Demonstrations. Rioting. It's too easy to just sit back in out living rooms watching and shaking our heads: "How could they do all this to themselves? It's their neighborhoods, their jobs, their grocery stores, their reputations going down the tubes. They are just proving all who wish to consider them lesser are right."
I've heard the comments, the blaming, the head shaking, even from people who don't want to go there in their thinking.
However....
We now live, for good or no, in a society where cell phone cameras are everywhere. Videos show what actually happens in police vs. black confrontations, countering the "justifications" produced after the fact. In the reactions which follow, they also show just who is in the lead, actually turning protesting into rioting: white instigators.
We also now live, for good or no, in a society where ideas spread virally, where all can chose only to interact with others of their own (often previously hidden) viewpoints, and where provocateurs can push previously isolated nebulous viewpoints into extremism and even violence. But those forums aren't private. The more the merrier, the more the braver. And the evidence is there. Statements are finally emerging from those with respected public forums, like Governor Tim Walz, directing the blame for the violence and the property damage onto white racists, coming in from outside to spread the damage to the rightness of the cause for protesting, changing it into blaming those wishing justice as being unworthy of it. Even Russian operatives are implicated.
Yep, those pesky Russians again. Putin's minions. Trump's buddies. His comments are incendiary, both in "dog whistle" form and out in the open. It's no secret that Trump has always been a racist, that he thinks a race war would be a good thing, not only diverting our attention away from his mishandling of Covid 19 so he can increase his reelection chances, but possibly actually behind his mishandling of it.
Covid 19 hits minorities harder. Economically challenged, they are less able to stay home, thus less healthy to begin with, therefore significantly more heavily impacted. Apparently that's not fast enough for Trump, who is also quite aware they are more likely to vote Democratic.
We can't fall for it. We can't just trail behind the protesters and come upon the damage inflicted and draw the stereotypical conclusions those who start the violence wish us to. We have to take as good a look at who's starting it as we do when looking at the original injustices which prompt the protesting.
Let's react to the whole truth.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Thursday, May 28, 2020
The Newest New Normal
Once again it is possible to find, at a somewhat reasonable price, TP, hand sanitizer, face masks of many kinds. I haven't tried to find bleach, bleach wipes or Lysol wipes, or TP in the stores recently, so I can't tell what is going on there. I've been staying away from stores as much as possible, particularly since things have been opening up a bit. But I'm starting to find them online these days, lower prices, and more friendly shipping times than in the last 2 months.
Yes, 2 months! I was supposed to get a delivery of hand sanitizer I ordered over 2 months ago. Even with the stated 2 months to deliver it, the package was days late. At least this one arrived. A different order never did, and PayPal handled a refund. Now that we are three in this household, I'm especially glad I was able to locate some hand sanitizer both cheaper and faster about a month ago. It also smells wonderful. So does the inside of the car, where most of the spraying gets done as we return from getting groceries, gas, take-out, seeing the doc, or whatever.
TP is in good supply in the house for the moment. Notice my level of trust (not!) in the continuation of that availability, now that things are opening up again. Luckily I had a friend stop off with a 30-pack of TP from Costco last week. The shopping was a couple weeks earlier than the delivery. I was one of many on her list, and it was very well received. So was the opportunity to sit out front at 6' distances and wearing masks, chatting for as long as she had to stay before another duty. I haven't seen her since our last peace protest, stopped for risk to all of our members and to our families.
Steve and I haven't changed our social lives... exactly. We still stay home except for necessary trips, and often we recategorize what that includes. No, not expanding. Paring down. If it can wait until delivery brings it, we choose that. If it can be combined into fewer but larger shopping trips, we choose that. All in all, we were feeling pretty snug and secure. Even the roofing company hasn't been stopping by anywhere near as they say they will, so little risk there either.
And yes, I've had words with them about that. Seems that they want a bigger job than my insurance company will back, but $5 grand plus seems worth it to me. Am I out of touch?
Anyway, we felt pretty secure until Rich called. Since then, there have been three trips downtown, 4 trips driving him to a job when bus schedules were particularly wonky due to the holiday weekend. Being with him for his first trips, we had plenty of time for me to set down house rules. These days what gets stressed is mask wearing, hand and clothing washing, distancing, no hugging. His job also requires all to wear masks on the property. While Steve and I are used to these new rules, we live together and do not distance from each other. We get the same minor exposures, and frankly refuse to stay distant within the house. Each knows when the other wears and has washed a mask. There has been a bit of adjusting at first, me stressing enforcement more than he does, but it's habit now.
The uneasiness comes in with a third person not used to the rules as habit yet, magnified by being out in the community. The trust will take time to build, and even then an awareness of risk remains. The fortress has a breach. The possible ramifications of thoughtlessness are much more important for us. Rich is aware, and good about it, but still....
I "have to" go to the club on June 1st. We finally got approval to reopen, but need to get in to designate and count spacing and make sure supplies and signs are in place. There will be only 3 or 4 people in the club that day, and the more I go out with a mask, the easier I feel about it. Of course, that will change the more I see the covidiots out there without wearing one. At least the community centers will enforce the wearing.
Perhaps in reality what I need to worry about right now is some kind of a car breakdown when I'm out in 110 degree heat. Maybe I'll just worry about Rich waiting for his next bus out in those conditions instead. Or Steve, after seeing his cardiologist, needing a procedure that will get delayed due to the rising crowding in the hospitals. At least my best friend got her heart procedures done last week and it wasn't yet an issue.
But any day now....
Yes, 2 months! I was supposed to get a delivery of hand sanitizer I ordered over 2 months ago. Even with the stated 2 months to deliver it, the package was days late. At least this one arrived. A different order never did, and PayPal handled a refund. Now that we are three in this household, I'm especially glad I was able to locate some hand sanitizer both cheaper and faster about a month ago. It also smells wonderful. So does the inside of the car, where most of the spraying gets done as we return from getting groceries, gas, take-out, seeing the doc, or whatever.
TP is in good supply in the house for the moment. Notice my level of trust (not!) in the continuation of that availability, now that things are opening up again. Luckily I had a friend stop off with a 30-pack of TP from Costco last week. The shopping was a couple weeks earlier than the delivery. I was one of many on her list, and it was very well received. So was the opportunity to sit out front at 6' distances and wearing masks, chatting for as long as she had to stay before another duty. I haven't seen her since our last peace protest, stopped for risk to all of our members and to our families.
Steve and I haven't changed our social lives... exactly. We still stay home except for necessary trips, and often we recategorize what that includes. No, not expanding. Paring down. If it can wait until delivery brings it, we choose that. If it can be combined into fewer but larger shopping trips, we choose that. All in all, we were feeling pretty snug and secure. Even the roofing company hasn't been stopping by anywhere near as they say they will, so little risk there either.
And yes, I've had words with them about that. Seems that they want a bigger job than my insurance company will back, but $5 grand plus seems worth it to me. Am I out of touch?
Anyway, we felt pretty secure until Rich called. Since then, there have been three trips downtown, 4 trips driving him to a job when bus schedules were particularly wonky due to the holiday weekend. Being with him for his first trips, we had plenty of time for me to set down house rules. These days what gets stressed is mask wearing, hand and clothing washing, distancing, no hugging. His job also requires all to wear masks on the property. While Steve and I are used to these new rules, we live together and do not distance from each other. We get the same minor exposures, and frankly refuse to stay distant within the house. Each knows when the other wears and has washed a mask. There has been a bit of adjusting at first, me stressing enforcement more than he does, but it's habit now.
The uneasiness comes in with a third person not used to the rules as habit yet, magnified by being out in the community. The trust will take time to build, and even then an awareness of risk remains. The fortress has a breach. The possible ramifications of thoughtlessness are much more important for us. Rich is aware, and good about it, but still....
I "have to" go to the club on June 1st. We finally got approval to reopen, but need to get in to designate and count spacing and make sure supplies and signs are in place. There will be only 3 or 4 people in the club that day, and the more I go out with a mask, the easier I feel about it. Of course, that will change the more I see the covidiots out there without wearing one. At least the community centers will enforce the wearing.
Perhaps in reality what I need to worry about right now is some kind of a car breakdown when I'm out in 110 degree heat. Maybe I'll just worry about Rich waiting for his next bus out in those conditions instead. Or Steve, after seeing his cardiologist, needing a procedure that will get delayed due to the rising crowding in the hospitals. At least my best friend got her heart procedures done last week and it wasn't yet an issue.
But any day now....
1 1/2 Miles Away And Downwind
That's where Steph and Ben are in Minneapolis in relation to the protesting and looting. So, safe and physically unaffected. For now anyway. If it spreads, they're a block off a main commercial street.
Looting. In a time when the 1st wave of coronavirus is still cresting all around the country, when frustrations about lack of employment and income are the rule, food is difficult to obtain in many neighborhoods, inequities are slamming them from all directions, and now topping it all off is looting. There is video on the news, and in the brief flashes I've seen, masks are less than universal in the part of the state which already has the most virus cases.
A posted list of properties damaged show some closer than 1 1/2 miles away, and more widely scattered among minority neighborhoods: https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/a-list-of-the-buildings-damaged-looted-in-minneapolis-riots
Results: Cops are going to reinforce their beliefs about the "lesser" status of minorities, economic turndowns in these neighborhoods will plummet even further as business owners will have to close to rebuild and repair, and racial tensions will rise, and more deaths as the virus spreads further among populations most vulnerable to it. Tragedy compounded.
If only all this fallout can be placed on the shoulders of the four cops who started this by either killing another black man or standing by to let it happen. As Steve points out, if guns were involved and a group of people were involved in a crime where somebody was killed, all are charged with the death. Let those cops all live in prison in fear of justice for the rest of their lives. You know, because the world works that way, right?
Right?
Sigh....
Looting. In a time when the 1st wave of coronavirus is still cresting all around the country, when frustrations about lack of employment and income are the rule, food is difficult to obtain in many neighborhoods, inequities are slamming them from all directions, and now topping it all off is looting. There is video on the news, and in the brief flashes I've seen, masks are less than universal in the part of the state which already has the most virus cases.
A posted list of properties damaged show some closer than 1 1/2 miles away, and more widely scattered among minority neighborhoods: https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/a-list-of-the-buildings-damaged-looted-in-minneapolis-riots
Results: Cops are going to reinforce their beliefs about the "lesser" status of minorities, economic turndowns in these neighborhoods will plummet even further as business owners will have to close to rebuild and repair, and racial tensions will rise, and more deaths as the virus spreads further among populations most vulnerable to it. Tragedy compounded.
If only all this fallout can be placed on the shoulders of the four cops who started this by either killing another black man or standing by to let it happen. As Steve points out, if guns were involved and a group of people were involved in a crime where somebody was killed, all are charged with the death. Let those cops all live in prison in fear of justice for the rest of their lives. You know, because the world works that way, right?
Right?
Sigh....
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
100,000? 130,000?
Saturday, May 16: 90,000+ deaths, 1,500,500+ cases. Another 3 day interval between 5,000 deaths. I decided to start keeping daily counts, since each new count erases last one posted, and my memory can't keep track either. So following are numbers and some bits of additional info/comments on the day's tallies. I need a better source for MIS-C numbers, now that they're releasing them intermittently.
Monday 5/18: 91,981 deaths, 1,550,294 cases.
Tue, 5/19: 93,533 dead, 1,570, 583 cases. News leaks that multiple Governors are squelching data release. Generally in red states, don'cha know. 'Cause can't stop opening 'er up, don'cha know.
Wed, 5/20: over 95,000+ dead - didn't get number of cases.
Thur, 5/21: 1,620,902 cases, 96,354 dead. 300 cases Multisystemic Inflamatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a complication of Covid 19. One recovered patient described it as every part of their body being on fire. AKA torture. For kids. There are both recoveries and deaths. Don't know if these deaths are added into the total deaths numbers.
Fri, 5/22: 330 MIS-C cases, 1,654,094 cases, 97,647 deaths.
Sat, 5/23: 1,666,828 cases, 98,683 dead.
Sun, 5/24: 1,686,436 cases, 99,300 dead.
Memorial Day, 5/25: 1,706,226 cases, 99,805 dead. Note that case numbers are rising much faster than deaths, reinforcing both larger number of new cases, and support for squelching of numbers of deaths because... bad PR, don'cha know. Whose dead are we mourning today? Too many heroes being picked off, whether by war or virus. No doubt somebody soon will be counting those in war zones dying from the virus as a whole 'nother category. Meanwhile celebrations (? Celebrations? Seriously?) on the home front with thousands of people squeezing tightly into all kinds of spaces. On TV of course. And since that's not enough invitation to death, Minneapolis cops killed another black man, George Floyd, by keeping pressure on a knee on his neck while he was still and not resisting, and ignoring his complaints that he couldn't breathe. I guess now suspicion of forgery has become a capitol crime. Maybe we should just call it BWB: Breathing While Black.
