Still Locked Up

Looking at my last few blog posts, I see that in mid-March the temperature in Morgantown was in the seventies and eighties. April is running thirty degrees cooler, rainy and overcast.  There are only eighty-three confirmed COVID-19 cases in Monongalia County, but that is eighty-three times the one case we had a month ago. Two counties in West Virginia, both somewhat larger than ours, have more cases, and their number of cases is rising more rapidly. I would suggest that people here are more immune, not to the virus, but to the talking heads of Fox News and the White House who think we should just go about our business and let people die.

We are both busy. Joe is teaching and leading services. I have city council business to deal with and a meeting coming up Tuesday. I will be at an online funeral tomorrow for a long-time acquaintance in Los Angeles who died this week, and my postponed class at Osher Life-Long Learning, "The Great Hits And Albums of 1968," starts online this coming Friday. I have learned to use Facebook Live, Zoom and Cisco Webex. For me, all this isolation is a taste of the world to come, not the afterlife, but the time when I'm really retired and can sit home and read books and not have to be anywhere.

I've been taking my temperature and monitoring my breathing. My temperature has not gone over 98 F.  My breathing has been impaired from the dust in the house, from running on windy, pollen-strewn days, and from Joe occasionally adding an unfamiliar spice to his cooking. I always think I have "it," but I recover quickly.

Our Governor, Jim Justice, a liar and long-time grifter like the President, has at least expressed an interest in keeping people healthy, and not rushing to "reopen" the economy, unlike protestors in Ohio who look like zombies, and in Michigan, who were apparently paid for by someone who works for Betsy DeVos. And don't get me started on the talking heads who say we would only lose one to two percent of the school kids if we opened schools now, or that killing off old people to save the economy is a fair bargain. I plan to stay in until everyone can be tested and there is a vaccine.

I miss my trips to counties within three hundred miles of here, and I miss the library and sitting in a restaurant or walking around the mall. I'd like my class to be live. I've said before that we are privileged because our income and health insurance are stable, and we have enough space to not be tripping over each other at home. I've come to appreciate Joe more, because I see more of his work, and he has gone out of his way to be considerate and helpful. I can't imagine being without him. And I have to give shout-out to Tappuz Katom, our cat, who seems to alway show up when one of us is looking for company.

When this is over, I hope to do less, drive less, buy less, be more environmentally aware. Shutting things down has created cleaner air, given a break to wildlife in the oceans and on land. Maybe our whole economy needs to take a breath and wind down. I'll take my twelve hundred dollars and give it to local people running for office to make West Virginia a place I would be proud to call home.