Love in the time of pandemic

AND WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Gak! It’s been almost a month since I posted anything!

There was a lot of quarantining in that time. NOT because we were exposed to Covid, though some independent living residents in this facility were (we found out because they had dinner with friends in Assisted Living at the Friendship Table, and the AL people ARE tested regularly because they’re in the health-care portion of our facility).

And because those people in IL who WERE exposed to the people in AL who tested positive, the State of California required them to quarantine for FOURTEEN DAYS in their apartments. None of the IL residents got Covid, thank goodness, but WE had a vacation in Lake Tahoe with our kids a few weeks later, and realized that WE wouldn’t be able to go IF we got exposed ourselves, here, and then had to do the same quarantine for 14 days.

That is, we quarantined for 14 days so we wouldn’t have to quarantine for 14 days – at an inconvenient time which would put the kibosh on OUR vacation. Mixed up world, eh?

So – any progress on publishing NETHERWORLD?

Well, yes and no.

For the ms., I created an easy ARC from Scrivener – the complete, very long pdf of the whole thing (~500 pages), and sent it to the first person who’s offered to review AND buy it on launch day (thank you, David!), and as a backup complete proofed file to several places, including my amazing beta reader (thank you, Rachel!), and gave my husband and children the necessary information to manage my literary estate (and publish Netherworld) if something happened on the trip/vacation/return. You never know.

The formatting is no further than that.

For the cover: I have all the pieces, an updated Pixelmator 3, and an updated Learn Pixelmator 3.5 video course (free update – thanks folks!).

I’ve bought licenses for the two cover images from Dreamstime, acquired another photo from the same friend who supplied the sky for Purgatory’s cover, found a couple of low-res images to guide me in the changes I’ll need to create the cover in my head, and put the whole thing into a folder and a backup on the iCloud. Phew.

Now I just have to do the work, get it past my cover mentor (thank you, Jessica!), and create ebook, paper and hardback covers to spec, and then, because I want to make one change to them, redo a bit of the Purgatory covers (bigger name so it shows on the thumbnail, add the award, etc.) which really amounts to redoing a fair amount of the Purgatory covers AND creating the hardcover one.

I have my permissions from Cambridge U. for my KJV quotations – feels nice and official.

I got my copyright certificate from the Library of Congress! I always feel better after I do that, for whatever it might be worth.

Launching is, of course, dependent on having something to launch. I had approached a PR firm, put up with a long delay to talk to them, checked in with them and received a promise of an answer of some kind before the end of May, and than have been ghosted. It does remind me that if people are not reliable in the small things, it’s probably better not to rely on them for the big ones, so that firm is permanently off the table. Too bad, because I liked them, and had already invested some effort into them.

I’m still obsessively re-reading the end of Netherworld – and not changing a word. I promise explosions, and I hope they are well received.

I want to continue getting into writing LIMBO

I literally can’t wait – because there are only a few hours between the end of 2 and the beginning of 3, and I’m very happy how that turned out.

And I’ve already started writing Chapter 41(LIMBO goes to 60).

BUT I’ve been dealing with some medical problems for 2.5 years to no solution, and I’m in the middle of trying to fix some things that really need fixing, and it’s a slow process because disability means EVERYTHING is so much harder – from making phone calls through phone systems that won’t just let you call someone to make an appointment, to doctor visits which consume an incredible amount of prep time, energy, and recovery time, to a whole slew of medical tests with the same problems – which the new doctor insists on before she will even consider DOING something.

Plus a big paperwork problem I’ve finally admitted I had to step in and manage, do some of, get help, hand over to the pros…

And my limited number of daily spoons is gone every day before I manage to write. Because it’s not just ‘write a few words’ now – it’s the whole huge Book 3 planning review, restart, clean up, carry stuff from 1 and 2 typical glorious mess of starting the final volume in a trilogy. Drives me up a tree that I can’t just do it.

But I’m literally doing the best I can

And not managing to sleep very well with all the above, to boot.

I can tell stress that I’m fine until I’m full-body blue, but that does NOT take away the stress. It just doesn’t add worry, but the things I’m having to do are stressful in and of themselves, and that is such a deep autonomic process that you can’t affect it much.

Plus the physical problems have extra pain and much discomfort associated, which has to be micromanaged – and I was already exhausted before that.

There are signs, portents, and possibilities

of improvements, but not fast.

This is literally the first time I’ve even been able to think of writing a simple blog post, in the whole past month.

Life happens – you deal.

I know what my primary aim is (if family is okay), but I’m not able to DO it right now.

Don’t worry. Nothing TOO horribly grim. But I’m all tapped out of spoons every day, almost the end of the morning, when I’ve done nothing yet.

But stuff slowly gets done, and goes into the rearview mirror queue from the To Do list, and I’ll get there.

On the bright side

my oldest daughter is helping me select my new computer for the foreseeable future – my current lovey is from 2015, and can’t be upgraded far enough because then my necessary old software – Office 2011 for Mac and Dramatica Story Expert – won’t work, and I don’t have the mental bandwidth right now to deal with another potential crash.

Everything is properly backed up (Time Machine and iCloud), but bobbles with computers cost me days or weeks when they happen, so for the first time in a long time, I’m being proactive: a new Macbook Air with the M2 processor and good camera should take me far into the future and definitely through LIMBO.

It will, however, require some learning – not my strong point.

So that’s the update:

I’m working as hard as I can on the critical list items

I’m as far along with Netherworld as I can be, including covers

Ditto redoing the Purgatory covers

Ditto writing into the future with Limbo

and dealing with the sorry carcass which makes all of this possible at all in as graceful a manner as I can against the extra stress of having to do it at all, and the unbelievable amount of extra energy it takes

AND, courtesy of my lovely assistant Sammy, whose last day is today (she’s graduating! going on to grad school! going home for the summer!), I have already acquired an assistant for the fall (another senior – so I’ll get 8-9 months of her life, and leave her a changed young woman – but seniors are really handy), and she’s interested in learning the self-pub aspects of the job I haven’t had time to do with Sammy because other things were more, uh, important.

And the ability to write this post reassures me that there’s still a ‘me’ here.

**********

More when there’s actually progress on this laundry list.

Be well. Have a great summer. Don’t work TOO hard.

**********

PS: If you are desperate to read NETHERWORLD, and wouldn’t mind writing a review to be posted when it’s published, email me (abehrhardt at gmail), make your case, and I’ll send you what I have at the time.

**********

Blast from my past in nuclear submarines

BUT THIS COULD BE COCOA BEACH, FLORIDA

Where we stayed when we worked for the navy.

Well, my EMPLOYER, Johns Hopkins U. Applied Physical Laboratory did contract work for the navy, and people from the lab were always going to Florida to participate in testing for the submarines, and write the report.

If you were there for a three week DASO, the Lab put you up at a condo on the beach if you chose – cheaper than a hotel room.

You can’t make this stuff up.

I live at a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), and it’s chock full of fascinating men and women with amazing histories in finance, academia, business, the military, … you name it, we’ve probably had one.

There is a small but active community of ex-submariners, and, because of my first job after grad school, at JHUAPL, where I did computational work for the Navy re subs and missiles, I have a tiny membership in the real community.

We worked for the Navy, but as civilian contractors, and I had the interesting job at APL for three years, during which time I participated in DASOs (Demonstration and Shakedown Operations) on various submarines down at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the Eastern Test Range.

Most of the jobs for a DASO were day jobs: you showed up at the boat before the Captain got on, because the minute he did, the gangplank rolled up behind him, and anyone not already on board was out of luck; you got off when the boat came back to port in the evening. DASOs lasted three weeks; then the boat went back to base and switched crews – but the APL contractors usually didn’t do both halves.

A favorite for newer contractors was to ride back from underwater tests in the conning tower, and if you were lucky you got fluorescent and flying fish in the bow wave.

One of the boats I was on was the USS Ulysses S. Grant.

