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In Which Life Returns to Normal (Sort of)
May. 20th, 2020 08:56 pmSo things seem pretty much back to normal here on Kauai.
Well, we're still down the tourists that make up 15-25% of our normal population, but the local population seems back to normal.
The big change was the announcement last week that the beaches were opening, and you could actually SIT on them once more, if you maintained socially distancing from anyone not in your immediate household.
The roads are crowded enough again that I have to wait to turn out onto the highway. I've seen backup headed back toward the Kalaheo stop light in the afternoon. The Poipu parking lot is much busier. Maybe still only 40% or 50% yesterday afternoon, but closer to 80% on Saturday.
And besides people being out of their houses, they're also largely acting like things are normal again. At the beach, I saw a party of 10 or 12 people, hugging and standing in each others' spaces.
The local Hawaiian government is actually facing a big problem where they're trying to maintain restrictions that the population no longer feels is rational.
Here on Kauai our last case was diagnosed about 40 days ago. On the islands as a whole, COVID-19 has been in clear decline for just a bit longer than that, and we've been flirting with just 0-4 cases a day since the start of the month.
It's really hard for the politicians at this point to say their "bending the curve" (because it's been bent) or that they've making sure hospitals don't get overloaded (because there are only 50 active cases on the islands at all right now — and though we don't know how many of those are hospitalized, because the state is really awful at reporting at information, the obvious answer is "just a few").
And because the politicians can't say those things any more, they're mostly just shutting up and continuing forward as if COVID-19 were still raging on the islands.
At this point we've even getting health experts saying, "You can't expect to entirely eliminate COVID-19". But that seems to be what the Hawaiian politicians are trying to do, because we're so far past any other rationale for not opening.
(Meanwhile, their measures to quarantine people coming to islands continue to at best be half-assed, even though that's the only possible vector for the disease as we eliminate it from our communities.)
So because of that big disconnect between the regulations and the reality, we've got the public increasingly ignoring the shelter-in-place orders (now known by the Orwellian name "safer at home") because it's obvious that it's out of touch with reality. Which means that our politicians in the name of safety are actually creating extreme danger for the islands in the future, because if there is a big outbreak come fall, people will instead remember this time when they started ignoring the politicians' orders because they no longer seemed right.
Could there be OTHER reasons to keep the islands closed? Sure, if they've been unable to meet the criteria for testing or contact tracing. And we know that our testing is great.
So, it's either contact tracing or nothing that's the problem, and are politicians are saying ZILCH.
I say things are back to normal, but they aren't at all due to our politician's fear for their political futures, and how they might be blamed when there's an inevitable second wave of sickness.
So we still can't eat out. In fact it's technically still illegal to eat anywhere except at home or on the beach. Yeah, the beach. They opened up the beaches and said you can BBQ and stuff there, and it seems part of this constant dance where the right hand never knows what the left hand is doing. So, if you pick up dinner you have to take it home or to the beach, but can't eat it at a park, in your car, or anywhere else.
We've still got lots of people out of work.
In fact, the Hawaiian economy is crashing with the government still unable to process the vast majority of unemployment claims, and meanwhile the government is also dumping federal monies into a "rainy day" fund because they can't imagine how it might be used now.
I'm vastly disappointed that we've landed somewhere where politicians are just as out of touch with the 99% as they were in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, but in a totally different way. (There, their 1% constituency seemed to be the homeless; here, it's people who don't understand how the pandemic could be affecting anyone's finances.)
As for my life?
The Skotos work continues to drag on, with the end of May being my current hopeful finale. That's only four working days, so we'll see, but the games have been operating mostly on their own for weeks, so it's just a lot of administrative break-up of which the last BIG step, preparing contracts, is maybe two-thirds done.
My personal work is going great, but that's because I'm spending every spare moment on it. I need balance! But just 30 days on from my new Patreon and my new focus on Designers & Dragons, I've published two Lost Histories and have the third in a solid draft, getting commenters from the company's principals. Meanwhile, I'm working through the third chapter of the TSR Codex. All told, I'm something like 30k words into these projects, which is great for a month in which I still haven't been able to really offer up my full-time time.
