Justin and Claire 2: Always the One I Forget

[SassyPants]

19 minutes ago, HeartsAFundie said:

When the pandemic first started, the Rhode Island beaches had signs up highly discouraging Massachusetts residents from visiting, with warnings that any vehicle with Massachusetts license plates found parked on the beach would be subject to fines. And that was during the spring when it was too cold to swim and people just wanted to walk on the beach and sit on the sand.   It caused a lot of animosity between the border towns where MA residents were used to driving right over the border at any given moment to the beach.    

My town is over the mountains (30miles) from San Jose, the largest city in Northern CA. Initially All the locals would blame ruling breaking and Covid spread on the people from San Jose coming over the hill to go to the beach. Yes, lots of animosity. I think that’s one of the main reason that the authorities had limited open beach hours, yet Closed the beach parking-

[HereticHick]

On 11/30/2020 at 5:13 PM, Idlewild said:

I can see them doing that and one of them will be stupid enough to post it on Instagram! 

We can set up a betting pool about who would first leak evidence of a Duggar-Spiver superspreader wedding on Instragram:  Ma Spivey or Jill Rodrigues.

[Idlewild]

Under normal circumstances I doubt the Duggars would want the Rodrigues family anywhere near but if it’s a superspreader event the invitees have to be confirmed COVID deniers and Jill and her husband fit the criteria. One likely leak is they invite Nurie (Rodrigues) and Nathan Keller and Jill posts the pictures on her social media.

[FluffySnowball]

I don’t see a problem with getting married during the pandemic, but I take issue with having a big wedding. My guess though is that the Duggars wouldn’t agree with me and I’m afraid we’ll hear about some fairly big tying-the-knot-Duggar-style event soon.  
Also, and that would just be my very own preference and isn’t a statement about appropriate behavior during a global pandemic, I’d prefer waiting with a wedding right now for the sake of the honeymoon. I just love love love traveling and would hate not having a proper, international trip. 

Edited December 7, 2020 by FluffySnowball
added a missing word

[libgirl2]

2 hours ago, FluffySnowball said:

I don’t see a problem with getting married during the pandemic, but I take issue with having a big wedding. My guess though is that the Duggars wouldn’t agree with me and I’m afraid we’ll hear about some fairly big tying-the-knot-Duggar-style event soon.  
Also, and that would just be my very own preference and isn’t a statement about appropriate behavior during a global pandemic, I’d prefer waiting with a wedding right now for the sake of the honeymoon. I just love love love traveling and would hate not having a proper, international trip. 

My husband's nephew is getting married at the end of the week. It is out of state so we declined, though we wouldn't attend if it was in state. I don't know how many people are invited and how much family is going on both sides (the family is not very close). He and his soon to be wife are both very liberal and easy going, so I could see them having something small but who knows, they might have planned this for ages not even knowing about covid. It has to be tough, but if you keep it small, it can be done. We even said they could have a simple service, either civil or in front of a priest and then have a party later when things blow over. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by libgirl2

[ophelia]

Even if they only invited the closest family member a Duggar wedding would ALWAYS be very huge since there are so many of them.

[Smee]

As others mentioned, the rules in Victoria were different for Melbourne/Geelong vs rural communities. It was also possible to apply for permits to get exceptions to various rules if you had a good reason e.g. as a farmer you needed to cross the border to take your sheep to an abattoir in a border town or whatever.

People in Melbourne who went through all that are my heroes. They kept us safe despite the extreme cost to their own mental health and well-being, and I want them all to be more appreciated for that. Not just the leadership and health professionals but the ordinary citizens who listened and did what was necessary.

Re:weddings and honeymoons, friends of mine got married in May with just 5 people there as witnesses and live-streamed it, their plan is to do a bigger celebratory party on their 1 year anniversary (assuming that’s possible) and a proper honeymoon once a vaccine is in wide use and travel restrictions are lifted. Other friends had an outdoor wedding in Oct with a bigger guest list but still plan to take a longer honeymoon some time next year.