Today, through a real submariner who lives in our retirement community, I have in my hands that ship’s log book. He has stories – he was in the Navy for a full career.

An interesting read – which never mentions the lowly help (why should it?) – but lists important visitors, different crews, commanding officers – and anecdotes contributed by the crew.

But it brought a whole piece of my life back – as if I were standing on the dock.

BTW, if you were not ON board when the captain arrived in the morning, you were out of luck: they rolled up the gangplank after him – and away we went to sea.

**********

Another story: Standing on the deck of a nuclear submarine coming back to the dock at night, watching the launch of a Delta rocket at night against the dark sky.

And another: my husband, who did research in Top Secret submarine stuff (my clearance was only Secret) came to visit me at the Cape once, and he got to go on a tour of the sub I was working on – on family day – as my spouse. His only time on one of them! At the dock.

And a third: I first heard The Gambler, Kenny Rogers, going out to sea in the Fire Control room – one of the crew was playing it.

One more: being aboard a British nuclear submarine for a missile launch: the Eastern Test Range had the equipment to follow the instrumented, nuclear-warheadless missile on its flight, so they tested in the US. Imagine the reaction when the whole submarine went a small distance down into deeper water as the missile went into the sky – conservation of momentum, and equal forces, but very unequal masses.

Memories are funny.

Some of the above – though MANY years ago – kept purposefully vague.

**********

Leave your own stories to share.

The slow approach of some kind of normalcy

Davis greenway on my trike ride, winter 2021

LIFE HAS TO GO ON

It is starting at the opposite end of society: those vaccinated most urgently are the older people, who otherwise have an appalling death toll from Covid-19 if they get sick.

The fear has been very real among those of us with co-morbidities, who in normal times could look forward to a bit of retirement and the presence of children and grandchildren at the end of a life of labor.

This community went from people who had dinner with other people in a catered dining room several times a week to an entire building of people whose food was delivered in takeout containers every day. For almost a year so far. We have accumulated (and tried to recycle) countless containers, with the dining services having trouble, it seems, buying the same container shapes every day.

There is only so creative one can get with plastic takeout boxes.

Why the light at the end of the tunnel?

Because, if all goes well, most of us – of around the 250 people in Independent Living in one main building, 15 cottages, and 16 ‘garden apartments,’ will receive the second dose of the Moderna vaccine this Thursday, and two weeks later will achieve the maximum protection that can offer us.

We’re not sure yet what will change once there are a bunch of us in that state: the precautions will still be in place, a few people won’t have been vaccinated (including some staff – I don’t understand why they are not jumping on the chance to be protected), and the fear that ANY encounter with another human being might end up being terminal will be muted a bit while we wait for the rest of the world to catch up.

A reversal – normally vaccinations are for the young, and we elders have a lifetime of toughness to protect us.

Anyone who was alive for the 1918 flu is now over 100 years old.

I’m writing now because the suspense is at its maximum

None of us want to be the ironic case of the last old person to get Covid-19 and die from it – that won’t happen for a while but it’s worth pondering.

So those of us who believe in vaccines and modern medicine, however imperfect, are being very careful for the next three weeks or so.

I have a doctor’s appointment in March, and it will be the first time I’ve gone off campus feeling safe in over a year.

I desperately need new glasses – but have refused to make optional medical appointments with people who will be close to my face and body while their breathe could be my end.

Ditto dentists – you won’t believe how carefully I have been brushing my teeth so as to avoid any unnecessary visits (and have eschewed the necessary cleanings) for this year: I don’t want someone, even someone masked, gowned, and with a face shield, that near to me.

I have some experience, having caught the flu in 2018 from the only time I’d been out of the house in months, but decided to accompany the husband to his eye-doctor appointment: someone left a flu virus in that waiting room for me.

So the stress level is still high

And we look askance at the crew of men painting our halls and installing new carpets (first upgrade in 20 years) – and going home to their families every night. They need the work, the facility needs the facelift, but we don’t need all those people we’ve never seen before (thanks, guys!) wandering our halls.

This last Friday was the first time testing of all the staff revealed no new cases in quite a few weeks. It may be just random luck.

Or it may be that the staff have already had their two shots + two week wait, and are now as safe as they can be. I hope so, for their sake. They are very nice people. And there are almost as many of them as there are residents (we have higher levels of care in the same building, which increases our staff requirements). 200 or so.

(Still don’t understand why any of them would refuse the vaccine against a deadly disease they could transmit to the older people they work for.)

The public stress changed

From worrying about the election and the devoutly-wished disappearance of the previous mob, to wondering how the current administration is going to manage to reverse so much damage.

But I no longer watch – it’s politics as usual, the grownups are in charge, and I can’t do a thing.

The grownups are at the helm of the current actual focus on getting control of the pandemic. Another place I have limited reach and scope.

Since I’ve blocked all the people who are science-deniers, my only remaining advocacy point is to remind them that THE DISEASE IS MUCH WORSE THAN THE VACCINE.

A few have legitimate concerns; most should just make sure their doctors know their problems, and they are watched for a time after the actual injection to have a quick response if they have the exceedingly rare anaphylactic reaction. EXCEEDINGLY RARE.

But I’m so tired

Months and more months of stress have taken a real toll on the writing (and the other parts of my life, which I try to ignore).

I have only just regained some semblance of a normal sleep schedule with melatonin in tiny amounts at bedtime and my Daylight therapy box in the morning as soon as I get up. Now I’m wondering when I can get off the regimen, because the melatonin always makes me a bit groggy, and that is the enemy of me writing fiction.

A couple of weeks of better sleep is not enough for a year of stress, but I’m getting there.

The work proceeds apace

Yesterday I managed to take all the notes I had accumulated in 2016 on the critical medical topic which is an intricate and ineradicable part of this section of NETHERWORLD’s plot, and make sense of them: they were very badly written in the original source – and that is now behind a paywall!

So I’m feeling proud of myself for documenting everything so well that I was able to figure out what I needed, from what I gathered over four years ago in another state!

When I do research, I carefully retain the link or other source information, in the great fear that I will forget where I found something and fail to attribute it correctly, so my paranoia has served me well.

And some form of exercise occurs occasionally

I got a trike ride, a short one, this weekend – because the outdoor pool has glass in it from a broken table top during last week’s windstorm, and is unusable, even in the mild weather we had (they still haven’t told us how the heck they’re going to clean it up, they who put glass-topped tables near the pool in the first place!).

And I get out of the apartment to pick up lunch or somesuch on Maggie, my MAGnesium Alloy Airwheel S8 (a bicycle seat on a hoverboard – google it) a couple of times a week. Not nearly enough exercise for anyone, even disabled and chronically ill, but all I can manage.

The great outdoors in California in the wintertime is still great.

So that’s the report from a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) for today

I can feel, on re-reading my words, that the stress is lower.

How goes it with you?

If you are offered the vaccine, and don’t plan to take it, I’m curious how your thinking is going. I promise to be civil.

And otherwise, along with MY children, I hope everyone will be protected by a vaccine as soon as possible – I’m tired of living like this.

Not tired enough NOT to continue to take every precaution, but you know what I mean.

**********

I don’t have to supervise Biden

Madrone Courtyard

THIS IS WHY I HAVEN’T BLOGGED

No, not the picture. That is just a photo of part of our lovely campus at the University Retirement Community.

If it’s warm enough, this is where we have our ‘younger women (<= 75)’ First Wednesday lunch every month, a way for the youngest members of URC to meet each other and connect. Since people move here at all ages, it isn’t the newcomers, per se.

But one of our residents decided to start this group, and it has been nice to have lunch with my contemporaries, some of whom have just moved here.

Most people at URC are older than we are.

Which brings me to my first topic: the coronavirus and the vaccine.

Because we live in a community where most residents, from independent living to skilled nursing, are over 75, when it came time for Yolo County to offer residents in Independent Living the coronavirus vaccine, they decided to include those of us under 75, but living here, the vaccine at the same time they vaccinated older residents and offered the vaccine to the whole staff.

