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Emily Post-apocalypse: cower in place 22

– Dorn asks why aren’t we better at following the safety rules?

etween the news, social media, and just trying to get groceries, it’s impossible not to be aware of the new three commandments of social engagement: stay home, keep six feet from others, and wear some kind of face covering. But we as a country don’t function very well on rules decreed by experts—we act they way that social pressures dictate we act.

I’m starting to see and feel the strain of the new rules of society colliding with the old ones. Although on my forays to the grocery store I now see almost everyone wearing face covers of some sort, it still hasn’t caught on in our home neighborhood.

Our house is right across from a small sandy Chesapeake Bay beach, and our road ends a little ways beyond in a picturesque inlet overlooking a bird sanctuary, so we see our fair share now of people and families taking a break from being stuck indoors together 24-7. Despite the fact that face masks were recommended three weeks ago for anyone going out, it was only yesterday that I finally saw someone other than Kathleen or me on our street in a face mask.

It was a young boy riding his bike, alone. On closer look, it seemed he was wearing something like a toy plastic nose-and-mouth covering that might have come with a Star Wars game set, but even so, I was encouraged. It told me that somehow, this young boy had picked up on the social cues that made wearing a face mask a thing to do. Maybe that’s the first step towards the hard-headed adults around here trying it. (I have seen one adult here wearing a mask since then, so good news.) And just maybe, some time after that, even the teenagers will join in!

Here’s a shot of the young pioneer. I didn’t want to show his face or give other clues to his identity because he’s just a kid, so you can’t see the mask very well, but you can see that he’s wearing it.

* * *

One of the reasons people resist face masks, I think, is that they violate an unwritten social rule about openness. If people can’t see your face, maybe you’re hiding something. Maybe you’re even up to something nefarious (see Zorro, here). I thought of a way around this—nowadays, any image can be printed easily on fabric, so why not print your nose and mouth on the face mask that is covering your real nose and mouth?

As with so many of my brilliant ideas, someone has already thought of this one. In fact, many people have, and have already commercialized it, and have discovered a whole new market for such masks—people whose smart phones won’t recognize their faces and unlock. They look pretty creepy to me, but hey, gotta keep the phone happy!

* * *

I saw an example the other day of Kathleen being conflicted between the old rules of social etiquette and the new, straying too close to a neighbor and fellow dog-walker, who was not masked. And she even petted his dog!

It seemed to me at the time that she was being too old-school polite to ask our friend to stay back, and keep his dog further away. “I’d never do that!” I thought to myself at the time. Of course, what I didn’t think to myself at the time was that I also didn’t tell him to back off, and didn’t even suggest to Kathleen to back up. I didn’t want to be rude!

Then the very next day our positions were reversed. We had decided to take a drive over to Jefferson Patterson Park, closed except for the walking trails, and take some different fresh air.

Another car pulled along side us and opened their window. In it were an old couple (and by old, I mean older than us, or at least more decrepit-looking). They were flailing around with a map brochure, and asking for directions. I opened my window and tried to help, but couldn’t figure out what they were looking for. So I got out of the car(!!) to get a closer look at the map. Kathleen says I actually touched the map, but I didn’t, I swear! Anyway, after all that I couldn’t help them and they went on their way. Kathleen was having the exact thoughts I about me, that I had had about her the day before! And she reacted in exactly the same way I did, by thinking about it, but not saying it.

Editor’s note: I did so say it! I just didn’t say it in a way that was forceful enough to get into Dorn’s thick head what I was so obviously hinting at!  -K

The moral is that the new three golden rules have got to supersede the old rules of courtesy at least for a while, and if you don’t stay mindful of what you are doing, you can start letting the old rules take sway and not even know it.

Neither Kathleen or I had the presence of mind to tell the other people to stay away or just pull back ourselves, because we didn’t want seem rude to strangers. And we couldn’t even tell each other to pull back, because we didn’t want to seem rude to each other. If we haven’t learned from our mistakes, I guess they can put that on our joint tombstone when they bury us from the covid: “They were polite to the end.”

