Kaskading back to RED

With overnight temperatures dipping down below freezing, the Concerts in the Park are returning for a November encore. This coming weekend, Kaskade is doing a three night set Nov 12-14. It is always interesting to watch them setup the concert venue on top of our dog walking field.

With COVID making an increasingly strong comeback, the testing station down on the other side of our split entry into the RV park has been filled to capacity again these past couple of weeks. It is sad to see after several weeks of watching just a handful of cars going in per day. Definitely can tell that the virus is making a strong comeback in the Bay Area. Expecting to be put back into the red or purple lockdown any day. 

 

Prior to his next run of shows from Nov. 12-14 at Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, Calif., Kaskade fills Billboard in on what it's like returning to the road and playing to cars instead of crowds. link

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WINTER IS COMING!

Without even meaning to the state of Wisconsin held two COVID-19 tests in a month.

After the first Primary election, 67 people tested positive for coronavirus. The second was the anti lock-down protests after which 72 people tested positive for coronavirus. 

The numbers are pretty similar. The difference is during the election 400,000 people stood 6 feet apart, many for hours, quietly, wearing masks.

67 got COVID-19 after visiting polls in state's April 7 election but tie to voting unclear

During the protest, 1500 people stood shoulder to shoulder without masks. Many shouting, which spreads an airborne virus farther and faster.

72 got COVID-19 after being at large event

So it only makes sense they would throw there entire state into the petri dish to do the experiment on a large, no ginormous, scale. 

Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down state's stay-at-home order

Six weeks is when the results from this particular test should be evident. Two weeks to incubate. Two weeks to spread. Then two more weeks for the really sick to start hitting the hospitals in waves. 

I really don't care if YOU wear a mask. If you choose to expose yourself to a deadly disease, it does not affect me at all.

If you are not going to wear a mask, STOP going to the grocery store! Target! Walmart! Where-ever. Order your stuff online. 

Purposely spreading the coronavirus in the US is a terrorist act.

In the past week, some state prosecutors have started to charge coronavirus-related cases as terroristic threat and assault cases.  
dated March 31st 2020

I know, isn't it shocking that you can't purposely make someone else sick just because, "I don't want to wear a mask."
Other people have rights, too!

And raise your hand if you are ripping up those darned socialist checks?

Better not though, they are probably the last government check you are ever going to get. Goodbye social security. Goodbye disability checks. Goodbye unemployment. Goodbye food stamps. And roads, schools, police...

All because when the blue states go belly-up because your Republican Senate won't give them aide, suddenly the Federal government runs out of money. It's not the United States of America, anymore. It's the You Didn't VOTE For Me States of America. Are the red states going to suddenly start paying their own way?

So please, before you go without masks, please be sure to sign your wavier denying ALL medical care if you, in fact, end up with this 'fake' virus. "May the odds be ever in your favor."

Enjoy your summer.

The country is not opening back up because anything at all about this virus has changed. It is opening back up to save the 1%. The 36 million plus out of work, and the recession on the horizon, they aren't worrying about.

A vaccination is still 12 to 18 months off.

Fauci (LINK) delivered the somber warning Tuesday to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions during a hearing about the road to reopening businesses across the nation. U.S. officials have pointed to the development of a vaccine as a key turning point in the Covid-19 pandemic, even though it will take at least 12 to 18 months.

Herd immunity, I know you have heard of it, implies 82-94% of people have had the virus. It is a novel, meaning brand spanking NEW (NO ONE has had it) virus. At least before the last couple of months.

herd im·mu·ni·ty

the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a population that results if a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease, especially through vaccination.

"the level of vaccination needed to achieve herd immunity varies by disease but ranges from 83 to 94 percent"

At the lowest 82% and a 5% death rate, which is lower than the USA has right now AT 5.989%, 13,450,000 people in this country die to gain herd immunity. We are at 86,248, as of May 13th, 2020, and that is a tragedy. link

Or we wait for vaccination.

