Downturns

I realize many of them have been coming on for a while. But it seems that all of a sudden they're here!

Take the trees. It's been a long, record setting hot summer. Still is. Climate change is not kind. We've been watching a lemon tree across the fence. Early summer it was showing a generous sprinkling of yellow leaves. I even contacted somebody who know how to contact the property owner to inquire if their irrigation system had gotten shut off due to a recent power outage. A week and a half ago I noticed the top of the tree was bare while the bottom 2/3 was green, no yellow left on the tree. A couple days ago it stood bare.

This morning I noted that our backyard pine tree, the one that shades our patio so well, One of the main reasons we bought this particular home, is tinting yellow. Its color is just about where the front yard pine was when we had it taken out before it fell into the street, avoiding it crushing any of the variety of vehicles who fought for the only shady parking spot for blocks around outside of garages and car ports. Looks like the backyard tree one will go on the fall to-do list. $$$$

Steve, Rich and I ran some errands this afternoon, giving us an opportunity to observe several miles worth of trees. Almost all the pines are yellowing. Somebody will have lucrative employment this fall and winter, while the area has fewer trees to shade and cool us all against whatever next year throws our way. It's not just the pines, though. Palms are getting hit, just starting to show it. One, a low spreading type like a sago perhaps, had over half of its fronds turned a bright orange! Orange! I've never seen orange palm fronds. They're green. Then they brown. Then their fronds go away in trucks while their remaining tops look like something strangled them while they bush out green again.

Shorter desert plants are suffering, even the ones which should be hale and heartily tucked in against the heat and dryness. A saguaro fell over into the street a couple blocks away - though that's not exactly short. Agaves are browning. Aloes have swapped green for pale reddish brown. Bushes often have just a few green/brown leaves crowning the top.

Ironically, it's been raining. Everywhere else. We had a second night of almost enough falling to coat the driveway before evaporating. The local news shows trees with broken branches dangling, trees toppled into apartment buildings and across power lines, leaving people without AC and no place to go in a pandemic to avoid the heat. We get the leading front of high winds for a tease, but little actual rain to make up for their damage. California had over 650 fires raging from 12,000 - yes, thousand - lightning strikes, now merged into many fewer but larger ones. Our last storm produced 19,000 strikes, leaving us with nothing more than wondering who had the job of counting them all. To be sure, an improvement over forest fires.

I received a letter this week from the homeowners association, a First Notice that I need to remove the weeds from my yard. The only ones left are the patches of spreading spurges, now a sunrise feast for the doves, pigeons, and finches looking for seeds. The spurges are doing just fine, thank you, enough that I was contemplating letting them completely fill the yard as if they were a planned ground cover. Apparently the HOA only recognizes rocks in that role.

Then there is the virus. We're hale and hearty here, so far, taking all the precautions we can to stay home. Mail deliveries... well, they're much slower. I'm still waiting for an order of plastic film for the last two giant windows. When I check the tracking, it's... in transit, no location noted, with the estimated delivery date pushed back another couple days each time I check. Our all getting out today was an anomaly, and half of the stops were to drive up to pick up. The "official" numbers say we are slowing down cases here, but Arizona is still the 7th worst state in the worst country in the world, so we're not letting our guard down.

We now know two people with the virus. Steve keeps in touch with somebody from Minnesota whom I've not met, a woman he worked with years ago. She's now in some variety of nursing home. She is recovering slowly from the virus, but just lost 4 of her best friends to it. At least for her we are hopeful, despite all the latest news about long term disabilities from it.

The second case is much too close to home, one of our granddaughters on Steve's side. Recently graduated - 1 year? 2? - she's working in healthcare, and living with her boyfriend and his family. His mom is a nurse, thankfully. The granddaughter posted on Facebook that she's tested positive and is feeling sick. I decided to reach out to her and offer support as well as getting much better acquainted, so we've been emailing. She has three co-morbidities, including asthma, so we really worry. She describes a constant elephant on her chest, or rubber bands. It hurts to breathe and her inhaler doesn't really help. Plus, no health insurance: missed one signup deadline, next not for a couple months, and just a bit too much income for their state program. Her boyfriend's family assures her that she shouldn't avoid the hospital if/when she needs it, because they will find some way to take care of the finances. I sign off my emails to her with:

"Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe."

And I hope and worry.

It's nearly impossible not to wonder how many of the people I know but have temporarily - or longer - lost touch with are now either fighting off the virus or have lost that battle, and how that will change by next year. I used to see dozens of people regularly in the club, and only know that some of them have survived thus far because I'm on a few email chains of funny animals or signs or kids' antics that go around and recognize that whoever is sending me things is also still sending them the same ones. It doesn't tell me where they are or how well they are doing or whom they've lost, just that somebody is still sending them things and hasn't heard not to do so. Do we count that as hope? Or think maybe we can get along a little easier with all the other stresses by not thinking about it at all?

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.