Thanks,
Dorn
4/20/2020

Stand by your best friend: cower in place 21

Trentin Quarantino’s

DOG ALMANACK
Special Coronavirus Edition!

Am I putting my dog at risk? Is my dog putting me at risk? These are some of the first questions a dog owner might ask regarding the corona virus. A trending question on Google is “can dogs get coronavirus?”. The standard answer, found on sites from the American Veterinary Medical Association to the American Kennel Club, is COVID-19 is not believed to be a health threat to dogs, and there is no evidence that they transmit the disease to humans.

The principle of online plenitude demands that everything exists on the internet, so you know that at least one study that covid 19 originated in dogs is reported on the internet (here). The news article about the study says that health professionals have expressed skepticism at its underlying science. I found that the most noteworthy aspect of the study was that it focused on the “zinc finger antiviral protein”, or ZAP. This allowed the news article to contain the interesting phrase, “This suggests that SARS-CoV-2 may have evolved in a new host (or new host tissue) with high ZAP expression”.

My own research points to the opposite conclusion: having a dog actually decreases your risk of contracting the virus. I plotted the percentage of households that have a dog (by state) against the number of Covid 19 cases per million people in that state. The results are compelling—the fewer dogs per household exist in a state, the more covid cases per capita! Figures don’t lie, gents:

data sources: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/, https://247wallst.com/special-report/2017/07/07/states-where-people-love-dogs-the-most-and-least/

Product reviews

Speaking of zinc finger antiviral protein, as a dog owner during the time of coronavirus, you know that one of the most urgent problems we face is how to get the poop bag off the roll and open without licking your fingers. These things are nearly impossible to open with your bare hands unless your hands are greasy (which they won’t be, because you have just washed them six times before going walkies), or wet. And how in the world can you wet your fingers if you can’t lick them because you have a face mask on!?

You could put your finger inside the mask and lick it (I know, I’ve done it), but that of course defeats the whole purpose of the mask. You might as well dip your finger in a vial of coronavirus saliva.

But fortunately, there is a solution. Costco carries Finger Pads for the very reasonable price of $3.78 per dozen, and their supplies have not (as yet!) been decimated by panicked hoard-buying. These helpful tools are ideal for separating the thin plastic of a commercial doggie poop bag roll. As near as I can tell, the original use of these handy items was to help in separating close-clinging pieces of paper, from back in the days before your time, when offices actually had papers in them. They must have had a huge stockpile when the paperless office was invented, so they are now able to offer them so cheap. In “standard” and “deluxe” varieties.

Helpful hints

Sneeze Guard. Here’s a new use for an item you almost certainly have lying around, if you are anything but the newest newbie dog owner: that clear plastic anti-lick cone your vet made you buy when you brought your pooch in for (whatever). Your pup hated it, and you stopped using it almost immediately, but you were determined that you would never shell out good money for another one, so you hid it in the back of your closet just in case.

Well, good news! That cone makes an ideal sneeze guard! Used in conjunction with a face mask or all alone, it will keep those nasty covid germs from getting all in your face, not least because you will be too embarrassed to get within shouting distance of anyone while you were wearing it.

Kathleen agreed to model it for this blog post. Originally she was reluctant, until I reminded her that I already had a picture of her wearing a colander on her head that I could use instead, and she didn’t want that aired because it looked silly. Notice that, unlike with a face mask, you can be perfectly safe and still enjoy a nice cup of coffee. Or, of course, lick your fingers to open a poop bag for Fido.

Covid-conscious leash length calculator. Social distancing rules tell you to stay at least six feet away from anyone other than the people (or dogs!) you live with. But what does that mean for the length of the leash you use during walkies? Most of the other people you meet on your walk will also be dog owners (because, really, who else would brave the foul and pestilent congregation of vapors outdoors, except a dog-walker?), and even if you and he or she honor the six-foot rule, your dogs won’t care about it.

