By: Revanche

Good Things Friday (92) and Link Love

November 20, 2020

1. I have been so busy that somehow I’ve missed the fact that our local bookshop did actually update their blog with information on how they’re handling COVID. In some fit of pessimism, when the shop owner didn’t say much in the early weeks, I assumed he wasn’t going to adapt and the shop would shut down. I’m so glad I thought to check back on him. It turns out the community actually has been supportive enough for him to stay in business, thank goodness not everyone was as dense as I was. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’ve been supporting other independent bookstores because it was easy to quickly shop online with them and they had low or free shipping but I wanted our local shop to survive too!

Anyway, I put in an order for books for our local friends for pickup.

2. I set a very ambitious date by which to wrap up (hah pun not intended) my truncated list of holiday gifts for this year. The thought of being totally done mid-November made me feel much better. It was faking a bit of control in this world that hasn’t been kind to us planners and control freaks. Having that goal to work towards was nice, even if a touch stressful as I got closer to the Nov 15 deadline and several gifts were still pending. This was important to no one but me. I don’t mind.

3. I set up a better (I think) billing system with JB’s tutor so I have less work and use up less memory. I hope their tutor finds it helpful too.

4. JB is reading like a FIEND. I have to actually restrict permission to access my comics now, not because they will fail to treat them properly, but because they can actually read words now and that means there are a lot of not age appropriate themes they’re trying to dive into.

Challenges this week: All the uncertainty everywhere. The spread of COVID that looks like our nation is absolutely on fire. Also there is simply not nearly enough warm and comfortable maternity clothing that doesn’t irritate sensitive skin and has pockets. POCKETS. MY QUEENDOM FOR POCKETS. Remote schooling is fine in principal but I hate JB’s kindergarten teacher who won’t stop lamenting about how hard things are and hyping up some unknown return to the classroom, I hate Seesaw, and I hate Chromebooks.

Also most counties in CA have been put back into the purple tier, the most restrictive one, this week and while it doesn’t materially affect our daily habits since we haven’t taken up gambling, indoor dining or mall shopping, it’s because case loads are rising very fast and that’s not good at all.

Just a little link love

Hate McConnell? Love Democracy? Want to be Useful for Georgia and the Senate and the Future?

Cory Doctorow’s thread on the cancellation of the Ant (fintech) IPO involves understanding how money is or isn’t regulated, that fintech isn’t always good, and many other goodies.

I’ve learned so much about what NOT to do as a manager by reading Ask A Manager, I love when I get a great example of how to do something respectfully and graciously. Plus I love the use of She-Ra characters for anonymity purposes.

I only just learned about Oregon’s Exploding Whale this year. Seems fitting.

I laughed out loud at this: “Shutting down businesses and paying people for lost wages for four to six weeks could help keep the coronavirus pandemic in check and get the economy on track until a vaccine is approved and distributed, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a coronavirus advisor to President-elect Joe Biden.” This country? Leaving aside essential healthcare workers and people in the food supply chain who can’t stay home, do we not remember the white supremacists who plotted to kidnap Governor Whitmer because of the mask mandate? Or the people who literally cried into their oatmeal over having to wait to do completely frivolous things? The nitwits in Huntington Beach and Manhattan Beach who thought it was more important to have graduation parties than to respect a lockdown?

Speaking of… Super-spreading wedding party demonstrates COVID-19 risk posed by holiday gatherings. The amount of sheer foolishness and selfishness in this timeline. They had to travel cross country to get married. They had to have 55 guests. Those guests refused to wear masks as required. And on and on and on it goes until 176 people got sick and 7 of them died. How do you host something like this and live with yourself afterwards??