We stay as safe as we can. My husband is able to tolerate his chemo at 100% strength, so he's feeling pretty good these days and hanging out at home is nice.

The weather, though. It's awful. We've had no summer to speak of. Today it might as well be November. Of course, it gives me an excuse to hang out with my new laptop.

It's so weird, we've has a fairly dry and hot summer. A lot of the storms we usually get are passing either to our south or far north, that's so odd because we're in what's called Tornado alley and usually get hit with some real thunderboomers, plus the occasional twister or two. It's been quiet, too quiet as they say. Wouldn't be the first year that we got hit hard in September, but we usually get more precip by now. The grass is sure showing it. I told my partner this afternoon that I was going out to mow the dust.

That is wonderful that your husband can tolerate the chemo at full strength, hagatha! As I'm sure you well know, that's not always the case. It's nice you can stay safe from this pandemic at home where you like it, icky weather aside!

Yes, we're both pretty happy about the chemo. Because his tumour is in his lower spine, it can get painful, but the full-on chemo shuts that down nicely, and its main side effect is sleepiness. And this stuff does keep people going for a long time, even as long as 11 years and counting in the case of one fellow our GPO treats.

We just enjoy everyday. That's the main lesson we've learned. All the silly stuff becomes unimportant.

A small pod of Orca went past our windows early this morning. They had a baby. So cute.

Then life is good! Stay safe, both of you!

"A small pod of Orca went past our windows early this morning. They had a baby. So cute."

How fantastic, hagatha !! Just wonderful

Indeed. Life is good.

Hey, how many people are finding it difficult to keep off the pounds at the moment?

I hadn't realized just how much controlling my weight had to do with my normal buzzing around town just doing stuff (I'm not a fan of the gym). I'm going to have to give up my treats if I don't want to end up looking like a blimp. This is the first time I've had to consider a diet since I was in my late teens. Phooey.

It's called the COVID 30! Personally, I haven't gained any weight, but then I have so much to keep me busy outside. I know a lot of people who have though.

*Trail raises hand * Yeah and it really sucks. I was pretty much of a bean pole years ago. Then time caught up, my metabolism slowed down and the "paunch monster" attacked Part of it is working at home. Even though I'm making it a point to walk the dog and exercise, I'm actually moving less than I was at work. Part of it is because I used to walk a couple blocks to get decent coffee, used to go on regular walks while on break with my work co-horts, run up and down flights of stairs to catch meetings, travel pretty much once a month to another city on a whirlwind schedule to meet project deadlines and budgets. *sigh* you know, I used to say that I hated travelling so much. Now, if I'm being honest, I sort of miss it....

Same here. I walked a lot during the day at work just to get out. Vancouver's downtown is a food mecca, so I regularly walked for half an hour and back to get lunch, having the kind of job where being out of the office was expected. And after I retired I walked the Seawall in West Vancouver at least 4 times a week.

I guess I'll have to start putting in some hours on the trails.

I'm a hugger. The absolute hardest thing for me is not being able to hug anyone.

Hand shaking for me is hard to stop. In my job as a field inspector for the Missouri DNR I met new people every day and it was just a habit. We met our new neighbors out here in the country. The nicest young couple bought 52 acres next to us. I had to stop myself when we were introducing ourselves to each other!

Fatigue does set in, too, after a lifetime of not having to take these precautions. It's hard to maintain, especially here where we have so few cases.

After so many months, I do find myself forgetting to put on my mask when I'm going into the store. I keep a box in my car so I 'm never without, but these days I seem to be running back for one quite often. I have to be very focused on sanitizing my hands when I'm in and out of stores. Both of these things had become pretty much habit a few months back. I guess I'll have to start leaving myself sticky notes on my dashboard.

I know. I threw caution to the wind Friday night when I was so excited to see one of my favorite people at the American Legion. We drop a flat of tomatoes off for their Saturday burgers and usually socially distance at one of the tables and have a beer and go home. But I was so happy to see Mike and we got to talking music and all of a sudden I realized I was also standing next to two people who I KNOW are anti-maskers. I just forgot for about 45 minutes. We were ready to leave anyway and I so enjoyed talking to Mike, but now I feel uncomfortable because I know these two individuals have no intention of practicing anything to help stop this thing. What have they been exposed to?

I really do hate this. But I will continue to do whatever it takes to be safe. And if it's overkill, then so be it. Took my frustrations out on a giant bucket of tomatoes yesterday and brewed up 7 quarts of chili sauce!

I’m on the same page. Pretty much staying at home. Masks anytime we are out at the store. Bag on my hand when doing gas . Better safe than sorry .

