384. Now with COVID

 

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COVID finally catches up with me 

Day 795 of pandemic/340 since semi-return to normal - 5/20/2022

I am sitting at the long tables at the Bank Cafe for the first time since the pandemic started. This is because I need to charge my phone and backup battery and I can’t find a convenient wall outlet. Normally I do this at home, but I’ve had my phone on the energy saving setting and it managed to slip below 70% charge without my noticing. I kind of like this phone setting, all I don’t have is easy access to the flashlight and Google search. But I don’t see that it really saves that much. I expected the % left to stay nearly unchanged for days, which has not been the case. I will continue to try it over the weekend while I’m working, but may just return to the normal setting next week.

Recently I’ve been sitting in the lower level of the Bank Cafe, where the bathrooms are. It’s convenient for bathroom access and there tend to be fewer people down there since it’s been off limits for most of the past two years. And there are some comfortable chairs and sofas there as well. Still, it is underground and it is nice sitting up at ground level now and being able to see the street activity out the windows. 

Today the first Boeing Starliner is docking with the ISS. This is an unmanned mission to test all the equipment. Boeing has not looked good running this program. SpaceX looks so much better by comparison. Though landing the ships on land rather than at sea should be an improvement. I hope in time SpaceX will be able to do the rocket assisted landings they wanted. Maybe if Boeing screws up a few more times, NASA will fund that.

There’s a wonderful collection of videos about Classic American cars from the ‘50s and ‘60s called Charles Phoenix Joyride. Depending on the make and model, the peak of American car design was somewhere between 1955 and 1962. Probably. Curiously, the same cars preserved in Cuba by very strange economic forces. Of course these automobiles are also horrible in almost every other way. They are dangerous to the occupants and gas guzzlers. Still, lovely to look at. I’m surprised the MAGA crowd hasn’t built some propaganda around them, it would at least resonate with people of my age cohort -- people born between 1945 and 1965. Even I can wax nostalgic about that period: The foods I ate at the time that I couldn’t eat now. The good times prior to the bad times that followed. When we were naive enough to think well of our political leaders like Eisenhower and JFK. Of course it helps that at the time I didn’t know any people of color or people who were not at least trying to pass for heterosexual. And we will ignore the lead in the paint and gasoline and the radiation in the air and snow. Or the pollution in the rivers (where we would never go).

Still, it is amazing to find cars that are over 65 years old still looking so damn good.

5/23/2022

Just last night I saw an episode of Joyride featuring a ‘57 Bel Air, such a beauty.

This past weekend was Himalayan Fair in Berkeley’s Live Oak Park. So Berkeley. So difficult to get the vendors to understand the trash rules. After working a full shift on Saturday I was proclaiming two of the vendors the worst, most clueless I had ever seen. I only worked a half shift at the end of the day on Sunday, but I had already reconsidered. Yes, they were as bad as I thought, but, when you consider the situation from their perspective, we were like the priest of some really strange religious cult arbitrarily deciding what items go in which of the arbitrarily colored containers. One item even changed from day to day as it was called to our attention that the plates were “wax coated” and therefore landfill instead of compost. (And then this was corrected again so we went back to putting them in compost.) This is why I have “CHILL” written at the top of my Greening reminder list that I review before I leave the house.

Still, diapers in recycling and latex gloves and aluminum containers in compost makes no sense to me. But I’m sure they just see our three bins as festively colored.

The crew chief at the end of the day made what I considered “questionable” decisions about closing down stations serving the vendors sooner than I would have. I did make sure he was the one who had to deal with the consequences, though that meant I wasn’t around to see that. Saying the vendors should bring their end of the event trash to us is one thing, stopping them from just leaving it at the closest park trash can is another. If there is a next time, I can now remind him of what happened here.

Still it was nice to do this event again after the pandemic hiatus. Even if it does mean a 10 block walk back to Bart on the way home. (That actually isn’t true, or at least on Saturday there was a bus I could have taken had I waited for it. On Sunday I walked anyway because of a stunning waitress I had happened to notice on my walk the previous evening. There’s a fair amount of outdoor restaurant activity on Shattuck on the north side of University. Nice to see.

Because I wasn’t starting work until 4pm on Sunday, I decided to come a bit early and have lunch in Berkeley. I had done The Butcher’s Son deli last time, so this time I ate at Ike’s. Had a wonderful sandwich, though the bread was practically a dessert. I asked if they offered it as a wrap -- as Subway does -- but they don’t. A pity.

Day 799/344 - 5/24/2022 

Day of first COVID symptoms. Wouldn’t test positive until 5/26. Was probably infected 5/20-5/21. Damn close to 800 days since the pandemic began. 

5/24/22

Just woke up from an adventure movie of a dream with a plot I couldn’t begin to describe and a large cast and, right at the end, music by CCR. Looked at the time and it had been just about 90 minutes since I went to bed.