We found out and signed up, along with most of the residents, a few days ago.

So, on Jan. 7, the day after the Capitol riots in DC (more about that later), husband and I got the first shot of the Moderna vaccine. We had very minor side effects, and I got an odd one (but so did others): a slightly red, slightly itchy upper arm around the injection site – but over a week after the shot! It went away before I reported it, only lasting a couple of days, but that was unexpected. Which is why I mention it.

We are scheduled for the second shot Feb. 4, four weeks after the first, and, if all goes as expected (management reassured us yesterday, but that means nothing as they have no official notice, no vaccine on hand, and no control – BUT have not been informed of any problems), two weeks after that, or from about Feb. 18, 2021, we will be as protected as this vaccine can make us.

Almost a year since we went into virtual hibernation, we may be able to move about in the world. No one knows how long it will be before our kids qualify – they are late 20s, early 30s – so this place will be more like a bubble or relative safety, and we may be able to socialize more with our peers. But it’s a big first step.

The stress has been hard to take, especially since some people don’t seem capable of keeping their mask over their nose.

The said Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots in OUR capital city

Along with most people, we watched horror as the day when a simple procedural count of electoral votes, certified already by each state, were supposed to simply be read into the record!

Now that 45 has been gone, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have pledged to uphold the US Constitution (as their predecessor promised, and then failed to do), it is hard to remember the enormous stress it has been to watch and read about the waning days of a wannabe dictator who attempted to reverse a legal election, and tried to get his sycophants to keep him in power via an attempted coup.

It will be a long time before that is all sorted out, but the days from Jan. 6 through Jan. 20, 2021, will not easily be forgotten, as the authorities slowly regained control over a situation that never should have been allowed to happen, and scared the heck out of the rest of us in the process.

The stress, predictably, made it difficult to write fiction – and made it impossible to blog. Anything I wrote might have been proved false within minutes.

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t make myself find some relatively stable and harmless topic, and I couldn’t write about what I was seeing and reading second hand.

Too volatile.

A real rollercoaster ride of ‘this has never happened in my lifetime.’ And my lifetime has included the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the moon landings.

I’ll slowly recover – because of the title of this post.

The grownups are back in charge of the country.

Not that I could do anything about anything while they were not, except express outrage on FB, forward liberal posts there, and end up blocking or unfriending people who used hate language.

But, like many of us, I could not take my eyes off the trainwreck, even if I managed to limit it to a quick look several times a day into the headlines, and watching the coronavirus death toll.

Biden and Harris have, as the cliche goes, ‘their work cut out for them.’

I think that means that now they have to sew it into something resembling a garment. Or a shroud.

The sympathy for the victims and their families that was not expressed in the past year was given attention before the grownups even took office, in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

The choices for people in charge have, some of them been a bit surprising, but I don’t have a reservation about the selections that I know anything about. If Ben Carson, who doesn’t seem to care about anything, could head HHS, the Biden appointees can learn whatever they need to learn, and at least are people of integrity – and not all white men, by a huge margin over 45’s.

Nothing will be perfect, and not soon.

As there is incredible damage to stem, and then reverse, it won’t be fast.

I want accountability. Silly me. I hope we get some.

But even then, I leave that to the politicians, to the grownups.

I can’t help, and my opinions are not based on knowing enough to offer solutions.

I will sign petitions, such as the one to provide more funding for ME/CFS research, which, had it been done in a timely manner over the last four decades, would have been ready to help the long-covid survivors who end up with a raging post-viral syndrome.

I will vote, and urge people to take seriously both voter registration and voter intimidation before the midterm elections.

I HAVE NO FEAR OF VOTERS.

But removing post boxes so people can’t vote by mail, removing polling sites so they have to wait in line at the few remaining ones for HOURS, and the rampant intimidation of AMERICANS by domestic terrorists so they dare not cast their votes, is WRONG, makes any elections ‘won’ that way illegitimate, and is a nightmare to leave our children.

Anyone scared of legitimate votes is a FASCIST. There seem to be a lot of them.

We have a long way to go on so many fronts that were made so much worse by 45 and his minions.

But I don’t feel I have to be aware of every action any more: legitimate authorities will tackle the problems one by one.

I never was in charge, but now I’m getting out of the fray as much as possible.

I have NETHERWORLD to finish THIS YEAR. If God gives me life and brain.

*****

How have you been affected?

Will you now be able to move on?

*****

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The deadly accumulation of tiny things

I’VE BEEN DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN

For many reasons lately, I have been having trouble blogging, must less writing fiction.

It all came to a head about a week ago, when I realized I was having what I thought might be ‘attacks’ of very low blood sugar – and they scared me.

I’d wake up in the middle of the night, or realize after working for a while, and I hadn’t eaten in a while.

My body would be screaming at me, and I felt as if I would pass out if I didn’t eat something THAT INSTANT.

The process of getting food in me – any food in me – was fraught and frightening: I would start eating something easy like cottage cheese, and not stop until I had consumed a couple hundred calories, and then would sit there in the kitchen, shaking, until it took hold, or diverted the blood from my panicky brain to digesting what I had just eaten, or whatever – but it would leave me trembly for what seemed hours after.

So after several days of this, and on the weekend,

I promised my husband I would contact the doctor, and, as the online appointment page offered me a video visit at 9:45 Monday morning, I took it, and was waiting when the doctor tuned in.

Best visit to a doctor of my life: I hate doctor appointments after over 31 years of a chronic disease that I’ve never had help with, and this time it was in the comfort of my own office and computer, and, through some twist I never figured out, the video took up a very small fraction of my screen, and his head was smaller than a passport photo.

Long story short, as every doctor under the sun (it seems), he wants me to entirely change the way I eat.

I said no. It works for me.

But afterward, I got to thinking, and sent him an email suggesting that since we had a blood glucose meter, I could take measurements for a while at different times of day, and maybe figure out what was going on. Other alternatives would involve a hospital stay – something I’m hoping to avoid right now – and the effort required to change my entire system of eating is not something I would undertake unless all else has failed AND he guaranteed it would work. Not likely.

Let the games begin

I spent the next morning after husband picked up some new supplies (his were from 2013) getting the system to work.

I called our nurse. Took the meter down to her office.

She took it down to Skilled Nursing, where no one is allowed right now who doesn’t work or live there, not even friends and family.

She said the meter didn’t work – gave errors – BUT she brought me back in a tiny plastic meds cup a single drop of the control solution (glucose in solution at a particular concentration), and Maggie and I brought it back to the apartment.

Courtesy of good planning (and luck), I had one of the lithium batteries the device needed, and it worked, and I was able to test the monitor with the control solution drop!

Now for individual measurements

I learned the whole make a hole in yourself and gently squeeze a drop of blood out of your finger thing, which I hope not to have to do ever again after this, and started recording both the measurements, and the things which might affect my blood sugar levels: when I ate, whether I felt particularly shaky, how long it had been since I slept (I take at least three naps a day lately), what I ate (though I’m not planning on altering that, and it was mostly low carb stuff).

It’s a real racket: the test strips are $1 apiece, and you need a new one for each drop you test (unless you mess the drop up, and then the spare works sometimes). The little lancets (poky things) aren’t supposed to be reused. And the control solution (I have some coming in the mail from Walmart) was $15 for two 4oz. bottles. And here’s the kicker: you’re supposed to test your meter once a month (or when you think the results are messed up), AND discard the opened bottle after three months, and I defy anyone to use up that much liquid in three months!

I don’t see how diabetics manage their testing.

In any case, I now have a solid week of about 5-10 measurements a day, and I will sort them out in Excel, graph them, analyze the graph and notes, and send a copy off to the doctor.

But the answer is

that although my blood sugar IS lower when I’m feeling very shaky and unhappy, it is NOT low enough to be classified as clinically low. Even when I felt I had to respond this very instant, it was probably me overreacting.

Now I measure, and then I eat if necessary, but I’ve also relaxed enough to realize it is very uncomfortable, but I’m NOT going to pass out, and even at the worst, I can actually breathe through it and handle it rationally.

