shannon_a

Here's the headline: THE KIDNEY STONE HAS PASSED.

After I got home yesterday, I had pain ramping up again around 4pm. I was a bit worried about that but one oxycotin followed by a hot bath helped it to subside within an hour or so.

Today, I just had sharp jabs of pain here and there as the kidney stone made its way through my system, then passed it around 4pm. Total elapsed time between when I first suspected I had a kidney stone Sunday morning and when it passed: about 54 hours. Yay.

Mind you, I am still beat between not sleeping well last night and all the energy consumed by pain in the last day and a half, but feeling good beyond that.

Now, I never wrote about the last day of our Oahu trip. And I kind of wonder if airplane travel gets kidney stones going, as I remember also having brief symptoms in both Berlin and Boston after air travel there, when I had my previous kidney stone floating around for a long time before it started causing problems.

But exercise can also get kidney stones going, and I definitely did a lot of that Saturday in Oahu.

We had a relaxing morning. Croissants in the hotel room and then lounging around 'til they kicked us out.

Then we had expensive sandwiches at a top-end mall in Honolulu, west of Ala Moana Center.

And then it was headed toward Kimberly's time for her movie. A BTS movie, which was the reason we went to Oahu. So I headed out. (Not to the movie!) The weather reports had been threatening (c.f. the massive storm the night before we left), but it looked clear. So I checked out a Biki bike, rode as high as I could on the hill, up to the last Biki return station, and then hiked from there to Punchbowl Crater.

I'd wanted to do this one other visit, but decided I didn't have the time. Which was a good decision previously, as it took at least twice as long to get up to Punchbowl as Google said. It's not that it was super steep. But it was a long climb in the blazing hot Honolulu sun & humidity.

I was a bit surprised that there were houses, and even a major middle school, on the way up. I'd kind of expected desolate roads where I'd have to scrunch off to the shoulder, but no, there were sidewalks all the way. And so I made my way up.

Punchbowl Crater is, as the name suggests, a volcanic crater. But it's also a military cemetery and national monument. So I wasn't entirely surprised when the gates had signs up that restricted people from frivolity. They said, "No Exercising", "No Biking", "No Pets", and "No Picknicking". Against those restrictions the constant flow of tour buses in and out, with barkers on their loud speakers pointing out the sites, seemed somehow inappropriate.

The main crater is filled with the graves of soldiers, each just marked by a plaque laid in the ground, stretching as far as you could see in every direction in neat rows across the crater floor. It was solemn and awe-inspiring.

The Honolulu Memorial is in the back. There's a mighty staircase heading upward to a statue of Lady Liberty, with four "courts" to each side. Most of the visitors (not that there were a lot, the tour buses just came in and out without unloading as far as I could see) headed straight to top and then walked through a set of magnificent maps portraying WWII in the Pacific.

But the courts were what were really moving. There were just over 28,000 small plaques among them, each with a name engraved in white stone. Each the name of a soldier whose body was lost in WWII, the Korean War, or (later) the Vietnam War. MIA, buried at sea, or just lost. Some of the plaques, maybe one in 20, had a star on them to mark the body had later been recovered. Much like at the Vietnam Memorial in DC, you could just feel the weight of all those young lives lost. The courts were the most memorable part of the visit, and I'm sorry most people just rush past them.

A little further along the crater, there was an outlook with views of Honolulu, and I enjoyed that less than I expected because there are so many skyscrapers in every direction in Honolulu that they just block seeing the city as a whole.

So that was my afternoon on Oahu and the hike that likely got my kidney stone going. Afterward I hiked back down Punchbowl and out to Chinatown, where Kimberly and I had Vietnamese food before our trip back home.

It feels a million years ago around, but yesterday was quite the day.

SHOT IN THE DARK

I have been super tired since Saturday. The culprit, I assume, is the new XBB booster. I got mine on Thursday and on Friday I felt a bit achey, but no biggie, and definitely not a biggie like some of the early COVID shots. But then I was very sick Friday night, like 36 hours after my booster, and I've been fatigued on and off since.

(Hopefully I'll be doing better tomorrow, as I have a full day of client work.)

FAREWELL TO FITBIT (AGAIN)

I've had another Fitbit die. My Versa 2 died just before my trip to Germany, the result of ever increasing fritzing of some sort. I went back to my Charge 2 from 2017 or so and it's failed in the last week. I think its weaker water resistance finally failed entirely: as first got some condensation inside the screen and then the button stopped working and then it fritzed entirely.

The Versa 2 was retired to the garbage can after it went red-hot on its last charging and thoroughly burned in its screen. No firey Fitbits for me, thanks. I'm still hoping that the Charge 2 might get the water out of its system, because I liked have it as a backup watch.

Meanwhile, K. and I ordered Charge 6s the day after they announced them, as a preorder. They just haven't mailed yet! The promise was by this Friday, so no biggie yet, but not having a watch is driving me crazy, let alone the inability to get "credit" for my exercise.

Speaking of technological failures ...

NEED MORE POWER

Since I've been back from Germany, Julie (the Benz) has been really rough getting started. Sometimes she turns over one or two times before the engine gets going, sometimes several. I mentioned it to my dad on Sunday and he listened as we headed out and said it sounded like the battery had gotten weak.

I've done some research (of course; that's what I do) and most places say batteries need to be replaced every 3-5 years. Really!? (Well, longest I've ever owned a car before was two years, so ...)

Anyway, I have an appointment with my auto folks on Thursday, and hopefully they can resolve the problem. (And hopefully she'll actually start Thursday morning!)

BUSY WEEK

It's actually a busy week.

Today I ran the folks to the airport for a trip to San Jose (leaving me & Kimberly alone on the island for almost four weeks!) and then Kimberly to an appointment. Not quite a work-day bust: I was still able to do some client work in the morning and RPG editing in the afternoon, and almost got my receipts and invoices for the RWOT trip all together.

Thursday I need to run Julie into town (but I'll be able to sit somewhere and work, likely Kukui Grove or the library).

Friday I have a meeting with my financial advisor.

I've never thrilled with these weeks when I don't have a single day of uninterrupted work on my personal projects, but that's how it goes.

THE PERSONAL PROJECTS

I'm actually about to hit some major milestones on my personal projects.

I have a few chapters left to edit in my Traveller history, and then I turn it over to Mongoose, which will be my first history work to go to a publisher since I committed half-time work to histories in 2020.

I also have a few chapters left to edit in my fourth TSR history book, and then that goes .... to a second (or third) draft edit of the whole series, but nonetheless I've alerted that publisher that we are ahead of schedule for a 2024 Kickstarter.