5/27/22

My standard pasta dish that doesn’t change from year to year but has changed almost entirely over 40 years. Only the broccoli remains.

5/30/22

Difficulty of managing post-covid!!! How long am I contagious? What can I do and what should I not do?

5/31/22

Finally sitting outside at Another Cafe. I was going to offer to switch seats with two guys who joined me here so I would be down wind. Glad I didn’t as they seem to be sicker than I am.

Another has a very good croissant. Now I’m going for my first uphill walk and then -- very quickly -- to the market for some essentials. 

Ran into information suggesting that I may not have been contagious last Monday and Tuesday like I feared. That’s assuming the vaccine did what it is supposed to do. And it looks like there’s a chance I could test negative before the weekend.

6/6/22

My first day out of isolation after twelve days in my apartment. Got a veggie breakfast croissant which I ate at home and now I’m sitting at the Bank Cafe with a chocolate croissant and my iced tea. I didn’t bring my personal cup, but I’m pretty sure I’m clean now after two negative tests. And my temp is down to 96F again, too.

Now I’m wondering exactly how much safer am I than before given all the different variants out there? Probably better but it’s not like I can start licking everything.

Day 820/8 days post-COVID - 6/14/2022

Today I made it back to the Pork Store for the first time since I came down with COVID. I’m happy to say my nose and taste buds are still working fine. In fact, I noticed that my favorite waitress was wearing a scent that I swear I remember from the ‘50s. So over 60 years ago, but I would swear it was a scent for little girls. It came in some sort of kit for girls pretending to be grown ups... something like the doctor kits I vaguely remember from the period. Maybe it’s been repackaged for adults?

6/21/2022

Post-covid life is more of a challenge than you would think. On the one hand I survived and everything worked out the way it was supposed to. But now I really want to relax -- after all, what are the odds of my catching it twice in a month! But then I just read in the NYT that the currently most prevalent variant doesn’t give much protection for the next two variants that are now spreading. Not that I have any idea which variant I had. And even if I did know, it wouldn’t help because I also don’t know which variants I could be exposed to in the future... or right now.

This past weekend I worked a North Beach street festival for the first time. I thought it was the Columbus Day event cleverly shifted to another month to avoid the push-back against all that Columbus represents. But I did a little more research and discovered this was an entirely different event and that -- “Italian Heritage Parade” -- event is still scheduled for the usual time. So I was wrong, but I think they would have been smarter doing what I was thinking.

I started out on Saturday with my mask on, but quickly gave up. For one thing I hadn’t used my anti-fogging spray -- turns out that is still necessary even when it’s warm -- and not many other people were and it was outdoors and not that crowded and I just finished isolating for over a week so give me a break. Anyway, I seem to have survived. 

6/23/2022 

And for an odd coda to my weekend: I’m sitting at Caffe Grecco enjoying a compensatory cookie and iced tea after picking up the latest check and crazy letter from the mentally ill woman in my building. So strange to be back in this block after spending so much of the last weekend working here. While we had one day of mid-90sF on Tuesday, it is now back to our usual weather, clear blue sky here, though I can hear the fog horns that signal there is a tongue of fog coming in through the Golden Gate. Every time I am forced to come over here to sign for a letter I didn’t catch at home, I give myself some kind of neighborhood treat. Last time it was an eclair from Victoria Bakery. This should be the last time, but if it happens again I may get an actual meal.

Quantum philosophy

6/29/2022

Over breakfast this morning at the Pork Store I was thinking about Free Will vs Determinism and quantum physics (quantum uncertainty and the collapse of the wave function) and how thoroughly the Ancient Greeks covered this material.

The Stoics hold my view of Determinism while the Epicureans managed to nail the uncertainty of quantum reality that can open the door to Free Will. Meanwhile Homer and the tragedians point out the consequences of Hard Determinism in the story of Cassandra who can actually see the future, which means there’s nothing she can do to change it.

It seems to me that one alternative to the Many Worlds approach to the Present moving into the Future, is a collapsing wave functions view. The future is an endless series of wave functions that collapse as we come to them. This is not inherently either Deterministic or allowing Free Will, but it does seem to allow for the possibility of Free Will. 

My personal view of Determinism is not as hard as the Cassandra story -- or any other story in which people can predict the future -- but I think the degree of uncertainty considering exactly how the next wave function will collapse is very limited. Similar to the uncertainty of very stable substances that will eventually undergo a change but probably not for a billion years or so.

376. Pandemic and greening

 

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Greco and Pork Store and Outside Lands 

Day 578/123 = 10/15/2021

Got my third vaccine shot yesterday so today is a day-off. I had my once-a-month blueberry pancakes out for breakfast and now I’m working at the Peet’s at 8th and Brannan. No exercises today as I’m letting my arm recover and was expecting to not feel that well, though, so far I feel fine.

