27 March 2020

March 26, 2020 Thursday


New York Times 3/26/20


We are nearing the end of our second week in self-quarantine, relative shut down (the kids came home from school March 13) and this morning we woke as all our phones went off to remind us that Colorado went into Stay at Home status at 8 am.

It's another week that I opened my morning listening to Governor Cuomo rather than hear the lies spewed by Trump.

This is the first week (last was Spring Break) when I tried to get the twins (first grade) to do some school work with the German and myself tried to actually get our work done. Thank heavens we can both work remotely. It is impossible. And having the twins in separate classes and therefore separate requirements, makes it even worse. I think we may need to start doing shifts when one watches the twis and guides and the other works.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/25/opinion/coronavirus-trump-reopen-america.html

Any person who can move a slider should be able to see how important it is to extend the stay at home and federalize it. But the Narcissist in chief doesn't care.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/world/coronavirus-news.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage&fbclid=IwAR05KDDBs8i6bpSQRn6pRna1XFGeOXFQfvzOQvB7FU-7PvZxvu1yoq_1V9Q#link-8bbde61

We now have more cases than any place else in the world. And if it had been up to Trump it would have been far worse. Thank goodness the governors have shut states down.

My neighbors, who went to Florida for spring break, are socializing with other neighbors. I can do no more than what I am doing: require my children to socially isolate, socially isolate myself, and take two walks a day for sanity and health. If we would all just shut it down for three weeks, if we had done this two weeks ago in a hard-line way, how many lives would be, would have been saved?


14 March 2020

Covid-19 --- the USA wakes up

School went into Spring Break March 13 and it went into break stating that we would have a week of distance learning after break (both the twins were sent home with Chromebooks). This weekend the CDC suggested six to eight weeks of social distancing, which was what I had anticipated: I'll be surprised if we go back into session before the end of the year.

08 March 2020

It's been a very long time...

Since the last joyous post with our new Things 3 and 4, a lot has happened.

We lost my Dad to cancer. We had just the year with him and that was too short but I'm glad we came. It took me three years to recover enough to do some grief therapy with hospice and it has been six years and a bit that his place has been empty in my life.

We moved to a suburb of Denver.

I woke up this morning after dreaming about a call with my Dad. We had told each other how we missed each other and loved each other. Then the call was cut off. I woke up reaching to call him back and the I realized he was not at the other end of my phone and the pain was very sharp. It's been at least a year since this has happened. It was so very sweet and then so very painful.

I couldn't go back to sleep- didn't want to- and started to read. I read an article discussing how people are reading books to deal with corona virus anxiety, and it mentioned Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. I'd never read it, but the description was intriguing. It's the semi-autobiographical story of Katherine Anne Porter's survival of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. I won't give any more of the story away, but it struck home. The story noted that this is the only written account of a survivor and that led me to a journal link which discussed trauma memory and recovery of great tragic events. There were no books written about the great flu pandemic, which killed at least 39 million people, until the 1980s. The pain and loss and trauma were subsumed in winning The Great War and the world tried to forget.

All around fascinating and hit me as we consider how to handle covid-19 and what I believe will be another great pandemic.

E said that the dream was because I so was used to calling my Dad whenever I was worried or concerned and needed to talk to someone and of course he is right.

I posted on FB but then thought- maybe I need to start thinking a little more longform. We are trying to decide how to handle the next few weeks.