389 - Pandemic & Greening

 

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Pandemic & Greening 

6/21/23 - No longer counting pandemic days as it’s over a year since I tested negative again. But it’s still a weird mix of back to normal and pandemic times. 

Facemasks

Last week I gathered up all my cloth facemasks, washed them, and put them in a plastic bag. I’m now using some disposable KN95 masks. It was a blast from the recent past to see the first masks I ordered online back in 2020. Twenty or fifty years from now people will be emptying out houses or attics and find collections of these masks and wonder what that was all about.

I still don’t know how effective some of mine were. I do know that many people were not wearing their masks properly. Today, the use of masks here in San Francisco is a mystery to me. In Chinatown almost everyone has a mask on, but elsewhere I see East Asians wearing them over their chins, like so many other people do. Some people don’t wear masks on crowded buses and trains -- where I always do wear one, while other people wear masks walking down deserted streets. Our case numbers are very low. I have no idea how people make these decisions.

What’s changed

If our urban ship was at one point running on a single engine powered by a single boiler, today we have both engines running but only four to six of our twelve boilers burning. So many businesses, especially downtown, have closed and more continue to close. It now looks like Union Square is going to be the neighborhood most affected.

What’s back to normal

The events we “green” seem to be almost back to normal. Juneteenth actually seemed to be bigger than ever. 

It may be more accurate to say that many things have arrived at a new normal. My eating out is mostly back to normal now. I tend to eat out just under once a day. And I am trying to keep my favorite places in business as best I can -- considering how cheap I am. That I’m also down to about one drink per week doesn’t help with this.

And I’m still trying to support my neighborhood corner markets, though the one closest to me went out of business at the end of 2022. I try to go to the next two closest ones when I can, and I try to hit the mini-supermarket about three blocks away every week or two. For that matter, I’m also trying to do some business with the closest Walgreens so that they don’t close.

I still have not been back to a bar -- but then, given my non-drinking, that is only in part for COVID reasons. 

I don’t expect the City to be “recovered” for another eight years. And I think it’s most likely to get worse over the next several years. It looks like the Financial Districts and the Shopping District need to reinvent themselves which could take years. And the problem of the unhoused people on the streets requires the redevelopment of infrastructure to support the mentally ill and changes to the laws to compel them to go into the new supportive housing. At least our governor has a plan to do this, but it will take years even if it gets approved. Until then, things will continue to get worse and worse. 

No one has acknowledged this (that I have noticed) but our overall housing shortage must have been ameliorated by new construction and the departure of something between 40,000 and 70,000 residents. They must have been living somewhere and now they are not.This doesn’t affect the “homeless” problem on the streets as they are mostly on the streets because they lack the skills or means to live in regular housing. The means problem can be more easily addressed than the skills problem -- this was one of the lessons of the effort to place them in hotel rooms during COVID lockdown.

Greening again

I’ve already worked a bunch of events including three days of Cherry Blossom Festival, Himalayan Fair (where I probably caught COVID last year), and I just worked the first Stern Grove Festival concert featuring Snarky Puppy. More of a Jazzy sound than I was expecting. They reminded me of someone but I could never put my finger on who.

The most notable thing about Stern Grove was the piles of logs from fallen trees. San Francisco had a series of major storms this winter which brought down trees all over -- including three in my neighborhood -- but really look to have hit the grove hard. Most of the logs were eucalyptus but I saw some redwood, too. 

As I deal with another season of event trash sorting -- and idiotic event goers -- I repeatedly ask myself how long I’m going to do this. I am at least thirteen years into this final career (with two slack years due to COVID). While I think we do make a difference (most of the time) that’s no longer the main reason I do this. It’s a toss up if my main reason is the money -- which I do need to balance my expenses -- or the fitness aspect. The job keeps me in shape and forces me to stay in shape. That I continue to get in better shape into my seventies is, I think, solely a consequence of needing to for my work. Also, I would be really bored without the greening and HOA work. I could probably come up with something else to keep me occupied, but would it also add $5k to my annual income? Though I’m also doing a good job of reducing my expenses My expenses this year should be lower than last year and next year lower still. But even with the $1,500 I knocked off last year, I’m not sure this all comes to $5k.

