Part twenty-one of my ongoing journal entries about life in the time of the 2020-2022 Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Previous posts: Part One (Jan-Mar, 2020). Part Two (April 2020). Part Three (May 2020). Part Four (June 2020). Part Five (July 2020). Part Six (August 2020). Part Seven (September 2020). Part Eight (October 2020). Part Nine (November 2020). Part Ten (December 2020). Part Eleven (January 2021). Part Twelve (February 2021). Part Thirteen (March 2021). Part Fourteen (April 2021). Part Fifteen (May 2021). Part Sixteen (June 2021). Part Seventeen (July-August 2021). Part Eighteen (September-October 2021). Part Nineteen (November-December 2021). Part Twenty (January-February 2022).
March 7
Laurie arrived on March 3, about 5 hours later than expected after missing her tight connection at JFK, but no matter; she’s here now. We spent a few days getting her settled and going to various places to shop, including to the Apple and AT&T stores for a new iPhone after it was determined her older Android phone was no longer compatible with AT&T’s 5G upgrade. Many hours have been subsequently spent getting her iPhone set up the way she wants it with her various apps. It’s an ordeal but hopefully one she won’t have to endure for another 5 years or so.
We’ve eaten well, dining first at Ananda where we shared Gobinda (roasted cauliflower) and a very nice fish curry. On Saturday I grilled a nice steak dinner with baked potato and asparagus. On Sunday, Laurie and I drove down to Tyson’s Corner, Virginia to see Allison Russell at Wolf Trap Barns. We had dinner at Founding Farmers, my first time at the restaurant after many years of aborted attempts at its DC branch. This was the first day of the “People’s Convoy” protest of truckers clogging up the DC Beltway so I opted to drive out through Frederick and Leesburg. Unfortunately, I miscalculated the time (or Google misinformed me, I prefer to believe) and we ended up at the restaurant about 30 minutes late for our 5:30pm reservation. We were seated promptly but the timing put a crimp in our dinner. We had a disappointing appetizer of Blue Cheese Bacon Dates, then shared entrees of Scallop Risotto and Spicy Fried Chicken & Jefferson Donut. Each dish was competent and tasty but nothing really outstanding. Now I’ve done Founding Farmers and don’t feel any big rush to hurry back…except that we forgot to get the Kettle Corn to go that Barb requested. Sorry.
On Sunday and Monday, Laurie started really going through her stored belongings in our basement. It will be a long process, involving many decisions about what to keep, throw away or donate to Goodwill…plus there’s the whole matter of dealing with the fuzz from years of Busty hiding in her stuff and the accumulated dust of our basement.
For a break on Monday, we went into old Ellicott City and got lunch at Syriana. The food was very tasty but for some reason I wasn’t feeling 100% and brought most of it home. I had some later that night after tennis and the rest of it the next day. It’s a nice little cafe and I really should make a point of going more often.
Our plans for the rest of the week include dinner at Dok Khao Thai Eatery tonight, a trip to Havre de Grace to see Laurie’s Philadelphia friends Anne and Michael at The Vineyard Wine Bar, and a birthday lunch at Cured on Thursday after Laurie’s visit with her TIAA financial advisor. Then on Saturday it’s off to Nashville and our real vacation. So far I’ve managed to continue to drop a few pounds since Laurie arrived. We’ll see how long that lasts.
In the rest of the news, Covid continues to recede, thankfully, though in the U.S. more than worldwide. We unceremoniously passed 6 million total deaths globally. Here in Maryland, we are a little less rigorous about wearing masks indoors in crowds, as are others…though many still do wear masks out of habit or special care.
