Saturday, November 21st, 2020
Today a week ago I had hoped to meet my brilliant friend, which as we all know did not happen. I have been thinking if things had gone differently had I send a text on Saturday morning along the lines of: “You had said you can spend Saturday morning with me. At 9:30 most of the morning is over. 48 hours of being incommunicado, no word now. I take it you are pulling another one of your no-show stunts. Am feeling hurt, disrespected, mad. Just the right mind set to bash the shit out of someone with my Jo, so I am now heading to practice now to do just that.” Not that it matters much at this stage of the game, just could not help myself and go down that road. It is okay now. I have resigned myself to the fact that it was just a major fuck up and not meant to be.
Practice today was great. I am beginning to get the idea of some of the things I am doing, which is rewarding. After practice the Aikodoka shared lunch in celebration of Sensei’s 77th birthday. If I am still around at that age I wish to be as lucid and fit as he is! Because of lunch I postponed my lap lane. I could have swum an additional 30 minutes, but dashed home so EM could take the car to feed the cats (her cat sitting job), just to find she had already left with the BF.
They have plans to go to see a drive-in movie tonight. That should be fun. I have very fond memories of our drive-in movie nights in Dar es Salaam when I was a few years younger than her. Given there were very few entertainment options in Tanzania in the early 80s, the drive-in theater was a highlight and we went almost every Friday night. Sat on the bonnet of the car, mesmerized by whatever movie we were watching. Snacking on Samosas, meat balls and fries. I envy her. It would be fun to have a special someone to be doing this with for myself; alas there is no one in sight. All of the men I have met on various dating Apps have bored me to death! I do keep trying and I have met some sincere an good people; just no one who can fascinate my mind and that is also attractive in a physical sense. The pandemic is certainly not helping in my endeavors.
Speaking of which, the antibody treatment is now available and ready to be shipped to hospitals across the USA, but not everyone wants it. This is due to capacity constraints (staff and storage) combined with the uncertainty around the effectiveness oft he treatment.
The week before Thanksgiving, the biggest holiday travel season in the US, this country reports 200.000 new infections in a single day. The continuous increase in cases is due mainly to extreme stupidity. Not only irresponsible but plain stupid are parents of a community who organized a mask less in person home coming dance attended by over 200 people. The organizers deliberately did not maintain attendance lists to ensure there could be no contact tracing. This in a county already overwhelmed with cases. School now had to be shut. What is wrong with people? Here is hoping the elderly relatives of all of the organizers need to be hospitalized.
At the same time, many college students are going home for Thanksgiving without exit test being conducted. This could result in more virus spreading across the nation. While some colleges have moved to full online learning for the rest of the school year others will remain open only for students not traveling anywhere over Thanksgiving.
Over 80.000 people currently are hospitalized and, in some counties and States hospitals have reached their capacity. Every minute of the day and night one American dies of COVID and the administration does NOTHING, just nothing beyond undermining the democracy in this country. Undermining it by not conceding to the winner. Undermining it by falsely claiming the election was rigged,. Undermining it by delaying election result certifications and requesting endless recounts and audits. Undermining it by influencing states to nominate electors who will vote the Orange Cheeto for a second term, despite the will of the voters.
Fitting with the attitude towards pandemic management the Covidiot tweeted throughout a G20 meeting today and skip the session on the pandemic alltogether to play golf instead. And the GOP tolerates it all, is silent, does not congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden.Quite the contraty, the RNC is asking election result certification to be halted! The administration refuses the transition team access to information, offices and funding.
Pfizer and Moderna are rushing for emergency use approval of their vaccines in the USA. AstraZeneca and Oxford are refusing for this to be a race. They diligently evaluated phase 2 and 3 trial results, having them peer reviewed. They expect to have final results before Christmas. While Pfizer and Moderna use untested technology Oxford uses vetcteral viruses.
My money is on them and maybe it is good not be first in line, but rather wait for the AstraZeneca vaccine to become available.