each day an adventure in alaska: another day in Covid Land..

have been very lazy....it is the covid melancholy? it could be.

life is very simple these days. i seem to get very little accomplished most days. i'll have to find my way out of it to a more productive life again soon i think. i seem to get done what needs to get done.

i do have several projects that i need/want to get to. did get a hold of my favorite handyman. he's busy helping out his ailing parents. concerned about bringing them this disease. his girlfriends mom just passed of covid in PA. lived in a nursing home. those have been hit very hard from this.

many on right like to point out that these are just elderly folks who were on the brink of passing anyway. that this is just like the flu....we've lost nearly 70,000 citizens in the time of less than a month. that is not how the flu works. the flu is predictably unpredictable. we have a treatment plan, we have a vaccine. this has neither of those things. also this has meant the loss of many healthcare workers. those numbers are not true in the regular flu year. the healthcare workers and ems may get the flu here and there but the death toll...that doesn't happen with the healthcare workers like we are seeing with this.

it is a bit ironic that the same who flipped out over the loss of 4 US citizens in Benghazi, scream about death panels with socialized medicine and call those on the left "baby killers" because of abortion laws, seem fine with 70,000 deaths and counting. so much for their so called sanctity of life.

they have also been told from their sources that ppe is in good supply. this is not the case at all. things have supposedly improved a bit, however. staff across the nation are re-using masks that were meant to be single use. the number of times re-used may vary but the fact remains these were not meant to be re-used at all. we are still collecting old used masks with the plan to possibly re-sterilize them. this is both disgusting and demeaning.

nurses come on to their shifts carrying their paper bags with the masks they wore yesterday and the day before. everyone has a bag, even these paper bags are in short supply some times. we know it is not acceptable but that is what we are dealing with. so no, the mask supply has not suddenly improved.

administration fears another wave and knows they must salvage the masks we have. AK has done fairly well. i am less anxious because our numbers have remained low and fairly flat. this doesn't mean we are safe. we are relaxing our rules a bit and folks are out and about. i've noted less mask wearing, less concern for distancing. we are on watch and see. the numbers are low enough that i do hope there is no big spike.

will have to see what the fall brings as well. when you couple the regular flu season with a possible return of covid.

we did a family zoom last night. only 5/7 were on it. i admit i do feel a bit of a detachment from much of my family. just too much water under the bridge i think. i have lost faith in family. it is what it is. the call was civil, only a few short tangents regarding health care/socialized medicine and social security. i mostly just kept quiet. there were so many voices. not really the ideal. you can't have a real conversation with that many people, but i did show up.

they decided to take turns from the top to the bottom giving time for each to give an update of their lives. my turn never came...i had to laugh, that is the story of my life in this family. i have come to accept it more i guess.

this was the last week of the grant money for on calls at work.

i worked the door two nights and then had one on call shift. my last shift last week was door duty i think. so very little bedside shifts over the covid outbreak. i am grateful for that.

i miss dog walks at times, those days i do toss tennis ball in yard/street a lot so i don't think the dogs suffer.

tomorrow i have reservations in Homer so the dogs and i will have a little escape, which i do look forward to. we have done some good walks. one day we did a loop in Kincaid and then drove out to Portage and they got some swim time in.

we've also hit the dog park. i should head up to powerline pass for a stretch today...but i suspect that parking lot will be very crowded so we may head to Kincaid again. i do want to avoid crowds...i do that anyway.

Covi Kitty continues to entertain and continues to want his outside time. so far i have been able to keep him in the yard. i bought some rain gutters and hope to put those along top of the fence upside down in hopes it will work to keep him in. i may just have to bit the bullet and put up some fencing to protect certain parts of the yard. i have put in a temporary "wall" of sorts in.

he likes to wander around in the mornings and evenings. i shut the run gate when i take dogs out for walk and when i head to bed.

still hopeful i can create the barrier so i can leave the dog door open all the time for the dogs sake. they do love to have access to the yard. i have shut the run gate when i leave for work as well.

he does look happy out side though.

a 39 year old went missing on a day hike on the Kenai. trails are opening up...bears are out. it's been a few days. they found his dog i think and camper and poles...so much can happen out there.

this is the outdoor run.

the dogs enjoyed a nice swim.

positives of the Covid and shutdown. i think the biggest has been for the environment. clearer skies and waterways. decrease in noise pollution due to decreased air traffic.

nice action shot for Ivy Rose.

Covi is fitting in nicely with the furs. the occasional skirmish with Miss Breezy Chatterbug but everyone seems content and willing to play together as well.

this is Portage Lake. still ice out there, but it is quickly thinning.

the dogs enjoy their time at the dunes.

it always wears them out.

the tree grave yard always is good for photo ops

this little bit of ice is no doubt gone by now.

the road to Byron trail is open but there was still quite a bit of snow on the road.

did a loop of Campbell Airstrip. the bear warning signs were down. we saw a porcupine...well, i saw it. thankfully the dogs did not see it. it was along the airstirp in an area i've heard a pair lives. there were also 3 moose at the muldoon curve coming home.

i'm still trying to limit my trips out except walks and the weekly grocery outing. want to plan a halibut charter when it feels safe to load the freezer. many of the meat packing places, forced open by the iitoo, have outbreaks of covid which have spread to the communities around them in some cases. he wouldn't use his power to get ppe or ventilators but did use it to force these workers to work in unsafe conditions.

the loyalty of the gop is not to the citizens of these states but remains only with large corporations. it's sick really.

the states that have put the most money into the system will be abandoned by this administration. Mitch's state has done nothing but take for decades and now he stands there and says that states like New York should just file bankruptcy. it's outrageous.

Canada is taking swift action against assault rifles after a mass shooting there recently. in our nation "protestors" carrying assault rifles stormed some state buildings. when you "protest" with assault rifles what you really are is a terrorist. if these were anything but a bunch of white guys it would not be allowed. they wouldn't stand for it. yet, here, these fools can do whatever they want without any push back.

what does flattening the curve do...it helps hospitals cope with all of this. makes it possible to care of folks over a longer period of time so the system isn't overwhelmed. when too much hits too fast, we have less ppe, more workers going out sick, too many patients for the few beds that we have. this equals an increased death rate.

hopefully, our nation can increase the vote by mail options. not sure what the GOP has against this except that it mostly seems to favor the Dems. we have it in our state and i think it works great. the GOP is out to destroy the USPS as well it seems...they want to privatize everything. with covid, vote by mail makes a lot of sense. it will slow things up with results but will allow more to vote safely.

the right also likes to speak of Sweden. of course, there are some big differences. less population to begin with. less poor, less crowding, more access to healthcare. more compliance with request to distance so it doesn't need to be mandated.