CoViD-19 and I

Very quiet streets this morning. I walked for close to half an hour and saw two or three people walking dogs, a car warming up in a drive, a cyclist dressed in bright yellow, and not much else. I should go for a ride myself, y'know. I don't like running, and walking isn't enough of a workout to keep me strong for the long term. Quite what the traffic lights will do is anybody's guess, with almost no cars to trip their sensors. But by that same token, with almost no cars, it won't feel bad to just press the pedestrian button and block the cross traffic for 20 or 30 seconds. I could even ride by a few stores and see what they've got on their shelves, but that adds risk for very little gain. We are well supplied. I'm starting to relax about the risk of my sons having brought a virus home. It has been a week for number 1 and six days for his brother, with no symptoms. We shall be just as careful as before when coming home from outside, and I wiped the kitchen ...

My wife went to the supermarket good and early, and came home home with plenty of fruit, vegetables, even beer, and another bag of flour to make bread. A small victory, but a real confidence boost. Panic buying was never necessary; the system is working. Oh, and the loaf I made using pastry flour has turned out quite well, but I'll be glad to save it for pastries.  Today we ate leftovers mostly. This resulted in part from nobody making a plan to cook, but also from making generous portions during the past week. I am looking for a TED talk for the Sunday Assembly. This evening I've already found one that I think will do very well -- going to keep it a secret for a while -- and others that are interesting in themselves. My discussion group has four RSVP already, so I cannot doubt that people want some kind of contact. One of the talks I found bore the title "You are not alone in your loneliness." How better to describe the present situation? From the news, one lit...

I combined my morning walk with visiting the Farmers' Market, which counts as buying food. There were 10% to 20% fewer vendors than last Sunday, so I made a point of thanking the ones I bought from. It's hard to know how many are staying home because they want to stay safe and how many are simply getting fewer customers than before and so no longer find it worthwhile to come. Conceivably, some are running out of stock due to panic buying, but most of what they sell is too perishable to tempt panic buyers. I did see a line at a stall that sells bread, with people well spaced out. Some vendors wore gloves when handling money, but not all. It would be easy for a coin to spread virus; as it happened, I bought in whole numbers of dollars (and some vendors have long preferred to round the final amount pretty ruthlessly rather than hand out, or ask for, coins). It's three weeks to the next scheduled Sunday Assembly, so we held a meeting to plan what online platforms we would con...

Saturday is the day when I rest as much as I want to after a hard week's work. We even eat out -- or, these days, get take-out food, which today was pizza. I've done a few fun things and feel pretty cheerful. Cheerful enough, in fact, to dig out the folder from that talk I went to last year, at my wife's encouragement, on setting your affairs in order well before you die, which can save your spouse and/or children a good deal of trouble and expense. Not to mention making it easier for them to convince doctors to heed their recommendations. A patient who has a breathing tube down his throat is not going to be able to tell the doctors anything, and he (that is, I) may well be drugged enough that what he might say would have no legal force. The money is not a big problem: nearly everything we own is covered under "community property", so my wife won't even have to inherit it: it is already hers. No, I'm not showing symptoms, nor have I been exposed to any...

I've missed two days, and have an excuse for one of them. On Wednesday afternoon my second son came home, and I realised that I had been a little bit anxious. I hadn't seriously doubted that he would be all right in the end, but the way home might have been difficult. In the end it was easy; the aircraft had plenty of empty seats and even the baggage claim was not crowded. His suitcases were also heavy, especially as his roommate had departed in a great hurry and left some things behind. There was some hand sanitiser and a box of disinfectant wipes left in his room (?), and he had the sense to bring them home. First son cooked a celebratory salmon for us while I finished work. We stayed up some time after that, while his brother related what a stressful week it had been. The numbers from China aren't final (nothing is), but they report no new infections, a total of nearly 81,000, and over 3,200 deaths, with 70,000 recoveries. That ratio is not reassuring, especially f...

This morning I went southwards, rather than northwards, for my morning walk. I saw about five other people, most of whom were walking without dogs, and a few cars. Then came stretching exercises, which I think are important at my age, and best done with muscles that have warmed up. I also do some push-ups; not very many, because I can't do very many, but working on that. Even with exercise, I don't have a colossal appetite for breakfast. So get down to work. New guidance from my employer on working at home suggests dressing as if to go the office --- nonsense, say I -- and actually turning the video feed on during meetings so that we can see each other's ugly faces, which I agree with. Much though I'd rather see beautiful or handsome faces, it does me good to see and hear that the people I've spent so much time with are still there and still human; to gossip a bit. The one who was the undisputed clown of the team has, unfortunately, been shifted to another project...

I've heard back from my other neighbour that they are doing all right. This has been a relatively normal (by recent standards) working day. The announcement of the the Bay Area's "shelter in place" reached me about 15:00. It seems fairly sensible, or perhaps just bows to reality. People can still go jogging, just not in groups. The boys have moved their flight dates up. Let's be glad that there are so many vacant seats! Discussed with my wife whether we should ask the boys to take extra precautions when they get here. They've been widely exposed over the past week, to a population that has a low rate of infection so far. Read some proposals that seem to make sense. Since people are going to have to stay at home, make some great entertainment available online or even (gasp) on TV. Stage some NBA games or something, using players who have tested negative. I hear that the Berlin Phil has made its catalog available, no paywall. Guarantee treatment to medic...