Which is where the accumulation of tiny things comes in:

This has not been a normal year.

I needn’t list the things that have happened, or the continual stress of being locked down or the reason for the lockdown.

The worry about whether loved ones were okay has been huge; some were not, which was even worse.

And I’m sure this was my version of covid fatigue: the stress level got so high that a slightly (okay, it was scary and not little) exaggerated feeling of doom accompanied the more frequent occurrence of something uncomfortable and frightening of episodes that have been happening all along.

And I’d been making them worse without realizing it.

Because my brain stops working when I eat, and then I have to take a nap to restore it to even remotely usable conditions, I was postponing eating as long as I could, hoping to get some writing done.

Which led to

So when I finally had to admit I had to eat, we were at full-blown hunger – and the lowest of my normal range blood sugar range – and it took time to recover. A lot of time. Even after eating.

I might have been able to shorten that time had I been willing to eat something with sugar in it, but that also messes with my brain, with consequences sometimes lasting more than 24 hours, and I didn’t want to start down that path. So I accidentally made things much worse – and then freaked out over it.

I told the husband. I told no one else until I talked to the doctor.

We all try not to worry the offspring, right?

But I have been in a high dudgeon state, and of course incapable of writing fiction. OR blogging. Or, indeed, anything except wondering if this was going to be it.

I’m not even sure they would check for low blood sugar if I ended up in an ambulance, and husband wouldn’t be allowed to go in with me. Which added to the worries, as, if it’s really low, and not corrected, you can literally die.

When I had to deal with it because it happened at 3-4am, I was not in the best state to be rational – sleep deprivation does that.

And, as usual, the solution, eating, was putting on weight – and I already have to deal with that, and no, I do NOT seek help from doctors for that: their success rate, long-term, is 2%, though somehow EVERY SINGLE TIME you see one they mention you should lose weight, as if it were something you could decide one night, and have done with by the morning.

So I also have not much to write about or post about.

Us being in the middle of an unchanging physical, global, and electoral nightmare.

And California, which had seemed to be doing okay, is now having most regions almost to the highest pandemic status, including the Greater Sacramento area, and is no more free of covid problems than the rest of the nation.

If you’ve ever done a stress inventory (you should – find one online), I know my stress levels (with an easy life in a nice place and people bringing me dinner every night) are in the DANGER ZONE. I can only imagine what it’s like for others who don’t have our resources, who have to go to work, whose children are in school, who have a relative or friend in the hospital or who work in one.

I apologize for the self-centered nature of the above half-assed post.

It’s all I got right now.

That, and watching the sales graph at Amazon: sold two ebooks this month! After nothing for several months before that. And it isn’t going to get any better until I finish book 2 and revisit the complete marketing problem – from website (prideschildren.com – don’t go; it’s very rough right now), to ads, to finding more reviews (pretty please – if you’ve ever planned to write one, now would be very nice).

I’m really trying to get to the VERY good end of this volume. Can’t wait.

I am glad to put this scare behind me, and hope to be able to create more than a few words of fiction every day, because I can’t wait to get to the end of this one.

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Let me know how you’re all coping with stress, and if you have stories of how it’s pushed you far out of your comfort zone.

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Recommend PC to a friend if you were always planning to do that.

Bye for now. I have no idea when you’ll hear from me again, but I really miss you.

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Nothing stays resolved long enough to write

I KEEP STARTING POSTS THAT GO NOWHERE

My apologies for being lost – missing in non-action.

Every time I start settling into a topic something happens.

Often it makes what I was going to write pointless.

The pandemic is a rollercoaster

Over 250,000 dead – and we’re pretending it’s not happening, led from the top?

Over 11,000,000 cases – and that’s only ones that are caught and tallied?

We’re heading into the winter flu season – conditions will be ripe for passing on ALL kinds of viruses and germs – so the numbers that are already horrifying me are going to get much, much worse.

And people (!?!) are still planning to get together for Thanksgiving in the USA after the reports from the Canadian Thanksgiving which showed surges from people getting together and spending time in interior spaces without masks.

Do we really have to repeat or exceed the 50,000,000 worldwide deaths from the 1918 flu?

It’s bad enough that we’re repeating the behavior from 1918.

Oh, and they’re starting to talk of triage in hospitals, and letting the weak and old and disabled and ill die first again. People like me.

Election results are a rollercoaster

I don’t even want to go there.

I avoid even the reputable news sources closer to neutral and accurate reporting because they are telling us everything, because we need to be able to find out, but I can’t take it any more.

It took me forever to figure out the ‘Opinion’ pieces on The Washington Post are only that, someone’s opinion.

They aren’t news or truth or even remotely accurate just because other part of the newpaper are supposed to be unbiased reporting.

Their headlines sit there and jangle me.

Every previous (well, in my memory – since about 1969 when I moved to the States) ex-president or failing candidate conceded, called and congratulated the winner of the election, and made plans – for the good of the nation. Power alternated between parties, and legislatures were not necessarily of the same party.

And it will be months of this wrangling, while we hold our breath and the departing administration tries to lock in its failures or perceived gains, instead of moving on.

The lockdown at our little CCRC is a rollercoaster

We have lost and gained and lost again:

• the outdoor pool
• the indoor pool
• the gym
• meetings of a certain size
• dining in the dining room with friends
• use of public rooms, the arts room, and the various lounges
• singing

and every other resident activity that makes living in this kind of retirement community a pleasure.

Some have returned via TV or zoom; others will have to wait.

And people still have not mastered the simple requirement of wearing a mask that covers NOSE AND MOUTH, ALL the time, and not handling things like the microphone.

We have had relatively few cases – but we have had some, and we go in fear that something will change or get worse.

My personal life is a rollercoaster

Some of it is probably stress, and continued stress, and never really being able to relax from stress.

My pain meds – which I always used to toss down the hatch with some water without thinking much about it – have been giving me major trouble. I think it’s finally become impossible for me to take them on an empty stomach (I would often remember to take the night ones right before bed).

With all the time I have, I can’t count on myself to be functional, and it seems to take huge amounts of attention to find myself with a couple of hours during which I can focus. I hope that gets better.

But we’re heading into WINTER, and I know I am highly affected by the shortening of the days. It is worse because I am already a night owl, insomnia seems to be part of the package, and, if I go to bed at 6am, and sleep until 11 or 12, and then need an afternoon nap or two, I have precious few hours exposed to daylight.

I should be arranging for a couple of surgeries, one relatively minor (but nothing is minor when you’re a slow healer), one significant – and I don’t want to go anywhere near a hospital right now.

There is some POSSIBILITY that research into post-covid long-haulers MIGHT deliver some results for those of us with ME/CFS – but nothing much has appeared yet, and it’s a long-odds hope. More likely: the new sick people with symptoms like mine will overwhelm the available medical systems – which have nothing to offer them because they’ve never developed it for people like me.

All that is hard to manage on a day to day basis

And I can’t plan, and I can’t count on myself, and I can’t see my kids, and I can’t help anyone.

But I am managing to write a few words when I’m not oscillating like a tuning fork.

And after 31 years, I at least have the ability to know that if it’s a while yet, I’ll survive, and not go completely off the rails because of ‘pandemic fatigue.’

And that is why I haven’t blogged much.

I’ll get there. We’ll all get there, those of us who survive, but it’s a rollercoaster.

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Cabin fever requires getting out of the retirement community

THE BIG EXCITEMENT: RIDING MY TRIKE FOR FLU SHOT

I rode over to my flu-clinic appointment, and rode through the drive-by on my trike, Trixie, because we have been in California since Aug. 2018, and haven’t bought a car.

And haven’t yet acquired driver’s licenses.

We were doing okay with Uber and Lyft until the pandemic; now I’m not taking that chance.

I’m practically never leaving the premises except for a short trike ride occasionally – and everything out there looks perfectly normal (I stay on the greenway, don’t get off the trike).

