March 29 Life in The Time of COVID

We continue to lager up, continue to work, do ballet lessons, school, music lessons and show rehersal on line, from home. We are truly becoming Solarians. We do walk the dog, singly or as a group, but that is an exercise in avoidng people and getting fresh air. It works, everyone in my neighborhood has the memo around social distancing. If we see friends we stand back 20 feet and may have a quick chat, but mostly it is RL with three of us and the dog.

The rest are all by phone/ video. It seems to work.

Friday, my wife had her first virtual cocktail party with her girlfriends. She had a lot of fun and a welcome break from everything else. Marlo was hanging with her school friends on Zoom yesterday, and today a bunch of us are doing a virtual happy hour at 5pm. I am looking forward to talking to my friends.

This is hard for extroverts, but even getting hard for introverts as well. Memory brings up interesting things. I remember having a conversation with an old friend 30 years  ago around a phenomena known to the US military called "Negative View". Basically people who are lost in the wilderness (or not lost but alone) can sink into depression and in some cases, just commit suicide. I am not expecting social distancing to create increased suicide stats, but not surprised  to believe that some may be at risk. I think online can help all of us, we need to reach out to those who are truly alone, and use facetime/ zoom/ whatever to connect.

When the weather gets better next week, I am planning to start my sword workouts up again. Realistically, we will be canceling or pausing our Gym membership this week. Realistically we do not use it much any more and even after the lockdown is over I suspect that we will not be going back for a long time. We are getting workouts done in the house and in the backyard and on runs, and it feels like a waste of money, not to mention the gym locker room will feel like germ central.

Barring getting a lethal case of COVID, we are lucky, we can ride this out, even in the worst case scenario. Our best strategy, for us and everyone else, is to stay home, stay healthy and not contribute to the spread. Getting a really bad case is scary, but also getting an asymptomatic case is just as worrisome. Imagine that I am asymptomatic and infect my 84 year old mother in law, or my friends down the road who are in their 70's?  We will get past this and then, like everyone, rebuild.

Finally, for those who have never read it, get a copy of the Decameron, one of the first secular works from the Italian Renascence. It is a series of 100 stories, told by  a group of young nobility who left the city to escape the Black Death and shelter in a country estate. To pass the time they tell stories, 100 of them. Most are NSFW, but in a 14th century kind of way.

Be safe, wash your hands.

Life in the Time of COVID

So, fourteen years since I last posted here. Long time. A lot has happened, as you can imagine. Happily married, have  grown children, one who is married. I  have a granddaughter! My youngest is 13 going on 17 and an amazing actress, singer and dancer. She even has done a performance in New York. If you had asked me three months ago, how are things, I would have said I am the luckiest person alive.

Then, Covid hit.

Within three days my team moved 1000 people to Work From Home. My wife's start up did the same for 130 people. My daughter's school has moved to school from home, the Ballet school has online Zoom ballet lessons, and her latest, she  had its first online play rehearsal. This weekend is all about the virtual cocktail hours. Made a few moves coincidentally in the early part of the year, so while I am NOT looking at my stock portfolio these days, we are very well set to weather the storm. We even have toilet paper ( which we are now referring to as The Precious).

So, I really am still the luckiest man alive.

I am worried about the grown kids. The two girls are single and working in health fields. They have jobs and purpose and if they get it, 99.5% chance it will just be a week of being sick. They are both strong.

My son, daughter in law, and my grand daughter are safe, he is employed and in a location that is more remote. I worry about his job, but he  is smart and resourceful and I can help him if needed.

I worry about my mother and mother law. Both are the same age, one is near me, one far. They really need to stay isolated, and between us and my brother we are making that happen. Larder stocked for a siege, moat dug, Machine guns with rubber bullets pointed at the entry ways.  No entry.

At some point you can worry all you want. The right answer is the sailor's answer. When in a storm, batten down the hatches, set the storm sails, and ride it out. You have done all you can and now it is in God"s hands. My dad was on liberty ship crossing the pacific at the end of WWII. They hit a typhoon. I remember him telling me years later, their are no atheists in a typhoon.

I have been in the Roaring 40's, I know what he meant.

So we are locked down, staying home except for short forays to get provisions. Safe, limited, and living like Asimov's Solarians. Just no robots.

Or maybe this is what it would be like on a Musk spaceship to Mars. closed space, relying on work, exercise machines and  video/ books to pass the time. One thing for Elon, when you send those ships, make damn sure that the people are very compatible. Maybe the first people to mars should be middle aged, maybe with a few early teens.

What else do I worry about? I worry about all the small business people who are getting crushed. The big corporations will survive, or be bailed out. Those jobs will be back. Government workers, critical infrastructure, Health and groceries etc will be fine.

But all those wonderful stores and restaurants on Laurel. Gryphon Strings in Palo Alto. All those dreams, all that hard work and sweat to make it real. Gone in the week of Wuhan.

It will take  time. The carnage will be real, the resilient will rebuild. A year from now things will look much the same. But I suspect an inflection point is upon us.

It will never be the same.