Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Thursday, May 7th, 2020

Taren-Uchi

What a beautiful day yet again! The weather is rather bipolar these days we find. One day it is sad, just to be followed by glorious sunshine. I am grateful for the sunny days when we can de outside in our beautiful garden, where on nice days we eat and work. And of course, today we had a beautiful walk.

We keep discovering new things in the neighborhood and the virtual treasure hunt published on our amazing Listserv makes the discovery even more fun. Sadly, we seem to be in for a very cold spell over the next few days.

Jet streams have been changing their behavior over the past 37 years making for extremer weather events. This cold spell is due to a polar vertex over Antarctica. Now what was that about climate change being a hoax?

May be I should be glad that the plants I ordered on March 16th, 2020 have yet to arrive as I most certainly would have planted them already, making for certain death of some of them. While I make a point of buying perennials and mostly local plants, every so often I seem to slip up. This time a Hibiscus snug in, which does not do well in frost and will most probably die over the winter unless I come up with a plan. Not sure what that may be as I do not tolerate house plants. And maybe my “last fire of the season” last week was premature... I did follow up today with both of the nurseries I ordered from as I find eight weeks for delivery very long. Turns out they are waiting for the plants to be self sufficient. Apparently they will ship May 10th, 2020. Very much looking forward to the arrival of the herbs so I can replant my kitchen garden. The delivery of the herbs has appraently been delayed by the Tarragon, which I absolutely do not want to take out of my order. I LOVE tarragon evne if I find there are not to many dishes that I can use it in.

Glad to say that the cover for the outside furniture, which thankfully fits, has arrived today. That shower curtain really did not work out that well and I had to dry all cushions in the sun every day prior to being able to reside outside. It had become somewhat annoying. Luckily the back garden has sun from 13:00 - 15:00, so I do have the morning to dry things. That is in the past now!

The Aikidoka meeting on Tuesday was mainly social, despite Sarah leading us in sword work (thank you!). Having an online Aikido class proved to be far more complex than any of us had expected. As always the beer waza was entertaining though. Amazing how even a little Jitsi social interaction becomes immensly gratifying. How I miss the mat and the people!

I did want to try a class for sword work last night, which sadly did not materialize; seems it is impossible for the instructor to get the zoom link emailed to me. I was rather disappointment admittedly. Maybe next week.

The entire day yesterday was somehow messed up in terms of flow. Partially because EM had zoom classes from 13:00-15:30 and I was in calls until just before 13:00. Hence we did not manage to have lunch in the early afternoon as usual. Rather we snacked on leftovers and postponed cooking until after her calls, when of course no one was hungry. As a result our walk also did not happen until the end of the day. Instead of the weapons class I ended up cooking, which made for three meals rather than our usual two a day. However, the meal was a little more eleborate with breats of duck, fried couscous salad, Brussel sprouts roasted with Panachetta and baked aubergine - couscous filled rolls. The evening ended with a movie night. “Suite Francaise” instead of exercise. It was a very enjoyable, albeit very French, movie and seems to be based on a true story. Suffice to say there was ice cream with it, so yesterday was not helpful for maintaining weight.

It just means more exercise. So, more crunches, sit-ups and so on this morning. I have during COVID upped it from initially ten each to now thirty each followed by some wheight shifts, which I am finally begiining to master, and Ikkiyo. However, the pivots in my tenkans still are off.

One of my Aikido friends dropped by to deliver a taren-uchi. I now have my very own tire to hit, so no more excuses for not doing sword cuts! It was also really nice to see a face other than those residing in my household. We had a socially distanced drink in my garden before he went of to his office to pack up. Seems the building is to undergo renovations and will be closed until December.

In my daily forage through the news I found a lot of interesting things today. Much of it inspiring. Similar to the “View from my Window” for instance there is this front door step project in the UK where people get all dressed up and with nowhere to go, but they do take a picture and share it. 

I also enjoyed this very happy story of the day act of selfless kindness which has resulted in a farmer receiving his degree many moons later.

The other recurring theme I think about is what the post COVID world may look like. In this context I really like the idea of dining in quarantine. The Dutch concept of miniature greenhouses for private dining are cute. However, given the close proximity means one should be sure the dining partner is Corona free; especially given this research on how infections spread.

As always there is plenty of news on the Corona front. The world today sees 3.8 million known case with global death at 268k. Numbers in the US are rising at an average of 2% per day. At least for the time being the increase is stable. However, this stabilization is mainly due to declining cases in hotspots like New York and California, which means numbers are increasing elsewhere in the country. Closer to home, infections are now increasing at 4% per day, which is a definite improvement from 8% we saw last week. This makes me hopeful that there is a chance to contain this and allow for return to normalcy in the not too distant future.

Assuming the USA would follow China’s trajectory we would have another 27 days of lock down to go, but then we all know we are not following China as people do not have the patience to spend 74 days in complete lock down and States are already reopening.

The former Australian PM shares his view on this and what America first means in an op ed. The focus is on the Chinese -US relationship as a result of the pandemic. Cold war 2.0 could well be between two very different powers with very different leadership styles, neither of which comes out of this crisis as a hero for the time being. For the US the take is not an all too flattering take, but very much in line with what I read about a country in denial: Why believe the scientists, when there is a lunatic out there making demands? This makes me feel for the USA. I think I am beyond the stage of being flabbergast or even angry. I am just sad.

This sadness is increased reports that death may be far higher than currently reported. As of mid-March a number of States have seen far higher in average death rates than over the same time period in previous years.  This suggests that COVID has probably taken many more lives than currently attributed to it. Typically deaths translate into actions taken or the sense (or rather the lack thereof) of urgency to starve this virus.

The sadest news of all today is a report on 17% of the nation’s children going hungry. How can this be in the richest country of the world?