"The robins try to talk to me and tell me to go to the garden and dig around so they can get worms, they have eaten all my strawberries and have started on the blueberries."So like robins! Thank goodness they didn't get all the strawberries; for me personally, it's been a grand 6 weeks of strawberries. I think I'm eating at least two pints of them a week, with other berries and nuts and yogurt. My breakfast-lunch, and it keeps me going until about 5, when, like the robins, my stomach wishes to start on something else. This is inconvenient because we're not really scheduling dinner until 6:30 - 7:30 PM, pretty much as we have for years.
It's been crazy around here with all the Protests -- we're right in the middle of all the marches coming up out of Brooklyn, coming down from Harlem -- all heading one way or another before or after to Washington Square Park, City Hall Park and so on. We were ground zero for the really bad weekend of looting, with fires and the rest. That was scary. And now everyone is acting as though covid's over, and the people coming in from everywhere to drunkenly howl cheek by jowl, w/o masks or distance, and keeping the vulnerables inside -- the restaurants have taken all the sidewalk space, the parking lanes, a lot of STREET space and the small parks for their tables and bars. There is no where for a pedestrian to keep distance -- and bikers are also riding straight at one on both streets and sidewalks. At some point I expect drunks and drivers will duke it out . . . .
El V, B and I go out after 11 PM, to meet in one of the little parks here, with masks, gloves, our own stools, wine and glasses and sanitizer, and sit 6 feet away and chat. It's really nice. We are very close and very long time friends. We know he's as careful as we are, and vice versa. I cook and give B stuff, he bakes and gives us stuff, he's always bringing items from Trader Joe's that I might be out of like onions -- how many onions I use a week is rather astounding. And so has become my spice and herb collection for that matter!
For Juneteenth the pastors, black and white, of a consortium of churches in New England, asked us to conduct a two hour teach in via Zoom around The American Slave Coast. This was recorded with the pastors asking us questions that we tried to answer, for them to show their congregations this last Friday. It was a rather exhausting thing since el V and I had to be in a single Zoom box, as having both our computers up and running meant having two microphones open at the same time, and that caused a feedback loop. So we shut mine down. But as I was in el V's window, which was supposed to be only for a single person, I couldn't move, because, when I did shift, even a tiny bit, my 'portrait' kept blinking in and out, like some sort of weird teleportation action. That was hard, physically.
El V's continuing the production and editing of the video shot in 2019 and January of 2020 of religious ceremonies. He's taught himself how to use the programs necessary to do all this -- which is very difficult. But he's amazing smart and talented, which once again he just demonstrated. He's and I work together to keep the domestic situation operating. Before, he was gone so much that even when he was home there was no point in him paying attention to all that. Now that we're fairly closed down and can't travel and everything is much more difficult and time-consuming due to safety, he's pitched right in. We've been so lucky with whom we are living with.
El V has experienced some spooky health concerns, but they are getting resolved at least, with this reopening, meaning he's been able to have tests, CAT scans and sonograms, and we have learned that nothing is life threatening, i.e. not tumors or infected lymph nodes and so on.
Then my debit card number got hacked, as we learned last weekend from an inquiry text from the bank regarding a charge's legitimacy as we were enjoying a splendid Saturday night dinner. We checked the bank account, and since the 17th the number was racking up charges all over the country! We reported it to the bank, we reported it to the police, the bank reported it to the police, el V got a temp card and a print out of all the charges, and I already have my new card. Thank goodness, because someone tried to use it with a money transfer site -- 5 figures worth, which would have emptied our account all right! But it looks as of today, that that charge never went through.
How they got my debit card number I don't know. I haven't even used the card in months, and certainly not since sometime in April when I used it, over the phone to the service that fills the cash card key with which we can turn on the washers and dryers in the basement. But it certainly spoiled that rarity of perfect balance of peace and contentment and enjoyment that we had been experiencing up to that text message.
The weather has been wonderful until now with the scorching heat having come in. Nor has it rained for days, after at least two years when it rained nearly every day, and sometimes for several days in a row, and there wouldn't be sun for days. We could use rain now.
I'm glad you're so well, C. I wish we could be sitting in your garden like we used to. Dinner parties, o, like you, how we miss dinner parties! But I think we're kinda stuck with this, at least we here, until deep into next year at the least, since deathcultchief and his cultists are racing around the country and spiking all the new cases by the thousands. The cases all around the country are spiking as badly as they did here in April.
Yet everyone is acting as though covid's over, and the people coming in from everywhere to stand in place, drunkenly howl, cheek by jowl, w/o masks or distance, and keeping vulnerables inside. The restaurants have taken all the sidewalk space, the parking lanes, a lot of STREET space and the small parks for their tables and bars. At some point I expect drunks and driver will duke it out . . . .
For another thing, the cases among the under thirty demographic are spiking the highest, and that age group is everywhere, including here, and nowhere, including here, are they practicing any of the safety protocols for themselves or others. They are now the superspreaders.
The Young are of course among us all, wherever we are. They are where we / you are. And as Young will do / do do, as we did, they move around a lot -- to and from parents, back to apartment, to lover's place in another state, back home here, to visit a friend in another city, back home here. Despite what these governors think they can do to stop it.
In another couple weeks, hoo boy. Fortunately, it seems people in the Protests aren't sick or getting each other sick either. They wear masks, and they keep moving, and they are outdoors -- unlike the political yahoos cheering for the man who can send them to the hospital and if they come out alive, they come out accompanied by a million dollar bill.
But [Your Town] continues to thrive, to continue healthy, with the actions of its wonderful residents like you. I'm so glad there is a [Your Town], that has such wonderful people in it, and is so beautiful.
Love, Us
P.S. Cuba, by the way, is CRUSHING the virus. Alas though, they are having serious food shortages. .
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