June 2021 Chat Thread

[Bean]

I'm quick off the mark this month - happy June everyone!

We're enjoying some lovely warm weather at the moment after a very soggy May. Wish me luck remembering to water my garden!

[Bean]

As expected, the planned relaxation of all the covid rules has been postponed from the 21st of June - there will be another 4 weeks with restrictions now expected to end on the 19th of July. We currently have as high a number of cases as in the first wave, but few hospitalisations and very few deaths. So the vaccines are working, but cases are going up rapidly and the thinking is that if we wait a few more weeks, more people will be fully vaccinated and also schools will be about to shut for summer, so we'll have less mixing there to set off against the extra socialising indoors and in massive crowds. Hopefully support for businesses who still can't open will stay in place until that date - it's not currently clear.

What's going on in the US? I know each state is different, but I just wondered how close to normal things were and what rates were like.

[3piggles]

It's different for every state. Most states have removed Covid restrictions, some much sooner than others. Those who really jumped the gun have had major spikes. We're still removing restrictions slowly, in NH, and since we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, I'm hoping slowly removing the restrictions will give us a chance to ease back into life the old way. We never had the level of restrictions you have. We could always gather outside, and in private homes. The government can't legally regulate how many people we have in our yards or homes. If there's a problem, a complaint or something the brings the police, the police still can't do anything about legal adults gathering in a private home or yard, even if they're totally drunk. It's they're right.

I think restaurants opened at 100% capacity, again, but I'm not sure. I know as many restaurants as possible are still providing outdoor dining areas for people who are concerned about being in close proximity to a lot of people they don't know. Cities and towns are still allowing restaurants to set up eating areas in parking lots or parking spaces, so that's good.

Most of our schools are out for the summer, so that's another gathering situation done for a few months. The news reported a lot of students needing teaching help over the summer, and talking to my daughter, granddaughter needs math help. Those students needs are being addressed, so there may be some summer tutoring available. Don't know, but I think it will be in one-on-one situations. The news also reported that teacher burnout from a year of pandemic teaching means fewer teachers are applying to help in summer camps, etc., where they could teach students who need the extra help. I hope daughter can find someone to help granddaughter.

I think, if you googled COVID rates per state, you'd find some are really high, and others are really low. Vaccination rates will also vary wildly by state. The poor southern states have very low vaccination rates. States with Native American reservations have very low vaccination rates, as they have to take the vaccines to the reservations, not expect the residents to come to them. Vaccination clinics are starting to pop up in supermarkets, pharmacies, and other more localized places people are like to go, and clinics are being taken to the far flung areas, with spotty populations and no one place everyone would go to get vaccinated.

[bazookagoof]

Our state is down to about 300 cases a day- but I still wear a mask if I see a sign on a business that says I should. I also wear it at work. I'm slightly tired of it, not going to lie- but until experts say it's okay to not wear a mask, I'll continue to comply.  (Although I'm fully vaccinated, I don't have a problem keeping others safe through my own actions.) 

[Bean]

I'm sure wearing a mask while doing hard labour in warm weather is often far from pleasant, you have my sympathy! I think we're all looking forward to the times when it's safe for things to be more relaxed.

Yes, we don't have the same issues with vaccinations us all being squashed up much more closely to one another!

I hope your granddaughter etc gets the help she needs. I've heard chunterings about the catch up programs here. Instead of giving schools the money to target the pupils they knew needed help and employ extra staff where needed, there was some national program where about 5x what needed to be spent was being shelled out for agencies to organise it all centrally with private tutors. It sounded shambolic.

[3piggles]

That's the problem with centralized governments. While I disagree with what many of our states are doing, they have the right to make those decisions, not be told what to do by the federal government. Our governor left how to help the students, up to each school district, saying he knows each school district has its own issues to manage, so he wasn't even going to put a state-wide blanket solution out there for all the school districts to follow. When the republicans got voted into the legislature, en masse, he started pushing the school districts to get the schools open, and students back into the classrooms. So much for letting each school district deal with its own issues.

Some schools didn't go back to classroom study, as they didn't have modern enough facilities to manage the require social distancing. Nothing the governor can really do. The school districts are basically autonomous, reporting to the state school board, so they make such decisions. He could push them all he wanted.

It was basically a matter of parents being tired of having their kids home all the time I realize having the kids go to the classroom frees up both parents to work outside of the house, and that's a real issue, but in large part, parents were just screaming about being expected to be parents and teachers, what did they're tax money pay for, if the teachers dumped all the school work on the parents, etc.

