Week 5
Day 29. Monday April 13 2020.
One of my external hard drives seems to have crashed the other day so as a result I have decided to redo all my old "Last Reel" radio shows, renumber them, write down what each one was. There are 44 of them, and I am not sure I will do another at this point. I might do a coronavirus one.
Coming Wave or Just Clouds? |
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Case counts of the virus are slowing, and everyone is talking about opening up the country again, but I have a feeling that the SURGE is still coming. 4 weeks ago, the infections were not many around the country. Now the entire country is pretty well infected. Once they open up the country again, then the REAL surge will come. I am just guessing this. We shall see
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I had a good six mile walk this morning, ran into Ken and Christine again on their bikes, and talked to my brother Scott for an hour. We have been doing Zoom calls with his two sons for the past couple of weeks and they have gone well. I have also set up weekly calls with Mara and Jana, and that seems to be going ok so far. Scott's sons are both in the 30 year old range, and so are more mature and want to talk to their dad. My kids are 19 and 22 and not quite at that spot. I think it is still a burden for them to talk to me. I do not blame them. Anytime I think of being critical of them, I think back to the way I was, and I know that I was so much worse.
After an early siesta, I spent the afternoon weeding the west side of the yard, and then showered and worked on my website and shows, trying to get all of it more organized. Now it's 4:30. I usually move into my night habits around 5 or so.
Another day in Quarantine
Day 30. Tuesday April 14 2020.
I don't think there's anything in that black bag for me
Long walk this morning. 7.5 miles. I have been wanting to get down to the end of Ohio Street (the second part) in NE Bandon, and I made it today. Discovered that there is a cranberry farm w bogs out there. Took a break on my way back at Rays for an Odwalla Mango Tango and a corn dog. Satisfying.
Stopped and talked w Christine Roberts who was driving by. She is a busy sort and even in this time when everybody is bored to tears watching too much Netflix, she has way too much to do. I hope she runs for Mayor one day. Then, as I was walking back along the 101, I hear yelling and it turns out to be Ken Hall waving at me from across the street, so I walked over. He was putting his virus mask on and about to go into Face Rock Creamery for their potato soup, and said it was worth the trip.
Came home and went out to Hennicks to buy 5 two by six by eights. I figure the best thing to do on the far side of the west deck is to build some small raised beds and plant Christine Hall's flower seedlings there.
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There was a good article in Harpers today about how coronavirus is removing people's sense of smell, and how devastating that is to the human condition. You can't taste food without it. It also turns out the smell nerves are the most direct pathway to the brain, and animals are built that way because it gives us the best chance of survival in recognizing distant dangers before they get to us. But because they are the most direct path to the brain, the nasal nerves are also the most exposed to the environment and one of our greatest vulnerabilities to health. Viruses especially can see it as a quick way in. I guess for the longest time science did not see much sense (sic) in smell and thought it unimportant, and it has only recently been escalated in esteem and importance not only our long term physical survival, but also our psyches, and our sense of selves.
I guess after the virus passes, the sense comes back, which is good news for us all.
Day 31. Wednesday April 15 2020.
I blinded my eyes. My face I turned away. I hardened my heart, for fear of my ruin
I got my coronavirus stimulus check today. 1200 dollars. I am sending half to Mara and Jana. 300 dollars each. Might as well share. I am sure they can think of things to do with it.
I did a shorter walk this morning, in order to meet my friends Christine Roberts and Eric Kolari. Christine runs a charity shop and had a big donation of furniture from a guy who is moving. Old guy, about 60, who has been living with his parents for the past 25 years. The kid who came home. Well, the parents died, and his siblings wanted him to sell the house so that they could share in the proceeds (it's what kids do. Not that they were wolves to their parents, but with the parents gone, they are usually wolves to each other. Happens all the time).
Anyway he doesn't want to move out of the house he has been living in for the past 25 years, so he tries to be clever and prices it about 40k too high, and then some Californian comes in and buys it for that price anyway. Bastard. Pisses him off. So Christine Eric and I moved a lot of his stuff out, with him complaining the whole time. People are always entertaining.
With my share I am putting more money into my gardening. One full garden now and what will be 3 small raised beds. I bought more garden soil and compost, some strawberry and tomato starters and some onion bulbs. I have doubts on the onion bulbs, but I am willing to fail here and there. I am a newbie.
Tomorrow should be a nice sunny day so I will get the beds built and the garden soil and compost put in and plant the flower seedlings that Christine Hall gave me.
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Various spokespeople in the media are expressing hope that the active case numbers and the daily toll of deaths will soon be falling, but all I see is them continuing to rise every day. I feel a disconnect. The state of NY has now come out and mandated that everyone out in public must wear a facemask now. Who would have believed. We all look like bandits now. Even just two months ago, people would have laughed if you said that any of this would come to pass.
