Shutdown Diary
The number of tests reported fell 30.7%
According to CDC:
Make no mistake: it's still very dangerous out there. But there are some welcome signs of a wave peak, including a slowing increase to low single digits and slight dips in hospitalizations and test positivity. We are still just below 75% partially-vaccinated adult total.
As I recently tweeted, I finally wore my first disposable N95 mask to a medical appointment last week. (Ir was an annual followup to a past medical issue. I had forgotten to put it on my Google calendar. What annoyed me was I got like 3-4 reminder calls, 2 after I manually confirmed the appointment.) Definitely a snugger fit fit around the edges, different than the cloth ones my sister had made me. I really didn't walk using it until I approached the entrance. However I kept it on until I got back to my car after the appointment. Breathing wasn't much of an issue. It was more labored when I was outside walking to my car, which was unnecessary, of course (it wasn't like I was on a crowded sidewalk in NYC), but I was more interested in testing the mask. So now I've got 3 masks in my car just in case I run into a mask mandate; of course they've always been enforced in medical areas.
Life's Little Problems
I think God must be laughing at me. I use my microwave all the time. It was just a few months back I bought my Amazon Basics model. It's mostly worked well but for some reason on occasion drops off the network and Amazon Echo can't respond to simple commands. So I've written about the process to reconnect it via the Alexa app. But the last couple of times I haven't bothered since manually setting it isn't a big deal, and I've eventually discovered it was finally working on its own without my intervention.
Then all of a sudden over the weekend the microwave cooking unit stopped coming on. The microwave was working in one sense, like a giant timer, but no heat. I'm not even sure how long my Amazon warranty is. I've on occasion processed returns to Amazon like when it once shipped me the wrong food product. But for instance, I bought a small Amazon safe, and its combination lock mechanism never worked (but an alternate mechanism does). No, I don't keep what most people think of as valuables in there. I've got things like my school transcripts, auto title, vaccination card, baby photos, etc. I may be libertarian, but no gold, precious stones, etc. If someone stole it, they would be very disappointed.
It reminds me of my late beloved Uncle Roger, Mom's brother, a diocesan priest. I don't know how much he made, but the median in the US is about $45K, which isn't much given my uncle also held a licentiate (graduate degree in theology, more impressive since all classes were taught in Latin, and so were the written tests). I do think he lived in a subsidized rectory which employed a part-time maid and cook. He owned a decent middle-class car and ate out more often than I do, but lived a modest lifestyle. To my chagrin, he wanted nothing to do with computers. I wanted to buy him one, but he made it clear he would never use it.
The reason for explaining all that is this: I think my Grandfather at some point had his genealogy done, traced back to Normandy. These papers were stored in a safe box, which my uncle inherited. My bilingual uncle actually had one preference during his career, beyond staying out of Church politics: don't send me to a dying Franco-American parish. He didn't want to be typecast as their go-to French-speaking cleric. He was a fiercely loyal un-hyphenated American conservative. I once asked him about the Quebec separatist movement; he didn't give a crap about his ancestral homeland. It was bad enough he was sent to seminary in Montreal. The Church was very strict back then; they wouldn't let him go to my mother's wedding (his only sibling). My Grandmother was going through colon cancer and its complications, I think by the time I was born, and she died before her dream of seeing her son ordained a priest was realized.
All this to mention to say one day the rectory was robbed, including my uncle's safe box. I can only imagine the thief's expression if and when he saw what was in the safe; it only had sentimental value to my family. My uncle had zero interest in having the genealogy redone.
So I guess I can relight the pilot lights for my stove top burners after a recent cleaning or use my toaster oven, but I think for a 2-3 day interval I only got the heat element to function once. Now people who have read about my malfunctioning K-cup coffeemaker can probably predict exactly what happened. (I haven't had a problem with my original since buying a replacement at Walmart.)
I bring back a no-frills $50 microwave from Walmart, and sure enough, my Amazon model is now working perfectly. It's like God is laughing at me.
August Rush
Oh my God, how I love this movie, which is a contemporary twist on Dickens' "Oliver Twist". It's probably been years since I last saw it on Lifetime. When I saw the Wizard character, I thought to myself, "Damn, that looks like Robin Williams." Yup.
I'm putting the movie into its own category because I ran into problems running the movie on my newer desktop which comes with a DVD drive and bundled DVD software that couldn't read the disk. (It shows how often I play movies on DVD.) Long story short, I also have a VLC player installed and it turns out it works if you use the 'Open Disk" option. (Otherwise, it just looks like an unusable collection of files in Windows Explorer.)
Lyla Novacek is a talented cellist studying at the prestigious Juilliard School. She has a controlling father who is determined not to allow distractions from her promising career. Louis Connelly is the lead singer for an Irish rock band. One night they meet by accident getting away from things on a NYC rooftop. Louis is instantly smitten and Lyla finds herself drawn to him. The Van Morrison classic 'Moondance'. The movie leaves the rest to the imagination, but basically Evan Taylor was conceived on this magical night.
Lyla's father was furious over the relationship, and Louis found himself cut off from his one true love, never knowing about his unborn child. Lyla wants her child, but when she delivers early after an accident, her father forges her signature to adoption papers; he tells her the baby died in the accident.
Evan ends up in orphanages; he's a musical genius who finds himself bullied growing up. (He's about 9-10 years old in the movie.) Even is obsessed with one idea: his parents are alive, and somehow music will reunite the family. He becomes a runaway and stumbles upon an underground of homeless kids who do street performances for tips, headed by "Wizard", who quickly sees Evan as his new protege. (I can't help but compare this to the old TV series "Beauty and the Beast", where the "Beast", Vincent, lives in an abandoned subway headed by a "Father" figure.) Wizard renames Evan "August Rush" after seeing the name on a passing commercial vehicle.
Evan eventually runs away from Wizard who id not supportive of his family reunification dream and discovers a black church, drawn by its gospel music. He befriends a young black girl singer his age; she gives him a simple tutorial on a piano keyboard, and literally overnight Evan starts composing rhapsodies, The black pastor eventually brings him to his mother's alma mater. His rhapsody is chosen for a summer concert in Central Park.
In the meanwhile, Lyla is now a music teacher in Chicago, and Louis leaves the band and is a talent agent on the West Coast. Lyla's father confesses on his deathbed that Evan is alive but doesn't know his whereabouts. Lyla becomes obsessed with finding Evan and moves back to NYC. Around the same time, Louis, who never lost his love for Lyla, somehow finds out on the Internet that Lyla lives in Chicago. He goes to Chicago, only to be misinformed by a neighbor that Lyla is on her honeymoon. In despair, he chooses to return to NYC and hook up with his old band.
Lyla comes across a photo of her runaway son. Lyla, at the urging of her friend, takes up the cello and agrees to appear at the same Central Park concerts featuring her son's rhapsody (under his pseudonym). But of course the accidental mother-child reunion (Evan is supposed to conduct his rhapsody at the concert) is foiled when Wizard spots Evan on a concert flyer and shows up at Juilliard to reclaim his "son". Louis ironically meets Evan in a park where they swap guitars and exchange riffs. Louis tells the young boy not to give up on his music.
Will Evan once again escape the clutches of Wizard and realize his dream that his music in Central Park will reunite his family? Will Louis ever stumble upon the fact that Lyla is playing at the concert?