[Bean]

It certainly has made life more difficult for a lot of families in terms of work and childcare. Schools here stayed open for the children of essential workers, but there were plenty of people in non-essential sectors who really needed to go to work for financial reasons rather than losing their job and staying home and using food banks. I haven't heard too much griping though, not in the way you describe where people feel entitled to get what they want - most people seem to understand that although it's made their life harder, it's been a difficult situation for everyone involved. And I do know of a few families who explained their situation to the school and were offered a place for their child. It doesn't go so smoothly for everyone though, it's been a tough old time for a lot of people, that's for sure.

Our lovely warm, sunny weather has left us for a bit. I spent yesterday afternoon doing a few garden jobs as I probably won't do much while it's grey and drizzly!

[3piggles]

I think Americans tend to feel entitled, in general. We've been raised that way, though now we're raised has changed over the decades. Hubby and I were raised to be glad we had a job, and do the best we could at it. Our daughters generation doesn't seem to feel as strongly about that, at least not until they're older. I don't know anything about how the children of helicopter parents feel, though I would think they might feel more entitled.

Our essential workers' children had spaces in the schools, too. The parents who complained the loudest didn't have jobs, but lost their ME time, when the kids were home from school all the time. I don't think they were very good parents, or they would have managed the kids better, and managed themselves better. I do think parents of learning disabled students, who were getting special help in the schools, and suddenly that job fell to the parents, had the greatest chance of burnout. Most of us aren't trained as teachers, especially special needs teaching. It's different parenting a special needs child. The parents don't have to teach anything the child has to know to move on in the school system. It also seems that trained people can get through to students better than parents can. Makes sense.

Granddaughter is doing the new math, which none of us did, so we don't know how to do it. Her parents don't know how to do it, either, but luckily her aunt, who lives in the basement, does. Got her through that I've forgotten so much, I can't help granddaughter with much of anything.

[bazookagoof]

I wanted to mention that the mommy duck hatched her babies, and my wife reported seeing ten of them following her around! We haven't seen them since- but I hope they made it okay to wherever they needed to be. I still go back and look at the nest; I was pleased she found a sanctuary in my home. 

[Bean]

Oh that's very cool indeed! Glad your wife got to see them, what a treat.

There were probably a lot of scared parents when they realised they had to teach their kids as well as parent them - many won't have known where on earth to start, and may not even have had adequate schooling themselves and wanted to do anything to avoid feeling like they were failing their kids, or to be seen to fail them. Scared people's first line often tends to be defensiveness.

I haven't been to any meetings in school in the last couple of years, but this is something I've seen again and again, and have enjoyed watching the skilled leaders who can recognise it and tap into what that person is really getting at rather than just inwardly rolling their eyes at the bluster.

[3piggles]

I think you're totally right. I just don't understand why parents, who really aren't any different than they were when I was a kid, seem to feel they shouldn't have to do certain types of parenting. My mother helped with homework, proofed papers, etc., and my father helped with math homework. That's what parents did. Yes, they were both knowledgeable, but they weren't trained as teachers or as psychologists. It was just what parents did. They did the best the could, and that had to be good enough.

That seems to have changed. Are parents now graded on how well their children do in school(i.e. how much they can help their children with their education)? We can't do what we totally don't know how to do, even during a pandemic. Getting defensive. Treating people as if they're failing at parenting because they aren't all trained as teachers. Doing anything to imply the best they can do isn't good enough, is so wrong. If that's what's happening, that needs to be addressed.

There's a free, on-line school called K-12. I don't know anything about it, but since it's free, and it's online, that seems like a great option to not being able to help your child. Get an online teacher/tutor who can. It's not as if they never advertise on TV. I see their ads all the time. I would think they got a lot more students taking advantage of their services, during the pandemic, and if nothing else, the names of that and other teaching/tutoring programs and apps should be provided by the schools, and parents should be encouraged to use those services.

Ooh, so glad momma duck and her babies did great, and are off on their next adventure Also glad your wife got to see them Make room for ducklings

[bazookagoof]

Another animal kindness story: last night I discovered a wasp (or a hornet, I can't tell the difference) trapped between our window & screen in our dining room. I thought there was a hole he had gotten into somehow, and ignored him, as the windows were closed and he wouldn't be able to get in.

This morning, I found him still crawling around inside, trying to get out. Since those types of bees aren't friendly or useful, I considered killing him, but the softer side of my nature won out and I found a McDonald's soda cup (one of those 32 ouncers!) and used this to trap him against the screen, and then clamped the lid over it, ran over to the kitchen door and tossed him outside!

