Month: April 2020

April 29, 2020

• Between 300,000 and 1 million public-sector workers could soon be out of a job or sent home without pay, according to a new estimate from the National League of Cities. The steep reductions in staffing levels could affect education, sanitation, safety and health, local leaders warn, potentially leaving critical public services in utter disarray. (Washington Post)
• Another spring rain and I’m in the garage, cleaning tools, preparing canna bulbs and calla bulbs for planting come May first.
  

• Today’s Indiana coronavirus report: 63 more deaths, 605 new positive cases.
• After chatting with a mother last evening I went to bed more anxious than usual. She alluded to the child’s vulnerability simply in being removed from playmates and play. Alone, the child tries to process the stay-at-home orders and the loneliness which is more than one may expect from a child. This mother recognizes a paralysisis, an aimlessness, a loneliness in her child.
• President Donald Trump signed an executive order yesterday calling meatprocessing a part of “critical infrastructure.” This pressures many meat plants to stay open amid the coronavirus pandemic and the spread of the virus among plant staff.”
• “If we have strength, it is in recognizing when we are operating well within our circle of competence and when we are approaching the perimeter.” (Warren Buffett)
• Friedenswald summer youth camps have been canceled.
• Psychologists, computer scientists and neuroscientists say the distortions and delays inherent in video communication can end up making you feel isolated, anxious and disconnected (or more than you were already). You might be better off just talking on the phone. (New York Times)
• Courtney brought our week’s groceries this afternoon.
• Lali, Doug and the girls enjoyed a cook-out by Lye Creek last evening.
  My heart was broken this evening. Public Broadcasting devoted significant time to a study of families with children having disabilities. Normally in special classes they learn  from  educators trained for this work. But now, cloistered at home, children fall back in their progress to the sorrow and despair of their parents.
• “70 percent of those working in health care and elderly care are women.” 

April 28, 2020 COVID-19 NOTES

• This morning I ventured out in the car. I hadn’t put gas in it for six weeks. Today I added seven gallons at $1.39 a gallon.  Because I wanted to deposit the $20 received from Everence, I went to the bank but it was closed. At the hardware, only five persons were allowed in the big store at any one time. When I left the store a line had formed outside, people at a distance from each other, waiting for their turn to enter. Yes, I wore a mask and gloves.

• My yearly medical appointment related to sleep apnea began at 9:00 A.M. promptly, was over in ten minutes. I was not in the doctor’s office; she phoned me.
  
• COVID-19 cases in U.S. have now topped 1,000.
  
• When outbreaks occur, people often find scapegoats to blame.The five leading scapegoats according to Cornell University’s Alliance for Science:
     1) The 5G electromagnetic spectrum has caused COVID-19.
     2) Bill Gates purposely caused it.
     3) The virus escaped from a Chinese lab.
     4) COVID was created as a biological weapon.
     5) The US military imported COVID into China.
  
• What a gorgeous day, in anticipation of a thunder storm tonight. I planted tomatoes, kale, cilantro, cabbage, onions, and chard.
  
• Two-thirds of the U.S. restaurant work force has ben laid off.
  
• Solutions to Covid-19 infection? put face in hair dryer? drink lots of tonic water? long exposures to ultraviolet light?  None of these says SNOPES.COM
  
• Each day I reserve a minimum of one hour for writing, and currently I prefer the sun room to the office in the basement.
  
• Today Mike Pence did not wear a mask on his tour of Mayo Clinic, violating a hospital rule.
  
• New Zealand has, through coordinated action, brought Covid-19  infections to zero. “We are a little country at the bottom of the world, but we got one thing right.”

April 27, 2020 COVID Notes

1. Here in Indiana, a thousand new cases reported yesterday. Nursing homes now account for one-third of deaths.
   
2. The dentist called to make an early appointment; I said no.
   
3. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) “It’s not fair to the taxpayers. We sit here, we live within our means, and then New York, Illinois, California and other states don’t. And we’re supposed to go bail them out? That’s not right.”
   
4. I chatted with my lawyer friend across the street. An effervescent extrovert, she doesn’t like working at home.
   
5. The garbage collectors were up and at it this morning, long before I got out of bed.
   
6. US oil prices fell sharply today Monday after the world’s largest oil-backed exchange traded fund began offloading all its short term contracts on fears of another plunge into negative territory.
   
7. Hal and I talked again today. He just got done planting sunflower and milkweed.
   
8. The garden outback 
   

April 26, 2020

1. Countering the darkness of a world-wide virus pandemic, here in this small place that we call home, spring is soft yet bright, timid yet persistent, fully communicable.
   

2. Washington Post: “Donald Trump needs to resign over his handling of the corona virus.”

3.  On today’s walk on the Pennsy Trail, an elderly man, older than I, got up from a chair set by the trail. “When do you think places will open again? Someone told me next week.” He was laid off from a job downtown.

4.  Barbra Streisand. “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

5.  Reuters  “Global corona virus death toll has passed  200,000.”

6.  The leader of Belarus: “There are no viruses here. Do you see any of them flying around? I don’t see them either.”

7. NYT.  More than 80 percent of hotel roos in the United States are empty.

8. What pleasure Joe and Merrill give to their neighbors in their gardening. 

9. Is North Korean president Kim Jong-un ill?  Is he down with the virus?

10. College presidents are determined to open campuses for the fall term.

April 25, 2020 — COVID-19 notes

1. “Plenty of pigs, no place to slaughter” (Indy Star)
   
2. A neighbor delivered a container of soup to us today.
   
3. In our “advanced” nation, 4.2 million homeless children struggle to survive.
   
4. Friends suggest that my six-week bout with “acute bronchitis” might have been virus related.
   
5. Currently the states with fast-rising COVID cases are Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
   
6. An elderly farmer in northeast Kansas whose wife is seriously ill had five masks. He sent one to New York City for a health care worker.
   
