Version 2.011

Things are opening up. Today I got a message from some friends who want to go out to celebrate two birthdays at the Coastal Fish Company, which has a patio. I replied that I would go if they could secure the table on the northwest corner of the patio, which is the one that has the most ventilation, since it's farthest away from the walls and close to the lake. Yes, I have already evaluated the risk of the patio and, since the dinner is scheduled for May 30, I have also thought that there's plenty of time for things to get reassessed and it getting cancelled. I suppose that I could not go, but if I cannot eliminate the risk, I need to learn to manage it. Plus, I still have not ruled out not going.

My neighbor who went to New Jersey to do crisis nursing sent a message. It is hard to tell if she is in good spirits or if she is trying to convince herself more than us. She thinks things are not going well; in fact they are getting worse and access to PPE (personal protective equipment) is not good. After seeing the picture that she sent of herself, I am very concerned. It does not seem like her equipment is sufficient, but maybe she is in an area that does not have direct contact with infected patients. The hospital is supposed to get some PPE in this week. She promised another update on Saturday.

This week I also received an email from my former neighbor in Houston, who is 95. She is being extra-cautious and I am surprised that she has decided to not go golfing. She said some of her friends are going, but she thinks it too risky. I wonder if I will see her again before this is under control. I wonder if I will see a lot of people. I tell myself that nothing has changed, we merely have more information about the existence of a virus, but it existed before we found it, and there are others that remain unknown. The underlying restriction remains:

"We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance."

~ Marcel Proust