to be continued

We're still carrying on in the lockdown period, but I think the cats - who never went outside even before - are going a little stir-crazy. Tybalt has taken literally to bouncing off the walls - he'll run at an angle, and jump up on the wall to take off in a different direction - and he gets more insistent on playtime, meowing loudly until we acquiesce. Unfortunately, as his most active times coincide with my sleepiest, things don't always go as he wants.

It's also beginning to get warmer, lovely time to be cooped up inside, and not much better broiling outside, and the cats are reacting to that too; Tybalt lying stretched out in the manner of "the cat was thiiiis long" jokes, while Maia curls up like a pill bug.

Our nephew is still doing our weekly shopping, plagued by intermittent shortages: eggs one week, cooked chicken meat the next, frozen desserts (!), toilet paper still going on. This may have to continue for some time. I'm very concerned about premature re-openings, and here is Mr Drum explaining why. And our leadership: he has something to say about that too; the thought that there are still people prepared to vote for this guy astounds me; if you don't like the current alternatives, get another one, or just stay home, which is what you're expecting the opponents who don't like the alternatives to do.

In the meantime, there's rough times for the economy, but there are ways to mitigate the suffering for individuals, if the government is willing to do it, without sacrificing lives in a pandemic, though some claim willingness to pay that price, at least in the form of other people's lives. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has just now given up on the remaining dregs of its season, which I was expecting to happen, just not quite this fast. Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation, the last self-service buffet restaurant that was really good (there were some not so good) has announced its permanent closure; I'll miss their clam chowder. One of the local orchestras has just sent out a patron survey asking nervously what it would take to get us back in the concert hall, and what substitutes we'd otherwise accept. My answers will not thrill them: no amount of social-distance cautioning will get me in the concert hall while the virus thrives; it'll have to go away on its own (possible: the 1918 pandemic eventually did) or a reliable vaccine be available, and another chart from Mr Drum explains why: concerts and theater are up in the upper right with restaurants and weddings. I'm keeping my contacts in the lower left and trying to minimize those.

In the meantime, I'm reading, and writing, and more on that later ...