Sequestered in Seattle, Day 150

Saturday morning brought more rain. It hadn't been in the forecast, but having observed the sky last night, I was not surprised. I eschewed watering, again, in favor of forcibly removing snails from bean leaves. They've done some damage, but the only plant that seems destroyed is the one that came back from complete destruction once already.

Besides some brief time outside, the day was spent at home. I read from Genji, which I started in earnest after finishing Oryx and Crake, on Thursday, I think. Rachel finished the book she borrowed from Nadia, also on Thursday.

I ate the last of my granola for breakfast, so I made some more. The recipe I followed made it too dark last time, so I lowered the oven temperature below the caramelization point, and I think I'll like it better this time. It was all the same grains, seeds, and fruit, plus almonds, peanuts, coconut, apricots, and mulberries. Oh and some Frosted Mini-Wheats crumbs.

As a family, we read from an Aquila magazine about cake, and then the kids helped Nicole make a chocolate zucchini cake for tomorrow.

After dinner, Nicole, Rachel, and I played Tzolk'in, the Mayan calendar game. We play so infrequently that we spend much of the game trying to remember what we're doing. But maybe we'll have another round tomorrow, and hit the ground running. Nicole won handily, tonight.

It's the halfway point for those 100-day predictions from June. Here are mine:

1. I will still be working from home.
2. The kids will be schooling from home.
3. Washington State's 14-day average daily positive test rate will still be in the 200-400 person range.
4. Washington State's (14-day average) death rate will have declined to a moving average of less than three per day.
5. Not more than three hundred deaths over the interval from COVID-19 in Washington State.
6. Biden chooses a woman of color as running mate.
7. Questions of safe access to voting will not be resolved.
8. Some states will reinstitute stricter controls.

(1) and (2) are still on track. For (3), while we might be back in that range in another 50 days, "still" implies we needed to stay there, and our moving average got close to 1000. (4) could also come true, but the stronger version I revised to in (5) has already failed: there have been over four hundred deaths in the interim. (6) and (7) could still be true. I would argue that (8) has already succeeded, but I didn't define "stricter", so it's a bit hand-wavy.

So, in all, I have one already correct, two already incorrect, and a good chance of correctness on four out of the remaining five. Five out of eight is probably a lower success rate than I would have hoped for, but I didn't make a meta-prediction about my success rate. I'll try to remember that next time.