I woke up around 5 but stayed in bed for another 45 minutes. Elsa and I were out of the house by six. I tried calling my friend Jean in Arizona. No answer. This wouldn't be a chemo day, but she may be knocked out. Then I called Dorothy.
On our last call, she told me that Shivani had complained that she couldn't find a mask that fit her comfortably. Dorothy has been hand-making masks and thought she would offer to make Shivani one that would fit her. Dorothy said she was planning to take all sorts of measurements of Shivani's face or have Shivani take them. She would be able to create a pattern using the measures.
Dorothy told me that David, her son, and his girlfriend planned on stopping by today. She was concerned that she had no food in the house other than peanut butter and jelly. I asked her if she had waffles. She did and thought of all the other things she had that would go with those waffles. The plan was for them to sit on Dorothy's patio at a safe distance while they ate with their masks off. Although, as Dorothy pointed out, the two kids never go anyplace either. David only goes out to do the food shopping. His girlfriend is a graduate student at Princeton University in Neuroscience and works from home. The likelihood of them carrying the virus is slim at this point.
I got a message from my friend Carol in Ohio this morning. She wanted to know the type of dialysis Mike was planning to get when it became clear that a transplant wasn't in his immediate future. When I did call, she told me she found the name on the Internet. She suspects kidney problems because her lower limbs are swollen. I remember Mike had to get shoes two sizes larger at the end.
I hope I was enough support for Mike during his time in the hospital. I didn't get overly worked up because I assumed all this was a temporary glitch, and he would be all right with the transplant.
Besides talking about ailments, I told Carol that I was feeling somewhat depressed. I assumed it was because of my procrastination on the article and lack of involvement with students, but I think it may be something else. I now believe that we are coming out of the shutdown; I am feeling more anxious. Carol told me she is hearing this from a lot of people.
Many years ago, a friend told me a story of a man she met in France. He had been a French national of European heritage who lived and worked in Algeria during its struggle to be independent of France. There was a lot of hostility between French nationals and Algerians, as you can imagine. This man rode a bus every morning to work that took him through an all-Algerian neighborhood. One day he missed the bus and had to walk to work. He was putting his life at risk. He knew if he ran into someone who wanted to kill him, he would be a dead man. No one would help him. He made it through to the other side that day without consequence. Even though he did run into people, no one bothered him. The interesting twist to this story is that it was only once he returned to France that his nightmares started. He hadn't had them while he was in Algeria. Interesting. Post-traumatic shock is really that. It only occurs after the stressful situation is over, even if that situation lasts years.
Now we are coming out of the shutdown, the most substantial part of the stress is over. We can start going to stores again, church again, yoga again. I can even get a haircut soon. (A note here: My haircut still looks fantastic. This is due to Randee Jennings of Salon Muse in Kailua Kona, Hi. She gave me such a good haircut; it continues to look good after three months. Amazing!) The crisis is over; time to have a post-traumatic shock. But besides, this situation is still ambiguous. Is there any continuing danger? Do we have to continue being so careful? We may never know.
I do know that many people believed that the precautions taken weren't good. Basically, let the elderly and the sick die; save the economy for the living. They saw it as a choice between saving lives and the economy. If that was a clear-cut choice, I would agree, and I'm one of the elderly. However, there is a third option: had we not taken precautions, it might have meant a significant loss of life, which would have affected the economy negatively. In other words, it would have been bad on both counts. We will never know for sure. It seems now that the strains of the virus are weakening. It might be because we starved them or because they are outliving their life span. We will never know that either. I come back to this: I thank God that I wasn't in a position to decide how to respond to this situation.
When I got home from my walk, I fed Elsa and mediated for thirty minutes. I wish I had the discipline to do that more regularly instead of turning to FreeCell, ruining my hands and wrists, or napping.
Then the next thing I did was get on my vibrating platform. I bought it while living in Ohio shortly before my left inner thigh muscles were damaged by Mike. I didn't dare use the machine. That muscle hurt while driving on a major highway. I felt every bump in the road. I got on today partially because it's supposed to be good for my body and partly because I thought it might help my mental state.
Heather, one of the Bikram yoga teachers, had heard that in one of the war-torn countries, they were putting people on vibrating machines to help them overcome their stress. They had noticed that children and animals shook after life-threatening incidents, but adults didn't. They thought it might be possible that the shaking was literally a way of 'shaking it off.'