A few days later, the medvan took me to my cardiologist appointment with Maggie2 – and I decided to just ride her home – and took a few pastoral pictures on the way home.

Beautiful day, almost too hot in the sun, and yes, I wore my helmet (not that I usually bother – I go about a mile an hour; you can walk faster).

When you don’t hear from me

it’s because I haven’t had much to say for one of two reasons:

1. I’m bummed, the body isn’t working, and I can only stare at the screen and feed myself, or
2. I’m writing!

Pride’s Children NETHERWORLD lost about two years to us moving. I started it in 2016, and had hoped to finish it in 5 years instead of the 15 it took PURGATORY, but I hadn’t planned on the move.

No matter – the new insight I have into how my body works is letting me have a few more usable hours, and I’m plugging along, as slow as usual during the actual time the brain is on (I do a LOT of work preparing for a scene, consume many hours in the writing, and spend gobs of time editing).

So it takes up most of my days to get some usable time around the limitations, but lately the words are coming out the way I like them to, and I am about to finish another chapter.

The ‘real world’ is crazy

Between the pandemic and the politics, and us being in lockdown with pool hours only available mid-morning, right in the middle of my writing time, and me still spending hours staring at the screen, I’m surprised I’m getting a single word on a page.

My secret is Freedom – and the self-discipline to block the internet for a set of hours, with no way to get more than the few sudokus I set up before I start (for breaks).

FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO WRITE is my motto.

(me)

And fight WordPress for the right to blog my words my way. Mostly I win.

We are being allowed a little other freedom

We can have dinner on the outside terrace by La Brisa, our alternate dining venue.

We can have dinner with ONE other person or couple in the regular dining room, with the tables now very far apart, and our temperature checked before we sit down, going in one door of the dining room and out the other (which, due to the design of this place, requires us to go down from the Third Floor by the Central Elevator to the First Floor, walk a fair distance, and take the East Elevator up to the Fourth Floor where we live.

They tell us it’s Yolo County rules. It’s supposed to keep people from bunching up. But they still do it when we’re the last seating.

We had dinner with friends yesterday, for the first time since March, and will be having dinner with different friends next Saturday – assuming no one gets ill.

And we’re still using the outdoor pool (Yolo County again), but I had to get out after 20 minutes because it is way too cold, and I couldn’t take it any more. Slightly better than nothing.

In other news

And we went to a wedding in Boulder, CO, by zoom because our son and new daughter-in-law (finally) have decided to postpone the reception but had the wedding. It was lovely. Parents and sibling on both sides, and the bride’s grandmother. California, Texas, and New York were represented.

There will be a party when it’s safe – they have a venue date for October of NEXT year.

And that’s about it except for compulsive news reading (NYT, WaPo, a few others) about the pandemic, and we’ve sent our ballots in by mail and the State of California confirms they have been received.

I hope the nightmare is over. Nobody is taking it for granted.

What a year!

And this is why I don’t blog when nothing has been happening – it’s boring!

My lovely beta reader is expecting, and they have had three hurricanes go over their heads lately (Gulf Coast-ish).

And the fires are mostly out around here.

The other night when I couldn’t sleep I felt an earthquake rattle the bed – it was a 2.7 (tiny to those of us brought up in Mexico City), the person at the Front Desk didn’t feel it, and the Earthquake reporting site had it as happening about ten kilometers from here.

Hope you are all having a more exciting life than I am – and stayed safe over Halloween!

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Locked down with the virus at the door

STRESSORS TO THE RIGHT OF US, STRESSORS TO THE LEFT

If you live in a retirement community, you are surrounded by vulnerable people – it is the nature of the beast.

Once you move here, they become your friends and neighbors, and you care what happens to them, to the facility, and to yourself in the place you have chosen for your ‘forever home.’

When you get the WEEKLY notice of the results of testing (the whole staff is now being tested once a week):

1. A private duty aide tested positive.
   • We received results on 8/20.
   • We have not identified prolonged direct exposure to other staff members.
   • This individual provided care for 5 residents. Each of these individuals has been contacted and will be tested. None of these 5 residents are believed to have had any contact with other residents or staff.

and you realize that those in charge are thinking that they will have to continue ‘at least two more weeks as a result of the positive case,’ you also realize they are living in a dream world where, without treatment, cure, or vaccine, they think it’s going to get better – OR they’re saying that because they think WE might feel better – you realize you are living in a situation that you have no control over, and it will continue for a very long time to come.

Everyone is under stress ALL the time

We took the not-fun stress of getting older, old enough to move into a place where you are no longer responsible for a house and yard, and moved.

We haven’t recovered, not really, from the move.

We have never quite completely moved in – the assistant we were hiring is not permitted to come in and help because she is not considered ‘essential.’

The ‘private duty aides’ ARE essential – but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a life, a home, kids, families – and go home to them every day.

We live in a web of interconnections

The reason we are here is because we estimate that some point in the future we will need the help the aides provide, and it is much easier to do it through a facility than one of us caring for the other.

Our kids will probably never all live close, and we made this move so they wouldn’t become caretakers or even arrangers of care, because, with all the good will in the world, it is a humongous job to take care of parents.

None of us planned for such a far-reaching and deadly pandemic.

Je Ne Regrette Rien – moving was the right decision.

But we were going to move, dump the house and responsibilities, and travel – from a home base which we could just turn the key on and forget.

We’re in the age group where, if we take reasonable care, we could expect to live another 30 years. I want to go home to Mexico to visit my family. I want to find a way to do some gentle travel to Europe. If I ever get a bit better, I would love to ski again.

Or hike. Or camp (even in an RV instead of a tent).

With the kids, I want to do a family vacation every year, so they stay connected with us and with each other, and we have fun.

There has been a kink in the plans.

I struggle every day to write, while at the same time fully realizing that stress kills, and there is too much on everyone right now.

Here is a stress inventory.

It is good to take one periodically, to see if things are under control, and if they are getting better or worse.

IIRC, inventory numbers over 300 are practically a direct warning of major illness coming soon, and lower numbers are not ignorable.

I don’t dare take the inventory right now.

Instead, I am taking every possible relaxation approach to dealing with what I know is there.

An important part of dealing with stress is simply acknowledging it

And looking for a time in the (we hope near) future when it will be less.

Which is what we were aiming for, until the latest notice from the county which put the kibosh on using the outdoor pool (which was about to go from 3 to 5 days a week) – because of a new menace, FIRES!

And realizing that others have it far worse than we do.

So, when it gets stressful, I blog – and dump some of it.

Records, records, records

I’m also recording for posterity, as these post are part of the ‘accidental autobiography’ I’m creating by writing bits and pieces in a series of places: emails to friends, notes on the computer, annotations in the Production File I have open for every scene I write, blog posts, and the unlikely storage in social media.

I just requested a current copy of my Facebook information – and will store it on the external hard drive.

Wattpad deleted the forums – and did not give us a chance to do that – so I lost all my forum activity.

I did download everything I created for my Patreon account – some of which may be used again down the line if I serialize the second book, NETHERWORLD.

And I also realize that this is of importance to no one but myself.

And remind myself that I need to create a document for our children which summarizes the information about the family that they might like to have when we’re gone.

ASK YOURSELF what you need to do to reduce stress – and what you need to record for the future – and do it one of these days. Tell us in the comments!

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Tiny touch of normalcy in the middle of a pandemic

NORMAL FEELS GOOD, EVEN MASKED

Episode #1 – The Affair of the Tricycle Seat Repair

This isn’t my tricycle – mine is a mystery brand – but it is extremely similar. One of the things that was normal this past week was a trip to the Tinker’s Den, my first.

Here at URC, an early resident refused to move in unless he was allowed to bring his basement workshop and woodworking tools. So they accommodated him by building a room off the corner of the south underground garage, and named it the Tinker’s Den. That was 20 years ago, and the workshop is used by a variety of people doing projects.