Or we open up the country, go out and pretend this isn't happening and PRAY the virus doesn't mutate, AGAIN!

Because...WINTER IS COMING!

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Six weeks of Covid

It is late, late on a Monday night. The night following the first time we moved our rig all by ourselves. It has been over eight months of moving every three week, still it was the first time of moving by ourselves. 

Augie, our trusted man with the truck, moved back to Texas on May 9th. 

Wide awake, though exhausted, like I have been every night in forever. Sleep always escapes me in the wee long hours of the night, I am perpetually living in a fog.

I have been have been sick for weeks, at least since the beginning of April. Much longer than how long the Covid19 illness is suppose to last. Having had asthma for almost two decades, I have my own nebulizer machine. 

10 coronavirus symptoms you may not be aware of, from malaise and dizziness to digestive issues

As soon as I began to feel a bit short of breath, I contacted my doctor and was able to get a refill of Albuterol sulfate without an appointment, thanks to the whole pandemic thing. It took almost two weeks to get that prescription filled. Thankfully, I still had some Albuterol left over from the last time I had pneumonia.

It started off with just that, shortness of breath. As long as I laid down I did pretty well. If I didn't talk, I didn't cough. I could almost pretend I wasn't sick. For two weeks I stayed in bed and slept. Occasionally I watched television or played Animal Crossing. 

I could still walk out to the couch and sit out there for a little while, then go back to bed. Nothing so bad to make it feel like this dreadful terrifying pandemic going around. 

Until I stood up. And then I couldn't catch my breath.

Around the second week, husband brought my computer into the bedroom and set it up. At last I had access to the whole wide world. At least what I could reach at RV park internet speeds. 

Well, there were the three days I was suspended from Twitter (for the first time in 11 years, by the way) because Luci Kitty laid down on my keyboard while I was logged in. As I slept, he managed to spam tweet me into a 3 day lockout. 

Then, one day, this is almost three weeks in to this sickness now, I couldn't even stand up. Literally. I was so weak and shaky, my husband had to carry/drag me to the bathroom multiple times. 

My arms were too heavy and painful to even lift them up off of the bed. 

For a couple of days they felt too weak to even hold up my Nintendo Switch (birthday gift from my 'essential' Target worker of the North) to harvest my virtual oranges and cherries. This was a tragedy!

My whole body itched so badly I wanted to rip my skin off. My husband literally got rolls of cotton wrap.  We covered the bed in towels and poured coconut oil over my legs and wrapped them up  just so I could sleep. This was all at between the third and fourth week. 

Since I have fought eczema for years, it never occurred to me that the severity of this rash could actually an other symptom of the COVID disease. 

Are COVID Toes and Rashes Common Symptoms of the Coronavirus?

Still, with the use of the nebulizer, as long as I stayed in bed, my breathing was okay. By this time, we had purchased one of those finger 02 sensor, just to be sure. My oxygen levels have never fallen below 95%.

Along with the weakness and body aches, came the headaches, The only thing that would touch them was ibuprofen. I know I was not supposed to take that, but I was not able to swallow the giant Tylenol pills. The headaches were just so bad, I didn't care and took took ibuprofen.

Updated: WHO Now Doesn't Recommend Avoiding Ibuprofen For COVID-19 

At about the end of the fourth week I started trying to spend more time up our of bed. I could only be up about an hour before I just had to lie down again. And, still the shortness of breath held on. Though I only got snippets of time out of bed, I did manage to sew up some masks during this period of time.

The seven county Bay area of California has finally opened up the parks so people go sit in their cars and watch the sunsets. Social distancing strongly enforced. We drove over to one of my favorite places, RANCHO SAN RAMON COMMUNITY PARK. 

Having not been there in months due to #ShelterInPlace it was so nice to just sit there and watch the sun glistening through the wildflowers. The red winged blackbirds reminded me of being back in Minnesota. Our home on Moon Lake used to just be surrounded by blackbirds. 

I miss their songs. And frogs that serenaded us all spring long. 

It was so nice to get out of the RV and just breath the fresh Spring air.




