Happy Easter in this brave new world that we live in.
I still find it hard to comprehend how we got here, or that we are here at all. A few days/weeks/months ago life was chugging along normally. There was some news that China had a new(er) bad(der) disease, but the rest of the world was pretty much 'whatever'.
And here we are. This new life where we wear masks to go outside, to a store, to work (if you are lucky enough to still be doing that). This strange apocalyptic world where I can go for a road-bike-ride and there is almost no traffic. A world where we suddenly aren't traveling ANYWHERE. I walk down to our mailbox and there isn't anybody outside (our housing complex has those banks of mailboxes every block, so the mail-people stop and fill them all, then drive to the next block, and the next one, and so on). It seems like a much quieter world suddenly.
In our house life is eerily similar to the pre-apocalyptic world. Our living room is our social gathering place. Our TV is the center of that (sadly)...oh heck, I won't apologize for that...we LOVE watching movies and TV (Jeannie is totally addicted to those shows about crimes...the real crimes I mean, not TV crime series shows). And the news. We like Lester Holt. I like news where they just give the news and let ME make up my own thoughts about it...it's hard to find news not slanted one way or the other. Seems every channel has it's agenda. I'd like to think I'm agenda-free. Kind of like Tide-free (detergent)...no dyes, scents, just the soap.
Then I look at our dining room table, which is now Jeannie's office. That's different. Her entire office has been brought home...laser printer, monitor, computer, office-chair, and even her little space heater (I still chuckle at that). I pulled her nice desk-plaque she got soon after she earned her CPA (the wooden name-plate-thing with her name and "CPA" on it)...I told her to put it on her desk at work but she doesn't want to appear to be bragging (hell, I would...I saw her work SO VERY HARD for YEARS to earn that! It truly was like earning ANOTHER college degree, and she worked so very hard for that too!) Anyway, she laughed when I put it out on the table, and she even left it because I'm the only one who gets to see it.
Other than the dining room office, there is nothing out of the ordinary here at home. I still mow the yard every so often, scoopy-the-poopy in the back every day or 2 (it's amazing how much poopy two somewhat small dogs can make). The only weird thing is I just don't see my neighbors much anymore. I know Louie and Anna on the one side are very much in "safe" mode. Like Jeannie and I, they are both still working although under the new world order rules (facemasks, social distancing, etc) and they are both very worried about catching this new-to-us disease. John and his wife on the other side, well, I hear John every now and then moving his plastic dumpsters around (we have city provided plastic dumpsters for trash, recycling and yard waste). But that's about it...I haven't seen either of them for weeks.
I know that I SHOULD be more worried about catching it than I am...but I'm just not. I don't know why...denial maybe? I'm still finding it so hard to believe what the world is going thru right now. Maybe if I was in a big city where the effects were real and nearby....Santa Maria is a somewhat small city (I think around 90,000 or so). We aren't a suburb of any larger city, and it's a fairly sprawled out agriculture type town (year-round strawberries are a huge part of our local crop, as well as a TON of wineries just outside of town....I go on a road bike ride from my house and there are vineyards pretty much everywhere). I just have this "what's all the fuss about" attitude, and I can't say exactly why. I mean, if either of us came down with it and got really sick I'd sure change my attitude. I can't even fathom how the families of those who have died from this disease must feel...one day they get sick and are whisked away to somewhere that you can't even visit, and they just don't come home. How horrible would THAT be? They DIE and you may not even know about it....I hear (see) on the news the refrigerator trucks they are using for temporary morgues in NYC...that is just beyond my comprehension that they NEED to do that!
One of the guys I work with went to our local Hospital about 2 weeks ago as he thought had some symptoms and had been sick for over a week... and after walking thru hallways lined with plastic sheeting and sitting in a plastic room all by himself, he finally saw a Dr. who said his symptoms were not of the disease and sent him home (without being tested) and told him NOT to come back unless he was dying. And we are like WHAT?? It's not like we are in NYC and our hospital has been over-run...we have locally just a very few cases (so far). I guess THAT is part of our new reality...don't go to the hospital unless you have IT...they don't want to see you otherwise.