[lumpentheologie]

I'm friends with three couples who were planning to get married this year. One did an outdoor wedding with only 4 people attending in person and the rest of us on zoom. The other two just got married at the courthouse with 2 witnesses (mostly so both people in the couples could have health insurance) and are planning to have weddings after things calm down. 

I'm a big believer in going on a honeymoon whenever it works for you, not necessarily immediately after the wedding.  My husband and I were saving to go on a nice trip since we didn't have that kind of money when we got married, but now it looks like all that will be spent visiting family and friends we didn't get to see this year. But even if it's 4 years after we got married, I'm getting my honeymoon, lol. Also planning a wedding was one of the most stressful things I've ever done (we had a small one, but I'm a serious introvert with ADHD), so having to also plan a trip and deal with packing and travel right then would have been horrible for me. I needed about two weeks to recover before I wanted to see anyone or do anything outside of my normal routine. 

 

 

[adidas]

I haven’t been to a face to face wedding during Covid but I went to one on Zoom. My son has been to 3 face to face weddings recently because restrictions are easing (he is in his 20s, so lots more younger people are getting hitched). 

When the restrictions were a lot more strict here I think the law was that no more than 10 people could attend a wedding. Understandably lots of people postponed. 

Someone very close to me died during the restrictions and we had a legal limit to the number of people who could come to the funeral. We had choose who to send invitations to, and we recorded it so while it wasn’t live streamed, anyone who couldn’t attend in person could still celebrate his life with us. It was hard. When someone dies you really need the physical and emotional support of other people. We were all very worried about the virus at that stage though, and we were happy to follow the legal guidelines. 

BTW for those who don’t remember, I’m in NSW Australia. 

[Smash!]

Now that we are out the other side of this I have very mixed feelings about it. There are many people who were either pro and anti lockdown who now see it as the ends justify the means, especially with the state of things in the northern hemisphere. I feel bad for all of you who are desperately trying to do the right thing to keep yourself and others safe but live somewhere with a lack of leadership to make others also act safely and therefore cases are surging and you can't possibly move beyond this. But I feel like our constitution should be amended to never allow such government powers again. It shouldn't be possible to place 6 million innocent people under house arrest for 4 months, or illegal to see a friend or family member.

I totally get your arguments. On the other hand, I live in Switzerland, where, for the reasons you mentioned, there was a very strong emphasis on personal responsibility in the fight against the pandemic from the very beginning. The state should interfere as little as possible and data protection is very very important. Even the violation of the mask obligation in stores and public transport is not punished.

Unfortunately, this strategy is not working. Our numbers have been rising since the summer, the hospitals are on the verge of overload, we have many deaths and the worst months of January and February are just coming. We are driving our country to the wall economically, because all the sick people are costing and fewer business people are coming into the country. The fact that we missed to increase testing capacity and contact tracing capacity over the summer where the numbers were low doesn't help either. But even here: No one is obligated to get tested.

Personal responsibility doesn't work in the event of such a disaster because there are always enough people who are unwilling to limit themselves or don't understand why they should comply with the measures. Plus, after so long pandemic fatigue is spreading and people are less and less willing to limit the people they see for example.

From my perspective, what Australia has done is right. Pandemics need strong leadership, and democratic principles must be temporarily suspended so that life can return to normal afterwards. In my view, there is no middle ground.

[baldricks_turnip]

7 hours ago, Smash! said:

I totally get your arguments. On the other hand, I live in Switzerland, where, for the reasons you mentioned, there was a very strong emphasis on personal responsibility in the fight against the pandemic from the very beginning. The state should interfere as little as possible and data protection is very very important. Even the violation of the mask obligation in stores and public transport is not punished.

Unfortunately, this strategy is not working. Our numbers have been rising since the summer, the hospitals are on the verge of overload, we have many deaths and the worst months of January and February are just coming. We are driving our country to the wall economically, because all the sick people are costing and fewer business people are coming into the country. The fact that we missed to increase testing capacity and contact tracing capacity over the summer where the numbers were low doesn't help either. But even here: No one is obligated to get tested.

