Here is a good website that shows how each state is progressing toward being able to reopen safely. This website is updated regularly. A lot of states have rates of infection continuing to increase. https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/
Although the survey is interesting, I think it would have been more useful if the survey had asked “what criteria would you need to be met?” rather than “when?” The article considers “when” as in a timeline; “now, summer, fall, a year from now, etc.” Problem is, nobody knows “when” because we cannot foresee the future. Will infection rates be declining in a month? We don’t know. Instead, the epidemiologists are probably watching for indicators, such as declining infection rates, development of vaccinations, etc., not just waiting for time to pass.
I’d like to know what criteria they would watch for before doing activities like eating at a restaurant or flying on a plane. Eating out after infection rates reach a certain threshold? Flying after there’s a vaccine?
It’s also interesting to see how much a person’s individual circumstances play a role in their answers. Job types, proximity to elderly family members, children’s developmental needs, etc. There is no one answer for all of us. We all have different risk levels, different risk tolerances, live in different areas, and have different values and motivations. Therefore, we all have to make guesses and judgment calls based on our own unique situations.
One thing that’s fairly universal though – we are all tired of the inside of our houses and we all want to be somewhere else right now! I’m dealing with that by looking at houses on the internet. Houses for sale, long-term rentals, vacation rentals, houses in California, Arizona, New Mexico…no, not Texas.
I know, springtime a bit over a year ago I was all ready to move to Texas, but that was in a moment of insanity. All my friends told me I was out of my mind, and yes, you were right. It’s just that the dry desert winds can get to you; can seep into your mind and replace neurons with sand. New Mexicans can go a little crazy in March – while the rest of the world has cherry blossoms and bluebells, we have blowing sand.
Speaking of replacing brain neurons with sand, guess what I discovered? There are basically no pet-friendly houses for rent with private pools in all of California, Arizona or New Mexico. You can get pet-friendly rentals. And you can occasionally get rentals with pools. But not both at the same time.
Guess where you can get pet-friendly rentals with private backyard pools? Florida! Yep. They’re all over down there. Tons of them! I’d been looking in California and Arizona and nothing, nothing, nothing, then I switched to Florida and suddenly, bonanza! I’m overwhelmed with the options. Slight problem – it’s a loooong damn drive to Florida and I’m not flying anywhere, anytime soon.
Yes, there are probably pet-friendly rentals with pools in Texas too, but I told you, Texas is no longer under consideration. Never mind why. Well, ok, unless my sister moves there, which she has mentioned as a possibility. Then I’d consider spending some time there. But for now she seems thoroughly ensconced in Boston.
The other thing you’re probably wondering is why I’m even looking at pet-friendly rentals with private pools. Am I planning on renting a house? Uh, I’m not really planning anything. I’m planning on making it through another round of chemo. I’m just going nuts with this house-bound situation. Like all the rest of you. Dreaming of being SOMEWHERE ELSE!
Yes, those places are really available! And pets are ok! And they cost the same amount to rent as our small, modest rentals here in Albuquerque. Except bigger and with pools!
Uh, is the water supposed to be green? Never mind, I’ll take it, I can fix that water.
Here’s one with a private pool and a private dock with a boat lift. Holy moly! You couldn’t even rent a studio apartment over someone’s garage in California for that price! Plus, all of these houses are updated inside, with stainless steel appliances and nice tile and everything.
As you probably know, Emily is an emergency room doctor in Boston. Since the COVID pandemic started, I’ve been running an occasional post highlighting news from her front-line perspective.
The staff at her hospital recently got a new shipment of gowns, yay! Except wait at minute – does “Non-medical” mean what it sounds like it means?
What is a non-medical hospital gown? Doesn’t sound good to me.
On a happier note, she also sent very cute kid pictures. Phoebe got her 4 month vaccinations. (Awww, look at those blue eyes. Mom, that was not fun!)
Yes, do keep vaccinating your children! It’s important!
Everyone is enjoying the summer weather!
Emily and Bryan have invested in some great backyard kid toys and an above-ground pool. Worth it!! Keeping the kids safe and happy in these crazy no-visiting-the-park times.
I’ve really been missing being out in the woods. I’ve always loved pine trees in the summer time. We’re lucky to have two big pines in our own yard. John put up our camping hammock for me, so I could pretend I was camping right here in my backyard!
