PopWars

We used to have a Pussy Willow tree in the backyard of our house in the city. It grew like a weed and I would cut six feet off the branches every year to keep it away from the power lines. We got in the habit of picking fresh bunches for the house. Out here, by the lake, we spotted one on what we think might be park property, the undeveloped part. We keep our eye on the tree and raid it when the time is right.

Only those who are sick have a right to complain so this isn’t a complaint. It is an observation. I am finding it impossible to get anything done during this stay at home shut down. I thought I would be putting dents in all sorts of projects but I spend the whole day reading about the virus, reading about the president’s free-styling, talking to friends and relatives, placing online orders, taking a walk and then worrying. And everyone who has ever picked up a guitar has a down home performance on social media so you can pretty bogged down there.

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I didn’t sleep that good last night so I did an extra dose of walking thinking I will sleep better tonight. It’s hard to get the day started with all the dreadful news and protocol revisals to wade through. And now Vitamin supplements might be good again. It is only 27 degrees so I’m hoping my face was able to take enough of that in.

I love this time of year. Hints of color everywhere after a sustained absence. Spring is so dramatic. More dramatic than the virus.

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We picked our third batch of Forsythia branches today and brought them into the house to replace the first batch that is beginning to fall. This will surely be the last because the bushes are just beginning to flower outside. All I can say about the photo above is that the yellow motorcycle looked cool so I photographed it. It did not look like it was floating.

I don’t shop at Parkleigh but my sister works there and they stayed open through the weekend and then closed, laying of my sister after ten years of loyal service. Everybody has a story like this.

We found the press conference given by the top Medical experts at UR sobering but helpful. We don’t have anywhere near enough tests and there is nothing they can do to treat you if and when you contract the virus. Their top concern is isolating those with it. Keeping health professionals safe and isolating hospital patients with it. Good luck.

This, from Paul Krugman’s column, pisses me off.

“Compare, for example, America’s handling of the coronavirus with that of South Korea. Both countries reported their first case on Jan. 20. But Korea moved quickly to implement widespread testing; it has used the data from that testing to guide social distancing and other containment measures; and the disease appears to be on the wane there.

In the U.S., by contrast, testing has barely begun — we’ve tested only 60,000 people compared with South Korea’s 290,000, even though we have six times its population, and the number of cases here appears to be skyrocketing.”

Meanwhile, we’re working our way through this fantastic playlist.

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NYS prison laborers are making hand sanitizer to keep up with demand. I read an article about how dangerous the grocery store is. The place to go if you want the virus. It fed my suspicions of live shopping. Instead of going in Wegman’s we used their Instacart service and drove up there to pick up the items they had in stock. I was surprised how long an online order takes to fill. Our wait was just over two days.

Our shopper texted us when she began filling the order. They had no dried beans, no canned beans, no beans of any variety. She sent us a photo of the empty shelves. Organic brown eggs. Forget about it. We texted back. “OK, any large eggs.” She texted back, “We have no eggs.”

Out walking today we saw groups of teens. A cluster of girls that wouldn’t give us space on the boardwalk in the park. We had to hold our breath as we passed by. They’re out of school and hanging with their friends. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t have taken any of this seriously at that age.

Our friend Kathy walked by our house this afternoon. She texted us to say say and we waved from the window.

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We got out early in order to beat the rain but it never really came. The temperature was near fifty and queese were overhead heading generally in a northerly direction. There wasn’t much sun out and we didn’t expect the lake to look so dramatic. We came back with so many photos. This was my favorite.

We stopped in the park to chat with some people on our way back. One of the guys in our cluster had come up the road from the direction of the lake and I asked if he had seen the lake. He hadn’t but he said he and his wife lived on Lake Bluff Road for four years and their bedroom looked out over the lake. He said the lake has a different personality every day.

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Joy Adams did these two drawings from memory. They are a tribute to Ducky, a goat she owned for years but had to get rid of. She called him a soulmate and says “in a former life he might have been my husband.” The drawings are featured in Rochester Contemporary’s Makers & Mentors 2020 exhibition and Joy gave an artist’s talk this afternoon along with one of her former students, Lin Price.

Born in England just after the World War her memories of the English countryside reshape what she sees from the window of her barn/studio/home in Ithaca. “There is nothing unique about lavishly prickly weeds or trees dozing off in my backyard, unless I manage to bring something new to how I see them. The challenge is to avoid the predictable because predictability is about as welcome as a cold cuppa tea.”

She told the crowd she tries to tell the truth by moving beyond looking to seeing. Mostly through direct observation. She says the soul that drawings have is the difference between looking and seeing

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