The last time I went this long without a haircut was in 2005 when I began growing my hair out. My intent is not to grow my hair long again--I always said I never would and I feel even less inclined to as my hair is a bit thinner on top than it was 15 years ago. But that seems to have be happening by default. I usually have my hair cut by one of my former students who moonlights as a barber while in college, but I haven't felt safe to call him up since the pandemic hit. Many years ago Barbara used to cut my hair, and I'm considering returning to that for the duration. But I will need to buy clippers and I'll probably have to return to my "zero guard all over" since I'm not sure she's up to executing a proper fade. While I dither, the hair continues to grow.
At the basketball game after eating out at Chipotle
The last time I ate inside a restaurant was, I believe, the second to last weekend in February when I ate at Chipotle with my former student and dear family friend Tali Paez. I was in Virginia with my school at a middle school basketball tournament and it turned out the tournament was held just 20 minutes from where Tali lives. I hadn't seen her in eight years, since she was teenager. Seeing Tali may have been the last time I hugged someone outside my family.
The last time I went to the movies was. . .I think during Christmas vacation. I saw Knives Out. What a good movie.
The last time I attended a church service in person was on March 7. We attended the Worthington Seventh-day Adventist Church and were privileged to watch the baptism of the daughter of Melissa O'Neil, Barbara's former principal and current school board chair. That was also the last time that we ate a meal with people outside of our family when we went to the O'Neil home for a celebratory potluck lunch.
One of the plays we intended to stage at the end of April
The last time our drama club Reflection met was on March 9. We had just cast parts for our spring production and were just beginning rehearsals for what promised to be a great pair of one-act plays. We'd searched for some good material for a long time and had almost given up hope when we stumbled across a treasure trove of scripts at Pioneer Drama. I was excited as I had been in a long time about what we'd be putting together.
One of the last photos I took of my 8th grade class, during our class "caucus" on Monday, February 3, 2020
The last day of school with my wonderful 8th grade class was on Thursday, March 12. We had no idea then that that was it. The last time I shaved my beard was last May 11, 2019. I have a tradition of always shaving my beard on the day of the 8th grade class trip (I always begin growing it back at the beginning of Christmas vacation; I'm funny like that). In honor of their lost trip, I decided to keep the beard this summer (hopefully, I'll be able to shave it by next summer when the class of 2021 will have its trip, and the class of 2020 intends to take the trip they missed this year)
When is the next time I will do these things? That's the big question.
The United States has posted a 5.6% increase in the total number of COVID-19 cases over the past three days, bringing us to 3,233,356 total cases. We are now just short of 1% of the U.S. population having been infected. Deaths have increased 1.8% to 131,979 deaths in total. That's about 21,000 more cases and almost 300 more deaths than I predicted. Based on these numbers, I would expect 3,411,190 total cases by Tuesday, July 14, 2020. I predict 136,696 total deaths.
As Florida native Tom Petty once sang, the state's got a virus "room at the top of the world and it ain't. comin'. down." (Okay that was a stretch to connect to but I'm always up for an excuse to link to a great Tom Petty song. And this is a great one.). New cases clocked in at 30,725, just about 800 cases short of the state's record set just about a week ago. Ohio's cases are down a bit and Nebraska's new cases are up a bit.
Total Cases
Florida: 254,503 total cases, 1.2% of the population
Ohio: 62,856 total cases, 0.54% of the population
Nebraska: 20,919 total cases, 1.1% of the population
With 308 deaths, Florida now exits our chart for the first time since May 9. This is only the third time since I began tracking this data that Florida has recorded more than 180 deaths in a three day period. It appears that hoping that deaths would stay low despite the massive explosion of cases was wishful thinking (a virus almost as widespread as the coronavirus these days). I had intended to print off some more graph paper when I stopped by the school yesterday, suspecting I'd need it, but I forgot to. Something tells me I'm going to need to stop by the school before my next post on Tuesday. Thankfully, Nebraska and Ohio seem to maintaining their typical patterns. At least deaths in these states haven't skyrocketed even if they aren't going down either.
Total Deaths
Florida: 4,196 deaths, a rate of 1.6%
Ohio: 3,032 deaths, a rate of 4.8%
Nebraska: 296 deaths, a rate of 1.4%
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