What Passes for Normal

We're in the middle of August, and we're supposed to be halfway through the first week of band camp. If there were a band camp this year, which there isn't. At least not until maybe sometime in September. I've taken the week off anyway, as time is going by quickly, and there's no particular need to take days off, but I need to take some eventually, so, yes, this week is vacation. We should have been at the beach last week, and helping with band camp this week and next. Instead, we are home. Again. Like always.

In lieu of band camp, there will be socially distanced outdoor sectionals next week and the week after. I spent much of the morning today cutting wind instrument bell covers of all different sizes from exercise fabric (82% nylon and 18% spandex), which is the recommended fabric for homemade bell covers. It is said that you learn something new everyday, and over the last few days I have learned that the bell diameters of various musical instruments are (typically) as follows. Trumpets 5 inches. Clarinets 3 inches. Alto saxes 4.75 inches. Tenor saxes 6 inches. Baritone saxes 7+ inches. Baritones 10 inches. Trombones 8 inches. Mellophones 10.5 inches. Sousaphones 25 inches. And that the GV band this year has roughly 27 trumpets, ~35 saxes of various types, 7 trombones, 1 baritone, 2 sousaphones, 5 mellophones, 17 clarinets, and who knows what all else. It's a big band for us, with a big incoming freshman class. And fraught with uncertainty. The district and the volunteers are all doing a lot of work in the hopes that we can have some sort of band season this year.

On the home front, we are all still healthy. The company I work for still continues to be doing more Covid testing than any other commercial lab in the country, so that feels good. Amp still works in a dialysis clinic serving Covid patients, so that feels good too. The kids are starting to climb the walls a bit, which is to be expected. But no serious complaints.

I haven't been feeling much like creating any art recently (i.e. painting), but hopefully that will change with my sister in law's family staying with us this week (since she is a watercolor painter). I've been writing a little, but not much.

The biggest news here, I guess, is that Grace passed her learner's permit test and is now beginning the process of learning how to drive. She and I go out at least a little bit practically every day. She needs the experience of time behind the wheel, but she is doing fine, and our driving sessions have been remarkably stress-free thus far. Fingers crossed.

It's hard to believe that my little girl has turned 16, and is the tallest female on her Mom's side of the family. Mom is 5'4+". Julia is 5'2" on a good day. Her two aunts are less than that. A lot less... She is a shade under 5'6", and growing fast the last couple of years (a good 6 inches+). It's a remarkable thing to watch. And funny as well. I laugh on the inside when I find myself saying things like "where's the rest of your shirt?", "are you planning on wearing that outside the house?", and "what's with the green hair?". Most of which is just giving her a token hard time to let her know that we care, and that we are paying attention. I figure as long as she's taking all Honors and AP classes and getting fantastic grades, she can color her hair any color she wants.

Anyway... We forge ahead, doing the best we can with what passes for normal these days. School in the fall is still up in the air, with at least the first month being entirely virtual. Beyond that, who knows. The current occupant of the White House is still a worthless moron. So, same old same old. Hopefully in the not too distant future, things change for the better. I wish you all peace, health and happiness.

Appreciate the simple beauty in the world

Stay safe and wear a mask.

Dereliction of Duty

Political rant warning. Feel free to click away now...

It's the 4th of July weekend, one of the centerpieces of an American summer. Independence Day. Beaches and barbecues. Hot dogs and hamburgers. Swimming pools and fireworks. Beer and wine and family and friends. Group gatherings.

In normal times. But these aren't normal times. Or even close.

The rampant a$#holery coming out of the White House never ceases, or even slows down. In a couple of national speeches (thinly veiled white supremacist political rallies) this weekend that only sought to further divide us, the current occupant of the White House assured the American people that 99% of Covid-19 infections are "totally harmless". A direct quote. "Totally harmless". An odd statement, one might characterize it, given that we have 129,000+ dead and 2.874 million confirmed cases. So...if you round the numbers to make them slightly better, we have a death rate of 4.4% of confirmed infections. 4.49% actually (or 4.5% to round it mathematically). To say nothing of the other people who get sick and stay sick for a couple weeks or more, some of whom require hospitalization. So I guess that "99% harmless", compared to the actual number of less than 80% "harmless" is..what?...a rounding error? A$#holery.

So we get white supremacist political rally speeches in lieu of Presidential holiday addresses. And we  get flyover parades of military might that would make the Kremlin and North Korea proud. The only thing missing were the convoys of truck-mounted missile launchers trundling down Pennsylvania Avenue to the accompaniment of goose stepping soldiers. Which, to be accurate, the current occupant of the White House has previously stated his desire for. The tanks and armored vehicles anyway. Fortunately, the mayor of Washington DC didn't want her streets chewed up by tank treads.