Numbers:
- Global cases: 448M; Daily average: 1,556K; Total Deaths: 6,006,000
- USA cases: 79.2M; Daily average: 43K; Total Deaths: 959,000
- Maryland cases: 1,005,000; Deaths: 14,188 (“At risk of outbreak”) per CovidActNow.org
- 0 states “On track to contain COVID” ( )
- 21 states “Slow disease growth” (Maryland, Nebraska, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Ohio…)
- 25 states “At risk of outbreak” (Vermont, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico…)
- 6 states “Active or imminent outbreak” (Idaho, Montana, Maine, Kentucky, Alaska…)
- 1 state “Severe outbreak” (Northern Marianas)
The world’s attention is mostly focused on Ukraine and the ongoing Russian invasion. Two million people have now fled Ukraine into neighboring European countries even though the Russians continue to bomb exit routes. The Ukrainians are putting up much stiffer resistance than anyone expected and the Russians continue to be less competent than expected as well, though they are making progress taking cities in the south of Ukraine. Gas prices have surged to over $4 per gallon locally and are expected to rise more as the U.S. just agreed to cut off imports of Russian oil. Higher gas prices will push inflation on all manner of goods, no doubt becoming more of a political problem in the U.S. and around the world but so far it’s a sacrifice Americans and others seem willing to absorb…at least for a little while. I get the sense that the spillover of unintended consequences from Russia’s invasion are only just beginning.
I selfishly hope we can move ahead with our music vacation without too many of these consequences impacting us. It feels a little bit like whistling by the graveyard but we’re pretty well locked in at this point. Onward and onward.
April 2, 2022
Welcome to our new quarter, April 2022. I’m reporting from Virginia Beach, site of Christine Bowman’s wedding later today. We have a nice room at the Doubletree Virginia Beach, looking right over the beach to the ocean, surf and a nice, clear horizon. Our window is cracked open so we have a cool breeze and can hear the surf on this bright, cloudless, sunny day. I just saw two dolphins working their way south not more than 50 yards offshore, moving slowly like they were hungover. Appropriate for a Saturday morning in Virginia Beach.
This is actually a nice stretch of beach: wide, smooth and at this time of year almost empty. Our hotel has only beachfront rooms so everyone gets a view which seems very egalitarian. There is lots of bird activity – gulls diving, pelicans patrolling, and even some ducks nesting below us near the boardwalk. Barb and I plan to stroll the paved boardwalk later today; it seems mostly a path in front of the hotels and condos, nary a tacky tourist shop along the way but we’ll find out for sure in a few hours. There is a fair amount of ship traffic going in and out of the mouth of the Chesapeake – mostly container ships which are extraordinarily ugly, but also some tankers and occasionally some naval ships. There were some surfers near the jetty yesterday evening. It makes for endlessly fascinating viewing. I’m easily entertained by the ocean as long as I don’t have to go in it.
We arrived yesterday after a five+ hour drive that included horrible traffic south of DC (most of which we skirted using the Express lanes, but it would be nice if Google Maps knew that those lanes were there – it kept thinking we were somehow off of I-95 and kept flashing and rerouting us for 20 miles. We were aiming to stop at Tito’s Diner in Fredericksburg so I could get a patty melt but when we finally got into the vicinity, there was road construction and confusing signage for our exit so I sped by on the Express lanes. We had McDonald’s instead. Sigh. But I guess it was faster. Good thing, because we had another hour delay getting to the I-64 tunnel in Norfolk. How do people drive this route on a regular basis?
We survived the rehearsal dinner last night. Barb got a lot of time with Patti and got the scoop on everyone and everything. There are lots of salacious details that I won’t dive into, but Patti often comes with a bucketful of gossip that she’s eager to share with Barb. I was pleased to learn that Jimmy is doing some writing when he can, working on two projects: one is a history of Patti and Lee’s house that evidently Lee started and the other stems from a fascination he’s developed about Stephen Decatur. More power to him. I hope to find out more and offer encouragement when I see him again.
There is a lot I feel the urge to write about. It was wonderful having Laurie with us for most of the month of March, especially including our music trip to Nashville, Memphis and Asheville. I have notes from the trip and need to turn them into several posts. There will be at least a couple directly recapping the trip with all the photos – including a bunch taken by our guide, Terrie. I also need to do a piece about the connections between the music, history and culture we encountered. And maybe one about the magic of music in general. Also one about our Allison Russell concert. It will take me several weeks to get through that, at least. There needs to be a short one about this visit to Virginia Beach. Then there’s the virus status, another round of booster shots, Ukraine stuff, musical interests like the new Molly Tuttle album, the Bonnie Raitt interview I listened to yesterday, the Grammy awards tomorrow…my head is full of topics.
Since it’s nominally the topic of this journal, I’ll turn to the virus…though it’s not necessarily top of mind. The case counts are still low but there is growing concern over a new variant, B.2, that now accounts for a majority of cases. The CDC has just authorized a new (second) round of booster shots for folks over 50 like Barb and me, so we will no doubt get ours in the next week or two. I have to figure out whether we need appointments to get them.