Could I have five new history books out next year? Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, I need to get off my butt and get some fresh work done this month too, because of the unrelenting tyranny of having a Patreon. (It's really been serving its purpose in keeping these books going though!)

...

My twisted ankle is still hurting some. We have yet more new neighbors. The Winchester Mystery House behind us has been under construction for more than a month now. So much to write about, never enough time!

LUCY

We had a very stressful appointment for Lucy today. She had an infection last week due to her feeding tube, and so we hit it with antibiotics for a week and have been carefully cleaning her stoma nightly, so today we got to find out whether she got to keep her feeding tube in or not.

Several days ago, I think we were both feeling that we'd likely be saying goodbye to our kitty this week, but the antibiotic seems to have done its work, and things are looking better, which means we can keep feeding her at this point.

More notably, with the antibiotic run its course, we can see if she has any appetite back after a few weeks of chemotherapy. We actually had some slight encouragement yesterday: she ate half a food of plate for dinner, but then yowled at us when we tube fed her the rest. As I said: slight encouragement.

The next week will really tell us much of the story: whether the chemotherapy is helping at all, especially as we're simultaneously hitting her with two anti-nausea drugs and are starting up an appetite stimulant again.

So I guess next Monday's appointment will be very stressful as well.

[a note on the picture: The sign reads. "Please don't hesitate to ask for an estimate. All payments are due after services have been completed." I always feel like they should embrace the rhyme: "Please don't hesitate / to ask for an estimate / All payments are due / after we're done with you. / We hope your cat's better / But you can't be a debtor. / So pay up now / And we won't have a cow". Or something like that.]

TEETH

Here's a major annoyance that I could have done without at this point: three weeks ago my dentist drilled two cavities right at my gumline. It was I think the most painful dental work I've ever had done (but then I was knocked out for my wisdom teeth extraction, many years ago).

Anyway, ever since I've been having pain over there. The dentist said I should expect some pain afterward because it had been "complicated" but I certainly hadn't expected three weeks worth.

Other complications: I knew the dentist was going on vacation the week after that work.

The sensitivity when biting and flossing seems to be decreasing, but I've been continuing to have a high level of sensitivity to cold water, to the point where it gets my whole jaw hurting for hours.

I finally called up the dentist's office today, despite the dentist still being out, and heard that this was normal when a dentist had to put in a filling very near a nerve, and that it was encouraging that it seemed to be getting better, because teeth often "adjusted".

And if not, then they'd need to do a root canal.

I can't help but feel like I had teeth that were fine and they've been totally messed up at a time I really didn't need it! I mean, I'm sure the dentist knows best, but I'd absolutely have put it on hold until after my Europe trip if I'd been told beforehand that it was "complicated" and there might be long-term repercussions. But the first time I heard that was AFTER the work had been done.

I have an appointment for one other cavity next Thursday. So the dentist will be able to look then if things haven't totally resolved. (And he swears this other one isn't complicated.)

EUROPE

And we're now three weeks away from my Europe trip to support Rebooting the Web of Trust. Honestly, I've been dreading this all summer. (It's been an awful summer.) Two months ago when we started Lucy on her pointless antibiotic course for a non-existent gallbladder infection, I could count up the weeks: that after a six week treatment we'd be halfway to my departure date.

And now we're half of that again.

I mean, maybe things will suddenly turn around thanks to the chemotherapy and finishing up with the newest antibiotics, but we've had so many weeks of back and forth, so much false hope, that it's hard not to just see a black hole ahead, where Kimberly has to deal with a sick cat on her own while I'm halfway around the world. (I've encouraged her to get help, but we'll see how it goes.)

WORK

Anywho, back to trying to work for the day. I've been doing great work for Blockchain Commons on my consulting days, because we had some very pragmatic web design to do, but my creative work on my other days has really been a push. Fortunately, I've got it laid in little bite-sized sections. Today, Thursday, and Friday I should be able to do three sections of two pages or so each, and then I'll be done with the last chapter of my Traveller history book, which is a big, big accomplishment, since I've been working on it since January 2022.

THE MARATHON

We've been hearing sirens all morning. That's because it's the day of the Kauai Marathon (and Half Marathon). They occur every Labor Day weekend, but this is the first since we've arrived because of the pandemic. So I've heard at least half-a-dozen ambulances go by. Kimberly says more, and she's had headphones on part of the time. Apparently lots of emergencies caused by the marathon. (One reviewer said it's rated as the fourth toughest in the US because of the heat, humidity, and altitude change, with our house pretty much being the 100% top of the course, I suspect. Which is pretty cool. We should put a sign out that says, "It's all down hill from here." Though there's down and then up in some places still.)

The disruption actually started at 7.30 or so, when people started loudly talking just outside our house. We're right on the race course, which circles the golf course that we live next door to. So, these were people standing outside our windows, waiting for the runners. Who finally arrived at 8 or so.

I sat out on our lanai and watched the runners for 10 minutes or so. Two people were in the lead by a few minutes, then others trailed every minute or two. It's clearly a sparsely attended marathon. Records suggest there were just less than 400 people three years ago when the marathon last ran. I dunno how many people after two years of pandemics.

I actually have a hate-hate relationship with marathons, largely due to Berkeley. They started running a half-marathon sometime in the '00s, and especially the first year it made a horrible wreck of downtown. Even after that I'd often hear stories of people being stuck in their homes for hours on marathon day.

To calm the populace, Berkeley always told us excitedly about how much money they were raising for charity with the marathon. But, it was really peanuts. Clearly much less than they were spending to do all the setup and support for the (commercial) marathon. If donating was the reason behind the marathon, they could have donated MORE just by giving over their costs of the marathon, without inconveniencing half the city. So it was clearly all about trying to have Berkeley punch above its weight class and pridefully prove that it was a world class city, and the citizens be damned. At least that's how I took it.

I can see more why Kauai as a resort/vacation destination would find it appropriate to host a marathon, especially over Labor Day weekend, which is just where tourism (slightly) declines. We're going into what's called "shoulder season". Mind you it feels much less appropriate now than when it was started in the '00s, because the pandemic led Kauai (and the Hawaiian Islands in general) to realize that they'd become overtouristed. The beauty and quiet of the islands during the pandemic, the natural resources starting to come back to life, the infrastructure no longer groaning under the weight of tourism, that's all stuff that residents want to get back to, and I'm not convinced creating destination events like marathons is how to do that.

But the main lesson for us was _never_ fly out on a plane over Labor Day weekend. The runners actually run part of the way on the highway, which is the _only_ way to get to the airport from the south or west island, so the County warned to give yourself 1.5 to 2.5 hours for a trip that should be 30 to 60 minutes depending on what part of the island you're on.

