Quote of the Day -- Octavia Butler

Habit is persistence in practice. 

-- Octavia Butler

Quote of the Day -- Leon Megginson

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. 

-- Leon Megginson

A COVID-19 List

For some unfathomable reason, encouraging your Facebook friends to copy and paste something you've written is a thing. I don't do it, just like I never used to respond to chain letters. I was always the one who broke the chain. But my "outlaw" (what do you call your son-in-law's mother?) posted this. It's a decent summary of all the things that have changed so dramatically in the last 3 weeks. So for posterity...

Just so I NEVER forget..... April 2, 2020

Gas price a few miles from home was $2.45

School closed until at least May 4th but likely rest of year.

Self-distancing measures on the rise.

Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other.

Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.

Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.

Entire sports seasons cancelled.

Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.

Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.

No gatherings of 50 or more, then 10 or more.

Don't socialize with anyone outside of your home.

Children's outdoor play parks are closed.

We are to distance from each other.

Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.

Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.

Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.

Shelves are bare.

Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.

Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.

Fines are established for breaking the rules.

Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients. Central Park setup by samaritans purse for patients.

Press conferences daily from the President. Wine with Dewine, Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths.

Barely anyone on the roads.

People wearing masks and gloves outside.

Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.

Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.

This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020.

Why, you ask, do I write this status?

One day it will show up in my memory feed, and it will be a yearly reminder that life is precious and not to take the things we dearly love for granted.

We have so much!

Be thankful. Be grateful.

Be kind to each other - love one another - support everyone.

Quote of the Day -- Warren Buffet

The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

-- Warren Buffett

Quote of the Day -- Ray Bradbury

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers. 

-- Ray Bradbury

Science Rising Above Politics in the Age of COVID-19

Politicians just can't help themselves. Their world view values winners and losers, not collaboration. We see glimpses of global cooperation by political leaders, but only glimpses.

Scientists, on the other hand, are completely ignoring national boundaries in their race to find tests, treatments, and a vaccine for deadly COVID-19.  We don't know how the pandemic will play out on the world stage as the situation becomes increasingly dire and countries are vying for scarce resources. But as this article in the NY Times highlights, for now, at least we can rely on the scientific community to come together as never before. And that should give us all hope.

Quote of the Day -- Alexander Hamilton

When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government; bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind. 

-- Alexander Hamilton

COVID-19 and Scary Numbers

Little by little, people (even the President, at last) are facing the shocking reality that exponential growth of COVID-19 cases and deaths is staring us in the face. Last night, a somber President Trump abandoned any pretense that we'd be getting back to normal by Easter. He said, instead, that we are looking at a very, very bad couple of weeks and that we need to practice social distancing at least until the end of April.

Current projections are that if we do most things right, between 100k and 200k people will die. If we do nothing, it will be more than 1 million. It's both terrifying and unbelievable. Even though we are essentially locked in our homes except for walks around the neighborhood or brief trips to the grocery store, it still seems unreal. We don't see evidence of disaster except on TV (and on the empty streets). On the other hand, it is hard to imagine how we will emerge from this situation any time soon. We were woefully unprepared to fight the virus, and we're equally unprepared to figure out who can safely return to work

People are working frantically to come up with answers and solutions. When pushed to the wall, Americans usually come through. At this point, it's a waiting game.

20 for 2020 -- 1st Quarter Scorecard

If I don't think I can do something well, I won't try it. I seldom make New Years resolutions -- and I certainly don't share them -- because of fear of failure, especially public failure. in a probably related vein, back in the days when we wrote college papers on a typewriter (before computers or even word processors), I would rewrite the first page of a paper dozens of times until it felt perfect. Then I would start typing and the rest of the paper would just flow. And when I started doing Web pages at work, I focused as much on the formatting as the content. And when I got the "front page" right, the rest would flow.

Fast forward to 2020. As I've mentioned several times, I often listen to a podcast called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. She and her sister Elizabeth explore many aspects of happiness, human nature, and good habits. They read widely, but they also reveal a lot about their personal lives and their foibles, which often makes me cringe. Elizabeth, in particular, often shares aspirational, even outrageous goals, and then just shrugs when she doesn't quite get there. (Although I don't think she shrugs in her heart of hearts.) 