We have a self-proclaimed "wartime president" who has surrendered and left the battlefield, leaving us all to fend for ourselves. He can say some of the stupidest and most irresponsible things ever uttered by an American Pre$#. And the public health officials won't call him on it because if they do they will get fired. Which is part of the reason we are where we are.

Pravda over on the Fox News Channel barely even recognizes that Covid-19 exists anymore. I'm sure they have more important things to do, like continue to dig into the critical current issue of Hilary Clinton's email servers, or trying to answer the age-old question "why do Democrats hate America so much?"

Large population states with republican governors, eager to appease this person and toe the party line, ignored the science. Florida. Texas. Arizona. They are now paying the price, setting records for new infections every day. Hospitals are at or nearing capacity. To be fair, there are blue states like California that are also going backwards. People need their SoCal beaches, bars and restaurants in the summer after all. We have freedoms.

The rest of the world must be looking on in horror as we spiral out of control. I would say that they are laughing at us, but pity is probably more accurate. Europe is opening up, but not to Americans. Not that I can blame them.

Almost all states are going backwards at this point. A lot of that is driven by pretty much no states meeting the federal guidelines for reopening, but we are reopening anyway. Or we were until just recently, when more and more states have started clamping down again. It's July. We should be reflecting on all the good things we did to flatten the curve and get this under control. Celebrating the sacrifices we made, and the positive impact they had. Instead, we are looking at another round of shutdowns. We are back where we were in March. Although, to be accurate, we are in worse shape as a country than we were in March. Did we do all that for nothing? The numbers say probably, yeah. We made all the sacrifices and reaped little of the intended longterm benefit. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

I get that people are tired of this. I'm tired of this. More than I can express. But this Covid-exhaustion has made us complacent (if you believed that this wasn't a democratic hoax in the first place). I get it. The only social thing I have done since March 12 is to sit on someones's deck one time with 4 other people, wearing masks and seated many feet apart from each other as we discussed what the marching band season might look like in the Fall. This Covid weariness puts us in a bad spot as much as anything.

Ugh.

Happy birthday, America. Land of the free.

Masks

Americans like to think of ourselves as special, and we certainly have an overly developed sense of superiority. We might be the richest nation on Earth, but sometimes we are just dumb as f#$%.

Masks.

The simplest, most effective way to slow the spread of a pandemic that is devastating our country. If you believe in science. Which apparently many of us do not.

The level of ignorance required to turn a basic public health reality into a political statement is hard to comprehend. For which we have the current occupant of the White House to thank. That person won't wear a mask to set an example. The CDC says wear a mask. The World Health Organization says wear a mask. Pretty much every public health official or medical professional in the entire world says "just wear a mask".

Nope. No can do here in America.

We have rights. We have freedoms. We have liberties. No pesky public health officials can tell us what to do.

So most of us wear masks. Many do not. We have rights after all. Science? Never heard of it...but we're good at Fortnite.

We've made masks a political statement.

Personal freedom. I'm all for that. I'm just not sure how you can reconcile your desire for personal freedoms with the fact that your exercising of your personal freedoms could be killing your family and friends, or your neighbors, or any random person you run into at the grocery store.

Just wear a f#$%ing mask. Please.

Senior Sadness and the Little Things

It's quarantine day 64 in our household, and instead of having an end-of-year Drama Club banquet tonight to celebrate this school year, there is a one hour video on YouTube, followed by a Zoom after-party for anyone who wants to join. It's the best that can be done as an alternative to the usual, but just another example of the great many ways that this spring is a very different and disappointing one for our Seniors.

The involvement that Amp and I have with school activities drives this point home very strongly. Amp is the creative head of costumes for the Drama Club, and I am a board member for the Band Parents Association. Amp has been doing costumes for 7 years now, and has known all of these graduating seniors for years. I did some volunteering for the band last year, and had my first year as a board member this year. I've gotten to know the students in the band pretty well. Band camp. Evening practices throughout the fall. Bus rides to away football games. All the games, home and away. Competitions. A multitude of hours spent with these kids for both of us.

Seussical Costumes

The seniors don't get their spring semester as usual, or the Senior Prom, or the various end-of-year activity celebrations, or graduation. Or any of it. It's a shame, and I wish it could be different for them. They are good kids, and like everybody else affected by these world events, they deserve better. I'm sorry, Seniors, and I wish I could tell you that in person.

