Today is day 2 of the great book move. I moved eight boxes yesterday. It looks like I have twelve or thirteen left to pack and move and I am hoping to move eight more today.
I have IKEA furniture assembly happening at some ungodly hour (actually 9 am) Monday. These are all chests; a six drawer one to replace the one in the old apartment that won’t fit in the new, and two two-drawer chests which will serve as nightstands, which I’d never gotten around to getting in the old apartment. These are in the same style as my bookshelves, which will naturally be in a different room. I’m not terribly fond of the color scheme but it will, I trust, be good quality stuff.
Tuesday, the movers come for my bed and bookshelves. Also Tuesday, Verizon comes to put in service at the new apartment; I will then no longer have it at the old one.
I’ve ordered blackout curtains for the bedroom, which has a window that looks out to trees and a tiny creek. The latter will surely be interesting when, as we do in Pittsburgh, we get torrential downpours that make California rain seem like a fine mist. Unfortunately, the curtains are coming from China (thankfully, not Xinjiang province); they are presently in Hong Kong and I expect they’ll be on a slow boat from there. But hey, who needs sleep?
Oh yeah, and the curtain rods will have to be mounted. I do have those.
I haven’t really thought out the technology move, which will have to happen Tuesday, beyond that I have one uninterruptible power supply (UPS) at the old apartment that’s had the course. Money will need to be spent to get some of this stuff off the floor in the new place and to cover what I’m pretty sure are going to be some awkward cable and cord runs.
I haven’t really figured out where I’m going to put the television at the new place. Or my computer. Or my monitor. These are probably going to have to fit in the bedroom. I don’t have anything like a table or a desk there. These I’d actually like to retrieve from California in—wait—FEBRUARY? Some of this I really want to figure out after the bed and bookshelves are moved; I’m having trouble visualizing the space.
I’m running out of groceries at the old apartment but I haven’t moved dishes and the like to the new one. But oh yes, I have a new dish rack at the new apartment to replace the rusting mistake I bought when I moved into the old apartment.
I still haven’t figured out about storage for my remaining furniture, for which there isn’t room in the new apartment.
As of tomorrow, I will have two months of overlap, when I still have the old apartment (and am paying rent for it) while I’m moving into the new one, to sort all this out.
Student loans
Lance Lambert, “Biden administration forgives more student loan debt—here’s who is eligible,” Fortune, August 24, 2021, https://fortune.com/education/business/articles/2021/08/24/biden-administration-forgives-more-student-loan-debt-heres-who-is-eligible/
Douglas Belkin, “U.S. Forgives $1.1 Billion in Debt for Former ITT Tech Students,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-forgives-1-1-billion-in-debt-for-former-itt-tech-students-11629995100
Pandemic
Dan Diamond, “‘I’m still not planning to get it’: FDA approval not swaying some vaccine holdouts,” Washington Post, August 25, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/25/fda-approval-vaccine-holdouts/
Sam Baker, “Coronavirus cases are soaring, especially in the South,” Axios, August 26, 2021, https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-infections-vaccines-hospital-11d44b25-ed17-40cd-b8cf-ca9c4eb582f5.html
Jeannie Suk Gersen, “Should the Government Impose a National COVID-Vaccination Mandate?” New Yorker, August 26, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/should-the-government-impose-a-national-vaccination-mandate
Michael McGough, “Sacramento hospitals ‘at capacity’ and COVID deaths at 6-month high as delta spreads,” Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article253761928.html
Sudhin Thanawala and Jay Reeves, “Virus surge breaks hospital records amid rising toll on kids,” Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2021, https://www.sacbee.com/news/article253764343.html
Marisa Fernandez, “As hospitals fill, more ambulances forced to wait,” Axios, August 27, 2021, https://www.axios.com/local-ems-covid-surge-wait-times-611657fc-8ddf-4b32-a6dc-c7f2eb799487.html
Aghanistan
David Leonhardt to The Morning list, “A better Afghan policy,” New York Times, August 25, 2021, https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210825&instance_id=38743&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN®i_id=97793637&segment_id=67145&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F51d8629f-6851-5663-99e7-7a33a08aa7eb&user_id=087ade925ce15f15a24824418c4789ce
Phillip Walter Wellman, “US Woman Under Taliban’s Watch Won’t Leave Kabul Without Her Staff and Hundreds of Rescue Animals,” Military.com, August 25, 2021, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/08/25/us-woman-under-talibans-watch-wont-leave-kabul-without-her-staff-and-hundreds-of-rescue-animals.html
David Smith, “Biden warns masterminds of deadly Kabul bombings: ‘We will make you pay,’” Guardian, August 26, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/26/joe-biden-white-house-crisis-kabul-explosion
Yaroslav Trofimov, Nancy A. Youssef, and Sune Engel Rasmussen, “Kabul Airport Attack Kills 13 U.S. Service Members, at Least 90 Afghans,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistan-kabul-airport-explosion-11629976397
Tom Yun, “What is ISIS-K? A look at the Afghan-based terrorist group that threatens both Taliban and U.S. forces,” CTV News, August 26, 2021, https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/what-is-isis-k-a-look-at-the-afghan-based-terrorist-group-that-threatens-both-taliban-and-u-s-forces-1.5562085
George Monbiot, “Bloodhounds,” August 27, 2021, https://www.monbiot.com/2021/08/27/bloodhounds/
Graeme Wood, “What Comes Next in Afghanistan,” Atlantic, August 27, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/kabul-airport-bombing-afghanistan/619906/
Sayed Ziarmal Hashemi et al., “U.S. presses on with evacuations despite fears of more attacks,” Los Angeles Times, August 27, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-08-27/evacuations-resume-after-kabul-airport-attack-bombings