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In Which We Shelter in Place
Mar. 26th, 2020 08:47 pmTuesday was my birthday and also our last day of freedom on Kauai.
Well, I say freedom, but it's been a week and a half since the governor recommended avoiding groups of more than 10 people, so I skipped gaming last week. I actually haven't been out hiking or swimming in that time, due to my hurt knee (for the first) and the constant rain (for the second). And I haven't seen my dad and Mary in a week and a half, because my dad had a cold, and we neither wanted to catch it nor give him anything while his immune system was compromised.
So, the last day of freedom, but it didn't really make a lot of difference.
I did go and get Taco Bell to bring home for my birthday dinner, and we made a special trip out to Lappert's afterward (which we then ate in the car).
Fancy!
We actually went to CVS (Long's) first, because I wanted another bottle of Lactaid and some more cough drops and a few other things before the gates came down. And the CVS (Long's) was definitely showing the effects of the pandemic. Not only was it mostly empty, but the staff were all scurrying around constantly cleaning things.
And then it was to Lappert's, which was equally bizarre. It was empty of people, and so we were able to walk in without getting within 6 feet of anyone, and then they'd moved the register to right by the door. Unfortunately, some folks who didn't understand the whole six-feet thing came in after us and largely blocked our payment and exit.
Overall, it was bizarre seeing both businesses as ghost towns. (And I wouldn't be surprised if they shut down, because that's the super touristy shopping center in Koloa.)
The downside of my birthday was that we learned of yet more troubles with our house sale: the buyer's original lender, who had preapproved them, suddenly announced that they weren't making any more loans. Yep, when we were six days from ending escrow.
@#*$(@)#$.
Our realtor said she'd only seen this once before, and that lender went out of business.
But it left our buyer without their loan, and they don't even have a loan contingency. (Not that it matters, from what I can tell, but there you go.) Theoretically they're getting a loan from another lender now, but we've added 21 days on to our escrow period, which is only a big deal because it's an opportunity for more banks to get spooked for no particular reason.
(Actually, I suspect lender #1 may be on their way out of business, because they were a small, podunk little operation, something that I hadn't really noticed when we looked over the offers.)
So shelter-in-place started on Wednesday, and increasingly I'm shocked at how fascist Kauai's mayor is.
I mean first there was the nighttime curfew, which has made it entirely illegal to be outside of your house from 9-5, except for a few exceptions, and which started a a few weeks ago and was the first I'd heard of in the nation.
Now it's road checkpoints, blocking up the island's only thoroughfare. In which you get police officers getting into your personal space: yes, I've seen multiple pictures of them totally unprotected, standing within a few feet of drivers, breathing down on them. Way to stop the spread of disease, idiot mayor.
And that's actually a problem too: much like Trump, our mayor seems both really dumb and convinced that he's smarter than everyone else. So, for example, when the governor made his shelter-in-place order, our mayor then immediately amended it. With more pages than the original order.
Some of his amendments were grotesquely fascist, such as the new rule that two people couldn't be outside of their house at a the same time, except in limited cases.
Others were obviously put forth because they bubbled up from his limited intellect and no one thought about what they really meant. So, we ended up with a 15-25 person limit on people in grocery stores, and a 50 person limit on people in Costco. And it was just so obvious that no one had done the math of what that meant, such as the inability for Costco to possibly serve everyone on the island, and the fact that it actually gave everyone in the the huge store a 53-square box to call their own, far beyond the 6 feet mandated. Meanwhile, huge lines of people would form outside, all giving each other Coronavirus.
(Both of those rules were adjusted within a day, perhaps when someone more intelligent came into the office the next morning, though at a new 100-person limit, I suspect that Costco is still going to be heavily impacted.)
And a lot of what the mayor has been doing seems very xenophobic, an attitude that appear to be reflected by some of the local population (and something I'd never seen before in our dozen of visits here).
For weeks now, a small but vocal group of people have been damning visitors to the island and even the "snowbirds" (who make long-term stays here, but only in winter). And right in sync with that, many of the mayor's policies seem directed straight at making visitors feel very unwelcome: fees for them (and only them) at beaches being the most notable, but I also expect the checkpoints are mainly intended to get them, since the shelter-in-place order allows us to go out and exercise and get food and so it would be pretty hard to say a resident doesn't belong.
