Day 218…
I woke up this morning with a headache.
It is one of the symptoms of COVID-19.
I don’t think that I have a fever, but maybe that’s just yet to come. The ache in my shoulders that I thought was from starting to do pushups again, might actually also be one of the indicators. When I had the virus back in March, the body aches were more kidney-centric but this virus is crafty and there’s still a lot we don’t know about it.
Yesterday at the Duane Reade there was a guy in one of the aisles that was restocking the shelves who walked past me closer than six feet. Maybe I got it from him? We were both wearing masks but still…?
I suppose it is possible that I didn’t drink enough water yesterday and my headache is a result of being slightly dehydrated, but that seems like a desperate reach. It’s far more likely that I’ve been re-infected with the coronavirus from the guy in the drugstore.
Aside from possibly re-infecting myself, I did get a lot done yesterday. Admittedly the bar on accomplishment is absurdly low these days, but even so, it was a banner day.
I dyed my shorts.
I was going to get this done while I was in quarantine until I realized that there was nowhere that I could do it that wouldn’t stain something in the apartment.
Many weeks ago, I noticed that the sweat shorts that I had gotten before everything shut down had faded. They are great shorts. $150 usually, but at Nordstrom Rack I found them for $30. I wore them every day for MONTHS over this past summer. I did wash them, of course. A lot.
I got the idea, once I realized how much they had faded, that I could re-dye them. How hard could it be?
For several days, while I was out walking, I stopped into stores that sold household goods to see if they carried RIT dye. For most everybody who works in household goods stores in New York City, English is a second or even third language. “RIT dye,” is almost impossible to convey either verbally or via desperate pantomime to somebody who isn’t fluent in your language.
There were a few stores that carried the dye, but none of them had the dark navy-blue color that I needed. I finally gave up and found it on Amazon. I got a special on two bottles. It was too good a bargain to pass up.
They took about 10 days to arrive. While I waited, I laundered the shorts and left them folded in the corner of the bedroom. Then I went to North Dakota. After I got back, it wasn’t very long until I headed down south and then came home into quarantine. During all of that, the shorts stayed folded in the corner of the bedroom and the two bottles of RIT dye sat on the kitchen counter.
Yesterday, when I finally decided that it was now or never, it was much more about getting rid of those stupid bottles than it was about making my shorts darker.
I dimly remember tie-dying t-shirts as a kid.
You gather parts of the t-shirt together and tie them tightly with a rubber band. When you dunk the shirt in the dye bath, the color can’t get into the parts you’ve tied off. When you cut off the rubber band, there’s a big psychedelic circle of undyed fabric that is wicked cool. If you re-tie the t-shirt in a different area and re-dunk in another color, then the design really starts to get far-out. It was the late 60’s after all.
For my life, I can’t imagine my mother agreeing to it.
As an adult, it’s hard to avoid splashing it. Get a bunch of kids involved and total disaster is almost a given. It is potentially the messiest thing there is. Spills and stains can remain on the walls or on the floors for the rest of the life of the house.
I’m going to guess that one of the other mothers in the neighborhood hosted a dye party and they let me participate. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m pretty certain that I can picture a bunch of buckets outside in a row on somebody’s driveway.
I boiled a large pot of water on the stove. In a plastic bucket that holds all of our cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, I put in a cup of salt and a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid and half filled it with hot water from the bathtub.
When the water on the stove boiled, I poured it into the bucket, too, and then, with the dye and shorts in hand, I put on my mask and headed to the basement. Once there, I added the dye to the bucket and carefully dunked the shorts. I did the whole thing in the stainless-steel slop sink.
After a half an hour of constant stirring, I dumped out the water and started rinsing the now dark shorts. It took forever. I refilled the bucket with water and added some more salt and a cup of vinegar to fix the dye to the cotton. After a few more rinses, the deed was done. The water ran clear.
With an old blue towel, I washed the shorts in a washing machine and then dried them. I threw some more vinegar in the washing machine and ran the cycle through again to make sure that there was no dye left for the next person who does a wash.
My shorts are now an even dark blue. I am unlikely to wear them again until next spring, but when that day comes, I am ready. The extra bottle of dye is in the bucket with the cleaning supplies.
These days leading up to the election are excruciating. I watch the news each day with mounting terror that something bad is going to happen.
Two people connected with Senator Harris’s campaign have tested positive for COVID-19. She has stopped in-person campaigning for the moment, choosing to do some virtual events today instead.
The virus in our country continues to blaze through the population unchecked. 57,000 new cases yesterday. Hospitalizations are climbing. The death rate is climbing.
Throughout it all, the President is out and about attending rallies and spouting lies to his base. He continues to misrepresent the dangers of the virus even as the First Lady announced on her own that their son Barron had tested positive.
The Senate hearings for the President’s choice for the vacant seat on the United States Supreme Court have come to a close. The nominee managed to dodge every single question of substance. She never clearly and definitively clarified what her personal views are on any of a wide variety of important and divisive topics. That she will be granted a seat on the bench seems all but certain.
The blatant hypocrisy of the Republican Senators who four years ago refused to consider President Obama’s nominee to the court, months before the election, because, as they said, the American people should decide, has never been more apparent. They are not interested in the American people deciding anything. They want to do it themselves.
In California, the Republicans actually set up fake ballot boxes to dupe people into placing their ballots in the wrong place. Again, they do not want the American people to have a voice in their futures.
On an extremely positive front, over 17 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting across 44 states and in Washington D.C. In some places, people have waited for endless hours in all kinds of weather to cast their ballots.
The Democrats represent one view about the role of government in our society. The Republicans used to represent another. They don’t anymore.
The Republican Party have compromised the right. Voter suppression. Gerrymandering election districts. Blatant self-serving hypocritical legislation is pushed through that benefits only the top 1% of the 1%.
They have gathered behind a television conman who creates a spectacle selling snake-oil to their supporters during flashy circuses while they quietly plot behind the curtain - happy for the diversion.
Does that sound like hyperbole? If you think it does, then how do you explain what’s going on all around us? Can you truly not remember what our lives were like four years ago?
My headache seems to be gone. Maybe I haven’t been re-infected after all. I’ve had a lot of water and some decaf coffee already this morning. I’ll keep it up and see how it goes.
If I can find some good white t-shirts when I’m out today, I might actually try and tie dye them with the remaining bottle of RIT. Now that I know how to do it, it seems a shame not to keep going. My election poll training is the day after tomorrow so I could use the distraction.
Early voting starts here on the 24th. I’m guessing New Yorkers will be on it. I’ll be glad of actually having something to do while we wait for the results.
This election is not about conflicting ideologies. I wish it was.
The discussion inherent in our two-party system is a vital component to all of us getting a better understanding of the issues we are facing. When every single word out of one side’s leader is an out and out lie, that kind of thoughtful discussion becomes impossible.
Whatever our opinions about governance, these dangerous clowns who are in charge now need to be voted out so that next time, maybe we’ll have a chance of a real and meaningful exchange of ideas.
We will all be the better for it.
❤️I’ll bring you the best caffeine in the city/ headache cure!
I am most of all glad you are well!
Early voting on 24 October - I will be
❤️💕🙏