Soapbox

Covid is such a mind-fuck.

I have had covid living in my brain since March. I mean it has moved in and taken over half the closet! I think about it a hundred times a day. I and millions of other Americans (the ones who take it seriously) self-monitor constantly… do I have it now? No? Ok good.  What about now?

That’s one of the worst parts: noticing and examining and fretting over every headache and cough and scratchy throat. Because these days it seems like almost any symptom you can have could be a symptom. I’m becoming a hypocondriac! But the alternative is to be reckless, and to risk spreading it to other people because I didn’t take the early symptoms seriously.

The worst part, though, is feeling fine today and not really being able to relax and enjoy it because its entirely possible that I already have it and just haven’t started feeling sick yet. Or could get it on my next trip to the grocery store. Or the one after that.

Yesterday was the 4th in a series of very stressful days for Ted. He had 3 high-pressure days at work (board meetings for which he had to co-ordinate and run the tech) culminated by what he thought would be a simply plumbing repair of a leaky shower head that turned into an emergency evening call to a plumber, who needed a part (they always do) so we had to go all night with the water shut off to the whole house.
So when he woke up Thursday feeling “wrong” and asked if he felt hot to me, even if he had, I wouldn’t have gone to red alert. Stress sometimes makes his Epstein Barr flare up and aches, low fever and general malaise are typical symptoms.
He didn’t seem to have a fever and after I made him eat lunch (he was too upset about the plumbing to eat dinner the day before and barely touched breakfast) he felt better.

Then Steve asked me late in the afternoon if he felt hot.
He didn’t have an elevated temp, but he had those fever eyes people sometimes get; slightly glassy and slightly red. He said he had muscle aches and a nasty headache, which were exactly the symptoms Ted had complained of all morning. Danger, Will Robinson! Since his temp was normal I brought him tylenol, reminded him to push fluids and tried to push it aside.
At 11:45 PM he came to me with the mercury thermometer in his mouth because he couldn’t figure out how to read it (the cheap digital one was giving ridiculous readings like 96.8 so I roll old school now when there’s reason to suspect a fever). He was 99.6  Technically doctors don’t even consider that a fever: its still within the body’s normal temp fluxuation range. But he had taken Tylenol 6 1/2 hours earlier, so was there still residual fever suppression from that?

He actually looked a little better than he had before dinner, and was enjoying an on-line game of Dungeons and Dragons. I told him to wait about half an hour, take it again and see if it was higher.

Then I went to bed and stared at the ceiling. It’s not normal to worry abot a perfectly healthy 33 year old man having a temp of 99.6 but that’s what covid does. It turns everything into a possible crisis!

He took his temp again a little after midnight: still mid 99’s. So he emailed his boss that he wasn’t coming in, played a little more D&D, took a shower, gathered up his things and quietly crept down to isolate himself in the basement “Bug Out” room, just in case.

This morning the trusty mercury thermometer said he was 98.4. I took it twice because he wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d had a drink of water, and that will cool the mouth down. He took the vitamins and black elderberry I brought him and devoured a short stack of pancakes. No cough. No loss of smell or sore throat. Still… I told him to take it again after lunch and if it’s normal then, it was just one of those things, and to let his boss know that he’s ok to come in. And I can completely unclench.
For now.

Just about every symptom known to man, including digestional symptoms, have been reported by somebody to be associated with Covid 19. So in a person my age, a lot of symptoms that we have, off and on, all the time, could be an early sign.
Or not.
Which I assume is why people are so darn bipolar about it: either we say “To hell with this BS!” and ignore it (deadly stupidity) or we guard and worry and fret just a little all the time, and let it live in our minds, if not in our bloodstreams.

Plus, unless/until they come up with a vaccine, we are probably ALL gonna get this bitch sooner or later.

See? Total mind fuck.

In a way this whole spring has been waiting for disaster: for someone I love to get coronavirus, for Trump and his Republican sycophants to declare martial law and admit that democracy was a failed experiment (they’re coming closer to that every day). But these past few days have really ramped up the negative anticipation.

