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Covid 19 and Your Life #2: It's Personal


Zorral

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Just covid

No summer plans

Fake feeling of freedom but not being able to do anything in proper conditions. Restaurants? Going out? Walkimg with the mask on at 30 degrees... 

Governments saying new spikes are very likeky....in a month or two....but lockdowns won't happen. If it happen it would be partial ones and where I live I guess. Of course let's open borders for all the countries so as that the thing starts again! Economy is first I guess. Meanwhile this feeling of semi freedom being self-conscious all the time

So fed up... 

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So, apparently, COVID-19 has driven me back to the familiar haunt of the board. It's been nice getting back on here the past few days and reading through the threads and seeing all the familiar screen names. It feels good to be "back."

The past few months have been... interesting for me and my little family. The good news is that we've been healthy the whole time. We have been able to do a good job at social distancing, but it's been difficult at times. Very few people in our little rural community seem to take the virus seriously and most have not really altered their lives very much at all. We have, but the actions of others have made it harder - mostly for my girls. The oldest turned 16 at the end of April. Her little sister is 14. They've had very little real world contact with their friends, by and large. But most of their friends have gone about their lives, hanging out in groups and going shopping and going to crowded beached for vacation. They're old enough to know that our family is doing the right thing, but it's still been hard on them seeing their friends go about life normally without (seemingly) any negative consequences. 

The girls have gotten a lot closer as sisters throughout it all though. That's been a blessing. One Saturday night, my wife and I were doing a Zoom trivia thing with some friends and when we finished, I realized that the girls weren't inside the house. I figured they'd gone outside since it was a pleasant night, and I heard them talking, but didn't see them. I walked all around the house and still didn't find them. Then, I noticed the ladder. They had climbed up on our roof and were laying on their backs, looking up at the stars and chatting and giggling like the best of friends. I never would have imagined anything like that happening a few months prior.

But, there's been plenty of tears borne of frustration too. Just this past week, we've allowed them to hang out with one friend inside the house. They each have one friend who has been serious about social distancing through all this, and we've decided that it won't be too bad to let them get together. Hopefully.

I've personally taken my cooking up to a whole other level. (And so has my youngest, who has gotten really adventurous in the kitchen.) And I've had a lot of fun playing around with fermentation. Kombucha has been a huge hit. Sauerkraut went reasonably well. But I failed miserably at baking sourdough bread. However, I have nearly perfected homemade naan and milk bread!

Glad to "see" y'all again. Everyone stay safe!

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Great to see you here on the board, OJ! Your daughters are so grown up now! As for the sourdough, practice makes perfect, right?

In the meantime, I’m at the car dealership, sitting in the waiting room, while my car gets an oil change, and there’s a tv on that I can’t see because all of the seating has been way spread out, but the station was playing Hogan’s Heroes. With all the discussion we’ve had the last couple of years about fascism and Nazis, it’s weird to think about comic, bumbling Nazis and the inmates running the prison.

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So Friday morning I got my negative test results, clearing me to visit my elderly parents for the first time since Christmas.

Harvard put out map of the U.S. color coding every county from green for safest to red for highest coronavirus risk. My 500 mile trip to their house was entirely through green (safest) counties. Going over and around a Great Lake you not only travel by all the water but you also past through several state and national forests. It's about as safe of holiday travel as I could've mapped out so my peace of mind is pretty great currently.

Also leaving parents 2 coveted N95 masks. Have been quite pleased with how cautious they are with their routines and precautions, more peace of mind.

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My aunty and uncle are now quarantined as my uncle returned to work and a colleague tested positive. We called over this morning to drop off shopping for them (we left the bags outside for them to pick up when we left). I believe they are both still awaiting test results

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We had to go to an ER last night -- Blood Pressure event (not mine).  The stress here is overwhelming for anyone who has any desire to do the right things and to be safe.

Thank goodness we were able to get a car, and not take a hundred thousand dollar ambulance ride, and it being so late the streets were deserted.  Tests, etc., things under control again. Sent home in a car the medical center called, about 5 AM.

Still, I'm a wreck.  And miserable.

 

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7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

We had to go to an ER last night -- Blood Pressure event (not mine).  The stress here is overwhelming for anyone who has any desire to do the right things and to be safe.

Thank goodness we were able to get a car, and not take a hundred thousand dollar ambulance ride, and it being so late the streets were deserted.  Tests, etc., things under control again. Sent home in a car the medical center called, about 5 AM.

Still, I'm a wreck.  And miserable.

 

Hang in there.  Hope everyone's alright 

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38 minutes ago, Zorral said:

We had to go to an ER last night -- Blood Pressure event (not mine).  The stress here is overwhelming for anyone who has any desire to do the right things and to be safe.

