phyncke

Hello - here I am - still alive and reasonably healthy here on the West Coast, USA. The pandemic is raging here in my country and we have no national leadership on the epidemic. Nada. The White House is about to come out and tell us that we have to "live with it" and so it looks like we are on our own and that local government will have to deal with this. No national guidance and leadership on this at all. The countries that are doing well with this have had central leadership on it and strong central leadership - from what I can see through observation and reading articles - New Zealand is one example of this - strong leadership. So we are quite literally screwed here and a lot of people are going to die because of it. When Trump was elected - he used the word carnage in his inaugural address - seemingly talking about previous Administrations - well that was foreshadowing to this time - and this is the carnage we are living through - the large death toll from an unchecked pandemic. This is horrible and he is to blame. He keeps saying that he thinks it will just go away. The man is delusional. He truly is.

One thing I am looking forward to is this upcoming book from Mary L. Trump - she is the President's niece and it looks to be an insider expose of the Trump family. I lived with her in college so I am extremely excited that she wrote a book about her crazy family. Finally, she is going to get it all out there. I have not been in touch with her since college but I plan on trying to write her after I read the book. It is a psychological analysis of the family and has lots of inside dirt on them. Should be very good. You can find it on Amazon under her name as the author. The Trump's tried to block the publishing of this book but have failed so far at that so this is going to be released. Yay!

Anyhoo. I am still working from home and will be for the foreseeable future - probably until January 2021. That is what they are telling us. I am ok with that though it does get a little lonely. I miss the interactions at work and the people. I live alone so it is lonely here. I do live in a house with 4 other apartments but we are not really hanging out at all. So that is that.

I am amazed and glad that the race issue has exploded in the US - I am in full agreement with the BLM protestors and think it is time that we work on this. The problem has been with us since the foundation of our country and before - time to deal with this and change our society to one where all are treated equally. We have a lot of work to do and it will not be easy. I am doing some reading on this right now and learning about our own history - it is not pretty and not nice.

Anyhoo - that is a lot of heavy stuff. Hope all is well with you where you are.

The US is a total shit show and is opening up too soon. All the models have been adjusted to show a much higher death toll. The vocal minority has won - the people who want to open - the Trumpsters - the people with guns who think we should sacrifice the vulnerable and who want to open things up. Well let's just watch as the numbers for the virus start to spike again. Just watch. Give it two, three weeks and it will be a total shit show. I am really disappointed in my country - we really do not have it together and our government is totally incompetent. The bottom line is that people are going to die in large numbers.

Me? I am going to keep isolating. Our VP said she thought that we were going to be working from home until December - seriously - that this was our new normal for a long time. I am happy with that. I can do this for a long time. All my events in the Fall have been canceled and it is just hold the course.

I feel like we keep learning new and horrible things about this virus - now it affects children - with rash and inflammation. We just don't know enough about this thing yet. That is what happens when a new virus comes along - there is a learning curve until we figure it out. We will figure it out but it will take a while.

I hope some of you are in more reasonable places that have smart leaders who are doing the right thing for their people. I do live in California and our Governor has done well here but he is caving a little bit to the pressure to open. Just slightly - in a really measured way.

Anyways. I am doing ok here. My cats both got colds so I am nursing them. Don't think it is corona - they have the snuffles. Poor things.

Hope you are well in your part of the world. Comments are welcome and stay safe and healthy!

So here I am again - happy Sunday. I did my usual Sunday thing which was go to the laundromat and get my laundry done. What was unusual was that it was totally empty when I got there at 8:30 am. Like a ghost town and Sunday is usually a happening time for laundry. Guess people are just not doing that. I have to go there since I don't have facilities at my house. The place is clean and I see the wiping things down. It is really spotless in there so that is good. They have a hand washing station in there so you can do that. So it is all good.

I have resurrected my old espresso machine at home - ye olde Krups and got that working again. I had to order parts for it on eBay but I found those and now I can have nice lattes at home. This makes me very happy as I was missing the cafe experience. I make a pretty good espresso drink and it is fun to do. The Krups machine is easy to operate and I bought a pound of espresso coffee ground for it before the whole lock down thing happened. So I am really enjoying this. My problem is counter space - I have very little so I have to take it in and out of the closet when I want to use it but no biggie.

So I have been reading some articles - a friend sent me one - and it looks like the social distancing thing is working in California - we are bending that curve. I am really glad to see that. I like our Governor - Gavin Newsom and think he is doing a good job on this. So that is all alright. They are working on surge capacity for hospitals - getting ventilators and PPE for hospital staff. So doing all the right things. We just have to keep doing this as long as it takes - this is serious and I am committed to staying with the program.

I wish I could get more done here at home - I feel like I should start some projects but meh. Not feeling that. My house is full of food and canned goods right now - not much room to clean it out. I am going through papers and stuff like that and I am keeping things clean but I have cases of cat food to work around. LOL. I stocked for a while in case things get really bad. Gotta feed the kitties.

It is what it is. Hope all is well with you there. Rainy weekend here in Berkeley, CA. Clouds are looking ominous. Comment if you like!