Happenings - Quarantine Style

As we continue in quarantine, here's the latest:

• Ryan learned how to jump rope.  He was mad as a hornet because he insisted he had never jumped more than three times in a row, and he stinks at it, and blah-blah-blah.  I made him go outside with me, and we took two jump ropes (that the Easter Bunny brought - 'cause he's thoughtful like that!).  I also brought out my phone and turned on some music, both to distract him and to give him a beat to try and follow.  In less than 5 minutes the kid was jumping like a champ, and now he and Colin both have fun jumping rope in the street in front of the house.
• Last week Hari was on his daily 4-mile walk.  We try to make these a family affair, but they are also Hari's only exercise so he pushes hard for a fast walk.  This has come to mean that I literally cannot keep up without jogging, especially if I have a dog who frequently needs to go potty (thanks Addie).  On Wednesday after three laps of trailing well behind Hari I gave up, and went home to make dinner.  The boys came with me, and got showered up.  Dinner was nearly ready when the door finally opened... and the boys freaked out informing me that "Daddy fell".  I assumed he had small scrapes on his palms, and perhaps a bruise.  But forget that we're getting older.  Hari's knuckles were gashed, he skinned both knees (through his pants), and by the next day his knee was so painful and swollen he could barely make it downstairs.  He skipped dinner and went to bed, saying he couldn't even sit up and wasn't hungry.  Three days of complete inactivity later and he's walking again, but hopefully with a little more caution.  As it turns out, he decided to jog the last lap, and must not have been paying attention because he didn't see the speed hump (12 inches tall, about 8 feet wide) so he tripped over it.
• Colin lost two teeth last night - his canine cuspid and first molar.  He has been wiggling one of them for a long time, but the other one we weren't even aware was loose.  I'm sure he was so obsessed with the one that he didn't notice the other, but still... now he has a giant gap in his mouth, and the tooth fairy needed to take out a loan last night!
• The kids are back to school after spring break... school at home that is.  The governor of NJ has declared all schools must continue remote instruction through at least May 15, and in Ohio they have already stated that schools will not reopen for the remainder of the year.
• As if the general situation wasn't bad enough, this year we had a big Spring Break planned.  We were going to Florida for the first time in years, and were going to be there with all three of the Tonidandel brothers and their families.  We all had places to stay in Pelican Landing, and it was going to be 10 days of fun in the sun.
• Some states are starting to plan re-opening or have already started...
• Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, said he would permit reopening of hair salons, child care centers and real estate offices, also subject to social-distancing measures, starting next week.
• The one that is getting made fun of the most?  Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican whose state reported over 1,200 new infections and a spike in deaths on Monday, announced that gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys, tattoo parlors and massage parlors could reopen on Friday, followed on Monday by movie theaters and restaurants.
• There are Lockdown protests going on in some areas around the country, where individuals who are convinced that COVID is a governmental conspiracy are insisting that everything should be re-opened immediately.  I think the craziest interview I heard was from a man who sincerely believed that the whole COVID situation was a government hoax set in place to get people vaccinated so they could be secretly microchipped.  I kid you not.
• There are a lot of people who keep comparing COVID to other diseases, including the seasonal flu.  One key difference that many don't want to consider is timing - seasonal flu kills people over a longer timeline.  There are 2.5 million cases of COVID and 176K deaths in just a couple of months.  With the current global recovery rate showing that 20% of those diagnosed will end up dead, that means at least a half a million people will die... and that's if not one more person is diagnosed.  The curve has been flattened but we aren't on the downside yet, so there's a long way to go before we're out of the woods.
• It appears that we are heading into a global economic depression.  No way to know how hard it will hit, or how bad things could get.  Unemployment in the US is at the highest it has been since the Great Depression, as so many people have been laid off with businesses forced to close.  Disney just furloughed 100,000 employees because all the parks have been closed since March.
• Gas yesterday hit a new low, with prices for oil futures falling BELOW ZERO.  Yes, that's correct.  Gas prices are the lowest they've been in forever because there's almost no demand since most people are staying home.  I haven't purchased gas since 5/13 and still have more than half a tank.  And the only reason we've used that much is because early on we took a few hikes.
• Total COVID-19 cases in the US is just over 800K, of which only 115K are closed (death rate is currently averaging 37%).  The epicenter remains NY/NJ with 256K cases in New York and almost 89K in New Jersey.  Hari is getting calls regularly from friends in the south as they are worried about us living here.  It seems surreal that we're in the heart of this.