Charlie

+1. But I can't imagine anyone would ever call you "judgmental"!

This morning I played doubles tennis again for the first time since our courts re-opened. Unfortunately, in the blazing sun it was 96 degrees, and we have to wear face masks. We managed to play for an hour and a half, but I was feeling pretty shaky by the end, not only because of the heat but because it is hard to breathe properly with a mask over nose and mouth.

Just now I tried to give myself a haircut with scissors, and suddenly I realized: that was my father in the mirror looking back at me! I need to find a barber soon.

You sure do, sweetie!

We just got a notice from our hospital listing all the things you should go to the ER for in addition to COVID-19, including the things you just named. I don't want to die of a heart attack because I'm afraid of catching a virus!

The temperature in Palm Springs at the moment (6pmPDT) is 100 F. I hope that discourages the virus from visiting if restrictions are loosened.

OMG! You certainly were versatile!!!

The community college in which I taught had a nursing program which was probably the best program in the school. Whenever I got a whole class of student nurses, I felt I had lucked out, because they were the most enthusiastic and responsible students I had, year after year.

Because of California's attempt to limit the use of plastic bags, for the past couple of years grocery stores have been required to charge customers who don't bring their own bags for the use of the store's bags. That law has apparently been suspended, because some stores will no longer let you bring your own bags into the store, so you have to use the store's plastic bags. I would much rather use my own bags, and pack them myself.

OK, today I tried Ralph's (Kroger) for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I was aware that not much was being done about social distancing: no one way aisles; no markings for people to stand while waiting, except at checkout; no directions about bagging; no protection for checkers other than masks; someone cleaning carts only at one of the entrances. My local Albertson's is much more serious; they even make one line for customers (6 ft apart) checking out, and an employee assigned to directing those on line to the next available checker. However, Ralph's did have two spray bottles of Fantastik in the cleaning supplies area, and one package of Charmin on the tp shelf.

I love HGTV, but I'm sure no new episodes of most of their programs are being produced ("Christina Sheltering on the Coast"? "Our Quarantined Town"? "House Hunters Watch Video Open Houses"?). They're going to be scheduling even more re-runs than usual.

He is obviously permanently logged on here.

It is worth a trip to see Fallingwater if you are interested in architecture, even though it is not that easy to get to.

Our HOA management just sent an email announcing that our private tennis and pickleball courts will reopen starting tomorrow, but we must observe distancing and wear face masks.

Riverside county announced yesterday that they will allow golf courses to reopen for recreational play (no tournaments), but with all sorts of restrictions on the players and course management. They also said tennis and pickleball courts can reopen, but players must wear face masks. When tennis was still allowed, we were managing to keep social distancing, but it seems to me that would be much harder on the smaller pickleball court. I will definitely need a different kind of mask than my usual one to play tennis.

I shop at both chains in Palm Springs (Albertson's/Von's and Ralphs), but every one of the stores seems to change it's patterns from day to day, and I don't shop frequently enough to make any valid comparison.

It swelled with joy.

Someone wrote to our local paper asking whether they should soak their produce in clorox.

I think it's sexy, too, but it must be hard to cover these days with a face mask.

Me, too. Make sure you use your handle here in the card.

Normally I go to my barber once per month, and get a #1 razor cut all over. Now it has been 3 months, with almost nothing on top and too much on the sides. Strangely enough, because my hair color is still quite dark, some people are saying I actually look younger than I did before (in the right light I might pass for 65!).

Is that Marton Fukovics before he grew his mustache?

I think Pierre-Hugues Herbert is adorable.

With so much time and nothing to do, yesterday I decided to start cleaning out my files and getting rid of things I don't need to keep, like insurance policies on houses and cars that expired years ago. I found an envelope about a catered milestone birthday party that we gave in Philadelphia in March 1983. Along with the menu and the bill from the caterer, I found the list of three dozen gay friends we had invited. Looking through the names, I realized that some of them must have come to the party already carrying HIV in their bodies (the virus hadn't been identified yet, and AIDS still didn't have its name), because over the next several years, more than a third of the men on the list developed AIDS, and all but one of them died. There was no social distancing in our small house, but it didn't matter, because the guests couldn't have spread the virus through friendly social contact, as we later learned from infectious disease specialists. Some ignorant people feared any contact with those who were HIV+ but most of us rallied around them. Yesterday, our neighbors asked if we would like to come to dinner one night this week. Like us, they have been self-isolating for the past month and are as tired of eating alone every night as we are. They are good friends, and we have eaten often at their home. Yet I hesitated and debated about saying yes. During the AIDS epidemic, scientific knowledge encouraged people to come together, and the gay community developed more social solidarity than it ever had before. In the novel coronavirus epidemic, scientific knowledge encourages us to avoid one another socially. Psychologically, I am finding sensible behavior much harder to maintain in this epidemic than in the first one.

Actually, I don't think you would have done much basking yesterday. The sun was shining, but the wind was howling non-stop all day long. The highest gust at our house was 42mph, and it was a cold wind out of the mountains.