Statues Zombies and Social Chatter

When yesterday morning I walked Rusty downtown and Key West was empty, more so than prior to the usual hurricanes of recent memory, I thought these statues of the late Seward Johnson would be the only inappropriate social gathering I might see. Wrong!

I fear that in the not too distant future our governor will join those who forbid sauntering outside at all, and in Italy and Spain I read you can only walk your dog within a quarter of a mile of your home. Fines are being levied. So when I saw a couple of newspaper readers on the waterfront at Margaritaville Resort I figured they knew enough not to get close and if they hadn't wiped down the benches more fools they.

 But of course not everyone was so aware and a gathering of yoga matted bicycle riders formed at the end of the walkway, next to Admiral's Cut to share endless loud stories and copious quantities of Covid-19 no doubt. I don't think they were Spring Breakers who have happily evaporated back whence they came to infect those closest and dearest to them. 

There were a few people out and about early in the day, mostly other people walking dogs, and a few joggers and cyclists of one sort or another.

It seems like social distancing has become the new normal and a very good thing it is too. When I get home after walking and neither sitting on benches or touching anything the first thing I do is put my clothes in my laundry hamper. Then I take a shower and get clean clothes. It's become a routine.

Some people might call it a ritual but I haven't yet cottoned on to the idea that a routine becomes a ritual unless some higher power has been invoked. Taking a shower is routine in my home. Ablutions before prayers might be a ritual I suppose if I believed in such things.

Oh and while we are looking at a lucky few jogging through an empty Key West I'd like to make one other point of what irritates me most today (aside from the world appearing to end). When did "multiple" become the only way English speakers describe more than one of anything? If you come nearby and start telling me about multiple this or that I do believe I will violate the six foot separation space and share Covid-19 with you. Try saying "many" or "several" or "a few" or find your own thesaurus. I'm sick of distracting myself on YouTube and hearing multiple speakers droning on with multiple rhetorical questions about multiple aspects of photography or vans.

The Bodyzone gym closed the other day. That was okay as my immune deficient wife and I had already agreed to stop going. However when the small local gym near our home on Cudjoe Key also closed desperate measures were called for. My wife got out her rendition tapes and started us on a course of CIA approved interrogation techniques. The label said it was home exercise plans but I can't feel my legs and I'm pretty sure I am ready to tell anyone who will listen whatever they want to hear. My wife ignores my protests and keeps pressing on. Apparently she doesn't think I am properly broken yet. I am allowed to swim in the canal of an afternoon behind the house and that relieves the aches a bit. A gin and tonic later does its part too, as we soldier on in isolation.

Nearly nine o'clock on a Monday morning and Greene Street looks like the epicenter of a pandemic. All it needed was a few zombies to start giving me the creeps. When I got home my wife yelled through the shower door that a virologist on the radio thinks this can go on for more than a year.  I was not terribly polite when I refuted that suggestion. There have to be better ways to die than watching humanity crumble. My friend Webb is not fond of social media so I thought of him, hunkered with his wife Up North under a blanket, a thin one, of snow. He sent me pictures of lovely leafless trees covered in snow.  Back at you sailor man:

Someone headed yesterday morning for Federally approved social isolation west toward The Lakes or maybe Fort Jefferson. There was a decent breeze too, which is better than snow I think.

Rusty Isolation

I would be lying if I said the bar closings affected me personally as I'm not that inclined to go out drinking.

 An afternoon spent being alone with camera and dog (not in that order) suits me just fine.

 I comply with the laws and directives because they are easy for me to follow.

 It's warming up but its not summer and the trail is a great place to get to of the house.

 An hour walking and he wanted to sit n the shade and watch and listen. Rusty knows what he likes so I let him do it.

Isolation that like this is no hardship for me. Yet.

Preparations Without Plywood

The cat at the Hemingway House was indifferent as a cat should be, especially one slaking its thirst.

For the rest of us, the smart humans, the gates are closed and not likely to reopen soon, however much we may wish it. The cats will abide.

Hotels are to close by six o'clock tonight across the Keys, non residents are to be gone and the rest of us stay and pretend to keep the home fires burning until they get back "later."  Naturally I saw plenty of procrastinators around town though this one, the Michigan tag below, to their credit I saw turning outbound on Eaton as Rusty and I walked back to the car. I wish them joy of their return journey relying on housekeeping and best food handling practice to keep themselves uninfected on the long drive.

