Wednesday, April 29, 2020

I celebrated my 72nd birthday on Monday and it was filled with snail mail cards (3 from Tom over the last few days), text messages, phone calls, video calls, and Facebook wishes from family and friends. It was also a beautiful, sunny 70 degrees and I was able to get a nice walk along the Mississippi River trail. I felt loved and enjoyed the day.

I just have to write about my Senior dog, Frisco, since he is giving me the stare-down right now, and I know exactly what he is trying to say - he is wanting to go out for his 8pm potty walk so he can settle in for the night. I don’t know his exact date of birth, but since we were told that he was 2 1/2 years old in October of 2007, he would have been born about April of 2004, so we celebrate our birthdays together in April.  That means that he is 16 human years old and about 80 dog years for his age and weight.  His coloring gets lighter and lighter, especially around his face.  Yet, he really hasn’t slowed down too much and still can trot right along on a 2+ mile walk.  He has become much more demanding in his old age - especially at 7 am and 8 pm. Those are the most important times in his day - his first and last potty walks of the day.  He has always like to hang out in corners - where he can keep a close eye on me - and that seems to have increased lately. I now have to coax him to come up and sit with me on the couch or to snuggle with me on the bed before going to sleep at night or when taking a nap. Oh, well, we are aging together and I sure do appreciate his company.

Today, our country has exceeded the number of people that we lost fighting the Vietnam war, more than 58,000 people have now died from COVID-19 since late February and over a million have gotten the virus. The sad thing is that these numbers aren’t accurate and are under the actual cases and deaths since many have suffered at home or died but were never diagnosed. We still don’t have enough supplies to protect the nurses and doctors that are in contact with sick patients. They are having to adapt and reuse supples that were designed for a single use. We are not getting those products from China any longer and the US can’t produce them fast enough.

Earlier this week, our poor excuse for a President suggested to his medical advisors, at his daily press briefing, that we should investigate the use of light, bleach and sanitizers in the human body to kill the virus - since they work on surfaces instantly. Since then, the manufacturers of Clorox, Lysol, and other household cleaners have been putting warnings to people not to ingest or inject any of those products. There are no words to describe the stupidity.