Another Saturday - I Think?

Hard to tell, except for the TV. Even that, with so many things recorded on the DVR in hopes they will sometime in the future become interesting, can leave you guessing. There's almost nothing on the calendar requiring attention, other than which twice-a-month day we put out the recycling, that we have to actually find a reason to ask which day it is. No protests, no club responsibilities, nearly no doctor visits. All those regular type checkups, and follow-ups where you know all is well because whatever the cure was, it worked, are cancelled.  The exception is the pair of visits Steve needs in order to get his stent removed. Monday. So we'll keep track of that.

It seems the only change is whether it might rain... somewhere else. Even the weeds seem to have caught a dose of ennervation.

The eternal constant is the rise in Covid 19 cases and deaths. We're number one in something, we are. None of those things we wish to be number one in, or get told we are are by those wishing to curry favor (votes), but number one in having the number one worst record in dealing with it.

To those left worrying about my last post, we are both doing well. Steve's shivering finally left him hours after his miniscule temperature did, meaning supper time. Indeed he felt so well that he spent part of his evening doing dishes. We agreed that next time he gets chilled, he should give himself a nice hot shower. Just bundling up doesn't do it for him, and he's not active enough to go out for a nice run or something to kick up the metabolism.

The mail is slow. I sent a check up to Minnesota to my credit union. Normally 3 business days gets it showing up as a deposit. This time, mailed Friday, deposited next Friday. Good thing I could wait it out those extra days. I understand them being both over and under-worked these days. We get fewer shoppers' circulars, but some of the nonsense is still being sent out. Bills arrive. Magazines arrive. Likely there are covid cases among their employees. I've never seen a mask or gloves on any of our "regular" mail carriers, and I put it that way because we haven't had one single regular one for a couple years now, not since the original old guy quit bringing it around 5:00. We figure he retired, because even if the speculations about him having a few favorite hanky-panky stop-offs during his route were accurate, it was going on so long nobody must have cared. Now, though, mail usually arrives 3-4 hours earlier.

Our biggest concern about the post office is whether it'll continue and how long, amid threats of under-financing and speculations about thwarting all plans for mail-in voting during the pandemic. Too many Republicons (sic) have actually said aloud and on camera that only smaller turnouts will allow their party to win in the future. Considering how many of us are actually paying attention these days, they well may be finally telling the truth. But for right now, right here, the post office is one of our lifelines.

And we're waiting for our orders of hand sanitizer and face masks to show up.

One story on last night's news really caught my attention. A farmer - industrial sized, not your old fashioned 160 acres kind - was "having to" mow down his tomatoes. Rows of them stretched out across the screen. They were perfectly healthy, some beautifully ripe, some starting, most green. There was no bug infestation, no tobacco mosaic rust, no drought or hail storm. No, what infested his fields was the lack of orders. He marketed to restaurants, mostly now not operating. And since he wasn't getting any money, his "solution" was to destroy his crop.

But people haven't stopped eating (willingly) just because restaurants are closed. Those who have stopped eating are the ones in the same situation he's in. Their businesses have shut down too. Their appetites haven't. Their need to feed nutritious food to their families hasn't.

Do you note there was no attempt to reach out to food banks? Open his field for just this season to pick-your-own customers who'd likely happily spend what little they had right now in order to feel like they were doing an honest bit of work again to put food directly on their own family tables or those of others, in a field well large enough for everybody to maintain social distance? Is he the kind of person immured in the concept "if I can't get something, nobody can?" Or does he perhaps just need somebody to connect a farmer with a produce overflow with a charity more than happy to find a needed use for it?

And hey, does anybody have the kind of networks to be a middleman for that kind of connection? Anybody? Even on a Saturday?