Paul has an aging mother, too. She just turned 91 years old. She has been a snowbird for years now, coming back to NY to roost for the summers. This past spring, she sold her NY house, because she got tired of the back and forth. She didn't know this virus was coming, she didn't know that visitors would dwindle down to nothing, that her friend that sometimes stays with her wouldn't be able to, that even her next door neighbors down there would be stuck in another state.
She's 91. She is doing well, still drives and lives alone, functions better than I do, most days. But she's lonely. And we miss her. So is it a crime to go visit her? In NY state, the governor has decreed that if you visit any of the states on his POOP list, you will quarantine for 14 days upon return. It is frowned upon to travel to these states, but not forbidden. The director of our county health department read a statement a few weeks ago in an interview, and when mentioning travel by county residents to these restricted places, she made it sound extremely distasteful.
I just hate to see a society so brainwashed that they all believe everything the government tells them. Yes, this virus has been awful. Yes, it has caused pain and suffering. But the real crime is when prisoners...rapists and assaulters and liars and stealers...get released from prisons so they don't get Covid, and nursing home patients are not allowed visitors. Our state technically allows visitors now, but the homes themselves haven't opened to them yet...those poor old people. I know, we have to keep them safe, and I don't have all the answers, but still, it's tear-water tea.
Anyway, we are going to visit Grandma, Paul and I, on Labor Day weekend. We are flying down, renting a car, and staying for a few days. We are both very reasonably certain that we already had this virus, back in March, with dry coughs and aching chests and feeling lousy. So we're very reasonably sure we won't bring any illness to Grandma.
Yesterday was hot (90F!, 32.2c), and sunny! We spent the day going in and out of the pool, Emily, Abigail, Mariel, Evelyn were here. Ben and Ashley came later, Margaret and Adrian came later...it was a good day. I had a brisket in the oven, made a pasta salad and had some local corn on the cob, and watermelon. mmmm. Summer food, yes! Emily took home several fresh tomatoes from our garden and is going to make us some sauce.
(Elise on the balance bike, so cute!)
Some pics of the girls' rafting trip on Saturday, six of my daughters were on the raft. They hit a huge rock and the raft started tipping, it was scary, they said, but such a blast.
Margaret is officially on maternity leave, so she is coming over today with Wulf. She is 39+ weeks along! I think we're going to be in and out of the pool again today.
School is starting soon, Evelyn and Sonja are both going to college this year, not sure what I'm doing....the kids will be doing school virtually three days a week, and Jonathan is homeschooling again, so I won't be alone, nor will I be bored...
Ah well, I guess somebody should clean up a bit around here...
9 comments:
Good luck...you will be quarantined upon coming back. My bil drove to Bradford, PA and was stopped on the way; million questions later and he was given an order to quarantine. Excuse me, PA is not on the list. NONETHELESS, he was visited by a contact tracer. SO was his/their mother (my husbands mother)-who lives above him. I am telling you this scary. Time to end this nonsense. Scare tactics etc. I am so insanely jealous of you getting to leave here, lol.
ANYWAYS, great post. Have a beautiful day, friend.
It just not right! I'm 79, I sure hope I'm still driving at 91!
Fellow New Yorker here (Long Island) and I couldn’t agree more. We just brought our one (and only) daughter to college in Florida for her Freshman year & when we got off the plane there were dept of health representatives and POLICE there to be sure we all filled out our quarantine forms! Everyone in Florida was wearing masks, socially distancing and behaving. It is completely a police state here and These restrictions have nothing to do with our public health any more. Live your life! Why be kept alive to be kept from living!
My Mom is in a care facility and we haven't seen her since the beginning of March. We have been able to Skype with her which I am very thankful for. We finally got to the point where we are allowed patio visits with masks, no hugging, 30 minute limit, etc. I had a patio visit appointment all set-up for this week and the care facility called to pre-screen me for my visit. One of the questions was "Have you traveled out of your home area in the last 14 days?" Last week, we traveled across Washington state to visit family. Since the county we visited has high infection numbers we can't visit my Mom for 14 days. I am so disappointed and I never even thought that traveling across the state would be a problem. Crazy times! Have a safe trip - Shirley
Hello,
I am Ada from the Netherlands and I am reading your blog for a few years now. I enjoy it, when you tell about your big family.