Getting the shot at my neighborhood Wallgreens lacked the ritual and significance of getting the first two at Moscone Center South. Certainly more convenient, though. I presume I won’t get boosted protection for a couple weeks, but since I’m already taking so many precautions this isn’t so significant. Statistically, it will just move me from under 80% to over 80% protection -- maybe 10% more protection. And there are so many variables that I’m not even sure of that. Probably, because I’m in such good shape and eat so well, I didn’t need to do this at all, but at this point I’m not going to take any chances.

I heard a great bit of new English usage this morning at breakfast. Someone described something as happening in “June of the pandemic.” What I like about this is that it is a way of grouping time that spans two years. (Though I think it was understood that “the pandemic” meant prior to the vaccine.) For me, the pandemic started in March of 2020 and ran until April of 2021 -- so we need to come up with a way of differentiating the two Marchs and Aprils. Perhaps “first April of the pandemic.”

Day 579/124 

I’m sitting on the sidewalk at Caffe Greco after shopping at the new Cole Hardware. That corner restaurant between the two has finally given it up and the space is vacant. I got Shoe Goo to repair my boot that Anthony is not in the mood to repair. We are supposed to get some rain this week so I didn’t feel like I could wait to see if he would finally come through. I’m happy to see that Greco at least seems to be thriving. 

Everyone talks about workers quiting their jobs or not filling all the empty positions, but I haven't heard as much talk about the small businesses that you can't get to do anything these days. Besides the shoe repair guy, the person who repairs old windows still hasn't responded to my requests for a bid for our work. I'd add the HOA's lawyer to the list, but we always have a problem getting timely response from our lawyers. I don't know why.

I didn’t have much of a reaction to my third COVID shot. The arm pain lasted less than 48 hours so I’m already back to doing my regular exercises. Never did feel sick otherwise. Too soon to tell if my cell phone reception has improved :-|

Day 584/129 

By next week we should be under 50 cases a day for our rolling 7 day average. And it is dropping fast. Hospitalizations are holding kind of steady, though they are off their peak. [And this is the problem with extrapolating. The numbers hit 50 and then rebounded.]

So what does this mean for me? Perhaps next week I will go to the Pork Store and not worry about how crowded it is. They are still checking vax status, though I still don’t see the value of that. Aside from annoying the anti-vaxxers.

Day 593/138 

I was looking for the daily case numbers to drop below 50 to declare an end to my personal SIP, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. Both the case rate and the hospitalization rate seem to have plateaued or worse right around 50. The next few weeks, before Thanksgiving, were supposed to be my happy time before hunkering down again after Thanksgiving. But maybe not. 

I also thought my greening season was over but I’m working at least one more day. I’ve avoided the hell of Outside Lands, but we will continue to sort the trash for four days after the concert ends. All the shifts on Monday were too early, and it’s supposed to rain most of Tuesday, so I took an eight hour shift on Wednesday. I may regret this, but it seems like the least I can do for the team. Plus I repaired my work boots and I want to see how they hold up. And it’s an excuse to have brunch at the Pork Store again. Was there last week and learned that the last of the regular waitresses is leaving at the end of the year. This is the one from Luxembourg. 

Day 597/142 

Worked a full eight hour shift of table sorting to finish the Outside Lands cleanup. Was working with a new woman who has worked in the past with a returning regular. He should have put us with some of the less experienced people, but it was interesting working with someone who was similarly trained. There is a lot that is subjective about the sorting process. She pulled some tofu containers that I had tossed in the landfill and moved them to recycling. It is almost impossible to get the plastic film off the top of the (semi) rigid plastic tubs. I’m pretty sure they just get tossed by Recology. Then I pulled a big dirty aluminum tray out of the landfill and used a towel I had saved to clean it up enough for recycling. Aluminum is one of the few things we are certain will actually get recycled, so the only reason to not recycle it is if it’s too dirty to clean up.

We were using the largest size debris boxes which was a problem after they got so full you had to close the rear doors. They are just a little too tall to dump a can of sorted trash over the side, unless you are over six feet tall. There was a time when we would have had ramps, but these were judged to be unsafe so now we have to improvise. Stupid. It’s especially a problem when you overload a bag/can making it too heavy to even lift over the side. This is something I’m frequently guilty of. I needed help on multiple occasions as a result.

Up to a certain weight, you can toss bags over the side without much difficulty. Except that bags are not allowed in the recycling stream. Previously this year bags weren’t allowed in the other streams either, but they seem to have made an exception for this event. Thank god.

