Thursday whine

Looking around the corner at turning 85 and no complaints. Robert is already there, how's it going, friend? okay, I pray! You been having breakfast at the new Waffle Shop where Jimmy's Drive-In used to be?

A third of Americans have symptoms of clinical anxiety or clinical depression: not me, I'm good so far. My eyes work, my ears work, I have both hands, I can walk, I can think, write, speak. But the social and economic experience could weigh on most any active person.

Yesterday at the Colorado osprey nest, one hatchling and two eggs. Father bird tearing off pieces of a fish and feeding the mother bird. Cute. Next time, I may be a bird. What breed?

In Minnesota, four policemen fired for a botched arrest in which one of them killed the man. Firing is not sufficient, of course, charges. Coming. While I sympathize, and hurt, it's not possible for me to be really in there with complete understanding, because I'm not a black man in America. Nothing could be more phony than for somebody like me to say "I understand". You have to be there. You have to be afraid. At some point, maybe you have to hate, fear does that.

Which actually is central to the national problem: Fear of people who are different and seem threatening. 

Seldom do I let myself sink into politics, political writing and comments, why? Because my views are so strong and my feelings so vehement, and everyone around feels opposite to me, and I don't need to make enemies and stir more hatred in a nation already festering in it. Don't watch tv anyway, but when coverage is on, absent myself. When I love you, why should I make you hate me by emphasizing our difference, nothing I say could possibly change your mind, nor you mine, just create antipathy, so I'm silent. Wednesday morning, November 4th, I'll review, start making my decisions and charting my way, depending on. God willing, oh and Covid19 don't rise, a new factor in possibilities.

Epidemiologists are saying Covid19 is with us to stay. So whatever else changes or stays the same in the culture, that's a new normal. That's is, not will be. For myself, I can social distance permanently as new normal, not a problem, no anxiety, no distress, no depression. Now this is a drill, this is a drill ... we've had our drill, found we can get food and household supplies delivered if that's new normal. Don't need to drive except across town. Don't have to go out of town, the driving was getting dreadsome, uptight, stressful already, anyway. Like, we don't belong to be out here anymore, have no business buzzing along beside these eighteen-wheel gargantuas. What would I miss? Loved ones. Infrequent 3-day, 2-night trips to favorite hotel on Scipio Creek, drive over always homecoming exciting, Hwy98 through super-pines from PSJ to Apalachicola. Heading back invariably a downer even though. Makes no sense, does it. 

Hurricane season 2020 starts Monday, but with two named storms in May, Father Nature has already gotten the jump on us, hasn't he. No fair. 

We aren't finished cleaning up from the last hurricane. Scaffolding still up on the Bay side. Stucco work on our level yet to be done. New Bay side windows, but the inside of 7H is back to a controlled mess. I grew up in PC and hardly ever thought much about hurricanes, even Opal, even Ivan. But Cat5 HMichael changed my susceptibility to high anxiety. I remember, leaving town for Opal, creeping along, thirteen hours to drive from here to Tallahassee. Then when you leave, they won't let you back into the county, eh.



Today, a plan. Haircut, just as I was working toward the Ben Franklin effect. Or maybe Gollum.

Swing by the church office. 

Maybe start a new book by Bart Ehrman, that arrived in yesterday's mail.  

Breakfast? Linda's going to scramble eggs, cheese eggs, hers are the best, and I'll  have some of that smoked salmon with mine. Lox. A favorite, my sole reason for ever wanting to go on another Disney cruise: breakfast buffet of lox and soft scrambled eggs, topside aft. Never happen. Covid19 reigns. 

What should we have here ready to evacuate. Canned beans. Canned salmon and tuna. Mayo. Cans that don't need a can opener. Crackers. Bottled water. Full tank of gas in one car. Change of clothes. Ditty bag. Oh yes, all these damned pills. Ice chest quickly to empty the freezer as needed? A book. Cellphone & charger. Laptop & charger. Wallet and credit card. Flashlight. Tire pump. Hearing aids, set with batteries. What else? Jiminy.

High pitched shrieks as our osprey swings in close to check me out, then circles out over StAndrewsBay. 

Several boats out there fishing this morning.

W