The old Chinese curse. May you live in interesting times.
Day 32. Thursday April 16 2020.
Numbers are supposed to be leveling off by now, but they are not. It has previously been projected that there would be about 1500-2000 deaths in the US per day by the middle of this month, and then we would start to see a leveling off and then a decline. Well we had 6000 deaths yesterday. Not a leveling off, and certainly not a decline.
Big discussion today about what the "shelter in place" orders around the world are actually doing. The message is that they are saving lives, but in fact, most thinking is that what they are in fact doing is only giving health care systems much needed time to get more masks and ventilators, and be ready for the real surge in the fall. To keep the numbers down now for the real surge in cases that will start to happen in about six months. It could be argued that this strategy is saving lives, but it could also be argued otherwise. You could in fact just be keeping mass catastrophe at bay for another six months. Hey, I can hear someone say, it's six months more than we have now. I guess.
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Good 6 mile walk this morning over to Hennicks on the east / north side of town (where all roads are designated NW and NE, depending on what side of the 101 they are on, whereas on my side of town all roads and addresses finish with SW or SE) . I walked over there to get 2.5 inch screws to build out my raised garden beds. Came home, built them, filled them with soil, then scattered various flower seeds all over them, sort of the way Christine Hall told me too, or at least the way I thought she told me to. See if any of it works.
I have a good southern facing back yard to grow things. completely enclosed, sunny, and wind protected (winds are famous here in Bandon). Two years ago I bought two marijuana plants - just because - and read somewhere that if you have no idea what you are doing, then just give plants plenty of sun and then water them every other day. It seemed to work ok with the MJ plants. So now, even though I still do not know what I am doing, I will still follow this strategy with all the stuff I have planted this spring. Just let the sun do its work, and water them every other day.
See what happens. I have bags of marijuana in my freezer now. I never smoke it. It makes me crazy in the head.
Day 33. Friday April 17 2020.
Radio show tonight. Usually just Eric and I talking politics and local issues, interspersed with music each of us likes. We trade off. Last week we had Avery on the show with us, and the two of them are a lot further right than I am politically so I battled them both during the segments. Good logic practice, as far as it goes.
The KBOG studio is small, but we can keep six feet away from each other, stay relatively safe, and we wipe everything down with clorox wipes both before and after the show.
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Good walk this morning south along the beach. I had gotten up at 4:30 so I sat in the dark on a huge old tree trunk for awhile on the beach and thought about the tree I was sitting on and what kind of life it had, and where and how long ago. How many families of birds spent their life on that tree, and what kind they were. Then I watched the stars for awhile. A crescent moon rose in the east.
I am getting a better feel for the tides now and how to coordinate them with my morning walks. Bandon has a really shallow sloped beach, so as long as I am an hour or more away from high tide, there is enough comfortable room for walking, as long as I pay attention to the surf. I keep to the old maxim Never Turn Your Back on the Ocean. Sneaker waves warnings were out for today and this coming Sunday. Sneaker waves being series of waves that can combine into one Sudden Larger Wave. They are known to have killed people. One young woman here in Bandon a few years ago. I think of her still.
They must have a way of looking at weather conditions and knowing when these types of waves have a higher than normal occurrence rate. I bet I can look it up and learn about it.
I Then spent the afternoon converting home movies. The task of all dads everywhere. All these old movies are in various formats that are no longer viable on most current devices, but my VSDC software has been able to read and convert the old formats into .AVI format, which is fairly ubiquitous at the moment, and a format that I can even put them up on youtube for the kids to see. I don't think Mara and Jana are quite at an age yet where they care, but one day they might.
It's a little unnerving for me to watch these family videos, as they depict us all as a cohesive family, and of course Michelle stopped all that. I am sure she feels she had her reasons, but still. I feel a lot of pain and resentment there for the destruction she brought upon the family, and to me.
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Trump is actively trying now to undermine governors of various states who are trying to adhere to the health experts and to contain the virus with stay at home orders. His new mantra "LIBERATE". It is true that people need to get back to work, but all the health experts are still saying it is dangerous to do it now, that the virus is still highly active and contagious amongst the population.
The guy is an idiot. And dangerous. It's slightly comforting to live in a state (Oregon), that is listening to these experts, and where some level of sanity prevails.
Day 34. Saturday April 18 2020.
A lot of states now are coming out with Manifestos on what reopening the economy in their state will look like, and what preconditions have to be met before the state economy is slowly started up again. No one is using the word FAST. Everyone is using the words slow, piecemeal, carefully, based on science and health experts. Despite what the president is saying, he has sort of lost all credibility and leadership, and he is mostly being ignored at this point by everyone except for his self styled right wing militias, who are now forming protests outside of state capitals and congregating close to each other despite the shelter in place orders. Prime breeding ground for the virus. Darwin award winners all of them.
