Monday 10/23/2020
I went out in regular clothes, but wearing my sneakers. I went the jogging route, alternating one block of easy jogging, with two blocks of brisk walking. It felt fine. This is major progress, I feel.
On the other hand, several times today when I got up from sitting, my right hip was very painful, enough that I had to walk very carefully for several steps, until it would settle down. It didn’t hurt at all during the run/walk, nor on yesterday’s strenuous walk. So, WTF, hip?
I did a little work on the MG model. At 2pm I was invited to a Zoom meeting by the volunteers who want to re-start the gift shop. The Channing House gift shop used to be open a couple hours a day most days, selling notions, computer paper, and consignment clothes and art objects donated by residents. It was closed early in the pandemic.
Now some volunteers want to restart it, as a weekly “pop-up” market. There is apparently a backlog of merchandise, much of it good for Christmas sales. Mary Beth, who is spearheading this, pictures setting up two or three rolling carts of stuff and moving them to the auditorium. People would be allowed in, appropriately spaced out, to look (but not touch) and select things to buy. After discussion she is preparing a proposal to submit to Rhonda and Angela.
The only reason I was invited was that they figure to use a Slottr sign-up sheet such as I make for the other volunteer activities, to schedule volunteers to run the pop-up store.
In pandemic news, the upgrade process is just at a key point, where people who were displaced from the Fifth floor back in February are moving back. Regular readers will remember that I moved back to the refurbished Sixth floor in January; immediately after, all Fifth floor residents moved out to vacant apartments so it could be refurbished. Now it’s done, and they should be moved back, but as noted a couple of days ago: employees of the moving subcontractors are calling in sick because they have heard that we had two staff members test positive. Rhonda wrote in an email today,
We continuously advise them of the protocols that we have in place for their safety. And, that the General Contact Advisories mean that these people were in the same building but unlikely to be in the same vicinity. But, the teams are scared. As a result, we are severely short-staffed on the moving teams.
The result is that CH staff is now doubling as movers and move managers, in order to get the Fifth floor residents back home on schedule. This means that
Facilities team’s plate is especially full right now. Perhaps more full than it’s ever been. They are move managers, movers, and maintenance people. Please hold any requests that are not a safety issue.
The staff has really been stressed for nearly a year and they have rolled with a lot of punches, but this… I don’t know. We might get some burnout happening.
Codgerville 