And I'd love to walk the half marathon sometime. 13 miles from the Grand Hyatt to the highway and back sounds wonderful, though it'd mean getting up at god-awful in the morning.

THE SHOTS

Other news ...

I have been filled with so many holes in recent weeks that I've become a connoisseur of vaccinations.

Two weeks ago was my second COVID booster. I really hate the way our COVID boosters are being dealt with currently, as I knew I had this trip to the Netherlands coming up at the end of September, and I decided that I meant that I should delay my second booster four months from my initial eligibility so that I could have it at maximum strength for the trip.

I mean much of this is the poor efficacy of the current vaccines (which still leave you susceptible to illness) and in contrast the fact that the world is still treating COVID as if it were a very high level of risk and as if individual countries could keep it out. So that means I could get stuck in the Netherlands if I get sick, and thus everything possible needed to be done to avoid that.

(I'd wondered at the time if there might be some chance for an omnicron vaccine if I'd gotten my second booster earlier, and that has indeed emerged, but it's still not available here and I'd bet we're at least a week off, which ultimately means that I would have gotten it within two weeks of my trip, which would not have left it very useful. And now I'm probably going to have to save that omnicron vaccine for my _next_ trip, likely at the end of March.)

Then, this last week I got my (first) shingles shot and my yearly flu shot. The shingles had to be two weeks from the COVID shot because of the stress they both put on the immune system. The shingles shot was because I'm now over 50. The flu shot was one I always get before my September or October business trip (though I'm aware that means it'll lose its efficacy before the end of flu season).

Of the shots, the COVID remains the worst. But this was the best of them. I was _super_ achey and tired the night of my shot, but 80% better by the next morning, and for the first time I didn't have an uncomfortable, fevered night. The shingles shot and flu shots left me achey and tired for the next two days, but much less so. So I considered that a win. (I assume it was mostly the shingles shot, as the flu shot hasn't really affected me for years).

Two weeks until I'm heading out of town for my first business trip in three years. Thankfully, the marathon won't be running that day.

Hawaii's vaccination rollout has literally been horrific, in large part because the state has decided to throw vulnerable populations under the bus to fill the ever-gluttonous maw of the tourism industry. So, in callous disregard for CDC guidelines, they opted to name non-essential groups like bartenders and concierges and timeshare salesman (and for that matter architects, IT professionals, and who-knows-what-else) as essential and let them cut in the vaccine line ahead of people with serious health conditions. In fact, Hawaii only identified three super dangerous conditions for early vaccines, and left the vast majority of people with kidney disease, HIV, asthma, and other conditions more likely to cause them to die out in the cold.

Which literally means that Hawaii chose for vulnerable people to die to get tourism going faster.

---

But, that's kind of been the trend throughout the pandemic. Hawaii has made it very clear that there's a deep cancer in the state that leads them to put tourists above residents. That's not something I'd really realized in my own 20 years of visiting here, not even in the previous 13 years, when I was family, not a tourist per se. But you live here and it becomes as obvious as the palm trees and the turquoise ocean.

It's pretty easy to see in the state's quarantine procedures.

Our island, Kauai, has a mayor who's been very uneven in his plague proclamations, varying between too strict, too dumb, and too lax, but he's the one mayor who has generally fallen on the side of protecting the population, and that shows. Except for 6 or so scary weeks in October and November, when Mayor Kawakami bent over for the tourism industry to let plague-carriers back on the island in a limited (but it turns out not sufficiently limited) way, anyone coming to Kauai has had to do a little bit of work. For the last three or four months we've had a good compromise: a 3 day quarantine and a second test after arrival. Not torturous, but enough to halt the community spread that began when Mayor Kawakami foolishly opened the island up more last fall.

The other islands? Not so much. They have their 14-day quarantine, but you can opt out with a pre-arrival test which is totally inadequate, and so they've all had pretty high quantities of COVID at various times, and it remains in the community on at least Oahu and Maui.

The result is really horrible when you consider the numbers.

Kauai has a population of 70,000, compared to 1.4M for the islands overall. So we've got almost exactly 5% of the overall population.

We've also had 1 COVID death. (My dad says one of his doctors said 2, but if so that other one has never been officially reported). Extrapolating that, there should be 20 deaths on the islands overall (or 40). The actual number? 460.

Now those other islands don't have some of the natural advantages that Kauai does, like being a smaller and more rural community, and thus having people who actually care about the community, unlike the sociopathy that naturally grows in larger cities (such as Honolulu).

But still, that's at least a few hundred citizens that those other islands sacrificed to keep their tourism open.

---

Unfortunately, our inconstant Mayor has once again wavered over to the side of the tourism industry. At the start of March he announced that as of April 5th the islands would be open with just the pre-testing that we already know is inadequate, that let something like 20 false negatives onto the island last Fall and quickly led to community spread, to our island's one death, and to a threat to our extremely limited (9) ICU beds.

Now there were doubtless some political reasons for this. Some representatives in the State House who were even deeper into the pockets of the tourism industry were advancing a new law that would disallow mayors (and even the Governor) from adjusting access to the islands based on COVID concerns. It would have been a disaster that would have led to the tourism industry killing even more residents. And, that seemed to get dropped as soon as Mayor Kawakami announced his return to "Safe" Travels. And, doubtless, Mayor Kawakami has been getting pressured the whole time by people who care more about bucks than lives.

But the result, that Mayor Kawakami stopped running with the finish line in sight, is deeply frustrating. Even moreso when you consider we were on the verge of new money coming in to help people and businesses and states impacted by economic losses.

Scientists have been very clear that there isn't yet enough vaccine in arms to actually slow the spread of COVID. So, we're now likely to get a repeat of last Winter, where COVID escapes into the community again and threatens the at-risk people who Hawaii has refused to give vaccination priority.

And all we had to do was wait a few months more.

---

Here's the one bright spot: Kauai is the one island that is getting more progressive in its vaccinations.

Kimberly and I noticed on Monday when the County started posting kind of weird announcements that you should sign up for for a vaccine as an essential worker, and if you didn't qualify, you'd be placed on their waitlist. Because it wasn't like the whole essential-workers thing was new.

I told Kimberly that she should sign up immediately, and I did the same. I hadn't quite twigged to what was going on yet, I just figured that we could drop everything and be in Lihue in 30 minutes at the drop of a hat if they suddenly had an unexpected opening.

But the next morning I found waiting in my email box a token to sign up for vaccinations, and after Kimberly filled out their quickly changing form a few more times, she did too.

