Ramblings.....

Time flies when you're having fun. I'm not sure if I'm going to be a blogger, and it's a pet peeve of mine to see very dated websites, so if I can't keep up with this regularly -- at least several times a year -- I'll delete them all and remove the blog page.

The topic today is this frigging pandemic. I live in a very high-risk household, so we've been almost obsessive about keeping our risk low. We do all of our shopping at places that offer no-contact curbside delivery. While I feel guilty for not supporting local restaurants regularly, we've only picked up take-out food a half a dozen times since we started being careful. We're fortunate to live in a beautiful place -- if you have to be locked down, its nice to be able to look at mountains during the daytime and a million stars on a clear night. With a three acre yard, a tiny orchard and a compact garden, there is always plenty to do outdoors. Fast internet, a large TV and digital books pretty much complete the survival tool kit.

One of the many things that has been frustrating and depressing me is our national response to the pandemic. For some reason, science has become political. If we discount the lunatics who believe the pandemic is a complete hoax -- and there really aren't many of those folks left -- we're left with people who don't want to wear masks not because they don't believe they work, but because they believe it is an infringement on their personal liberty to be told to wear a mask. So they choose not to. Their selfishness has resulted in two of my friends dying, and several more coming close, likely suffering the effects (and I do mean suffering) for the rest of their lives. I just don't get it.

Update 8/14/21

I truly thought we'd turned the corner and were on our way out of the darkness -- I went fishing in Utah and Marianne adn I took a three day trip to Clifton Forge (well worth checking out if you need a Virginia long weekend) and while we wore masks while we were with others indoors, we actually ate in a few restaurants! I'm glad we did since it looks like we're headed for another lockdown. I'm totally stumped -- why folks won't work for the common good. I guess they just live isolated lives -- they must not personally know anyone working in health care, or those with organ transplants, or working mothers and fathers with small children at home. I have spoken with several people who are still hesitant to get the vaccine out of a concern for its safety-- and while I am sad for that I respect their position, as every one of them are wearing masks and staying away from others as much as possible. They know COVID is nothing to play with and they're concerned that they might get it, so they're dong what they can to protect themselves and in doing so they're protecting others as well.