Today, 5/26: Reached & passed the number Trump said we'd never make. 100,441 dead. Also 1,722,059 cases. New York Times says the number of dead is more likely 130,000, based on how much higher all deaths are right now than a year ago. They do allow for some where people died for not getting into the ER when they needed to, whether from fear or lack of capacity in the emergency infrastructure to get them there in time. AZ reports 55 cases in Sun City zip code, does not sort out whether in congregate living facilities like nursing homes, nor any outcomes by zip code.
Trump still won't wear a mask, pushing everybody to get out there and mingle without one, ridicules Biden for wearing his. If that doesn't say it all....
Monday 5/18: 91,981 deaths, 1,550,294 cases.
Tue, 5/19: 93,533 dead, 1,570, 583 cases. News leaks that multiple Governors are squelching data release. Generally in red states, don'cha know. 'Cause can't stop opening 'er up, don'cha know.
Wed, 5/20: over 95,000+ dead - didn't get number of cases.
Thur, 5/21: 1,620,902 cases, 96,354 dead. 300 cases Multisystemic Inflamatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a complication of Covid 19. One recovered patient described it as every part of their body being on fire. AKA torture. For kids. There are both recoveries and deaths. Don't know if these deaths are added into the total deaths numbers.
Fri, 5/22: 330 MIS-C cases, 1,654,094 cases, 97,647 deaths.
Sat, 5/23: 1,666,828 cases, 98,683 dead.
Sun, 5/24: 1,686,436 cases, 99,300 dead.
Memorial Day, 5/25: 1,706,226 cases, 99,805 dead. Note that case numbers are rising much faster than deaths, reinforcing both larger number of new cases, and support for squelching of numbers of deaths because... bad PR, don'cha know. Whose dead are we mourning today? Too many heroes being picked off, whether by war or virus. No doubt somebody soon will be counting those in war zones dying from the virus as a whole 'nother category. Meanwhile celebrations (? Celebrations? Seriously?) on the home front with thousands of people squeezing tightly into all kinds of spaces. On TV of course. And since that's not enough invitation to death, Minneapolis cops killed another black man, George Floyd, by keeping pressure on a knee on his neck while he was still and not resisting, and ignoring his complaints that he couldn't breathe. I guess now suspicion of forgery has become a capitol crime. Maybe we should just call it BWB: Breathing While Black.
Today, 5/26: Reached & passed the number Trump said we'd never make. 100,441 dead. Also 1,722,059 cases. New York Times says the number of dead is more likely 130,000, based on how much higher all deaths are right now than a year ago. They do allow for some where people died for not getting into the ER when they needed to, whether from fear or lack of capacity in the emergency infrastructure to get them there in time. AZ reports 55 cases in Sun City zip code, does not sort out whether in congregate living facilities like nursing homes, nor any outcomes by zip code.
Trump still won't wear a mask, pushing everybody to get out there and mingle without one, ridicules Biden for wearing his. If that doesn't say it all....
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
"Signs" Of Change
Drove Rich to his new job orientation this morning. The bus from this area into Phoenix left 5 minutes early. The next would have been in an hour. Even if it hadn't already made him late, it could easily have had its limit of 10 (!) passengers, and he wouldn't have been allowed to board. That actually seems likely because "full" buses these days don't bother to even stop once they are full unless somebody's getting off. So they go past early. Doesn't make the next one arrive any sooner - except for maybe also being full. It'll be just as much fun heading back here, though at the start of rush hour leaving downtown, I have even less hope for him securing the rides he needs, especially including a transfer.
Along Grand Ave., the shortest way be car to where he was going, there were protesters. There were a whole lot of "Jesus Saves," "Honk for Jesus," and "Jesus Loves Everybody"along the way. At the tail end, we saw "Jesus Heals." I guess they're hoping believing makes it so, because - you guessed it - not a face mask among the whole big bunch of them out there.
(Who would Jesus ... purge?)
Our rec centers are opening up. Today is the first day of Phase 1. Ta Dum!!!
Nobody exactly explained to us what that means besides the pools being open, not to mention what phases 2 or 3 entail. Nor when. What our club president was notified of was the need to present the governing board with a detailed plan for how we plan to keep everybody safe, with face masks, sanitizing, and distancing. So this morning our board met.
In my patio. (Social distancing was observed with only 3 board members able to attend. We didn't even have to yell, despite a stiff wind busy playing in the wind chimes.) Turned out they wouldn't even let us inside our room to do essential things like measure distances so we could plan where to allow seating and how to limit people inside the doors. We spent over an hour trying to think of absolutely everything, with a ''number to be determined" space for after the measuring. If we can't get in until after we've gotten in....
Details cover where hand sanitizer bottles go, not allowing eating inside the club room, and what members must do when they return from eating / bathroom breaks / etc., how to mark off tables and what to do with extra chairs (which we fought for until we finally got more tables and chairs for more crowding in the club this winter. Timing, eh?) We'll be looking for keyboard covers so sprays don't mess them up, rags just for wiping tables with the bleach solution which we'll also be shopping for supplies for. We decide what all surfaces we need to wipe - or not because somebody using them will always be washing immediately afterwards to mark their progress with the stone or metal or whatever. Plus those hands will be covered with saw oil or something so they will never approach eyes, noses or lips until clean.
Right?
And yes, it does take 20 seconds to get that saw oil off. We're not used to singing for it, though, but that may change.
We'll have to make our own signs, letting members and visitors know the new rules and that they will absolutely be asked to leave if, for example, they show up without a mask on. Or if they can't come shop in the store right now because 2 people already are shopping in it.
The meeting lasted an hour. Making sense of the details, so I could write some minutes that didn't jump around in topic as much as we ourselves had, took two.
Along Grand Ave., the shortest way be car to where he was going, there were protesters. There were a whole lot of "Jesus Saves," "Honk for Jesus," and "Jesus Loves Everybody"along the way. At the tail end, we saw "Jesus Heals." I guess they're hoping believing makes it so, because - you guessed it - not a face mask among the whole big bunch of them out there.
(Who would Jesus ... purge?)
Our rec centers are opening up. Today is the first day of Phase 1. Ta Dum!!!
Nobody exactly explained to us what that means besides the pools being open, not to mention what phases 2 or 3 entail. Nor when. What our club president was notified of was the need to present the governing board with a detailed plan for how we plan to keep everybody safe, with face masks, sanitizing, and distancing. So this morning our board met.
In my patio. (Social distancing was observed with only 3 board members able to attend. We didn't even have to yell, despite a stiff wind busy playing in the wind chimes.) Turned out they wouldn't even let us inside our room to do essential things like measure distances so we could plan where to allow seating and how to limit people inside the doors. We spent over an hour trying to think of absolutely everything, with a ''number to be determined" space for after the measuring. If we can't get in until after we've gotten in....
Details cover where hand sanitizer bottles go, not allowing eating inside the club room, and what members must do when they return from eating / bathroom breaks / etc., how to mark off tables and what to do with extra chairs (which we fought for until we finally got more tables and chairs for more crowding in the club this winter. Timing, eh?) We'll be looking for keyboard covers so sprays don't mess them up, rags just for wiping tables with the bleach solution which we'll also be shopping for supplies for. We decide what all surfaces we need to wipe - or not because somebody using them will always be washing immediately afterwards to mark their progress with the stone or metal or whatever. Plus those hands will be covered with saw oil or something so they will never approach eyes, noses or lips until clean.
Right?
And yes, it does take 20 seconds to get that saw oil off. We're not used to singing for it, though, but that may change.
We'll have to make our own signs, letting members and visitors know the new rules and that they will absolutely be asked to leave if, for example, they show up without a mask on. Or if they can't come shop in the store right now because 2 people already are shopping in it.
The meeting lasted an hour. Making sense of the details, so I could write some minutes that didn't jump around in topic as much as we ourselves had, took two.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Murders Ignored In Phoenix
Richard is back living with Steve and me again.
How that relates to the title is a story. I'll start in the middle.
I was on the phone when I spotted him walking up to the front door. It puzzled me because he knows we keep that one locked. Also puzzling was the fact he didn't knock, just stood there. Ending my call, I let him in. Being late afternoon, and him looking like he was at the end of his endurance, my first act was bringing him a bottle of water, which he gulped down in about a minute. It gave me time to wonder that he arrived without laundry, his most recent reason for showing up. Something was obviously going on.
We hadn't talked long before I went to wake up Steve. Even though he'd only been sleeping less than an hour, this needed to be a three-way conversation.
Rich has been out of touch for weeks now, not completely unexpected, due both to his not wanting to take a chance on bringing the virus here since he is unable to social distance, and the fact that his phone(s) keep getting stolen from him. Just like everything else, now, while he's been staying at the homeless shelter, CASS.
(For those who care to know, CASS is at 230 South 12th Ave., sandwiched between downtown and the capitol. The "tent city" spreads out from there.)
That was one of the first things he told me. When he informed me he'd left the shelter, I assumed the thefts were the primary reason he'd finally left. That's when he informed me about how dangerous it had become, or at least the beginning of the information. It took a day to get the rest of it from him. But that is what prompted me to wake Steve. What I had in mind had to be a family decision, taking him back in.
The part we both heard then from Rich is that there is a local gang in that area, and somehow they had set their eyes on Rich when some of their things went missing. They had taken all of his belongings as the first step in what they considered retaliation, and he now had to try to avoid being seen by any of them. The threat wasn't over. He'd left the shelter, had been sleeping in an alley under a bush, and so far had kept safe.
Rich never actually asked to move back in with us, but I asked Steve to help decide. He was instantly welcomed back. Now it was my turn to get moving. It would be dark soon, and Rich had a few things he'd accumulated after leaving CASS still sitting under that bush in the alley. I got dressed for outside and drove him there to pick them up.
His "new digs" were a couple miles from the shelter, and the bush was a very full white oleander hedge handing over the alley on one side, wide enough for him to work his way in between branches and become completely hidden once inside. He marked his location by some empty cabinets that had been tossed out and cluttered the other side of the alley. In fact, the entire alley was narrowed both by this hedge and other detritus tossed along the other side, making it a challenge for my little hatchback to dodge the large holes untended in the pavement. I just put the flashers on and hoped nobody else would need to use the alley for a few minutes as I now completely blocked it even from pedestrians.
I did mention that oleanders are poisonous when Rich noted they had been drippping sap on him, prompting a check for scratches to see if attention was needed. All the scratches he bore had scabbed over, however. Anyway, I had already insisted on him taking a full shower once home, doing laundry, and leaving any other items outside for a couple days to let any possible virus particles disappear before bringing them into the house, and this would also take care of any new oleander sap before it might cause issues. Not sure if it's a contact poison, if the contact isn't with the digestive system. but why take chances?
This was all on Thursday. Friday the full story came out. Rich and I were back in the car, back in Phoenix. Between the thefts and the virus, he had been unable to start his new job. Primary was having no communication, via phone or internet access. Even libraries were closed so there was nobody else's connection available either. Finally here, he was able to let the IRS know where to find him to send his check, enabling him to open a bank account, get a phone and wardrobe, and a new start.
First thing we did, now that he was cleaned up, was head to the bank where they were holding his badge for his upcoming security job. While there, he got his appointment for next Tuesday to start orientation. The last step, coordinating the location and shift for work, is delayed because the person handling that is out sick.
Uh-oh. Let's hope it's anything but that! Maybe just a case of the Friday Flu? He'll know more next week.
There was plenty of time for conversation on this trip, filling in the blanks. What he told me absolutely chilled me. In the time he's spent at the shelter, he's made friends, found out who he can absolutely trust, and who not. It is a fairly long-term tight-knit community, depending only on themselves and the latest charitable handouts. Tent walls are thin, and secrets difficult to keep. I have no reason to doubt any part of what he told me.
I've previously mentioned that for blocks around the shelter, homeless people who don't make it in are camped out in tents or whatever kinds of shelter they can organize. These are being preyed upon. There has been a series of overdose deaths. Not surprising, you think? Thing is, a large number of them are known in their community never to have used drugs, particularly injectible ones. These deaths are all injection ODs. There is one case Rich is aware of where a victim was in trouble with this same gang Rich has been trying to avoid, and it is believed widely through the community that the gang is responsible. Their primary "business" is drugs, and this particular victim was a customer, perhaps a minor dealer who didn't pay up. Or perhaps the gang had as much reason to declare him an enemy as they had with Rich.
