March 2020 – Page 3 – Welcome to Third Age Thoughts

Cower in place 6: blue

– Dorn’s isolation journal day 6 (3/21/2020).

e had to let someone we didn’t know into our house! We had a broken window that needed repair. It’s funny how something that used to be so everyday can now send a frisson of panic through my body. But only for a moment. We were pretty sure that Steve from the window repair shop was taking his virus precautions seriously, because he wouldn’t come in until he was satisfied that neither Kathleen nor I had left the country recently. Good for him! Just the same, we kept our distance, and when he was done, we washed the windowsill and doorknobs.

* * *

Kathleen’s iPhone battery chose yesterday to die. The phone still works fine, it just has to stay plugged into the charger. But even though we, and the phone, are currently home-bound, this made me uneasy. It just seems like especially now, it doesn’t feel safe to be without a fully functioning cell phone, amiright? After some panicky phone calls (seems every local phone store is closed for the virus!), I finally arranged for a replacement to be mailed out, stat.

We had had the hint of a start of a plan to go see the cherry blossoms in DC this morning—get us out of the house while not forcing us to have any physical contact with anyone. But we couldn’t, not today, because we had to wait for the replacement phone to show up.

The new phone just now arrived at 5pm. The UPS guy skedaddled after dropping it on our porch, not even waiting for the signature they said would be required. After I brought in and opened the mailing box, I remembered to wash my hands before tackling the inner box (which I assume was packed at the factory months ago so, corona-free).

The DC cherry trees will have to wait. But Kathleen got some gorgeous shots of one the cherry trees down our street here in full bloom.

* * *

We made some pickles a couple of weeks ago that we have been enjoying. As I finished up one bottle of them, I reflected that it may be a long while before I go to the grocery store again for something as non-urgent as cucumbers. I tried to savor that last pickle, knowing that it could be summer before I have another.

Deja vu! or something. I bet our pioneer ancestors had felt that same way many times in Marches past, when their preserves stock was dwindling and summer harvest was still months away. I felt a moment of solidarity with them, and then a longer moment of embarrassment at comparing the hardship I was going through (which was almost none, really) with what they experienced. Every action is a lesson!

* * *

I decided to pass the time by coloring my hair blue again. Only this time, I can do it more easily, because of the imposed social isolation. I don’t have to physically dye my hair, I can just virtually dye it—by telling everyone that my hair is blue. Since we are socially self-quarantining, who’s to know I’m wrong? I believe this technique of describing one’s person inaccurately was perfected during the rise of the Dating App.

So anyway I’ve virtually dyed my hair blue again, and given myself a virtual mohawk to boot. Here’s proof:

Thanks,
Dorn
3/21/2020

Day 5 Day 4 Day 3 Day 2 Day 1

Cower in place 5: noticing

– Dorn’s self-isolation journal, day 5 (3/20/2020).

Public Service Announcement

Kathleen and I try to keep these posts upbeat, but the coronavirus is no joke! 

It’s up to all of us to keep the rate of spread of the virus slower than the capacity of our hospitals to treat it. As a headline in today’s Washington Post put it, “Fate of outbreak in hands of 328 million” (that’s us!).

Please: If you absolutely have to go out, stay 6 to 10′ from others, and wash your hands obses­sively, and do what health profes­sionals and experts tell us to do.  

And if you don’t absolutely have to go out, don’t!

The social distancing imposed by the virus has left us with plenty of time for the three W’s (Waiting, Watching, and of course Washing). We’ve started to notice things….

We’ve noticed, for example, that the shrubbery bushes out front that form a barrier and no-parking enforcer between our yard and the street are starting to show dead brown branches. We can’t really tell what caused them. It could be that I gave them an over-aggressive trim last time in a vain effort to make them look like boxwoods (although “aggressive” is not an adjective often used in the context of me doing house- or yard-work). Or it might be that the fumes from the cars and delivery vans that pass by are slowly asphyxiating the bushes. Or maybe some plant disease, or maybe just old age, or maybe the fact that each of the shrubs has grown about twice as tall and three times as wide as the label said they were intended to grow.

Whatever the cause, we now have to think of what to do about the problem. Prune the dead spots and hope the living ones will fill in the holes? Uproot all the bushes, and start afresh with new plants? Something in between? Just put up a fence? When we need a break from worrying about issues of medical and economic health of us and our loved ones, we re-invigorate by arguing about what to do about the bushes.

* * *

I also noticed for the first time a delightful anachronism in Stella Gibbons’s comic novel Cold Comfort Farm (which I raved about here). This book was written in 1932 and the action seems to take place around 1920. The book is not in any way futuristic or science-fictiony: as I mentioned, it’s a silly comedy of class and manners mashed up with a tame gothic horror novel. It’s like P. G. Wodehouse tried to imitate Jane Austen channeling the Brontë sisters.

