Quarantine Diary #16 3/29/2020

I’ve been busy today so I’m a little late getting to this diary. Doing what, you ask? Oh, brilliant things like washing the bathroom and doing laundry and going for a blustery walk. Took the plastic off the particular windows we wrap in the fall.

Spent a chunk of the morning reading about the lead-up to the Revolutionary War battles at Saratoga. More about that later.  Reading about brave and canny, stupid and ego-centric politicians of an entirely different era is part of my coping strategy for life in the US. We aren’t the first to live in fraught times. Not by a long shot.

So the first thing I amgoing to say today in this public diary of some of my feelings and pursuits during this Quarantine – is this. 

Today I’m really, really angry. People are losing family and friends. People are shaken that loved ones are dying alone.  We are seeing the faces of doctors and nurses and other caregivers who have been over-exposed to the virus until their systems become overwhelmed ... and they are gone. Damn. And yet more doctors and nurses and care providers are FLYING INTO NYC area hospitals from other parts of the country to help. I am undone by the gallantry of some of us.

Where is the cohesive plan to get them the protection they need?  This administration KNEW in January that Coronavirus was coming – and individuals sold stock.  I am so angry I could bite a senator.  

I saw an article that predicts the peak of this in Wisconsin will be May 22nd.  Holy Spotted Cow that is seven weeks away. We will be inside this long? With occasional forays to hike with Len and only Len? I love the man dearly but what I would give right now to hug any of my women friends. Humans who never smell even faintly of that’s day’s 6th cup of coffee.

What will happen to our state and our nation while we hold our breath THIS LONG?

I’m angry because other nations planned ahead. Denmark apparently didn’t throw everyone into unemployment. They said everyone still has the same job they always had, and now they are sending checks to businesses to they can continue to pay their employees. The day it’s okay to go back to work, everyone goes back to their job.

We couldn’t do that?

Did you see that the price of antibacterial gel in Denmark is $4 for one bottle and $95 for two? Boom, hoarding stopped in its tracks.

We couldn’t do that?

Where is the planning? The preparations? The imaginative solutions?

As one tweet read, “If capitalism is so great, why does it have to be bailed out by socialism every ten years?”

I’m so angry and I bet you are, too. I’m leaving it here right now, but if this is a two-month diary, we’ll be back.

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We went to a parent-teacher meeting when the kids were youngsters. People were asking how to get their kids to do more house chores and homework.. It was a long meeting; all I really remember is this funny remark from one of the teachers. 

They were reading Little House books in that teacher’s classroom.

“All children love Little House stories. They love-love-love how Laura and Mary do chores to help Ma and Pa and then when the day is done, Pa plays his fiddle, and everyone is content and happy. Kids loves these tales.

“However, sadly, loving Laura and Mary has very little to do with your kid actually doing dishes or making their bed. Everyone loves to hear about Laura and Mary. No one wants to actually live their life.”

So; about our long nights in our cabins and soddies with only each other.  We have media, of course. We don’t have to invent all our own entertainment. Thank Goodness because Len and I trying to play the kids’ left-behind recorders could get real bleak real fast.

I think they call this “Little Humans in the Big Pandemic.”

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The cat in the photo is my daughter's cat, Nancy Drew. 

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