Well, earlier in the week I finally took the trike seat off because something was wrong and it had way too much side movement, but I hadn’t been able to see what was wrong while it was attached.

When I got it upstairs, I figured out the where the seat was attached to the post, a nut had come off of a bolt, and the bolt was sitting diagonally at an odd angle, attaching nothing.

To make the story short, I called Tenney, the resident whose name is listed for the Den, and we spent an enjoyable if somewhat frustrating hour or so taking the seat apart to get at the bolt, finding a replacement one (the one on the trike must be metric, so our nut jar didn’t have a suitable replacement), and putting the whole back together – and having a nice chat as I helped.

I miss doing that in the basement of our New Jersey house, where I had a full workshop – and plenty of nuts and bolts in jars before we moved. Of course, there had been no need to use a workshop for two years here.

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Episode #2: The Affair of the Head Shot

The other bit of normal life was another request of another resident: I have arranged to have an interview of me as a writer published on a blog, and the blogger kindly sent me a list of questions – and a request for a photo.

On her site, I saw that the photos of other authors were much better quality and definition than the snapshot cutouts I have normally used before (yes, I knew I’d have to do something about it some day, but when you’re indie, there are a lot of things on the list).

In any case, when we came to URC, Marion had done a very nice job with her very good camera of taking pictures for the Resident Directory, so I asked if she would take a few for me for the purpose of a head shot – and she kindly agreed.

We settled on Friday morning at 11 (I cannot guarantee being up and functional earlier, though I often am, and I didn’t want to have to call, bleary-eyed, and reschedule).

She had walked around a couple of days before at that time so as to find some good backdrops among the greenery, so we set off to take pictures, her walking (she’s 91), and me on Maggie2.

And spent about an hour using various pieces of greenery as backdrops – and then she put the twenty or so photos on a flash stick which I downloaded to my computer last night.

We were masked, and stayed the required 6 feet apart for most of the time, but talked as we went, and I am so grateful because we have no idea when real normal will return, and I was dreading the whole process (I don’t usually like my pictures), but quite a few of the ones she took are very good. She is amazing.

She was surprised that I want to do the photo editing myself, something I’m reasonably competent at – but I’m really not good at selfies, and an outside photo place is not in the cards right now.

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Episode #3: The book blogger reads

And finally, I found out via Mention, where I set up a request that sends me an email when Pride’s Children PURGATORY is mentioned anywhere on the web, that a book blogger whose site Written Among the Stars I visit regularly (she does very good reviews) has started to read it, and her thoughts thus far are:

“This was another one that the writing style took me a little while to jump into to and I was a bit concerned that maybe the story just wasn’t for me. It didn’t take long though for me to catch up and really start to enjoy myself. I adore Andrew. He is quirky, funny, smarmy and just so much fun.”

You know how hard it can be to persuade someone to read something different – and all authors try to find sources for more reviews – so I am very happy that she persisted, and am looking forward to hear what she thinks of the whole.

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Little things matter when you’ve been in quarantine a long time.

Please use the comments to tell your stories of what makes you feel normal right now!

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Seniors beginning the covid-19 hard part

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SMALL MISTAKES MIGHT BE DEATH

That’s what makes it so scary.

We have now had one staff case of covid-19.

Management sent a memo, said this staff person is not in direct contact with Residents of our retirement community, and that they had done contact tracing with whoever might have been in contact with the staff person. They were waiting for the results.

Today, at our weekly half-hour QuaranTV closed-circuit broadcast, I asked, and was told the tests on the contacts have come back negative. We have not been told how the staff person is – they were home self-isolating a week ago or so, and we have not had any more information.

And a couple in Independent Living

is under their doctor’s care, and self-isolating in their apartment.

Word is they brought the virus in from somewhere they went, which could have been anything: a doctor’s appointment, a trip to the grocery store, dinner in town during the recent reopening (now canceled), or a trip to their Lake Tahoe home for a weekend or a month.

I understand privacy laws.

We will be told only what we need to know.

Which begs one important question in a facility which also has Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, and Memory Support: can the person(s) whose contacts were traced be trusted to remember everyone they came in contact with?

A major facility rehab is ongoing

Painting, new carpeting, woodwork – the whine of tools is omnipresent.

The workers are doing their best – and need the work.

But I keep seeing people – Residents, staff, workers – who seem to not realize that the mask they are wearing MUST cover the NOSE as well as the mouth. Or is basically useless.

Why so many people are incompetent at that basic task baffles me.

They don’t seem to realize. I’ve seen someone when reminded put the mask up over the nose – only to have it fall off IMMEDIATELY – and then they do nothing.

How do we protect ourselves?

I personally treat the entire world outside our apartment as contaminated with a layer of a fine dust. The dust is invisible. The dust is like the radioactive dust from Chernobyl: invisible but deadly.

“If you could SEE the virus, would you go out?” asks a Facebook post.

Of course not. And if we did, we’d take it more seriously.

But that only includes those who listen to the scientists, and understand the concept that whatever you pick up needs to be delivered, at some time, to your eyes, nose, or mouth – the mucous membranes are their target.

Even just putting on my gear – nametag, mask, phone into plastic sandwich bag into pocket, keys into other pocket, backpack – is the start of the whole ‘you might be contaminated.’ I wash my hands at least twice when I come back: once immediately, and again once I have removed my outer gear, nametag, etc., etc. – just in case.

I don’t know if those who have gotten ill here – staff and Resident – were careless

I’m assuming they were unlucky.

Since we don’t know, AND THERE ARE NO PRECAUTIONS WE AREN’T ALREADY TAKING, it doesn’t really matter.

I won’t worry – I will just continue to do EVERYTHING, because I don’t know what people are thinking out there.

Wash hands. Don’t touch face. Wear mask. Do not give the virus, which you may assume you have picked up somewhere, A RIDE TO YOUR EYES, NOSE, OR MOUTH.

THIS IS STILL THE FIRST WAVE OF THE PANDEMIC

We in the States never defeated the First Wave.

The Reopeners are living in a fairyland.

There is no vaccine.

There is no cure.

The treatments are symptomatic – and don’t fix much.

If you end up in a hospital, you’re already in bad shape.

If you end up on a ventilator, your chances of making it out are abysmal.

An estimated 10% are NOT RECOVERING – still sick after months.

And we’ve now had several cases in our little enclave.

And Yolo County – and most of California – are finally paying attention and closing down, because there are more cases and more deaths – AGAIN.

I’d hate to be one of the unnecessary deaths.

One of the people who were refused treatment.

One who got the virus from someone acting irresponsibly.

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It sounds self-centered, but the time will go by, regardless of how I use it. I’m writing. NETHERWORLD continues to get written, polished, and sent out to my lovely beta reader.

Me NOT writing will help no one.

If I’m still around, I will have made progress.

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Which reminds me: I promised to leave a summary of the rest of the trilogy – so you know what happens – where it will be made available to anyone who started reading.

In case I don’t make it.

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To the lovely person who bought a paperback: thank you! Hope you leave a review.

Some people prefer paper.

I set my ebook and paperback prices so I make around $5 when someone buys either; it seems about right.

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Love you all. Drop by and tell me you’re okay.

Alicia

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Boosting acflory’s post The Swedish Experiment

[Video link]

DR. JON TOLLINGER BLOWS THE WHISTLE ON SWEDEN’S PLAN FOR COVID-19 ELDERLY PATIENTS

I don’t do this often, but this one seems very important to me.

I have been skeptical of the ‘Swedish Experiment,’ the official Swedish response to the covid-19 pandemic, because anyone who know about epidemiology and vaccines knows that ‘herd immunity’ requires a huge majority of the population to be immune (est. 80-90%).

Then herd immunity makes it unlikely (not impossible) for people to catch the virus from each other, because there are fewer people carrying the virus around.

From the beginning, they said they were relying on people distancing, wearing masks, and behaving like civilized adults, and that this would allow them to not have to shut down the economy.