Mostly I saw clumps of tourists and solo dog walkers on the streets and there were few enough it was easy to stay completely isolated. I have read of some outrage created by other people comparing the coronavirus problem to the HIV epidemic of yore. I think it's understandable to try to compare and rationalize this bizarre time with the nearest similar thing you have known. But outrage is a popular emotion all the time everywhere so we hear outrage when strangers try to rationalize the irreconcilable. Coronavirus isn't HIV, we all know that, but for many people HIV was all they have ever known in terms of unseen health threats.

I have never yet seen Truman Waterfront fenced off, yet the lack of traffic, the lack of people, the closed businesses, the hotels evacuating, all it adds up to in my hyped up mind is hurricane evacuation. Yes I know there is no plywood made that will save us in this scenario, and I know the hurricane facing us is invisible and thus hard to quantify but everything we see and feel and worry about leads back to the only similar experience I can remember: hurricane evacuation.

I am used to staying behind as the long lines of cars leave, as the evacuation orders come thick and fast, as facilities shut down and the hospital closes and then the lockdown at the police station. Nothing like that now. Everything shuts down around us and we stay in place, mobile home residents stay, Publix runs out of toilet paper, chronically, but Home Depot keeps it's sheets of plywood, the hurricane shutters continue to collect dust, the tourists, the ones who lack imagination dawdle on their way out of town not threatened by an obvious visible cloud of destruction.

The cover on the Southernmost Point seems to be working, or perhaps there is no one left who wants to take a selfie with the iconic point. Perhaps this isn't a good time to be reminded that we live at the end of the Earth. There's nowhere to run or to hide. People with boats don't actually take off and anchor away from land as they do in their imagination as they plot for the end of the world as they know it. We all have ties to the land, the community, home. Like or not we won't run away and hide.

The Governor may have closed the beaches but the idiots don't care. Granted these aren't the beaches of mainland Florida covered with bodies but if parents don't teach children to take care of their neighbors by not spreading exposure the whole point of isolation is lost. I didn't get out of the car.

Rusty and I had a great walk and Publix had almost no one inside shopping for toilet paper that wasn't there...I got yoghurt for Layne's new Indian cooking fixation in her Insta-pot and some creamy peanut butter for me. The nice lady at the front of the store saw me wiping down the handles of the shopping basket and smiled: "Doesn't hurt to take extra care honey," she said to a man as old as she. It feels futile but I suppose it can't hurt.

The Circle Closes

Its happening to all of us so it hardly seems worth noting here. The governor was compelled to close the beaches thanks to the social stupidity of lots of people clumped on the sand in full view of cameras. I like Governor DeSantis overall, he seems like a commonsense sort of politician, not perfect but a bit of the old school of the stamp of Governor Bob Graham or Lawton Chiles. The trouble is the beaches were overrun by people not paying attention and now they are closed and the tourists are being sent home. That is a message that Florida is no longer open for tourism business.

I saw a huge herd of cars parked near the Sugarloaf Jumping Bridge so I assume young people were gathered sharing alcohol and Covid-19 ready take home the virus this weekend when all lodging in the Keys closes for the foreseeable. All restaurants are now limited to take out or delivery everywhere. Our small local gym on Cudjoe had to close too and that bummed me out.

My wife and I visited in the early hours, alone and worked out together but that is  now banned.  My wife is getting cabin fever as her immune system keeps her strictly homebound.

I have reached a point where when I watch a show on streaming TV I get antsy when characters shake hands or meet in a crowded restaurant. We live the new normal. I saw pictures of the Upper Peninsula and the first day of spring: streets were covered in snow. Good luck hunkering there. At least I have 80 degree days to hunker in.

A few days ago at dawn in Key West I met this guy, below, who came up to me in my Hawaiian shirt camera round my neck, in my tourist disguise so he started off babbling about being born and raised here like that gave him extra credibility. Nice guy but he really wanted to talk, needed to talk and I listened. I don't think the gravity of infection quite struck him as he kept comparing the situation to a hurricane which sounded a little naive to me.  But we all find our reassurance where we can.