When I looked at the vaccination signups, it became obvious to me that Kauai was constrained by the state's guidelines, and thus had been wasting vaccinations slots, so they were trying to find a technically allowed solution for that. Because the day I got my OK back, on Tuesday, I looked at the signups and there were slots that had gotten wasted that day (because I noticed my email too late to do anything), and there were about 100 slots available on Wednesday and over 150 on Thursday. So, Kauai was pretending to make a waitlist, but was also moving people off of it immediately.

So Kimberly and I signed up for the same slot on Thursday morning, and we were off ...

---

Cut to the vaccination clinic on Thursday morning.

There were quite a few people out there getting their shots yesterday, but it was well-administered.

It all happened at the War Memorial Convention Hall in Lihue, which I'd never been to, but seems like a medium-sized community center with an auditorium for a few hundred people.

The line out front was maybe 15-20 people deep. One volunteer moved up and down the line to make sure everyone had their pre-vaccination questionnaire filled out. We moved up and got checked in. A short time later, after a second short line, we met a second administrator just outside the hall, who double-checked our ID and gave us our vaccination card. Then it was inside, to a third line, and finally to the vaccinator.

My vaccinator told me that they didn't have cookies like they did out at the Veterans Hospital, but they could offer blue bandaids instead of clear/white ones. I was deeply disappointed over the lack of cookies, but did my best not to show it, and told her the vaccine and the blue bandaid were more than enough.

The vaccine was perhaps the most painless shot I'd ever had. My vaccinator wasn't as good with distracting me with meaningless conversation while sneaking up to stab me as most people giving me shots (or taking blood) are, but I literally didn't feel the needle.

Afterward it was on to line #4, which led into the auditorium, where Kimberly and I sat far from anyone else for 15 minutes to make sure we didn't keel over dead from the vaccine. (Because when you're giving vaccines to 70k people or 1.4M or 350M or 7.5B or whatever, some *will* have side effects. It's normal and expected, because statistics are real assholes.)

Administrator #3 wrote on a piece of paper when we could leave. I think mine said 9.47 or 9.49.

So Kimberly and I got in line at 9.10 for our 9.20 appointment, and we were back in Julie the Benz before 10.00. Not bad!

---

Side effects?

My arm has somewhat hurt ever since. Not bad, but noticeable, especially if I do something stupid like lean on a wall with that arm.

I was a little tired yesterday afternoon, and so did work that I could do while listening to music. When my dad came over and we worked on transitions for Kimberly's closet, that perked me up.

I was a little achey this morning from where I'd been sleeping.

So, stronger side effects than any vaccines I've had in years, but not particularly notable in the scheme of things. My only concern is that shot #2 might be worse, but so it goes. (COVID would be a lot worse, and could potentially lead to very long-term side effects.)

---

I am *thrilled* to be vaccinated, but also aware that it's about five weeks too late for what our mayor has done to our island. Because when we get tourists back in larger numbers on Monday, this first vaccination won't even have taken effect. Another week after that I'll have some immunity, but it'll still be another few weeks before I can get my second shot and two weeks beyond that that I should have my 94.5%.

And, we've clearly been seeing increased tourists already: selfish assholes who think that it's their right to have a fun vacation in the middle of a pandemic. I was out on the trails above Waimea Canyon last weekend and met at least half-a-dozen people who were clearly tourists (including flying-his-drone-in-the-canyon man and literally-dangling-out-over-the-canyon-for-a-selfie-holding-on-only-with-her-hands lady, who I was certain I was about to see plunge to her death). It made me nervous being anywhere close to them (and also made me aware that I should have walked those particular trails more while the tourists were gone, alas!).

---

On the bright side, Kauai has now been able to announce that they are opening vaccines to everyone 16+. That news came in a few hours after Kimberly and I got our vaccines yesterday. They must have been able to convince the state that their excess capacity was not going away.

The irony? That starts on April 5th, which is the exact same day that the tourists start flooding back on a swell of disease. So, that'd be vaccinations that are generally being made available six weeks too late.

Like I said, our mayor saw the finish line in the distance, and thought he'd won the race without getting there.

Might be some hard months ahead for our island.

So the pandemic almost cost me my chance to talk to Kimberly's doctor before her discharge.

The hospital only recently started allowing visitors. (How many people have ever been hospitalized for COVID in Hawaii? It's less than 100.) And they have absurd policies. I guess I can understand how having just one visitor per patient per day can cut down on the number of randos wandering the halls — not that I saw many visitors at all last time Kimberly was hospitalized, in December, so unless Hawaii is very different, that's a solution in search of a problem.

But the 10am start time just feels retaliatory.

And my concern was that Kimberly's doctor makes his rounds between 10 and 12, so it was possible I wouldn't get to the hospital before he showed up, and I definitely wanted to hear what he had to say and question him, especially if Kimberly was impaired.

And Kimberly called me at about 9.30, while I was walking to the hospital, to say he'd showed up early.

---

Oh, hey, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also in Honolulu today. The difference is that he's trying to sell out democracy and I'm not.

---

Fortunately, Kimberly and I had already talked about this eventuality, and she asked if he could return after I got there, and he agreed.

So I redoubled my pace, got to the hospital 10 minutes before visiting hours started, and found myself about 25 people deep in the line to get in. Sigh. (And as I've said before, boy these long queues were you stand next to the same people for extended periods of time, even if socially distanced, are great breeding grounds for COVID.)

The previous day, Queen's staff at the visitors desk was pretty incompetent, taking about a minute to clear each person, but this time they managed more like 20 seconds, so I made it up to Kimberly's room abut 10.10, and the doctor came in just a minute or two later.

And we got much more info on what he'd been seeing and what it meant, and I'll leave that all for Kimberly to tell, if she so chooses.

---

It took us a couple more hours to get out of there, between Kimberly getting as much glue as she could out of her hair, them staff finishing up the discharge paperwork, and us having to wait for a wheelchair (because amidst all of this, Kimberly still has a bad foot.)

And that was the end of the medical portion of our visit to Oahu.

---

After we got back to the hotel, I picked us up some Thai food from a nearby restaurant for lunch.

At dinner we were less hungry, and so I just got us some summer rolls from a nearby Vietnamese restaurant, and supplemented that with some McDonalds. (Yeah, that's clasé, but we were both still pretty full, and I didn't want something as rich as that lunch.)

---

In between, I took the walk I'd been wanting to out to Waikiki, but hadn't had time for before.