Our chickens have definitely adopted us. They regular circle the house now. If they're eating centipedes as they do, our goal is met. Meanwhile, Danielle has figured out how to fly up into trees to knock fruit down for his chicks. She apparently started this after seeing ME knock down fruits. That's a smart chicken.
I continue to swim as I can and hike every Saturday. It's just been the trip to Mahaulepu and back again and again, but it's a really pretty walk, and it's what my knee can take right now. (And I illicitly write while I'm at Mahaulepu, but maybe that's legal now because it's a beach, or at least beach adjacent ... but no one really knows what the confusing mesh of regulations from COVID-19 mean anymore.) My last PT should be this Friday. My knee is maybe 95% of the way better, though I still felt it twinge when I moved it just wrong in the ocean yesterday.
(Also, that trip to Mahaulepu is what our shelter-in-place rules can take, without me having to get in an argument with an overzealous cop about whether we can travel further for exercise if we want, though this is quickly becoming less of an issue because, see above, no one cares about the shelter in place anymore.)
We're still waiting for Kimberly's study at Queen's, and waiting to see if I'll be able to help her out there in Honolulu, or if the 14-day interisland quarantine is still up (which would make it not just pointless but problematic for me to go, because I'd have to lock myself up the whole time in Honolulu ... and then do the same here for two weeks after returning, because I wouldn't have a medical exemption like Kimberly would).
I'm definitely looking forward to the future, where my personal work and Skotos work aren't stacked on top of each other, where I have a more casual day or two of work for Blockchain Commons and Bitmark and the rest of time for my own writing. (But I *WILL* get the Skotos games to a good place first.)
And I'm looking forward to the other future where we can travel freely on our island without worrying about the chaotic, poorly thought out restrictions currently in place, or about our politicians who are terrified about being voted out of office if there's a single COVID-19 case on the island.
And I'm looking forward to the other future where hopefully Kimberly's study gives us some results for getting her back to healthiness.
But for now, a bit of normalcy has settled in, even if our mayor is being dragged kicking and screaming along the way.
Well, we're still down the tourists that make up 15-25% of our normal population, but the local population seems back to normal.
The big change was the announcement last week that the beaches were opening, and you could actually SIT on them once more, if you maintained socially distancing from anyone not in your immediate household.
The roads are crowded enough again that I have to wait to turn out onto the highway. I've seen backup headed back toward the Kalaheo stop light in the afternoon. The Poipu parking lot is much busier. Maybe still only 40% or 50% yesterday afternoon, but closer to 80% on Saturday.
And besides people being out of their houses, they're also largely acting like things are normal again. At the beach, I saw a party of 10 or 12 people, hugging and standing in each others' spaces.
The local Hawaiian government is actually facing a big problem where they're trying to maintain restrictions that the population no longer feels is rational.
Here on Kauai our last case was diagnosed about 40 days ago. On the islands as a whole, COVID-19 has been in clear decline for just a bit longer than that, and we've been flirting with just 0-4 cases a day since the start of the month.
It's really hard for the politicians at this point to say their "bending the curve" (because it's been bent) or that they've making sure hospitals don't get overloaded (because there are only 50 active cases on the islands at all right now — and though we don't know how many of those are hospitalized, because the state is really awful at reporting at information, the obvious answer is "just a few").
And because the politicians can't say those things any more, they're mostly just shutting up and continuing forward as if COVID-19 were still raging on the islands.
At this point we've even getting health experts saying, "You can't expect to entirely eliminate COVID-19". But that seems to be what the Hawaiian politicians are trying to do, because we're so far past any other rationale for not opening.
(Meanwhile, their measures to quarantine people coming to islands continue to at best be half-assed, even though that's the only possible vector for the disease as we eliminate it from our communities.)
So because of that big disconnect between the regulations and the reality, we've got the public increasingly ignoring the shelter-in-place orders (now known by the Orwellian name "safer at home") because it's obvious that it's out of touch with reality. Which means that our politicians in the name of safety are actually creating extreme danger for the islands in the future, because if there is a big outbreak come fall, people will instead remember this time when they started ignoring the politicians' orders because they no longer seemed right.