At the end of 2017, they started a project called 18 for 2018, inspired by a listener. It was a different, fun twist on the idea of New Years resolutions. The idea blossomed, and now we're up to 20 for 2020. I've made lists but never made them public in any way. Which brings me to writing papers and formatting Web pages. I've never been able to write a journal consistently, and I think that comes partly from the inability to polish a hand-written journal and make it look pretty. Hence this blog, which I have made no effort to publicize. It's really my pretty private journal, even though I fully realize it is out there in the world if anyone bothers to find it.

I'm going to take a giant leap here and post my 20 for 2020. The year is 1/4 complete and I've made decent progress, so I guess I'm prepared to make them official (and pretty). Notice that most of them have a "2" or a "20" in them, just for fun and to help me structure my list. I've assigned the theme "Consistency and Completion with a Dollop of Compassion." As I started 2020, I wouldn't say any of those three C's was a particular strength of mine, but I hope to work on all of them.  Here goes:

MIND
1. Increase my book challenge by 20% (60 x 1.2 = 72). COVID-19 has made it pretty easy to hit a home run here. I read 25 books in the first quarter.

2. Read at least 20% non-fiction. Home run here, too. 7 of my 25 books were non-fiction.

3. Write 20 travel-related blog posts. (As a side note, the main purpose of this item is to write stories of the various artifacts that decorate our home so the kids will know their origin tales.) I'm a little behind on this one. I've only written 3 so far this year. Time to step it up.

4. Post 20 Grants in Action for HEF. Big zero. I should make this one of my social isolation projects.

5. Play the piano at least 20 minutes a day that I am home. I'd give myself a B here. It's a bit harder to be motivated when social isolation has halted my piano lesson. But I'm enjoying playing old music.

BODY 
6. Exercise 20 minutes daily. (I haven't been religiously tracking, but I'd give myself a solid A- here. I've missed a few days, but not many.)

7. Achieve Noom "Red Victory" 2 days per week. (At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, I used Noom -- partly to see what all the hype was about. It was helpful for awhile, but I really struggled with what I considered an unrealistic limitation on what Noom calls "red foods" -- basically higher in fat and carbs. It did make me think a bit more about the kinds of food I eat, but ultimately, I felt rebellion which wasn't constructive. So I discontinued Noom, and I probably need to substitute something else for this item.)

8.  Crack the 120's. This felt pretty aspirational when I wrote it, but I am making better progress than I've made in quite a few years. Hopeful... and amazing if it happens.

9. Reduce A1C by .2 at every test. I seem to be making good progress. Only my next doctor's appointment will tell.

10. Practice yoga 2 x per week when I'm in town. I give myself a B+ here. I finally found a class at the Y that I liked and then self-isolation happened. Our former yoga teacher is doing virtual classes, so I'm hoping to improve this score.

SOCIAL  
11. Have lunch with friends 20 times. Obviously, this is a problem right now. I was doing well before isolation happened. I'll have to up my game when we get back out there.

12. Communicate with travel friends 20 times. Social isolation made this one happen easily. I think we're all reaching out to our friends around the world.

13. Have 2 "cousin dinners." Zero so far. This will have to be third and fourth quarters of this year, I think.

14. Have solo outing with each grandchild 2 x. Only 1 with Charlie so far. But we've done Zoom story time with Norah a couple times.

15. Volunteer at the GV library 20 times. 7 so far this year. And now the library is closed. But I think this will happen.

RESPONSIBILITIES
16. Reduce clutter by 20%. Definitely making progress.

17. Finish 2 important documents:
      a. Blue "nutshell" notebook
      b. Advanced health care directive

      Not much progress but hoping to do both of these during self-isolation

18. Finish 2 history notebooks for each child. Again, not much progress but hoping to do these during self-isolation

19. Hang 20 pictures at the Lake. We're discouraged from going to the Lake. So zero progress to date.

20. Give myself 20 pats on the back if I finish all this. There's hope!! 

Quote of the Day -- Soren Kierkegaard

Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

-- Soren Kierkegaard