You might think at first a three-foot leash is sufficient, because if your have three feet, and your fellow dog-walker has three feet, then you’ll still be six feet away when your dogs touch noses, right? Wrong!

The real risk of violating social space is when your dogs are done with nose-touching, and move on (as you know they will) to butt-sniffing. Then, depending on the orientation and length of your dog, even with a standard three-foot leash, you could find that the other dog’s head is less than three feet away from you, which means that the other human will be less than six feet away from you!

The solution is simple. The length of your leash should be:

leash length = (collar-to-butt dog length) + 3 feet

If all dog walkers will stick to this formula, we’ll all stay safe!

That’s all for now from Trentin Quarantino! Keep sniffing, but not too hard!

* * *

Have you bought anything from the Post Office yet? They continue to work to provide a vital (if old-fashioned) life-line to all of us currently Cowering in Place, despite deep financial problems.

If we all just bought a book of stamps from the Post Office, they’d be out of their financial straits. Think about it—if we don’t do it, who will? It looks like our government won’t!

The Post Office doesn’t yet have any Covid stamps, but they have a couple that look like the coronavirus. Sort of. Give ’em a try!

Thanks,
Dorn
4/19/2020

Next time: Behind the veil of the Immunati: I interview an actual Covid-19 recoverer!

Just like old times: cower in place 20

– In which Dorn tells a non-covid story, for a change.

oday I got to do a job that had nothing to do with the coronavirus. We’re well into spring, with the new life appearing and buds budding and birds singing, blah, blah. For me, one of the harbingers of this fertile season is that the lawn starts to need mowing again.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like mowing the lawn, especially now I’m retired. I find it to be kind of like walking meditation. I bought one of those old-timey push mowers, which means that you can smell the grass when you cut it instead of gasolene, and you can hear the wind and birds around you instead of engine noise, or, if you feel like it, you can hear the inspirational audiobook you’ve plugged your head into.

But today is not the day for the push mower. Before the first mow of the season, the lawn is always pocked with overgrowths of grass and weeds. Some of these have grown into tufts a foot or more high. I suspect these are where a dog peed once, and ever after every dog who wandered by felt it must pee in the same place. For a lawn this feral, I had to break out the old electric mower. With luck, and if I am conscientious, maybe this will be the only time this season I have to use it.

I wore my respirator. Not a covid respirator, but my normal, Ace hardware-model dust and (more importantly) pollen-stopper. I have grass allergies that can get me to sneezing so bad I throw my back out, and even with the daily doses of Singulair, I dare not tackle a lawn mowing job without my respirator and a preventative dose of Benedryl on top. It makes me sleepy afterward, but what greater pleasure is there in summer than taking a nap after you cut the grass?

It was pleasantly cool and breezy today, and even with the power mower noise, it was a fun workout to tackle the growths that had invaded our yard since last fall. I think I did the job without thinking about coronavirus even once. What a vacation from the covid lockdown!

And the lawn looks so nice once it’s done. One of the things I like best about our new-mown lawn is that when it is cut short enough, the weeds (which make up at least 60% of our yard’s ecosystem) look just like the grass that I can never get to grow in their place.

* * *

I’ve finally thought of a good pen name! Long-time readers might recall my search (here) and (here) for a decent pen name, thwarted when I found that my brilliant inspirations had already been appropriated by quicker thinkers than me, or I realized they were cognates of old-person memes.

But my new nom de plume is great—it’s edgy, classic and yet of-the-moment, and has that sort of familiar ring to it that makes it feel just right. And as far as I know, no one else is using it yet. You heard it here first!

Thanks for reading,
Trentin Quarantino
4/10/2020

Next time: does coronavirus make a good sourdough starter?

Dress for the job you want: cower in place 19

– in which Dorn makes a statement with his face.

ike many people these days, Kathleen and I are trying our hand at making face masks. It has finally vindicated our hoarding tendencies.

I’m not talking about the now-popular plague hoarding of toilet paper and hand-san, I’m talking about what’s been our habit for years now, that just recently we’ve decided to stop.