Then, unbelievably, I hit the nausea and vomiting phase! 

WTF universe! 

After those wicked hours passed, I slept for the next eighteen hours straightish. A couple more days without getting out of bed at all. 

This stuff is relentless. 

Finally, I decided that even though my breathing issues have never been serious enough to think I needed to go to the hospital, I thought perhaps I should talk to a doctor.

Starting in June, they will try and find me a doctor! Since I don't think it is life threatening way more people are ahead of me. 

**Update: July 20th. After a round of blood tests for regular physical, doctor comes up with COVID-19 diagnosis from back in the spring. Hopefully it is enough to give me some immunity going forward.

Once I was back on my feet again, or at least back out to the couch more than the bed, I tried to do a bit of walking. Just once around the RV park and I was completely breathless.  I did manage to take a couple of photos of what has become the new COVID-19 testing site.

Not being able to walk but a few yards made me feel lazy and useless like I had been completely wasting my time and not just recovering from having been dreadfully sick. After all, just weeks earlier, we were out walking two to three miles at a time when taking Rocco for his walks.

It is way to easy to hear voices in your head tearing you down, even when you are sick in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.

Then there are the people online on more than willing to jump right on board and join into that destructive band of drummers. No science, just opinions! 

All of which will lead to one of my favorite quotes of all time from the TV series Leverage:

Hardison: “...there might be some side effects.”

Parker: “Like what?”

Hardison: “Organ failure, death, deathlike symptoms.”

Parker: “I vote for plan B.”

But the trolls persist.

"It's a hoax...no one actually knows 

anyone who has actually gotten sick."

"Don't wear a mask. It will MAKE YOU SICK!"

Or, my personal favorite.

"Just let the weak DIE!"

After another two weeks, I am starting to feel almost normal.

Somewhere in the midst of this we had Easter, my birthday and Mother's day. Like everything else happening right now, they just got lost to this pandemic world.

Wear a mask, because this is what being 

NOT so SICK you have to be hospitalized with 

COVID-19 is like.

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Alameda County Fairgrounds

These are the lines of people waiting to get into first COVID-19 testing site in our area. Hundreds of people waiting. These pictures were taken an hour before testing even started.

Only the sick are being tested at this point. Three news stations, helicopters overhead fifty yards from our front door. It is a circus.

Last autumn, we gave up a lot of 'things' to chase a dream. At the moment, we are full-time RVers living in Alameda County Fairgrounds-COVID-19 testing site.

As I watch people protesting with 'give me liberty or give me death' signs, without seeming to grasp the irony, I am gobsmacked. There is nothing I have in this world I wouldn't give up for the 'things' that matter most to me.

There is no dream I would continue to chase, no property I would fight to protect if it put one of those precious things on the line. Right now, those are literally the wonderful familiar sweet voices on the other end of the phone.

The grandbabies waving in videos. Dancing and giggling and happy.

The people sending me virtual fruit and those posting up stunningly beautiful drawings made in quiet quarantine.

Protests, if any, should be to get more PPE for healthcare workers, grocery store workers and all essential workers. More food and housing for the vulnerable. Testing and healthcare!

Save lives! The rest is just stuff.

A second wave is coming, and it is going to be worse than the first. Now truly is the time for all those thoughts and prayers. Stay home now for the people you love most.❤️

New Coronavirus Testing Site Opens in East Bay

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Bacon, bacon, bacon

The Governor of California just set $125 million for undocumented people in the state. Sadly, that upset a bunch of people. But, look at South Dakota right now.

The country just lost a large portion of the meat industry because a pork processing plant in SD did not protect their workers and now their factory is closed indefinitely.

Iowa, the heartland of America, had over a 200% increase in COVID cases just last week.

California produces almost half of the food consumed by the US ($20 billion more than the second highest state which is Iowa) and we set aside a measly $125 million to protect the workers.

If you thought not being able to find toilet paper was annoying, because they could not get if from the warehouses fast enough, watch the food chain dry up.

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