The cops of course are aware. They are labeling these deaths as homicides. But nothing seems to be getting done about it, other than hauling bodies away and filing the requisite reports. To be fair, they don't usually go around telling everybody what they are doing about any crimes that don't make it into the news, so they may in fact be investigating. But nothing, nothing is making it into the local news. In the time not spent on Covid 19, weather, and graduations, it seems you have to be a cop who died in the line of duty to get any air time. Somebody murdering the homeless just doesn't cut it.
How that relates to the title is a story. I'll start in the middle.
I was on the phone when I spotted him walking up to the front door. It puzzled me because he knows we keep that one locked. Also puzzling was the fact he didn't knock, just stood there. Ending my call, I let him in. Being late afternoon, and him looking like he was at the end of his endurance, my first act was bringing him a bottle of water, which he gulped down in about a minute. It gave me time to wonder that he arrived without laundry, his most recent reason for showing up. Something was obviously going on.
We hadn't talked long before I went to wake up Steve. Even though he'd only been sleeping less than an hour, this needed to be a three-way conversation.
Rich has been out of touch for weeks now, not completely unexpected, due both to his not wanting to take a chance on bringing the virus here since he is unable to social distance, and the fact that his phone(s) keep getting stolen from him. Just like everything else, now, while he's been staying at the homeless shelter, CASS.
(For those who care to know, CASS is at 230 South 12th Ave., sandwiched between downtown and the capitol. The "tent city" spreads out from there.)
That was one of the first things he told me. When he informed me he'd left the shelter, I assumed the thefts were the primary reason he'd finally left. That's when he informed me about how dangerous it had become, or at least the beginning of the information. It took a day to get the rest of it from him. But that is what prompted me to wake Steve. What I had in mind had to be a family decision, taking him back in.
The part we both heard then from Rich is that there is a local gang in that area, and somehow they had set their eyes on Rich when some of their things went missing. They had taken all of his belongings as the first step in what they considered retaliation, and he now had to try to avoid being seen by any of them. The threat wasn't over. He'd left the shelter, had been sleeping in an alley under a bush, and so far had kept safe.
Rich never actually asked to move back in with us, but I asked Steve to help decide. He was instantly welcomed back. Now it was my turn to get moving. It would be dark soon, and Rich had a few things he'd accumulated after leaving CASS still sitting under that bush in the alley. I got dressed for outside and drove him there to pick them up.
His "new digs" were a couple miles from the shelter, and the bush was a very full white oleander hedge handing over the alley on one side, wide enough for him to work his way in between branches and become completely hidden once inside. He marked his location by some empty cabinets that had been tossed out and cluttered the other side of the alley. In fact, the entire alley was narrowed both by this hedge and other detritus tossed along the other side, making it a challenge for my little hatchback to dodge the large holes untended in the pavement. I just put the flashers on and hoped nobody else would need to use the alley for a few minutes as I now completely blocked it even from pedestrians.
I did mention that oleanders are poisonous when Rich noted they had been drippping sap on him, prompting a check for scratches to see if attention was needed. All the scratches he bore had scabbed over, however. Anyway, I had already insisted on him taking a full shower once home, doing laundry, and leaving any other items outside for a couple days to let any possible virus particles disappear before bringing them into the house, and this would also take care of any new oleander sap before it might cause issues. Not sure if it's a contact poison, if the contact isn't with the digestive system. but why take chances?
This was all on Thursday. Friday the full story came out. Rich and I were back in the car, back in Phoenix. Between the thefts and the virus, he had been unable to start his new job. Primary was having no communication, via phone or internet access. Even libraries were closed so there was nobody else's connection available either. Finally here, he was able to let the IRS know where to find him to send his check, enabling him to open a bank account, get a phone and wardrobe, and a new start.
First thing we did, now that he was cleaned up, was head to the bank where they were holding his badge for his upcoming security job. While there, he got his appointment for next Tuesday to start orientation. The last step, coordinating the location and shift for work, is delayed because the person handling that is out sick.
Uh-oh. Let's hope it's anything but that! Maybe just a case of the Friday Flu? He'll know more next week.
There was plenty of time for conversation on this trip, filling in the blanks. What he told me absolutely chilled me. In the time he's spent at the shelter, he's made friends, found out who he can absolutely trust, and who not. It is a fairly long-term tight-knit community, depending only on themselves and the latest charitable handouts. Tent walls are thin, and secrets difficult to keep. I have no reason to doubt any part of what he told me.
I've previously mentioned that for blocks around the shelter, homeless people who don't make it in are camped out in tents or whatever kinds of shelter they can organize. These are being preyed upon. There has been a series of overdose deaths. Not surprising, you think? Thing is, a large number of them are known in their community never to have used drugs, particularly injectible ones. These deaths are all injection ODs. There is one case Rich is aware of where a victim was in trouble with this same gang Rich has been trying to avoid, and it is believed widely through the community that the gang is responsible. Their primary "business" is drugs, and this particular victim was a customer, perhaps a minor dealer who didn't pay up. Or perhaps the gang had as much reason to declare him an enemy as they had with Rich.
The cops of course are aware. They are labeling these deaths as homicides. But nothing seems to be getting done about it, other than hauling bodies away and filing the requisite reports. To be fair, they don't usually go around telling everybody what they are doing about any crimes that don't make it into the news, so they may in fact be investigating. But nothing, nothing is making it into the local news. In the time not spent on Covid 19, weather, and graduations, it seems you have to be a cop who died in the line of duty to get any air time. Somebody murdering the homeless just doesn't cut it.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
New Math #2
Remember that every-5-days check on how fast we're getting killed off, versus "flattening the curve?"
Well, the model* I've been following just put us over 85,000 a bit ago. It was under by less than 500 when I checked in this morning, but now it bounced over.
It's the 13th. That's a 3-day interval, not 5. Deaths, not just new cases.
Trump announced victory. States are opening back up. Our own governor, Republican of course, is opening up pools and gyms. Driving by our nearest community center this afternoon, we saw a chemical tank truck with its hose attached to the building on the end where the pool is, and presume it will be opening soon. The news shows stories every day of people taking advantage of openings by assuming it's an announcement that the danger is over, then getting drunk in a small space with 200 of their nearest and dearest fellow careless drunks. Whee. So many are belligerent about some imagined curtailment of their "rights" to do whatever they damn well please, whenever, wherever and with whomever they like.
Gotta wonder how free they'll feel on a ventilator.
Individuals out getting their exercise in the mornings walking down the street tend more and more to be wearing masks. Steve had a phone appointment this afternoon, a follow up from his last visit, rather than an in-office visit. (He will still have to go in to see a pulmonologist and cardiologist later this month.) Orders from his favorite Mexican restaurant take-out with big tips, though they just opened up with half the tables inside blocked from seating. There's a totally inconsistent combination of open/closed and home/out and masked/not masked out there right now.
Cases are returning - literally returning to those who've apparently recovered from the virus. Children are getting and dying from what appears to be a new connection to or twist in the virus attacking only them, with rashes and high fevers, among other things. There was a new report this morning of the virus causing heart attacks in babies.
I'm not sure we need any new kinds of math to sort out how many and which people will get sick. I believe it's entirely predictable it'll all wash out to who's lucky enough to stay home because of financial stability, who's wary enough to avoid all those sparkly temptations dangled in front of our eyes, weighed against the length of time it takes to produce a reliable immunization.
* For those wondering where I'm getting my info, it's:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1
Well, the model* I've been following just put us over 85,000 a bit ago. It was under by less than 500 when I checked in this morning, but now it bounced over.
It's the 13th. That's a 3-day interval, not 5. Deaths, not just new cases.
Trump announced victory. States are opening back up. Our own governor, Republican of course, is opening up pools and gyms. Driving by our nearest community center this afternoon, we saw a chemical tank truck with its hose attached to the building on the end where the pool is, and presume it will be opening soon. The news shows stories every day of people taking advantage of openings by assuming it's an announcement that the danger is over, then getting drunk in a small space with 200 of their nearest and dearest fellow careless drunks. Whee. So many are belligerent about some imagined curtailment of their "rights" to do whatever they damn well please, whenever, wherever and with whomever they like.
Gotta wonder how free they'll feel on a ventilator.
Individuals out getting their exercise in the mornings walking down the street tend more and more to be wearing masks. Steve had a phone appointment this afternoon, a follow up from his last visit, rather than an in-office visit. (He will still have to go in to see a pulmonologist and cardiologist later this month.) Orders from his favorite Mexican restaurant take-out with big tips, though they just opened up with half the tables inside blocked from seating. There's a totally inconsistent combination of open/closed and home/out and masked/not masked out there right now.
Cases are returning - literally returning to those who've apparently recovered from the virus. Children are getting and dying from what appears to be a new connection to or twist in the virus attacking only them, with rashes and high fevers, among other things. There was a new report this morning of the virus causing heart attacks in babies.
I'm not sure we need any new kinds of math to sort out how many and which people will get sick. I believe it's entirely predictable it'll all wash out to who's lucky enough to stay home because of financial stability, who's wary enough to avoid all those sparkly temptations dangled in front of our eyes, weighed against the length of time it takes to produce a reliable immunization.
* For those wondering where I'm getting my info, it's:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1
Sunday, May 10, 2020
The New Math
No, this isn't another rant on how inadequate school education is/was. Nor does it have anything about how working math problems in schools changed enough to confuse parents so they had problems teaching their children in the school-approved methods. (Although I still never will understand how long division works from right to left!)
This new math involves covid 19 statistics. Here in the UA. Post- opening up the economy.
It was supposed to happen more safely after we leveled out our curves and social distanced and wore masks and used sanitizers and.... It isn't happening that way.
Just May 5th, we passed 70,000 deaths.
Today, May 10th, we passed 80,000 deaths.
Note the numbers change by their sources and times of day they are reported, but those are consistent for suppertime checks - my time zone - from one source, tracking world cases by country. Even with that consistency, we all know the numbers are under reported. Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, all have documented stories of blocking accurate information. Sometimes the blocking is done by county, or company. So much for caveats.
That's 10,000 more American deaths from the virus in just 5 days.
Already these numbers are being blamed on opening the economy too soon. It's not a completely fair assessment. Yet. First you go out and mingle, catch the virus. Then you take up to 2 weeks to come down with enough of a case to get tested, if and where testing is available! After that, you can die in a few days or last a few weeks before dying. (Maybe even recover, but you're not being counted here, lucky you.) So if you want to blame the common May 1st reopening date for the new deaths, you really have to wait until much later in the month for them to start to qualify. These deaths are from people already going out - however necessary their reasons - before the easing of restrictions. They caught it a while ago. It just finally caught up to them.
It should take another week, at least, to start to see the rise in deaths from all the new mingling. To keep it in perspective, with 10,000 deaths in 5 days, another 10,000 deaths in the next 5 days, aka 80,000 on May 15, will be merely flattening the curve! Flattening doesn't mean no more deaths, just a steady level of increase. So the real telling of the tale of the reopening will be in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 days.
This is the real new math we have to pay attention to.
Hopefully from home. Not a funeral.
This new math involves covid 19 statistics. Here in the UA. Post- opening up the economy.
It was supposed to happen more safely after we leveled out our curves and social distanced and wore masks and used sanitizers and.... It isn't happening that way.
Just May 5th, we passed 70,000 deaths.
Today, May 10th, we passed 80,000 deaths.
Note the numbers change by their sources and times of day they are reported, but those are consistent for suppertime checks - my time zone - from one source, tracking world cases by country. Even with that consistency, we all know the numbers are under reported. Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, all have documented stories of blocking accurate information. Sometimes the blocking is done by county, or company. So much for caveats.
That's 10,000 more American deaths from the virus in just 5 days.
Already these numbers are being blamed on opening the economy too soon. It's not a completely fair assessment. Yet. First you go out and mingle, catch the virus. Then you take up to 2 weeks to come down with enough of a case to get tested, if and where testing is available! After that, you can die in a few days or last a few weeks before dying. (Maybe even recover, but you're not being counted here, lucky you.) So if you want to blame the common May 1st reopening date for the new deaths, you really have to wait until much later in the month for them to start to qualify. These deaths are from people already going out - however necessary their reasons - before the easing of restrictions. They caught it a while ago. It just finally caught up to them.
It should take another week, at least, to start to see the rise in deaths from all the new mingling. To keep it in perspective, with 10,000 deaths in 5 days, another 10,000 deaths in the next 5 days, aka 80,000 on May 15, will be merely flattening the curve! Flattening doesn't mean no more deaths, just a steady level of increase. So the real telling of the tale of the reopening will be in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 days.