Don't get me wrong: halting travel to the island is probably the best way to keep the virus from overcoming our small, isolated healthcare system. Probably better than the shelter in place, particularly on Kauai where there's just been a handful of cases to date. But it's really disturbing to see these rules and procedures in sync with local xenophobia.
Anyway, shelter in place. No biggie. I stayed home yesterday (other than a short walk in the golf course, where I also filled out a waiver for them, so that I can walk even if they're forced to close down). I stayed home entirely today. Tomorrow, I'll go out to do some physical therapy for my knee and to pick up a prescription for Kimberly. And maybe I'll have some police offers endanger my life by getting within six feet of me. (Thanks, mayor.)
I will basically shelter, while asked, though I hope to get out and enjoy some really empty beaches if the weather turns around.
But I understand nuance sufficiently that I can be aware of the necessity of the shelter in place, or at least be willing to obey it, while still looking askance at our mayor's bizarre and ill-considered rules in general. Lots of people seem to have lost that nuance, in large part because they seem absolutely terrified. (Thanks, media. Thanks, politicians. Both of you could have done what you needed to do but still figured out how to not drive mass hysteria, and you didn't. Quite the contrary.)
One fun bit of shelter-in-place. This evening I joined my old Berkeley Thursday night group for an online game. We talked on discord and we played Las Vegas on Yucatan. The technology is all still surprisingly bleeding-edge. I kept losing the ends of peoples' sentences on discord (particularly Mike A. for some reason) and Yucatan started lagging badly partway through our game.
But, it was something, and a nice chance to "see" everyone again and do a little gaming.
(Do I list my play of Las Vegas on BGG? I think so! It was genuinely a gaming night.)
I was tired and cranky and hungry, though, so after our one fun game, I bailed, though the rest of folks did Thunderstone afterward.
Eric said that he was happy they'd found a way for me to join the group again, but not that it had taken a pandemic! Heh.
Well, I say freedom, but it's been a week and a half since the governor recommended avoiding groups of more than 10 people, so I skipped gaming last week. I actually haven't been out hiking or swimming in that time, due to my hurt knee (for the first) and the constant rain (for the second). And I haven't seen my dad and Mary in a week and a half, because my dad had a cold, and we neither wanted to catch it nor give him anything while his immune system was compromised.
So, the last day of freedom, but it didn't really make a lot of difference.
I did go and get Taco Bell to bring home for my birthday dinner, and we made a special trip out to Lappert's afterward (which we then ate in the car).
Fancy!
We actually went to CVS (Long's) first, because I wanted another bottle of Lactaid and some more cough drops and a few other things before the gates came down. And the CVS (Long's) was definitely showing the effects of the pandemic. Not only was it mostly empty, but the staff were all scurrying around constantly cleaning things.
And then it was to Lappert's, which was equally bizarre. It was empty of people, and so we were able to walk in without getting within 6 feet of anyone, and then they'd moved the register to right by the door. Unfortunately, some folks who didn't understand the whole six-feet thing came in after us and largely blocked our payment and exit.
Overall, it was bizarre seeing both businesses as ghost towns. (And I wouldn't be surprised if they shut down, because that's the super touristy shopping center in Koloa.)
The downside of my birthday was that we learned of yet more troubles with our house sale: the buyer's original lender, who had preapproved them, suddenly announced that they weren't making any more loans. Yep, when we were six days from ending escrow.
@#*$(@)#$.
Our realtor said she'd only seen this once before, and that lender went out of business.
But it left our buyer without their loan, and they don't even have a loan contingency. (Not that it matters, from what I can tell, but there you go.) Theoretically they're getting a loan from another lender now, but we've added 21 days on to our escrow period, which is only a big deal because it's an opportunity for more banks to get spooked for no particular reason.
(Actually, I suspect lender #1 may be on their way out of business, because they were a small, podunk little operation, something that I hadn't really noticed when we looked over the offers.)