Further afield I think the virus scare is taking hold and the preponderance of social media comments is now in favor of isolation and keeping the curve low and containment and all those catch phrases. I hope it's all not too late. I read that the first 100,000 reported cases took three months to develop and the second hundred thousand took 12 days. Exponential math and we still have no testing. 

I fear the future but I am enjoying the present. Sunshine, cool breezes, a happy dog, a wife content in the kitchen working to learn cooking tools she will use in the van when we retire... Water flows from the faucets, electricity is keeping us cool and entertained, the internet keeps us connected. Not a bad life for us government workers.

We have been isolated for five days and apparently the school district will eventually resume with distance learning using technology.  And the pay will keep coming, thank heavens. For hospitality workers the future looks a lot less secure, but it is becoming apparent that if we lose all our workers to unemployment these islands will have a hard time functioning after this is over.  Hoping it will be over this summer or sooner employers are struggling to keep workers occupied. 

It feels good to walk around Key West even if I only ever see the town when no one is on the streets.  Sustaining normal every day life is not easy, not even to keep a semblance of what we usually do. 

I saw delivery trucks earlier this week but the funny part is the stores can't keep toilet paper on the shelves. People reportedly line up to be first in the store to run to the toilet paper aisles and stock up. Black Friday every day.  I have tons of toilet paper in the house to carry us well into next week. After that I keep in mind Webb Chiles' image of  sailing while reading paper books faster than you need to tear out the pages. Of all the necessities it seems to me toilet paper is the easiest to substitute, except among our neighbors who lack imagination apparently.

Animal shelters are pushing this as a good time to adopt. I never regret having Rusty in my life. Less than ever now, a constant source of joy. Plus he is immune to Covid-19. Every advantage at long last in his young, abused life. More than ever going for a walk means a lot to both of us.

Key West In The Time Of Plague

I saw a post on Instagram posted by a local on a bicycle showing various spots around town and mentioning how hard it is to get away from clumps of tourists in a time supposedly devoted to social distancing. I asked myself why would you take a bike and a camera and deliberately seek out crowds? How does that make you smarter than the people you complain of? 24 hours later I was trapped in the bean aisle at Publix wondering how in the name of all hell had this happened to me..?  We are all fools and knaves in the time of cholera. 

The city decided to go one step further than the Governor requested, so while Monroe County eateries are observing limited broadly spaced seating the city just said no more sit down restaurants, delivery and take out only, and no more bars and nightclubs.  All of which as you can see above, went over like a lead balloon. However all government meetings are now canceled which they had to do to avoid organizing a large crowd in violation of their own edicts. But food deliveries continued on Duval and side streets yesterday.

I sent that picture to my sister in Scotland and she texted me back horrified they were standing so close together. In an effort to support our favorite pizza place we ordered in last night and when the box arrived I transferred the pie to a dish and my wife, the one with the compromised immune system went nowhere near. Is it enough? Don't know...but it is a minor event that summarizes the dilemma. Help our neighbors by sending money and thus creating a pathway for the virus. It's enough to give you a headache, and as alarmist as I am, a headache becomes the first symptom...

I started seeing people popping out on Duval, Street around eight o'clock so Rusty and I headed out on Fleming Street back towards the car. But even when we arrived on Caroline Street at 6:30 in the morning, well before sunrise people were out.

 What do you do in a tourist town without tourists?  How do we sustain a local economy without Europeans, with no more Spring Breakers, with families staying home this summer? How long will two grand last a family without work? Actually it blew my mind to see politicians who derided President Obama's auto bail out offering cash money to anyone in reach. Thats the measure of how seriously the economy everywhere is suffering.

But all suffering is local and around here we see people who struggle to wait out a low season which lasts less than three months around here. Once upon a time the hospitality trade was a lean place to work from May to November, hence the need for Fantasy Fest to keep people going.

Nowadays the only low season around here starts in September after school starts and ends with the first snows Up North which push the snowbirds back south. The lean season this year may not let up before Fantasy Fest. I try to imagine that and I just can't.

It is a very sobering thought to realize what it means to be connected so viscerally and directly with Wuhan in China. I was reading a few weeks about small businesses at the epicenter of the outbreak and how economic activity had ground to a halt and bankruptcy was in the future of everyone. I started reading the story with no great empathy figuring they were the cause of their own problems. It soon became apparent that was not the case.