This is the real new math we have to pay attention to.
Hopefully from home. Not a funeral.
Better Science - Out Of School
It appears I'm somewhat addicted to 4th through 8th grade science. Who knew? Has it always been at this level, or just declaimed as such now for the kids at home?
I've been watching this on TV for years, though never regularly. Some of it just appeals. And frankly, I was offended when I saw that age label on the screen corner. This is kids' science? Isn't that the realm of Bill Nye, the science guy? Something just to prove science can be fun? Surely this PBS show is for adults? I mean, prime time, not daytime, plunk-'em-before-the-electronic-babysitter level "science". It's way beyond Myth Busters too, and that was science with a lot of fun mixed in. Not as compelling though - or maybe it's a guy thing to have all those explosions and stuff.
But then, why can't something as in depth and interesting as this is be also directed at students kept away from their classrooms? There are plenty of boring science teachers out there. When I grew up, it was the class taught by the coach, apparently a way to justify his payroll. Incidentally it never got into the physics of sports, for example, something which might (?) have given him some real interest in being there. He could have been an excellent coach for all I knew, but I managed to get out of high school thinking I hated science. The only memorable thing about it all was the day the P.A. system announced that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.
Yeah. I'm that old.
So what's all this fuss about? Nova. I used to pick up a show here and there, but never had time enough working long hours and raising kids single-parent style while also working to recover from my first marriage without giving up on the males of the species completely. Now, kids are grown, years of support groups and therapy have made great strides, and retirement allows much more entertainment and learning time. With sheltering in place, everybody's got more time to fill. Kids gotta learn something too, something interesting, and this presents the very best of teaching with the best of technology and educators.
I just set the timer for "all" and watch them whenever I get to them. I don't have to turn in any papers, after all. They just finished showing a series on the planets. When I learned about them in school, not much was really known. Telescopes were limited and nobody had sent satellites out of orbit on fly-bys. Astronomy was a process of learning how many planets (wrong!), how many moons (wrong!) what they were made of (wrong!), how they rotated (wrong!) and so forth. Boring numbers and names. Memorization only, no imagination needed. Ever.
We also didn't have those wonderful Hubble photos of the universe, nebulas, black holes, gazillions of other galaxies.... I wanted to be interested in astronomy as a kid, growing up in a small town where you could clearly see the Milky Way or pick out "all" the Pleiades. (There were more once I got glasses.) Even college astronomy's most memorable part was having to fight for telescope time and discovering that the moon had already moved out of frame for whatever it was we were supposed to see. Class ended before my turn at Saturn.
Nobody managed to make it as fascinating as it truly is.
Nova does. I envy today's students who are assigned watching it for school. Better yet, they cover all sorts of topics, and by far the majority of them I find interesting: things I wished I'd known, things I never knew I'd missed out on. These days they are particularly good at getting me out of my head, away from covid numbers and staying home frustrations. I still have to make sure it's not the last thing I watch before going to bed. Even the most exciting drama can lull me to sleep under those conditions so I miss the good stuff. Just not a fair way to judge.
I am sure though, that had I had that quality of science training back in school, I'd have been a different person in a different career throughout my life. I am glad to have found good ways, periodically, of learning more science along my way. I'm hoping today's students can get good starts in fields which interest them, and keep it up throughout their lives as well. Whatever their topic.
It's not "fake news" that we landed on the moon when a decent telescope can show what we left behind. When knowledge of physics shows what a sufficient number of people with simple technology are able to accomplish, you don't need space aliens to explain the pyramids, Nazca Plains, or the Easter Island statues. Even drunken high school students can work out elaborate crop circles and scrape a few flecks of radium from a watch dial in the center - and do. Perhaps with more of that knowledge we can solve other critical problems, producing more good leaders and fewer blind followers.
I've been watching this on TV for years, though never regularly. Some of it just appeals. And frankly, I was offended when I saw that age label on the screen corner. This is kids' science? Isn't that the realm of Bill Nye, the science guy? Something just to prove science can be fun? Surely this PBS show is for adults? I mean, prime time, not daytime, plunk-'em-before-the-electronic-babysitter level "science". It's way beyond Myth Busters too, and that was science with a lot of fun mixed in. Not as compelling though - or maybe it's a guy thing to have all those explosions and stuff.
But then, why can't something as in depth and interesting as this is be also directed at students kept away from their classrooms? There are plenty of boring science teachers out there. When I grew up, it was the class taught by the coach, apparently a way to justify his payroll. Incidentally it never got into the physics of sports, for example, something which might (?) have given him some real interest in being there. He could have been an excellent coach for all I knew, but I managed to get out of high school thinking I hated science. The only memorable thing about it all was the day the P.A. system announced that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.
Yeah. I'm that old.
So what's all this fuss about? Nova. I used to pick up a show here and there, but never had time enough working long hours and raising kids single-parent style while also working to recover from my first marriage without giving up on the males of the species completely. Now, kids are grown, years of support groups and therapy have made great strides, and retirement allows much more entertainment and learning time. With sheltering in place, everybody's got more time to fill. Kids gotta learn something too, something interesting, and this presents the very best of teaching with the best of technology and educators.
I just set the timer for "all" and watch them whenever I get to them. I don't have to turn in any papers, after all. They just finished showing a series on the planets. When I learned about them in school, not much was really known. Telescopes were limited and nobody had sent satellites out of orbit on fly-bys. Astronomy was a process of learning how many planets (wrong!), how many moons (wrong!) what they were made of (wrong!), how they rotated (wrong!) and so forth. Boring numbers and names. Memorization only, no imagination needed. Ever.
We also didn't have those wonderful Hubble photos of the universe, nebulas, black holes, gazillions of other galaxies.... I wanted to be interested in astronomy as a kid, growing up in a small town where you could clearly see the Milky Way or pick out "all" the Pleiades. (There were more once I got glasses.) Even college astronomy's most memorable part was having to fight for telescope time and discovering that the moon had already moved out of frame for whatever it was we were supposed to see. Class ended before my turn at Saturn.
Nobody managed to make it as fascinating as it truly is.
Nova does. I envy today's students who are assigned watching it for school. Better yet, they cover all sorts of topics, and by far the majority of them I find interesting: things I wished I'd known, things I never knew I'd missed out on. These days they are particularly good at getting me out of my head, away from covid numbers and staying home frustrations. I still have to make sure it's not the last thing I watch before going to bed. Even the most exciting drama can lull me to sleep under those conditions so I miss the good stuff. Just not a fair way to judge.
I am sure though, that had I had that quality of science training back in school, I'd have been a different person in a different career throughout my life. I am glad to have found good ways, periodically, of learning more science along my way. I'm hoping today's students can get good starts in fields which interest them, and keep it up throughout their lives as well. Whatever their topic.
It's not "fake news" that we landed on the moon when a decent telescope can show what we left behind. When knowledge of physics shows what a sufficient number of people with simple technology are able to accomplish, you don't need space aliens to explain the pyramids, Nazca Plains, or the Easter Island statues. Even drunken high school students can work out elaborate crop circles and scrape a few flecks of radium from a watch dial in the center - and do. Perhaps with more of that knowledge we can solve other critical problems, producing more good leaders and fewer blind followers.
Friday, May 8, 2020
Living In The In-Between Days
Sheltering in place results in some bizarre perceptions and reactions to the world of time. It's more than just needing to find new ways to keep track of times and dates. Time compresses and expands so it's difficult to even know how many days or hours have passed to be kept track of. I find myself having to go over these pages to figure out whether something happened a week or two months ago. But once I do, surely that isn't right....?
Even things with more finite time limits still tend to leave me hanging. Take the roof. We knew which day the yard crew was going to trim overlapping pine tree branches, but were they due imminently or not even this day. (It was Thursday.) Then there's the insurance adjuster's visit, with results coming back in "a few days", which we have to wait through before a few more days have to elapse until we can hear the final estimate and things can be ordered. Then it's about another week before the new roof is on.
Will that still be May? I think it's supposed to.
It happens with little things too. Wow - have I been going through that bottle of pill this fast? Check the refill date on the label... and another bottle... OK, two more trips to the pharmacy have to be planned in the next two weeks, and they can't overlap because that insurance has rigid rules. (So who abuses statins and thyroid pills so they can't be refilled further from their refill dates anyway? ) I've taken to looking in the bottom of the bottles each day to try to plan it better. Nope. Still two trips.
Other medical stuff clutters the calendar. I have a series of two appointments coming up, first a test and the following week discussing the results. Unlike other appointments, these aren't cancelable. Hopefully no actions need to follow, but it's still a reason to keep track. It may actually get easier if/when more appointments are added. Steve will need appointments to help figure out some things that are going on with him now. My been-there-think-I-know-something diagnosis is that there will be another pacemaker in the family soon. We're keeping track of BP, pulse rate, and O2 blood levels at home these days, and his pulse has been as low as 41 bpm twice in the last few days, 45 one other time. When that happened to me, it got a lot of attention! Along with a battery and some other stuff. Nice scar too.
And if he's like me in the same way, the pulmonologist won't be needed once the heart pacing is corrected. So of course, that's the appointment that's scheduled before the cardiologist's one. Do they do that on purpose?
By now you may be wondering about another possible culprit, but yesterday we received word that his covid 19 test showed negative!
Other kinds of reminders pop up to show time is skewed. Foods disappear from the refrigerator when we think it was too soon ago that we shopped for it. We couldn't possibly have eaten it all already, could we? Asking myself why there is so much laundry makes exactly as much sense as simultaneously wondering why there isn't more. Dirt on walls where hands touch surprises me by how much time must have fled since those places were last washed - and aren't we washing our hands more now anyway?
I used to always wake up knowing which day of the week it was and what that meant for what I needed to do for work. Even recently, I was tuned in to the club schedule and my responsibilities. Now it takes reflection, not just which day, but which month? Season? At least the clock on my headboard offers the time so I can decide whether to come back to bed after my bathroom trip. I don't need to figure out how much light is coming in from outside and put that in its proper date slot to make that decision. Just being tired or not doesn't count any more.
Even waking itself has changed. My body was attuned to the alarm, and I would reliably pop into full alertness about 5 minutes before it went off. Now I awaken being aware of having some knowledge of the last several minutes and my increasing level of "here-ness". This was what I was dreaming. Those were the noises I heard over the last several minutes. And this is finally me. I wonder which is weird, the pop into alertness before the alarm, or the slow dawning?
Until this week I was sure that garbage pickup days were a way of keeping track. Then yesterday I took a bag of garbage out. Being Thursday, the can was supposed to have been emptied around 6 AM. This was afternoon, and the previous three bags were still in it. Lucky they are all small. I'm confident we can survive on the remaining space until Monday's pickup. Then I call the company.
Now I see a new problem. I know I was told twice yesterday that it was Friday. I recall both conversations and why it was necessary to establish the day. But I found myself fighting to find ways to prove to myself that it was really Thursday. None of them worked out, of course, because it really was Friday. But if you read the previous paragraph, you'll see I'm still doing it. I know if I just turn on the TV all the programming will be screwed up because it's Saturday. Though, yes, our garbage did miss getting picked up. I double checked with Steve that he hadn't taken three more bags out after an actual Thursday pickup.
This all leaves me with two choices. I can find a new way to keep track of time for the duration. Or I can decide it rarely matters. Hmmmm...... Let me decide tomorrow. Whenever I think that is.
Oh, but one way time is crystal clear. You can't have missed how Trump refuses to wear a mask when around other people. While some speculate it's because it would show the orange makeup, his stated reason is that wearing one would make him look ridiculous. Baby, that ship has lonnnnnng since sailed. I mean, way back even before all that birtherism nonsense back when Obama took office, way back to the first time anybody noticed him, ever. Trump is just simply ridiculous and can't run away from it, not even when he's demonstrating how evil he also is. Always will be. Somebody will be sure to put laughing, falling down clowns on his gravestone. Bet they'll be wearing masks though. Wouldn't want the Trump to wear off on them.
Even things with more finite time limits still tend to leave me hanging. Take the roof. We knew which day the yard crew was going to trim overlapping pine tree branches, but were they due imminently or not even this day. (It was Thursday.) Then there's the insurance adjuster's visit, with results coming back in "a few days", which we have to wait through before a few more days have to elapse until we can hear the final estimate and things can be ordered. Then it's about another week before the new roof is on.
Will that still be May? I think it's supposed to.
It happens with little things too. Wow - have I been going through that bottle of pill this fast? Check the refill date on the label... and another bottle... OK, two more trips to the pharmacy have to be planned in the next two weeks, and they can't overlap because that insurance has rigid rules. (So who abuses statins and thyroid pills so they can't be refilled further from their refill dates anyway? ) I've taken to looking in the bottom of the bottles each day to try to plan it better. Nope. Still two trips.
