Arbitrary Steps

It will be a bizarre holiday season this year, I am both looking forward to it and worried about all the changes. Things will certainly be simpler and paired down No, or at least limited, trick or treating No pictures with mall Santa's No large family gatherings for Thanksgiving No shopping at malls or stores. With many stores closed I see a resurgence of cards, and gifts bought online only.  Carolling might return :) No ball drop for NYE....or at least no crowds allowed at all. No trick or treating, or if there will be it'll be 4 kids instead of the usual 60-100 that show up at our door. I do think there will be areas (states, cities, maybe just isolated neighborhoods) that buck authority and choose to have gatherings anyway. I predict that will end badly. I'm waiting for someone to get on the news and say "But Santa is part of our Christian holiday, it is our right." It will happen.   With the postal service in chaos I suspect we will have to mail any gifts a mo...

 I keep a daily log of everywhere I go ...it would help with contract tracing should I get sick. A year ago this idea would have seemed very weird, why would I need to know where I went last Tuesday? So much has changed. My BIL and SIL are still sick but doing thier best...they are exhausted from COVID's side effects and trying to rest. For us there are so many forest fires burning that it's giving us sore throats; Just what you want during a pandemic, to feel sick in any way. We are fine but the forests all around in the state are burning down, including the ancient redwood forests. UPDATE: Reports are the oldest Redwoods have been saved! As a side note I am disinterested in sewing, I hit my wall. I sewed every day and now I have no desire to touch or look at my fabric.  

 

 When the vaccine is released and we're starting to recover, what will the world look like when we go back outside our front doors? So much has closed down. Neighborhoods (due to foreclosures) will empty out and eventually new people will move in. Businesses old and new are just barely hanging on. We will still have to wear masks and keep our distance. It takes a huge percentage of the population being vaccinated for the virus to die out, so it's going to be a very long wait. I do think once a vaccine is proven safe and a few months pass that people who once SWORE they would never get a shot will get them, some however will dig in their heels. Even once we are vaccinated we can still carry the virus, so for the safety of others we'll still have to stay away from others. No birthday parties for at least the next year. I have no idea what the timeline for all of this is, the start of the beginning of the end. Some say January, others say realistically March at the earliest of...

 My covid test came back negative....a week later and my husband is still waiting. In worse news my brother in law and his wife both tested positive, she had a temp of 105 and was on the road to being admitted but luckily got her temp down to 101. They plan to ride out the virus at home. None of us have had any contact AT ALL with eachother, but I do not know if my relatives were being careful. As for us we are staying home and have been home for the vast majority of the last six months. There was a brief period ( a week, possibly two,) when our Governor relaxed the "Stay at home" orders and restaurants and the gym were back open....that is long gone. Every cough and sniffle scares me. The weather changed the air into what feels like a gross humid soup so our sinuses are paying for it...we are perfectly healthy but it's giving all of us runny noses followed by stuffiness. It's a bit unnerving.

 I went back and reread some of my first posts, and some things have changed. In Italy where the virus hit really hard they sang to eachother across balconies and applauded frontline workers each night. Then the grim reality of deaths set in, and the boredom of being a nation on lockdown dragged on and they stopped singing. Today Italy from all reports has beaten the virus, but the singing never returned. New Zealand has beaten the virus as well, Brazil is second only to the United States...their cases are still raging, and Mexico is having a hard time as well. It helps to take a step back and realize it is never just you or just one place; it is ALL of humanity. In our neck of the woods toilet paper went from $4 to $30, and now it hovers around $12-20. Cases are on the rise and they say a tabulating computer was undercounting so I'm expecting a wave of reported cases to hit very soon. When I first started this blog they told us we would have to stay home for a few weeks but then c...

 

 I hope this ends soon. They say a vaccine is coming in January, but then comes the fighting over who gets it in the first batch. Of course EMT's, Nurses, docs etc should be first, probably teachers too, but who gets the second batch? Who qualifies and just as importantly, who gets to decide who qualifies and why? I keep holding out for January but in truth I know we'll be waiting longer A thought occurred to me though. There is a ton of conspiracy theories going around about the pandemic in general and also the eventual vaccine. I am SURE they will spout nonsense about "It's engineered to poison us all!" or they'll claim that those who don't qualify for one of the first batches is expendable and that the government is "Thinning the herd". Half of the population is reportedly claiming they don't want the vaccine.    Every situation brings to mind a movie, and more often then not that film is "The Princess Bride" . I don't buy an...

 If there's one thing to really look forward to it's this; EPIC "Back in my day " analogy stories. Growing up I always heard the classic exaggerated stories from relatives and strangers,  told in jest, of how "We walked to school UPHILL both ways". There was always a tale of suffering and how things were different ;"In my day we saved all the tin cans and foil" or "We only had one nice dress, we'd take turns wearing it out on dates". Now since it is 2020 times have changed, and this pandemic has certainly changed what is scarce and what is plentiful and will continue to do so. I keep thinking though of all the things we'll be able to tell our grandkids about this time: - Paying 20 times the price for toilet paper - Mail delays - The sudden disapperance of cleaning supplies - Being in our homes for 6 months and counting I could think of about 20 different tall tales to regale grandkids with "We paid $50 for toilet paper and ne...

We are back under quarantine. My stepson came home from his military duty and announced he doesn't feel well. This of course is concerning and set off a chain of events, not the least of which is we are back under quarantine. 10-14 days at home...we were already VERY limited on where we could go and now even that is gone. I was keeping busy by sewing but if I am contagious I don't feel right sewing masks for others just in case germs stick to the surfaces of the masks. So I'm watching TV and bored. Tomorrow I'll spend the day baking, beyond that I have no idea what to do.

The worst thing for me right now is the wait. - Waiting to hear if a vaccine works - Waiting for the vaccine roll out _ Waiting for our immune systems to show how long we'd be immune - Waiting for each day and week to slowly crawl by - Waiting to see how many won't get the vaccine and how that affects re-opening. I am so tired of staying home, of having nothing exciting planned to look forward to. We ALWAYS have a small vacation each year in a new spot in California, needless to say that's cancelled. Our 4 walls are our world now pretty much, I get out only to go to the grocery store or to pick up food at a drive in. Everyday is the same ( and I know I've said that before but I cannot say it enough.) Wake up, coffee, breakfast, do laundry, sew, have dinner, watch TV, blog, then sleep. It's not horrible, but it's the same...every   single   day. Reports are coming out that even after a vaccine that life probably won't go back to normal for YEARS af...