Social Distance Diary: A Walk in the Park

This near hollow tree is still standing. I take a lot of comfort from that.

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. - Herman Hesse

We went on a walk in Iroquois Park last weekend, along the horse trail a bit. Just to get some air. Just to get a little daylight together.  We picked the horse trail because there were fewer people there; not that there were a lot of people, because there weren't. But with the outbreak and my wife's work, we're being super diligent about social distancing and have been... even before Andy asked us to.

I love being out in nature, and I count it among my blessings to live where I have access to a park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. He, like John Muir, had an inkling of humanity's relationship with nature, and of our need for it.  More people know that Olmsted helped design Central Park in New York than know he designed "The Big Three" parks in Louisville.  At the core of his design philosophy was an idea that may have come to him when he was traveling in secret across the Pre-Civil War south and writing the articles that would eventually become The Cotton Kingdom: that it nature should be left to be nature because that's how it best serves people. (Never let it be thought that he was some prescient eco-warrior, because he wasn't.) He was very much opposed to manicured landscapes that were very much in vogue... a manicured look that was meant to suggest mankind's dominance over nature.  

Iroquois Park was originally designed with this in mind; and even though some very unOlmsted-like things have been added over the years, the amphitheater is a boon to the south end and to the city, the playground is well maintained, and while I'm terrible at basketball, I don't begrudge anyone a pick-up game in non-outbreak conditions. A large part of the park is still maintained much like Olmsted imagined it. Fallen trees are allowed to rot where they fall as long as trails aren't blocked. During our walk, I noticed where a tree that had fallen across the horse trail was simply cut in the place that blocked the way but left on both sides.

As humans -- as monkey not long from the trees -- we sometimes can't help ourselves but to leave a mark. Amanda asked me on our walk if I ever carved my initials into a tree. No, I told her. I always felt bad for the tree.

This expression of hypersensitivity didn't surprise her; she knows me too well.  She pointed out, though, that as long as the carving doesn't go all the way around the circumference of the truck, that it will simply grow and expand with the tree.

She wasn't asking because she wanted to carve our initials into some poor tree; but she did notice I was taking pictures of some carvings that attracted my attention:

While I can't bring myself to make such marks, I do appreciate that the tree carries on in spite of it for the most part. I suppose if I felt like I had permission to carve into a tree, I'd consider it. But I'm not one that the trees have decided to talk to. Not yet, at any rate.

I was talking to an old friend recently who takes stunning photographs of far flung places. He told me  that a person gets some perspective when he stubs his toe on a 5000 year old tree. This tree may not be that old, and I (surprisingly) didn't tub my toe on it. But I derive a great deal of comfort from it, and the others being there. 

Social Distance Diary: cat food

You can't tell he chonky. But take my word for it. He's a tick with fur.

It's not the run on toilet paper and hand sanitzer that surprises me. It's that it's still (at this writing) still possible to find Twinkies (including CHOCOLATE FLAVORED ONES, thank you very much ironic junk food gods that put these on Earth AFTER I gave up sweets for good) and Doritos... even the  questionable favors (anything but nacho cheese)... are still on the shelves.

We are not prone to panic; my wife's work in a mens' homeless shelter pretty much assures that if COVID-19 hits the homeless community that we're front and center for exposure. And... it will. That is, if it hasn't hit already but no one knows because the state of Kentucky has 120 test kits... that's one for every county for you Social Studies folks. Add to the the fact that the executive management of #Trumplandia is blocking states from using Medicaid to pay for testing. I'm sure they'll call this a cost savings issue, and Mitch McConnell will flap his throad waddle in passionate agreement, even he flops his eyes back agreeing with the trillion dollar drain on the Fed to bolster up the corporate cronies in the military-industrial complex. But again ... not prone to panic.  We are planners and preppers (of a sort) by natural inclination, so we're more or less ready if River City experiences a serious lockdown.

So we plan, avoid panic, and accept that while we will do everything we can to avoid exposure, the fact is, our chances are better than average. 

But we DID notice yesterday that we were low on cat food for our chonky little trash kitty, Wasabi. And we noticed that we were dangerously low on cheese. And honestly, I figured that, being Thursday, the next wave of panic shopping wouldn't hit until today (Friday) when most everyone gets paid. So we went to the store last night after a lovely dinner with her mom and some friends we see maybe once or twice a year.

Dear Friends and Readers, I was wrong.

The Kroger on New Cut only had two check out lanes open, and pretty much everyone but us was pushing around carts that were loaded down and roughly 100 times their individual body weight.  Of course, there were tons of Self-checkout Lanes available, but I personally don't like encouraging wage theft and no one pushing around 1000 metric ton of groceries is going to scan all that themselves. 

We used a small cart and bought cat food (double coupon!),  yogurt, cheese, a few incidentals for upcoming meal planning, and some seltzer water.  And then we waited. The three carts ahead of us were loaded down with apoclapyse supplies: frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, sugar cerea, milk, pop. No one had toilet paper or hand sanitizer because the shelves were empty from the previous wave.  The cashier's eyes were glazed over and there weren't enough people working for either register to have its own bagger... which mean the cashiers had to do double duty.

But, we survived and made it home in time to go to bed. And we we woke up in plenty of time this morning. 

I'm not hearing anything about mass riots over bungholio paper, but I have heard that bidet sales are doing well.  I suppose there's that. And to be honest, when all this is over, I can't say that I won't think hard about buying one for The Hermitage.