Homer'sWorld

My PC is probably 10 or 11 years old and it is getting full. I guess 66,000 photos and many files will do that. I attempted to compress the computer and deleted a bunch of files. I will have to delete a bunch more in my efforts to make it go a little faster and to allow me to view PDFs (won't let me now).

I just put up the small holiday lights on my front porch. At night they will be a pretty thing to see and maybe cheer someone up a little. I certainly need the cheer.

Governor Ducey has "locked" the state down. His idea of doing so is pretty pathetic. Nail salons and hair dressers are ESSENTIAL services. As of today 1,289 people in the state have tested positive for Covid-19 and 24 have died. We are at the stage that the entire US was 20 days ago.

Yesterday 807 people died from it. And the government finally admitted the current estimates are that between 100,000 and 240,000 people will probably die in the next two weeks. Meanwhile conservative people like Rush Limbaugh are saying it is a hoax, that people aren't really dying and that the hospitals are empty. I hope he gets it.

I made a list and went to Safeway. I did not bring re-usable bags because they are not allowing them. I have a contained of wipes in the car and I took two in with me, wiping the cart handle. I kept re-wiping as I went through the store.

I genuinely felt scared in the store. People coming close to me. In the cheese section a woman was rifling through various Mexican cheeses, taking them down and putting them back. Luckily, I was not getting that sort of cheese.

At the check-out Crystal was working. A plexiglass shield separates the cashiers from the customers, not much protection. She has a small boy with asthma. She is a saint for working around people who are doing irresponsible things.

When I came home I carefully washed my hands. I did not wipe down the boxes and cans, it was too much, too many items (I was buying enough food to last for a couple of weeks including things for Doug and Birdy).

Last night Robert, who works at a Circle K along the interstate, sent me a picture of hand sanitizers, telling me he was using it over and over again. I asked if he had gloves and he said no. Matt gave me a bunch of latex gloves on Saturday. So I got in my car and drove north. He was busy wiping down the door handle, as various people went into the store (including a very elderly man) and was surprised to see me. I handed him the gloves. By the time I got home he sent me a message saying that he and his co-workers thanked me.

Later I sent Circle K a message asking why their staff didn't have gloves. The response I got was that staff got to wear gloves restocking food, but not allowed to wear them while handling cash. WTF. I asked the person who answered whether they would handle cash themselves without gloves. Not surprised that I got no answer back.

Ray and Robert are back from Spain, they got one of the last flights out last week. The situation there is terrible. We went on a socially distant walk at Sweetwater Wetlands and talked about things. It was so nice to see them. And see lots of birds, turtles, and even a frog.

I sit on my front porch and the smell of orange blossoms is strong. I had lost my sense of smell while having the cold, which incidentally is one of the symptoms of Covid-19 so who knows whether it was actually a cold.

And another day. 400 people died in the last 24 hours. It just seems unreal. I remember what it was like immediately after 9/11. It feels similar.

I had a socially distant picnic with Matt, Doc, and Hoffman.

Just talked to Travis, who is a respiratory therapist in Atlanta. He says the situation is far worse than the media is telling us. The common trope is that people are dying because they are old or have health conditions. He says that he is caring for numerous people under the age of 50. If you get put on a ventilator, you have a 50 percent chance of surviving. It really doesn't matter if they manufacture a bunch more ventilators- there won't be the trained people to operate them. He says that there aren't tests available for healthcare workers to see if they are infected. He doesn't have the proper safety clothing. As this progresses more and more people like him will be infected. There will be fewer people trained to operate the existing ventilators. He has friends sleeping in their cars and garages in an attempt to not infect family members or roommates. That fucking piece of shit "running" the country has no clue what is going to happen. Currently the death rate is about 1.5 percent.

Today has been a shit-show. Discovered the fridge had died. So had to go buy a new one at Home Depot. Had to go back twice more to get the upper hinge working right. The fridge is smaller than my old one. Inconvenient. Eventually it will end up in the guest house and I will get a regular-sized fridge.

