Day 4268

I really miss my long walks in the park. These walks provided a much needed sense of purpose. Sure, I was really just killing time, but it was easy to convince myself that I was doing something important. Hey, as you grow older, staying active and healthy actually is important. Sadly, I'm going to have to wait a while until I can get back on the trails. I can take short walks for now, but my doctors say it will be at least three weeks before I'll be able to resume any semblance of my normal activities.

With each passing day I continue to feel a little better. I think I can attribute most of the weirdness I'm feeling now to the Cipro I have to continue taking. Cipro has a number of unfortunate side effects and I seem to be affected by several of them. Cipro is known to cause peripheral neuropathy and I am feeling an odd tingling sensation in my fingers and legs when I am inactive. This may also be caused by poor circulation, since my resting heart rate is curently much lower than normal. I'm blaming the Cipro though. Cipro also causes headaches and I have one right now. Luckily, I was prescribed a short course of this drug. I only have three pills left and I'll be done tomorrow evening.

We are having a mild heat wave. The temperature got up to 97 degrees today. Our sunrise walk with Dawn was fairly normal, but you could tell it was going to be hot later in the day. We didn't take Dawn on a sunset walk because we were afraid the pavement was too hot for her paws. Dawn certainly didn't seem to mind staying inside. I should have stayed home as well, but I felt like I needed to move. I hate being cooped up all day. I waited until it was just about dark and then took a short one mile walk. I was a little tired when I returned home, but I got to see a pretty sunset. I definitely needed the exercise.

Today wasn't very productive. I watered a few plants, wrote a letter to my sister, and made an appointment for later in September to see my gastrointestinal doctor. They want to review their Barrett's esophagus diagnosis with me. I think they'll want to do some biopsies of the esophagus to check for precancerous cells. Unfortunately, this means another hospital visit, but I think the dreaded event is at least three months away.

I wonder where people find the strength to deal with serious illness? My Dad dealt with Parkinson's disease for decades and my sister has been in and out of hospitals for years. I've generally been the healthy one in the family. I did have Hepatitis C but that was the hospital's fault. It's hard to believe now, but hospitals used to routinely buy blood from winos on the street. It's amazing we all lived through the 60's and 70's. In the grand scheme of things, my surgery last week was minor. It has redoubled my resolve to stay healthy though. I don't have that much time left and I want to enjoy it.

Hard to believe that tomorrow will be September. Where did this year go? 2020 and 2021 have all just blurred together. I wonder if things will ever return to normal? Covid boosters will probably be just like flu shots in the future. The work world will never be the same. I never thought I'd see the day when companies of all sizes were begging for workers and the unemployed still didn't want to work. There is a tendency to blame someone else for everything now. Nobody wants to take personal responsibility for their own lives any more. It's all pretty sad. I'm convinced that the country will remain permanently divided and this won't be good for anyone. We live in strange times. I'm just glad I had a chance to grow up in world that was a much better place.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3824

When I was leaving the grocery store this morning I noticed that the guy ahead of me had a package of Clorox Wipes in his buggy. How could I have missed these? I've been looking for them for months. I went back into the store and asked an employee where I could find the elusive Clorox Wipes display. "We're sold out," he told me. "You must have seen the guy who bought the last ones today." I asked when the store was getting more and was told that they were receiving a pallet of wipes several times a week. This was encouraging news. I've been convinced that when Clorox Wipes were on the shelves again the pandemic would be over.

I'm going to buy a ton of Clorox Wipes the next time I see them again. I'll buy a bunch of N-95 masks if I happen to see those too. It hard to believe now that these masks used to be a common item in the paint section at Home Depot. Even though I continue to see crowds in the park and traffic is back to pre-pandemic levels, I don't think anything is over. The virus will ebb and flow for the next year or so. People will forget about it for a while and then they will panic all over again. Civil unrest probably won't disappear until after November 3rd. Call me cynical, but I think both political parties have reasons to keep stirring the pot right up until election day.

I think the only way to restore a sense of normalcy quickly would be if there was a way to completely eliminate the media for 30 days. I"m talking about all the media, including Facebook and Twitter. The media loves a crisis. They always have. A crisis is good for ratings. Wars. Hurricanes. Civil unrest. It's their bread and butter. Have you ever noticed how quickly war correspondents rise through the ranks at news organizations? Cover a good war for a while and sooner or later you are hosting the evening news.

At any rate, without the media constantly stirring the pot to increase their ratings, we might actually be forced to talk to our neighbors to find out what is going on. Without looking at the world through the distorted lens of social media, we might actually go outside and notice that our immediate surroundings aren't so bad after all. I know a few people who are little terrors on social media that are actually fairly nice when you can sit down and have coffee with them. We need a lot more real conversations and a lot fewer emojis.

