Hello friends—all 13 of you!!!—and other readers! (Don't feel slighted by that dubious salutation! As you can imagine, I long for a following of a few hundreds, but it appears that a very small core of readers read all my stories...)
As I blogged in Helen (the companion blog to this one), I'm staying mostly at home, though at the moment, our Governor, Tom Wolf, has not mandated a lockdown. This (staying home in voluntary isolation) is no hardship, since I'm a semi-recluse, anyway! Unlike in the story Helen and Sharon, where Sharon thinks that she could be a pretty sociable recluse, if she felt like it, I'm not really a recluse in the first place; it's just that it doesn't bother me to stay home, reading, writing, or thinking about drawing something!
I just realized that this could be a great opportunity for those of you who have kids to interest them in reading for pleasure. The main principle is: Don't force them! Every hour or so, give them an opportunity to let off steam. Sneaking off to some remote place to do something interesting is good. Pretty soon, you might find your little people begging to be left alone with their book! Sitting on them and insisting that they read will almost certainly not work.
One of my favorite authors of children's books is Tamora Pierce. (Her facebook page seems to suggest that she was recently in bad health, as implied by the bulletin that she had been released from hospital.) I stated in my own facebook page that my favorite series—a sub-series of the Tortall Series—is the one named Protector of the Small. The principal character of this line of stories is a girl called Keladry of Mindelan (all these stories are set in a feudal universe), who is prone to taking the side of the underdog in almost any conflict. This is only natural, for anyone with any sort of moral sense; Keladry is just more unswerving in her determination than most others.
As to my personal news, so far I'm keeping well; I would imagine that if I were to succumb to this virus (Covid-19, if you're reading this in the distant future, and don't know what's going on), I suspect that I would not have the energy to keep up these posts. I will also have to call in to my friends, to stop by with supplies. Luckily I don't have a problem doing that; but I'm careful—have been careful, so far—not to be too much of a nuisance. I have about a week’s worth of supplies, including a packet of breathing masks, which I had bought for a DIY project, and never used.
Thank heaven for cell-phones, don’t you think? Can you imagine this same situation back in the 90's, when you had to use paper, or at least a land-line? Well, land-lines were not so bad, I guess. (Land-lines, for you younger people, were wired phones.)
Finally, all the projects I had floated last year have never been worked on, for the most part. I did start a story called Helen in Westfield, but I just can't get motivated to continue with it, because it involves so much work, straightening out the sequence of events, to fit into a brief 14-week time frame. It would be easier to write a completely new story to fit in with the Pandemic, which might be interesting.
Just remember that doing all these recommended things only guarantees that we won't all get the virus at the same time. The chances are good that we will get infected sooner or later, but at a time when the hospitals are able to provide us with beds and equipment. (If we all get sick at once, how are they to accommodate us?)
Several months from now, some of the most healthy among us will have already gotten the virus, and kicked it off, and would be free to move around, and make life a little more normal for the rest of us—provided, of course, that they knew they had been infected by the virus. Without tests, nobody knows anything. In particular, young, vigorous hospital workers will be safe from contracting the virus. These are some of the factors that slowing down the rate of infection delivers to us.
But, chances are, we're all going to get it, but it involves —hopefully—only a brief period of painful chest congestion, which might have to be alleviated by breathing assistance. I'm almost certain that they'll have to use tubes into my lungs to remove accumulated moisture. At least, I've never smoked; if you have smoked in the past, this treatment might remove all sorts of smoking debris from your overwhelmed alvioli!!
Anyway, be brave, and keep a positive outlook. Try to be one of that lucky few who doesn't get the virus at all. Don't be mean to people who come too close, etc. If you go out, there's a sort of viral audio clip that advises taking a shower, and changing into clean clothes when you come back inside. Washing your hands and wiping down flat surfaces (counters and desks) is a good plan for this time; apparently the virus can survive on a cold metal surface for several days. (I had heard that it was 9 hours, but this audio clip says days; I think that needs to be checked.) But exposure to soap (and any detergent, I assume) kills them.
Don't panic, and don't feel negative. A positive outlook is likely to keep your resistance stronger than almost anything else, but of course, it cannot trump simple hygiene, which is, washing. Also don't cough on people, and avoid getting coughed on (I know, I know) and shower at least once a day. And keep reading!
Kay
