nailed it

Lets check, the up/down/around/ loading of pictures.

The following (hopefully) are from some of my walks:

Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Grateful thanks to Mike Dobson

Coronarial Days

Soooooooooooooooooooooo frustrated, because I thought I had at last nailed how to download (upload) whatever load, photos to my blog.  Now I have lost it again.

OK, so a post without pictures.  Hopefully there will eventually be some photos, because this spring is magnificent.

These strange days, as I have said - I awake and do not know the day, or the date, nothing really seems to matter.  Once again time has lost - for me anyway - the meaning it had before.  This strange new way of being seems to have been going on for ever, and it is all in the now. The news of the spread of the virus, and the numbers of the infected and the dead change by the minute, along with the most recent states and countries affected.

The other day, instead of going on my usual constitutionals, always to a new area of course, I found a playing field not too far from here.  I walked down the steps to the field and started walking around and around.  I saw the same faces walking round, just like me, but everyone seemed to be avoiding me, like I had the plague or something.  Then it dawned on me - it IS the plague, this is our new reality, and this is social distancing.  One sees a fellow human and walks around, avoiding them.

As I walked around I started to wonder whether this is a form of insanity - like a rat, around and around in circles, with no treat in sight, except for this high step count on my phone! 

Ye Gods and little Englishmen - I will try again ...............

Tales of Covid19

I have been busy today - since my very late rising. (more of that later)

Yesterday on the Nextdoor site there were requests for masks.  During the most recent fires I ordered both an air filter and 2 boxes of N95 masks.  No sooner did I receive both items than the air cleared.  I packed the masks away in a storage area knowing there will be more fires.  Of course I had no idea there would be a pandemic.

On the site there were a few places one can donate masks to.  I emailed both sites, and still have not heard back from either.  This morning, while drinking my coffee I received a text message from a friend from the kibbutz to ask if we can speak.  Immediately I called him, and he told me that he is on  a whats app group with people from his age group on the kibbutz who live in the states.  One of them is a girl (woman of course) who is a home occupational therapist in my area.  She asked whether they had masks as Kaiser is not giving them any because there aren't any!  Firstly I knew exactly who he was talking about (that too is another story), and of course I could give her masks,  I would be delighted to. He gave her my phone number and she called within the hour.  We arranged for her to pick them up. She texted me from outside the house and I went up the driveway with the sealed masks which I had put into a paper bag. I handed them over. We mutually gave each other virtual hugs, then she brought out a loaf of bread which she makes, (in a plastic bag) and handed it to me.   I hadn't expected anything at all, but was so touched.  I also thought how all this is, as I have said, like a dystopian movie in which people cannot be in contact with anyone and we barter goods and services.


The only other time I emerged today was when my daughter came with the groceries she had bought for me from Trader Joe's.

I haven't gone on my walk because it is cold and rainy - ideal weather for the delicious vegetable soup I made, along with a slice of her bread, which is really excellent.  Organic sourdough, fresh from the oven.

I had made a large pot of soup and doled out some for my landlords and left it on their back porch. We are like moles appearing quickly out of our holes, then back down we go.  If we do pass people on the pavement or the street we cross to the other side, avoiding each other like the plague, which is exactly what this is.

A week? two? three? forever?

I am totally losing track of time.   Our world has changed completely and utterly in such a very short space of time.  I think all the inhabitants are in a state of shock, anxiety, and re-adjustment.  No one really has any idea of how long this will last, who has been infected, how they will survive.

For me this is so eerily similar to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War when our world completely changed at 2o' clock on the afternoon of the 6th October 1973.

I remember how it was then, to wake up from a night's sleep having been, for that time, in a different state of consciousness.  Then, as one awakens and returns to their present state, 'reality' begins to filter through.  I wake in the morning and lie in bed thinking, 'what day is it? I can't quite remember, and then it dawns upon me that I have woken to a new world, the corona/covid 19 world, and it really doesn't matter when I get up, each day is the same.

I clean my house, because that is what I do when the outside world is chaotic, that is how I maintain my sense of order and control. So I clean the house, wash my dishes, go on long walks.  As I have said, my area is beautiful, even more so now as spring has arrived - officially in fact.  The air is filled with scents of honey, the birds seem much louder than before, and when I am still and sit in a park under the trees, I hear the hum of bees and the insects.  Nature is unphased by the virus.

Yesterday my 'daughter' and I went on a beautiful walk, and as we walked down Stockton Avenue toward my house we both looked at each other and said, 'the fire season will start soon.'  That too is our new reality.

I am so blessed to have her nearby. She insists that I not go out except for walks and will do my shopping for me.  I feel truly blessed to have her in my life.

It seems most people I know, anyway, have been solicitous and helpful, and have come together in new ways.  I am heartened until I turn on the TV and see the idiot give his 'briefings' while Pence, and the White House doctor and other officials hover together around one microphone in direct contrast to the social distancing we are supposed to observe.  What kind of modeling is this?  Okay, enough of that for the entire day.  Not worth getting upset about.

OK, I am off for my walk, more later

The next day

My fellow morning walkers.  They are maintaining correct social distancing in a distinctly turkey-like manner.  

  



Other than these neighbours I saw one man pruning a tree, no-one else, and just very few cars.

Mainly I THINK  have learned, at loooooooooooooong last, to post photos on my blog without undertaking endless trials, and making so many attempts that I just become totally frustrated.

Today's accomplishments:

Photos on blog
made soup and rice and lentils - left some on the step outside for my landlords
finished knitting a hat for my great-nephew and have blocked it
read most of the paper and the latest updates and articles and suggestions sent by friends
been in contact with my far flung family
Oh, and most important, 2,840 steps and 6 floors climbed

Luckily where I live is even harder than being on a treadmill, and far more beautiful.  Thanks to the rain we have had after the driest February in 100 years or something similar, the air and plants and trees are sparklingly rinsed.