Our society has made has made it far too easy to act without thinking. The ignorance I'm seeing these days is breathtaking. When you form your opinions by looking at memes, you wind up vandalizing a statue of Matthias Baldwin without even realizing he was a leading abolitionist. When you keep saying you've got to "follow the science" without having a clue what scientists actually do, you wind up wearing a mask when you are driving alone in your own car. When you try to start the next revolution by turning a few city blocks in Seattle into a low rent copy of Burning Man, you probably just leave advocates for real social change shaking their heads in despair.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. Everything we have experienced in the last six months has been made worse by social media. We live in a world where everyone is glued to their phone and nobody talks to their neighbors. The traditional media isn't helping things either. They keep pouring gasoline on the flames in a mostly failing effort to stay relevant. Lord help us in the days ahead. We have become a nation of idiots.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3814

I used to like social media. Back in the dark ages when blogs were popular I was even considered an influencer. Sites like Klout gave me free stuff and I had a huge following on Google+. I never took it seriously though. The blog was just a lazy man's way of maintaining the daily journal I used to write by hand in little leather bound books that I would buy every January at a local stationary store. It never occurred to me that other people would want to read this stuff. It still baffles me why some of you are here.

For many years the Internet seemed harmless and innocent. There were no passwords or hackers. Nobody was trying to steal your identity. Occasionally you would strike up a conversation with someone who was even nerdier than you were. Then Facebook appeared.

Somehow everything has changed. From my perspective, social media has become a corrosive, destructive force. I'm not sure we should be connected. It has become far too easy to see what is trending and just drink the cool-aid. I remember people saying how wonderful it was that the Internet gave people a voice during the Arab Spring. Then look what happened. Country after country in the Middle East descended into chaos. Now the chickens have come home to roost. My own country is descending into chaos as well.

I'm not completely sure why all this is happening, but I have a feeling that it has something to do with the false sense of belonging that social media can give you. Social media and tribalism go hand in hand. It's easy to find like-minded individuals on the Internet. The platforms are set up that way. Why do you think Facebook invented the whole concept of 'friends" and "likes"? They make more money by aggregating you into groups with similar interests.

The whole friend thing has gotten out of hand though. I never wanted to know this much about you guys. I've worked with people for over twenty years and never knew much about their political beliefs or personal opinions. It was better that way. When you had to look someone you knew in the eye before you spoke, you learned to measure your words carefully. Friendships were built slowly over many years. The Internet made it far too easy to wear your heart on your sleeve with no consequences. People use their words like flamethrowers now.

I can't recall that I've ever unfriended anyone. I've usually been content to live and let live. So why do I suddenly feel the desire to unfriend people now? Probably because folks I've known for years appear to have lost their minds. How can you go from "stay inside or you'll kill grandma" to "join me on the streets or you're part of the problem" almost overnight? Some of the most strident social distance advocates are now arm-in-arm spreading the virus everywhere because something new has captured their attention. You can't really have it both ways. I wish everyone would just quit virtue signaling. It's not a good look. Nobody is as virtuous in real life as they like to appear on the Internet anyway.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3735

I'm glad I went to the gym yesterday. I got an e-mail this morning saying that they were closing until further notice. Stores are closing. Restaurants are closing. The world as we know it is starting to disappear. No wonder people are buying everything in the grocery stores. Things are changing so rapidly that it's hard to tell what is going to happen next.

Janet and I both went back to get more groceries today. I think we've got plenty of food for at least a month. As luck would have it, they were restocking the bottled water when I went to the store, so I added to our supply. Janet got extra food for Dawn and lots of things we can freeze. We've got plenty of food, water, medicine, and household supplies now. Eventually we'll use all these things, but I hope our lives don't depend on them.

It's weird that everything is closing to keep people from congregating, but the grocery stores are still full. There was no social distancing at the store I went to today. The place was packed and people were buying like there was no tomorrow. It's hard to know what to buy for the apocalypse. If things really do get bad, I imagine that most of us will realize that we bought the wrong things.

I heard that the stock market had it's worst day in history, dropping 3,000 points in today's session. This is not good. A lot of small businesses will be wiped out. It's sad to see so many restaurants closing. Owning a restaurant is not easy during the best of times. I hope all my favorite places survive. When this all blows over, there is going to be a huge desire to go out to eat again. Canned beans and tuna fish are going to get real old after a while.

This is a bad time to lose faith in the media. There is so much information floating around and it's almost impossible to tell which of it is true. I was feeling pretty good when I read that if you could hold your breath for ten seconds, your lungs were in good shape and it was unlikely you had the virus. On a good day I can hold my breath for thirty seconds. Later, I was disappointed to read that this test was bogus and had nothing to do with the coronavirus. The theory that drinking lots of hot tea or other hot liquids will kill the virus turns out not to be true either.

It looks like I'll have plenty of time to write my Sky and Telescope article. I'll start writing tomorrow before the memories begin to fade. Even though my trip to McDonald Observatory was cut short, I had some very memorable experiences. It was an amazing week. If I can manage to turn my time on the mountain into an article worthy of publication, a little home quarantine might even be worth it.

I wonder if society is going to fundamentally change after this pandemic runs its course and things return to normal? I can't remember a time where we were all actively encouraged to stay away from each other. It would be ironic and even a little funny if a lot of people started living like me. What if people discovered that living in relative isolation wasn't all that bad? It's been my little secret until now. If you stay away from people, you automatically remove most of the things that cause you stress.

I don't think my life will change all that much, even if we are in a lockdown. I've been known to go weeks without leaving the house even when things were normal. I doubt that anyone will ban walks in the park. Outdoor air and exercise are good for you. I guess we'll all just have to wait and see what happens. This is all new. I have no idea what will happen next, but I hope it ends well.

Ruthie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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