Wednesday, May 27th, 2020
Again a beautiful day at least as far as the weather was concerned. Fittingly we had a light lunch of artichokes, gazpacio and the left-over veggie sushi followed by a nice Hood walk – speeding up walking up to beat the pounds! Given it was reasonably humid it meant a shower coming home. Also, the mason came today to fix some of my outside steps which have suffered during the past winter with the cement cracking. Walking into the house via the front door had become a bit of a precarious undertaking.
I have finally given up on those plants I ordered on March 16th, 2020. They have still not arrived. The nursery cannot bereached by phone with the number always busy. The latter is not a suprise if they treat all of their customers like me! The order has - as far as their email responses are concerned - been with their shipping department for 10 days. Given these are life plants I doubt they will be in good shape if ever they were to ship. After waiting for so long it is rather deflating to cancel the order and return to my friends at American plants. It probably means I will buy fewer as really only the Hibiscus needs replacing as it did not survie the autumn trim. Maybe I will get two other plants for the outside dining area where the citronella grass I planted last summer also hsa not survived winter. Though those two plants I might just procure at the farmers market. I find that the stall there provides good advice, good service and the purchase is instantaneous.
The Hood Listserv made for some entertainment today. Inadvertently I started a flurry of emails when I responded to someone’s request about delivery of alcoholic beverages. While they do not deliver, Rodman’s does offer curbside pick up and they are just a few miles down the road. As I have now learned from the Listserv purchasing alcohol in a different Sate and bringing it into Maryland appears to be illegal – who would have thought? We roam between DC, Maryland and Virginia on a reasonably regular basis. It is all one country and the States are so closely entertwined that it seems counterintuitive not to be able to tkae goods from one to the next. People are having a lot of fun with this theme though, I have not seen this many response to a thread since the blower discussion (I am increasingly hating the blowers. Some of my neighbors appear to employ a lawn mowing/ blowing service on a weekly basis and these things are really super noisy). I have now expanded the thread to include questions on tobacco and cannabis products. Let’s see what the community volunteers on those items. While I am writting this a lot of responses are coming in. Offers of 1 gram for USD 10.000 and a note that it is available at the women's farmers market on Wisconsin Ave at “Columbia Cares”. Now that may well be a useful piece of information for some. Someone should explore if cannabis treats corona!
The world today knows of 5. 6 million infected. 1.72 milllion of these are in the USA where the press is covering the fact that the death toll has now surpassed 100k. Overalll numbers are back at a 2% increase in the USA (on a daily average), while Germany is down to 0.3%. The three countries (Brazil, USA, Russia) with the largest increases and the largest death toll seem to have one thing in common: populist leaders who do not believe in science.
Generally, I trust science. However, there may just be too many not fully tested COVID-19 "solutions" in the market. This is of course a result of the general desire of people wanting to revert to normalcy and the scramble for anything that might mitigate the ongoing closures of economies. I take news on the reliability of, or rather the lack thereof, antibody tests in this spirit, but noting my doubts about my personal test results may not be unfounded.
While there is a back and forth about infectiousness of surfaces, it is unquestionable that masks do help. Why the administration is so unable to lead by example is beyond me.
If wearing of masks is such an issue, how would Americans feel about the brave new world of dining out? The restaurant scene in Hong Kong is setting an example for the world of what dining out may look like in times to come. I am not sure I would enjoy such a dining experience and may just avoid eating out altogether – not that I have done a lot of that in the past anyway, so an easy thing to forego. I much prefer to be with friends at my or their house, that is something I really miss. I enjoyed having at least two of my book club friends to entertain in my garden last night. It drove home the point how much I have missed just being with friends.
Desperate parents dealing with work, home schooling and housework have come up with a reward chart in effort to reduce friction. Award yourself stickers and a treat for good behavior is the theme. My treat would definitely be spending time with people!
While parents are trying to be better people this is not true for the squabble among States on how to deal with tax shortfalls caused by Corona. The discussion about “not rewarding” bad behavior, defined as paying pensions to State employees, is still ongoing. I am not sure where this is leading to, but it cannot be good. Suppose the paying states stop paying?
Following the pattern of the last three years of the blame game has of course not stopped with the virus. The WH has repeatedly blamed the Obama administration for the ongoing disastrous crisis response claiming the national stockpile had not been stocked enough, there was no playbook on how to deal with a pandemic (when there was) and now this: It seems like to Obama administration had been in the process of preparing regulations for pandemic responsiveness. This regulation would have mandated all health care facilities to be prepared for a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus. You can guess what happened to that. It was shelved by the current administration. So much for leaving nothing...
I have often mused about the richest nation in the world and how it seems to have no issues with leaving large part of the population behind. Seems like the vulnerable are now suffering the most. Millions of children are going hungry. This is not some third world country we are talking about, but the USA - millions just let that sink in. How can that be? This statement "The program reaches higher up the income ladder than most aid efforts, to families with incomes up to 185 percent of the poverty line, or $48,000 for a family of four" left me deeply confused. Is this 48k per year? That equals 2.000 USD/month/person. If so, then poverty in the US means living of USD 25k/year for a family of four which translates into USD 500/month/ person or USD17/day. How many people live on so little?