Our hotel is just inland from Ala Moana, which is just over a bridge from Waikiki. It's about 15 minutes to get down to the shoreline. So I walked there, and then I walked the entire length of Waikiki, turned at the zoo, and then walked back on the other side of the channels that separate Waikiki from the rest of Honolulu.

First up, Waikiki is so much more attractive than the rest of Honolulu: this is what I remember from when we were here before.

And the beaches and shorelines were all gorgeous to see.

I also enjoying tracing back through some of the places we'd visited on our previous trip to Waikiki. The lagoon and mosaic-highrise which had been right next to our condo. A food court that we ate at or met someone at or something. The surfing dude statue. The pathway of imprisoned surfboards. I wasn't really actively looking for any of this, but Waikiki isn't huge, so it was easy to walk in our own footsteps.

And, yes, the area was pleasantly empty. I'll never see it like that again, so I'm glad I was able too. Most of the beaches were very scantly peopled. The sidewalks too. Oh, I certainly saw people, constantly, but it was actually possible to maintain my 6 foot distance almost all the day. Waikiki Beach itself was the only place that was at all crowded, and I think that the groups of people were still maintaining their six feet distance. (But I opted not to walk it because of all the people.)

Whereas I'd seen that all before, the walk back along the Lei of Parks trail was new. In fact, the trail is relatively new, dating back several years. It starts at the Honolulu Zoo, then circles around Ala Wai golf course before running down to the Ala Wai Canal. Very pleasant, especially once you're past the golf course. Would walk again.

---

About six miles walk. And that was pretty much my free time on this trip to Oahu.

It's the Day to take Kimberly to Oahu for her seizure study!

Yep, we now get to fly for some medical treatment!

---

Waking up at 5am to go to the airport in Hawaii turns out to be not so early as it was in California. I mean, that's literally true, it's 8am in California. But also we've now got an earlier schedule (because I wanted to stay somewhat on west-coast time) so, I'm up two hours early, rather than in the middle of the night.

---

I drive out to Lihue Airport, and note to Kimberly that this was the first time we'd ever drive ourselves there.

After parking, I take a picture of the car and message it to my dad so he knows where it is. For Complex Reasons(tm), my dad will be picking up Julie the Benz later today. (He does, later assures me that she's made it home safely, and also sends a picture of Callisto oh-so-patiently waiting for Lucy to finish her wet food. Car and cats taken care of!)

---

It's fortunate that there's pretty much no one in the security line, because our local government has made it even more of a godawful mess to get into an airport by now requiring you to fill out quarantine-related forms prior to getting into the TSA line.

One form is about our business and where we're settling in on the other island, which we note doesn't even have a checkbox for "Medical". We're just told to check "Business".

Pretty much everyone in line is flying on a medical exemption, so that seemed like a bit of an oversight, but oversight has been the name of the game for the Hawaiian government since we got here, in all senses of the word.

And then we're required to initial and sign a form acknowledging the 14-day interisland quarantine, which I found very questionable because we explicitly have forms exempting us from the quarantine due to Kimberly's having medical needs to be taken care of on Oahu. The guy helping us with the forms just nods and says: sure, just keep that exemption paper with you.

(I might be required to show my papers was the very explicit subtext.)

In any case, I decide this isn't a fight to fight at the airport even though I think it entirely inappropriate for me to sign, pretty much duress, a form acknowledging a quarantine that does not apply to me.

---

The interisland quarantine ends tomorrow. The guy helping us with the forms notes that we'll have different forms to fill out when we come back, as a result.

Today's forms, which take about 10 minutes to fill out, only worked without totally hamstringing the airport because there are so few people coming in. But if the other forms are similarly bad, as the end of quarantine allows more people to travel, well we'd better make sure we have plenty of time when we go back to the Honolulu airport in several days.

---

Lihue Airport has a big open lobby just past the TSA. We hang out there until our flight is boarding.

---

Apparently Airport Security doesn't have to wear masks. Or socially distance. Or work.

Because three of them are just standing there yacking, practically leaning on each other, the whole time we're in the lobby.

---

Finally, we head to the non-socially-distanced gate.

They're now boarding from the back of the plane to the front in clumps of about four rows at a time, to try and keep people from encountering each other ... but more than half the seats are already filled when we go back to get our seats (rows 15-12). Good going, guys.

---

The woman in front of me keeps snuffling, even taking down her mask once to blow her nose.

At least she presumably passed a temperature check. Unless she Karened her way out of it.

---

I'm shocked that they're still serving drinks on the interisland hop, despite COVID-19. Because it just sounds like an encouragement for everyone to take off their masks while all in close quarters.

Fortunately Lady Snuffles doesn't get a drink.

---

Sn
Kimberly had a good morning, but we realize that she's having cognitive problems on the plane when I try and talk to her several times (to ask if she wants that drink) and she is having terrible troubles hearing and understanding me. And only later does she realize it's because she didn't think to take her earbuds out.

---

In Honolulu we take our first shared ride car in five and a half months.

It's a little weird, driving on a highway, with an urban center around us. Honolulu is a lot more like Berkeley than Kauai is.

---

There's queueing and screening to get into the hospital. They don't have Kimberly on their list, but Mini has prepared us for this, and I just hand over the letter about Kimberly's admission, and that's that. They take our temperatures, tell us what they are, and pass us in.

Up in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU), they start quizzing and testing Kimberly. I'm glad I'm there, because she's having increasing difficulties finding words as first the morning and afternoon go on.

---

During a break, we order lunch. The hospital has a decent menu, and the most delightful thing is that you can order a "guest tray" for a visitor. Yay, this is a time not to be sitting in cafeterias in Honolulu. And we're told the tray is $10 no matter what's on it, so we should pile it high.

So Kimberly orders some beefmac, and I choose a ham-and-cheese sandwich, imagining a sizzling sandwich straight off the grill with the cheese melted over the ham on the toasted sourdough. And I order some potatoes and a brownie. I try and order a pear smoothie, but that's for patients only.

What I get is two slices of ham and one slice of cheese on bread so tasteless that it could only be called sourdough in Hawaii, four halves of very teeny potatoes, and about 1 oz of brownie. Ah well, I didn't have to go to a cafeteria.

---

We talk to the doctor and he urges us not so say that Kimberly is having "seizures", but instead "events".

---

Jerry the EEG-glue guy (and monitor, apparently) then comes in and spends over an hour precisely placing and gluing 33 electrodes to Kimberly's head. It's a careful, time-consuming process. When He finally finishes, he talks about the seizure button.

