Paw

The rose bushes look lively, hoping for a good bloom this spring.





The clover is taking over nicely.



Cats have taken up their proper sunning area.








I woke to Eleanor's paw on my face, and the sound of woodpeckers outside. She was not taking "I have to get up" as an answer. That chin ain't gonna scritch itself. Then Zeppo appeared, wanting one of my hands and a belly rub. When he purrs, there is no hearing woodpeckers anymore. A jackhammer would be drowned out.

The graph here is not behaving the same as in other places. So far, a much smaller percentage have died, it's not spreading as fast. Perhaps because our cities are less densely populated, skews very young, much lower smoking rates, even some genetic natural immunity. The wave could simply crest later and just as badly. Our state does not have a quarantine order, but here in our largest city, we do. Our hospitals are also set up not just for the local population, but for a vast semi-rural area. Since we are doing nothing but urgent cases and COVID-19, there is a certain amount of reserve, that a place like NYC could never sustain.

And even the plague, the Black Death, could be capricious, like a tornado. Destroy everything here, completely skip there. This is the problem with prevention, you can never be sure that it's what worked.


Reading about Detroit, and it's devastating the Black community, for whom diabetes, obesity, asthma and cardiac issues are endemic. My poor hometown. Those poor people. Detroit is called the Biggest Southern City in the North, so many moved there both after the Civil War and during Jim Crow, to get jobs in factories. Black workers didn't get quite as good a deal with the Unions, but it was comparable, it was steady. They could build wealth for their families, at least for a while. The South will look very similar, say those who are tracking this and have real data at hand. It's not about skin color, but oppression and poverty.

There but for merest chance, go I. For my kin were shanty Irish and Rivard Canard French, subsistence farmers and barely schooled. I will not take my good fortune for granted, nor will I feel guilt should I survive. The living may envy the dead, never the other way round.

I cleaned the kitchen, including mopping, yesterday. We don't usually cook that much here in a week, and I'd gotten neglectful. A little painting on the front porch. Weeding as per. Hoping for rain this afternoon.