Could there be OTHER reasons to keep the islands closed? Sure, if they've been unable to meet the criteria for testing or contact tracing. And we know that our testing is great.
So, it's either contact tracing or nothing that's the problem, and are politicians are saying ZILCH.
I say things are back to normal, but they aren't at all due to our politician's fear for their political futures, and how they might be blamed when there's an inevitable second wave of sickness.
So we still can't eat out. In fact it's technically still illegal to eat anywhere except at home or on the beach. Yeah, the beach. They opened up the beaches and said you can BBQ and stuff there, and it seems part of this constant dance where the right hand never knows what the left hand is doing. So, if you pick up dinner you have to take it home or to the beach, but can't eat it at a park, in your car, or anywhere else.
We've still got lots of people out of work.
In fact, the Hawaiian economy is crashing with the government still unable to process the vast majority of unemployment claims, and meanwhile the government is also dumping federal monies into a "rainy day" fund because they can't imagine how it might be used now.
I'm vastly disappointed that we've landed somewhere where politicians are just as out of touch with the 99% as they were in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, but in a totally different way. (There, their 1% constituency seemed to be the homeless; here, it's people who don't understand how the pandemic could be affecting anyone's finances.)
As for my life?
The Skotos work continues to drag on, with the end of May being my current hopeful finale. That's only four working days, so we'll see, but the games have been operating mostly on their own for weeks, so it's just a lot of administrative break-up of which the last BIG step, preparing contracts, is maybe two-thirds done.
My personal work is going great, but that's because I'm spending every spare moment on it. I need balance! But just 30 days on from my new Patreon and my new focus on Designers & Dragons, I've published two Lost Histories and have the third in a solid draft, getting commenters from the company's principals. Meanwhile, I'm working through the third chapter of the TSR Codex. All told, I'm something like 30k words into these projects, which is great for a month in which I still haven't been able to really offer up my full-time time.
Our chickens have definitely adopted us. They regular circle the house now. If they're eating centipedes as they do, our goal is met. Meanwhile, Danielle has figured out how to fly up into trees to knock fruit down for his chicks. She apparently started this after seeing ME knock down fruits. That's a smart chicken.
I continue to swim as I can and hike every Saturday. It's just been the trip to Mahaulepu and back again and again, but it's a really pretty walk, and it's what my knee can take right now. (And I illicitly write while I'm at Mahaulepu, but maybe that's legal now because it's a beach, or at least beach adjacent ... but no one really knows what the confusing mesh of regulations from COVID-19 mean anymore.) My last PT should be this Friday. My knee is maybe 95% of the way better, though I still felt it twinge when I moved it just wrong in the ocean yesterday.
(Also, that trip to Mahaulepu is what our shelter-in-place rules can take, without me having to get in an argument with an overzealous cop about whether we can travel further for exercise if we want, though this is quickly becoming less of an issue because, see above, no one cares about the shelter in place anymore.)
We're still waiting for Kimberly's study at Queen's, and waiting to see if I'll be able to help her out there in Honolulu, or if the 14-day interisland quarantine is still up (which would make it not just pointless but problematic for me to go, because I'd have to lock myself up the whole time in Honolulu ... and then do the same here for two weeks after returning, because I wouldn't have a medical exemption like Kimberly would).
I'm definitely looking forward to the future, where my personal work and Skotos work aren't stacked on top of each other, where I have a more casual day or two of work for Blockchain Commons and Bitmark and the rest of time for my own writing. (But I *WILL* get the Skotos games to a good place first.)
And I'm looking forward to the other future where we can travel freely on our island without worrying about the chaotic, poorly thought out restrictions currently in place, or about our politicians who are terrified about being voted out of office if there's a single COVID-19 case on the island.
And I'm looking forward to the other future where hopefully Kimberly's study gives us some results for getting her back to healthiness.
But for now, a bit of normalcy has settled in, even if our mayor is being dragged kicking and screaming along the way.