Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Saturday, June 6th, 2020

BLM

Today I feel alive again! Not that I have not been, but today was what might have been a normal day in life before the Virus lock us all in and made us super cautious.

Of course, no dojo and no pool, but otherwise a normal day in life. Starting with the papers and social media scanning in the morning accompanied by rye bread with bacon, egg and cheese courtesy of my amazing daughter.

We then got ready for the senior parade. To honor the class of 2020 the Hood had organized a drive-by parade and had asked all neighbors to come out and cheer the class of 2020. EM drew a big "Baron", the BCC mascot, on the road in front of the house. My artistic skills sufficed only to chalk out “Class of 2020 U Rock”. It was incredibly hot, and we were drenched in sweat when done so dipped under the garden hose to cool of.  We grabbed some sugar freestrawberry lemonade with plenty of ice (I think I am becoming American, what with all these ice cubs I consume these days), before hunkering down under our tree on the front lawn to cheer on the kids driving by. It was not only fun, but also very touching and of course I had to cry; and it is not even my child graduating this year! I hope for the seniors it will be a great memory. Most of them went on from the neighborhood parade, which was for all graduates, to the BCC parade.

I have decided to home those dismal poor roots shipped to me titled "plants" which the mailman brought yesterday and spend an hour finding homes for them in my garden. I am not expecting much though.

Then it was time to head downtown to pick up our Georgian feast at Supra. It was positively weird to drive the route I have taken to work everyday for three and a half years, but head right past my turn off towards 11th Street NW. Massachusetts Ave goes right across 16th Street and we passed droves of people flocking towards the newly name Black Lives Matter Plaza, where thousands of people were congregating in peaceful protest and in a good natured almost festive spirit. All roads of Mass Ave were block off by army vehicles, though not in an intimidating way. We saw people schlepping boxes and boxes of pizza and water to the Plaza. Everyone wore a mask. There were doctors, nurses, LBGT, white, black, colored people all united in one purpose. Despite the risk of infection, protestors believe it is worth it. One in every 1.000 black men is at risk of dying at the hand of police officers. 

If infections spike following protesting the police may well have enabled this through their tactic of “ketteling “ and then tear gassing protestors rather than aiming to disburse them.  In particular the liberal use of tear gas and pepper spray.

In the suburbs there was distanced protest going on with people out in the streets along the roads holding up signs. I pray it will stay peaceful and that the police will exercise restraint.

The weather forecast had said 0% chance of rain, yet we all of a sudden found ourselves in a downpour which lasted all of five minutes. Kind of spooky.

Back at home our challenge is to now prepare our Georgian feast. EM’s BFF and her mum are coming over so it should be a fun and very yummy girls night in the garden – all with appropriate social distance of course.

The number of infected continues to rise globally reaching a tally of 6.8 million today with deaths just 3.5k shy of 400k. While the USA is following the trend and reached a total of 1.95 million reported infections today, death seem to be slowing with “only” 1.000 new deaths reported since yesterday.