On Friday, according to the Post Office tracking system, my cousin Andy H. got my letter informing him that I’m throwing in the towel and letting him deal with whatever’s left of Margaret’s estate. F**k him and his need to control and dominate everyone. Any hope I had that he wouldn’t be a jerk about this has been squashed. I’m cutting my losses and walking away.

OK, so I always knew it would be a challenge to be Margaret’s executor, because of her brothers. These are the guys who, when she told them she was going to seminary to become a minister, basically said “Why? You’re going to hell anyway. Why waste your time?” Who never once came to her church and saw what a true leader she was there, saw how her strength shown like a beacon. Who scarcely could be bothered with her at all in her (unholy, deviant) life. Andy is pretty well off, but he left her to beg for help from friends and distant relations when her total disability left her impoverished to the point where she couldn’t afford food.
I knew that he (and to a lesser extent his brother David) would be a jerk. But I thought it would be easier than this. For one thing, I thought there would be a signed will, giving me actual authority to do the things I needed to do. I also didn’t know that she would die suddenly right as she was getting ready to move into an assisted living facility, and right as the state was going on a widespread lock-down because of a deadly global pandemic.

So there I was: 5 1/2 days until Margaret had to be out of her apartment, no legal access to her bank account, no idea what to do with all her stuff (she had fallen way behind on getting ready to move) and no legal authority to do anything. When she asked me to be her executor Margaret told me that there would be nothing much to settle: she had no savings or belongings of significant value… for her family to get pissy over. That last part she didn’t say, but it was the subtext. They weren’t going to challenge me over pots and pans, tables and shelves.
Right?

It started off badly when it turned out that Margaret had not put either of her brothers on the list of people to inform of her death, so they weren’t called. Probably just an omission born of illness, though they had never cared much for her in life~ perhaps she though they wouldn’t care about her death. After their initial “Why weren’t we informed?!” upset, the first phone calls I had with them were fine.
They were happy with me acting as executor- why not? It saved them having to deal with things, and I live a lot closer than they do. They did push for me to request an autopsy, which I refused. Margaret had been given a terminal diagnosis months earlier. An autopsy would cost a lot of money (that they certainly wouldn’t offer to pay) and probably delay the issueing of the death certificate. And without a signed, legal will, I could do almost nothing without that death certificate.

I rushed to her apartment after picking up her effects and arranging for the crematorium to collect her body. A good friend of hers from the church was already there and gave me the bad news: she found the paperwork giving me medical power of attorney and her living will, but not the will itself. We all knew what the will had said: me as executor, her partner’s daughter (Margaret’s own child in the eyes of everyone but the law) to inherit anything that might be left after the bills were paid. The apartment was a mess, papers and unopened mail everywhere, half-packed boxes in a corner.

We started sorting through papers, filling boxes and throwing things away. This was Thursday afternoon. Her lease was up Wednesday morning. I was told (never found anything written down) what company she had hired to move her posessions to the facililty where she planned to move. I switched the destination to a storage unit down the road and agreed to pay the bill.  What else could I do with all her stuff? Several pieces of furniture could be sold at an antique mall where my sister sells things- but antique malls are all closed right now. The other things could probably get $200 at a well-advertized yard sale- but no one is having those for the forseeable future.

I designated boxes to go to her daughter Elizabeth (things pertaining to Elizabeth’s mom and brother, both dead now) and others to go to the Hawk family. With Becky’s help I took 3 carloads of stuff to a nearby Volunteers of America that advertized on their sign that they were still open. And I made phone call after phone call.
Her papers were in such a mess that I had no idea what outstanding bills needed to be paid. She had expensive medical equipment that needed to be returned. It was a race against the clock, but on Wednesday morning, as I sat a safe distance away in the laundry room, wearing a mask, the movers packed up what was left and took it to storage. Moving and first month’s rent was about $600, but at least I didn’t have to drive out there every day and spend hours sifting through her posessions.

