Sheltering in Place Part 1

We are near the end of our first month of sheltering in place. Much has happened in the world. Very little has happened at our house. The huge gaping chasm between official federal government news and what was happening in my own microcosm of Santa Cruz County has narrowed. For example, Mike Pence tells broadcast news reporters that “anyone who wants to can get tested” [for Covid19]. But the email from SC County Kaiser, my medical provider, says anyone showing symptoms should stay home and telephone his/her doctor.  To qualify for a very scarce Covid19 test, a patient must show severe, not just moderate, symptoms, be over 60 or in a high risk group,  and be able to trace known exposure to another Covid19 case.  There is general recognition in California that Trump’s administration was working for his re-election and not for public health.  CA Governor Newsom had to give the Orange One a positive soundbite before Pence would send a USN hospital ship to Los Angeles. Where I live, surrounded by science-deniers, free-will-worshipers, and nose-pickers, the situation has looked dire for weeks.  I tightened up our disinfection protocols in the garage and started wearing a non-medical mask, a Buff balaclava-style, a hat, glasses, immediately washable shoes and outerwear, and nitrile gloves when I had to go to the pharmacy or store.  I may look like the Invisible Man, but I won’t let anyone shame me about my wearing of PPE. Is it wrong to want to save my own neck when I’m not tromping on anyone else’s? Nay! And I hope y’all do the same and glove up your bodies. Don’t wait for the gasbags in DC to tell you to. 

What are we doing in confinement? JG continues to enjoy ham radio but misses seeing his friends in person while they talk radio. I continue to enjoy a home yoga practice. But after the gardening and the housecleaning and the dog-walking and the soup-making and the scone-baking, I’m looking for something to do besides channel my Inner Aunt Shirley.  (“Home is wonderful!”) Our half year of RV living strengthened my resolve to enhance my relationship with the natural world. In practice, that means I did not trap and kill the backyard pocket gopher this year, as in years past.  I set out a putrid rotten egg product, “Repels-All,” and invited the interloper to leave.  It worked, for now.  All sorts of smaller wild birds: sparrows, finches, swallows, wrens, robins, chickadees, juncos, nuthatches frequent our bird bath. We allow a pair of phoebes to nest in the eaves six feet from our front porch even though they defecate all over the front steps. We call them the Good Neighbors, as opposed to the humans next door. So I spread cut-apart grocery bags along the front steps, like lining the bird cage.  Imagine my delight the next day to see the phoebes had indeed let loose on the paper: Bird Shit Bingo!  It made my day. And I can relish the antics of tree squirrels bouncing and skittering now because Marco, age at least 12 in human years, has cataracts and limited vision. It was unsettling at first to see lizards nutmeg him, but all of us grow and change.