Couch 212: The French Vanilla couch

Great now we have a cyclone forming and all the corona panic buyers have stripped the shelves of toilet paper, long life milk and other essentials

Where is Echos these days? I miss her! Come back, Echos!

Belated congratulations!

Thank you!

👋 I'm okay, thank you, things with T still going fine. Hope you are well, thanks of thinking of me! (And thanks to the PCer who spotted your post and told me!)

Yay! I still get to see L today and she said we can still hug goodbye. We were supposed to play a board game today, but I told her it's best if we each stick to our side of the room. She said though that we can still do questions and answers And I told her I'd bring my own hand sanitizer and kleenex. And I still get to have her blanket this week as a transitional object. I'm happy again

I'm glad you'll still get to see her, Scarlet. Hope your session goes well!

My work inbox today is full of news of cancellations due to coronavirus, news of talks being moved to Zoom (including my lifelong learners' class), and news of Zoom training sessions for faculty should the university go to remote learning.

But they won't make a definitive announcement yet. Hey, Harvard and Princeton are doing it. This place ain't the Ivy League, so I guess if coronavirus doesn't get in there, we're the safety school?

I'll see myself out...

A few universities near me have spring break next week and announced that they're going to have students stay off campus an additional 2 weeks and take classes remotely. And our county school system today said they're canceling any out-of-state travel for field trips or sporting events. So, we'll see...

It's good they are cancelling things. I know it seems scary but China shows that lockdowns work. They have slowed the progression there so much they are closing hospitals they opened for this. I am cheered up by this. It works if people let it.

They know your spring break is just road trips to hunt down gluten free Oreos with me and SD riding shotgun. Virus-free zone!

That, of course, depends on whether the Chinese government is telling the truth...we know for sure it worked well in South Korea, though.

I am impressed how not one university official has used the word "coronavirus" in their emails even when it's obvious what they're referencing. Incredible message discipline.

The Italians tho cant stop kissing. Ive gone to funerals and stuff dripping snot and waving handkerchiefs, and people wont stay from me. I usually just gave up. They dont need tanks to defend themselves as a country. Once a few italian grandmas move on you, youre a goner.

There was never any question of avoiding an ancient aunts grasp when we were kids. I wonder if that has changed in recent generations. The way the virus is spreading, im guessing not. I should ask my cousin in italy on facebook. I will let you know if my ramblings are full of snot as usual or what!

One of my oldest brothers is visiting Ireland right now with his girlfriend. He posted a bunch of pictures today on Facebook and one picture showed her wearing a ring and another was a guestbook from where they were staying with a comment section where she wrote "Unexpected and accepted proposal." I'm thinking it's safe to say that my brother proposed to her and I'm finally getting a sister in law. Yet, I commented on the picture of her with the ring saying "I spy with my eye" and now all the pictures he posted from today look like they're gone. I'm probably overthinking it but I hope I didn't ruin an announcement for them, but the ring was totally obvious in the picture.

We still have classes so far but almost all conferences have been cancelled until the summer. I just word that a big conference I am supposed to be going to in July is still on but may be cancelled. I do wonder if we are going to have summers school. And my inbox is flooded with how to use zoom to teach the classes I teach.

My husband is in the hotel industry. Large conferences have been cancelled. His hours are being cut back because of reduced occupancy.

Notice went out to employees and parents in our district that anyone traveling in the CDC listed affected countries or going on a cruise during spring break will be expected to self quarantine 14 days after returning.

Teacher next to me has a son in a university who has an international program in Italy that pulled those students back to the U.S.A. From all accounts, none of those students have been screened and now that university may be going online after spring break.

Will be interesting to watch how this all develops. I'm not personally terribly concerned about myself. I do have concerns about my 89-year-old father in an assisted living center. They are taking careful precautions and all is well so far, but the impact on the elderly is really serious. Hoping the spread will slow down as weather moderates over the next few weeks. It theoretically should, but it's hard to know what the course of things will be.

And my school just cancelled in person undergrad classes - law school and med school are still trying to decide what to do for the rest of semester.

Your university is a lot more on the ball than mine.

I would really like to know because I would prepare for classes a bit differently if they’re remote.

I mean, what are they waiting for, an asteroid to hit so they don’t have to decide?

Well, Husband started running a fever today. With all the Coronavirus hysteria I am hoping that this is just the bug that ran rampant through his work a week or two ago. Our local schools have started closing for "disinfecting". I stayed home from work today to make sure that I'm not unintentionally exposing my organization to his cooties - even if it's something minor. I'm off the next 5 days so we can see what we are dealing with. I also texted T this morning and asked her if she wanted me to stay home from our app't - she answered Thank you for checking but you are fine to come in unless you don't want to.

Husband was complaining that our thermometer was taking too long to read - I went to 3 drugstores and they were all sold out of thermometers. He's just going to have to deal with our slow thermometer.

My university just moved to all online courses for the remainder of the semester. And our State university is likely to announce the same by the end of the week.

Has anyone had a therapist stop seeing people? That's my bigger fear right now.

My son's is probably heading that way. The virus has officially hit our county and the surrounding counties. Spring break right now, so we'll see what happens. He's not thrilled. Hard to have music rehearsals for ensembles via the internet.

I talked to L about what would happen if she got sick. She said she would self quarantine, but she'd be able to still do skype or phone sessions. We went over what would happen to me too in emergency situations. It's nice knowing there's a plan in place. I do worry though because of where she's going on vacation.

Our state just got its first two cases - middle aged people, one domestic travel, one international travel. Not my county, but the next counties over. So its here-ish.

Wash your hands thoroughly with soap, folks. Soap is very effective against viruses. Here's why: Why does soap work so well on the... - Palli Thordarson | Facebook

Three more days and spring break begins. Can I get a "Hallelujah"?

Saturday is our 33rd anniversary, so my husband and I are going on a staycation since his health makes traveling still pretty difficult. Got a great rate at a local resort hotel and we're going to eat our way from restaurant to restaurant and watch the world go by for a day. We've decided the "gift" for 33 years is a new air conditioning/furnace system for the house. It gets installed later this week. Very romantic. LOL!

Our youngest has his final recital for his music program also next week. Really looking forward to it; such an exciting, albeit stressful, time for him. He's been nominated by the faculty for an additional award/scholarship. Sure hope he gets it; it would definitely make his financial life easier as he completes his education. Really proud of him. He's a natural as a teacher and is already a far better at teaching than I was at that point. He's had fantastic professors and he knows how to network which is absolutely necessary to get a good music education position. Not sure where he got his smarts but he's an impressive young man.