Now that I see the effects of this mess here at home the words of the restaurant owner in Wuhan laying off  cooks and servers are coming home to roost in Key West. For now some business owners are going to try to keep people hired by offering food to go, using waitstaff to deliver and bus staff to do maintenance or some such. How long this can last who knows?

Meanwhile the weather is amazing, sunny and warm, cool and breezy at night, just perfect. I've started swimming in the canal behind my house and the sea water is just about warm enough. So you lay in the water lofting on your back staring u at the usual pale blue sky, big puffy clouds, and the sun glittering on the water. It's astounding when you remember the air is filled with fat coated viruses that give humans some of the worst breathing problems they can have. 

So my answer is to get up early, load Rusty in the car and take a city walk with my camera as usual, with no one around, no sitting on benches, no holding hand rails no touching anything. Sounds crazy right? It's how I do it with a hasty departure when people start appearing on the sidewalks. Yesterday I got a shopping list. Layne wanted to make beef stroganoff for dinner, a childhood comfort food that came to her mind in the midst of the plague. Egg noodles were included on the list. Brown rice, chicken parts, fruits and vegetables and the usual stuff. Toilet paper as a joke. Might as well not have bothered. Milk:

I was texting my sister in Scotland again and she was shocked I could find anything. Her stores in the far north of the country have been picked clean by people driving up, roaming all over the country shopping and filling there cars where they find supplies. Beans:

 I skipped steadily between aisles picking up perishables and laughing periodically as my wife made impossible requests through the electric telephone. Meat:

Toilet paper was of course hopeless but we knew that didn't we?  Luckily we don't need any but buying some has become a running joke in our home. Packaged cheese:

 When I strolled into the New Publix, the one near Kmart not the one near Sears the crowds were manageable. I stopped, stood aside avoided getting within feet of anyone. Easy peasy.

That didn't last. It got so bad I was ready to abandon my shopping cart. I had lettuce, fruit, English chocolate cookies and I couldn't abandon my Hobnobs obviously. So like a coronavirus tool I stuck it out.

A woman touched my shoulder as she limped by looking the picture of elderly health, limping, breathing heavily like the best target for Covid-19, and she touched me. How she plans to manage her social distance I don't know. The group of young Spring Breakers blocking the exit were easier to understand, obliviousness is a trade mark of youth especially when they've been told they won't get sick and only the old people they touch will get ill.  That would have been me had I stayed in the way.

 Back to the car, my hopes my sanitizer my bleach spray, my...

 ...dog watching the world go by as only a creature with no exposure could do.

So ended my last shopping expedition. We have a small store near home where hopefully we can pick up odds and ends as time goes by and until then its another week at home on vacation before we each return to our respective jobs. And how lucky are we to have jobs?  Once again I feel so lucky to work for the police department.

I have always loved my isolated walks in the back country, the perfect antidote to the usual stresses. Nowadays more than ever. The orders came fast and furious, courts closed gatherings limited to ten people, customer service at the utility company ended, our main Key West gym closed (we had already stopped going). Of course one takes it personally, but its all over the country. We have no testing, no way to know if we are infected, no idea who to put in quarantine so in the end, in the American Way, we make our own choices and for myself that works just fine. 

When I was a youngster in Italy I used to travel a fair bit by train, and even Michael the Oblivious noticed no one else on the entire train was reading a book. People gathered in compartments filled with strangers and chatted, endlessly and pointlessly about nothing at all. Oh it sounds exotic if you don't speak the language but for me the worlds I found between the pages were worth being the object of ridicule, being called a book worm with derision. I hunkered in my seat in the corner and dived into my stack of books. Nowadays I watch the videos of Italians locked at home going slowly mad. They don't do social isolation so well though they are putting a good face on it and learning once again the words of the National Anthem which has got a new public life in this period of plague. "We  are ready to close ranks and die for Italy. Yes!" The words of Mameli's Hymn are getting a bit close for comfort. 

I've learned how to do get pretty good at isolation and keeping myself amused. I know you face the same issues where you live and I hope you are ready to practice Netflix and chill for as long as it takes. May it not take too long at all.

Italy In Quarantine