Sunday, Monday

 SUNDAY

As of 5:45 p.m. yesterday, there are 1287 cases of coronavirus in Nebraska. That's an increase of 149 cases over the previous day. That's a pretty big leap, over 10% increase. But the shocking part is that only seven of those cases are here in Douglas County, with the largest populous, and 102 of them were in Hall County! That seems very disproportionate to me! We have an additional four deaths in Nebraska making the total 28.

I heard on the news today that both Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz are in trouble with the public for comments they have made about coronavirus. Dr. Phil  was pointing out how many people die of so many other things, kind of like my point in yesterday's blog. People seem to think he was minimizing Coronavirus. And apparently Dr.Oz said that getting kids back to school will only cost 2 to 3% in mortality. Well, how he said it was rather insensitive I will agree. But in reality, the flu is much more dangerous to children then the Coronavirus. I'm sure there has been children that have probably died from it, but I have not heard about one personally. It's always older people, usually much older people, and older people with serious health issues. So actually children are the safest people with this going around. So I understand what he was trying to say. I think they're both right, and I think people are hypersensitive right now. We do need to get back to the world of living our lives. What we should do is take some very important lessons from this experience. First of all, I think companies should be learning that a lot of work CAN be done from workers' homes. This would help with the pollution problem, and it would also make workers salaries go further. I remember when I had an office job how much money I had to sink into my wardrobe to look professional. And how much it cost me to get back and forth to work between gas, car maintenance, and time.  It would be like getting a raise if you could work from home most of the time!

I'm hoping it will also usher in a new age the standard greeting... meaning perhaps we don't have to shake hands to be "professional". I've often thought that the Japanese have it right with the respectful bow as opposed to a handshake. And hugging... I'm okay with hugging people that I'm close to, but there are some serious huggers out there that, once you know them a little bit, they want to hug you every time they see you. We live in a time when people need to more be more discriminant about who they hug, who they touch in general. I think about weddings and funerals, where everybody's hugging everybody, they are a breeding ground for all kinds of things none of us want! I say this with the utmost respect to people who are huggers... My mom is a very serious hugger who will hug anybody! Well, at her age she needs to be careful.  I guess if her perspective is that it's worth her life to hug, I will respect that! I will always hug my mom, unless I'm not feeling well... last time we were together, which was when all of this started coming down, we elbow bumped when I left her. She still talks about how weird that was! LOL!

Well I talked about that subject way too long this time! And now on to more important matters... Another beautiful day today, though not as warm as yesterday. But I am going to start putting plants out today. Yes, we're going to have some cold nights, but I don't think we'll have any below freezing. And I'll watch it closely, and if they do predict a dip below freezing, I will just cover things. Of course, I won't put anything sensitive out until later in May. But if I can just get a lot of the succulents off my shelves in the greenhouse, I can do some more propagating. I figure if I propagate a whole bunch of stuff now, I'll have a lot to sell late summer when people are jonesing to get something before going into winter. I can make a real killing!

MONDAY

As of 5:45 p.m. yesterday, there were 1474 cases of coronavirus in Nebraska, and 28 deaths is where we still stand. Hall County seems to be where the numbers are going up significantly. They are now standing at 457, nearly a third of the cases in Nebraska! Douglas is that 280 with Sarpy at 53. Cass County is all the way up to 5... Still pretty insignificant.

I got 40 of my smaller succulents out yesterday, and a few more today. I'm going to try to get the rest of the hardy succulents out in the next couple of days, and the rest will wait until after May 1st.

I have to start thinking about the newsletter already. I imagine we'll be canceling the May meeting as well. I suppose it's possible that the Des Moines Club will still have their meeting. I did get an email from Dick Schreiber, the club's president, yesterday but he made no mention of the May meeting. He'll have to make a decision on it pretty soon to get it into the newsletter. He may decide to plan for it with the option of canceling... That's probably what I would do since by then, third Sunday in May, things could be "looser" let's call it.

That's about it for now. More tomorrow.  (Forgot to hit "publish" again...so doing so this morning, Tues., before I start today's blog...)