captainsblog | I Quit.

Well, not exactly.

I did, however, make an executive decision this morning- that for the duration of this pandemic until either vaccinations have become routine (AND I've gotten one) or the recent runs of local bad behavior otherwise get under control, I am going back to my initial shutdown April 2020 routine of working from home unless I've got a specific reason to be in one of the offices or out seeing someone. Appointment, mail pickup, printing and scanning- all of those are fine, but just sitting in there for the sake of it with dozens of people a week I don't know who are in the office for closings or cleaning or whatever? I don't need the risk.

And let's be clear- there is risk. These quotes are excerpted from a Facebook post I saw this morning from a local physician who runs several low-income medical clinics in this area. At least a few friends of mine have worked with him in the past:

Yesterday was the toughest day yet in our isolation units. Unlike the last couple weeks, we saw far fewer people who just wanted to be tested in order to go home for the holiday or due to recent travel and instead we saw many more people who were sick. We also heard far more stories from patients with family members who are sick or who have passed away.

At Broadway, we saw 128 people (only 42 of whom were Jericho Road patients) and 17 of 25 rapid tests were positive. Even if none of the other 100+ non-rapid tests I sent to the lab come back positive, we would still have close to a 14% positive rate! I expect the final number to be much higher.

At our Barton health center, we tested 142 people, 59 of whom were our patients. Of the 39 rapid tests we performed there, 15 were positive.

Yesterday, we were notified that the morgue at one of our major hospitals is full and they are waiting for a cooler to store bodies. Hospitals are also going to have to cancel all elective surgeries as of Friday in order to get more rooms and staff available to treat sick patients. Our hospitals are close to being overwhelmed. This is not a good situation.

And STILL, Eleanor, out there every day on the front line, is running into deniers every single time she goes into work. Many are skeptical; some, downright abusive about being asked to follow some simple rules to keep everyone safe.

The doc goes on:

As a healthcare provider and member of the wonderful Buffalo and Western New York community, I am urging you to stay home as much as possible. When you stay home, you help break the chain of transmission for this virus.

I don't know why it hit me so hard when I saw it, but it did. He may not be nominated for an Emmy for his news conferences, or have his mug planted on a donut, but he's a good man with good advice and I'm going to listen to it.

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I may stay clear of this disease, but I've definitely got mixed-up brain cells from SOMETHING.

After the snafus off the past two Mondays, I headed off at 11 Tuesday morning to bring the kittens in for their final round of vaccinations. I booked this appointment over the phone from the vet's parking lot, since they still do not allow humans in the building; only recently did they even let us do the handovers in their vestibule rather than a tech coming out to the car multiple times. I almost called before leaving and wrangling to confirm, because I hadn't gotten the usual barrage of phone calls and texts from them to confirm the appointment. Turns out it was because I'd gotten the date wrong: Boz and Zini were on their calendar for 11 TOMORROW, not YESTERDAY. I knew that was wrong because I was scheduled to be away tomorrow morning. That has now been changed to a virtual appearance in the afternoon, but 11 still wouldn't work for tomorrow because that's when we've rescheduled the gas meter snafu for. Fortunately, I got them to book it earlier, while Eleanor can still be here to welcome Jumpin' Jack Flash (he's a gas gas gas) and I will be back with the kitzels in time to hold down the fort if he hasn't arrived by the time she has to go to work.

Eleanor kindly reminded me that I shouldn't take these mental mishaps too hard- we've all been under incredible stress through this, and slack is in need of cutting. I have learned, though, that any time I make an appointment for anything now, I am going to recite back the whole thing- time, day of week, date, month and even year- just to be sure I, and they, got it right.

If anything does develop with physical or mental health, I am now formally re-upped with my current health plan for another year. The premium actually went down a little, with the deductible going slightly up, but even with a big dent in it back in March over things we never did figure out and never did recur, I'm still about $175 short of hitting it for 2020 with a month to go. Given that it's 2020 we're talking about, I consider that a good sign.

Less good is that all of the gyms I've gone to in the past are now in orange zones and are shut down. They are offering virtual workouts that you bring your own resistance things and dumbbells to, and a couple of OTF studios on the far side of Rochester are still open, but given the good doctor's advice, I don't see going to those in person as an option.

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A few random photos from the past few days:

Conspiracy theories about Biden's election continue to fly- software that adds Democratic candidate totals before they're even turned on, a bizarre bit about a secret CIA station in Germany- but they've missed the obvious one. I saw this pic two days ago and nobody's called it out yet:

He can't be a natural born citizen, Jim. That man's a Vulcan!

And, less political: this one just seen in one local Wegmans car park-

- and this one in the other one last night-

Pepper must've seen that one, too; Eleanor has been going with simpler evening meals on workdays, and last night would have been ham and cheese sammiches on really nice store-bought bread. Turned out to be ham and cheese on fairly old store-bought rolls, because the damn dog got up on the counter while Mommy was downstairs and devoured the entire loaf:P (She's been building a fairly complex multi-level kitty condo for the two n00bs plus any of the others who care to visit it, and left the kitchen unattended just long enough.)

A dog with similar eating issues figures in a Jim Jarmusch film we found on Prime called Paterson- Adam Driver stars as a bus driver who lives in that city and bears that first name, who writes poetry on his breaks and in his basement and really respects the poetic history of the town that includes William Carlos Williams. It's beautifully filmed and understatedly acted- William Jackson Harper, Chidi from The Good Place, has the closest the film comes to an action scene in almost two hours of runtime. But it's the poems that carry it- most narrated by Driver and written by a poet named Ron Padgett. I read one of the shorter ones from it at our own poetry Zoom tonight.

Don't worry. No plans to quit that.