Then the texts started. Did you find this? What did you do with this? Send me papers about the car loan. I need info on the car insurance. Nothing genuinely confrontational, but given the very bossy, even bullying history we have in our (blessedly few) dealings with Andy, they made both Ted and me nervous. When I asked them both for their assurance that they were so far satisfied with what I was doing, I got a reply days later that mentioned something about ‘consulting with lawyers’.
Warning lights went from flashing yellow to orange.

Twice I told Andy that if he had any problems with how I was handling things, hey, I would happily transfer all responsibility to him, as representative of his mother, my Aunt Patty, and Margaret’s legal heir, since her more recent will (which was supposed to name me executor!!) never was found.
(Part of that is my fault. I should have realized that, despite her assurances that she was “doing alright!” Margaret was NOT doing alright, and that her assurances that she was handling getting the will we discussed signed and witnessed was probably no more reliable.)

ANYWAY, he responded to my communication by demanding more information about the car.

Once of the few brotherly things (that I know of) that Andy did for Margaret was to co-sign on a loan so she could buy a decent car. For about a year Margaret earned money driving for Uber, and you need a decent car to do that. About 10 days before she died Andy and his brother Dave came to Columbus and collected the big roll-top desk that she couldn’t take to her assisted living apartment and Andy took posession of the car.
I assumed that when he did this he also collected what paperwork he needed for it. Why wouldn’t he do this? Margaret was right there, alive, to tell him where the paperwork was! He was driving it away forever.
The original plan had been for them to transfer the title to him at that time, but due to our old friend Covid, the BMV was only working by appointment (to keep as few people in the offices at a time as possible) and he didn’t think of that, and Margaret wasn’t well enough to go with him and sign the transfer anyway. So he just drove off with the car and, to my mind, it was no longer an issue for me to worry about.
Except rather than put on his big boy pants and deal with it himself, he made sure that it very much was my problem.

He bitched because he said she was upside-down on the loan, and owed about 2K more than the car was worth. (While simultaneously demanding I find paperwork on the loan for him. Really? Who co-signs on a car loan and doesn’t keep paperwork on the loan you are responsible for? And if he didn’t have any paper on it, how did he know that she was upside-down?)
As this was a rich man crying poor, I commiserated by saying that I was out 2K already too and suggested he just let the bank reposess the car, if he didn’t want to pay. (My credit rating!” he complained. Yeah, well, you signed for the loan so you took that chance) I mailed him everything I could find pertaining to the car (Including a death certificate as soon as I got them so he could get the title transferred) but he kept bugging me about it.

Then a week ago I got a text saying that 1) He and Dave needed to come ‘assess the contents of the storage unit’ on Friday and I should let them in, and 2) by the way the latest installment of the car insurance bill was about to auto-debit Margaret’s tiny bank account.

1) WHY? The stuff in storage isn’t going anywhere and, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re still under an “essential travel/business only” order.
2) WHY? Why is the estate paying insurance on a vehicle no longer in its possession? Why not just cancel the insurance on a car that surely you’re not driving now, since you say you haven’t transferrred the title yet? It doesn’t need to be insured.
And because I wasn’t named executor and I couldn’t go down to teh probate court (so things that normally take a day were taking a week or more) I still couldn’t see how much was in her checking account. For all I knew, there wasn’t enough there to pay for the insurance.

The reply was that
1) We want to make sure you don’t sell off stuff that the family should have (Bull. I’m not able to sell anything now and I sent 4 or 5 boxes of everything I found remotely related to his family off with his son Tim the day before the movers came) and
2) You need to get me a court order to switch the car title and I can’t get the insurance in my name without the title. (Ridiculous. See #2 above for why you do not need insurance)

Warning lights switched from orange to red.

