Charlie

"We can now add physicians to the list of things the US cannot supply for itself..." Hasn't that been true for a long time?

"Anecdata" : I love that term! Did you invent it?

I wondered at first if it were Thiem, but the style is more Tommy

Tommy Paul?

County officials are currently negotiating with the governor on relaxing some of the restrictions, because the economy, especially here in Palm Springs, is really tanking. My dentist is starting to reschedule routine cleaning appointments to early July (they have only taken emergency appointments until now), and unless there is another surge of COVID-19 patients, I think at least some things will be open by July 15. There have been very few new cases here in the city of PS in the last couple of weeks, and no new deaths in three weeks.

Is he reading the online instructions on what to do next?

Nice pants!

You are obviously not from the South. The actual saying is "God willin' an' the Creek don't rise!" (The Creek meaning the Creek Indians.)

Places like Petco that sell pet food are considered essential businesses and are allowed to stay open; since they also do grooming, they have been allowed to continue, although businesses that do only grooming have not been allowed. However, our groomer works out of her home and does only one animal at a time, so I drop the dog off at her front door, and pick him up there when she calls and says he is ready. The advantage of a cat is that he/she doesn't need to be walked. The advantage of a dog is that he/she does need to be walked, which is an excuse to get out of the house and get some exercise. At the beginning of the lockdown, many shelters were almost emptied by people looking for animals to adopt as companions, but the shelters are worried that many of those animals may be returned when the adopters' regular lifestyles resume. They are also concerned that as people's finances are constrained by the economic collapse, may pets will be turned over to shelters, just as they were during the Great Recession a decade ago.

I have started trying to trim my own hair with scissors. It has not been aesthetically satisfying.

A friend of mine was in charge of the WHO campaign to wipe out small pox, and every time they thought they were finished, they would find another isolated pocket of it, usually in someplace like Ethiopia. We haven't even begun trying to do the same with Coronavius-19, so it will almost certainly still be around for much of our lifetime. It will be necessary for us to find ways to live with it and manage it, but we will, just as we have with other infectious diseases. Twenty years ago, if someone told you that in order to board an airplane today, you would have to go through a checkpoint where you would empty your pockets and take off your shoes, you would have thought they had gone mad. We will work out whatever is necessary to minimize the danger of getting sick, but we won't eliminate it altogether.

And I will probably try to get out of Palm Springs and head for a beach. The weather has not been pleasant in PS this year.

Because my spouse and I are an elderly retired couple who live in our own house in a senior community, sheltering at home is pretty easy. Our only family is far away and we usually see them only about once a year; by chance, we paid them a long visit in February, so we wouldn't be seeing them now anyway. Most of our oldest friends also live far away and we normally communicate with them by email or phone, so no change there. I have a few friends with whom I play tennis regularly, and through most of the past few months we have found ways to get together for exercise on a court once or twice per week. We both miss the normal socializing with friends here in our gated community, but we are close friends with one neighboring couple, and we have broken shelter once to eat at their house, and on several occasions I have played Rummikub with one of them, usually outdoors on our patio; they also have socialized only with us. No one else has been inside our house in eight weeks, not even our house cleaner, whom we have been giving a paid vacation to stay away. I do all the shopping, but I go only to a few grocery stores and the pharmacy. I do all the dinner cooking, and I really miss being able to go out to restaurants at least once or twice per week. I also miss shopping in other kinds of stores. My spouse especially misses the library, where he normally takes out several books each week, and bookstores. He naps even more than usual. We are lucky not to have been economically affected so far. Our investments have taken a hit, but we have always lived frugally within our fixed income from S.S. and annuities, so we can afford to wait as long as necessary for the market to come back. We both have good health insurance if we need it. It was nice to get the stimulus payment, which we immediately spent on a big ticket item to stimulate the economy instead of dipping into savings. If we get any more stimulus money, we will probably donate it to charities, or save enough of it to eat in our favorite restaurants every night for a month. The only really negative effect on us has been psychological. We love to travel, and we had been planning to do a lot of bucket list type trips in the next two years, because we know we haven't got much time left to do it. Now it looks like even our regular getaways may be impossible for the rest of this year, and the more elaborate trips are out of the question. Another year of nothing but evenings playing gin rummy and Scrabble at the dining room table is a deeply depressing prospect. Even worse is the possibility of sheltering in place for a long time only to contract COVID-19 anyway.

That's what I call "built."

Yes, it is depressing, but the more we learn about how to prevent getting infected, the more likely we will be able to "live with" the presence of the virus, without the extreme of everyone staying home in a bubble except "essential" workers . Regular testing of everyone and isolation of those who are infected until they are no longer infectious would be onerous, but it could be done. There would have to be laws guaranteeing the continued jobs and incomes of those who become infected, and probably special facilities built to accommodate them while they are infectious. The restructuring of society would be clumsy, expensive and would certainly meet resistance for various reasons, but it could happen if there was general agreement that it was more desirable than what we are experiencing now.

Stan Wawrinka, of course.

Too many people seem to assume that one just has to throw enough money and experts at the project, and a vaccine will be found that will take us back to the old "normal" world within the next year or two. I think it will be more like what happened after 9/11, when many people assumed that we could just somehow eliminate or neutralize all the terrorists and go back to flying without the whole security apparatus, yet we still have the TSA check-ins after almost 20 years. Preparing to co-exist with CoVid-19 may be much more complicated than that.

Everyone knows Rafa!

Robby Ginepri?

Thomas Berdych? Fernando Verdasco.

The map of continents on the feet is the strangest tattoo I have ever seen.

Marriage rates may decline, because getting married is suddenly harder, but there may be a spike in the birth rates in nine months, with couples at home all the time with nothing else to do.

Social distancing at the gas pump isn't the problem: handling the equipment is. Suddenly, getting gas in Oregon and New Jersey, where you stay in your car and the gas is pumped by an attendant, begins to look like a safety measure.

The case I referenced was unexpected. My friend was traveling in Europe when he became ill, and the State Dept notified his family, who medevacked him back home to a hospital. He was already unconscious by then, and died a day later, before I knew about any of it. I had my copy of the POA, but I don't know whether his family knew of its existence.

As of today, sporting equipment stores in CA are allowed to re-open, but with curbside pick-up, so you get to workout even before you are home.