7. The World Health Organization can not affirm that a person who once had the virus will be immune from recurrences.
   
8. “Our neighbor lady called Wednesday morning to have us look out  the window.  To our  surprise we found a family of 7 goslings and a family of 10 ducklings.  They occupied our attention for the morning.” (from a letter)
   
9. In the past twenty four hours, 44 more Hoosiers died from the COVIC virus.
   
10. “The president’s aides are working behind the scenes to sideline the WHO on several new fronts as they seek to shift blame for the coronavirus pandemic to the world body.” Washington Post,
    
11. A letter from our insurance company: “due to the overall financial impact of COVID-19, Everence has enclosed a check to help you pay for any annual plan rate increase you experience … . In addition, we are offering a 60-day grace period if you cannot pay your premium on time.”
    
12. The neighbors meet. 
    

April 24, 2020 — COVID-19

1. This note: “The spread of the COVID-19 virus depends on how dense the population is. The spread  the COVID-19 virus depends on how dense the population is.”

2.  Now that teams aren’t playing each other, the sports pages of The Indianapolis Star are few and fallow.

3. A morning pause by Pleasant Run.

4. Gas today in Indy is $1.38 a gallon.

5. President Trump inquired whether the injecting of disinfectants to kill Covid – 19 might be a solution to the pandemic. Doctors are aghast.

6. Vice President Pence predicts that Covid-19 “will be behind us” by Memorial Day.

7. From six feet apart, we enjoyed an afternoon snack with our son.

8. One street over, the pine cones hang on tightly.

 
9. Shirley next door sent over a bag of home-made cookies.

10. My Pleasant Run guru wonders whether I’m staying calm and confident.

11. As the Landisville preachers said in their benedictions, “Grace, mercy and peace … ” and then my little brain couldn’t follow the long sentence, although the end contained these words “and forever more. Amen.” 

April 23, 2020 COVID-19 notes

1. My dentist wants to keep the appointment for my teeth cleaning. Should I go?
   
2. In February the U.S. unemployment rate was 3.5 %. Today it is 16%.
   
3. (Letter to the editor today) “COVID-19 is not the bubonic plague. And millions haven’t died. It isn’t any worse than the flu… . It is time for Governor Holcomb to resign.”
   
4. Indiana death toll has now passed 700.
   
5. From a friend who is fighting bladder cancer:  “Everything is in bloom from the ground to the treetops—daffodils, tulips, forsythia, redbud, apple and crabapple trees and dogwood.” 
   
6. My turn to make lunch.  Eggs/onions/peppers s-l-o-w scrambled; baked beans; kale salad; oranges. And home made bread.
   
7. How good to get this note from Pennsylvania. “As a former future farmer I’m proud of the Lancaster dairy farmers who responded to the current crisis and milk glut by refusing to dump excess milk as directed  ‘because it’s not being a good steward of food and people are going hungry’ said David Miller, David Lapp, et al. Together with Oregon Dairy and volunteers often working into the wee hours they joined to process thousands of bottles of otherwise wasted milk each day for area food banks.”
   
8. Today in Indy, rain. Can you see the drops on the leaves?
   

9. Reading three at a time: Subliminal; How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow; From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present by Jacques Barzun; and Hunger by Knut Hamsun.

10. Something didn’t work; the 7 pm ZOOM meeting didn’t zoom.

11. Just got a message from a good friend in town: “Fever is gone as of today. I think I’m over the hump and symptoms going away. Thirteen days in, getting to the end I hope. Hope to sit on the deck tomorrow. “

Good night.

Covid-19   Notes

April 22, 2020

1. At 6 AM Kroger called to get approval for substituting an item we ordered. Courtney brought the groceries at 9.
   
2. Meanwhile today 260 million people throughout the world are on the verge of starvation.
   
3. I returned a book to neighbor Gretchen; Roger and I chatted, he from the screened porch, I from the sidewalk.
   
4. New York City deaths have now passed 15,000.
   
5. Ninety two year old Shirley slowly got into her car, then took her daily ten-minute drive around town “to charge the battery” and “divert my cat.”
   
6. Two health care workers in a local retirement center died today as did 31 others from this county.
   
7. Tyson Fresh Meats in Logansport will close now that 146 employees tested positive for the virus.
   
8. James can no longer visit his sister who has tested positive; she lives in a nursing home.|
   
9. A member of the church to which I belong phoned me this afternoon, inquiring of our well-being.
   
10. This past Saturday more than 200 people gathered to protest what they described as overreach of the government in the effort to curb the corona virus. The governor said the demonstration was demoralizing for health care workers.
    
11. The favored overseas haven for rich Americans in time of crisis is New Zealand.
    
12. When I’m in the back garden and look northward over the fence, this is what I see. This too is a favored haven.

April 21, 2020

More Covid-19 notes

1. Not a pessimist nor a worrier by nature, I do not foresee a rapid return to business as usual.
2. Zoom has come as a surprise. On Monday I zoomed with eleven high school buddies, yes friends for nearly 70 years.
3. Indiana’s hospitals do not suffer the overloads of some other urban medical centers, but here we have a disheartening number of Blacks who have died.
4. Have you noticed the creativity in music, art, comedy, sculpture and signage?
5. Photography has stepped in to express my feelings. Here is a photo of a recent storm approaching from the north.
   

The camera lets me see feeling a second and third time.

The camera takes me to still waters.

6. We have enjoyed watching two little neighbor children at play in the garden behind the house.

7. I am troubled by the quick grab of government funds by corporations and big business.

8. A friend is fighting a high fever.

9. I miss seeing our family.

10. Gardening offers both escape and hope.

Be well.

April 20, 2020

Remembering …