I suppose the best we can do now as we get through each day is to recognize and appreciate the little things in life. Which I suppose is a good reminder that you should take the time to appreciate the little things in life each day no matter what. This afternoon, while finishing up the week's work at my desk in my home office, I looked out my window and saw the picture below. It's the warmest day of the year thus far (84 degrees at 4pm) and Grace and Ryder were sitting in the grass, basking in the sun. Regardless of what else is going on in the world, this makes me happy.

Grace and Ryder

Please stay safe everyone, and take a moment to think about something you can be thankful for.

Quarantine Day 54...Blah

March 13 seems like a very long time ago. We've settled into a routine, and adapted well enough that it almost seems hard to remember sometimes what it was like when it wasn't like this. Which is both good and bad.

We are fortunate to be in a school district that was well positioned to move to some semblance of online learning (everyone in the high school already had a Chromebook), so Grace's schoolwork is moving along, if somewhat slowly. Julia's work training programs through the Special Ed department can't continue, so they are giving Julia some around-the-house assignments with life skills things, but she is impacted more than Grace. Amp and I are both still working, at least as of now, so we take that one day at a time. My company may be doing more Covid-19 testing than any other lab in the country, but not many people are going to the doctor for anything else, so overall testing demand has crashed (which is all public knowledge). Our leadership has put measures in place to help us ride things out, at least for a while, so there are no guarantees but so far so good. Dialysis isn't optional, so Amp's company forges ahead, and I must say that they have been terrific in taking care of their employees from what I can see. She's only been with them for a few months, but I am very impressed.

Most importantly, we are all still healthy. Knock wood.

That being said, it's undeniable that some days are "blah".

Ryder says "blah" too

Grace asks sometimes what I think the summer and fall will look like. Impossible to answer of course, but we don't try to sugar coat anything for her. Some things will likely begin to move a little bit toward more normal as states take different approaches to reopening, but it isn't going to be anything like normal for a long time.

I fully expect the disruption will carry well into the next school year, if not well into 2021. It's very unlikely at this point that we will be going to the Shore for a week in the summer as we usually do. Band Camp that runs for 2 weeks in August is no sure thing. For that matter, we may not need a marching band routine because there may not be a football season in the fall, at least not the way it normally would be. Or band competitions. School may not be back to normal by when they are supposed to go back the week before Labor Day. The Addams Family is the musical scheduled for the fall, but who knows about that either. In other words, who knows about anything. The message to Grace, then, is don't count on anything and just take things one day at a time.

States reopening too early could make the summer bad in places (if not everywhere). A second wave could make the winter bad. I read an article with loads of historical graphs and charts that detailed a sobering scientific reality. Epidemics invariably come in waves, and the second wave is invariably the worst, not the first...

I hope I am wrong about all of the above, of course.

But it would be nice if we believed in the science. It would be nice if we were planning and preparing better than we seem to be, rather than incompetent leadership sticking its head in the sand and hoping everything turns out OK. Unfortunately, we seem to have moved into the "I can't get reelected unless the economy gets better so the death count no longer matters to me" phase of the proceedings.

We hope it just goes away in the summer (despite the fact that the virus thrives in the tropics).
We hope that it won't come back, despite the fact that they all come back.
We hope that a vaccine that is safe and effective is developed faster than any vaccine has ever been developed in the history of humankind.
We hope a lot of things.

Hope is not a plan.

OMG...We're All Gonna Die

Please don't drink Lysol. Or take a bath in Clorox. Or gargle with Windex. Or give yourself a Drano enema.

Please.

Don't.

Be smarter than a kindergartner.

Covid-19 Claims a Relative

We found out today that a cousin of Amp's died from Covid-19. She had been hospitalized, intubated (put on a ventilator), improved, was extubated (taken off the ventilator), got worse again, and died. She was the same age as us.

That's one friend and one relative in a little less than a week.

Watercolor 4 Redux, and Easter Wishes

The stream on this painting (Watercolor #4) was terrible and it gnawed at me. If only there were a way to fix it. I began thinking about gouache, which is basically a more opaque watercolor. I thought maybe we had an old beginner set in the basement with the kids craft stuff. I vaguely remembered buying the set for Grace years ago thinking that it was a watercolor set, which it sort of was but not in the sense we intended.

It turns out we did still have it, the colors were still good in their tubes, and it is opaque enough to fix the worst of my stream problems. So saying that this painting was done before was premature. But now it's done. Really.

Village scene (after Yasser Fayad)

Not perfect but better. I guess you can call me a mixed media artist now. Hehe.

On a different note.... Ryder is amazing in that he can get comfortable and sleep just about anywhere. But this was a new one. Amp wasn't real happy. He's cute though.