After talking with several people in my family (including my Dad, who still has a bad taste in his mouth for Andy H. after the way he behaved when Grandma died and the family came to divide her posessions) I put in a call to the Franklin County Probate Resource Center to ask the staff guy (who had gotten me started filing papers) how hard it would be for me to withdraw as executor. Because this crap is just too much.
While I never had any illusions of getting a executor’s fee out of the job, I had hoped to get at least some of my expenses reimbursed. But if  Andy kept sucking money out of her account to pay things like car insurance bills, there wouldn’t be any money left even for her burial! And while I was willing to write off my entire $2000 expenditure in the name of That’s what you do for Family, I was not willing to have her brother sniping at me and casting insinuations that I was selling/stealing valueable stuff when I had no will saying I have the right to dispose of the estate.
I had shouldered all of the responsibility with none of the legal authority.

The reply was- there’s nothing you need to do to withdraw as executor because you are not and have never been the executor. You’re just the person who stepped in and did what needed to be done. And that’s fine, as long as the family agrees to it. And if they don’t… well, I can refer you to a lawyer. Who will probably charge $350 an hour.
Yipes.
All I had to do was- nothing. Formal probate proceedings had not yet been opened- that’s what I was in the process of filing, and with covid, it was taking forever. Now, without probate being filed by someone I couldn’t get reimbursed for my expenses by the estate and would have to rely on the Hawk family to do it. But there is no guarantee that the estate could do that anyway!
If the family decides to file, I will have 6 months to demand compensation, and with the paperwork and letter I have, the state will recognize my claim. If I don’t file, and they decide not to file either, I was definitely going to be stuck with the bills. unless they decided to do the decent thing and re-imburse me.
It seemed the better hand, and Ted agreed. “I don’t have a problem making a $2000 donation to take care of Margaret” he said. “I want you done with these guys.”

So I sent Andrew H a registered letter formally telling him that I am going to turn over the storage unit and its contents and all responsibility for anything else that needs to be done to him. You wanted to ‘assess’ the stuff? Come and get it. Or take over payments on the unit rental. I’ll give you whatever papers and notes I have, plus Margaret’s cell phone, wallet, checkbook, the cash she had with her- all the things I was not willing to mail to you. Pick a day- and be prepared to buy your own lock, because the one on the unit now is mine.

And now I’m waiting for him to reply.
Will he be belligerent? I’m betting no, because he REALLY doesn’t want this burden- he just wanted to boss me around while I did all the work. He knows there’s nothing of any monetary value there. But who knows.

I informed Elizabeth that I am withdrawing and will do my best to get all the things I set aside for her out of the unit and into my basement. I will have to let Andy inspect it and assure himself that I’m not smuggling out secret wealth and that there is nothing there that he can remotely claim the H family should have.  And I reminded her that I had found a paper about life insurance, though it wasn’t recent and Margaret had never mentioned it when we discussed her finances. I gave her the policy number, Elizabeth called and- son of a gun, the policy was still good, and yes, she IS the beneficiary! Some good news!

She said she could deal with it if they kept her stuff.
“I’ve got what matters: I’ve got Margaret” I said.
“Do you think they might demand her ashes for themselves?” she asked.
“If they do I’ll charge them $1200 for them” I said, (the cost I paid the crematorium). “Then I’ll take a small amount out for you and they can have the rest.”
She was good with that.

The Hawk brothers disdain Elizabeth, perhaps because she represents the ‘fallen’ nature of their sister: the daughter of her beloved partner Stephanie, who led Margaret into sin. (These are the guys who to this day refuse to admit that their 3rd brother, Kenny, died of AIDS- because he was gay also. He allowed them this fiction about his sexuality, so they covered their eyes and never kicked him out the way they did Margaret- even though they knew.)

So I suppose it is possible that they will demand the remains sister whom they never respected in life, just to foil her friends and loved ones from having her in death.
Margaret’s partner, and Elizabeth’s brother all have some of their ashes buried beneath a tree outside of town, in a park. When she is able to travel to Ohio at last Elizabeth and I plan to arrange a memorial service for Margaret, and then she will take her to the tree to be with those who went before her. A small portion is all she needs for that.