I set my vibrating platform on high and went for it. My inner thigh muscle doesn't complain nowadays. I worked on straightening my right leg completely to bring my left hip forward. When I did that successfully, I felt the vibration as a consistent frequency through my whole body. I thought, "Wow!" My best guess is that I will feel the vibration the same throughout my body when my spine is straight. I felt fine when I got off after a few minutes. I'm not sure if my state of mind is improved.
Then I washed Elsa. Boy, she hates this. I'm inclined to avoid it because of her reaction. I know her skin feels better when I do it regularly. It should be done at least every two weeks. The breeder told me she washed her dogs once a week.
I got ready to go to church. I planned to take the Prius rather than the Ford. I discovered that while the hybrid battery doesn't hold a charge, it does take one. I had enough to make it up the hill at the end of the street to the intersection. From there was downhill. I kept tapping the brakes to charge the battery. I made it most of the way down Queen K at a reasonable speed. As I approached Makala, I could feel the car start to slow down and pull back. I tapped the brakes as I approached the intersection and regained power. I made it safely to church without a hitch.
Again, I arrived a bit late. Masks and hand cleansing were required before we entered the church. The original thought on their part was that we would have to use a hand sanitizer. A genius member of the church set up two utility sinks with garden hoses so we could use old-fashioned soap and water.
The church was fuller today than it was last week. Next week, they will have to start using the chairs set up on the outdoor lanais. I couldn't find Judy or Paulette. They usually come to this mass. I wondered if they were home taking care of Leon and Luke while Jazzy delivered the baby. Her due date is between June 6h and the 10th. Any moment now.
The lady who had forgotten to put on her mask while serving as a eucharist minister last week was there again. This week she had her mask on but moved so slowly that she was shuffling along long after the other sections had finished being served. We were all standing there waiting for her to finish when Fr. Lio said," Everyone, sit down." She still had five more people to serve. It was funny. The poor woman! I suspect that her senses are dulled by medications. She's doing the best she can.
I called Judy as I left the church. No answer. I called Paulette next. She told me they were going to the 1pm mass because Fr. Lio asked her to cantor the mass. Judy was still in bed.
I made it home without a hitch. This is kind of fun. I make sure I have reading material with me if the car does die, and I need to wait for a tow.
Judy called while I was washing Elsa. No, I did not answer the phone. Judy called again when I was through. We spoke at length about this and that. I told her I had heard something on NPR on my way home that surprised me. It was about the sacking of Rome. I had always thought these tribes came from the north to attack Rome and brought it to its knees. It winds up that there was also a substantial population of Goths living in Rome, but they were considered subhuman and treated like dirt. If a Goth was successful in Rome culture, it was considered a fluke. Eventually, this population rose up against Rome and attacked from the inside. There was one man in particular who became a leader of this uprising.
Judy had a lot of information on the topic. She told me that the Roman army became manned by the Goths. The Romans considered themselves too good for that type of labor and risk. You can only treat people you're dependent on badly for so long when they will turn around and bite you. Surprise!
I just finished a book about the theories of Karl Marx. He argues that the underclass, in the instance of his writing, the working class, which creates the material goods which finance the wealthy, will eventually rebel and overthrow the wealthy. Peter Singer, who wrote the Very Short Introduction to Marx, claimed that Marx's theory that this would happen in the wealthy developed countries rather than the poor underdeveloped countries wound up being wrong. But wasn't Rome a wealthy, developed city-state? I think we are living in interesting times. Poor us!
Judy spoke at great length about Roman history. She said there were twenty emperors in twenty years. Things were falling apart at the top as well as the bottom. She told me that Mike knew a great deal about Roman history. I knew he was a history buff, but he didn't share a lot of his information with me. I'm not sure why. No, I didn't like him lecturing me; but I would have enjoyed it when he shared something that he found exciting. Quite different. Unfortunately, he was more comfortable with the teacher mode. It felt controlling. I wasn't comfortable with that. On the other hand, I had absolutely no compunction about babbling on about something I found interesting or exciting.
I must say, my generation has had the easiest time ever known to man. Most people I knew had roofs over their heads and food to eat. My family was middle class- not rich but satisfactory. Also, right after the war, the middle class flourished. It wasn't just a few lucky people. It was most of the middle class. Besides financial opportunities, we had education and medicine.
