I've decided that I need to brain dump now and then, as the pandemic works itself out. I'm experiencing epic new levels of anxiety, as I'm sure most people are, but not everything I think about can be distilled into a witty blog post. And what I write, I can at least temporarily retire, so that should help with sleep. Also, I want to have a record of this, so I can have a laugh or cry about it at some future date. So here's the first of such brain dumps.
- Simon and I are at 14 days since our last world outing, which is to say having visited a place where we could have potentially been exposed. That trip was to Winter Garden's Plant Street, where everything was open as if nothing was going on. We bought Diana a bike. That area has since been identified as a hot spot by the county mayor. Diana is 10 days since last potential exposure, when she had to go in to Publix because you can't buy Sudafed through the pharmacy drive-through.
- Much of my anxiety has to do with the fact that COVID-19 is unkind to people with a history of respiratory issues. Diana has had many throughout her life, including bronchitis last summer. Simon has had pneumonia and had to use a nebulizer for meds twice in his young life. The idea of them getting the disease scares the shit out of me, especially as we head into the inevitable ramp of cases in our area. Our most recent doubling, to 450 cases, happened in about three days.
- I've stopped watching TV news. I can't. I'm keeping up via the New York Times, which has been brilliant, but even there I skip a lot of headlines about the volume of death.
- It's amazing how our neighborhood of 300-ish units (townhomes, bungalows, McMansions, lakefront homes) is filled with people being outside, every single night. They weren't properly social distancing, but it seems like they're all doing it now, including the kids, fortunately. We had a few days of record high temperatures, where 95 is still 95 even with low humidity, but today was an amazing 78 degrees and sunny, all day. I never thought living in Florida would be advantageous because you need to get outside when you have to isolate in a global health crisis.
- I said this before, but grocery delivery has to transition from a luxury to a normal thing. The efficiency is staggering from a transportation and carbon footprint standpoint. One car covers a dozen places instead of a dozen cars going to one place. It's also essentially a zero-contact operation for the drivers, if they're doing it right at the dispatching warehouse. My beef with the way that Amazon does it is that they're all gig workers (or they were), which means they don't have health insurance in a time when you damn well need it.
- Delivery is more expensive, but it also lacks certain things that we'd like to have or need. The weird things are that we can't get Egg Beaters (or generic brand), basic Ritz crackers, V8 Fusion juice and some other minor things. I'm the only one who eats the 'Beaters, because it's a low-cal way to make a breakfast that I otherwise load up with hashbrowns. Still, I really want to avoid grocery stores for the next four weeks at least. Our case count doubling in Orange County is now down to three or four days. The storm is coming.
- I feel for the teachers trying to remote teach, and clearly it's hard when not all kids even have computers. Simon's two teachers are doing things a little differently, and it's harder to prioritize what one is asking for because of the way she's using the online tooling. And how do you even approach satisfying an IEP when the playbook as it was known two weeks ago is thrown out the window? Diana is feeling enormous pressure here, when normally he has two teachers, an ESE teacher, a counselor and a staffing specialist all looking out for him and his education in person. They're doing their best, as is Diana, but it's a lot of chaos.
- Today we had a meltdown because we decided to allow some suffering instead of rescuing. It was a simple enough circumstance: We were playing frisbee and Simon wildly through it and it rolled into the neighbor's bushes. To get it, he had to duck under a small palm tree, but he wouldn't do it. After 15 minutes of asking us to get it for him, Diana did and kept it, and we were the worst most hated parents in the world for the moment. If there was a good thing, he did a great job of describing his feelings about it all whilst expressing his distaste for us as parents.
- I started a new job today. It might be the first time ever that I've considered work a useful distraction from life instead of the other way around. First days are usually not super productive, but I'm optimistic as usual about the gig. Lots of smart and experienced people, and the culture seems to largely have survived the rapid growth.
- It's already Wednesday and I haven't contributed anything to GitHub yet this week. I have a streak going of nearly 16 months. Need to work that in.
- I want to get takeout food from a local restaurant, but it's unclear which ones are really doing proactive no-contact hand-offs. I worry about those businesses.
- It's very telling that Disney hasn't even bothered to set an intended opening date. I don't know how you open theme parks in this situation. Disney will be fine in the long run, but I'm pretty worried about the people that work there and associated businesses. That's a huge chunk of the population in the Orlando metro not working.
- With the concentration on the pandemic, I'm worried about what's going on while we're not looking. Idaho passed a bill that discriminates against transgender people (the courts have already ruled against similar measures). The White House is completely rolling back fuel efficiency standards. It seems like there is enough to be vigilant about to have to add that stuff too.
- Enjoy this distributed performance from the cast of Dear Evan Hansen. You know the song. You need this right now.