So here I am, waiting for that shoe to drop, to see if Andy will be decent about this or make it harder. I know I already discharged my duty to Margaret. I talked to her friends and packed up her belongings and helped her daughter so that SHE didn’t have to deal with the brothers. Hopefully in another week or so I won’t ever have to talk to either of them ever again.
When the time comes that we are able to have a memorial celebration of Margaret’s life and all the gifts she shared with others… I don’t plan to even tell her brothers about it. Someone else can- that’s fine. (I don’t get to say who comes and who does not) But I won’t. They probably wouldn’t come with all those gay people there, and no one will want them there.

Update:
After praising me effusively andalmost *begging* me to keep handling the estate, Andy took over.  Weeks later, shortly after texting me to confirm the amounts on the bills I had paid, I got a call from the crematorium saying that he had called and asked for a copy of the bill and of my payment.
I gave him a copy of every bill and receipt:  moving, storage and crematorium, months ago when they came up to clear out the unit. I showed it to him and made him look at it.  Obviously he still had it, since he quoted it to the penny in his text to me. The only reason I could think of to ask *them* for a copy was to let me know that he was making sure I hadn’t faked the reciepts I gave him.
Seriously?
But a week later I received a check for the full amount of those bills.
Good enough. He did the right thing- I’ll give him that.
My sister says I should block him on my phone and have no further contact with him at all. Tempting.

What if you held an election and nobody came?

Anyone who knows me knows that voting is basically my jam. Friends and family call me with questions like “Hey do I have to register here at school?” or “What if I want to change my party for this primary?” I want everyone to vote. Even the idiots who vote for things like Walls and ‘putting God back in our schools’.
So when I tell you that I was afraid to do my part running the primary this year, you know it was a big deal.

I went out 2 weeks before and bought 4 big tubs of sanitizing wipes (back when you could still find them in stores). I also got ingredients for hand sanitizer and made up a big batch (it was already too late to find that in stores). I had plans to pu only 1/2 as many ballot markers per table as we usually did, to keep people farther away from each other. The Board of Elections sent out emails assuring us that they were going to provide sanitary supplies to each polling station and they would let us set up our polls the evening before. That would allow us to really wipe the place down and start off as clean as possible. I had an anxious stomach all the day before but I packed my bags, double-checked my supplies and was ready to go do set-up at 6 PM Monday night.

Ted stuck his head in the room where I was sewing masks that afternoon and said that the governor had just said he was going to postpone the primary because he wasn’t convinced that the polls could be kept clean and social distancing maintained.

I was relieved. I really hadn’t been convinced that going ahead with the primary was a good idea, but felt it was my job. First I got a text cancelling early set-up. My courrier delivery of the thumb drive to update my list of who has voted early in my precinct never arrived. That told me the election was indeed off. I kept checking my email and finally got a message: the Governor has officially stopped in-person voting until June, but mail-in ballots can still be requested and sent in. Whew.
I unpacked my election bags, showered and put on my PJ’s and finally admitted to myself how worried I had been about going ahead with the election.

But people on Facebook started saying “No, the Governor tried but a judge ruled that we have to have the election tomorrow”.
No. Surely that’s wrong! Rumor! Specu-
Then an email from the Board: a judge over-ruled the governor. He can’t just postpone an election. Report to your polls at 5:30 AM tomorrow.

No. Are they nuts? We don’t have our data updates! We now have to set up AND SANITIZE the whole area in just an hour! Half my normal election crew is over 65 and two of them had heart issues last year! They have no business being out in public during an epidemic!
I felt a headache start as I reluctantly started re-packing my election supplies.
“Ted, I’m scared” I admitted. “I don’t feel safe”.
“Just don’t go” he said.
“I’m the Location Manager! I have the keys! If I don’t show up, nobody votes in precinct 1129. I have to go. I guess I just hope nobody in the precinct comes out to vote… which feels wrong. But the whole world is wrong right now.”

Finally around 11 PM it was resolved. The director of Public Health declared a health emergency and that gave DeWine the authority needed to postpone the primary. “Stand Down” messages were sent out to poll workers.
I still didn’t sleep well. I stood looking out the window the next morning and thought What about voters who didn’t have their TV’s on and don’t know it’s all been cancelled? What will they think when they show up at the church and the doors are locked and the lights are off?