Numbers:
- Global cases: 490M; Daily average: 1,451K; Total Deaths: 6,146,000
- USA cases: 80.0M; Daily average: 28K; Total Deaths: 980,000
- Maryland cases: 1,013,000; Deaths: 14,347 (“At risk of outbreak”) per CovidActNow.org
- 0 states “On track to contain COVID” ( )
- 40 states “Slow disease growth” (Louisiana, Kentucky, South Dakota, Wyoming, South Carolina, …)
- 11 states “At risk of outbreak” (Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Maine…)
- 2 states “Active or imminent outbreak” (Northern Marianas, Montana)
- 0 states “Severe outbreak” ()
There is virtually no thought of the virus here at the wedding. No one is wearing masks, the rehearsal dinner had 50 people clustered in a small reception hallway and then dinner tables in a hotel event room for hours. The wedding itself is on the beach tomorrow, in what looks to be a chilly wind but at least it should be sunny. The reception for more than 100 people will be indoors at the Waterman’s Restaurant, with hours of sweaty dancing guaranteed. We hope no one gets sick from either but we’re doing nothing to prevent it.
I want to at least mention that the war in Ukraine is now in its sixth week and a tide of sorts seems to have turned. The Russians appear to be shifting their goals and troops away from taking the capital Kyiv and perhaps the whole country, focusing on securing gains in Eastern Ukraine. It’s hard at the moment to see if this is merely a feint or short-term tactic to distract the world or perhaps a glimmer of a path toward ending the conflict. Either way, it reflects the astounding resilience and success of the Ukrainian defense forces, and perhaps the ineptitude and overconfidence of the Russians.
April 5
Laurie tested positive for COVID yesterday, she reported from Spain. She had developed a cold at the end of our trip, starting in Asheville and feeling worse while we were in Bristol. She took three days of antibiotics once she got back to our house on Saturday and seemed much better by the time she took her flight on Wednesday. I came down with cold symptoms for a couple of days but they cleared up by the middle of last week. I tested negative for COVID last Monday and last night for tennis.
Laurie reported that she felt bad on the flight with a headache and nausea but it wasn’t the first time that happened to her on a long flight. When she got back to Spain, Nico had a runny nose and cough which Juan also caught over the weekend. Juan tested negative but Nico hates being tested so he’s an unknown. Laurie was fine for a couple of days but yesterday she woke up with a bad cough so she went to the doctor to get more antibiotics. They took a standard precautionary Covid test and she was positive. Now she’s isolating for a week and taking a stronger dose of antibiotics. She didn’t feel good enough for Scattergories today, saying she just wants to stay quiet and horizontal. Maggie, meanwhile, is off on her book tour to various parts of Spain, hoping that she doesn’t have to cancel and come home.
I feel terrible that Laurie has gotten sick, even if it’s only tangentially related to our trip. There’s no real way to know how or where she caught the virus but the timing overlaps with the possible incubation period for Covid. I fervently hope she recovers quickly, and I hope no one else gets sick.
Meanwhile, I’m feeling somewhat guilty about not taking any further precautions for myself and the slim but not zero possibility that I might be spreading the virus. But not guilty enough to actually change any of what I’m doing. We did the whole wedding thing last weekend, I played tennis last night…after testing negative once again. I don’t have much on my schedule for the next few days, but this weekend we will see Deb and Jay on Sunday, followed by the Molly Tuttle concert in Baltimore with Larry. I will schedule a booster shot for myself this week, now that we are eligible for another round.
My ailment of the moment is that my lower back started to seize up on Sunday as we started to come back from Virginia Beach. I blame the somewhat soft mattress at the hotel and maybe lifting the bags back and forth from the car. It was bad Sunday night and Monday morning, then felt better Monday afternoon so I played tennis…but found that I couldn’t move quickly at all and things tightened up again. This morning it was hard getting out of bed and I’m moving slowly. I’ve taken some Advil and hope that the pain will clear up on its own over the next day or two.