Thank goodness we were able to get a car, and not take a hundred thousand dollar ambulance ride, and it being so late the streets were deserted.  Tests, etc., things under control again. Sent home in a car the medical center called, about 5 AM.

Still, I'm a wreck.  And miserable.

 

Monday night I was watching tv late, catching up on stuff I had recorded, when I noticed my right hand and arm seemed to be numb and tingly. I kept massaging it hoping for improvement, but at 1:00 am I decided to go to emerg and make sure I wasn’t having a stroke or something. I was pretty stressed, apparently my first BP reading was 143/90 or something like that. They did a CT scan of my head, took chest x-rays, did an EKG and took blood for tests. At 5:00 am the doctor came back, thanked me for being patient, and said all the tests looked great. He said he did not think this happened, but just in case I had had a silent stroke he was referring me to the stroke clinic.
 

Thursday morning I had another CT scan, with contrast, and an MRI and a whole bunch of cognitive tests. I wondered if it could be carpal tunnel, but we decided in the end it was tendinitis (I kid you not, I suspect too much Pokémon, Sudoku and reading stuff on my cell phone while being locked down.) On the bright side of things, the tests showed that my brain was in excellent shape as are my arteries and veins, which didn’t show any signs of plaque. I still need to meet with a cardiologist for an echocardiogram and a stress test. That might show something, I guess.
 

Total cost to me? At the end of the tests on Thursday I bought myself a coffee at the Tim Horton’s in the hospital.
 

Hope everything turns out well in the end for you.

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2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Part of me wants to be in a pub, just to observe how badly it's going and how everyone is fucking up. 

It's so strange going to the grocery store. I specifically target an upscale one in a random strip mall because no one went there even in normal times. Most people have gotten the memo on masks, and all the workers have too, but sometimes you just want to slap the people who are both not wearing masks and walking right up next to you. 

I'm curious about restaurants. Haven't been to one in ages now. How does that even work? And how is it even financially sound to open one at this point?

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3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Hang in there.  Hope everyone's alright 

Thank you so much.  We're all as all right as we can be -- if I can get my equilibrium back by tomorrow -- today I'm a wreck.

Tellingly, one does think, that last night the attending team was entirely African American; the supervising physician was Chinese.  The very people against whom the killer ranted against at Mount Rushmore.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/us/politics/trump-mt-rushmore.html

 

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Hope everything turns out well in the end for you.

Thank you so much.  Everything you describe was done here too, and it was determined no stroke, no heart attack.  CAT scan showed the brain was normal. Etc.  BP medication was administered and monitoring followed for several hours, and then we came home.  Told to expect a consistent and gradual lower BP.

As you say, the difference is we have a very large co-pay in the offing, which you don't.

However, I'm glad in your case it is 'only' tendenitis -- not blood pressure or anything else like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last weekend it was my debit card number getting out there and racking up charges. This"O Can You See That Star Spangled Banner" weekend, medical crisis.  One feels, perhaps now, as t the "So Proudly We Wave" nation embarks on month 5 of this, even those of us in relatively safe and comfortable circumstances, are beginning to having health crises and financial disasters ramping up, as things do in long running and short running catastrophes. This catastrophe is anything but a short run. while converging with a number of other long-running national catastrophes in spate long before covid-19 arrived.

Interesting reads around this are this book about Macron's future due to Covid-19

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/07/23/france-after-covid-19-lockdown/

and this article in the limited clicks Atlantic Monthly, "How Revolutions Happen:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/revolution-doesnt-look-like-revolution/613801/

 

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58 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's so strange going to the grocery store. I specifically target an upscale one in a random strip mall because no one went there even in normal times. Most people have gotten the memo on masks, and all the workers have too, but sometimes you just want to slap the people who are both not wearing masks and walking right up next to you. 

I'm curious about restaurants. Haven't been to one in ages now. How does that even work? And how is it even financially sound to open one at this point?

The restaurant I was working pre-COVID has opened its indoor seating, with spacing. Literally the entire staff except me returned. I hope they all stay safe, but it literally is impossible for a back-of-house staff to maintain safe distancing. Basically, if one of us there gets it, we all have it by the end of the night. The bars are open again as well, with no spacing that's actually inforced. My county has fully embraced COVID denial. I will be honest, I went into a friend's bar and had my first draft beer in 4 months. It was at 330 in the afternoon, though, and there were only like 4 people in the room. I left soon after and don't think I'll return for a significant time. 

I have been a bartender or server since I was 17. I love the world, but I simply don't see how it can exist in the current state of this country. Well, that's not really true - I could join the herd and party like nothing is happening, of course. Almost everyone I am close to is in the service industry, the performing world, or the fitness world. All three are a total mess and lots of amazing people are suddenly stuck in jobs that have little to do with their passion. It's the most devastating year of their lives, for nearly my entire active facebook feed. 