It seemed to me I had a responsibility to ‘my’ voters, who depend on me to get their votes on record. I typed up a quick notice on my computer explaining what had happened and urging them to request an absentee ballot and vote now instead of waiting for June (because who knows what the world will be like then?) I drove to the church where I taped it to the front door and felt a little better as I drove away. Because voting is still my jam, folks.

It’s like living through an invisible hurricane, or blizzard.

You look out the window and you don’t see any snow. Can’t feel the cold or the wind. But everyone tells you that its there. People are in danger, people are dying- but you can’t see where the danger is. Can’t see the snowdrift right in front of you that you could fall in and freeze. To death.
That maybe you already fell in and have started freezing, but you can’t tell yet. And since you can’t tell- are about to pull someone else into the drift with you, and they might freeze too?
You don’t know how long the snow will last, either. A month? Six? Forever?

And since it’s an invisible blizzard, a lot of people don’t believe that it’s happening. OK sure some people are falling into snow drifts- a LOT of people- but that’s 2000 miles away. 200 miles. 20 miles.
The President said the blizzard is a hoax. There’s snow falling, but democrats are just *pretending* it’s a terrible blizzard to make him look bad. And anyway the blizzard will stop when the weather gets warm. And there will be a thaw any day.

And every meterologist on the planet says No, the blizzard is real, and bad, and getting worse. Schools close. Concerts and festivals are cancelled. Sporting events. Grocery stores and drug stores are sold out of mittens and hats and bottled water.
People can’t go to work now- for how long? How will they pay their mortgage? Feed their kids?
The safest thing is to just stay in the house anyway: hunker down and wait for it to pass- but when will it pass? WILL it pass?

And yet it’s so surreal because YOU CAN’T SEE THE SNOW.
The sun comes up. The birds are yelling at each other in the trees. You take a shower, run the vacuum, walk the dog.
Go to work- and eye everyone you see. (Are they gonna throw you out in the cold?)
Go to the hardware store for lightbulbs. Wash the dinner dishes. Watch TV, still full of ads for cruises and colleges that are closed, shows with people walking around doing things that we’re not supposed to do any more because of thte blizzard that’s outside.
Reach desperately for normalcy in an utterly abnormal world- because what else can you do?
And everything looks fine.
But it is so, so NOT fine.

We knew this storm was coming.
Epidemiologists have said for years that a global pandemic might be a bigger threat to the human race than even our reckless global warming. We couldn’t have prevented this storm.
But we could have protected ourselves.

Obama tried to protect us.
He set up a Global Pandemic response team dedicated to watching for the first signs and co-ordinating with military and scientists to know how best to fight its spread.
And that disgusting, self-obsessed ape in the White House FIRED THEM all.

We also knew that this s torm was coming. Watched it pop up in Chiina, then South Korea and Japan. We watched the countries who delt with it smartly & aggressively have an exponential growth of new cases for a while and then start to crest that curve and bring the number of new cases down, as they identified who has the infection, who they have been in contact with and isolate everyone until their illness has either passed or they have no symptoms and are clear. It’s tough- but it works.

And what did the mighty US do?
Did we re-instate our pandemic team (rather closing the barn door after the horse has run out but better then nothing). Of course not. Trump didn’t want to pay them when they “weren’t doing anything”.

Did we start testing everyone who came into this country by boat or plane from an area that was known to have the contaigen?
Of course not. The World Health Organization quickly developed a test that other nations used, but Someone (and it’ss always safe to assume a horrible, illogical decision from the ope levels of government was directed by Trump) decided that America needed our own test, developed independently by the CDC. Which would have been fine if, while the test was being developed and checked, we havd used the WHO test. But we didn’t: we waited and didn’t test people.
And when the first test the CDC made didn’t work right, we waited AGAIN while they fixed it.
Meanwhile people who had possible exposure to the Coronavirus but no symptoms weren’t tested, and went home to their families, their jobs, their work.