April 11
Laurie reports some ups and downs with her bout of Covid but seems to be weathering it one way or another. I still feel bad about her catching the virus but she has absolved me of direct responsibility which was gracious. We’re hoping for better reports from her this week. Her quarantine period should be over. I haven’t heard of any further effects on Maggie, Juan or the boys.
Barb and I got our second booster shots on Saturday. We had no specific ill effects though both of us had a restless night sleeping and sore arms afterwards. Virus case counts have started to inch up in the U.S. (including more than 70 cases from the Gridion Club event in DC last week) while they continue to decline in the rest of the world.
Numbers:
- Global cases: 498M; Daily average: 1,062K; Total Deaths: 6,146,000
- USA cases: 80.3M; Daily average: 31K; Total Deaths: 984,000
- Maryland cases: 1,016,000; Deaths: 14,371 (“At risk of outbreak”) per CovidActNow.org
- 0 states “On track to contain COVID” ( )
- 35 states “Slow disease growth” (Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana…)
- 14 states “At risk of outbreak” (Northern Marianas, New York, Puerto Rico, District of Columbia, Massachusetts…)
- 4 states “Active or imminent outbreak” (Alaska, Vermont, Colorado, Rhode Island)
- 0 states “Severe outbreak” ()
The virus hasn’t particularly slowed down our activities here. On Sunday, we drove up to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania to see Deb, Jay and Blair. We got a tour of their home (with LOTS of space for the grandkids), had lunch at Waynesburger and generally caught up with each other, especially Barb and Deb. A pleasant time was had by all, I’d say. The unhurried drive home through the Maryland countryside on little roads was quite nice.
Last night, Larry and I went to see Molly Tuttle give an excellent show at Baltimore Soundstage. We had an unremarkable dinner first at Blackwall Hitch, after Larry forgot to make reservations at La Calle where he originally wanted to go. The only good thing about Blackwall Hitch was that it was basically across the street from the Soundstage venue. Nevertheless, our dinner took long enough that we missed most of the opening act, Oliver Hazard. My review of the show is in my Concerts I Remember post.
Today, it’s time to get back to earth…or more specifically to the yard which wants its first mowing of the year. Then it’s tennis tonight. Life goes on. I’ve started to recap our Music Trip and am enjoying reliving it already, especially the playlists I rediscovered from the National Museum of African American Music. This recap is going to take me a while but I need to get it done this month before we head to the Keys in May.
April 22
I’ve fallen behind somewhat in my Coronavirus journal even though the Coronavirus is not really through with us. I’m slowly writing posts on our music trip to Nashville and Memphis (still finishing the Nashville post, haven’t started the Memphis one yet). It’s keeping me busier than I thought, plus various real world chores keep intruding.
The Omicron BA.2 subvariant(s) account for a new rise in case numbers though so far there doesn’t seem to be a rise in hospitalizations. Many experts agree that case numbers themselves are less important than before because they don’t tie directly to hospitalizations and also more people are home testing and not reporting results. Nevertheless, it’s the metric I and most others have been using so we’re sticking with them for a while longer. The good folks at CovidActNow changed their color coding system to track with current CDC community level guidelines.
Numbers:
- Global cases: 508M; Daily average: 711K; Total Deaths: 6,210,000
- USA cases: 80.8M; Daily average: 43K; Total Deaths: 989,000
- Maryland cases: 1,024,000; Deaths: 14,418 (“At risk of outbreak”) per CovidActNow.org
- 47 states “Low Risk” (District of Columbia, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, Maine…)
- 6 states “Medium Risk” (Puerto Rico, Vermont, New York, Rhode Island, Alaska…)
- 0 states “High Risk” ()
Laurie recovered from her Covid bout well enough to take her planned trip to Porto last week. She just got back home, seemingly no worse for wear.
I survived the inconvenience of breaking my mower’s blade drive belt two weeks ago during my first mow of the season, after I had to borrow Ron’s battery starter to jump my mower. I wasn’t able to get anyone else to fix the mower belt so finally tackled it myself, with Ron’s help and guidance. We finally got it working. So I’m back in the lawn mowing business. Our JFK Landscaping crew is here today pulling weeds and mulching our flower beds. I’m happy to pay someone to do this annual task. I’ve got someone lined up to clear our house windows later in May. I’m thankful I can pay someone to do these tasks rather than do them myself, though I feel guilty each time.
