American Sycamore and American Elm

Out of the house this beautiful morning just after nine, not quite 70 degrees and mostly sunny and not humid.

Stopped at a CVS for shaving supplies and at B&N for a giant iced coffee, then off to the Riverfront Park for a walk and some time refreshing myself on my Audubon bird book and equally large and beautiful tree book.

The two trees in the subject line are the types planted along the area where I always try to park, overlooking the boat launch and the Monongahela, just downstream from the Birmingham Bridge.

Canadian Geese are all over the place and bold as you please, very slow to get out of the way of a honking car.

Robins, starlings, and various sparrows were abundant.

Yesterday there was a female turkey (not a turkey vulture – the heads and necks are markedly different) and the day before there were numerous crows or ravens, not sure which.

I’ve never seen a deer in this park – probably too hard to get to with rail lines and highways and housing and the river cutting off the park in all directions – but there was a big doe this morning right across the street from the house on Cedar, munching on a neighbor’s shrub.

Home for brunch just after noon, I made some odd hash using parboiled potatoes fried in butter, a half strip of cooked bacon broken up to bits and maybe an eighth of a cup of chopped sweet onions with a couple leftover pieces of green pepper, nuked in a bit of butter and mixed with grated parmesan into an egg scrambled with water.

Seasonings for the potato butter and onion butter were salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and paprika.

Fry the potatoes in their butter and then turn off the heat and add everything else. The heat in the pan cooks the egg as you mix everything.

I feared it might be awful but it was great.

Add half a glass of skim milk on the side to take your vitamins with and it’s maybe 350 or so calories.

Supper tonight will be leftover curry chicken and chicken wings.

They’re Chinese delivery and the menu is silent on the calorie load.

A friend with whom I keep in daily touch is fine today.

She was a friend of my late wife's pretty much all her life, and lives alone as I have done since my wife passed, a week after Valentine's Day this year, and neither of us has anyone better suited left locally to notice if we fall over and can't get up, or drop dead.

When I called her just before noon from the park she had already taken a friend for a bone marrow test at an outpatient center that was called off because of anesthesia allergy issues.

The friend is as tall as Norma, maybe 5' 9" or 5' 10", she said, and weighs 90 pounds.

It’s not anorexia, it’s that eating is immediately followed by crippling, screaming stomach pain.

The friend is in her early sixties and the test was rescheduled for a hospital where they can use different anesthesia.

I don’t recall her name as Norma rarely mentions her and we've never met during all the years my wife was alive or since.

The poor woman has been in this sort of bad way, apparently, for decades.

Compared with that – or indeed with most things – being the fatso that I have again become, hovering around a blubbery 240 – is not so bad.

But not really good, either.

At the park, pretty much nobody wore a mask at all, and of those who did just under half were using them as chin or neck ornaments.

Bicyclists, walkers, runners, it didn't matter.

Even along Carson Street on the way home pretty much no one was wearing a mask.

Masks are mandatory wherever outdoors distancing can't be maintained but there has been and is absolutely no enforcement effort, mostly because the classe politique is bitterly divided on the matter.

We Americans would be half of us killed pretty soon by a virus as contagious as Covid-19 but as deadly as Ebola.

Our economy and social order would be utterly destroyed.

Maybe I'll watch Contagion, today or tonight.

Coronavirus: Los Angeles to shut off water and power to party houses

Oh, swell

I've been fattening up since the start of the virus chaos, about the time my wife passed after five months of struggle in a variety of medical institutions.

Grief plus way too much bored time in to close proximity to a kitchen.

Just in time for this bad news about the virus for the fat.

US obesity epidemic could undermine effectiveness of a Covid-19 vaccine

Scientists know that vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies can be less effective in obese adults than in the general population, leaving them more vulnerable to infection and illness. 

There is little reason to believe, obesity researchers say, that Covid-19 vaccines will be any different.

. . . .

As intensive care units in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere filled with patients, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that obese people with a body mass index of 40 or more — known as morbid obesity or about 100 pounds overweight — were among the groups at highest risk of becoming severely ill with Covid-19. About 9% of American adults are in that category.

As weeks passed and a clearer picture of who was being hospitalized came into focus, federal health officials expanded their warning to include people with a body mass index of 30 or more. 

That vastly expanded the ranks of those considered vulnerable to the most severe cases of infection, to 42.4% of American adults.

Beautiful morning at the Riverfront Park

Lovely weather at the Southside Park.

Walked about a half mile.

Then sat in the car, parked under a tree with a fine view of a boat-launching area on the river, just downriver of the Birmingham Bridge, and read for close to two hours.

A lot of people walked, ran, bicycled, or drove by my parked car, maybe 20% wearing masks.

Drove from there to a B&N for the next book in a series by John Scalzi, and thence to a Burger King for the first meal of the day.

And thence home.

Rain off an on for the last couple hours, with lightning.

My wife was beautiful.

I never tired of her smile.

It was 80 degrees at 8 this morning

92 and thunderstorms expected today.

It's midnight and it's 80 degrees

Back porch thermometer says 95 F right now.

Accuweather also say 95 for Mt Lebanon, right now.

Humidity is low, however.

83 F when I left the house at 10. 91 F when I got home again just after 12.

Not especially humid, though.

Out to the B&N and then the Giant Eagle pharmacy and then the Riverfront Park where I read for a while and walked for a while.

Then a stop at the Dollar Store for bread and junk food.

Then home.

Masks outdoors and social distancing are mandatory.

Geezers wore masks and stayed clear, while the young said in their hearts "Fuck you!" and, maskless, ignored distancing.

Four months to the day since my wife passed.

"We must've been married in a previous life."

My wife used to say that, once in a while, as she used to say she wished we'd met sooner so we'd have had more time.

