Will We Ever Get Back To "The Before Time"?

As of April 17, about 20M Americans were filing for unemployment.  As Stephen Colbert said, too bad Donald Trump isn't one of them.

Trevor:  "Wash your hands.....before you pick your nose."
Trevor again:  "Remember that you can save toilet paper by peeing in the shower."

A new verb:  "Smize" - Smile with your eyes (necessary because of people using masks in public)

Today (April 20) is the beginning of week 6 of shelter-in-place around here.  Being retired, there is plenty of opportunity to get into a rhythm of my own and not be impacted by what's happening outside.  But this is different.  There isn't much going on anywhere to allow distinction of days.  It's pretty much the same without work at home or online school for me.  But now, there's literally nothing to distinguish one day from another.  I'm still riding most days.  We shop once a week.  Caryn is home and either does some work or reads if not doing at home exercise.  I don't see her going off to crew or karate, which helps define a day of the week.  Maybe garbage pickup?  That is on Friday and hasn't changed.  We can't even look forward to a short trip or visitors or a happy hour.  So it's a bit weird not being able to say where or when we are in this undefined continuum of COVID time.

More observations:

- Masks are now required for everyone outside (except when exercising).  A whole new fashion sense is growing up around them.

- Businesses are still hanging on, but many have taken to asking for financial help.  GoFundMe is pretty common.

- Public parks and trails continue to be crowded on weekends (and other times).  People need to get out.  Some people are protesting to open up their cities or states and trump is encouraging them, even though this could lead to more deaths.  Smart, eh?  Georgia says it's going to open some businesses and then trump says that's irresponsible.  Which is it, Donald?

- There will be books written on more administration fuckups.  There are some glimmers of hope, but the man has been using the daily press conferences as rallying events.  It's all about him, even as people die.  One press conference lasted over 2 hours.  He showed a video to the press corps showing how many good things he's done since this started.  It's all about me......

- Only Trump could take a moment in history when it should be "us" (the world, not just the country) vs. a common enemy (coronavirus? aliens?) and make it him vs. everyone else.  He's found that this is the right time to be fighting against other countries, his scientific advisors, state governors, the WHO, Congress, Democrats (politicians and voters) and likely many more.  As the April 21st NYTimes headline accurately said "How Abortion, Guns, and Church Closings Made Coronavirus a Culture War".  Amazing.  Just fucking amazing.  Ughhh.

- As of April 24th, the US has passed 890,000 people infected with COVID 19 and 50,000 deaths.  And what does Trump do?  He repeats some incorrect and possibly deadly news about a remedy, as espoused by some wing nut evangelical, that says people should inject and/or swallow bleach and disinfectant.  WTF????  Is this for real??  This is for real.  We're at a new low in many ways and he's leading us there.  Un-fucking-believable.

- On a better note, the roads are still pretty quiet, so we now sometimes see people riding bikes who rarely or never ride.  Including little kids with their parents.  On the road, not just on trails.  I hope this opportunity keeps them interested and it sticks.  It really does prove that people want to ride, but are typically scared off by traffic.  If we can just keep some of the safety after we return to "normal times", maybe these folks will continue to ride.  (Side note:  gas (oil) use is so low that the bottom is falling out of the value of oil on the stock market.  It hit -$37/barrel.  Yes, a negative value.  Even with cheap gas, people are riding their bikes!)  A few cities are closing streets to through traffic (residents can drive there) to allow for more bike and pedestrian space with social distancing.  74 miles in Oakland.  ~10 miles in San Francisco.  Minneapolis and Denver too.  And then there was a nice article in the SF Chron by John King explaining that Berkeley has had a similar system in place for close to 50 years by virtue of the bollards on certain streets.  Seems this could be an unintentional, but useful model for other cities!

What will the next couple of weeks bring?  Stay tuned.