Monday, June 22, 2020

Day 3833

And now there are two. Murphy found his forever home this week and has left the building. The only dogs left at the moment are Hank and Charlie. These two happy clowns have adjusted very well to kennel life. The staff loves them and it often feels like we are visiting them at home. Hopefully, each of these boys will find a real home soon. They certainly deserve it. Until that day comes, we'll continue to visit. Janet and I like to think we are helping to socialize the dogs, but I think Hank and Charlie know we are just having fun.

We woke to more rain this morning. It was raining pretty hard, so we changed our plans a bit. Janet went to the gym and I went ahead and made my morning smoothie. Two hours later, the rain had moved to the East and the skies began to clear. The good thing about these early morning storms is that they bring cooler weather with them. By the time we got Dawn in her harness and ready to walk, it was quite pleasant outside.

Monday's are all about the dogs now. By the time we've finished taking Dawn on a long walk and visiting Hank and Charlie at the kennel, the day is pretty much done. That's OK. I'm convinced that spending time with dogs is a lot better way to spend your day than worrying about which businesses in Dallas are virus free zones or watching the country self-destruct in television.

It still seems weird to me that Texas is reopening in a big way at exactly the same time as new virus infections are at an all time high. Maybe this was inevitable. The whole problem with lockdowns in the first place was that they were never designed to eliminate the virus. At best, all they could do was postpone the problem by kicking the can down the road a bit. Now that everyone has gotten tired of being quarantined and seeing their jobs and future go down the tubes, we are starting to notice that the virus is still here. Oops. It never left. I'm continuing to keep myself out of circulation, but I think we'll all become infected at some point. I just hope my immune system kicks in when the time comes.

It's actually pretty easy to avoid people when you are retired. I have no meetings to attend and no desire to engage in long conversations with anyone. Online shopping and banking actually works pretty well. I think I'm actually more worried about social unrest than the virus. Exposure to the virus can be controlled. I'm not so sure about an angry mob.

When I see people toppling statues indiscriminately and attempting to set up their own tiny countries inside the boundaries of large cities, I don't see anything resembling social change. This chaos reminds me of March 2001 when the Taliban destroyed the world's largest standing Budda statues in Afghanistan. The world thought that was terrible. Where is the outrage now? If you think all this violence and destruction is still about George Floyd you are being naive. This is more like Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. Like the Cultural Revolution, it is a blatant attempt by anarchists  to completely erase history. The sad thing is that when you erase history, you are much more likely to repeat it.

I'll probably have a pretty good day tomorrow if I can just avoid turning on the TV. It's getting ugly out there.

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