Jeff Stahler for March 31, 2020

The lock downs that I’m aware of allow people to go out for groceries, medicines, and even just a walk around the block (while maintaining appropriate distance).

Actually, hermit crabs eventually have to go fight a bigger hermit crab for their shell because they have outgrown theirs.

Pray that it doesn’t come to that for us. Pray that we don’t start playing “Lord of the Flies”.

And it’s making us crabby too!

We’re in the middle of a long, tough-to-take adjustment in our lives. My wife and I pray that everyone will remain healthy and that each will come out of this with a new appreciation for family and for whatever qualities have now become most important in their lives.

I am one of the ones who is lucky enough to be able to work from home; it’s good therapy.

Several years back, I was housebound with a knee replacement. My wife was away dealing with her mother’s funeral. At least now I can get out in the morning to exercise, I can go to the store to pick up food and I have my wife to talk to.

I am reminded of the movie “Room”.

It’s fitting that mom’s feet resemble flippers.

I’m afraid this will be the new normal for some time.. Until we collectively build up immunity to this Covid-19 virus avoiding our neighbors and fellow workers will be the rule. And that, even if they come up with a vaccination will take time. Wonder what the anti-vaxxers are saying?

Trump’s attempt to improve perceptions of his response by depicting the pandemic as a shock to everyone is just one of numerous ways he has dishonestly described the crisis.Trump claimed Saturday that the situation has been “urgent for me” from the very beginning, citing his late-January decision to restrict travel from China.

But Trump downplayed the severity of the issues facing the US long after that — even as experts were issuing the warnings Trump is now saying did not happen.Almost two months ago, experts were saying that the new virus in Wuhan was potentially a global threat.. One month ago, experts were saying that it was likely to be pandemic, and the White House’s response was that this was under control, despite the fact that the US’s lack of testing was demonstrably giving a false picture of the extent of infection. After all, you can have a confirmed case without a test, which requires a test that isn’t available.

Jeremy Konyndyk, who served under former President Barack Obama as director of the US Agency for International Development’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance, wrote during the first two months of Trump’s presidency in 2017 about what he argued was Trump’s unpreparedness for the pandemic he warned could be coming. “A major new global health crisis is a question of when, not if,” he wrote in Politico.John Bolton, then Trump’s national security adviser, disbanded the team during a reorganization of the NSC. Bolton tweeted Saturday that it’s “false” that his “streamlining” hurt the country’s “bio defense.” Trump disavowed responsibility on Friday, March 13th for the NSC changes, saying, “I didn’t do it” and “I don’t know anything about it” — though he conceded that “the administration” did. Trump is either responsible or irresponsible. This is his fault. The Trump Plague is his.

I went to ‘old people hour’ at Walmart today for groceries and prescriptions. Half the people there were wearing masks, me included. I haven’t been staying home for weeks to get something I don’t want while shopping. I heard the president is going to suggest people wear masks when out as this is working in Korea and China. It doesn’t have to be the good masks, just something to prevent you from breathing in droplets of virus that may be in the air.

My niece and her kids are having a great time together.