COVID Senior Lockdown, Day 57

Yeah, took the weekend off, plus a couple.

It’s mid May and the temperature is finally going up. But it was cold over the weekend, close to freezing in spots. This is why they say not to plant tomatoes until after Mother’s Day. The Missus and I hope you had a nice Mother’s Day, or celebrated your Mother properly with flowers and tomato cages.

I have come to understand that the COVID world is clearly divided between the people who are scared and the people who wonder why. This is not a flippant flip-off. This is imperative to understanding our neighbors because, as I’m really tired of being reminded, we’re all in this together. People who live in high case areas are fried. Tired, surrounded by potential silent enemies, worrying about sick friends and family. The vast rest of us are sympathetic to an extent, based on what we see and hear on the all-COVID-all-the-time News. But, the vast rest of us are not living their lives. If you’re not in a super concentrated urban area like NYC or a nursing home or one of the other explainable Hot Spots, you honestly, sincerely, and without rancor or attitude, may not get the big deal. And if you’ve been around for a while, you remember all the other flu and virus breakouts over the years that did not result in shuttering the world. Interesting story here about the Hong Kong flu in the late 60s:

https://www.aier.org/article/woodstock-occurred-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/

There’s a longstanding paradigm that tries to pit the Haves against the Have Nots. This is developing into a conceptual disconnect between the Scared and Scared Not. Many many many of us don’t know anybody who has had it. I guess we’re really lucky. Many many many of us are skeptical about the statistics, because we’ve seen government issued statistics before, and these are no less fungible. There is a real credibility gap, to use a Woodstock-era term. Sounds heartless, maybe. But it’s the facts. And this is at the core of the burgeoning rebellion. It is not about human lives versus capitalist greed or whatever. The early Open the Country protests were neutered by partial relaxations in many places. But in conversation, there are plenty of people who want jobs and need money, or whose relationships and life plans are suffering, or who just don’t like being told what to do - and are not buying into the program any longer.

On the other hand…

Exercise makes you look better naked. So does tequila. Yes, I know somebody said that before me, but I agree.