My friend acflory, on her blog post on Meeka’s Mind, quotes from Dr. Tollinger’s Youtube video above:

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The Swedish Experiment

By acflory

I almost missed this interview in which Dr John Campbell talks to Swedish whistleblower, Dr Jon Tallinger. I was shocked. Then I went to Dr Tallinger’s Youtube channel and watched him tell the world the truth about the so-called Swedish experiment. In brief, it boils down to this:

• Sweden didn’t expect Covid-19 to hit and hit hard,
• the Swedish government did not have a plan for dealing with Covid-19,
• once the virus hit, the plan became to ‘let it rip’ with minimal interference,
• All the way from the top to local councils, the directive was to not treat Covid patients over 80, or the over-60’s if they had co-morbidities,
• People from this vulnerable population were not to be sent to hospital if they presented with Covid-19 or Covid-19 like symptoms,
• Instead, care homes and GPs were to administer palliative care only,
• This palliative care included morphine to make the patients comfortable, but also to make them appear as if they were not suffering when family came to visit,
• Morphine is contraindicated for people with respiratory diseases because it depresses their breathing. In other words, it speeds up the moment of death.
• The people in this vulnerable population were not even to receive oxygen to help them breathe. Top health officials lied about this directive saying that administering oxygen outside of a hospital setting was too ‘dangerous’.
• This is a lie with just enough truth in it to make it plausible to the public. A small number of people with certain kinds of respiratory problems shouldn’t be given oxygen, but almost all Covid-19 sufferers should. Remember Boris Johnson of the UK? When he was hospitalised with Covid-19, the press made a big point about how he needed oxygen but wasn’t sick enough to need a ventilator.
• There has been a cover up at all levels of government, and the reason could be that health care for these unproductive members of the Swedish population is just too…expensive.

These damning accusations don’t begin until minute 8:30 because Dr Tallinger clearly fears he won’t be believed and because…this is his own country doing what amounts to involuntary euthanasia.

See the rest at Meeka’s Mind.

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Palliative care that speeds death with morphine instead of supporting life with oxygen

is not palliative care, especially when, as above, it makes the patients docile and hides their desperate air hunger from the only people who protect them, their relatives who visit.

It is well known that the most important thing to a person in a care facility is relatives who visit to make sure the person is actually being cared for.

So this is a deliberate attempt to hide the true state of the person in care from the relatives who visit – and it is not going to be any better when those relatives aren’t even allowed to visit.

Oxygen would keep them alive – consuming resources; morphine will get rid of them.

Don’t listen to me – listen to Dr. Tolliver

who is appalled at what is going on.

Listen to The New York Times: Sweden has become the world’s cautionary tale. (This article came out today, after I had started writing this post about acflory’s post.):

Its decision to carry on in the face of the pandemic has yielded a surge of deaths without sparing its economy from damage — a red flag as the United States and Britain move to lift lockdowns.

This is why I won’t go out

I am in that cohort (which has been moved down to the age of 60). When US hospitals are full of patients who need support, they have plans – to deny coverage to people based on age, on perceived value, on assumed quality of life.

I resent the thought that they think some young person who went out partying and voluntarily exposed himself to the virus and caught it is somehow more important than me, who am being very careful (yes, I know – because I can). Those who put themselves into groups of unmasked other people and drink to oblivion.

Our local hospital’s covid beds are full now.

Enjoy your beer.

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Thanks to acflory for permission to copy her summary, which is concise and coherent, and terrifying.

Dr. Tollinger has asked people to boost his message; I’m assuming the links to his video are okay with him. He also has a Facebook page.

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PLEASE BE CAREFUL: THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN OR THAT OF SOMEONE VERY DEAR TO YOU.

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Lockdown is increased following covid-19 spikes

THE FIRST WAVE ISN’T OVER

The requirement for reopening our facility in any small sense was that our state, California, needed to meet the parameters for reopening.

Our Yolo County authorities issue rules which must be followed by businesses, depending on the state guidelines.

A few weeks ago, on June 9th, a gradual, cautious reopening of our dining facilities was initiated, allowing those who chose to participate the ability to go to the dining room for dinner. Many changes were instituted to get people in and out of the dining room safely (most of which would have been too hard for me), but not allowing the kind of socialization we used to have of dining with others not of our ‘household.’

The reopening has been rescinded due to spiking coronavirus cases

I can’t blame this facility for taking every possible precaution – after all, one of the things that happens is that our total survival as a community depends on getting new people in to what is a ‘forever home’ as our older or frailer members leave us.

And reputation is everything in the business world – we can’t afford to have too many empty apartments or the price for the residents will have to go up.

And it is obvious that people will think long and hard before moving INTO a facility that has already had covid-19 cases.

The restrictions are necessary

because the outside world refuses to take the pandemic seriously – but we know how high our death rates would be if it got into our community and spread.

That’s not even a hypothetical: a third of covid-19 deaths, or more, have occurred in people in nursing homes.

And a CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) by definition has a nursing home component (as well as an Assisted Living one) to go along with the Independent Living apartments (where most of the residents live, and where everyone who is part of the community must come into originally).

Lowest common denominator for the community is that EVERYONE is in lockdown.

Because we live in the same building. And are served by the same staff for many things.

I live in fear that our staff OR our residents may bring the virus in

Residents here often (>60%) come from Davis. They have local family and friends.

We can leave the community at any time – at our own discretion. We can see anyone we want – outside.

There is a requirement (probably from the county) that those who sleep one night or more away from URC then self-quarantine for two weeks when they come back.

But it doesn’t cover those who go out for the day for whatever reason, and come back the same day.

We depend on each other being sensible – including our staff, ALL of whom live elsewhere.

So I practice ALL the precautions

So that even if other people don’t do what they’re supposed to do all the time, every time, I have done everything I can NOT to pick up the virus from them if they have it.

The biggest one is that people don’t cover their NOSE with their mask.

They might as well not bother wearing the mask!

It slips down. It’s uncomfortable. They ‘forget’ – and it horrifies me.

I remind them.

They put it back on, and I see it slip off again a moment later!

Staff, Residents, Contractors here installing carpeting – they still don’t get it!

A facemask worn with the nose hanging out is NOT a facemask! Basically, it’s NOTHING – because someone having trouble breathing through the mouth behind the mask will automatically breathe through the NOSE – expelling ALL the air from their lungs through their NOSE out into the community.

Sigh.

I blame education which doesn’t teach every child that their NOSE and MOUTH are connected inside their HEAD.

Among other things I blame.

So I’m horrified, I tell them (they sometimes pull the mask up over their nose and I often SEE it fall down immediately), and I wear mine, stay away, wash my hands…

And try very hard not to leave the apartment.

A small positive note

The county has allowed limited pool access, and limited aqua therapy with a ‘medical’ person present.

So I got into the therapy pool twice for half and hour this week – and am still in a lot of pain from things I stretched, very gently, but which had had no warm water for over three months.

I may not be able to go twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday are too close together).

They may close it back down for whatever reason.

I got no writing done on those days, nor the days after (another reason I may have to do just one).

But the good feeling was amazing: in the water I am not disabled.

In the water I can move, stretch, even go up to tiptoe (in the deepest part of the pool) – things I cannot do very well or at all on land.

I am grateful.

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So what has gone well in spite of the virus in your life?

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Nobody does anything about the weather

Trixie, my trike

YOU CAN’T SEE THE WIND, BUT IT’S THERE

It is curious to me that it can get so very hot for a week or so – and then go back to reasonable, at least in the mornings, when the world is still heading into summer.

As the world goes around the sun, it gets hotter in the summer and then colder in the winter, but the small variations from day to day often seem to come from nowhere.

The husband has a touching belief in weather predictions. He thinks that what they say will happen, will happen, and seems disturbed when it isn’t dry on a day he intended to put down fertilizer that required dry grass.

Me, I believe, maybe, what’s happening in front of my nose.