Just talked to my sister up in NW Iowa. I'm from a tiny little farming town of about 1,000 people. Her best friend and her husband contracted COVID by simply going out to eat at a local steakhouse in a neighboring even tinier town of about 800 people. They had some kind of event there the week before and no one wore masks or practiced social distancing. All they did was eat dinner and leave. Her husband felt crappy, but was OK. Bonnie was taken to the hospital and then air evacuated to a larger hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She almost died and a month later cannot even walk up a flight of stairs. Her doctor told her if she caught a cold or the flu, it would kill her and she should never go anywhere without a mask and to not go to places that don't require them. My sister just missed seeing them or she would have gotten it too. She is 70 and like me has several underlying conditions and her doctor told her it would be a death sentence for her too. So she does it all, but mostly stays home with her little dog for company.

We still don't know anyone who is sick, but we're watching the news carefully.

Draclvr, I'm glad your sister has her dog for company. I don't know what we'd do without our cat.

Winfrey, I've been able to buy disposable masks on Amazon. I'm about to order more for the upcoming flu season. You might be able to get gloves, too, although I just make sure I use sanitizer liberally after getting gas.

I started working at home in November last year, and have rarely gone out since then. It was not due to any pandemic because that was before the pandemic actually hit. I was close to retirement, so my boss and I arranged to have me work at home and with reduced hours. That turned out to be a fortunate decision because I live and work in NYC, which would later be a major epicenter. If I had worked normally in the ensuing months, I would've commuted in packed trains and buses during that period and would've very likely got infected. NY Times has info on infection rate by zip code, and mine was a fairly highly infected area too.

NYC has since become a lot safer with much reduced cases and deaths. But until a vaccine is widely available (which may still be months away), I believe we should all adopt the "all bets are off" attitude. That means we should continue distancing, using masks and gloves, etc. This disease is so new that even experts struggle to find answers. The only answers we can get is from researches, which take months if not years. And the only way we know we have answers is when a working vaccine is available. Only when a majority of the population are vaccinated can we truly go back to our old lifestyle. We are able to deal with regular flus without changing our lifestyle because of one reason only: we have vaccines for flus. But we don't have it for Covid yet.

Man, you really were in the thick of it in NYC. Good for you to have been working at home. We are retired, so count our blessings every day that we only have to go out when we want or need to. When you have a disease that is killing 30,000 people every month in just the first 6 months, it sure says your attitude of "all bets are off" may be prudent.

GamingPhreak, I'm glad to hear you made it through what must have been a horribly stressful time. That must have been terrifying and demoralizing.

We're starting to go backwards now, and things are closing down again. -- night clubs and banquet halls are closed until further notice Too many people gathering in large numbers, and now of course the children are about to go back to school.

I'm going to grab my flu shot early this year.

The public elementary and high schools here in Chicago are all doing remote learning right now. I have been reading that some colleges with in school classes are having problems.

On the home front, we're having trouble getting our preferred brand of cat food and having to buy brands we've never heard of that are more expensive AND our cats don't like them.

Oldbroad, have you tried Chewy.com? That's the only place I can get the cat food and litter that I need.

The cases are exploding here in my little rural area. A week ago, I was invited to go out to eat with a group of women friends I haven't seen in a long time. I was so tempted, but I declined as I just wasn't comfortable. Plus I know a couple of them are anti-maskers and take no precautions. Well, thank heavens I didn't go. One of them had been going to Bingo games and tested positive for COVID. Now her husband has it and they are both extremely sick. Two close friends from my home town got it by simply going out to eat and coming home. This small - 800 people - town had a family days and no masks or social distancing was done. It's spreading like wildfire through the town and Bonnie had to be ambulanced to a large hospital and she nearly died. She has ZERO underlying conditions and is a big healthy Dutch gal. Six weeks later, she can hardly walk out to her garden yet. They told her she had lung AND heart damage which might be permanent. I am so sick of this thing and feel so bad for my grandkids missing out on so much. But COVID is nothing to take lightly...

We're pretty much in the same boat as you Drac. Our village population just tops out at about 1000 folks, and we now have the highest total number positive in our county. Same reasons you cited, small town summer activities weren't well regulated and few paying attention to social distancing. All the gov offices (city hall, post office) were taking precautions, but the private businesses were running same as usual, no masks. The gas station had a piece of clear painters tarp hanging just below chin level in front of the cashier. Other than that, everything else is pretty much same ol', same ol'.

We have German family visit every year, but of course not this year because anyone from the EU was barred from entry and because they had no desire to come to the US where are virtually no precautions compared to Germany. My SIL asked me Sunday how things were going in Germany. I told her, their economy was opening up and things were starting to slowly get back to normal. They still have outbreaks, but they are quickly contained. But I told her they have a national mask mandate and people there are taking it seriously - Petra told me no one goes anywhere without a mask and social distancing. Their doctors say the same thing as mine - however imperfect, masks and social distancing are the best defense until there is a reliable vaccine. Of course, Germany is a very small place compared to the sprawling US, but perhaps the attitudes of the Germans are what makes the difference.