And the death toll from Covid-19 is 1,593. Two weeks ago it was 36.

The thing that claims to be president is threatening to not provide help to Michigan. Almost all of my family lives there. On his Facebook page his cult members are saying how great this is. I cannot believe how evil people are.

Amazingly enough, we are doing a small testing project next to the Interstate. I got to go out today to help record features found in the backhoe trenches. It was a nice escape from reality.



Archaeologist.

You really wouldn't know we are in a pandemic here in Tucson because the Governor refuses to shut everything down. So people are getting their hair done, getting tattoos, going to some of the Big Box stores, and all the while the coronavirus is slowly spreading. As of today there have been 577 confirmed cases and 8 deaths in Arizona. On March 9th the United States as a whole had about that number. Extrapolating, in 17 days we might expect 80,000+ infected people and over 1,000 deaths here, possibly, except Arizona has one of the lowest testing rates in the country, so it could possibly be much worse.

So I have had a friend staying at my house for a very long time. He does not believe any traditional media. New York Times is all lies. Anything on Facebook is fake.  Obsesses over conspiracy theories.  Watches hours and hours of conspiracy videos. Thinks Tulsi Gabbard and Russia are awesome. Obama was as bad as Trump. I don't think he really believes in the coronavirus, thinks it is a government lie or something.

I related a story today and he went off on me about how it wasn't true. I had had enough and yelled, "I'm tired of being mocked in my own house." And slammed the door as I walked away. Really, I cannot talk about many topics because of his comments and looks. I am so over it.

So I drove over to the Sweetwater Wetlands and walked around. Lovely ducks and loons and red-winged blackbirds singing. Matt called and we talked for a long time. That was a comfort.


Sweetwater loons.

Nothing like being trapped in your house with a "temporary" roommate during this horrible time.  So over it.

I had to go to the office twice, once to send some files to the editor and the second time to pick up a replacement credit card, my old one having disappeared somewhere. The first time there were three people there, the second in the afternoon five. I used one of those wipe thingys to open and close doors. I was lucky to have a container bought months ago, which now lives in my car.

Working at home is difficult, too many distractions plus the big distraction. I check the Covid Tracking Project website in the morning and afternoon. 204 people died in the last 24 hours. And the Lieutenant Governor of Texas is blabbering the new Republican mantra- that we will have to sacrifice the lives of countless people because money is more important than lives. Of course if he gets sick, a ventilator will be found for him.

I finished a puzzle tonight. I transcribed some articles. I talked with Matt and Jeffrey on the phone. I read a couple of articles in Historical Archaeology. Soon it will be time to go to bed.

Things I did today, as the coronavirus killed about 73 people in the United States:

- bought two rolls of painter's tape. The window frames and screens will be repainted soon.
- went to Safeway and bought a few things- milk, lasagna noodles, some pastries for Doug. Still no toilet paper- I bought a 20-pack over two weeks ago, before everything got bad. I am glad I filled my pantry up before the hoarding started, I have enough food to feed myself and if need be Doug and Birdy for two or three weeks.
- took a nap
- did some work. Went to where Erina is doing a testing project and looked at some bottles.
- made lasagna
- transcribed more articles.
- watched some Netflix and some Youtube.
- talked to Matt. I miss seeing him.
- trimmed my beard. I look much younger.

And that's the way it is. I also sent Gov. Ducey's office an email asking for him to lock down the state before it is too late.

Back in early February, before all of the craziness started, I got up early and went to an estate sale. I had seen a picture of a transferprinted platter on the website, and I knew I wanted that particular vessel.

I ended up purchasing a bag full of beautiful dishes.

This bowl is marked T. MAYER STOKES. I don't know what the pattern is.



This huge platter is marked CANOVA STONEWARE. Canova was a pattern made by numerous companies.

Ruby loves playing fetch. So she is getting a lot of that now that Daddy is at home all of the time.

Matt got me a complete set of Gilligan's Island episodes. I'm watching them one after another. They still make me laugh.

