ACoronaVirusJournal

  Tuesday April 27, 2021 Unsettling night last night.  Dreamed of Michelle and we were just walking around the streets like we used to just going for a walk and she took my hand.   Messed me up for the rest of the night and didn't get much sleep.    When faced with the past the strongest man cries. To cheer myself up and re-center, I drove up to Coos Bay this morning and am now at Starbucks with my laptop, writing.   Much like the "Before Times", ie before Covid19.   Feels good to reexperience a moment like this, almost as if life has a chance of returning again to what it used to be. When Michelle and I separated 4 years ago, and in regard to our shared possessions, the first thing she said was that she wanted to keep the family table that I had built for the family a number of years ago out of 2 by 12 by 8 foot redwood boards that I gotten cheap from Home Depot.    It is a great table that was about 8 by 4 and you could bang ...

Wednesday December 30, 2020 I just came back from what has become my annual short trip down to Santa Clara.  I left Sunday and came back this morning. 3 short days really.      Left 4am, 10 hours down, had a late lunch Sunday with Mara with Poke bowls, then spent Monday with Jana walking around downtown San Jose and we sat at a table on the SJSU campus and had noodle soups, then walked around the Mission College campus where she spent her last two years of high school.    On Tue Mara and I drove down to Santa Cruz, more on the north side and walked around.  We stopped at the park cafe and she got a rock cod sandwich and I got a hot dog.    Then we walked down to the board walk and got tshirts.     One for each of us, and one for her current boyfriend "Mike" that I have never met.   Then I left after dropping Mara off at the house, and spent the night in Eureka.    The only wrinkle in the trip was getting a t...

  Tuesday December 22 2020. My mom's birthday.   Janice Cassin, born Dec 22nd 1934, married and became Janice Hebert and had four kids, me being the third, married again when we were all mostly grown, and became Janice Isenberg, then changed her name back to Janice Cassin again in the last decade of her life. My mom had two sisters, six and nine years older than her, so always was dismayed that her father's name (Cassin) disappeared once all the daughters married men and took their husband's last name. I was born Tod Hebert, but when my dad disappeared from my life in my 20s I told my mom that if I ever had children I would give them the last name Cassin.  When I met Michelle and it looked like we were serious, I told her that if we ever had kids they would be Cassins, and she was fine with that. Then we got married and had two great daughters, and they both were given the Cassin last name.    But then the complexities of 3 last names in the house, and scho...

  Wednesday  December 16 2020. And so another month of COVID goes by.   Solitude for all of us becomes the norm.    Quiet days, and  - unlike the summer - the house is cold so not much going out either.    This is the normal season where people stay inside and go stir crazy, and with COVID and social distancing even more so now. This is also the season on the Oregon Coast when the rains settle in for the winter.   Rain all day today, but I managed to get a good walk in before the day's onslaught.    I have been quite disciplined in getting 40-50 miles of walking in a week since the beginning of the Pandemic, which for me consciously began on March 15.       Its been 40 weeks since then, so I reckon I have walked about 1800 COVID miles so far.   I have my set of 6 or 7 mile walks. With everybody indoors and breathing on each other, the virus is back to raging around the planet again.  ...

  Wednesday  November 18 2020. As predicted, COVID is hitting back hard across the country now that the colder weather has set in.   People are indoors more, breathing on each other, spreading the virus.  Because of this surge, many states across the country are reintroducing lock down measures to try to stop the surge.     Thanksgiving is coming up next week, the most important day of any American year in regards to family get togethers, and although states are telling everybody to stay home ant NOT have family gatherings this year, everybody is holding their breaths because despite the health mandates,  of course a lot of people will have large family gatherings, and two weeks later we will have 10s of thousands of old people die as a result, crowding the hospitals, and leading to a social crisis that nobody wants to happen. Of course the virus is still a political issue, thanks to Trump, so all Red states and counties are ignoring safety ...

Wednesday  June 24 2020. I sort of got distracted from this journal for the past seven weeks it seems.   My daughter Jana back in May told me she was coming up to visit me here in Bandon, so what was my normal life got put on hold for a bit so that I could prepare the house for her visit.   She then visited here for 3 weeks.     She has just gotten her learners permit, so we spent most days driving from here to other surrounding towns.     There are no mountain curvy roads down in Santa Clara, so it was good practice for her.    I loved having her here.    I don't get to feel like a dad much anymore so it means a lot to me when a kid visits or calls.  During her visit, I had finally gone out and bought that 5 gallons of paint ($185) I have always threatened myself to do, so that I could finally paint my house.   The only two houses I have ever bought in my life have both been blue, and though ...