A Week Later

Still quarantined, but it's not too bad. Jack's able to work from home. The weather has been raining every other day, and it's that high-40s steady rain that's always so miserable. Still, last Friday was in the high 70's, and we held a Cottage Avenue Porch Party. Neighbors came out on porches and Jack had his guitar. Buddy and Lindsay and Leighton also came by, Buddy with his drums, and Scott and Mare also came by. Eventually, all the neighbors gathered their porch chairs and came to the brick apron between houses, and we had a great time.

Trump is being a total douche, as are his evangelical cohorts, encouraging "full churches on Easter" -- as if he goes to church!

Meanwhile, people who know better talk of "flattening the curve," referring to the containing of the spread, but I think it's a little late for that. It's pretty bad on the front lines. I do thank God daily we're not infected.

Leighton has learned to crawl!

And Eliana discovered puddles and leaves. But the video is too big to upload.

I'm down to 204.6 pounds today. That's 42 pounds down! I may be below 200 for Easter after all!

COVID-19

We left the US just as Trump was telling people he might take some steps to contain the virus, but in all, it's just a Democratic hoax, it's perfectly under control, just like the letter was perfect, the transcript was perfect. Well, that wasn't a lie because those WEREN'T perfect, so things went out of control quickly.

We arrived in France on Saturday as Macron suggested staying indoors and maybe closing restaurants. We managed to get to the Rosny-sous-Bois train museum for my research, and quick back to the hotel get a dinner and a bottle of wine. Then all of Paris shut down.

Sunday we managed to buy a breakfast and a dinner. We walked from Denfert-Rochereau north, then took a bus to the Luxembourg gardens, then went to Notre Dame for some pictures, and finally home to the hotel, which was closed.

They let us in, but there was no dining, so we went to the supermarket next door to buy wine and sandwiches. Then the hotel manager came in and yelled at us because sitting in the dining area was forbidden. Wwe were so pissed at him we left our trash there.

But then we called Air France and got a flight out of Dodge.

By Monday morning everything had shut down in the city. The airport wasn't exactly a ghost town, but it wasn't a mess. Upon landing, passengers filled out a form about where we had been, and we turned that over to a CDC worker who took our temperatures as we deplaned.

Now we're home and quarantined.