#WhereAreTheTests has been trending on twitter as weeks have gone by. Last Tuesday, almost a week after the science-denying Vice President said that the US had 1.5 million tests shipping out, we tested EIGHT people.
And everyone wants to know “Why would our government put millions of lives at risk over an issue that could be so easily overcome?” And why would they lie and continue to lie about it?
And the obvious answer is:
Because Donald Trump thought a lot of cases of the coronavirus would hurt the stock market and his chances for re-election.

That’s why for a week he kept saying:
There are only 15 people with the virus and in a few days, that number will be close to zero.
It’s basically just like the flu, and the flu actually kills a lot of people so this won’t be any worse.
When the warm weather comes, these things just disappear- they always do.
And my personal favorite,
Pretty soon- like a miracle- it will all go away.

Every one of those statements was obviously, proveably, terrifyingly wrong… but he said them. Scientists, doctors, nurses and journalists kept saying “No! Those are lies!! This will be bad and we need to take steps now to keep it from being horrible!” Virologists and national security specialists and people covering what was happening in Iran and Italy have been running around with their hair on fire screaming the warning. We have to take strong action NOW!”

So Donald Trump tweeted and told his rally attendees that the whole “the virus is really bad!” story was a hoax. A hoax, by the Democrats, and by China, because the Russia investigation didn’t work (Because the Republicans covered for him) and the impeachment  didn’t work (ditto) so now they were blowing this little virus out of proportion just to take Trump down.

Some of his supporters are actually saying that Democrats got together with China and CREATED the virus and turned it loose just to hurt him. Who thinks like that? Donald Trump does- and the lunatics who follow him.

Despite the Sociopath in the White house insisting that nothing was wrong, in 2 weeks we went from “this is a hoax” to a State of National Emergency being declared. but the poison is spreading. And I don’t mean just the virus.
This morning I went to JoAnn’s to get some narrow elastic for some fabric masks I’m making. I was chatting with a super-nice woman I know from back when I worked there. Of course we talked about “this whole thing” and she said “I mean it’s just the flu!”
“No, Deb” I said “It’s not just the flu.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “The flu kills people every year. We’ll be fine.”
I took a deep breath.
“The flu kills about 1 out of a thousand. In parts of Italy the mortality rate is EIGHT out of a hundred!!”
She shook her head at me with a some people are so silly expression and turned away.
“Deb” I said as I headed to the check-out, “In Iran they are digging trenches for all the people they have to bury”.

Colleges across the country, libraries and the entire NBA season doesn’t cancel for “the flu”! It makes no sense for her to believe that. But no matter how many times scientists speak the truth, people who don’t WANT to believe that this is serious have been given an excuse to deny reality by the greed and- dementia?- of the worst president in the history of time.
This week’s cover of the National Enquirer shouts “Coronavirus Cure found!”
I consider that kind of shit to be domestic terrorism. When people believe there’s a pill they can take to make it all go away, they won’t be careful, they won’t self-quarantine, and the virus will spread faster.

Speaking of self-quarantine…
I slept poorly last night and was too anxious to eat much today. When I started feeling just a little ‘off’ this evening a grabbed a thermometer, since they say fever is the 1st sign. And son of a bitch I had a temperature of 100.
I stood there just staring at the thermometer for a minute- then got busy.
They call it “home quarantine” and I had already throught about it. First I got clorox wipes and wiped down every surface in the bathroom, and my hands. Then I grabbed one of the masks I made and started grabbing supplies:
A large sheet (to cover the basement sofa so I can lay on it without contaminating it too badly), my pillow, phone, a book, a large glass of water, some zinc lozenges, hand sanitizer, hand lotion, my computer, toothbrush and toothpaste, my mouth guard, the thermometer– it takes a crap lot of stuff to isolate yourself!
I’ve been taking my temp every hour (and feeling a little silly because I feel fine) and after 3 hours it has gone down, not up. It feels like just a false alarm but I consider it a beta-test for my home quarantine plan for when one of us gets this damn thing- because experts say that the odds are that at least one of us will.