Restaurants are failing nationwide. Especially mom-and-pop places. I don't think my past joint will survive unless they basically ignore all protocols - which I fully expect them to do. It's such a terrible position with no clear answer.

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53 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

The restaurant I was working pre-COVID has opened its indoor seating, with spacing. Literally the entire staff except me returned. I hope they all stay safe, but it literally is impossible for a back-of-house staff to maintain safe distancing. Basically, if one of us there gets it, we all have it by the end of the night. The bars are open again as well, with no spacing that's actually inforced. My county has fully embraced COVID denial. I will be honest, I went into a friend's bar and had my first draft beer in 4 months. It was at 330 in the afternoon, though, and there were only like 4 people in the room. I left soon after and don't think I'll return for a significant time. 

I have been a bartender or server since I was 17. I love the world, but I simply don't see how it can exist in the current state of this country. Well, that's not really true - I could join the herd and party like nothing is happening, of course. Almost everyone I am close to is in the service industry, the performing world, or the fitness world. All three are a total mess and lots of amazing people are suddenly stuck in jobs that have little to do with their passion. It's the most devastating year of their lives, for nearly my entire active facebook feed. 

Restaurants are failing nationwide. Especially mom-and-pop places. I don't think my past joint will survive unless they basically ignore all protocols - which I fully expect them to do. It's such a terrible position with no clear answer.

I appreciate the honest response.

For me, just starting at the most simplistic point, how do you even eat or drink? You obviously need to take your mask off to do so, but even that in a public place seems like a disaster. It simply just doesn't work, and could actually make things worse. Even curb side takeout has a lot of obvious and systemic flaws. I was admittedly skeptical at first myself, but that's because I both vastly underestimated the degree of the crisis and people's inability to do even the most simple shit. And I was wrong. Very, very wrong. If you can't trust your coworker to even open a refrigerator correctly, how the fuck do you open an indoor restaurant, hoping for the best, which is specifically not going to happen?

Even those with the best intentions will fail a lot. And most people sadly do not have them. 

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I absolutely agree. I live in that world. There is simply no way to safely serve a customer who is an unaware carrier, or to serve while being an unaware carrier ourselves. Maybe places where you walk up to a counter, sure, with strict Back The Fuck Away From Me rules. But any kind of actual restaurant experience is just never going to be safe. Period. I have no answers and it just really sucks. Limiting table space will help. I can't imagine any joint enforcing mask wearing for guests and expecting them to move it to bite and go back to masked conversation. Zero chance. The bartenders at the place I dropped into had no masks. Only the waitress going outside. I expect it's probably like that nationwide.

It's a damn punch in the guts to think that what I love to do - serve a packed pub full of fun drinkers - is like the most dangerous thing we can possibly do other than the cough-sharing parties that are all the rage. Okay, so those aren't a thing? Damn. Yep, crowded bars are the worst. Excuse me while I drink a beer on my porch.

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4 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

It's a damn punch in the guts to think that what I love to do - serve a packed pub full of fun drinkers - is like the most dangerous thing we can possibly do other than the cough-sharing parties that are all the rage. Okay, so those aren't a thing? Damn. Yep, crowded bars are the worst. Excuse me while I drink a beer on my porch.

There's still a life of crime, my friend. 

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2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

First day of people drinking and wankers were making a racket outside my house from 0200-0330 on the way home. And I live in rural ish oxfordshite. I cant imagine what big cities were like. 

I was visiting my parents this weekend partially to avoid Newcastle centre and even here we had a party with full surround sound speakers and karaoke raging from 14:00 until 01:00.

We complained. Nobody seemed to care

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Or, as this tells us, "Drunk people won't/can't socially distance."  It really is like driving drunk, except this weekend, both here in the US and in the UK, it's thousands of drunks driving together at the same time right into the rest of us.  So we're all going to have to suffer because of people who insist on being drunk in public.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/05/crystal-clear-drunk-people-cant-socially-distance-say-police-in-england

The thing is, what the quoted fellow is saying, just isn't possible, because pubs/bars are about everything that isn't socially distanced, otherwise there is no point to them.

Quote

 

“There’s no doubt these are environments whose principal job it is to bring people together, that’s a great thing to do socially but it’s also a great thing from the virus’s point of view.

“Therefore, we do have to have a really clear and really disciplined approach to try and maintain social distancing whilst also enjoying pubs”.

 

Another way of looking at this is that England is just like the US. England is the spiritual homeland of the US.  Worthy of those of both countries to contemplate on this Independence Day weekend, ya!

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