And by this time it's obvious that Kimberly has really tipped over into a bad state. But it's so hard to classify "is she having a seizure" (an "event") when it's such a gradual non-discrete thing. But as we're asking if this mighjt meet the criteria, Jerry goes ahead and hits the button, so I guess that amswers that, and a few different people come in and document how Kimberly is doing.

So, yay? That's the whole point of being here.

---

Everyone seems to think I'm going to be staying by Kimberly's bedside 24x7, which strikes me as just short of crazy. I mean, yes, besides getting her to the hospital in the first place, my point in being here and not home is to help her feel safe and cared for. But there's only so much I can do to stay here and retain my sanity.

I can't visit Kimberly twice a day here, as was my norm last time she was in the hospital, because their current requirement at Queen's is just one visitor one time a day. Still, I'll spend a few hours here, and of course chat with her if she wants elsetime.

But I feel a little disloyal in that the hospital staff all seems to have different opinions of what I'll be doing.

---

(Mind you: the hospital staff all seem to think that Mayor Kawakami on Kauai is god. I'm able to just bite my tongue on that one, because I'm well aware that our cases were already mostly extinct by the time the shelter-in-place came down, and I'm aware that he's done a real disservice to Kauai in his lack of response to improving conditions. But folks here seem to be very single minded: it's only about how Kawakami has [maybe] stopped the spread of COVID-19 on Kauai. Because they're health workers, so that's of course all that's on their minds.)

---

Kimberly falls asleep while I'm there and a bit later suddenly awakes and seems totally panicked. I tell her, "Don't pull anything out!" She's sure something is really wrong, but her response is to push the "seizure button", which is a great response.

Two nurses rush in and record things again, but they're much, much terser than they were before.

---

Kimberly says I should head out a bit after 3. She says she can lay in a hospital bed all her own.

I walk Honolulu back to my hotel.

Not a particularly pretty city, but I probably think that even more after five and a half months on Kauai.

---

The hotel fortunately seems nice enough. But there's a homeless guy checking in in front of me. And he's got a mask on, but is wearing it as a chin strap. I keep as far back as possible.

When he can't show an ID, he wanders out and some guy wanders in with him and does all the paperwork for a night's stay at $200 (almost twice what I'm paying).

It appears to me that guy #2 represents the organization that puts homeless people up after they've illegally shipped out here on planes. I'm not convinced you're actually making Honolulu a better place, guy #2.

---

Afterward, there's no problem for me. I show my medical exemption, and that's that, no attempt to give me a one-use key or set the police on me.

---

Afterward I wander Honolulu more. I was actually trying to go down to the waterfront, just to see it (again), but I got turned around and so wandered back in the direction of Queen's before turning around. I finally land at Taco Bello where I grab some food to bring home.

I understand better why everyone at the hospital is praising Kawakami, because Mayor Caldwell of Honolulu is an absolute moron in the opposite direction.

First, we got a homeless population that's about 5% of the people I see on the streets, and they're wandering freely with no respect for any health guidelines, and unlike the guy being booked into the hotel, none of them even have masks that they're not wearing. And in fact more than half the people I see while out aren't wearing masks. In particular, if they're white or they're male, the odds are very good they're unmasked.

And Caldwell ain't doing anything about either problem, according to the readers of the Star*Advertiser because he's a coward.

So we have Kawakami who is killing our economy even when COVID is pretty dealt with on our island, but in the process has really created a spirit of community sacrifice.

And we have Caldwell who is just killing the people, and who has instilled a community sociopathy, where more than half the people don't seem to care.

---

So that's Oahu on day one.

Fingers crossed on the study.

And I'm not sure I'll be making it to Waikiki, both because work + Kimberly are going to keep me busy, and because I see the spread of COVID-19 on this island isn't just about parties, it's about the people.

So we're going to Oahu next week. It was always on our plans for this year, in part to keep Kimberly from losing his frequent flier miles with Hawaiian (though she mysteriously lost them anyway, somewhere prior to our move out here!). And we're now doing it, but we'd never expected the circumstances.

The first circumstance, obviously, being COVID-19. Which will likely make Honolulu and Waikiki beautiful, empty, inconvenient, and a bit scary all at the same time.

The second circumstance being Kimberly's seizures, which have dramatically worsened since we moved.

---

The precipitating event is that Kimberly not only got her seizure study finally scheduled, but they moved it up. (Original date was June 29th, new date is June 15th.)

When I talk about all patients except COVID-19 patients being thrown under the bus, this is one of my main reasons. We've been trying to get Kimberly into this study, probably since February. It's now June. Much of the time the hospital was just refusing to take patients from off-island. Kimberly is now going to be literally be their first off-island patient since the shutdown. They actually had to write new rules to accommodate her.

(I'm aware of people in even worse circumstances elsewhere being denied medical care that's literally life-saving due to COVID-19. I hope there's going to be a lot of rethinking of our ethics and values when this is all over, because we're failing in a lot of ways.)

I've already got our plane tickets and my hotel reservations. There was actually much question over all of this. At one point the plan was for me to fly to Oahu, take Kimberly to the hospital, then fly back before repeating the whole thing 3-7 days later to pick her up. At the time, the hospital wasn't allowing any visitors and the whole state was so locked down that I wouldn't have been able to do anything in Oahu, so there was no reason to spend the $1000 or so to stay there.

But the hospital started allowing visitors (only one at a time, only once a day), then the seizure unit (the "Emu" unit, apparently because someone likes flightless birds) disallowed it, then our super-star clerk out there got Kimberly special permissions to have me visit.

I should say that Kimberly's seizures are also the reason for all these weird contortions. She gets severely confused and upset when she's having the seizures at their worse, so we weren't sure she could definitively make it to the hospital on her own, if the timing was unlucky. We were actually planning to hire an escort for her (maybe that's not the best choice of words) to make sure she got to the hospital, before the restrictions started to lift. But now I can escort her, and also visit her enough to hopefully ensure she's not scared.

As it happens, June 15th is also the last day of the 14-day inter-island quarantine. Does that mean people who fly that day get locked up for 14 days and the next day not at all? We're not sure. But we both have passes that say we have a medical exemption, so we're hoping there are no problems. (Well, it won't be an issue for Kimberly, because she'll go straight to the hospital and stay there: I'm hoping it won't be a problem.)

So that's the plan. First flight to Oahu on next Monday, get Kimberly to the EMU by 9 or 9.30, do as much as I can to make sure she's OK, and then I have a hotel room at 3. (What does one do in a city that's still theoretically sheltering in place, despite almost everything opening up, for maybe 3 or so hours, while dragging around luggage? I'm not sure. But I once dragged my luggage around Toronto on a bike, so I'm sure it'll work out.)