Lately however I am suprised by your political rants and how you think you need to defend your actions by speaking bad about your chosen officials. Why can you not just live your life the way you want, without speaking bad about those people, who just try to do their work ?
You talk about freedom, but on the other hand I do remember you wanting to ban abortion. How can you justify that in your mind ?
I hope you enjoy your visit to Florida, but hope can you do it with a happy mindset and not complain about all people who think otherwise.
Life is to short for people attacking each other instead of helping each other through problems we may encounter as an individiual or world.
Best regards,
Ada
Shirley, I am so sorry you can't visit your mom! It's so sad.
Hello, friend from Victoria. We haven't been cavalier at all! We were genuinely careful, locked down tightly when this first hit us, back in March. The problem in NY state was that the governor wanted to open up hospital space, so he sent elderly people from the hospital to the nursing homes to open beds, and made a law FORBIDDING the nursing homes to test the patients first for Covid, and also forbidding them to deny them access to the nursing home based on illness or symptoms. So these older people brought the sickness into the homes, and that's where most of our deaths occurred, in the elderly. It is a tragedy. Younger people tend not to get very sick, or not sick at all. He reversed the law in May, quietly, and blamed it on the president, which made absolutely no sense. An apology would have been better, but that isn't happening. We locked down tightly to "flatten the curve", which did happen. But what actually happened and what you read in the news is different. We live in central NY state, in a county which had 160 cases, total, with 3 deaths, all 3 had co-morbidities, and were old. Our testing rate right now is one half of one percent, and those who do test positive, mostly are fine. We have had issues with health care professionals losing jobs, losing hours, because of the elective surgeries being cancelled...and elective surgeries are sometimes very important! Now things are opening, and there are huge waiting lists to get things done, like mammograms and biopsies. My grandson in Oregon needs a very important surgery, and is on a waiting list. So many stores have closed, restaurants have gone out of business, in our county, with it's low # of cases: suicide rates have skyrocketed, the depression/help hotlines overloaded. Once the curve has flattened, people need. to. live.
Hi Ada! You are very right, life is too short, and we mustn't live in bitterness. We should pray for our leaders. It's difficult when you have one as wiley as our governor. He says one thing and does another. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) in the US has made an official stance that one does not have to quarantine after travel, but our state still maintains it's control on that, even though our numbers are extremely low, our testing positivity rates are less than one percent, deaths way way down. One thing about being an American, I think we have a responsibility to speak out to keep our freedoms when our country starts to veer towards socialism. I know my kingdom is not of this earth, so I am conflicted sometimes, but silence equals complicity, too. Abortion: well, sorry but not sorry, but no matter what you call it, killing a small defenseless baby is not right. I talk about freedom, but that doesn't mean we are free to murder someone just because they make my life difficult or I'm not ready to take care of them at this time, or because I cannot afford them. I can't just go murder my neighbor because I don't want to be bothered by them. I know exactly what you are saying, and it makes sense, and if that's what people want to do, they are the ones who have to stand before God. But the spirit of the times right now makes lines blur, makes what is abhorrent to seem okay, modesty and honesty fade, and it's hard to determine right from wrong, it's all okay! Everything everyone does is fine!
I do appreciate your input, and believe me, I won't just brush it away and think for sure that I'm right. It's good and blessed when brethren dwell together in unity. Attacking people isn't right, that is for sure. Have you heard the saying, "Love the sinner, hate the sin!"?
Anyway, thank you for commenting, and thank you for the advice!
Oh, that governor makes me glad we moved out of NY; however, the governor in PA is the SAME WAY! Ugh. It's getting so frustrating. I don't blame you for wanting to visit her. It's so sad that we have been forced to not see people and give up our normalcy. We can't keep hiding, that's no way to live.
Having friends and relatives in Australia, I understand that they are only privy to certain news outlets, as they are a Socialist country. Probably Europe, as well (friends in Norway) And what that media has done with the information, news, etc is pretty horrible!! I know God is aware, and I continue to pray. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Della! Well done! And I like how you don't "slam" a person for their opinions, no matter how mislead they may be!
May we continue to be Land of the FREE, home of the brave!!
I don't think you need to justify anything. A lot of people feel the way you do. I have a lot of family in NJ and they hate their governor too. Some people just do not understand the danger of giving too much power to a government. It's your blog so you can write what you want. Also, Florida is improving quickly after a few bad weeks, even though we did not shut everything back down again.
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