The Perfect Vision Plague Diaries #10

Notes on the general state of the neighborhood, the family, and the masses in the time of the virus.

Yesterday’s numbers:

• 1,577 confirmed positive cases (up 218 from yesterday)
• 109 confirmed deaths (up 9 from yesterday)

Yesterday’s update from the county includes these reassuring words:

“Some initial indications suggest that these types of community mitigations are having a positive impact on decreasing the spread of disease, even if we can’t measure it precisely yet.”

I know a lot of people will be skeptical of that kind of statement and will want specifics – what information, what data, has led to this optimism? For my part, I don’t care. I resist clichés where I can, and the reflexive haughty suspicion of the government’s every attempt to send positive messages is just plain boring. Or any message, really. Look at how it always plays out: 1) Some government official makes a statement. 2) The masses rise up in righteous doubt, demanding data! numbers! science! to back it up. 3) Government official provides numbers! data! and science! to back it up. 4) The masses rise up in righteous doubt about the credibility of the numbers! data! and science! that they asked for and were given. The masses love their righteous doubt, and faithfully follow it up with reluctant compliance.

There’s a website for tracking cases by zip code. It’s down. NO! IT”S UP! (Prolly down again by the time you click that). Here’s me, as of 3/27/20

Yesterday was a trying school day. The boy does not like art. Like most of us, he believes he is terrible at all of it, which makes it impossible to be motivated. We worked at putting together a still life – salt box, glue bottle, apple, and spoon – and he drew up a full color rendering of it all, with shadows and form. Was it good? It was my son’s, and it was genius.

But today is Friday, so I want to make it a little more fun. Mark it as better. There’s not much I can do about it while still expecting him to finish all his work. I think I’ll just sprinkle Fudge Stripe cookies throughout his day, maybe drop a little glass of root beer in front of his grammar worksheet, break out an Oreo during cursive practice, right when it looks like he’s getting discouraged.

Did I say Friday? Our first day without school was March 12. We’ve had a full two weeks of The Change. It’s been smooth. My biggest personal loss has been writing – these diaries have been consistent, but the isolation that helps build a more creative mindset isn’t available. I get up early to eke out an hour or two before the kids get out of bed, and it’s a beautiful little calm before the storm. The book I had started writing, however, is on hold until I get back to my mornings at the bakery. I do miss that place.

Probably the job that I have taken most seriously over the course of these two weeks has not been stocking the larder or cooking the meals, rather it has been prepping the morning’s coffee the night before. This is crucial. We are nearly out of whole bean (two bags of pre-ground on backup duty), but the grinding of it absolutely means doing it the night before, so as not to fire up the bean-chipper in a dark house at 6:00 AM (I know, I know – Six o’clock is already too late for a stalwart traditionalist like you. You get up earlier. Cows to milk,  pails of water to fetch from the well, hardtack to gnaw, politicians to be smarter than). There isn’t a much more gratifying way to start the morning than by breezing past the coffee pot and just switching it on.

Ten full entries in the books now. I’d say that I didn’t see this coming, but I didn’t see anything coming because I wasn’t looking. I’ve said how little I care for speculation, and speculation’s all tied up in expectations, so I prefer a strategy that focuses more on just taking things as they come, with a smattering of sensible preparation. Hence the coffee. I am, however, girding myself for the coming admission of wrongness that I must make. I made one prediction: that this would end sooner than we thought it would at the beginning. I never did put a date on it, thinking that it would all be fairly obvious. But we are definitely creeping up on a point when I’ll have to admit it’s gone on long enough. At first I figured that the initial return-to-school date of April 27th would easily be met. I’m starting to doubt that a little. We shall see.

………

I am saddened to have no “Homeless in Coronafornia” update for you today. My brother has not responded to my messages. This always sends a spike of worry into me, but it is also very much SOP to lose contact with him for a while. He might be in jail. He might have been robbed of his phone. Anything could have happened. He might also just have better things to do, I work hard to remind myself.

— Prep the coffee, Comrade Citizen!—