So now we can't leave home except for "essential purposes," or to walk or run for exercise (as long as we stay 6 feet away from anyone we meet). I love my house but sometimes I have to get out of it; today I took a long walk, up to the top of the canyon where I live. I used to take this walk regularly, with a cane, when I was recovering from knee replacement surgery. It's 3/4 of a mile one way and goes up about 200 feet in altitude; a good stiff walk.
I wondered what activity I'd see, walking up the canyon on a Friday afternoon when everyone is supposed to be at home. Quite a bit, actually.
I passed the elementary school, and there were some small kids (with parent attendants) riding skateboards down the slight slope of one of the driveways behind the school. Riding, here, means "sitting on."
A little farther on, I passed the baseball diamond, where a man was pitching baseballs for his teen-aged son to hit. Further on in the sports field was a family with a picnic, a couple of guys batting a tennis ball back and forth on the grass, a woman kicking a soccer ball with her small daughter, and a couple of small boys throwing frisbees.
The major action was at the 3 public tennis courts at the end of the school sports field. Every court had an active game, and the practice wall at the side of the courts had 2 guys hitting balls. I assume all the tennis buffs were here because the private club, further up the canyon, was closed for the duration, with all the other fitness facilities.
Farther up the canyon, I saw people walking dogs, people walking without dogs, bicyclists with kids on bicycles, bicyclists without kids. There weren't many people, but I was definitely not the only one out. I'm not sure why but it made me feel better.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Friday, March 13, 2020
Pandemic
I haven't been posting much; Christmas and its aftermath was very chaotic. And now what we all thought was a sad epidemic in China is a global pandemic, and it's right here in my town, where everyone agrees with China that the best way to cope with it is for everyone to stay home and not mix with other people.
Part of the problem, of course, is that our brilliant government decided it didn't need a team of pandemic experts on standby (Trump fired them in 2018). And when a real pandemic came along, they decided we should build our own test kits instead of using the ones from the WHO, like most other countries. And because Trump has also been gutting the funding for the Centers for Disease Control, the first test kits they sent out were unusable because they were missing a part. China's epidemic is tailing off, South Korea is testing hundreds of thousands of people, and the U.S. can't get off the ground. California has almost 40 million people, and we have about 8,000 available test kits, some of which don't have all the necessary parts. Who's the 3rd world country now?
I may go crazy. I don't usually put personal information in these posts, but I'll admit that I'm over 70 and I have asthma. Treated and controlled asthma, but asthma. So here I am, a prime target for the virus; and there's nothing I can do but wash my hands. Which I do. But I'm a very social person; I need to interact with people. And the "stay home and shut up" advice is steadily shutting down all my options. My chorus rehearsals - cancelled through the end of the month. The concerts we had tickets for - cancelled. If I'm stuck in the house, my solution is to read - I just learned that the city is closing all its libraries "until further notice."
The uncertainty of all this is not helping. I'm a problem solver by nature; the pandemic is a problem I can't do one single thing about. And nobody knows how long it will last.
Part of the problem, of course, is that our brilliant government decided it didn't need a team of pandemic experts on standby (Trump fired them in 2018). And when a real pandemic came along, they decided we should build our own test kits instead of using the ones from the WHO, like most other countries. And because Trump has also been gutting the funding for the Centers for Disease Control, the first test kits they sent out were unusable because they were missing a part. China's epidemic is tailing off, South Korea is testing hundreds of thousands of people, and the U.S. can't get off the ground. California has almost 40 million people, and we have about 8,000 available test kits, some of which don't have all the necessary parts. Who's the 3rd world country now?
I may go crazy. I don't usually put personal information in these posts, but I'll admit that I'm over 70 and I have asthma. Treated and controlled asthma, but asthma. So here I am, a prime target for the virus; and there's nothing I can do but wash my hands. Which I do. But I'm a very social person; I need to interact with people. And the "stay home and shut up" advice is steadily shutting down all my options. My chorus rehearsals - cancelled through the end of the month. The concerts we had tickets for - cancelled. If I'm stuck in the house, my solution is to read - I just learned that the city is closing all its libraries "until further notice."
The uncertainty of all this is not helping. I'm a problem solver by nature; the pandemic is a problem I can't do one single thing about. And nobody knows how long it will last.
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