Nice Day for a Walk

I'm watching the weather. I check the weather almost every day because it's easy and it sometimes influences what I wear, and whether I take my umbrella to work, but for now I'm not going to work, and I wear what is comfortable inside the house, which I don't leave often. I haven't engaged in any business for a week. Oh, except picking up the antibiotics for Liz in the drive-through at the pharmacy on Thursday.

But today, the thermometer outside the front bedroom reads near 80 degrees, and the prediction of thunderstorms has dropped below 50%, and been pushed back a couple of hours. I could just put shoes on and go for a walk. No jacket needed. That's hard to resist.

I am seeing more and more on Facebook about people getting restless. Feeling a need to get out. Worrying more and more about getting by, and less about the risks of infection. We're still very much on the rising side of the curve. Infections in the United States seem to be doubling every two or three days, which is too steep if we have any hope of slowing the pandemic enough to keep serious infections below the capacity of our health care system. Maybe people know that, and have just given up on it. It may actually be too late.

But I still want to follow the orders. A lot of my Facebook friends are nurses, and they are telling all kinds of stories. One, a fierce defender of Trump, has admitted that her earlier dismissal of coronavirus as a minor issue, and dramatically overblown in the media, has come to recognize the danger. She spent a day on a coronavirus floor. That's all it took. Now she is advocating staying home, and following our governor's orders. She does what she can to prevent carrying the virus home, she said.

If I go out, whom will I see? Last time, there were young men playing frisbee golf, along with the dog walkers. And other walkers. And crews out working on construction. I don't have to come very close to any of those. And I could use the exercise. Last time I went for a walk, I pressed the button to get a walk signal for the back of my arm, and not my hand. I'm less likely to touch my face with the back of my arm. It seems unlikely that such precautions will matter much in the long run, but I do it anyway.

I'm still on my break from work. I have looked over some materials, because come Tuesday, I will be officially back to work, getting ready to teach my classes online. I expect it will be a challenge. I will have to create activities for the students to get them to learn the material, and demonstrate understanding, and I won't be able to sit down with them in lab, and just ask questions. If we interact in real time over the computer, I won't be able to see their faces, or watch what they do. How will I know they aren't searching for answers in their books or online? I think we will have to make the students write a lot more than they have. We may just make them write out everything, and skip exams all together, because we can't proctor exams. We'll see. Something to think about during my walk.