Other medical stuff clutters the calendar. I have a series of two appointments coming up, first a test and the following week discussing the results. Unlike other appointments, these aren't cancelable. Hopefully no actions need to follow, but it's still a reason to keep track. It may actually get easier if/when more appointments are added. Steve will need appointments to help figure out some things that are going on with him now. My been-there-think-I-know-something diagnosis is that there will be another pacemaker in the family soon. We're keeping track of BP, pulse rate, and O2 blood levels at home these days, and his pulse has been as low as 41 bpm twice in the last few days, 45 one other time. When that happened to me, it got a lot of attention! Along with a battery and some other stuff. Nice scar too.
And if he's like me in the same way, the pulmonologist won't be needed once the heart pacing is corrected. So of course, that's the appointment that's scheduled before the cardiologist's one. Do they do that on purpose?
By now you may be wondering about another possible culprit, but yesterday we received word that his covid 19 test showed negative!
Other kinds of reminders pop up to show time is skewed. Foods disappear from the refrigerator when we think it was too soon ago that we shopped for it. We couldn't possibly have eaten it all already, could we? Asking myself why there is so much laundry makes exactly as much sense as simultaneously wondering why there isn't more. Dirt on walls where hands touch surprises me by how much time must have fled since those places were last washed - and aren't we washing our hands more now anyway?
I used to always wake up knowing which day of the week it was and what that meant for what I needed to do for work. Even recently, I was tuned in to the club schedule and my responsibilities. Now it takes reflection, not just which day, but which month? Season? At least the clock on my headboard offers the time so I can decide whether to come back to bed after my bathroom trip. I don't need to figure out how much light is coming in from outside and put that in its proper date slot to make that decision. Just being tired or not doesn't count any more.
Even waking itself has changed. My body was attuned to the alarm, and I would reliably pop into full alertness about 5 minutes before it went off. Now I awaken being aware of having some knowledge of the last several minutes and my increasing level of "here-ness". This was what I was dreaming. Those were the noises I heard over the last several minutes. And this is finally me. I wonder which is weird, the pop into alertness before the alarm, or the slow dawning?
Until this week I was sure that garbage pickup days were a way of keeping track. Then yesterday I took a bag of garbage out. Being Thursday, the can was supposed to have been emptied around 6 AM. This was afternoon, and the previous three bags were still in it. Lucky they are all small. I'm confident we can survive on the remaining space until Monday's pickup. Then I call the company.
Now I see a new problem. I know I was told twice yesterday that it was Friday. I recall both conversations and why it was necessary to establish the day. But I found myself fighting to find ways to prove to myself that it was really Thursday. None of them worked out, of course, because it really was Friday. But if you read the previous paragraph, you'll see I'm still doing it. I know if I just turn on the TV all the programming will be screwed up because it's Saturday. Though, yes, our garbage did miss getting picked up. I double checked with Steve that he hadn't taken three more bags out after an actual Thursday pickup.
This all leaves me with two choices. I can find a new way to keep track of time for the duration. Or I can decide it rarely matters. Hmmmm...... Let me decide tomorrow. Whenever I think that is.
Oh, but one way time is crystal clear. You can't have missed how Trump refuses to wear a mask when around other people. While some speculate it's because it would show the orange makeup, his stated reason is that wearing one would make him look ridiculous. Baby, that ship has lonnnnnng since sailed. I mean, way back even before all that birtherism nonsense back when Obama took office, way back to the first time anybody noticed him, ever. Trump is just simply ridiculous and can't run away from it, not even when he's demonstrating how evil he also is. Always will be. Somebody will be sure to put laughing, falling down clowns on his gravestone. Bet they'll be wearing masks though. Wouldn't want the Trump to wear off on them.
Thursday, May 7, 2020
"Just Trying To Make A Living"
A woman in Texas got arrested and jailed for a week for opening her beauty shop a week before they were officially allowed to open. In the way news folks do these days, searching out any old stupid thing that might draw eyes for their ratings, one guy was shown protesting her arrest. It shouldn't have happened and they should let her go, was his reasoning, because "she was just trying to make a living."
I plan to follow this story. If that excuse ever works, I'm sure it will make a big hit all around the world. It's what the bank robbers will use, thieves, burglars, scam artists, and the entire Trump family and cabinet will use.
What? Too early?
It's OK, Barr will eventually be replaced - IF YOU ALL VOTE! - and justice can return to normal.
Trump is pushing hard on the economy, dismissing all the attendant deaths which will arise when - not if- we reopen too soon. Well, I've got a campaign slogan for that. Remember when Clinton (Bill) used, "It's the economy, stupid"? Biden should start using, "It's the corpses, stupid."
Trump often comes close to speaking truth. Problem is he usually inserts slightly wrong words. Speaking of Jarrod's bungled corona virus fighting task force, he praised it by calling it "a well oiled machine." What he really meant to say, the absolute truth about its success, should have used the slightly different phrase, "well greased palms."
So close.
So-o-o-o-o close.
75, 558. Plus. It's still morning.
I plan to follow this story. If that excuse ever works, I'm sure it will make a big hit all around the world. It's what the bank robbers will use, thieves, burglars, scam artists, and the entire Trump family and cabinet will use.
What? Too early?
It's OK, Barr will eventually be replaced - IF YOU ALL VOTE! - and justice can return to normal.
Trump is pushing hard on the economy, dismissing all the attendant deaths which will arise when - not if- we reopen too soon. Well, I've got a campaign slogan for that. Remember when Clinton (Bill) used, "It's the economy, stupid"? Biden should start using, "It's the corpses, stupid."
Trump often comes close to speaking truth. Problem is he usually inserts slightly wrong words. Speaking of Jarrod's bungled corona virus fighting task force, he praised it by calling it "a well oiled machine." What he really meant to say, the absolute truth about its success, should have used the slightly different phrase, "well greased palms."
So close.
So-o-o-o-o close.
75, 558. Plus. It's still morning.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Not Believing Those Projections
"They" updated the projections on the virus for death counts. Instead of 70,000 by August, it's nearly doubled to 134,000 by then. Hell, we've passed 70,000 now and it's only May 5. Happy Cinco De Mayo, and hope you're celebrating quietly, privately.
There is a lot wrong with the numbers. First, we're just not counting them accurately. The earliest cases weren't caught as caused by covid 19. We were a combination of ignorant and in denial.
We still do not have the testing needed to have a clue who has/had the virus. Can you tell when you're asymptomatic that you actually have and can be spreading the virus? Of course not. We weren't made psychic, no matter how much modern fiction entertains us with that idea. Can you tell the difference between allergies, a sore throat, indigestion, an unexplained blood clot, a cold, influenza, and any of the various levels of coronavirus? Particularly when a high fever has only recently been shown not to be the gold standard for suspicion?
Of course not.
Are you totally content to stay at home for months without venturing further than the boundaries of your own yard or spaces where you don't interact with other human beings? C'mon, be honest. If you are, you are a very rare human, one most of your fellows would consider peculiar. I wouldn't say that, being somebody who can cheerfully entertain myself for long periods of time, and who chose for 29 years to have a job where I met few people and most of my contact was via radio. But I may be odd myself. (I tend to make up for all that quiet when I'm comfortable with a small group.)
There's a whole lotta folks out there who just have to be out and about, meeting and greeting. Of those, a number are willing to be violent about their "rights" to do it, totally disregarding any rights of others to not have contact with them and whatever diseases and bad behavior they happen to be sharing.
Another problem with the models of virus growth is they are based on the idea that we can stay home and act sensibly when we have to be out. Even if we wished to stay isolated, there are families to feed, rent and other bills to pay. Too few of us have it as an "option."
Let's top that off with the word emerging from scientists studying the virus that, not only can it mutate, it has already mutated, and 19b, if you will, spreads even more easily. while also causing more damage. Who knows what 19c will do? But even without going there, it's going to be worse than the models.
Look at the current rates of growth. In early March we had a handful of identified cases resulting in death. In two months, it's nearly 70,000. It's called exponential growth, and anybody who believes that in three more months that rate of growth will have slowed down just doesn't understand exponential contagion. Cries that the curve has flattened come from people who have not been paying attention. It may be happening in New York. "May," not the same as "is." Good as they are at trying to follow the cases, even they don't have enough testing to have accurate numbers, and deaths are still falling through the cracks in terms of attribution to this virus. And flattened does not mean stopped.
Cases are sprouting all over the country. Accurate testing hasn't. Now, the one thing which held cases in check to a limited extent, sheltering in place orders, are being lifted. Way too many of us are interpreting that is a free-for-all contact sport. And their fearless leader has resumed traveling around the country on his campaign stops disguised as inspecting a factory making covid N95 masks, notedly without wearing one himself, greeting (our) Governor and plant officials who also are refraining from wearing masks. Must be invincible? Or just setting an example for all the loyal followers?
With that in place, the only way death numbers will ONLY double in 4 months is if half of us in this entire country have already been exposed to the virus, and of those, all who are going to die from it have already.
Anybody think that's happened? If so, I'm taking $5 bets against your belief that the toll will only reach 134,000 in August. If you're still thinking of taking that bet, understand we know now that having the first version of covid 19 does not protect you from getting its worse mutation!
With all that in mind, Steve and I have decided not to leave Arizona for the summer this year. Not only are case clusters sprouting all along the routes we chose from, but we know what we're dealing with here, finding resources and being among other more vulnerable seniors who are demonstrating sense about how they navigate the community.
We'll miss all the hugging and mingling that usually occur during summers north, but this isn't the best year for that anyway.
Today's total US cases, depending on source: 1,203,336 or 1,237.633.
Total deaths: 71,017 or 72,271.
There is a lot wrong with the numbers. First, we're just not counting them accurately. The earliest cases weren't caught as caused by covid 19. We were a combination of ignorant and in denial.
We still do not have the testing needed to have a clue who has/had the virus. Can you tell when you're asymptomatic that you actually have and can be spreading the virus? Of course not. We weren't made psychic, no matter how much modern fiction entertains us with that idea. Can you tell the difference between allergies, a sore throat, indigestion, an unexplained blood clot, a cold, influenza, and any of the various levels of coronavirus? Particularly when a high fever has only recently been shown not to be the gold standard for suspicion?
Of course not.
Are you totally content to stay at home for months without venturing further than the boundaries of your own yard or spaces where you don't interact with other human beings? C'mon, be honest. If you are, you are a very rare human, one most of your fellows would consider peculiar. I wouldn't say that, being somebody who can cheerfully entertain myself for long periods of time, and who chose for 29 years to have a job where I met few people and most of my contact was via radio. But I may be odd myself. (I tend to make up for all that quiet when I'm comfortable with a small group.)
There's a whole lotta folks out there who just have to be out and about, meeting and greeting. Of those, a number are willing to be violent about their "rights" to do it, totally disregarding any rights of others to not have contact with them and whatever diseases and bad behavior they happen to be sharing.
Another problem with the models of virus growth is they are based on the idea that we can stay home and act sensibly when we have to be out. Even if we wished to stay isolated, there are families to feed, rent and other bills to pay. Too few of us have it as an "option."
Let's top that off with the word emerging from scientists studying the virus that, not only can it mutate, it has already mutated, and 19b, if you will, spreads even more easily. while also causing more damage. Who knows what 19c will do? But even without going there, it's going to be worse than the models.
Look at the current rates of growth. In early March we had a handful of identified cases resulting in death. In two months, it's nearly 70,000. It's called exponential growth, and anybody who believes that in three more months that rate of growth will have slowed down just doesn't understand exponential contagion. Cries that the curve has flattened come from people who have not been paying attention. It may be happening in New York. "May," not the same as "is." Good as they are at trying to follow the cases, even they don't have enough testing to have accurate numbers, and deaths are still falling through the cracks in terms of attribution to this virus. And flattened does not mean stopped.
Cases are sprouting all over the country. Accurate testing hasn't. Now, the one thing which held cases in check to a limited extent, sheltering in place orders, are being lifted. Way too many of us are interpreting that is a free-for-all contact sport. And their fearless leader has resumed traveling around the country on his campaign stops disguised as inspecting a factory making covid N95 masks, notedly without wearing one himself, greeting (our) Governor and plant officials who also are refraining from wearing masks. Must be invincible? Or just setting an example for all the loyal followers?
With that in place, the only way death numbers will ONLY double in 4 months is if half of us in this entire country have already been exposed to the virus, and of those, all who are going to die from it have already.