So shelter-in-place started on Wednesday, and increasingly I'm shocked at how fascist Kauai's mayor is.
I mean first there was the nighttime curfew, which has made it entirely illegal to be outside of your house from 9-5, except for a few exceptions, and which started a a few weeks ago and was the first I'd heard of in the nation.
Now it's road checkpoints, blocking up the island's only thoroughfare. In which you get police officers getting into your personal space: yes, I've seen multiple pictures of them totally unprotected, standing within a few feet of drivers, breathing down on them. Way to stop the spread of disease, idiot mayor.
And that's actually a problem too: much like Trump, our mayor seems both really dumb and convinced that he's smarter than everyone else. So, for example, when the governor made his shelter-in-place order, our mayor then immediately amended it. With more pages than the original order.
Some of his amendments were grotesquely fascist, such as the new rule that two people couldn't be outside of their house at a the same time, except in limited cases.
Others were obviously put forth because they bubbled up from his limited intellect and no one thought about what they really meant. So, we ended up with a 15-25 person limit on people in grocery stores, and a 50 person limit on people in Costco. And it was just so obvious that no one had done the math of what that meant, such as the inability for Costco to possibly serve everyone on the island, and the fact that it actually gave everyone in the the huge store a 53-square box to call their own, far beyond the 6 feet mandated. Meanwhile, huge lines of people would form outside, all giving each other Coronavirus.
(Both of those rules were adjusted within a day, perhaps when someone more intelligent came into the office the next morning, though at a new 100-person limit, I suspect that Costco is still going to be heavily impacted.)
And a lot of what the mayor has been doing seems very xenophobic, an attitude that appear to be reflected by some of the local population (and something I'd never seen before in our dozen of visits here).
For weeks now, a small but vocal group of people have been damning visitors to the island and even the "snowbirds" (who make long-term stays here, but only in winter). And right in sync with that, many of the mayor's policies seem directed straight at making visitors feel very unwelcome: fees for them (and only them) at beaches being the most notable, but I also expect the checkpoints are mainly intended to get them, since the shelter-in-place order allows us to go out and exercise and get food and so it would be pretty hard to say a resident doesn't belong.
Don't get me wrong: halting travel to the island is probably the best way to keep the virus from overcoming our small, isolated healthcare system. Probably better than the shelter in place, particularly on Kauai where there's just been a handful of cases to date. But it's really disturbing to see these rules and procedures in sync with local xenophobia.
Anyway, shelter in place. No biggie. I stayed home yesterday (other than a short walk in the golf course, where I also filled out a waiver for them, so that I can walk even if they're forced to close down). I stayed home entirely today. Tomorrow, I'll go out to do some physical therapy for my knee and to pick up a prescription for Kimberly. And maybe I'll have some police offers endanger my life by getting within six feet of me. (Thanks, mayor.)
I will basically shelter, while asked, though I hope to get out and enjoy some really empty beaches if the weather turns around.
But I understand nuance sufficiently that I can be aware of the necessity of the shelter in place, or at least be willing to obey it, while still looking askance at our mayor's bizarre and ill-considered rules in general. Lots of people seem to have lost that nuance, in large part because they seem absolutely terrified. (Thanks, media. Thanks, politicians. Both of you could have done what you needed to do but still figured out how to not drive mass hysteria, and you didn't. Quite the contrary.)
One fun bit of shelter-in-place. This evening I joined my old Berkeley Thursday night group for an online game. We talked on discord and we played Las Vegas on Yucatan. The technology is all still surprisingly bleeding-edge. I kept losing the ends of peoples' sentences on discord (particularly Mike A. for some reason) and Yucatan started lagging badly partway through our game.
But, it was something, and a nice chance to "see" everyone again and do a little gaming.
(Do I list my play of Las Vegas on BGG? I think so! It was genuinely a gaming night.)
I was tired and cranky and hungry, though, so after our one fun game, I bailed, though the rest of folks did Thunderstone afterward.
Eric said that he was happy they'd found a way for me to join the group again, but not that it had taken a pandemic! Heh.