Ryder's New Nap Spot

Lastly, I'd like to wish everyone the sincerest happiness and good health on this holiday. I would have to admit that I was raised Lutheran but would consider myself an agnostic more than anything. While the major Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter don't have the same meaning for me as they do for those of the faith (or their true intended meaning I guess I should say), they are still a time for me to pause and reflect on what is important; to relax, be thankful and enjoy the company of family and friends. Which these days means family, and only very-immediate-lives-in-the-same-house-as-me family. But other family and friends are still out there somewhere, or at least Verizon Wireless tells me they are, and I wish them well. Likewise to anyone and everyone that stumbles upon this through an ill-fated Google search or any other randomness of the cosmos; blessings on you and those you hold dear. These are dark times, but they won't last forever. Some day we shall all meet again under happier skies. Until then, count you blessings, be thankful for what you have, and most of all stay safe. If you are in a position to be charitable, please try to do so. Whatever challenges you are facing, there are likely others out there worse off than you...

Today's thanks of the day go out to all the people that people like me never really think about - everyone who works on a farm, or an orchard, or a ranch, or a cannery, or on a fishing boat, or a meat packing plant, or a commercial bakery, or any other part of the vast and complicated food supply chain that makes my life easy. Many (or most) Americans, certainly including me, take for granted things that people in many other countries don't have the luxury of taking for granted - that we have all the food we need, in every type and variety imaginable, simply by driving to the store and sticking a little plastic card in the slot at the checkout. Before this is done, Americans like me will learn better. Probably in only a limited way, but it has probably been...I don't know...World War II, since most Americans have not had whatever they want whenever they want it. Certainly not in my lifetime of 50+ years.

Today, Smithfield indefinitely closed a pork producing plant in South Dakota due to a huge outbreak of employee Covid-19 illness. But it's only one plant, right? No big deal. Sure. Yes, only one plant. One big plant that supplies 4%-5% of all pork products in the United States.

Something to think about...

Let's be thankful for those that truly deserve our thanks.

Hoarding for Covid-19

A big topic of discussion, media reports, etc, has been the widespread panic shopping and the hoarding of supplies that people are doing for a quarantine at home of indeterminate length.

Our intrepid mail carrier showed up today with these. I'm not sure I'm doing the hoarding thing correctly...

Self-Quarantine Supplies

All kidding aside, I am grateful for Amazon, eBay shops, and any and all other online ways of getting the things we can no longer go out and easily get ourselves (if at all). I'm even more grateful for the USPS, UPS, DHL, Amazon and other carriers, truckers and delivery folks that get those goods from one place to another. Plus airplanes. Trains. All that.

This is Day 30 for us, and in that month, I have been to Costco or Wegmans maybe 5-6 times (more frequently earlier, less so recently - we're now trying to do only once a week for groceries). I've been to a Walgreen's once to do a propane tank swap. I've been to a Sherwin Williams paint store twice for a curbside pickup order where everything is done on the phone and then they put stuff in my trunk without anyone getting near anybody else. I think that's it.

We've also ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon, and I've placed a couple of online mailorders for art supplies with Jerry's Artarama. And a couple of small purchases from eBay shops.

Even with that little bit of contact with the outside world, we're still suitably paranoid. Anything coming into the house gets wiped down with Clorox wipes (while we still have them) before they go anywhere else. It would be comical if it wasn't so serious. Our "decontamination station" is the laundry room. Dirty stuff goes on the top of the dryer. After getting wiped down it goes on top of the washer. Then it sits there for a while marinating in its Cloroxyness before getting put away.

Overkill, perhaps, but I don't think so, and we are still all healthy. Knock wood.

Covid-19 Claims a Friend

I found out from a colleague at work that we lost a friend in Florida last night.

I'd known this person for about 20 years, and would consider him a friend and mentor. We worked together a lot over the years, as he held a number of leadership positions within the area that I support. The last time I saw him or spoke to him was at our national sales meeting in Washington DC in late January.

From what I was told, my friend retired from our company in mid-March. In the craziness of the past month, I wasn't aware of this. A couple weeks after retiring, he wasn't feeling well and had Coronavirus symptoms. He tested positive. Two days later he was in the hospital. Eight days later he died. He hadn't even been retired a month. I'm heartbroken for the wife, sons and granddaughters that he leaves behind.

You will be missed, my friend.

Covid-19 Day 23

Today is Day 23 of our Covid-19 self-isolation/quarantine. Most importantly, we are all still doing fine.

Amp goes to work three mornings a week, which worries me a little. I work a full schedule at home. The kids now have online learning for school, with assignments, due dates and all that. After a couple weeks of optional review work, I think both are actually glad to have something that puts some structure back in their days (although they might not admit it).