One of our crew actually lives in San Jose and was unclear on how to get back to the train station after his shift. So one of us knew the best way to get out of the park -- there are still fences up everywhere limiting where you can go. And the three of us took the streetcar that SHOULD have dropped him where he was headed. But then it said it was not going all the way. I talked to the operator and he said we could still stay aboard as his train was going to switch from being an N to a T. This was a new one even for Muni, but I finally figured it out. There was a Warriors basketball game at Chase Center and Muni was adding N trains to the usual K/T trains that serve that area. Makes sense once you realize what they are doing, but the K/T thing is already so nuts adding N/T trains to the mix is just over the top.

219. Start of Genji

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The Old Mint

On Friday (already two weeks ago. I'm so far behind) I worked an event at the Old Mint called Undiscovered 2. I only signed up at the last moment because we were short people. This was an evening event partly in the little plaza on two sides of the Old Mint and partly inside. I worked the plaza, which was lined with food trucks and food vendor tents. It was the usual.

After the plaza was shut down, I went inside briefly to help in there. This was the first time I'd been in the building, which is one of the few survivors from the 1906 quake and fire. As I recall the story, a few people stayed behind and threw buckets of water on the heavy wood shutters to keep them from bursting into flame.

The building is amazingly solid -- it was the U.S. Mint, after all, and no doubt full of gold and silver much of the time. There's an open courtyard in the middle at the first floor above ground level. This was the main "venue" for the event, though they were also using many other rooms on that floor. I would love to explore the place. 

We finished sweeping the plaza to the north of the building just before 1am and I left. I arrived at the foot of Powell street just in time to see the final cable car of the day leave. At that time of night it makes surprisingly good time up Powell. Past my house.

Caffe Puccini

For a change I am at Caffe Greco in North Beach, sitting out on the Columbus sidewalk. To my surprise, Caffe Puccini is no more. The place is gutted. I'm sitting on the sidewalk closest to Puccini and kept trying to identify the unpleasant smell, which I was thinking was a demolition smell. Finally realized it is a fire smell. A quick search informs me that it was gutted by a fire on the 10th of this month. I'm surprised I didn't hear about that. Nothing indicates that they will be returning. The restaurant on the other side of them is closed with signs saying they will re-open. This assurance turns out to be a lie half the time anyway.

I just went through the hundreds of photos on Yelp and found a good shot of the amazing jukebox that was in Caffe Puccini,

SMART

I'm on the SMART train sitting at the new San Rafael terminus. It has functioning WiFi! A very comfortable little commuter train with a perfunctory little snack bar. 

I think I will be seeing some of the fire damage above Santa Rosa, but that's based on my interpretation of a photo I saw in the paper. In any event, I figured this would be a clever way to get out of the heat (this, too, is over a week old) during this little heat wave. Though, judging by yesterday, I will somehow end up hiking around Santa Rosa where it's even hotter than in SF.


This train is remarkably smooth.


This train is actually getting full. I'm seriously surprised. 


We're in Novato now. It looks very dry and there's a vulture circling... still California summer. We are at the edge of what should be wetland. Or what will probably be part of San Pablo Bay in 50 years -- they don't seem to have built up the track in anticipation of sea-level rise.


Just passed through the burned area between Santa Rosa and the airport. I expected more of the countryside to be burned but it seems to have been primarily the subdivisions that burned. Which supports my suspicion that building codes are a large part of the problem. Also, I haven't been able to regain WiFi since I shut my laptop around Petaluma. I think this is a Chrome problem, but I only run into it with certain routers. It's nice to see they are using the old stations at Petaluma and Santa Rosa (among other places) but to call those stations "downtown" is misleading. "Central" would be a better adjective. If I could get to Google Map I would check to see how far the station is from what I think of as downtown Petaluma. I have no idea about Santa Rosa. They probably just have an older mall. "When I was a boy you could ride your horse to Indian Genocide Mall and tie him up in the food court where there was a water trough and the Cinnebon guy kept some hay on hand. You could tie him up, do some shopping, have a snack, molest some girls, and come back and your horse would still be where you left him."

Just passed through the fire area again and the trees did survive better than the houses. Were their roofing materials soaked in napalm?

The Tale of Genji

by Murasaki Shikibu - Vintage, 1990 (the book itself was published "before 1021" according to Wiki)

I was trying to think what the circumstances of Genji's mother in the court of the Emperor reminded me of, and finally realized it was the story of Auntie Lindo from The Joy Luck Club. Her mother had also been the too-popular, youngest woman (concubine?) and so hated and plotted against by the older wives and concubines. (And this is also why I believe it is older wives, and not men, behind Islamic traditions of keeping young women in bags.)

Viewed this way, Jane Austen's novels are like chamber pieces with only a small group of players (single women and a variety of mothers, mostly), where literature from polygamous traditions are like symphonies with all the various additional sections of extra wives and concubines and their respective families. Since I tend to prefer smaller groups of musicians to full symphonies, it isn't surprising, I guess, that I'm not sure I will have the patience for Genji. Not because of its length but because of its base political nature. Unless there's an Auntie Lindo in here somewhere.