And just now, as I was watching an old episode of The Mentalist, a suspect told Jane that his murdered lover used to say that to him, that they must've been married in a previous life.

And as soon as he said it I thought if I could be married to Judy again I'd want to be reincarnated, that I would love to be, I would look forward to it.

And before that thought struck reincarnation had never seemed to me an attractive picture of human immortality.

But if I could be with her again I would be so happy, so happy all over again.

Sorry. Just working through my grief.

. . . .

Oh, Judy! I love you so much.

What's happening to this planet?

The idea of stable ecosystems is childish twaddle, and always has been.

Evolution never stops, not of species, and not of whole ecosystems.

But this does seem pretty quick.

Insect mass extinctions?

Almost 10:30 pm EDT and no outside noises at all.

Not the crickets of fall.

Not the frogs and  louder bugs of hot summer.

I still haven't seen a honey bee. And damned few bumble bees. And only one hornet. Or wasp, whichever.

It's almost June.

I haven't seen a single firefly, but they usually show up in numbers in July.

Where are the Mayflies?

Come to that, where are any flies?

We've got ants - carpenter ants - in what appear usual numbers/

No grasshoppers?

The Coronavirus haircut

My sister in law, Nancy, sent pics of my kid brother Chuck, after she gave him his first haircut in months.

Simple but elegant, eh?

Well, I had to reply.

It's yellow because of the shade on the lamp next to me.

I'm speaking to Nancy.

Yup. Masks off.

Just above 80 and a bit humid, today, though nothing like July or August.

Schenley oval was at its most crowded and the tennis courts were open. Some were in use.

No masks, today, on all those people, except for one elderly lady walking alone.

Odd the tents are still up on the courts along Cedar Blvd, and there is still a sign saying they’re closed and another saying the professional tennis event is cancelled this year.

Those signs have been there for well over a month.

Seems to be darkening up. Might rain.

We had not quite five years of retirement together, the wife and I.

I retired at the end of February, 2015.

She died this year on February 21st.

She had retired a year earlier than I, fearing an early death and disliking the job she then had.

We were so in love, every day, all day.

We were happy, cooped up together all the time.

We loved each other's company.

I so miss my sweet wife.

Masks off?

Pittsburgh flipped from red to yellow yesterday, on the governor’s color coded scheme.

Riverside Park, where I went for today's walk, was the most crowded I’ve seen this season.

Exactly two people wore masks, which makes me wonder if they are actually sick.

Just a couple days ago everybody there wore a mask, including me.

The marina is well packed today with boats, and lots more were on the water.

A large parking area is reserved for vehicles with boat trailers and it was full.

There is a public landing and it was constantly in use with people putting boats into or taking them out of the Mon.

I have never seen a nest but the Canadian geese that have been hanging around for more than a month are outnumbered now by their own brown-feathered young.

On the other hand, traffic on 88, Brownsville Road, 18th Street, Carson street, and most of the others I drove today was still absurdly light for a Saturday afternoon.

Most retailers still closed and I guess the bars on Carson can’t open yet.

My mom passed this morning

Lorraine Auclair died at 9 am CDT in the Benedictine Living Center in Garrison, ND.

She was pretty far into Alzheimer's and hadn't conversed or shown signs of recognition in some time.

My brother Chuck called to tell me, and then I spoke with his wife Nancy.

Mom was dressed this morning and seemed fine, as usual. She was sitting peacefully in a chair in a sun room. People checked on her a couple times and noticed she seemed pale. She was unresponsive and remained so when moved to her bed.

She had just turned 94 earlier this month.

She will be cremated in Bismarck and sent to a cemetery in Paxton, Massachusetts, where my father, Joseph Auclair, has awaited her since he was cremated and buried after dying at 83 in 2001.

When he died many attended a funeral service at the cemetery, but since then everyone of their generation, siblings and their spouses on both sides and even their cousins, has died.

Those of us of the next generation who would wish to can't travel in the face of the virus, and some are unable anyway.

She was Catholic.

Say a prayer.

Western PA is yellow, today

This writer grossly exaggerates the difference made by this change of stage along the path to rollback as complete as we will get.

Back to business: How will life be different under Gov. Wolf’s yellow phase?

As southwestern Pennsylvanians wake up today, the nightmare of shelter-in-place orders and sweeping business closures will be a cautionary memory.

So our long statewide nightmare is over? Really?

Gov. Tom Wolf last week promised to bump counties including Allegheny, Butler, Washington and 10 others into the “yellow phase” of his reopening plan on May 15, which eases social gathering guidelines and permits some businesses, including in-person retail, to reopen.

The yellow phase is something of a twilight zone, neither fully closed nor open.

On Friday, it’ll be OK to go outside if people continue to practice social distancing. 

It’ll be OK to gather for weddings or funerals if there are fewer than 25 people. 

It’ll be OK to go shopping, although stores may have reduced hours and occupancy. 

And it’ll be OK to go to work if employers follow building safety protocols, although county and state leaders insist that those who can work from home continue to do so.

Who says prohibitionists are stupid, malevolent, or both?

Mexico: adulterated alcohol deaths rise to over 100 amid ban on official sales

Booze is back in PA, so I hit a state store this morning and did some minor hoarding.

Just in case.

My mother didn't eat, today.

She was living with my brother in North Dakota when her Alzheimer's got too bad.

Then she went into an assisted living place.

Now she's pretty much just staring at a wall and has been moved to a different, more specialized facility.

Doesn't speak, doesn't seem to notice being spoken to, I'm told.

My sister in law says today she didn't eat at all.

Her birthday was May 3, and she turned 94.

She outlived my father in more ways than one. He died at 83 in 2001.

What an awful spring this has been.

Spring is coming

Thursday will be the first day of a week with hi temps above 70, and a couple days around 80.

Until then, still chilly.