The pines have been making an incredible amount of pollen. Last week whenever the wind gusted, you could see the pollen coming off the trees in a cloud. It looked like smoke! It landed everywhere, and coated our entire backyard.
This is pollen all over my outdoor coffee table.
It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the pollen is a light greenish-yellowish color. It reminded me of living in Washington state, where the same thing happened, except in Washington the pollen would coat the mud puddles and leave yellow streaks on the wet, black pavement as it washed down the streets.
I’ve been wanting to go hiking, or at least get out into the trees. Everything aligned just right on Sunday. I was feeling fairly well because the previous week was my recovery week with no chemo pills. We figured I was feeling as well as I was going to feel for awhile, because chemo was starting again the next day. Our weather here has been warm but exceedingly windy. On Sunday the wind died down briefly in the afternoon and we grabbed our chance.
We decided we’d drive up to the north side of the Sandias, which is only about half hour away. The trails up there get less use, because they are farther away than the many trails we have right here along the east side of Albuquerque. And we knew of one trail in particular that rarely gets much use at all. It’s off a back road, unnamed, unmarked, and doesn’t actually go anywhere.
Another good thing about this particular trail is it doesn’t climb very steeply (that being correlated with the fact that it doesn’t actually go anywhere). Most of the local trails make their way up to the crest eventually, which is a long, hard climb. But this one just meanders slowly up a low lying wash.
We took the camper van so I could rest in the van if needed. I didn’t want to get out there and have to turn right around and drive home if I wasn’t feeling well. We figured if I wasn’t up for hiking, we could hang out in the van with the side door wide open and enjoy the forest from there. We brought food and magazines.
I hiked very slowly, but to my surprise, I walked for almost 40 minutes out, and 40 minutes back, which is vastly farther than I’ve walked since my surgery. It was only a month or so ago that I was barely managing to walk one block. It was really wonderful to be out hiking again.
Yay trees! I’m all covered up because the meds make me sensitive to the sun.
And mountains in the distance. I was very happy.
On our way down I heard talking up ahead, so I assumed we were coming upon a small group of hikers. But when I rounded the bend, I saw just one man, sprawled out in the sand, talking to himself.
I stopped, confused, trying to assess the threat level. He was laying on his stomach with his head in the sand, his knees pulled up under himself. Was he hurt? Did he need help? Was he crazy? Dangerous?
He was speaking in a soothing voice and didn’t appear threatening. Then I saw it – his phone propped up facing him. And in one brief instant I realized he was in a yoga pose – he was a yoga instructor, filming himself leading an online yoga class.
I stood there, not sure what to do. I didn’t want to photo bomb his yoga class! John came up behind me and said, “We can just go around.” I whispered back, “He’s filming.”
Just then the yoga instructor looked up and smiled, and motioned us to go ahead and walk through. I didn’t look toward the camera. I’d like to imagine that hikers quietly walking by increased the already excellent ambiance of his socially-distanced yoga class. It almost made me wish I knew who he was so I could join his class. Except I don’t like yoga, despite knowing a couple of instructors and having several friends who love it. It was a great place to have a class though! Just don’t lay down on any cactus.
After we got back to the van we hung out for awhile and enjoyed the view before driving home.
I don’t usually just repost articles, but this one is very good. The author, Erin Bromage, is a professor of immunology. It’s about how COVID is transmitted, to help us better understand what’s dangerous and what’s not dangerous. Thanks to John for sending it to me (and to Erin Bromage for writing it).
John and I had cookies for dinner last night. And I don’t mean we had cookies after dinner last night. We had cookies for dinner. And I don’t mean we had cookies and stew and steamed vegetables. We had just cookies.
Now in our defense, they were deceptively healthy-looking homemade cookies. They were oatmeal, raisin, pepita, and molasses cookies. A rich brown, lumpy, very healthy-looking cookie. But still full of butter and sugar.
We probably ate about half a cup of sugar apiece. That’s what happens when you make the cookies yourself – you know what’s in them, and can’t pretend otherwise. Miraculously, I had all the ingredients on hand (except I substituted pepitas for walnuts).
Cookies for dinner is the kind of thing that happens when you’re stuck at home for weeks and weeks. We’ve all been so good. We haven’t gone anywhere, done anything. I mean, you can only be so good for so long!