Anybody think that's happened? If so, I'm taking $5 bets against your belief that the toll will only reach 134,000 in August. If you're still thinking of taking that bet, understand we know now that having the first version of covid 19 does not protect you from getting its worse mutation!
With all that in mind, Steve and I have decided not to leave Arizona for the summer this year. Not only are case clusters sprouting all along the routes we chose from, but we know what we're dealing with here, finding resources and being among other more vulnerable seniors who are demonstrating sense about how they navigate the community.
We'll miss all the hugging and mingling that usually occur during summers north, but this isn't the best year for that anyway.
Today's total US cases, depending on source: 1,203,336 or 1,237.633.
Total deaths: 71,017 or 72,271.
Monday, May 4, 2020
In English, Please. Please?
Just received the fingertip pulse oximeter I ordered. The thing Steve needed over a week ago. The one I ordered on eBay. The one that was shipped out of California, usually an indication that it might be compatible with the needs and expectations of American customers.
Sigh......
It was in perfect condition, though for half an hour we had no way to confirm that other than lack of dents. All the paperwork which came with it was totally in Chinese characters. While I suspect I learned years ago that China uses multiple alphabets, I have no way of guessing which it might be, even if the fonts were large enough that I could decipher which line bent which way and connected or didn't with which other one.
My starting point was having worn them in hospitals, and knowing that they had a spring on one end and opened to surround a finger on the other, after which it gave LED readouts of blood O2 levels and pulse. 100 would be a great reading, the lower it got the more the staff panicked. Yeah, I got that part, no problem.
(Hey, gimme a break! I was sick in the hospital! I didn't have to work it, just wear it.)
On my finger, nothing happened with this one. I examined it. There were a couple or three places where there might be a button which might produce results which eventually I might figure out how to use, which might be reinforced if it would ever produce some kind of numbers to show I was right and it worked. (Ha! I bet you think you are confused after reading that sentence!) All that of course depended on whether numbers were the same in Chinese script as in English. Of that possibility I admit I am totally ignorant. In fact the gizmo was completely and speedily successful in convincing me I was, simply, ignorant.
And incapable.
I pushed poked, pulled, tried things in combinations thereof. Nothing. OK, flop sweat. Not quite nothing.
All the accompanying materials were collected: box, plastic fitted insert, single sheet and booklet of illegible Chinese characters which may as well have said, "Tattoo me on your body and nobody will know it says you are an idiot or a menu selection or both." I searched every scrap and the only English I found was on the envelope.
I opened my computer, looked up the order, and contacted the seller to express my frustration with the instructions. There were a plethora of full caps and strings of punctuation marks. Going back over the item description after venitng, I was able to find that it used 2 AAA batteries.
Have those. Progress, eh? Well....
Still didn't help me to figure what to open and how in order to install them.
Brainstorm! YouTube! I googled how to install batteries in these doohickeys, and while the item which had a video posted of the process was not the exact same thing, and different shapes of things were in different places, there was just enough similarity that I figured out where to look for the actual moving parts, as opposed to decorations, or factory joins never meant to part ways. At least I think so. Without instructions, who knows? Maybe I open those and store my secret drug stash in there. If I had one. Which I don't. Just so you know. I have other excuses for being this inept. No, I'm not telling you.
Once batteries were in place, then reversed to be really in place, I put it over my finger. I wasn't sure if the nail was supposed to go one particular way or not, so tried it both ways. If that still didn't work, I was prepared to ask for a refund. But it did. I'm not sure it is correct, as my O2 was low and my pulse high, and when I calm down I'm going to feel just fine. When lit, English finally appears in red to tell you which number is which. Otherwise I'd still be confused. But we'll each keep monitoring our own numbers to get a read on how it performs. Or how we do.
If nothing else, I go to my cardiologist next week. I'll bring it along and ask for a comparison with their equipment.
I wonder if they'll charge?
Sigh......
It was in perfect condition, though for half an hour we had no way to confirm that other than lack of dents. All the paperwork which came with it was totally in Chinese characters. While I suspect I learned years ago that China uses multiple alphabets, I have no way of guessing which it might be, even if the fonts were large enough that I could decipher which line bent which way and connected or didn't with which other one.
My starting point was having worn them in hospitals, and knowing that they had a spring on one end and opened to surround a finger on the other, after which it gave LED readouts of blood O2 levels and pulse. 100 would be a great reading, the lower it got the more the staff panicked. Yeah, I got that part, no problem.
(Hey, gimme a break! I was sick in the hospital! I didn't have to work it, just wear it.)
On my finger, nothing happened with this one. I examined it. There were a couple or three places where there might be a button which might produce results which eventually I might figure out how to use, which might be reinforced if it would ever produce some kind of numbers to show I was right and it worked. (Ha! I bet you think you are confused after reading that sentence!) All that of course depended on whether numbers were the same in Chinese script as in English. Of that possibility I admit I am totally ignorant. In fact the gizmo was completely and speedily successful in convincing me I was, simply, ignorant.
And incapable.
I pushed poked, pulled, tried things in combinations thereof. Nothing. OK, flop sweat. Not quite nothing.
All the accompanying materials were collected: box, plastic fitted insert, single sheet and booklet of illegible Chinese characters which may as well have said, "Tattoo me on your body and nobody will know it says you are an idiot or a menu selection or both." I searched every scrap and the only English I found was on the envelope.
I opened my computer, looked up the order, and contacted the seller to express my frustration with the instructions. There were a plethora of full caps and strings of punctuation marks. Going back over the item description after venitng, I was able to find that it used 2 AAA batteries.
Have those. Progress, eh? Well....
Still didn't help me to figure what to open and how in order to install them.
Brainstorm! YouTube! I googled how to install batteries in these doohickeys, and while the item which had a video posted of the process was not the exact same thing, and different shapes of things were in different places, there was just enough similarity that I figured out where to look for the actual moving parts, as opposed to decorations, or factory joins never meant to part ways. At least I think so. Without instructions, who knows? Maybe I open those and store my secret drug stash in there. If I had one. Which I don't. Just so you know. I have other excuses for being this inept. No, I'm not telling you.
Once batteries were in place, then reversed to be really in place, I put it over my finger. I wasn't sure if the nail was supposed to go one particular way or not, so tried it both ways. If that still didn't work, I was prepared to ask for a refund. But it did. I'm not sure it is correct, as my O2 was low and my pulse high, and when I calm down I'm going to feel just fine. When lit, English finally appears in red to tell you which number is which. Otherwise I'd still be confused. But we'll each keep monitoring our own numbers to get a read on how it performs. Or how we do.
If nothing else, I go to my cardiologist next week. I'll bring it along and ask for a comparison with their equipment.
I wonder if they'll charge?
Trying To Keep Up
I keep checking several websites and follow news on several stations, trying to keep track of what the virus is doing. It's becoming quite the challenge.
Everybody has a different way of tracking cases. I tend to bookmark the ones I find most useful online. The first and best I found quit updating over a week ago. It was operated by a college student (grad?) and he simply stopped, hopefully only because he wasn't getting any financial support for his massive project.
There are still two I follow which cover our national cases, one as a breakout of one country in a long list of countries, the other as total for the country, then broken down by states. Their numbers do not match. One consistently under reports. News coverage has mentioned that some states refuse to reveal full death statistics, muzzling coroners to keep them from giving out numbers, or when the virus causes death by heart, kidney, or other causes in the variety of ways it kills, they get chalked up to that particular cause rather than the virus. Can't discourage the tourists (ahem: Florida), don'cha know. Truth will finally emerge, but by then it'll be way too late for unnecessary victims.
Another differential in case numbers comes from which country the reporting source is in. "The Guardian" is a pretty solid source. It's in the UK. No axe to grind in keeping our economy running well enough to give the appearance of its politicians doing a good job. You may guess their numbers are higher than US sourced ones.
Local numbers are also reported in various ways. Arizona's official Department of Health site is upgraded daily, and offers clarification by cases per county. You know, in case I needed to know Maricopa County had the highest level of cases accompanying the highest population of our counties. Duh!
Another map offers cases by zip code. I have been plugging in two since the day I discovered it, Sun City (ours), and Sun City West. At the start, we had 23 cases, they had 6-10. At that low level, theirs wasn't broken down further. I noted how their level compared to ours, and both in reference to the fact they closed their community centers before we did.
After a couple weeks, numbers started moving. Of course that's bad news, but I was reassured that the site was actually operating in real time. Today we've risen to 39 cases. Sun City West jumped up to 55. I have to wonder if their slow start gave false reassurance and people started gathering sooner, though not in the community centers of course. No way to know how the number of cases by zip relate to deaths. That isn't broken down on this site.
I regularly check a country wide map showing cases by county. Since I have that information already for Arizona, I check in on Minnesota, see how it is where each part of the family is. Hennepin (Minneapolis) is worst of course. My daughter assures me they are seriously quarantining. Work happens from home. Chisago, where Paul lives and where we hope to return to for a bit this summer, was sitting at 7 cases for weeks and just now started to climb again. Everybody else is quite rural, and their numbers are pretty low. Beltrami, where my brother's family is, has been stable at 6. Period.
It's gotten so the big numbers, state and country, were somewhat easy to keep in my mind until the next day's update. But there have been too many changes. The only way I can keep track any more is by noting the numbers here, then going back and checking by date I posted. If you're both following this and alert, you notice I've stopped doing that. I think I'm in overload. It's going to take respectively larger numbers to register. Not one thousand but 10, not ten thousand but hundreds. I have no doubt that it'll be multiple millions way too soon.
Here's why. Steve and I went to WalMart this morning. He had to pick up his new glasses and have them fitted. We both took advantage of the outing to do our shopping so we didn't need to make another trip soon. One thing which stood out was the low percentage of shoppers wearing masks. Even compared to last week when he had his eye exam and ordered the glasses. Especially compared to our most local grocery store, where almost everybody wears a mask.
The trio who stood out for not wearing masks today was a daddy with two young daughters. I caught part of their conversation as we passed each other. The elder daughter, perhaps 8, asked her daddy to confirm that the virus was just going to fade away so they didn't need to worry about it. Daddy confirmed it to her.
I suspect the combination of my mask and distance which kept them from hearing. "That's not true," which I couldn't stop from saying in response to their backs. I hope they don't find out the hard way. But either Daddy is getting his information from the wrong places or he doesn't want to scare his kids at the same time he doesn't provide them masks. Then, again, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Everybody has a different way of tracking cases. I tend to bookmark the ones I find most useful online. The first and best I found quit updating over a week ago. It was operated by a college student (grad?) and he simply stopped, hopefully only because he wasn't getting any financial support for his massive project.
There are still two I follow which cover our national cases, one as a breakout of one country in a long list of countries, the other as total for the country, then broken down by states. Their numbers do not match. One consistently under reports. News coverage has mentioned that some states refuse to reveal full death statistics, muzzling coroners to keep them from giving out numbers, or when the virus causes death by heart, kidney, or other causes in the variety of ways it kills, they get chalked up to that particular cause rather than the virus. Can't discourage the tourists (ahem: Florida), don'cha know. Truth will finally emerge, but by then it'll be way too late for unnecessary victims.
Another differential in case numbers comes from which country the reporting source is in. "The Guardian" is a pretty solid source. It's in the UK. No axe to grind in keeping our economy running well enough to give the appearance of its politicians doing a good job. You may guess their numbers are higher than US sourced ones.
Local numbers are also reported in various ways. Arizona's official Department of Health site is upgraded daily, and offers clarification by cases per county. You know, in case I needed to know Maricopa County had the highest level of cases accompanying the highest population of our counties. Duh!
Another map offers cases by zip code. I have been plugging in two since the day I discovered it, Sun City (ours), and Sun City West. At the start, we had 23 cases, they had 6-10. At that low level, theirs wasn't broken down further. I noted how their level compared to ours, and both in reference to the fact they closed their community centers before we did.
After a couple weeks, numbers started moving. Of course that's bad news, but I was reassured that the site was actually operating in real time. Today we've risen to 39 cases. Sun City West jumped up to 55. I have to wonder if their slow start gave false reassurance and people started gathering sooner, though not in the community centers of course. No way to know how the number of cases by zip relate to deaths. That isn't broken down on this site.
I regularly check a country wide map showing cases by county. Since I have that information already for Arizona, I check in on Minnesota, see how it is where each part of the family is. Hennepin (Minneapolis) is worst of course. My daughter assures me they are seriously quarantining. Work happens from home. Chisago, where Paul lives and where we hope to return to for a bit this summer, was sitting at 7 cases for weeks and just now started to climb again. Everybody else is quite rural, and their numbers are pretty low. Beltrami, where my brother's family is, has been stable at 6. Period.