My recent music explorations led me to Rissi Palmer’s Color Me Country show, the Adia Victoria Call & Response podcast, the 2021 Newport Folk Festival finale that Allison Russell put together and the Black Opry website and community. So much to listen to. Since we don’t have any big trips planned this summer, I’ve decided to get more concert tickets than ever before. I look forward to seeing Alison Krauss & Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, Billy Strings, Norah Jones and John Mulaney in the coming months.
Despite all this activity, or maybe because of it, I find myself in my late-Spring funk. I find that I often get mildly depressed and agitated this time of year, even though the weather is lovely and the earth is blooming. It has something to do with often feeling behind the curve and not accomplishing all the things I or Barb or someone seems to think I should be accomplishing.
I remember first encountering this feeling during my years at Hekimian in the 1990s. Then I thought it was related to the business cycle and the fact that by the end of the second quarter we had a good idea of whether we were on track for the full year or not. Even when we were doing well it never seemed we were doing well enough. Later, while at FIRST I found the same thing happened in April/May when the main robotics season was over and we were faced with the grind of getting ready for the next season. Now that I’m retired I find that I still get these feelings which leads me to conclude it has less to do with work cycles and is more of an inherent condition for me. Time for me to re-embrace my credo of finding Existential Joy…which I’ve still never found the time or right opportunity to write about. Need to do that, too.
April 29
Not a whole lot to update this week other than getting ready for (and looking forward to) our trip to the Keys next week with Allie. Both Barb and Allie seem very ready for a break and are looking forward to a few relaxing days at the pool and/or beach. I sure hope that Marathon comes through as an easy location – the worst part of it appears to be getting there. No one is looking forward to the flights or connections or being on American Airlines. But once we’re there, the Tranquility Bay resort looks very nice and there are a bunch of restaurants I’m eager to try. So that should do the trick, I hope.
I picked the Keys as an alternative to either Aruba or Punta Cana, but it’s working out to be at least as expensive and actually more difficult to travel to. It’s an experiment, maybe a one time only destination. The weather looks decent – mid-80’s all week and partly cloudy. Hopefully the girls get enough sun to keep them happy.
I finished my Nashville post and made some headway on the Memphis one. But I didn’t make my deadline of trying to get the whole trip summarized before heading to the Keys. I may work on them some more there, but also want to finish reading the American Republics book so I can get it back to the library. We’ll see how I do.
In general, I’m really lagging on Billzpage. I’m still stuck on 2008 and haven’t made any headway there since February. I’ve got a lot more ground to cover but I’m getting swamped by the quantity of information to wade through. That’s not a good trend for me or for anyone tempted to try to read it.
In the last couple of weeks, I started getting messages on my Sony laptop that the disk memory was nearly full. I tried deleting some things but a few days ago I succumbed to reality and bought a new computer at Best Buy. It’s an ASUS with 2-terabytes of drive space, so that should be more than enough for a long while. The laptop itself is rather large and heavy; I’m not sure it was the wisest of selections but we’ll find out in due course. The Best Buy people seem to have done a good job transferring all the files from my Sony laptop. I’m going to take it to the Keys for a test run…assuming it fits in my backpack.
I’m going to skip the virus numbers this week but the general trend is still somewhat upward in case numbers. Nevertheless, Dr. Fauci himself declared that we are out of the pandemic phase for the time being and things are pretty quickly getting back to normal. Masks are optional pretty much everywhere at this point, even on airplanes thanks to a recent (Trump) judge’s ruling. I’ve started using a rule of thumb of only wearing masks in places where I will be indoors in a crowd for more than 15-20 minutes. I’m not sure how long even that will last.
I’d been called for jury duty by the Federal Court in Baltimore and was assigned to a pool for a fairly high profile case involving perjury charges against Baltimore’s State Attorney, Marilyn Mosby. It was supposed to have started yesterday but when I went into the Federal Courthouse I learned that I was waived from the pool because of my travel next week – I should have received an email but didn’t. The case is postponed to September anyway, so I think they will use a different pool of jurors. I am still potentially on the hook for Federal jury duty through June but it seems unlikely I’ll be assigned to anything. Seems like I’ve dodged that civic responsibility.
Other than that, I have no excuse but to work on my website, the yard and the house. I don’t seem to be making much headway on any of them, but I’ll keep plugging away.