Something nice to end on: today we got a real snowstorm. Not a blizzard, but quiet, gray day made bight by huge, fat flakes falling gently for hours. I love that kind of snow.
I went out and stood in the front yard and started to grin. Putting my arms out, I tipped my face up and let them fall into my mouth. I started hopping and jumping up to meet them. I walked around the house and looked at my butterfly garden.
Despite a global pandemic, despite the snow, the garden is coming back to life.

My father is selling his cabin. It’s time.

The building, an old tenant farmer’s shack, is falling down now. It was never much, but once it was reasonably sound and snug. I remember clearing out the trash piled inside when he first bought it, sweeping it out and imagining the people who once lived there.  For years it had a  functional wood-burning stove, and we could bring sleeping bags and spend the night out there. Sometimes we would clear a path down the hill and go sledding, then come inside to dry our clothes at the stove and have warm food. Dad took the stove out long ago though. (My god- how has it been so many years?)

When I was a kid, “going out to the cabin” for me was often me and Dad and our packed lunch on a Saturday. I would help him for a while, marking the property line or bringing gravel up from the creek to fill a low spot on the road, and then wander off. Usually I found myself up a tree, or perched on a rock, thinking and just being an angsty kid. There was a big beech tree that you could only get into by climbing a rock and then stepping across a gap into the branches. It was a great place to sit. Now most of that tree is dead.

Mostly the cabin was hikes, family picnics and, when the kids were young, positively *epic* easter egg hunts! Looking through my photo albums last night I found a sucession of pictures of the cousins, crowded together on the old porch swing Dad hung between 2 trees, smiling for the camera with their buckets full of treasure. I think we parents enjoyed it as much as the kids did. Certainly we were more disappointed then they were when they outgrew the hunt.

At most picnics, Grandad would lead a hike up the hill.

When the weather was warm, they would indulge in that endlessly interesting pastime of childhood: mucking about in a stream.

When I was that age, I had the Big Darby at my Grandpa’s cabin. My siblings and cousins had a cabin to grow up with, and we ran wild like a litter of puppies and enjoyed the world in a way you just can’t in your back yard.

And then I lost it. But Dad bought his 35 acres, and though it wasn’t the same, I was glad my kids at least had the little stream and picnics and games with cousins out there.

Our place was even more primative than Grandmother and Grandpa’s cabin: no electricity & no running water (though dad did jury-rig something that functioned as an outhouse). Besides a roof to keep you dry, it was really just trees and rocks and water and sky- and what more do you need?
My father spent decades of his life keeping the path from the road driveable, digging up saplings on one hillside and moving them to another, transplanting clumps of wildflowers near the house, rigging a bridge over the stream so he could drive up to the small pond he had put in.
I knew the seasons of the place: the small dell where lush grass and the most amazing violets grew in spring, the asters and briars of summer, the hickory nuts and incredible aroma of fall and the peace of winter.

My children grew up at the cabin. I’ve grown old with it.

But dad is 90 now, the kids are too busy to go out for Easter or Memorial day picnics at the cabin, and the house really is falling to ruin.
The sentimentalist in me wants to keep it, because it represents so much of my life. (The survivalist in me REALLY wants to keep it as a place to retreat to when civilization falls apart.)
If I won a modest lottery pot- say 100k I would buy the land, sink a well, put up a little wind turbine for electricity, build a small cabin on the hill looking out over the valley and put in a proper road. For many years I have had that dream. Then we could spend summers out there the way my grandparents did with their old cabin, with just the birds and the deer and the wind in the trees for company.

However, “If’s” aren’t real, and my dad can’t even get out to the cabin any more. It makes total sense to sell it.
I wish there was time for one last family and friends picnic, with volleyball or croquet and way too much food.

One more chance to hook the swing back up and soar out over the valley again,, then climb up the hill to the big rocks and enjoy the view of a world with no roads, no houses- just wild Athens county, the way nature made it.
It’s not to be. The sale will be next month.
Well, life is change. I have pictures. And lots and lots of memories.