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.
Thursday, May 7, 2020
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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