He flew away in a rage, but basically unharmed. Took me about 10 minutes of waiting for him to crawl to a more open spot away from the side of the screen where he could escape if the cup missed, but any time I can free a bug as opposed to killing it, I'll take the chance. 

[3piggles]

I don't like wasps, but hubby traps them the same way, and releases them outside. We just don't feel we have the right to interfere with other lives, all of which are as important as ours. Great job, Baz

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, Baz

[bazookagoof]

Thanks! 

I insisted that we do nothing special today; I just didn't feel like anyone going out of their way, so the only thing my wife and I did was attend an art fair. It was pleasant, but (and I think I've mentioned this here before) it's always the same problem- not enough money and not enough space in the house for cool art. My wife bought a few small articles, so we did support some artists. I do wish I could do more, but I can't afford to drop hundreds of dollars.  

One photographer (Mark Hersch) takes vintage photos he's found, goes to the same location and then takes a new pic, and blends the two for some amazing juxtaposition.

You can see some outstanding pics on his site:

www.markhersch.com/


A few other artists of note I wanted to mention:

www.dkphoto.com

www.jackkraig.com

www.legofajourney.com

www.medusasstones.com

[Bean]

Happy Fathers' Day Baz! Glad you had a good time at the art fair. I really like Mark Hersch's photography and also the Leg of a Journey photos. I've missed ambling about at places like that. I think some are starting to get going again in a low key way (and ticketed rather than just showing up, even if it's a free event), but we're kind of out of the habit of keeping tabs on what's going on!

Years ago we visited a small independent gallery and I saw a mixed media picture I really liked. It was £450 and we were pretty skint at the time, so it wasn't even an option for us to buy it, I just admired it. Anyway the artist did really well for herself and now the same print is upwards of £2k second hand. Great to think you could have something you loved on your wall for years and then potentially make a profit from it! It kind of bugs me when people buy art they don't like for investment purposes though. Let people enjoy it instead of hiding it away to drive prices up.

[bazookagoof]

Jun 21, 2021 6:59:02 GMT Bean said:

Happy Fathers' Day Baz! Glad you had a good time at the art fair. I really like Mark Hersch's photography and also the Leg of a Journey photos. I've missed ambling about at places like that. I think some are starting to get going again in a low key way (and ticketed rather than just showing up, even if it's a free event), but we're kind of out of the habit of keeping tabs on what's going on!

Years ago we visited a small independent gallery and I saw a mixed media picture I really liked. It was £450 and we were pretty skint at the time, so it wasn't even an option for us to buy it, I just admired it. Anyway the artist did really well for herself and now the same print is upwards of £2k second hand. Great to think you could have something you loved on your wall for years and then potentially make a profit from it! It kind of bugs me when people buy art they don't like for investment purposes though. Let people enjoy it instead of hiding it away to drive prices up.

I can't see myself buying art as an investment. When I purchase something, it's simply because I like it and want to support the artist. I used to buy more frequently on vacations, as mementos to remind me of the trips- but we're running out of room for these knickknacks and I'm starting to forget where each piece came from! 

I'd prefer people to see the art, and possibly buy their own pieces to aid that artist.

[3piggles]

Love Leg of a Journey, but that's really my favorite thing, anyway. The mixed old/new are great, and poignant in that I had to look carefully to see the differences, the blending was so seamless That's gorgeous jewelry. I like the food photos, but it's really not my thing.

My parents owned some Kandinsky prints, which obviously cost a whole lot less than the real thing. That's as close as we ever got to owning artwork from well known artists. I high school and college, everyone seemed to get a print of VanGogh's Sunflowers. Maybe it was sold in the campus store, but as so many students had it, I really wasn't interested in it.

I really like American Southwestern art. The colors are phenomenal yet earthy. I also like the Native American geometric designs.

[bazookagoof]

I think I mentioned that we now have solar panels on our roof now- I just got our electric bill, and it was less than $15!!! Studying the graph on the bill, it appears that we're using about a third of the power that we did last June! We've been running the AC for quite some time now, so it looks like these panels are paying off! 

[Bean]

Oh that's fantastic! We haven't got a bit of roof that points in the right direction or I'd be tempted. And if you're in a country where you need A/C, that's going to give you massive savings right when you need them most.

[3piggles]

That's fabulous! I with we could have them, but they're against the community rules. My daughter has them, and said their electric bill is incredibly low, now