I have been waiting for a prescription for several days. Safeway had to special order it, so I kept having to go back. Finally today I got it, along with just a few more groceries. I do not plan on going back there for a while. The shelves are half bare. I talked with Crystal, my favorite cashier. She told me that cashier Freddie had died. He was always so nice to my mother when we would go there. He was younger than me.

Yesterday I tried to make a loaf of bread. It did not work. Now I have a batch of biscuits in the oven, hopefully I will be more successful. And I was, although they needed a bit more salt.

It is raining, the sky is gloomy. I went to the office this morning and finished a report. Then I went to the credit union to get my card replaced, it had broken in half.

The teller was chatty. At one moment she paused and asked, "Is it hot in here? I am really warm!"

I felt like I was an actor in an epidemic movie, you know the kind of movie where the people watching it know what is going to happen, but Customer No. 1 doesn't and then goes on to spread weaponized syphilitic herpes to other people.

When I came home I washed my hands immediately.

Everything is blooming, but because I have the remnants of a cold I cannot smell anything. The pear tree that Matt got me had lots of blossoms.

I'm almost back to normal, after spending the last six days feeling cruddy. Mostly lying in bed, too tired to do anything. Today I've been able to do some record transcriptions and watched a couple of Men in Black movies. Currently watching the first episode of a documentary series called Pandemic. Yikes.

I went to the Safeway store.  My friends elsewhere are reporting shelves stripped of everything. At my Safeway I saw the bottled water and toilet paper aisles seemed empty, but everything else was well stocked. Perhaps the full-on panic has not hit my neighborhood yet. I have enough food to feed myself, Doug, and Birdy for a while if necessary (I guess I should get more dog food).

Irritating to think this started coronavirus started because some people in China had to eat some wild animals that they should not have been eating. Perhaps this pandemic will stop the wild animal trade, but I am skeptical because people are stupid and prone to think stupid things.

I'm home with what I hope is a cold. Coughing up junk, body aches, headache. Slept on and off all day. And of course reading about the spreading Covid-19 virus and the utterly inept response by our Dear Leader and his syncophants.

I've seen a few pandemic movies and read quite a few apocalyptic novels. We seem to be at the start of The Stand, when the US government was pretending nothing was wrong. Jesus, it is happening right now. And Dear Leader is busy blaming the Democrats. Strange to think that this will probably bring him down.

Whenever I see old photos on Ebay from my home town I purchase them. They frequently end up in the genealogy newsletter I edit from there. This is a rarity- a photo taken of a man with his dog. I have had only one other in the 15 or 20 years that I have been buying photos. In both cases the dogs must have been very special to be taken to the studio and included in the photograph.

I'm not panicking (yet) about the Coronavirus/Covid-19 plague. But at the staff meeting last week we were told not to come to work if we got sick and told some of the things one could do to protect oneself.

Meanwhile, the dump-fuck we have as President is down-playing the lethal nature of the disease. I have seen no public announcements about what one should do to protect oneself. I am seen incidental lists of preventative measures. We are busy heading toward a pandemic and the Trump administration is pretending that it isn't serious.

I do a lot of research on dead people. There have been pandemics and epidemics and people seeking a cure for tuberculosis in the dry Sonoran desert. The thing that kills many (most?) people is a lack of education about how to prevent yourself from acquiring the disease. In 1898, the City of Tucson passed an ordinance requiring spittoons in public places in an attempt to stop the spread of tuberculosis.

I called Senator McSally's office and spoke to the person answering the phone, in a nice manner, that some sort of public announcement about simple preventative steps would be useful. I know it won't happen from the current administration, but perhaps Bloomberg could pony up some money for a commercial that plays in prime time with some doctors and scientists explaining what to do.

End of ramble.

Being named Homer means that you don't get those name things (key chains, mugs, etc) at gas stations. When I was in second grade I had a Mexican kid named Homero in my class. One day he took the class and showed up the shack his family lived in. Shortly afterward, he and his family were sent back to Mexico. We had played together, even though we couldn't speak each other's language.

Well last year I met another Homer and then on Saturday I met another.