The preconditions that most states are talking about now include:
California is talking about a month from now, possibly May 18, to begin partially reopening their economy. Oregon a little after, May 20 something.
Day 35. Sunday April 19 2020.
All loss feels insignificant when lying beneath a starry sky.
I keep expecting the "outstanding active cases" numbers to start going down, but they really are not, both in the US and the World data. They just keep going up. Concerning. We are all supposed to be on the downside of the curve now for the first wave. Why aren't the case loads starting to recede?
If we manage to get through this. And this is IF, there is a big fight on the political horizon on who is counted to have died from the virus and who has not. Each country and each state or jurisdiction within each country does not want to have the worst numbers, and so everybody is already starting to accuse everybody else of "undercounting" deaths through sleight of hand. For example, Alabama has said that someone might have died "With" the coronovirus, but not "From" the coronavirus, which is laughed at. Also there are rumors that some states are not quite counting their nursing home deaths as of yet. Nursing homes, if it has not been said before, nursing homes are suffering the greatest virus clusters and deaths, as they are filled with older people, many of whom have underlying medical conditions, prime targets for the virus. Prisons are also suffering clusters. Both termed "managed care" facilities.
But that is the political side of it. Of course science and medicine will eventually come up with an agreed upon set of metrics on what constitutes a coronavirus death and what does not, and it will be applied equally to everyone. During the SARS coronavirus outbreak in Asia in 2003, they later had to go back and increase the fatality numbers after commonly agreeing that the virus was an inciting agent in causing many deaths that were previously designated otherwise, like pneumonia, heart attacks, and cirrhosis of the liver, to name 3 prime viral candidates.
A lot of states now are coming out with Manifestos on what reopening the economy in their state will look like, and what preconditions have to be met before the state economy is slowly started up again. No one is using the word FAST. Everyone is using the words slow, piecemeal, carefully, based on science and health experts. Despite what the president is saying, he has sort of lost all credibility and leadership, and he is mostly being ignored at this point by everyone except for his self styled right wing militias, who are now forming protests outside of state capitals and congregating close to each other despite the shelter in place orders. Prime breeding ground for the virus. Darwin award winners all of them.
The preconditions that most states are talking about now include:
- massively increased virus testing capabilities
- contact tracing capabilities. the ability to trace an infected individual back through their previous contacts
- Hospitals being fully equipped and ready for a second and subsequent waves of infection.
California is talking about a month from now, possibly May 18, to begin partially reopening their economy. Oregon a little after, May 20 something.
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I took my six mile walk up in Coos Bay this morning. Came back with a sore left foot. I think there is a shoe sole tack rising up in there somewhere in my sandals. I can barely feel it, or at least I am imagining I can feel it, because I cannot come up with a better explanation of why I am sore in the middle of my foot. this is surprising because I have always bought ecco sandals. They are on the expensive side, but I get them because they are always very well made, very comfortable and very durable. It would surprise me if that tack or staple is there, but, like I said, this is the only explanation I can think of at the moment.
All loss feels insignificant when lying beneath a starry sky.
I keep expecting the "outstanding active cases" numbers to start going down, but they really are not, both in the US and the World data. They just keep going up. Concerning. We are all supposed to be on the downside of the curve now for the first wave. Why aren't the case loads starting to recede?
South Jetty this morning |
But that is the political side of it. Of course science and medicine will eventually come up with an agreed upon set of metrics on what constitutes a coronavirus death and what does not, and it will be applied equally to everyone. During the SARS coronavirus outbreak in Asia in 2003, they later had to go back and increase the fatality numbers after commonly agreeing that the virus was an inciting agent in causing many deaths that were previously designated otherwise, like pneumonia, heart attacks, and cirrhosis of the liver, to name 3 prime viral candidates.
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I was up and out before sunrise this morning again. I had a good walk this morning out to Hennicks Hardware and back only to find it closed, but it got me my six miles in. I then came back and made a cherry clafoutie/cobbler for my friend Ken, who just had a birthday. He and his wife Christine left a chocolate cupcake on a bench by my front door yesterday and announced his birthday, and I know he likes cherries, so I made something back for them. Everyone is leaving things out front of other people's houses rather than stopping for a chat. Physical distancing is all the current rage.
I then worked on a video for Mara that she may or may not ever appreciate one day. There were about 8 separate videos from her fifth grade graduation in 2008 so I sliced and diced them and put them in a five minute video with "Clare De Lune" playing underneath it. I enjoy that kind of work, so it is never a complete loss to spend the time to put these things together.
Mara and I were supposed to have our Sunday talk today, but the past 3 sundays she has not answered. The previous 2 she eventually called me back, but I have not gotten a call this time. I have been trying with her. I guess it is a common parental lament, of grown kids not calling back.
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