Penicillin was released for public use in the summer of 1945. How do I know this? My sister, born on June 13, 1945, developed blood poisoning due to an ear infection. Her life was saved by penicillin, which wouldn't have been available a month sooner. Where was all the penicillin? On the battlefronts. It was there for the military, not for civilians.
Besides the material stability in my lifetime, my generation also had the benefits of cohesive communities. My generation started the rebellion against conformity. We had some struggles against social rigidity, but it was loosening in my lifetime. My family lived in one of the original housing projects in the Bronx in NYC. We knew most of the people in our building, or at least many. I once snuck across a major intersection that had no light against my mother's specific instructions. One of our neighbors happened to be looking out her window and saw me. She ratted me out. I doubt that would happen today. Of course, I am white. I don't think that all citizens of the USA were as blessed as I was.
I took a nap after I got home. Escape from reality or tiredness because of a somewhat busy morning? When I got up, I dealt with the hibiscus B. uprooted by tying a rope around the plant, which was then attached to the towing hook on his truck. The plant was suffering badly from blister mites. I had cut it back once before and treated it as well as the neighboring hibiscus. I took a picture of the plant's trunk and showed it to Margo, our resident plant expert. She told me then to pull it out. I didn't, and it came back beautifully, but the mites came back better than ever. It was time for this poor plant to go.
The uprooted plant was lying in the driveway. The gardener was coming on the 10th. He could haul away whatever is left, but I don't want the infected leaves to go into the green waste. I'm concerned that they will infect some other plants. I cut off the infected branches, put them in a garbage bag, and put them in the trash rather than the green waste. It wasn't as big a deal as I thought it would be. It is the outer leaves that are most infected. I just had to cut them off. I hope my reading of the situation is correct.
While I was working, it was threatening rain again. The was a light drizzle, but it never turned into a total downpour. But when I looked outside later, I saw the promised rain had arrived. The ground was wet.
I sat and played FreeCell and listened to classical music on NPR. I finally worked on the article. I actually got a fair amount done. I was quite pleased with myself. I think it was Jean Mabry who said, "Just say what you want to say." Great idea, but it had resulted in an unreadable book with too many technical details to hold the attention of the uninitiated, and even then, it was too dense.
I went to do the before-dinner walk with Elsa. She developed a new trick. When I call her to come to the door to put her harness on, she doesn't come. She sits down in the hallway in the kitchen, looking at me. I call her. Good luck! I have been walking out the door, shutting it, and saying, "Goodbye, Elsa." Then she comes running; I was able to get the harness on her. Tonight, when I made my fake departure, she came running to the door. When I opened the door, she ran back to the kitchen. I did my 1,000 step walk without her, holding her harness and leash in my hand. I was expecting to run into someone who would ask me where she was, but no. I don't think she's too smart for her own good, but she may be too smart for mine.
When I got back from my walk, I expected to have to walk through the house looking for her evening business. She came to the door. I put her harness on, and we walked out to the driveway. She made a huge pee then. I felt confident that she hadn't done anything in the house. We went back inside, and I fed her. She's right that I should leave a little earlier for our walk. I go whenever I want instead of holding to a strict schedule.
As I sat down for dinner, B. called. He said his brother in California had a heart attack. At first, I didn't understand what he was saying. His father is in the hospital with a stroke. I thought it might be like him, but it didn't sound like he said, "Dad." B. got a call from his father telling him about his brother's condition. His brother is the head of his local fire department. His co-workers were on him like white on rice. He was rushed to the hospital. He got the best possible care someone could get. Why was B.'s dad, who was in the hospital, the one contacted when he was in the hospital recovering from a stroke?
B.'s dad is listed as the first emergency contact for all his kids. He was contacted in the hospital, I assume, on his cell phone. Then it was up to him to contact his wife and his other kids to let them know about his son. Paul, B.'s dad, is not allowed any visitors because of the virus shut down. It's a nightmare. I can't imagine what Paul's wife, Jo, must be going through. I know that she has spent time just sleeping in her car in the hospital parking lot. It would have been hell on me to not have been able to be by Mike's side during my waking hours. It breaks my heart. All I have to offer is prayers.
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