Mundanity

      . . .  Fortunately yesterday's snow drop was hardly noticeable right here, though anywhere from 7 - 12 inches all around us. Many, if not most, of the streateries did not even close, and certainly didn't take down their sheds, though they were told to do so.  "It's the SuperBowl, we have to be open!"

This photo isn't from yesterday -- too busy to go out yesterday -- but early in the big storm six days ago.  This is just up the street from us.

Now we are in the promised  polar vortex.  It is quite cold, and expected to stay that way for some weeks or so?  Thankfully, we're fairly cozy here, as we have massive amounts of work preparing for next month's NOLA Reconnect 2 - Continuing Stories.  Such good things as will happen those two very long weekends in March.

NOLA Reconnect will be all the more appreciated, since I do not expect to get vaccinated for a very long time due to reasons, many of them due to previous WH tenant, and other reasons which must be put at the door of Governor Andrew Cuomo.  So I'm happy that the nose filters and sealers for my K9 masks arrived today.  They did a pretty good job of keeping my glasses from fogging over.  Still going double masked.  A bright sunny day, no wind, so when dressed right, it was pleasant to go out.  The filters make it more possible now, when it is this cold.

Additional happy circumstance: the local grab 'n carry libraries have got temp reading machines that function! So instead of having my stance, etc. futzed with an unfortunate library security person for far too long, security stays way past 10 feet, and I can grab the book, hit checkout, card at the ready to be read, and gone in in about 90 seconds again.  Can get books during the winter after all!  A great big thank you to the library person who personally called to tell me that the NYPL dysfunctional temp readers had been replaced!

Perhaps my biggest lesson learned personally in the pandemic is that the economy and the market are not the same, and these days, seem barely to be connected, even.  Large segments of the economy have been decimated and even entirely wiped out by the deliberate, hideous refusal to manage it, or even try to manage the infection rate of the virus.  But, the market soared with the all the food it had been thrown from the WH, from tax cuts to stimulus packages for, o, you know, Boeing and many others.  And it soared again then, when Biden was inaugurated, certainly at least to a degree due to the anticipation / salivating over the next stim bill.  Even our 'penny' stocks are roaring, which aren't traded on the Dow.  Though that is nice since these are actually investment kinds of stocks, which we're in for the long haul, not trying to make a big score and buy and McMansion.

Though both of us are always feeling behind, racing to get something accomplished and never so achieving, it is probably better than long strings of repetitively empty hours.  Hardly anyone we know have them.  Everyone we know is racing as fast as they can, trying to get somewhere with their projects, their work, and the never-end, ever-expanding daily tasks and routines.