Day 3763

Dash died one year ago today. Janet and I were devastated. We were also very tired after tending to sick dogs for almost five years. Neither of us thought we would ever have a dog again. Here we are one year later with another Dalmatian sleeping in our bed. Life is full of surprises and Dawn was one of the good ones. It just goes to show that it doesn't pay to predict the future.

I don't think any one of us could have predicted that we would be living in Chapter Two of a Steven King novel right now. I certainly wasn't thinking that a plague was coming on the day Dash died. Sure there were those who told us that a pandemic was likely many years ago. They wrote books about the coming storm. There were also people telling us that aliens were living among us and that the Illuminati were secretly controlling the world. We ignored the threat of a pandemic the same way we've been ignoring the threat of nuclear war. If you want to lead a normal life, you tend to believe things that let you continue living normally.

I have a friend who has recovered from the coronavirus. He said that fighting the disease was horrible but that when he came out the other end, he felt like he had acquired a superpower. I found this interesting and somewhat prophetic. Universal testing is coming. It will take a while, but it is the only way for society to get a handle on the pandemic. Eventually we will know who is safe and who is a carrier. The people who have developed an immunity and are safe will have a superpower. They can resume normal life. The carriers who can still transmit the disease may not be sick themselves, but nobody will want to get anywhere near them. They will become social pariahs. Nobody will be able to hide because when this day arrives, the detection software Apple and Google are developing now will have been perfected and built into the operating systems of our phones. You know how addicted we are to are to our phones. When your phone starts to beep you will run the other way.

I find myself thinking more about the societal changes to come in the days ahead than about the people dying today. Maybe I'm not compassionate enough. People die everyday, but society only dies once. I don't want to go back to the Stone Age or live in a world that resembles a Bladerunner movie. I don't particularly want to die either. This is the Sophie's choice we are facing as a society.

I called a repair shop about fixing my computer and found myself wishing that my nonchalent electricians could fix computers. These computer repair guys seemed freaked out about seeing me in person and had a complex procedure that involved filling out a bunch on Internet forms and leaving the damaged computer on their front door step. They definitely didn't want me inside their store. Maybe I'll watch a few more YouTube videos and work up my nerve to fix the computer myself. How hard could it be to replace an iMac hard drive?

Today was beautiful and we decided to walk in a more remote section of the park. Dawn loved the new smells and the longer walk certainly didn't interrupt any plans. Who has plans anymore? I did have to remove the water from the roof all over again later in the day. I miscalculated yesterday and should have waited a while before removing the standing water. We ended up getting a lot more rain. At least we didn't get a tornado. You've got to be thankful for things like that.

Valli is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day