It's gotten so the big numbers, state and country, were somewhat easy to keep in my mind until the next day's update. But there have been too many changes. The only way I can keep track any more is by noting the numbers here, then going back and checking by date I posted. If you're both following this and alert, you notice I've stopped doing that. I think I'm in overload. It's going to take respectively larger numbers to register. Not one thousand but 10, not ten thousand but hundreds. I have no doubt that it'll be multiple millions way too soon.
Here's why. Steve and I went to WalMart this morning. He had to pick up his new glasses and have them fitted. We both took advantage of the outing to do our shopping so we didn't need to make another trip soon. One thing which stood out was the low percentage of shoppers wearing masks. Even compared to last week when he had his eye exam and ordered the glasses. Especially compared to our most local grocery store, where almost everybody wears a mask.
The trio who stood out for not wearing masks today was a daddy with two young daughters. I caught part of their conversation as we passed each other. The elder daughter, perhaps 8, asked her daddy to confirm that the virus was just going to fade away so they didn't need to worry about it. Daddy confirmed it to her.
I suspect the combination of my mask and distance which kept them from hearing. "That's not true," which I couldn't stop from saying in response to their backs. I hope they don't find out the hard way. But either Daddy is getting his information from the wrong places or he doesn't want to scare his kids at the same time he doesn't provide them masks. Then, again, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Friday, May 1, 2020
More Changes
I'm going to start with a grim change. I am now a person who knows somebody who lost her sister to the virus. It happened back in February, when nobody recognized the symptoms yet for what they are. Travel was involved, but only to the east coast. It was enough. Both sisters are/were in their 40s, and so far as I know, otherwise healthy. It happened in Minnesota, and it was my daughter who informed me of it today. The sister who survived is one of her friends, and I met her through Steph years ago. Though testing was never involved, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that it was classic covid 19.
We are of course used to most of the flyers that come through the mail. We want to buy your house. We want to buy your car for an insulting amount. You are obviously deaf so you want to buy our hearing aids. Install our walk-in tubs for more than a month's SS check.
Any day now I figured we'd be getting some for life alert pendants, home health assistance, memory care facilities, and whatever fills their expectations of potential customers circling the drain. Perhaps I've been too optimistic about their expectations, however.
Today I got a new one, perfect, I suppose, for covid 19 times. It was an attempt to sell me funeral services. In Spanish. Not English-plus. Just Spanish. It guess they went by the last name, which, incidentally, is a several-hundreds-years-old corruption of Rousseau. French. Enough of the message showed around the envelope address window that I didn't even have to open it to get the drift. Too many words are similar in both languages: I could understand it, despite all those decades beyond my high school and college Spanish. I never bothered to open it, just tossed it in recycling.
Somehow, despite all those assumptions floating around out there and landing in my mailbox or taking space in my voicemail, there's an inner part of me that is still 16. But smarter. More experienced. Bolder. Sillier. More skilled. More aware. More independent. More confident. More content. Much more loving. And much more loved! Best of all, fully cognizant of all of it. And grateful I'm not really 16 any more, even if it's all tucked inside this 71-year-old body.
I did change my mind about something else today, however, something that salesmen (always men for whatever reason) are regularly knocking on my door about. The roof. From the time we moved in, they came. The first few years I assured them our appraiser for the house sale had assured us that the roof was in great condition. The next few years I assured them that the solar company assured me that our roof was in great condition. They checked because they didn't want to go to the expense of installing something that they'd have to redo soon. The 20-year contract gives them all the maintenance costs of the system, so my inclination is to give their opinion weight.
Last year a big storm went through and the wanna-be roofers flooded the area. One tried to tell me he saw from across the street that my roof was in dire need of replacement. It happened that I'd just looked at it a couple days before and everything looked perfect. Not a lift, curl, or blemish. What he thought he saw from across the street was a gullible customer. I disabused him of that idea. He informed me I would regret it when my house leaked. Mmmm, yeah, sure, whatever.
About a week later my next door neighbors got their roof replaced. Not a single shingle (hey, rhymes!) was lying flat. They had to call the company back - several times to get any response - in order to get their fix fixed. Now it looks great.
This morning a fellow knocked on my door to tell me my roof on the back of the house needed to be replaced. He claimed he could see it from doing work in the neighborhood. Across our back yard, the adjoining yard, and the street, that was his so-called vantage point. I didn't see any sign of a telescope and sent him on his way.
Now I'm not saying that this year we haven't had any leaks. There is one. It started as one tiny drip point a few years ago, then several, now a pretty full line. Fortunately, it is located outside the house, at the join between the regular roof where it hangs out about a foot past the walls of the house, and the steel roof which covers our patio. It drips onto concrete. If we anticipate rain, the furniture needs to be pulled forward to the middle of the patio. It stays dry there while the rain runs across the concrete into the yard. If we don't think about it in time, the cushions get wet. It may or may not be the primary reason the paint is flaking off the wicker, though I think the more likely culprit is the Arizona sun.
This afternoon another fellow stopped by. First, he stated he was there with the approval of the homeowners association. He asked permission to inspect our roof to see if the March 18 storm had damaged ours as it had many others in the neighborhood. He took his cell phone up to bring back evidence of what was or wasn't going on. I agreed. Ten minutes later I saw up close the damage. At my request he checked out that roof join leak. Ouch! No wonder we had that leak. There were lots of floppy shingles that should have been sticking to each other, creases across shingles that had no business being there. No imaginary telescopes, no slick talk, just proof.
His company often works with my insurance company. (That's promoted by AARP and insures a huge chunk of the homes in this area.) They also coordinate with my solar company. The best part, the convincer, was they offer to cover the deductible. I agree to have them put their sign out on the front "lawn", each week covers $250 of whatever it is.
The insurance company will send their person out next Wednesday to do their own inspection. Installation should follow a week later. They protect plants and are used to pointy things in yards, next to walls. They go around the perimeter after instalaction with a metal detector to remove any dropped shingle nails. Coolers of water are provided the crews, and if they haven't sweated everything out, they don't need access to our plumbing but go down the street. It's all finished in a day.
Then I can go back to arranging the patio furniture how we want it. And waiting for the next piece of crap mail to recycle. Some things don't really change.
We are of course used to most of the flyers that come through the mail. We want to buy your house. We want to buy your car for an insulting amount. You are obviously deaf so you want to buy our hearing aids. Install our walk-in tubs for more than a month's SS check.
Any day now I figured we'd be getting some for life alert pendants, home health assistance, memory care facilities, and whatever fills their expectations of potential customers circling the drain. Perhaps I've been too optimistic about their expectations, however.
Today I got a new one, perfect, I suppose, for covid 19 times. It was an attempt to sell me funeral services. In Spanish. Not English-plus. Just Spanish. It guess they went by the last name, which, incidentally, is a several-hundreds-years-old corruption of Rousseau. French. Enough of the message showed around the envelope address window that I didn't even have to open it to get the drift. Too many words are similar in both languages: I could understand it, despite all those decades beyond my high school and college Spanish. I never bothered to open it, just tossed it in recycling.
Somehow, despite all those assumptions floating around out there and landing in my mailbox or taking space in my voicemail, there's an inner part of me that is still 16. But smarter. More experienced. Bolder. Sillier. More skilled. More aware. More independent. More confident. More content. Much more loving. And much more loved! Best of all, fully cognizant of all of it. And grateful I'm not really 16 any more, even if it's all tucked inside this 71-year-old body.
I did change my mind about something else today, however, something that salesmen (always men for whatever reason) are regularly knocking on my door about. The roof. From the time we moved in, they came. The first few years I assured them our appraiser for the house sale had assured us that the roof was in great condition. The next few years I assured them that the solar company assured me that our roof was in great condition. They checked because they didn't want to go to the expense of installing something that they'd have to redo soon. The 20-year contract gives them all the maintenance costs of the system, so my inclination is to give their opinion weight.
Last year a big storm went through and the wanna-be roofers flooded the area. One tried to tell me he saw from across the street that my roof was in dire need of replacement. It happened that I'd just looked at it a couple days before and everything looked perfect. Not a lift, curl, or blemish. What he thought he saw from across the street was a gullible customer. I disabused him of that idea. He informed me I would regret it when my house leaked. Mmmm, yeah, sure, whatever.
About a week later my next door neighbors got their roof replaced. Not a single shingle (hey, rhymes!) was lying flat. They had to call the company back - several times to get any response - in order to get their fix fixed. Now it looks great.
This morning a fellow knocked on my door to tell me my roof on the back of the house needed to be replaced. He claimed he could see it from doing work in the neighborhood. Across our back yard, the adjoining yard, and the street, that was his so-called vantage point. I didn't see any sign of a telescope and sent him on his way.
Now I'm not saying that this year we haven't had any leaks. There is one. It started as one tiny drip point a few years ago, then several, now a pretty full line. Fortunately, it is located outside the house, at the join between the regular roof where it hangs out about a foot past the walls of the house, and the steel roof which covers our patio. It drips onto concrete. If we anticipate rain, the furniture needs to be pulled forward to the middle of the patio. It stays dry there while the rain runs across the concrete into the yard. If we don't think about it in time, the cushions get wet. It may or may not be the primary reason the paint is flaking off the wicker, though I think the more likely culprit is the Arizona sun.
This afternoon another fellow stopped by. First, he stated he was there with the approval of the homeowners association. He asked permission to inspect our roof to see if the March 18 storm had damaged ours as it had many others in the neighborhood. He took his cell phone up to bring back evidence of what was or wasn't going on. I agreed. Ten minutes later I saw up close the damage. At my request he checked out that roof join leak. Ouch! No wonder we had that leak. There were lots of floppy shingles that should have been sticking to each other, creases across shingles that had no business being there. No imaginary telescopes, no slick talk, just proof.
His company often works with my insurance company. (That's promoted by AARP and insures a huge chunk of the homes in this area.) They also coordinate with my solar company. The best part, the convincer, was they offer to cover the deductible. I agree to have them put their sign out on the front "lawn", each week covers $250 of whatever it is.
The insurance company will send their person out next Wednesday to do their own inspection. Installation should follow a week later. They protect plants and are used to pointy things in yards, next to walls. They go around the perimeter after instalaction with a metal detector to remove any dropped shingle nails. Coolers of water are provided the crews, and if they haven't sweated everything out, they don't need access to our plumbing but go down the street. It's all finished in a day.
Then I can go back to arranging the patio furniture how we want it. And waiting for the next piece of crap mail to recycle. Some things don't really change.
Online Shopping In A Covid 19 World
Saw a great t-shirt online the other day. Bookmarked it. Would have ordered it, but it stopped one size before I did. Now it's link is down, so I have to paraphrase what it said: "2020 is a unique leap year: 29 days in February, 3 months in April, 5 years in May." I'm positive I got some of that wrong, but it's faithful to the idea. The reason I went back to try to find it was not only to blog about it, but because I know parents stuck home with their kids after the schools closed.
I also know how time is dragging while I wait for my online shopping orders to arrive. Wasn't that three months ago by now? What, 10 days only? Jeez.
Online shopping these days is a mixed bag. Early in April I ordered hand sanitizer. Supposedly it's still... somewhere. The tracking shows a green line growing half a millimeter a day to demonstrate its progress, without ever claiming a location. There was a disclaimer when I ordered it that it could take long enough that it isn't really overdue yet. There was also disclaimer all over the news back then that only necessary shipments were going to be treated speedily. My 1 oz. bottle of sanitizer in the car has a quarter inch in the bottom, a tribute to how little I go anywhere where it should be used. But still, isn't that "necessary"?
I ordered rubbing alcohol online. The day after the order, eBay shut down the seller's site. PayPal informed me there might be an issue, so keep track of it. When I messaged the seller, they added a tracking number to it. Big whoop. Tracking numbers do not equate to having actually been shipped. Tracking numbers should tell you where the package is now. This one says nothing. Just that it has a number. A couple other items I've ordered add information that USPS is awaiting getting the package, and one even goes so far to give a daily update which says, "arrived shipping partner facility, USPS awaiting item." It appears at least that there is some movement in that last one. But why is the shipping partner sitting on it?
Some things arrive promptly. One arrived overnight, actually showing up on a Sunday. Nothing important, something electronic. Go figure. The seller was really impatient though, requesting my feedback before I even had a chance to try it out.
(Note to self: be sure to check out "guaranteed delivery by..." versus "estimated delivery by..." Apparently there is a difference!)