A guilty confession

Yesterday, in terms of this corona,/covid 19 crisis, light years ago - I went for a walk.  I stopped by my friendly neighbourhood coffee shop and ordered a latte.  I saw  a large bottle of hand sanitizer on the counter.  This is an item that has sold out everywhere - there is none to be had.  I asked the 'barista' whether the shop next door was selling any.

The gift shop next door is owned and run by the same couple who  own the coffee shop as well as a communal work space. I entered the shop where the owner sat looking at her computer screen.  I greeted her and asked whether she had any hand sanitizer to sell.  Of course she didn't, but she told me to come back with a bottle and she would give me some.  Then she looked at her screen, looked back at me, and said that the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, had at that moment declared that all people over 65 should stay at home.  The way she looked at me I could tell she knew I fell in that demographic! 

Kindly she offered to fill a plastic cup with hand sanitizer so that I wouldn't have to climb the steep hill back home and then down again.  She did add that I may not need the sanitizer if I am sheltered in my home!

So, new regulations in place.  These regulations stated that those over 65 shelter in place and only go out for essential items.

At home yesterday evening I poured myself a whisky and looked with horror at the bottle - almost finished!

This morning I began to agonize - should I order alcohol online?  Probably.  I tried, but as inept as I am with this online stuff I couldn't figure out how to put my member number on the order, and therefore wouldn't get a discount.  Then I thought - is going to BevMo  essential?  Of course it is.  Should I go?  Should I not?  This agonizing decision took up most of the morning, until, plucking up courage, donning a disguise (moustache and hat) I got into my car and drove to BevMo.  I turned on the radio and just then an announcement came on - "from midnight tonight everyone has to shelter in place.  Essential services will remain open along with grocery stores."  They didn't say liquor stores.

I drove along San Pablo and turned right into BevMo's parking lot - bedlam! No spaces at all. Eventually I squeezed into a space between cars, put on latex free gloves and went inside.  The place was packed - shelves were empty.  Four cashiers were open and there were long lines of people with well stocked carts.  Clearly I was not the only one who thought it wise to stock up.

I found what I was looking for and then - saw a prize item. A bottle of Gunpowder Gin from Ireland.  Yahoooooooo! I had to get that also. 

I stood in line at a distance of about 6 feet from the many people ahead of me.  The woman behind me, who was standing a bit too close for comfort, asked me whether this shop would still be open tomorrow.  The man behind her and I had obviously heard the latest rules.  'As of midnight tonight, only essenial shops will be open." She looked from me to him and then dropped her handbasket onto the floor and ran off for more bottles!!!!

There is no end in sight!

Acquiescence

 To try and say anything about the last couple of weeks with the news that changes every few minutes, is next to impossible.  The fear of the coronavirus and much of the misinformation increases at a dizzying pace.  Of course none of this has been helped by HWSNBN and his inability to talk in coherent sentences, his blaming of this virus on anything from Obama to the Democrats to the Chinese to the media.  OK - I won't waste anymore on that or on him.

The thing I can write about is my own process.  I have gone from denial, anger, shock, resistance, to reluctant acceptance, to acquiescence.

I had planned to leave for Israel on April 10th.  At first I was definitely going, then I thought I would go and would be in quarantine for 2 weeks, then I decided to wait until the last minute to decide. I could extend the trip so that I would still have time after being quarantined.  Then on Thursday, after a sleepless night,  I reluctantly decided that a trip at this time is stupid.  The other thing that kept me awake on Thursday night was that I was to attend a memorial service and reception for a friend's mother. I really wanted to honor her mother, and support my friend, but I decided against attending.  That decision was come by with great difficulty and a heavy heart.

These decisions were made after speaking to a rational, non alarmist, research scientist.  It suddenly dawned upon me that other than washing hands and social distancing, we must try and contain the virus. It is the socially responsible course of action.

Ever since this began, I have considered that we have a few lessons to learn from this global crisis. The first  is that we are all interconnected - and by that I mean everything and everyone on this planet.  Sealing borders to viruses will not work.  We only have to look at the devastation we have wrought on our environment to understand that we are interconnected. I do think some people understand this.

The other lesson is that we have absolutely no control over anything, not our health, not our lives, not our finances.  All of our 'safety' edifices and beliefs  are but a bubble, an illusion.  The one thing we can do is wash our hands, thoroughly, and respect our fellow beings and treat them with love, caring and compassion.

Here I am, at home, but still totally connected. And so very happy that it has rained again, at last, and once again the air is fresh and clean.

Be safe everyone.  Love to you all

Antidotes

These are a few of my antidotes to the prevailing air of total chaos and insanity

 

It is magnificent magnolia time of the year, and each year, despite the unusual weather, these trees appear in all their glory.

This has been the driest February in 100 years, or something like that. It is so dry I get a shock from my car door each time I close it.  The air is already not clean, my eyes  are red and itchy,  but undeterred, the magnolias bloom and grace our surroundings and our lives.

Nature does not let us down.

And this:






A stunning display of King Proteas which my friend in Tiburon has managed to grow.

South Africa's national flower has graced the gardens of a South African.

These things make me smile and feel good.

There is something else.  As the news steadily deteriorates, I have regressed.  I listen to the news in the morning on NPR and then I make cream of wheat. Something I don't remember having eaten in years and years.  It is soothing.

Does anyone else have some helpful antidotes - please add them in your comments.

As I am about to hit the publish button I sneezed!  Yikes.  I think it is simply allergy season, not the coronavirus!