The plan for the rest of next week is then: start each day with a half-day of work for Blockchain Commons in the morning (if Chris wants the time), get lunch, hang out with Kimberly in the early afternoon, spend some time in Oahu in the late afternoon, then go back to my hotel. I expect it's going to be an RWOT-style tiring and busy week.

And did I mention that COVID cases are going up again in Oahu? Joy. After cases wobbling between 0 and 2 or so for a month we've had twenty or so cases in the last four days. Current speculation is that it's graduation parties and Memorial Day parties. Really, that level shouldn't be a concern to randomly get it, but it's so frustrating that the government won't even tell us what neighborhoods the virus is stalking, let alone if cases are clusters or not. At least in Hawaii that's one of their biggest failures (the other being not rolling back the restrictions when most of the islands dropped to zero cases, particularly Kauai.)

So, five and a half months after our arrival, we're leaving for a bit. Actually, that was always the plan too. I figured I'd get to vary up my island living with RWOT trips twice a year, but clearly that's not happening right now either.

Weird times.

Kauai, Day 93. Shelter-in-Place, Day 10.

Today was supposed to be my first day of "personal work". I've given Skotos somewhere between 2-5 weeks of my additional time, to finish transitioning the Skotos and RPGnet web sites, but in exchange I'm now taking Fridays for my own personal work (which was supposed to be getting most of my time starting this week: but I'm determined to leave Skotos and RPGnet in good shape.)

Well, the new plan didn't actually work out either.

I wanted to get back to my DnDClassics work, which I'm planning to turn into a multi-book history of all of D&D's official products. So I jumped right back into the "World of Greyhawk", where I was expanding and splitting up my old writing on the product into individual histories for the folio put out in 1980 and the box put out in 1983.

I got down to my office at 7.30, which is my normal start time, as I wanted to have the best work hygiene possible for my personal work, even if I don't put in a full day like I would for Skotos, RPGnet, or Blockchain Commons. But I was only able to work until about 9.30. So, two hours for my first day of work. I worked my way through everything I'd written thus far on the 1980 folio, and started in on the next sections, but there was only so much I could do.

---

This was not unexpected, sadly. Yesterday I got a call from my physical therapy office, and they let me know that my therapist was self-isolating, and so all of appointments were cancelled. I didn't ask too much about this self-isolation, because I really didn't want to know right now.

I managed to get Kimberly and myself a new set of paired appointments, one after the other, but they were at 10.15 and 11.00. Hence the early end to my first day of writing.

---

Physical therapy was fine.

My knee is actually doing better than it was last week by a noticeable amount. I dunno if that's my exercises, natural healing, or the previous therapist taping up my knee to keep it from moving in the direction that was causing pain. I still don't know if it'll be able to get entirely better on its own, but that was encouraging.

And today I got massages with rolling pins, stretches, new exercises, and more tape.

And then we had to go to Walmart for a new prescription for Kimberly and to Costco for food for us both, and that was less fun than being attacked with a rolling pin.

---

First up, there were lines to get into both stores. Walmart took me about 20 minutes, Costco took us 30.

As I'd feared would be the case, those lines look like petri dishes for disease, the exact thing that these restrictions are supposed to be avoiding. Walmart was pretty decent, but the way the barriers were laid out that guided the lines, it was easy to be within 6 foot of people, depending on how people were aligned in the zig-zag rows on either side of you. Costco was worse, because the back-and-forth just before the door put you maybe 4-5 feet from people on the other sides, with no way of avoiding it.

So good job, idiot Kauai mayor. You've replaced casual interactions with people within the store with long-term interactions with people while you stand in line for 20-30 minutes, and we know those long-term interactions are how COVID-19 spreads.

---

In the Costco line, the lady in front of us commented that we might be safe from COVID-19 now (questionable), but we'd all have melanoma in 10 years. (Because we were standing in line in the direct Hawaiian sun.)

Which I agree with. I actually had previously stood in the Walmart line slathering myself with sunscreen while I waited (which was probably too late for that line, but likely helped out later).

And I thought: "Having to put on sunscreen to get a drug prescription is perhaps the most ridiculous thing ever."

---

The line at Costco also had one other delightful feature: it ran all the way to the back of the store, then looped back into the parking lot ... blocking all of the handicap spaces.

I was pissed at the people at first, but as we were forced to get into the same line I realized that none of us had any power to prevent the problem at that point.

This is the continued fault of our aforementioned idiot mayor in Kauai, who has now amended the local interpretation of the shelter-in-place order twice, but has done absolutely nothing to protect the rights of the disabled, and all it would take is a reminder that these new regulations still need to respect the ADA.

But even more obviously it's the liability (legally) of these stores, in this case Costco, who was requiring a line to enter the store, then allowing it to block their handicapped spaces.

---

The stores were both more crowded than I expected.

The Walmart I would guess only had 50 people last time I was there, which would have reflected v1 of the mayor's emergency decree, and this time I think it had 100, which reflected the day-two, oops I messed up, v2 of the interpretation. Despite the annoying line, it was probably the right number to help people maintain distance in the store.

The Costco theoretically only was allowed 100 people, but I'd guess there were 200 or 300 in there. Which was the right amount for the size of the store. (The idiot mayor's decree just gave one allowed patron count for all stores larger than 50,000 square feet, and the typical Costco is three times that size.) There was no change to the proclamations, so either Costco is ignoring the mayor's idiocy, and just doing what's realistic to keep everyone separated in the store (and the numbers inside were 100% OK), or else they've cut a deal under the table. I don't care which: they've done what's necessary for everyone on the island to actually get food. If Costco had instead listened to the mayor's proclamation (especially the really stupid v1 which would have limited Costco to 50 people), I honestly believe there would have been food riots starting in the Costco parking lot.

---

Oh yeah, there was toilet paper.

In fact, generally, the shortages seem to be resolved. Which makes sense, as it's been about a month since the anti-cooperators began panic-buying hordes of materials at the expense of the rest of the citizens. And so, with some time to produce new resources and ship then in, supplies have returned.

I bought a regular pack of toilet paper at Walmart, our first stop, but then I saw at Costco they had what I really wanted, which is Costco's massive pack of 30 rolls.

Not hoarding, honest, just buying what they had, then what I really wanted.

I suppose I could have stood in a 20-minute line at Walmart to return the first pack.

(Not likely.)

---

Funny story, every cart at Costco looks like the owner is hoarding.

Because it's Costco.

But I saw one freakish human actually really genuinely stockpiling at the expense of the rest of the people in the store. He literally had 8-9 rotisserie chickens in his basket. (My dad thinks that Costco is actually limiting people to one rotisserie chicken right now. I certainly hope the chicken hoarder got turned back at the register.)