The other Class of ‘70 guy in the company, who waited until he was seventy to start collecting Social Security, has stopped working. So that decision may have been right for him. I’m still happy with my decision to collect as soon as possible.

385. Summer Doldrums

 

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Coming Soon: de Tocqueville 

7/11/22 - Day 847/35

The Chain just came on here at the Bank Cafe. Now I’m anticipating the bass part, but I don’t think I will be able to hear it the way they have the sound turned down... nope.

I need to return to this blog and get caught up. This week. I’ve pinned my notes. Next I will start copying the text into blogger and posting it day by day. Should be caught up by the end of the week.

I’m now three weeks into the doldrums of July and August where we mostly just work the Sunday Stern Grove Festival concerts. There have been some other events but I’ve dodged them for one reason or another -- mostly because they ran too late or involved back-end table sorting. 

We seem to have the Stern Grove scene down now. Even with large crowds we are mostly done by 8pm. At which point I clock-out and leave whatever remains to the younger workers. One update this season is that I’m now collecting corks and recycling them at Whole Food. I’m thinking about doing a Foster Brooks imitation as I bring in my bag of corks every week.

The music to date has been good -- at least at the end when I show up. And the weather has been a mix of fog and sun, so not too hot and, so far, not too cold. 

7/15/22

For the first time in months I’m caught up with posting this blog. I’m reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog again, but I’ve already said everything I need to say about that. Things may or may not be coming to a head with our huge, long-standing problem at the HOA. Only time will tell. Any real improvement would be a huge surprise. And the pandemic just keeps on keeping on. I finally gave up my fitness center membership as I realized that between all the new COVID variants and the new Monkeypox concern, there was no way I would be returning soon. I did invest in new equipment for doing pull-ups, but I have yet to start using it. Next week probably.

What is new is the widespread conviction that everything is about to go to hell in a hand-basket. Some of this is climate related -- which makes perfect sense, though no one seems to be doing anything that would reduce the likelihood of this fate -- and some of it is political. Again, not unreasonable. And then there’s the economic aspect. I view all this with the perspective of history, so, while I don’t think the conviction is necessarily wrong, I still see these as being “historically” good times. Unusually good times, in fact. 

And I continue to make thirty year plans for my HOA and less-than-thirty year plans for myself. The HOA will almost certainly still be around in thirty years, though the cost of painting at that time is impossible to anticipate. I have no intention of still being around in thirty years. My personal plans get more and more tentative the further into the future I look. In five years I should be relatively unchanged, though I’m not sure about the world. In ten years I can’t expect to be the same person. I see that as the likely time for a major transition, which I have financial plans for -- assuming no huge economic upheaval. There’s good reason to think I should be fine when it comes to money -- unless things get really strange, and you can’t exactly prepare for that. And beyond eighty I don’t see that there is any reason to cling to life. So Plan C at that point would be to bring down the show. Of course that’s what my aunt always said and she clung on until she was a miserable ninety-four. We never really know where our path is leading.

7/25/22

I’m getting near to the end of Hedgehog, I’m to the part where Kakuro dresses Renne. And I’m trying to recall how often I’ve run into this trope. Besides here I’m pretty sure the French Duke did this in one of Nancy Mitford’s novels, but I think there’s at least one more instance. (On the TV show "Castle," Castle sends Kate a spectacular dress to wear for an event. Same trope... I didn't much care for the dress.)

8/13/22 - Day 881/69

Today is the 881st of the pandemic and the 69th since I finally caught COVID. I was reflecting on this as I did my old, simi-steep hill walk today. I left off the stair-master part as it has already been a tough week with three, eight hour greening days. 

On the other hand, my daily exercise routine has recently improved with the return of my three versions of pull up/chin up using a new piece of kit that clamps onto the wall above a door. I’m still trying to catch up to where I was after a break of over two years doing that particular kind of exercise. It will take a few months, but it is going well. I’ve also just recently replaced the larger set of crunches with two different kinds of plank -- normal and side style. That seems to be a big improvement as I was coasting before and now I’m really pressing trying to move above two minutes and one minute respectively. All this because I finally gave up my fitness center membership.

Aside from the complex calculations about when to wear a mask and still not eating inside most places. Life is not too far from normal... at least from our new perspective.

