Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Saturday, October 24th, 2020

Hot Tub

What a Saturday. It feels like we have had a day in our old life! EM spend the night at her friends’ house, so it was only me and Max this morning. Max must have felt a little lonely as he came to cuddle in the morning. Walking all over me and bumping his head at my arm craving for attention. After coffee and my usual news scan I headed to the park for weapons class.

After doing the same Kattas for ten weeks at least I now longer have to think about what move I should be doing next and can focus on weight shifts (not getting them right) and the techniques (not faring much better than with the weight shifts). It was fun and a bit sweaty.

Given we finished on time, I managed to move my pool lane forward by thirty minutes and could head straight to the pool. On from there to pick up EM.

At home I redyed my hair, sorted out random stuff in the basement and then got ready for the BBQ with our Turkish-German friends. As always it was a wonderful afternoon which lasted well into the evening.

A BBQ lunch on a pleasantly warm autumn day. Good food, good company and then drinks in the hot tub. Six hours later we made our way home. With such a busy day it almost feels like it should be Sundya already as we had enough activites for an entire weekend.

However, weather permitting tomorrow promises to be equally full. I have plans for a hike, then a lap lane followed by an outside socially distanced date. Sadly, it is supposed to turn cold overnight and rainy for most of the day so none of these plans, save for the swim, may come to pass. This virus business is really disrupting to plans as everything now is dependent on the weather.

And of course, there is no end in sight. Europe is not doing well, but the US continues to outperform every other nation. Today another record high of new infections (85k within 24 hours) has been reported, bringing the total in the USA to 8.8 million out of 42.5 million worldwide. Clearly America is first at least when it comes to virus infections. Most of the new infections are in anti-mask states; most of these happen to lean heavily Republican. 40k people are hospitalized. Can we please have 3 GOP senators join those ranks today?

Reading about Montana and how it is handling of the virus I almost feel like everyone there who is sick and possibly dies cannot be mourned . If the majority of the residents choose to follow moronic medicine and sign declarations of freedom to choose their own protection (or not) so be it. Stay in your state and die. And please do not call for medical help from other States. And while speaking of freedom, if everyone is free to protect themselves as they see fit, I am assuming women are equally free to decide whether or not to have children. Clearly this assumption is wrong as the freedom of one does not mean the freedom of the other.

For many Americans the consequences of the pandemic are dire. As the pandemic is moving into the eighth month people are running out of money and this being the USA there is no safety net to speak of. Food insecurity is increasing. This is culminated by people losing their health insurance along with their employment. Millions are at risk of becoming homeless as rent or mortgage payments are beyond their economic means. But as the orange Cheeto says:

"It is what it is. "