And crazy hoarder heard us talking about refried beans, which were only available in flats of 8 cans, which we did not want. (Because we'd either never use them, or we'd eat EIGHT CANS of refried beans.) And when we said we weren't going to get them, he said we should because YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN THEY MIGHT DISAPPEAR OFF THE SHELVES AND NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN.

Enjoy those chickens and refried beans, dude. And I'm sure the 7-8 people who didn't get rotisserie chickens because of you would say the same.

(Not.)

---

Generally, Lihue was much more crowded than expected. Certainly, areas like the mall had tumbleweeds rolling through their parking lot, but Costco and Walmart had their parking lots about 60-75% of their normal occupancy. Home Depot looked if anything fuller. There was a drive-through line at Taco Bell (where we grabbed some take-home lunch) that ran a ways into the parking lot. The roads were about as busy as I'd expect at the times we drove, maybe a little less, but not much.

And I increasingly understand why this pisses people off so much. Because I'm sacrificing. I'm not gaming. I'm not going to my folks house on Sundays. I'm carefully limiting my trips into Lihue (and they'd be almost non-existent if not for that physical therapy.) I'm not building shelves with my dad. I'm not swimming with him. And here are the jackasses acting like it's all a f***ing holiday, presumably because they're not working. So I'm sacrificing, and it's not just that these other people aren't, but they're doing the things that will either force me to sacrifice longer or make it pointless.

---

If there's actually COVID-19 in the community here on Kauai. Because that isn't clear yet. We went three days without new cases, and then had one new one today and two new ones presumably that will show up on the stats tomorrow.

All still travelers? Probably.

But one of the problems is that Hawaii is becoming either increasingly secretive or increasingly incompetent at reporting out stats as time goes on. It looks like the latter, because after a few weeks of not talking about the origin of COVID-19 cases, we suddenly got some charts that showed travelers vs. community spread vs they don't know. But the specifics are very short. For example, as of Kauai case #13, the mayor said that there was still no community spread, but for #14 + #15 today, he didn't say anything, and those charts even if up-to-date aren't precise enough to tell.

So, that's a pretty big deal, because there's a wide difference in danger between travelers having COVID-19 and it actively spreading in our community, and our mayor is refusing to tell us which state we're in as of today.

---

I'd kind of hoped to get back to that World of Greyhawk / DnDClassics this afternoon, to make up for losing most of the "work" today, but I fiddled around and played some PACG when I got home, then went for a walk in the golf course, then generally putzed around this evening.

(Golf course: also super busy. It's had maybe twice as many walkers as usual the last two times I've been there, and more annoyingly, people hanging out in the pavilion, talking and enjoying themselves in violation of the shelter-in-place.)

But with that toehold of new work, I think I can at least finish those two Greyhawk product histories this weekend ... and then we're off to the races again.

---

(And I've got other stuff too, because it's just been hard to be productive lately. I should offer some comments on a RWOT paper that I was involved with, and there are chores to be done around the house, and I need to get some paperwork into the folks who'll be my new brokers as long as our house sale goes through ...

But it's hard to do stuff with the looming uncertainty of the world.)

Today after work I rushed about to do several tasks, at least one of which would not be covered under shelter-in-place rules ... and it's now been announced that we're going to shelter in place for the whole state at midnight tomorrow.

My first stop was the bank. Part of my masterplan of the move to Hawaii was to drop back on my former full-time work with Skotos and make up for that with more time working on Designers & Dragons (and other personal projects). So, I've formed "Designers & Dragons LLC" here in Hawaii, and my last step in that process was getting a bank account set up for that. They required more of the LLC paperwork than I'd expected, but fortunately I had it all with me. So, Designers & Dragons LLC is now 100% ready to go, and I expect to start using it for my writing and consulting next month.

Next up was the hospital. My new doctor got back to me about my knee that's been hurting for like a month now and so I was able to go in and get an X-Ray. Yay, I wasn't sure I'd be able to do this for months. Though I suspect it's a sprain, strain, or tear, not bone damage, so it's likely to need an MRI not an X-Ray, but it's a start. I also have a referral to a physical therapist, and maybe that will help me out.

Third stop was The UPS Store, and this was the one that I didn't think I'd be able to do after tomorrow. We have a $60 Van Gogh print that we'd ordered for our bed room that came entirely mangled. It might have been damaged in transit, but it also clearly hadn't been put together right, because it wasn't flat. So I sent it back so that we didn't have to pay for a $60 Van Gogh print that was misproduced and misshipped.

And finally I went by Costco, because it was right around the corner from the UPS Store. I picked up some refrigerated food and non-perishables. And, I was shocked that the store was relatively empty. I'm been afraid of chaos in advance of the shelter-in-place, but fortunately that announcement came in just before I got there (not earlier in the day as I'd feared). Still, it was quite the opposite of chaos. Perhaps a result of the tourists already starting to head out?

So that was the chaotic TODO on my penultimate day of freedom. I did a pretty good job of social distancing everywhere, except when someone cornered me in the frozen room at Costco. And hopefully I got the stuff done that needed to get done.

---

Meanwhile, I was also distracted during the afternoon because of the eternal house sale. (How could it be just three and a half weeks since we celebrated accepting an offer? It feels like forever!) Our stager had movers come and get her crap out of our house today. (Yay!) But one of our neighbors freaked out and said it shouldn't have been done during the shelter-in-place, and the movers weren't maintaining social distancing with each other, and there would be martial law. (I believe the stager's theory is that there was an exception to the shelter-in-place for recovering her inventory, and as I've written elsewhere there obviously should be an exception for movers, and I know there is in other orders, such as Colorado.) Then the plumbers were out to start the work on the lateral sewer repair, as required by the buyer's bank. (Yay!) But two of our neighbors freaked out and said it shouldn't have been done during the shelter-in-place, and claimed the plumbers were belligerent when confronted about doing their entirely legal (as clearly excepted in the shelter-in-place order) work, and apparently harsh words were exchanged between the neighbors and the plumbers, and someone may have stepped within six foot of someone else, and so the police were called at least once, maybe twice. (Boo!)

When I say the shelter-in-place orders are creating mass hysteria, that's it. And the hysteria is so hysterical that people are attacking people doing ANYTHING, even though there are clearly written exceptions to keep our society working.

Anywho, the furniture is removed, so now we just have to hope the lateral sewer repair gets done tomorrow without any more neighbor attacks or cop arrests or whatever and if so, then we're so, so, so close to closing.