And I’m reading a book that may demand blogging: The Old Regime and the French Revolution by Alexis de Toqueville. This was prompted by my recent rereading of Pirenne, and I think I’m really going to like it -- only about four chapters in. And I may have to follow this up with Adam Smith. Who knew I would spend my Golden Years finally trying to understand the 18th and 19th centuries? Not me. I have considered trying to contact my old history professor at ASU but I would rather not know if he is dead.

8/15/22

Yesterday I worked the final Stern Grove concert of 2022. It was rather worse than I had even anticipated, but really, it was fine. Thousands of people having a very good time. That their fun interfered with my waste diversion is hardly the end of the world. I adjusted and it all ended well.

One of our “old timers” was not scheduled to work yesterday but some other people flaked out so she stepped in. Somehow, she had never been exposed to the Deadhead culture -- which is as odd as the fact that they had never played at the Stern Grove venue. I warned her that, to our untrained ears, they would be playing the same song all afternoon, which she confirmed at the end. What I had not anticipated (but should have) was that the crowd would be dancing on the paths we use to access our ecostations. Normally we can push carts on those paths and then pull and cart away bags of sorted trash. I tried that once and gave up. Fortunately there is a another path behind the stage so I could get back to the dumpsters with my load. 

Deadhead dancing is reminiscent of sufi dancing. There’s a lot of spinning or slowly spinning while apparently stoned out of your mind. While there were some younger people in attendance, the vast majority were probably older than me. There was one “dancer” on the path in my area who appeared to have been dead for some time.

I’m going to try to find out how much money they raised, as that was the point of this final concert of the season.

8/17/22

I’m trying to replace the battery in my beard trimmer rather than just getting a new trimmer... which would be simple. This involves taking two buses to the closest remaining Batteries Plus store in San Rafael. But then they have to “prime” the new battery which takes six hours. So I’m on 4th street killing time. By chance, it is a delightful day. There are actual clouds in the sky and I was already sprinkled on once -- and that is not a Trump kink reference. I had planned to come yesterday, but I judged it to be too hot, and it got even hotter than forecast, up in the 90s. And today is warm but pleasant.

My friend who lives a couple blocks from where I am currently having tea and a cookie out on the sidewalk, is currently either in surgery or waiting for her surgery to start after having broken her femur (I think) while playing pickleball. This is probably fairly routine (though all surgeries involve a degree of risk) but I can’t help thinking how strange it would be if she died as a result of playing pickleball in the midst of a pandemic.

I just remembered that tomorrow will be the anniversary of my mother’s going into the hospital that final time. That was also a lovely time of year in Minnesota, though much hotter. 

8/22/22

This past weekend I only worked a short shift at a street festival in the Western Addition. Too quiet for my taste -- I mean it wasn’t busy, I had both earbuds in as ear protection. We had to do grounds at the end and so left those four blocks cleaner then they’ve probably been in years. Next up is a convention, the only one I don’t really mind working -- VM Ware. Should be a good chance to continue breaking in the new boots I first wore for the street festival. A little ankle discomfort, but otherwise pretty good. And I re-repaired my old boots so now I have a backup pair.

And our COVID numbers have come down enough that I’ve returned to eating indoors at the two places I’ve been avoiding. Hit my Burmese favorite on the anniversary of my mother’s death and will be at the Pork store tomorrow.

And tomorrow will also be another run to the PO where I have to sign for letters that missed me at home. Still trying to decide what I will do as a reward after. Or while I’m reading the latest crazy letter. If what I’ve heard is at all reliable, the sale of that property should be final by now. I’m not expecting anything, but still hoping this will get interesting.

The Old Regime and the French Revolution

P96 “Thus each of these small groups lived only for itself and, quite literally, minded its own business.” Speaking of the tiny groups the 3rd estate had broken down into. Isn’t this similar to Voltaire’s “Tending their gardens?” Isn’t this the result of everyone doing this? To the advantage of the dynasty but not the nation.

8/26/22

Women’s belts again. In my continuing research on this vital subject I am having a problem answering the follow up question, Are women without foxy figures following the same trend? The reason I can’t tell is that it seems that only the foxes are dressed so that this is obvious. Partly this is because it is cooler here in SF and most people wear some sort of additional layer. Partly this is because the non-foxes are being discrete. It might be easier to go into a store that sells women’s accessories and ask the sales people if these are dark days for the belt trade.