for it and is doing better. She's ninety-six, and would probably have gone down that road anyway, but the lockdown increased the speed of it. But she certainly could be worse--we can have short conversations with her, she knows who we are, she knows where she is, she knows, to some extent, what's going on in the world, and she knows we love her. So we are grateful for that,
She (and you) absolutely are in them, Chaps.
You got them
Sending prayers.
All the best wishes and prayers for your mother, Padre.
I'll add my best wishes to you and her, Padre.
Prayers for your mother and yourself!
❤️
All the best to you and your mother, Padre.
Positive thoughts and wishes heading your way from Hartford.
Sorry, Jeff. Hopeful for a speedy recovery.
So glad to see summer in the rearview mirror. Cool fall weather is ba....
102 sunday and yesterday. Forecasts for 106, 106, 102 today through Thursday.
Here they flipped the switch to autumn over Labor Day weekend, right on schedule. Nothing but 70's and a couple of low 80's in the forecast.
United Airlines has a deal on flights to Spain right now. We can spend almost the entire month of November in Spain for just under $1,200 RT for all four of us.
Not each.
Total.
Remote Worker Visa?
We were super excited to see the news that that was being proposed.
Moving to Spain has gone between a "Man, that'd be nice" pipe dream to "F*(#*$& let's just quit, sell everything and move" to "Let's actually plan and see what would be necessary" and everything in between for 5+ years now.
This new visa would definitely make it easier.
👍
We have a little nature drama going on in our backyard, as well as an oddity. There's a squirrel couple in our yard that had a second litter of pups this summer, so there are 4 juvenile squirrels living in the oak tree by the deck, we figure them to be about six to eight weeks old. Yesterday they all climbed down from the tree. One of them wandered into the neighbor's yard and fell into a basement window well. The other three were at the fence listening to their sibling call for help. We didn't know any of this until Mrs. Twayne opened the back door to let the dog out and all hell broke loose. The dog sprindted down the stairs right onto those little squirrels. It took me a minute to get my shoes on and get down to them, by then two had escaped and were back on the tree, but the dog had one pinned to the ground with his paw. Mrs. Twayn was calling her and calling her but she ignored it. I stepped onto the deck, called the dog's name and she immediately let go of the squirrel and came up the deck. After a minute or two that one also made it to the tree and up to safety. Meanwhile, the neighbor was fishing the other little squirrel out of her window well. She put it in a box and gave it to me and I let it loose in our yard. It managed to climb up the tree but couldn't find the knothole and around dark it climbed back down. We didn't want to leave it outside and vulnerable all night, so we did a little research and based on that we put it in a cat kennel in the garage overnight with a heating pad on one end. We didn't try to feed it since we wanted him to be hungry so he'd look for his mama. This morning I put the kennel by the tree and opened the door. The squirrel crawled out, the siblings all climbed down and eventually all four were playing in the yard and trying to eat the acorns I've raked up. I'm not sure if they're really weaned yet, though, as the one we kenneled overnight was nuzzling the towel inside like he was looking for a nipple. I'm hoping today nature will take over and all four of the little dudes will make it up to their home before dark.
This is like reading about a rash of sad and unfortunate injuries to some minor leaguers, but they're on one of the White Sox' farm teams.
C'mon. They're not roof rats.
Luis with the trip-tix!
Twins shut out an opponent in a game that Gant started and Colome finished?? Unpossible.
its a Festivus miracle!
Anyone have guidance to share on water softeners? Because while our fridge is trying to die, our water softener has joined the party.
When the city switched to river water from groundwater about 3-4 years ago, that dramatically improved our water quality. We went from 531 mg/l TDS to about 120. That is still on the dividing line between "moderately hard" and "hard," but a lot better than "liquid granite."
fwiw, I ordered a 32k grain Rheem model from Home Despot. My plumber guy said he's installed a few and thought they were pretty good units. It's replacing a Culligan unit of indeterminate age.
We got a Culligan at the State Fair in 2019. It made a real difference with our water.
We're looking at a new whole-house filter. Three-stage w/ a spin-down prefilter
we had an RO unit in our kitchen in the old house. It was a real PITA to change the filters.
With the change from groundwater to river water, our water quality is now vaguely tolerable, unconditioned. We use a Brita and have an activated charcoal filter on the fridge line (water and ice in the door on the current, dying model).
Whole house filter would be nice, but probably more than we need. But we definitely need to soften.
My interwebs research suggests that Culligan is notorious for poor customer service and difficulty to service the units.
At our previous house, we had [brand whose name I forget] installed when we bought the place in 2000; it was still going strong when we sold in late 2019.
Our well water is insanely hard and has a bunch of particulates in it, so we need as much help as we can get.
The single filter + softener just isn't cutting it really