Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Day 3758

I'm always curious about what is going on in my own industry. Have you noticed the enormous number of new commercials on TV lately? Everybody seems to have a brand new commercial about how their pizza is untouched by human hands after it leaves the oven or a message that you can still buy all your favorite things online. We're all in the together, these commercials say. How are these commercials even getting made? The last time I looked, most of my friends in the business were considered non-essential and are currently unemployed. It takes a lot more than ten people to produce most commercials and a lot of these new ones look pretty sophisticated. Is there an exemption I don't know about, or are a ton of people just ignoring the rules?

I've also wondered with all the news about infected cruise ships and aircraft carriers why anyone would think that it would be a good idea to send a ship to the rescue in New York City. What could possibly go wrong? At first the Navy said the hospital ship would only be used to relieve the pressure on other hospitals by taking non-coronavirus overflow patients. There were good reasons for this. I remember seeing an interview with the captain of the ship saying that it was next to impossible to disinfect a ship. Now, here we are only a few days later and the ship is taking Covid-19 patients. Go figure.

Who decides what is essential? I see roofers, lawn care services, and tree trimming companies continuing to work normally in my neighborhood. If anything, they are even busier than usual. If I owned a small neighborhood business, this would seem terribly unfair. Most of these little shops were struggling to stay in business on a good day and usually had only a few customers at a time. When you leave Walmart open and shut down all the little neighborhood businesses, it is going to destroy them. Personally, I'm glad that I am retired. I would be so mad if I were still trying to keep a business alive.

My big activity of the day was mowing the grass. I should have done this several weeks ago, but it has been too wet and rainy this Spring. The grass was tall and the mower really wasn't up to the job, but I got it done. Sometimes I like having an electric mower, but when the grass is tall I wish I still had a gas powered mower. At least my battery is still good. I've been keeping it inside all winter and it seemed to help.

Janet and I knew it was going to be hot today so we took Dawn on a very early walk. Like all our Dalmatians, she doesn't like the heat. The sunrise walk was actually very nice and Dawn loved the cool morning air, but the new schedule made eating breakfast even later than usual. Janet was already fixing her lunch by the time I finished drinking my smoothie. I should make a smaller smoothie, but I  like the recipe and can't be bothered to change the ingredients. Two eggs is easy. So is a whole banana. What would I do with a left over half of a banana?

It's pretty clear that this virus isn't going to bring us all together. It's a shame that our country is just as hopelessly divided as it ever was. I'm glad I'm not making the decisions. You'd probably hate them. I'm not going to argue with you though. If you like dogs, you're OK with me.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day
Watch of the Day