Ryder getting some Spring sun

I go to the food store, Costco or Wegmans, about once every 5 days or so. That worries me too. Lots of things worry me, but perhaps not as much as I would have expected. I guess you get to a point where so much is out of your hands that you just resign yourself to seeing how things play out one day at a time.

On the bright side...we are spending a lot less on gas and putting very few miles on the cars. We are spending less on eating out, and are actually eating better since we are making our own meals and not eating any takeout junk. We're spending more money on groceries since all meals are in the house, but we aren't spending money on much else. Some necessities and not-so-necessaries via Amazon. Some mail order fabric and sewing supplies for Amp. Some art supplies for me. Grace is helping me cook, and baking with Amp. Julia is doing more chores. We are playing some games and watching TV and movies as a family, which we hadn't been doing too much of before.

We are also getting some stuff done around the house, notably finishing up repainting our finished basement. It's a large space, which I started a couple of months ago and got perhaps 3/4 done before getting sidetracked. And then this all happened. Last weekend I got back to working on the last small part of the main area, and then the stairwell. All that is left at this point is some trim painting which I expect to finish tomorrow. Stairwell trim may have to wait until an evening next week.

One last basement section to paint

I've also done a couple of simple watercolor painting "sketches", which is another first for me. They aren't horrible. Rudimentary beginner exercises, but not horrible. I find it fascinating how different my limited recent experiences in painting with oils, acrylics and now watercolors have been. I like different aspects of each, and will continue working on all of them as time allows.

As of now, I've got lots of time...

Surreal Times

I haven't written anything in quite a while, but I will have a good bit more time around the house in the coming weeks, and certainly have plenty to write about.

The Covid-19 Coronavirus is certainly topic #1 in our daily lives these days. We have watched things escalate in recent days to the point that the governor of Pennsylvania has closed all public schools for the next two weeks (at least), and my employer has said that if you can work from home to do so for the foreseeable future. All school activities are cancelled, including the music program's trip to Hawaii in the first week of April. I am a board member of the band parents' association that has organized the trip, and to say that a lot of work has gone into this would be an understatement. Mainly though I am disappointed for Grace. We may reschedule into the summer, postpone to next year, or....who knows.

As for coronavirus end-of-the-world preparation, people are in full panic-shopping mode. As a family we don't typically keep a whole lot of food on hand, buying what we need when we need it. Stopping at the grocery store on the way home from work yesterday to grab something for dinner, I was greeted with the following sight:

Blizzard-mode at the grocery store

From a work perspective, I work for the largest clinical laboratory in the US, and one of the labs that the government has turned to in order to ramp up coronavirus testing capacity. The country is underprepared and behind the 8-ball at the moment, but the combined capabilities of us and the other major private labs should help make a difference soon. We are fierce competitors on the street every day, but today we are all working to expand testing capacity as much and as soon as possible. I work on the business side, not the medical side, but it is nice to get a reminder every now and then as to what we actually do, and the impact that we can actually have...

As for us personally, the kids will be off school for two weeks (at least), I will be working at home, Amp will be working onsite under restricted-visitor conditions, and pretty much all of our usual activities will be cancelled or curtailed. Depending on who you believe, one or two people at our high school have tested positive for the virus, which potentially opens up an unlimited pandora's box of community spread. The drama club performed four shows of Seussical the Musical last weekend, following which an exhausted Grace had a low grade fever and other flu-like symptoms for a few days. And I have some sniffles and a cough. So...probably nothing unusual. Probably. Mom is locked down in a nursing home at the age of 88 with a cough and a low-grade fever.

Despite recent damage control press conferences, our government's reaction to this threat has been not-enough not-soon-enough bordering on incompetence. Hopefully the price to be paid for our ineptitude isn't too severe. But it probably will be.

On a more positive note, Seussical was a great success, and Grace had a really nice role as Thing 1. It was perfect for what she wants - being a featured dancer, a good amount of stage time, goofing around, singing in ensemble numbers, and being the drama club's best tumbler. Proud papa... More on this to come.

Thing 1 is mine...

Amp has started a new part time job. Julia is rapidly nearing the end of her school years. Grace is growing up way too fast.

Ryder supervising me work

As for me, more of much of the same I guess. One thing that I am trying to do is work on some artistic endeavors. I have done some sketching and some painting. More on that later, but I have always wanted to paint, and I am finally doing some. To varying degrees of success.

Anyway, more to come. In the meantime, my sincerest wishes that everyone stay happy, healthy and safe.