Pandemic, Week 100 (Plungers)

This week, President Biden called Vladimir Putin to argue for diplomatic solutions to remove Russia's 100,000 troops on the Russian-Ukrainian border and warned of severe consequences should Russia invade. The National Archives requested that the Justice Department investigate Donald Trump's handling of Presidential records after 15 boxes of materials were discovered at Trump's Florida residence (including "love letters" from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) while other official records had been torn-up. A Louisiana District Court issued a temporary injunction preventing the EPA from using the "social cost of greenhouse gasses" when calculating the cost of emissions and instead using Trump-era metrics. The Consumer Price Index indicated prices have risen 7.5 percent this past year, the highest rates since 1982. Marjorie Taylor Green claimed that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was spying on members of Congress with the aid of the "gazpacho" police.

The world reached 410.8 million COVID cases and 5.8 million deaths this week, of which the US accounted for 79.3 million cases and 943,000 deaths. 252 million Americans (76 percent) have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 214 million (64 percent) are fully vaccinated. California, New York and Oregon all announced lifting of mask mandates. Truckers continue to block the Ambassador Bridge in Canada to protest vaccine requirements. Deer in New York City were found to be infected with Omicron.

It was a weird week for us. John returned home from convalescing at Katherine's, but then returned to Katherine's prior to visiting Jacqui, taking Ducky with them. Ducky's departure (as well as John's) were related to our plan to have the entire interior of the house painted over the course of 2.5 weeks, which meant we had to spend much of this week boxing up stuff and removing things from walls. Nora's school was one of several DC schools that received bomb threats this week and had to be briefly evacuated (Owen claimed he heard Duke had one too but instead of evacuating, they just had two "buff" guys for security – we're not sure any of those details are correct). We had Billy over for dinner and to admire Owen's gaming abilities (and shame our frames per second).

But the big activity this week was Allen and Nora's participation in the Chesapeake Climate Action Network's annual Polar Bear Plunge. Allen participated in last year's virtual ice bucket option with the Quaking Quakers, and Nora so enjoyed dumping cold water on their father, that they lobbied to participate in-person.

Initially, it wasn't clear how polar the plunge would be as temperatures were a balmy 60 degrees when we arrived at the National Harbor Saturday morning. But by the time all the speakers had spoken (including giving a shout-out to the top fundraising team, the Quaking Quakers of Washington), the party paraded to the beach and the plungers disrobed, the wind had picked up and there was a definite chill in the air. Allen and Nora plunged into the Potomac with the first wave of polar bears, splashed around in the 40 degree water, and then ran to the shore (which caused Nora to fall and submerge a bit more than intended). After drying off and changing clothes (including Nora appropriating my shoes because in a rookie mistake, we neglected to bring backup footwear for the plungers to change into), we headed home for warm showers (because while the Potomac's water quality has improved, you probably still want to rinse off after a dip in it) and then headed to Union Market for a celebratory lunch for their efforts which raised over $1,300 to help pass climate policies which, as Nora said, "In hindsight was fun."

To contribute to Allen and Nora's fundraising page and help #KeepWinterCold, click here.

(To see all of this week's pictures, click here.)