But maybe not just yet! We had fabric to sew into masks, and some elastic (some big hair scrunchies if nothing else works), but I didn’t know where we’d find the flexible piece of metal that shapes the mask around one’s nose.

Aha! A few years ago, I was replacing a worn out windshield wiper on our car. As you may have noticed, some windshield wiper blades have a thin piece of metal maybe 1/8 of an inch wide, sitting immediately behind the rubber squeegee part to stiffen it. That metal piece is called, apparently, the flexor. “I wonder if this metal would ever be useful for anything,” I mused at the time. “I’d better save it, just in case.”

And sure enough, five years and one zombie apocalypse later, I really did have a need for that thin metal strip. I had another source too, from another hoarding action. You know those metal reinforcers that are glued inside hanging file folders? Well, we didn’t hoard those reinforcers (that would be bizarre), but Kathleen and I both hoarded a bunch of work files from jobs we had 10 or 15 years ago, and by golly some of those files were in folders, and some of those folders had those metal reinforcing strips. Pay dirt! Proof that “Hoarders Always Prosper”, if you wait long enough.

I’ve made a couple of masks now, but they’re not much good. I’m still relearning how to follow sewing directions and patterns (I used to be quite facile at it, back in my hippie, make-it-yourself days in the distant past.)

Kathleen and I wear face masks when we take Archie for his walks. I know they say that face masks are primarily to protect other people from your contaminated body fluids, and not to protect you from them, but I don’t buy that. I can think of four ways that wearing a face mask will reduce your risk of catching the coronavirus.

(1) Even a simple cloth mask or bandana does afford some protection, stopping maybe half of the airborne particles that would otherwise collide with your face. And a 50% reduction in risk from this particular pathway is (ahem) nothing to sneeze at.

(2) A face mask makes it harder to touch your face. You have to really work to get to your nose or mouth, so you’re not going to do it without thinking, and if you think about it, you’ll probably decide not to do it.

(3) A face mask, like a uniform, is a form of wordless communication—it transmits a message about you to other people. “I’m taking this whole virus thing seriously,” it says. “Keep your poxy self six feet away!”

(4) Wearing a face mask can exert peer pressure on others to also wear their face masks (and that’s where the real protection to you comes in!). We live in a semi-rural, semi-“red”, quiet older neighborhood, and the number of people we’ve seen wearing face masks in this neighborhood is exactly two: Kathleen and me. There are careful people here who take the virus seriously, we’ve talked to them, but they come out of their houses very rarely if at all.

And clearly the hardest social hurdle to wearing a face mask is you don’t want to be the first one in your neighborhood to do it, or you’ll look silly. But Kathleen and I, as a public service, have relieved our neighbors of that burden. We’ll be like the lone applauders in the audience before everyone else joins in, and march proudly with our faces covered.

Here’s one of the masks we made. To show it in the best possible light, I’ve photoshopped it onto the face of Tyrone Power, star of that great swashbuckler, The Mark of Zorro (1940) with Basil Rathbone and Linda Darnell.

This is from the one scene in the movie where Zorro wears a mask covering his nose and mouth, instead of his more iconic bandit eye-mask (). I thought I remembered that this scene was the first time he went out as Zorro, and I figured that he just hadn’t invented his signature eye-mask yet at this point in the movie.

But while fast-forwarding through a youtube of the movie looking for this image, I saw that his eye-mask was actually introduced in an earlier scene when he tore down the poster about taxing the peasants. Then he robbed the evil Alcalde wearing the protective face-mask in the scene above, and then in all the later scenes he was back in his eye-mask. So I don’t know what is going on in this scene, maybe his other mask is in the wash or something, but this whole thing bothers me probably more than it should.

So the moral of this story is if you’re not staying at home, wear a face mask in public. If you don’t have one, make one, it’s not that hard. Protect your neighbors, and maybe they’ll get the message and protect you too!

Thanks,
Dorn
4/7/2020