Work in the Time of COVID-19

With the ever-rising infection rate of the COVID-19 virus, more and more people are being required to work at home.

No hard-and-fast rule has come from the federal government as of 26 March 2020.  The CDC is only issuing "recommended" guidelines for personal separation to prevent contagion.  On social media, people talk about staying six feet away from others.

Some states have gone much further than the federal government.  Kentucky, for example, proclaimed a state of emergency on 6 March 2020.  The governor then proceeded to take steps to close schools, restrict restaurants to call-in and pick-up rather than dining-in, recommend that vulnerable segments of the population stay home, and other measures to prevent the spread.  The result is that the infection rate has been slowed in Kentucky.

In contrast, Tennessee's governor did nothing.  Their infection rate continues to climb.

In Florida, the governor has done little.  He did not close the beaches and did not prevent Spring Break gatherings of students in large groups, with the result that students returned to their homes and schools infected by COVID-19.  Cities in Florida have taken their own measures.  Jacksonville's mayor proclaimed a state of emergency on 13 March 2020, closed the city's beaches, and issued a requirement for all commercial concerns doing business in the city that can make provisions for employees to work at home to do so.  Our younger daughter works for an essential business -- food distribution.  She was told yesterday to prepare to work at home.  Before that, while she was still commuting from her home in another county to Jacksonville, she had been issued a letter by her employing company stating that she works for an essential business and that she be allowed to travel county-to-county in case counties started closing their borders.

All over the country, people are gearing up to work at home.  Some couples living in small apartments have had to come up with novel methods and physical arrangements.  Children, sent home from school, need supervision, instruction, and entertainment.  Some people have become inventive in that area; on Facebook there is a video of a four-year-old progressing through an indoor obstacle course constructed by his father!  

When the personal computer first came on the scene, there was a lot of talk of "the paperless society" and how computers would radically change the way people work.  For many years, not much seemed to be happening to bring these conditions about.  There was still an awful lot of paper circulating.  This disease and its severity may just change that.
 

The Book of Me: What do you enjoy?

I am a certified oddball.  Or, if you prefer (or if you're British), eccentric.  I like a lot of stuff that people today just don't care for.

Music:  I enjoy classical music.  My three favorite classical composers are all twentieth-century:  Aaron Copland, Richard Rodgers, and Leonard Bernstein.  However, I also enjoy Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and even earlier composers.  I like classical music from all over the place, including Asia (Chinese and Japanese classics are wonderful).  I also enjoy opera, being particularly fond of Antonio Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti.  I love bluegrass and what I call Real Country -- that which existed before it became nothing more than banal rock'n'roll with a southern accent.  I'm talking about A. P. Carter and Ralph Stanley and their contemporaries.  I like world music, especially Spanish, because I have spent time in Spain.  I lived with a University of North Florida classmate in the Triana neighborhood (or, in the Spanish word, barrio) of Seville while we were researching at the General Archive of the Indies.  The apartment was on the second floor (or, in the European manner, the first) over a flamenco studio!  Wow!  That was great!  Wonderful study music.

Movies:  My husband and I are both movie buffs.  We like many modern movies (though our tastes vary) and the classics.  My favorite classic movie is Sunset Boulevard.  I think his is Citizen Kane.  He likes action flicks, usually involving comic book characters.  I'd rather see a good drama or mystery.  I am very finicky about comedies.  Some of them coming out since the sixties are just plain dumb as a box of rocks.  Why they're popular is a mystery to me, but then one must take into account that one never will go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.  (H. L. Mencken said that.)  However, we've seen some hilarious ones, including Over the Hedge.  That was a scream, and William Shatner's death scene was such a self-parody!  What a hoot!  I also have to confess to one guilty pleasure in movies:  I love cheesy disaster movies, because they're just so funny to me.  They all have pretty much the same plotline (kooky scientist whose outlandish theory is dismissed by others saves the world, or at least what's left of it after the disaster plays out) and the same cardboard characters, including an action-hero type (cop, fireman, military person) whose personal life is an unmitigated mess.

Food:  Well, here, I may be closer to the mainstream.  My favorite food is steak.  I love it!  I'm also a chocoholic.  My favorite is dark chocolate.  I also love good fruit.  A nice, sweet watermelon  is such a pleasure in the summer.

I also enjoy my family and friends.  At Thanksgiving and Christmas, we expand our family to include two sisters whom we met years ago through other friends, and who live in our area with no other family around.  We all have a fine time on the holidays.

My husband and I both enjoy our cat, Gabriela.  Sometimes she is crazy, running from one end of the house to the other, climbing (sometimes places where we wish she wouldn't, but she also has approved climbing places we've provided for her), and sometimes stealthily attacking us as we walk by.  She is, as our friend Tom observed generally about cats, "an endless source of amusement in our idle hours."  She's also very attached to both of us, camping out near us and sleeping with us.

I enjoy scenery, especially mountains as I am a Californian transplated to flat old Florida.  The scene out my office window is nice, even if it is flat, and Gabriela is currently enjoying it as well, all loafed up on her window shelf.  Sometimes turkeys come out of the state forest our lot backs up to, and she does enjoy watching them!

Finally, I enjoy my work as an independent historian, translating and analyzing two-hundred-year-old Spanish documents concerning St. Augustine, Florida.  There are aggravations and frustrations (usually somehow involving the computer), but the work is fascinating and I can spend hours on it,  forgetting to eat (more of that, and I just might lose these pounds of fat)!

Overall, even with the disgusting state of public events and discourse, a very enjoyable life!