Shopping online at least avoids crowds and possible contagion. (That's my new excuse, now that I no longer have "I can't walk that long and that far.") Steve has clothes wearing out. Not a real surprise considering they've had nearly a decade of use. I checked online, found a dependable name brand that's been around forever, and yesterday ordered from the factory site. It has a tracking number now. A tracking number. I'm keeping my eye on it, hoping, since it's summer wear, that they arrive before we make the decision to head north. If a package has to chase us across country, will it take so long that it has to chase us back again?
Some things tend to arrive just after I've been able to find and purchase them in the stores again. It's not a rule though. Toiler paper is back on some shelves... briefly. My order showed up just before that. My paper towels arrived at the door two weeks back while I'm still waiting for them in the stores. I'm not even bothering to check the stores for hand sanitizer any more.
On all of these, I pay through PayPal. I love the security of never giving out to a third party my credit card or banking information. I also love the ease of not having to fill out 17 blanks in a form for each order. And I love that they fight for me! Back before this all was keeping us home, I tried one of those sites that gives all sorts of information on anybody. It was a whim. I was a little bored and curious. First I checked out myself. There were lots of corrections to make. Dates of where I lived were wildly off, along with one of the addresses. (No wonder I got a sales call asking me to let them reroof that property!) There were " possible associates" I've never in my life heard of. Aliases I never had. And gaping holes. But still.... They did make a couple of the corrections I asked for.
I went on to check out my kids, my ex, a few other people. My ex was interesting. I'd come to know what a liar he was, after years of comparing his stories with the rest of his family. His claim of knee damage from parachute jumping was debunked into happening at a high school track meet, for just one example. There are lots more: his alleged CIA experiences, my supposed misbehaviors as heard from his #2 ex while we were coordinating on getting money out of him, what he told his other 2 fiancees while still married to #2.... Here he was true to form, claiming military service. One of his actual true stories was of his trying to join the Air Force, back in Viet Nam draft days, before they could draft him for service of lesser glory. Having a wool allergy, with all military uniforms being wool then, they flunked him on his physical. Then they turned around and drafted him for the Army. Turns out the doc doing the physicals was the same person who'd already flunked him. And now he claims military experience? Sure....
It didn't take me long to lose interest. I'd signed up on a pay-per-month basis. I got notice of them re-upping me for the next month before I'd had my chance to cancel. If you start the 29th of one month, they shouldn't bill you on the 28th of the next, right? I contacted both them and PayPal, and the charge was magically dropped and reimbursed.
I'm getting ready to contact PayPal again. One of those orders, the one that they flagged a bit back, will be overdue at midnight. It's only $7.75, but....
Meanwhile, I think I'll go check out whether anybody else guarantees a speedier delivery on hand sanitizer... if any is available anywhere.
I also know how time is dragging while I wait for my online shopping orders to arrive. Wasn't that three months ago by now? What, 10 days only? Jeez.
Online shopping these days is a mixed bag. Early in April I ordered hand sanitizer. Supposedly it's still... somewhere. The tracking shows a green line growing half a millimeter a day to demonstrate its progress, without ever claiming a location. There was a disclaimer when I ordered it that it could take long enough that it isn't really overdue yet. There was also disclaimer all over the news back then that only necessary shipments were going to be treated speedily. My 1 oz. bottle of sanitizer in the car has a quarter inch in the bottom, a tribute to how little I go anywhere where it should be used. But still, isn't that "necessary"?
I ordered rubbing alcohol online. The day after the order, eBay shut down the seller's site. PayPal informed me there might be an issue, so keep track of it. When I messaged the seller, they added a tracking number to it. Big whoop. Tracking numbers do not equate to having actually been shipped. Tracking numbers should tell you where the package is now. This one says nothing. Just that it has a number. A couple other items I've ordered add information that USPS is awaiting getting the package, and one even goes so far to give a daily update which says, "arrived shipping partner facility, USPS awaiting item." It appears at least that there is some movement in that last one. But why is the shipping partner sitting on it?
Some things arrive promptly. One arrived overnight, actually showing up on a Sunday. Nothing important, something electronic. Go figure. The seller was really impatient though, requesting my feedback before I even had a chance to try it out.
(Note to self: be sure to check out "guaranteed delivery by..." versus "estimated delivery by..." Apparently there is a difference!)
Shopping online at least avoids crowds and possible contagion. (That's my new excuse, now that I no longer have "I can't walk that long and that far.") Steve has clothes wearing out. Not a real surprise considering they've had nearly a decade of use. I checked online, found a dependable name brand that's been around forever, and yesterday ordered from the factory site. It has a tracking number now. A tracking number. I'm keeping my eye on it, hoping, since it's summer wear, that they arrive before we make the decision to head north. If a package has to chase us across country, will it take so long that it has to chase us back again?
Some things tend to arrive just after I've been able to find and purchase them in the stores again. It's not a rule though. Toiler paper is back on some shelves... briefly. My order showed up just before that. My paper towels arrived at the door two weeks back while I'm still waiting for them in the stores. I'm not even bothering to check the stores for hand sanitizer any more.
On all of these, I pay through PayPal. I love the security of never giving out to a third party my credit card or banking information. I also love the ease of not having to fill out 17 blanks in a form for each order. And I love that they fight for me! Back before this all was keeping us home, I tried one of those sites that gives all sorts of information on anybody. It was a whim. I was a little bored and curious. First I checked out myself. There were lots of corrections to make. Dates of where I lived were wildly off, along with one of the addresses. (No wonder I got a sales call asking me to let them reroof that property!) There were " possible associates" I've never in my life heard of. Aliases I never had. And gaping holes. But still.... They did make a couple of the corrections I asked for.
I went on to check out my kids, my ex, a few other people. My ex was interesting. I'd come to know what a liar he was, after years of comparing his stories with the rest of his family. His claim of knee damage from parachute jumping was debunked into happening at a high school track meet, for just one example. There are lots more: his alleged CIA experiences, my supposed misbehaviors as heard from his #2 ex while we were coordinating on getting money out of him, what he told his other 2 fiancees while still married to #2.... Here he was true to form, claiming military service. One of his actual true stories was of his trying to join the Air Force, back in Viet Nam draft days, before they could draft him for service of lesser glory. Having a wool allergy, with all military uniforms being wool then, they flunked him on his physical. Then they turned around and drafted him for the Army. Turns out the doc doing the physicals was the same person who'd already flunked him. And now he claims military experience? Sure....
It didn't take me long to lose interest. I'd signed up on a pay-per-month basis. I got notice of them re-upping me for the next month before I'd had my chance to cancel. If you start the 29th of one month, they shouldn't bill you on the 28th of the next, right? I contacted both them and PayPal, and the charge was magically dropped and reimbursed.
I'm getting ready to contact PayPal again. One of those orders, the one that they flagged a bit back, will be overdue at midnight. It's only $7.75, but....
Meanwhile, I think I'll go check out whether anybody else guarantees a speedier delivery on hand sanitizer... if any is available anywhere.
So Many Questions
Will I ever... . No, wrong question. How long will it take before I don't make that knee-jerk reaction when a good friend tells me she went to her doctor for shortness of breath and she was immediately sent to the ER? (Turns out it wasn't the virus.)
Why is it that those infinitseimal thorn tips that wedge themselves where they can't be removed can't just cause infinitesimal annoyance?
So now dogs and cats test positive for the virus. We already knew tigers caught it, and they're testing macaques with potential vaccines. It started with bats, so can it hit all mammals? Can you maintain 6 foot distances from your home critters? Would they wear masks? Can we train them not to lick our faces? And for all those who are "fostering" shelter animals to give them a home for the duration, does this mean they can't be returned? Or maybe only with testing? Who's going to test them when we can't even test all of us?
If we don't know whether having antibodies after having the virus protect us from getting it again, why do we believe giving those antibodies to others in plasma from those who've recovered can help them? Has anybody thought to research whether all those years of flu shots, while not specific for this, have boosted our immune systems enough to make those who catch it have less serious cases?
Could social distancing bring back drive-in theaters? Or just kill the group experience completely? Will the younger generations, so involved in their personal small screens all day, even care if movie theaters shut down? Or do they view them as just places these days for wild hormones to thrive in dark spaces? If they're no longer making movies, or next TV season, will we be inundated with a year or more of TV reruns? Would anybody turn to - gasp! - reading?
Anybody remember when we were sweating over West Nile? Zika? Lyme disease? Are they no longer getting reported or does nobody even care anymore? Is the fact that they require insect vectors for transmission mean nobody these days can wrap their heads around the concept of contagion?
If wild mammals like deer could catch and transmit this virus, would that stop us hunting them? Or would poaching of all wild animals just increase with the threat of meat shortages due to meat plants infested with the virus? If there are meat shortages in stores, will nuts and beans be next as people figure out legumes and grains combine amino acids to produce complete proteins as good as meats? Would we turn to a nation of vegetarians? No? Might we start eating things like rats? If so, might we wind up blaming them for helping spread this the same way we blame them for spreading the plague?
What's going through the heads of people who insist that the full economy be opened yesterday? Is it simple selfish need or greed? Is it a conviction of their own invulnerability, believing they are young enough and healthy so it won't hurt them, and who cares if cranky old Aunt Gert dies anyway? How many of them see the poor and black and incarcerated concentrations of cases and deaths and perceive that as a solution rather than a problem?
If Pence catches the virus, could he sue the Mayo for not hogtying him and forcing him to wear a mask like everybody else there? Were Pence's Secret Service attendants being passive aggressive in letting him go bare faced? Would anybody, even Trump, care? Or does everybody just see their duty being protecting him only from things the size of bullets? Can/will anybody out there show him how to actually put a mask on without covering his eyes so he can talk to people eye-to-eye? Can you even go eye-to-eye and still maintain social distancing, or do we need to grow long eye stalks like crabs? But then, if we're not supposed to touch our eyes with our hands, wouldn't our eye stalks also have to maintain six feet distance?
Is it obvious I'm way past my bedtime?
Why is it that those infinitseimal thorn tips that wedge themselves where they can't be removed can't just cause infinitesimal annoyance?
So now dogs and cats test positive for the virus. We already knew tigers caught it, and they're testing macaques with potential vaccines. It started with bats, so can it hit all mammals? Can you maintain 6 foot distances from your home critters? Would they wear masks? Can we train them not to lick our faces? And for all those who are "fostering" shelter animals to give them a home for the duration, does this mean they can't be returned? Or maybe only with testing? Who's going to test them when we can't even test all of us?
If we don't know whether having antibodies after having the virus protect us from getting it again, why do we believe giving those antibodies to others in plasma from those who've recovered can help them? Has anybody thought to research whether all those years of flu shots, while not specific for this, have boosted our immune systems enough to make those who catch it have less serious cases?
Could social distancing bring back drive-in theaters? Or just kill the group experience completely? Will the younger generations, so involved in their personal small screens all day, even care if movie theaters shut down? Or do they view them as just places these days for wild hormones to thrive in dark spaces? If they're no longer making movies, or next TV season, will we be inundated with a year or more of TV reruns? Would anybody turn to - gasp! - reading?
Anybody remember when we were sweating over West Nile? Zika? Lyme disease? Are they no longer getting reported or does nobody even care anymore? Is the fact that they require insect vectors for transmission mean nobody these days can wrap their heads around the concept of contagion?
If wild mammals like deer could catch and transmit this virus, would that stop us hunting them? Or would poaching of all wild animals just increase with the threat of meat shortages due to meat plants infested with the virus? If there are meat shortages in stores, will nuts and beans be next as people figure out legumes and grains combine amino acids to produce complete proteins as good as meats? Would we turn to a nation of vegetarians? No? Might we start eating things like rats? If so, might we wind up blaming them for helping spread this the same way we blame them for spreading the plague?
What's going through the heads of people who insist that the full economy be opened yesterday? Is it simple selfish need or greed? Is it a conviction of their own invulnerability, believing they are young enough and healthy so it won't hurt them, and who cares if cranky old Aunt Gert dies anyway? How many of them see the poor and black and incarcerated concentrations of cases and deaths and perceive that as a solution rather than a problem?
If Pence catches the virus, could he sue the Mayo for not hogtying him and forcing him to wear a mask like everybody else there? Were Pence's Secret Service attendants being passive aggressive in letting him go bare faced? Would anybody, even Trump, care? Or does everybody just see their duty being protecting him only from things the size of bullets? Can/will anybody out there show him how to actually put a mask on without covering his eyes so he can talk to people eye-to-eye? Can you even go eye-to-eye and still maintain social distancing, or do we need to grow long eye stalks like crabs? But then, if we're not supposed to touch our eyes with our hands, wouldn't our eye stalks also have to maintain six feet distance?
Is it obvious I'm way past my bedtime?
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