But there’s this one single encounter exactly halfway through (page 163 of 326), when the heroine Flora is talking with her quasi-boyfriend Claud. At first it seems like a phone call, but it becomes apparent that they are actually videochatting:

“Squalid or not,” said the small, clear voice of Flora, fifty miles away (for she thought she would answer his letter by telephone, as she was in a hurry to get the affair arranged), “he is all we can find, unless we have that Mr. Mybug I told you about.” 
Claud twisted the television dial and amused himself by studying Flora’s fair, pensive face. Her eyes were lowered and her mouth compressed over the serious business of arranging Elfine’s future. He fancied she was tracing a pattern with the tip of her shoe. She could not look at him, because public telephones were not fitted with television dials. 

What in the world is going on here? They didn’t even have television in 1920, or even 1932. Did they?

Well, it turns out they did. Television was invented in the late 1920s, and by the early 1930s there were demonstrations of videotelephone “booths” at various world expositions and in post offices. I’ll bet Stella Gibbons attended one of the expositions, and was so enthralled with the modern technology that she slipped it into her book! Aren’t people clever?

Source: Wikipedia article “Videotelephony”

* * *

It’s a blistering hot day today (well, for March—it’s 80° outside). More folks are starting the exodus from their homes/quarantine cells down to the beach. The percentage of them that appear to be practicing social distancing, while greater than zero, does not fill one with confidence.

* * *

HOARD-O-METER:

    Toilet paper              

    Coffee                    
    
    Library books             
    
    Dishwashing soap          
    
    Root beer                 

    Velveeta

Thanks,
Dorn
3/20/2020

Day 4 Day 3 Day 2 Day 1

Next move

When I came back from Norway in the midst of the pandemic I was a little struck by how prescient the painting that I had left on my easel now seems (below). Aren’t we in a complicated situation with a Corvid, er, COVID, now where it’s hard to figure out the next move?

The best advice I saw today was from a children’s book by Charles Mackesy where a boy and a horse are apparently lost in a wood.
“I can’t see a way through”, said the boy.
“Can you see your next step?”
“Yes”
“Just take that,” said the horse.

My next step is ten more days of quarantine. I’m hoping we can all find our next steps through the pandemic and Everyone can stay healthy!

Please take the social distancing seriously.

-Lona

Cower in place 4: Carhenge

– Self-isolation journal, day 4 (3/19/2020).

Our daughter and granddaughter have embarked on a quest, Mad-max style (i.e., driving) to bring home their sister/daughter from Michigan State University, where they have closed down classrooms and eateries, and generally disrupted the whole college-student experience. The trip from their home in Wyoming to Lansing, Michigan takes about 20 hours.

I couldn’t convince them to take a mere 100-mile detour while transiting the Nebraska panhandle, in order to visit Carhenge in Alliance, NE. I told them they should see the Toyota Coronas there in honor of the corona virus, but they were having none of it: “Everyone knows that Carhenge is built from 100% AMERICAN cars!!”

Riddle: What rhymes with orange?
Hint:

* * *

I’m starting to discover cracks in my hoarding. I’m well stocked up on powdered toilet paper and homeopathic hand sanitizer, but I realize I forgot to get a stash of hearing aid batteries! Now I’m out, except for the ones in my hearing aids right now. And they don’t last as long as they used to, I think because I am listening harder. (You’re familiar with the principle that things wear out faster with harder use, right? Like how the driver side windshield wiper always goes first, because the driver is always looking through that window.)

I’ve ordered some batteries from big-A, but if they don’t deliver soon, I’ll have to set foot outside my door again (yikes)!

* * *

During my time set aside each day for worrying, I thought of a new threat—drought! I’ve been practicing my 20-second hand wash, and soon realized that my habit of leaving the water running while I scrub was wasting an extraordinary amount of water. I’m trying to stop that, but old habits are hard to break. What if everyone is doing that?

Lake Mead is at historically low water levels

Bathroom faucets put out about 1.5 gallons per minute. Let’s say people might ought to be washing six times a day. If they forget to turn off the spigot while singing “Happy Birthday” or “All You Need Is Slugs” or the Doxology, they waste on average 3 gallons of water a day. The population of the US is what, 330 million? If we don’t all get our act together, we’re talking a billion extra gallons of potable water literally down the drain every day! At that rate, we could empty Lake Mead less than a decade, and it’s already at historically low levels!

We can’t let it run out! Let’s get with it, Covid-eers!

* * *

My sister and Third Age Thoughts co-influencer Lona has also been keeping a quarantine journal on Facebook. If you’re on Facebook (and who isn’t these days among us Third-Agers?), you can access it here.

Thanks,
Dorn
3/19/2020

Day 3 Day 2 Day 1

Lona’s quarantine journal

My sister and Third Age Thoughts co-influencer Lona has also been keeping a quarantine journal. For reasons she explains in the journal, her quarantine site doesn’t have a computer to make it easy to create posts, so she’s putting her journal in a Facebook album.

If you’re on Facebook (and who isn’t these days, among us Third-Agers?), you can access her entries here, and follow along as she posts new ones.

Sample:

-d