Today’s trike ride temperature was supposed to be a balmy 72°F – but it was very windy, and the shorts and short-sleeved shirt I wore could have been replaced by something heavier, especially since I tend to slow or stop a lot because I’m trying not to exhaust all my energy – and lose another writing day, an all-too-frequent occurrence.

I had a bad night Sunday night – so I didn’t get out for my ride yesterday, because by the time I got up (9:30), it was already way too hot for me.

So I was extra careful this morning, and managed to go for a ride while the housekeeping ladies were here, and got blown around more than I had expected.

I had to change my route

Davis landscaping crews have altered my last two rides. I don’t know why they have to block the entire greenway path for longer than two vehicles. Most times you really can’t change the route you’ve chosen, because you can only get on and off the path at given intersections.

However, walkers and runners, even with dogs, can just slip around the trucks and trailers. The trike and I are much wider, and not really suited to going on grass or slopes – which also take more energy to navigate.

So, as I came upon another blockage this morning, I had to figure out how to get home on city streets I don’t usually use.

And it was somewhat longer. And I am more wiped out than I planned.

But getting out is necessary.

I just hope I can recover enough to finish 28.5 – I finally figured out how to handle what could have turned into a plot hole, and then one more (28.6), and Chapter 28 can go to the beta reader, the lovely Rachel.

It is frustrating to need exercise to stay even remotely well, but to find that every single trike ride can cost me a whole writing day. There’s got to be a happy medium in there somewhere.

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How has the weather altered your current planning?

Are you going to watch the livestreaming of the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge on June 20 and 21? The kids and I intend to.

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The world is set up for sugar

Strawberry cheesecake – low carb style

THE SMALL PLEASURES IN LIFE LOOM LARGE WHILE ROME BURNS

One of the things we residents of this CCRC have lost in the quarantine is much of the choice we enjoyed and for which most of us moved here.

The staff and management are doing their best, within their capabilities, and under the auspices of California and Yolo County directives.

But the result has been an almost complete lack of being able to make our OWN choices in a timely manner.

They have brought back a small opening of the dining facilities

From having dinner delivered in a plastic bag in takeout containers every night for over two months now (and we are grateful to have been fed), they gave us three options:

• the dining room, with appropriate distancing, and no one but the inhabitants of each apartment at any table (so, couples or singles alone at each table), and the staff will bring selections from the buffet – no more serving yourself
• a continuation of delivery, where they will give you the first of the buffet selections (unless you have registered a restriction – I don’t eat fish or lamb, for example, so they will bring me chicken on those nights where for some unfathomable reason fish and lamb are always coupled on the menu)
• La Brisa, our more relaxed dining venue, will now take orders on the phone (from an extremely limited menu), and let residents themselves come down 15 minutes later to pick up a paper bag (at a table that looks like it’s a field hospital) with the meal and take it to their apartment to eat

So what does this have to do with strawberries and choice?

This place has never managed a proper low-carb dessert for me.

The options on the menu, butter pecan ice cream (I hate butter pecan – soggy pecans), carrot cake (quite good), and a chocolate cake (also good), and occasionally a NSA (not National Security Agency – No Sugar Added) brownie, sometimes an NSA pie (loaded with carbs, but no sugar in the filling), but never a cookie or a pastry or anything special like that, ARE ALL SWEETENED WITH SUGAR ALCOHOLS.

Here is the ice cream label (note the warning for ‘Sensitive Individuals,’ of which I’ve never really thought I was one):

Maltitol syrup, polydextrose, and sorbitol are the culprits, and maltitol syrup is the cheapest – and most reactive – of the sugar alcohols, and the most likely to make me have horrible gastric effects. I spare you the details. I never consumed more than ONE serving a couple of times a week.

And the dining room has never had a label on these products.

Anyway, it means I can’t trust them to give me a dessert I can eat

So I make my own using almond flour (very low in carbs, especially compared to wheat flour – and rather expensive, since it is just ground up almonds), Splenda (sucralose I tolerate, though it’s never as sweet as it’s supposed to be), real cream, cream cheese, butter, and flax meal.

I made a cookie-like base (hidden under the pile), which actually tasted almost as good as a graham-cracker crust. On top of that I put a cream cheese/cream mixture with aspartame and Splenda and vanilla. And on top of that, a nice layer of one of the lowest-in-carbs fruits, strawberries.

It was delicious!

Takes a while to put it all together

So I’m going to have to find a source of commercial desserts which use sweeteners I tolerate, but the problem there is freezer space: we are at capacity and anything frozen would take up a lot of space.

So, no good options, but I can at least, when I’m willing to put in a half hour, come up with something I wouldn’t be ashamed to serve Julia Child (if she couldn’t eat sugar).

And beautiful besides – not just sweet.

The bottom line

I pay just as much money here every month as every other resident – only I don’t get what I need in the food department. Something needs to change.

And of course right now we’re all just happy that they’re still dealing with food and dinner in general, because though the option exists all the time to get your own ingredients and do your own cooking, it is one of the hassles we came here to give up.

Small pleasures can make dealing with the much larger issues of pandemic and police and protests we are facing – from lockdown – a little easier on the mind.

When I feel I’m focusing on something petty, I remember everybody else here gets a different delicious dessert every night – without ANY effort on their part.

Creating a new normal from debris

This morning, while the husband had gone to the grocery store on the URC bike to get the few things we need to supplement the dinners here, I spent a half hour singing.

With Kate Wolf, on Green Eyes.

And with Gordon Lightfoot, Sundown.

The first I had never sung; the second, I remember singing so many times back when it was new, I was in college and grad school, and had joined the Columbia Record Club, and had several of his records.

It is easy to let things slip when under a pandemic

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I sang.

Apparently, going to church on Sundays, plus starting an hour-long, twice a month folk-singing group here at URC had been enough to keep my vocal chords in working order, even tired. Each time, after an hour, I had used my voice, and it seemed okay and I was happy with the quality of the sound, happy enough not to give it another thought.

Well, it has been months since I did that kind of regular singing (forgive me, Carol, singing teacher, for not singing every day).

And when I tried to sing about a week ago, it was as if someone had stolen my vocal chords and left someone else’s unused ones in their place.

It was scary. The singing voice was almost paralyzed, and nowhere near what I had come to depend on whenever I wanted it.

So there’s one more thing I have to maintain consciously

The list is getting very long.

Every day, before I can get to sleep, I have to put all my joints through my little stretching and range of motion exercises – or I twitch so badly sleep is impossible. Literally. For hours. Lying there in bed, twitching as if hit by a cattle prod every 5-10 seconds. And now I also have to get up and eat something so my stomach will let me go to sleep.

None of this body stuff used to be my responsibility (except weight: as I’ve said many times before, I do not understand why I should have anything conscious to do with maintaining the right body weight – I don’t have to remember to breathe or make my heart beat!).

I’ve given up complaining – it doesn’t help. When I realize I’m twitching because I didn’t do my exercises, I force myself to lie there – and do them.

When I realize what has woken me up at 3am is that my blood sugar is crashing, I get up, eat a half cup of cottage cheese, and then, while my brain’s blood is diverted to digestion, quickly lie down and get back to sleep.

The demands of the body are nonnegotiable

Insistent.

Immediate.

And a pain in the neck.

But I develop another heuristic, another shortcut for dealing with the new problem, pay attention for a few days or weeks, and put it on the list of ‘things that must be done.’

And I fear when someone else must take care of me, because they’re not going to have the ability to do the necessary actions the instant I need them, and I’m going to spend a lot of my time uncomfortable and not able to do a thing about it.

What a life!

One more consequence of the lovely gift we’ve all been given is to watch it go away.

How to deal?

ME/CFS? Aging? Luck of the Irish? Who knows.

I try to let it take as little of my time and life as possible.

Not complainin’, just sayin’.

And I do whatever I need to keep writing.

While watching the appalling stuff burbling out in our society that has long been suppressed. And trying not to cry.

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What is on your list? What are you in charge of that you never had to worry about before?

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Thanks to Stencil for the ability to create graphics that are more interesting than the words I throw into them.

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