Personal responsibility doesn't work in the event of such a disaster because there are always enough people who are unwilling to limit themselves or don't understand why they should comply with the measures. Plus, after so long pandemic fatigue is spreading and people are less and less willing to limit the people they see for example.

From my perspective, what Australia has done is right. Pandemics need strong leadership, and democratic principles must be temporarily suspended so that life can return to normal afterwards. In my view, there is no middle ground.

 

 

 

Yes, personal responsibility cannot be totally relied on. In setting our restrictions, our government assumed 80% compliance and that 20% of people would basically disregard everything despite the penalties. personal risk and social stigma. It really angered me because they made restrictions harsher to compensate for that. Maybe if 100% of people had complied I could have had one visitor a week, but because of them I had zero.

I don't want to compare experiences because I haven't lived both. Living under few/no restrictions but with huge risk to yourself and your loved ones must be hugely stressful. I never had to worry about anyone, because unless you had a grandparent in aged care (which is where the overwhelming majority of our cases and 820 deaths arose) then your chances of catching covid were minuscule. I never had to weigh up what risks I was comfortable taking and decide my own personal sacrifices.

But what I did experience was hugely stressful too. I had my second baby in all of this. My husband works out of home 60+ hours a week and I was at home with a newborn and a toddler without help or company for four months. It was the loneliest I have ever been in my entire life to this point, and right up until the final 2 weeks of new cases it didn't actually seem like it was really working. Our numbers were lowering but we just kept having new outbreaks and it didn't seem like we would ever be free. The other states had requirements like 28 days covid free before they would open borders so we were under immense pressure to eliminate even at risk to our own mental wellbeing and economy. There was a huge sunk cost fallacy that if we eased at all with even one new case per day we would 'throw away' the months prior. Every day at 8 am I started refreshing the government websites for the numbers of the previous 24 hours looking for hope. I live in fear of not widespread sickness, but another lockdown.

I suspect that if everything could be tallied up: deaths, permanent/longlasting illness, economic damage, suicides, increased alcohol/drug abuse,  longterm illnesses and deaths from other causes that went untreated in lockdown (e.g. no routine screenings for cancer), etc, I think it could probably still be determined that Australia chose the 'right' path instead of letting it run rampant, but it was still awful.

[Smash!]

[mention]baldricks_turnip [/mention] It was in no way my intention to say it wasn’t awful for you to live in such a strict lockdown. If it came across like this I’m sorry. In your previous post I got the impression that you were not sure in retrospect if Australia wasn’t too harsh the way they reacted and if it was right to suspend certain democratic principles in order to fight the pandemic. I responded to that.
It must’ve been awful to be so without help alone at home with a newborn and not even have parents or friends to be able to help if necessary. Not seeing anyone outside the household for so long. Having the police patrolled and checking your identity in a “free” country. Waiting for your state to meet the criteria to open up again. I get now why you’re thinking the Australian way was maybe too harsh. The measures took such a toll on everyone of you. My response was colored by my own experience and wishing my country would impose just a fraction of the measures Australia had. In the end, it’s such a challenging and stressful time, with lockdown or without.

[baldricks_turnip]

18 minutes ago, Smash! said:

 It was in no way my intention to say it wasn’t awful for you to live in such a strict lockdown. If it came across like this I’m sorry. In your previous post I got the impression that you were not sure in retrospect if Australia wasn’t too harsh the way they reacted and if it was right to suspend certain democratic principles in order to fight the pandemic. I responded to that.
It must’ve been awful to be so without help alone at home with a newborn and not even have parents or friends to be able to help if necessary. Not seeing anyone outside the household for so long. Having the police patrolled and checking your identity in a “free” country. Waiting for your state to meet the criteria to open up again. I get now why you’re thinking the Australian way was maybe too harsh. The measures took such a toll on everyone of you. My response was colored by my own experience and wishing my country would impose just a fraction of the measures Australia had. In the end, it’s such a challenging and stressful time, with lockdown or without.

