I dunno why I’m remembering them but Wednesday morning before actually waking I dreamed of a litter of beaver kits, all soft shiny black very like our Large Breed Puppies, scurrying
into a hole in a dam of twigs and sticks. As I reached for them their ferocious mother, likewise soft shiny black and furry, came furiously rushing out, which woke me. Though this seems to be a season rich in vivid dreams few make it back into the waking world as most mornings bones dropping onto tile floors and the ripping and gnawing of palm fronds erase them
before fully waking. As we finished out February-in-March of this uneasy Spring it was rarely warm enough to lunch out but nonetheless ever more unsettling possibilities of unanticipated virus-related catastrophes multiplied. The weather is the weather, whether or not, but should the media narrow to the point where only one Chosen Outlet remains to cover the White House*, which isn’t exactly outside the realm of possibility, we’ll just have to have faith that it
would be Fair and Balanced.
Meanwhile my tentative plan to make a last visit to Wall Spring ran afoul of Covid Anxiety despite the fact that we could easily have reached there with one gas stop, no human interaction and, in the event the border closed, sneak back into Cali off the desert. But dear friends,
one a nurse, strongly advised against it so here we are, Large Breed Puppies and all, for the Duration…which, if you’re attentive to the Foremost Authority on his Chosen Outlet, will be no later than Sunday, April 12th at which point everyone still standing will Congregate Thankfully in a Church. Yeah, we’ll be crowding the pews by Easter*…and continuing to practice the New Civility in the meantime as evidenced by a story L related to me about a woman out walking in Marin who, upon cautioning a family on the trail about social distancing, had them rush her, cough in her face and slap her on the head. Meanwhile, like everyone else, we are just waiting;
waiting to see if we get sick, waiting to see how sick we get, waiting to see if we recover from it…waiting to see what will unfold, going nowhere in the meantime and inundated with information, some of it quite useful [takes some time to watch, but worthwhile].
We walk the three dogs separately in the morning in an attempt to instill Order to the Pack
and their lives, usually followed by Squirrel Patrol, which leads to a certain languidity
by lunch…and repeat, weather variable.
For prescience [you want prescience, right?] and an escape from News of the Covid find and read Joan Didion’s “Insider Baseball” from her “Political Fictions”, 2001…it won’t help, isn’t about [this] disease, but illuminates the Inevitability of things.
Could be worse…hope it doesn’t get worse, and hope we all make it through this…meanwhile everyone pay attention to people close to the action [see Dr. Price, as above], your Governors [California has a particularly good one, but they all seem to be stepping up] and local government. No matter how much you might adore the President this is the time to put him [and that huckster OZ] on hold until this passes. It’s a matter of lives and deaths.
*Information already outdated as the news right now is such a moving target and everything’s Always Different, totally changed by the next bloviation on the White House lawn [or wherever] not to mention the actual facts on the ground.
Stay tuned, stay well, stay calm.
Fickle, flim-flam, flip-flop fake news spews from the OM (orange menace), appalling scientists and confusing everyone else except his laughable lemming base. Criminally late to the party, Drump called the pandemic “just the flu” on Day 1. On Day 2 he calls out the medical Army reserves. Day 3 he says we’ll be in the pews together for a “beautiful Easter”, Day 4 he demands social distancing for 5 more weeks. “And on the seventh day God rested” but OM will NOT rest because “I am so incredible. I mean really, really incredible, probably the best ever, the “one-and-only”, you can bet on it, I’m better than God even, I actually put God to shame every day”:
https://twitter.com/kenolin1/status/1242852430582341639?s=20
The OM’s “really great leadership” has raised many questions about Corona Consequences. Thanks for sending me this one, Bro. It’s long, but compelling:
https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation/
We have a couple of friends who got the virus who live in Oakland, just down the road from you, fortunately
it took a mild form and now they are healthy. He’s actually a surgeon and they just stayed home the
whole time and felt a little flu (but they were positive)
So not everyone over 60 kicks the bucket
…nor gets horrendously sick, which is what we’re hoping for.
….keeping in mind that Easter is the holy day that celebrates the miracle of rising from the dead….
“Roll away the stone”
!!!
Yes re Dr Price. Watched it yesterday and hope folks are reassured. I’ve taken to making surgical masks since I have a stash of fabric on hand. Checked at Joann fabric for free kits but it seems people are lining up for them.
John is making sourdough bread. Bread making is a currently popular pastime around theUSA.
Biked around the local lake– seems to be plenty of pond scum.
Hummingbird came by feeder over the hot tub today.
Pondscum on sourdough could be the New Avocado Toast, no?
Breadmaking is the rage in Canada too- our store is out of bread flour so sez my baker hubby.
But wait, you forgot the best bit I’ve heard lately from the POUD (Pres of Unmitigated Disasters- pronounce d PUD if you can) He says that if ONLY a 100k (well, maybe 200k) die it will be a HUGE success. And only because of the incredible work he did! Stunned doesn’t begin to describe my reaction.
Most of the info you culled and sent out was detailed but really helpful, in fact the one with multiple graphs finally helped me realize this WAS a different flu. The three house shadow images made me feel as though I was at the Vija Celmins exhibition: were they, the same different, how if different? Still a mystery, but interesting as all your images of the mundanities of Benicia.
Spoiler alert, eh; there were several of the same [referencing VC but also making the point of repetitive sameness of days…]
Joan Didion is pretty scary under the best of circumstances, I’m concerned “Political Fictions” will put me over the edge as I wait for the plague.
Maybe so; for comic relief I’ve recently picked up Dan DeLillo’s “Libra”…aww, damn; that’s scary, too. Darkness all around…except for spring; chill but gorgeous!