A friend of mine, who also has cancer, was interviewed by the local news. If you click on it, it should load the news video (after an ad). Kathleen explains why she appreciates it when people wear masks when they’re walking outside. It’s a gesture of respect for those who are out walking who are immunocompromised.
John sent me this, it’s a little tongue-in-cheek video about how to increase unhappiness. It wasn’t originally written about staying home for the COVID crisis, but it turns out to be relevant.
I finally had a chance to talk with Emily again about how she’s doing on the front lines in the emergency room in Boston. I was surprised to hear that her hours are being cut! What? We’re in middle of a pandemic! Don’t we need our doctors right now?
Apparently her hospital is going broke. No one is doing any “elective surgery” which is where most of the hospital’s income comes from. No income, no money for salaries.
It sounds crazy to me. But then this morning, a local newsletter I get via email said the same thing about New Mexico.
“Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center yesterday placed 300 employees on temporary leave for up to 90 days, with CEO Lilian Montoya citing close to a 35% decline in patients and a $10 million-per-month drop in revenue since the state implemented stay-at-home orders and banned doctors from performing non-essential services. Lovelace Health System also confirmed to the Albuquerque Journal yesterday it is making “difficult workforce decisions” that will affect 15% of its staff, approximately 630 people. Two hospitals in Las Cruces also say they are cutting staff.”
With four rentals, we are basically running a small business, with income and expenses, profit and loss. We don’t actually make very much with the rentals, although that’s partially due to less-than-ideal management (we’re our own management, lol). Our two big mistakes are buying and selling too frequently, and investing in upgrades. We refuse to let the houses fall into disrepair like so many other landlords do. But there goes our profit.
We barely make money even in a good year, and now, like nearly every other small business on the planet, we are being hit hard by coronavirus knock-on effects. Two of our four tenants have given notice, and a third has needed a temporary rent reduction.
Typically we wouldn’t have any trouble getting new tenants in, but we are worried because so many people in the rental market have rapidly changing situations with their income. Just because they might be employed today, does not mean they will be employed tomorrow.
Many cities (including Santa Fe) are no longer allowing landlords to evict tenants for non-payment if they are impacted by the coronavirus (and who isn’t?). They can stay rent-free, meanwhile, our expenses don’t go away. This makes sense for the renters and for our country as a whole; we don’t want everyone losing their homes. Problem is, John and I aren’t a big real estate holding company with funds sloshing around to support a bunch of families rent-free, we’re just mom and pop on a single income.
So, like most of the rest of the small businesses in the world right now, we’re going to try to cut back to reduce our risk and exposure. We’re going to try to sell the two rentals that are coming empty. It may be too late – the housing market is freezing up. Almost no one is buying or selling right now. Also I’m hearing that it’s taking much longer to close than normal.
Up until very recently, the market has been strong here. Prices are high and many houses have been going under contract within a day, or even getting multiple offers. But now everything is grinding to an abrupt halt. There’s currently very little on the market, so that’s good for sellers. But buyers are getting cold feet. What’s next? Will the people who are losing their jobs be forced to sell? Will the market glut and prices fall?
The first house we’re going to put on the market is one of the three in Albuquerque. That tenant is out, it’s been cleaned, and the yard guy is working out there this week. The marketing photos are scheduled for tomorrow, and we should have it listed by this weekend.
The second house we’re going to put on the market is the one in Santa Fe. Those tenants don’t need to be out until the end of the month, and realistically, sometimes tenants run a bit late getting out. So I expect it will be at least until mid-May before we can get that house on the market. Who knows what the market will be doing by then!
Note that I said, “We’re going to put on the market” not, “We’re going to sell.” They may or may not sell. We do not want to take a big loss if prices start to fall, and we don’t want them just sitting empty on the market for very long if it turns out there are no buyers right now. If we can’t sell them for a fair price quickly, we’ll take our chances and try to get good tenants in.
Laura, you’ll like this one. Good job staying home, Santa Clara County!
Sorry I’m failing to post the link for that picture, but if you go to the bottom of this website, https://healthweather.us/ , there will be a link for “‘A Tale of Two Counties – Atypical Illness Trends for Santa Clara and Miami-Dade County’ Posted March 20, 2020”
While I’m posting stuff from the internet, here’s a comic:
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