 That's not how you came across, so no apology necessary
I just know that most of the world is united in their wish for their governments to take more action and I just wanted to present the other side of what that actually felt like. I recognise that I speak from the privileged place of not knowing a single person who had covid, nevermind died from it, because of the harsh restrictions of my government.

I'm no expert and I don't have all the answers. But if we were to change our constitution and the laws able to be put into place in a state of emergency, I would want them to start from a place of 'what should never be taken away from non-criminals?' and keep those bare-minimum rights in place. The right to free movement, the right to be with family members, etc. I never want it to be within the power of my government to take those things away.

[Italiangirl]

According to Ma Spivey, Justin and Claire have already set a wedding date, a February wedding seems very likely 

[Idlewild]

What a dilemma. Do they wait until the summer and hope the pandemic has eased? Do they go ahead and have a superspreader event? Do they pretend for the cameras that they care about the transmission of COVID and make a big deal about distancing and masks. The latter option would be supremely hypocritical given they regularly attend multi household events but Claire might as well start learning the Duggar way.

[raayx01]

It could be the first outdoor Duggar wedding, but either way the rules in Texas are very laxed

 

But with most Duggar engagements being 3 months long, that would put their wedding in February which will be really cold in Texas

Edited December 13, 2020 by raayx01

[PurpleCats]

Would not shock me at all if they had a big ole super spreader event in Texas.  I’ve seen lots of big, maskless weddings here and it drives me nuts. 

[LillyP]

2 hours ago, PurpleCats said:

Would not shock me at all if they had a big ole super spreader event in Texas.  I’ve seen lots of big, maskless weddings here and it drives me nuts. 

Maskless weddings are happening everywhere, even in states with mask mandates. I'm a wedding photographer and my last three weddings of the season (all in November) everyone started out wearing masks during the ceremony and by the dinner dinner was done they were all off up socializing and dancing. Also ironically all three of those weddings were for medical professionals. Two of my brides were nurses and one is a med-student. This has been pretty par for the course since weddings kicked back in for me in early summer. 

[raayx01]

On one of the comments on Hilarys photos she says that Claire is getting her dress locally and not from Ms.Renee.

Thank god I don't know if I can go another season dealing with the annoying MS.RENEE

[Nutella Ace]

One of Ma Spivey's posts yesterday's mentions visiting with the Wikstroms for the last time before one of the girls gets married (looks like both the Spiveys and Wikstroms have an engaged daughter). Does anyone know anything about the Wikstroms and if their daughter has a date set? Might help narrow down the time frame for Justin and Claire's wedding...

[marmalade]

Pretty sure the Wickstrom daughter is getting married next week.

[raayx01]

1 hour ago, marmalade said:

Pretty sure the Wickstrom daughter is getting married next week.

The Knot says the 19th of December

 

They literally announced the engagement November 26

so less than a month, I wonder if that will be the same for Justin and Claire

Also started courting in Septemeber

Edited December 14, 2020 by raayx01

[Idlewild]

I’m glad we’re spared Ms Renee too- maybe TLC didn’t think it was appropriate to fly Claire and her entourage plus the assorted Duggars that need to stick their faces in to go shopping.

I am enjoying how Mrs Spivey is giving out information but the ‘before one of them gets married’ was a bit of a tease? Why not just say before (whatever her name is) wedding?

[raayx01]

I was originally predicting February 13 for Clairitin wedding, but Im starting to think it might bee sooner just because they might take into account that when Biden gets inaugurated in late January He might institute a 6 to 8 week lockdown, now some states have already said there not going to follow that order and I don't know what Texas will do, But because of that they could get married early January or even Late December.

[Snarkasarus Rex]

Biden has never mentioned anything about instituting a lockdown, in fact, he’s specifically said he won’t order one.  His comments about 100 days of wearing a mask are also carefully worded as a highly recommended request, not a mandate.  

Claritin will get married soon, but it’s not going to be because they fear a lockdown.