Unlike snails, this virus is working through us at an extraordinary rate. The number of Covid cases here in California is at 7173 lab-positive results and 143 deaths as of this evening, and today marks the end of the two week Stay at Home order. Joke's on us, though, because Berkeley just extended it to May 1st. I don't know what we'd do without our local virtual rag, Berkeleyside to keep us informed. Speculation by some people who claim to know things say we are looking at a lot longer than that, maybe three months more. Virginia and Maryland have extended their order until June 1st. We will see.
The upside is that California acted fairly swiftly and in doing so, the number of cases here is much lower than expected. I personally thank our Governor, Gavin Newsome for acting decisively on our behalf. I think Trump's arrogance and ego may be the demise of us in some ways, worse than under any U.S. president in history. I grant that we've never seen anything like this before. Oh, except for the flu pandemic of 1918, but then... I rest my case. Stick a fork in us, Trump has cooked us for dinner. Case in point, for the first time in it's entire history, the United States Postal Service might have to shut down.
I don't know about you but all of that news just put me into a tailspin of despair. Earlier today I started thinking about driving out and going shopping. I need things and I want to go get things. I talked myself down from throwing myself off the front stairs (all three of them) by drinking a glass of wine. That's the best I could do as I'm saving my Xanax for a more dire emergency, like trying to sleep at some point when the lack thereof puts me in delirium. No one is sleeping these days, and don't think I don't get it.
Being reluctantly realistic, this was expected as numbers climb, people die, and hospitals are veritable warzones as the entire world is hit with this. No where is spared and we're all in this together; the entire world.
No one is spared perhaps, except this Native community up in Arctic Canada where a youngish couple fled after selling all their worldly possessions. The TL/DR is that with hopes of escaping the virus, they decided to pick up stakes to try to live like The Grizzly Adams Family up in one of the most brutally hard places in the Americas, showed up virtually on the doorstep of this small, insular community and the First Nation people who already live there said "not today, Satan". Good for them.
I managed to do something ludicrous yesterday afternoon while pulling out my step-up equipment thinking I could do a little low-impact exercise in the back yard. I stepped my previously fractured left foot into one of my grandson's many half-dug holes and it twisted. I felt it quietly pop and immediately thereafter, pain. I think this may just cause a little set back with one of them teeny bones. There's nothing to do about it, really. Given our current stay at home predicament, it's not worth a trip to the ER for an x-ray or a doctor's opinion. I can tough it out by staying off my foot and using a walking boot if necessary.
Lesson: be very careful what you do these days because getting emergency medical care is not what you want to be doing right now.
QAnon apparently projects the government is going to shut off the internet from April 1 - 10. I set absolutely no store by anything that comes out of that whackaloon organization (are they even organized?) but the idea that our internet could go down right now is horrifying. A friend was living in Varanisi, India a while back and the government shut down the internet to the entire country for a week with a ten-minute warning. Separated from friends, family and country, she said she fell into a state of despair. I can imagine.
Anyhow, shut down my internet I'll find something do, but I won't like it.
In a clown show of defiance, somewhere down in Oakland last night a ton of people got together for a sideshow. Of all things, a sideshow. Not even a BBQ or block party or something communally constructive. All it takes is one person coughing within 20 feet of someone else to spread this nasty virus and these dumbshits are congregating to watch some assholes spin their cars around. Well there are actual Darwin awards and I'd make them a runner up to this dipshittery by a Florida evangelist, who got himself arrest for holding a very large congregation. Jesus, take the evangelist preachers first!
A woman in the Oakland neighborhood posted a picture of a group of sideshow voyeurs on Facebook with words that sounded a little despairing, "I just wanted to walk my dog...." and I felt sorry for her.
A friend of mine made a comment that the ice cream truck is driving around his neighborhood in the middle of this pandemic. I am reminded of The Happy Paki who drives our neighborhood truck, which is so derelict it should have been in Shameless, or at the very least, a drug ring bust on the local news. The Happy Paki drives his truck at breakneck speed with the Confederate tune, Turkey in the Straw, blaring at a tick over the right RPMs so when he passes it's a scene out of a bad movie. I'd buy a Strawberry Shortcake bar from him in a New York minute if he came by, and if I could limp along fast enough to catch him.
Hunter S. Thompson once said, "It never got weird enough for me" but I think maybe this would have been just weird enough. He did give us a way to get through life's completely trippy turns and switchbacks, though:
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"
Thank you, Gonzo
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