Oh...and the news last night was talking about THE checks from the Fed. Gov. are hitting the accounts now. Yeah. Both of you (Susie and Rae) have talked about this...believe me, Jeannie and I feel the same way. So you are looking to the Gov to give you money. Expecting it. Deserving it. Uhm...where is your savings? You've got nice new car/truck, cell phone, wide screen TV and Cable service, internet service, eat out all the time, buying all kinds of crap you don't need...and yet you don't have enough money saved to get you by a few weeks without a paycheck? And that is somehow everybody else's fault? OK...I do feel bad for all of the millions who are suddenly COVID-unemployed...and IF there are to be checks going out, then THOSE should be the ones to get them. IF you are still working, no check. The farmers? SURE THING...help THEM out! They are being crushes! Suddenly there is very little demand for a lot of their crops with restaurants and cruise ships and such being closed. Crops in the fields rotting and being plowed under. I'm all for giving those people help. I'd be fine with them getting weekly checks they won't ever have to pay back. We MUST keep them afloat. Farming is a hard life! (my Moms entire family up in North Dakota are pretty much all farmers...her mom and dad, most of her siblings and their kids). I have seen first hand how hard a life that is. My Uncle Charles always said farmers are the richest poor people on the planet (referring to the fact that he has a few million dollars of necessary equipment sitting around his farm, yet he owns free and clear almost none of it).
OK...that turned into a rant of sorts. Yep...I'm fed up with the "give me give me give me" people...but they were here before this and will be here long after. And I'm all for helping those who really need it. I just don't know where / when this ends. There is no end in sight yet, no matter what we hear on the news. Sports coming back? Not any time soon if you ask me. All this "flattening of the curve" has been working pretty well in this country (if you ask me)...but the only problem with that is that very thing means you can't just go back to 'normal or everything you've done thus far is thrown out the window and BAM...the medical system is overwhelmed, the very thing we have tried not to do. We can't really go back to 'normal' until A: there is a vaccine, B: nearly everybody has already had it, or C: there is reliable and quick (and super-abundant) testing for both having the virus and having the antibodies....so we know who is actually safe from catching it. None of that will be happening soon though. But that's just my 2 cents on it...maybe there is an option "D" or "E" that I can't even think of.
Anyway...here we are. Things are surely WELL beyond our control. I'm very happy and thankful that we don't live in a big city, that we aren't surrounded by actual Covis cases, that we still have food available (and yesterday I actually picked up a 9-pack of Charmin at the base Commissary while we were doing our weekly grocery shopping...WOW!) I didn't really need it, but grabbed it anyway as I know there are people I work with who don't have Commissary access (retirees and active duty only) and who don't want to brave the 2 hour Costco line before they even open....and I'd like to just be able to hand them a few rolls and say 'here you go'. I think sharing and taking care of each other right now are the biggest things we can do. I know last weekend when we were at the Commissary Jeannie got TP for one of her co-workers who hasn't been able to find any...we drove by her place and dropped it over the fence (she wasn't home). And yesterday she came by our place and dropped off a bottle of Vitamin C that we haven't been able to find (Jeannie takes chewables every day...I don't, but I eat a grapefruit nearly every morning with breakfast). So yeah...helping each other....that's what this is all about now. Taking care of each other in whatever way we can. Small things can mean a lot right now.
So....on this Easter morning I just want to say that. Help each other any way you can. One day this will just be part of our history....and hopefully we will learn something from it, and be better prepared for the next time (for rest assured, there WILL BE a next time). Human Kindness. That's what this is all about. As Ellen (DeGeneres) says at the end of every show: "Be kind to each other".
And get out there and ride. Or jog. Or hike. Or walk. Whatever it is you like do do outside, just do it.
That is all.
