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Monday, July 13, 2020

sharing or not

The good stuff:  

We had a socially distanced visit with my half sister and her family in Charlotte, NC yesterday. We went into the local IKEA, all masked and most of the customers were masked. I only saw one middle-aged white man and a hispanic grandmother without masks. My sister and her family had never shopped at an IKEA store before and this is the first place they've lived near one. They seemed to enjoy looking for ideas there for their new house. 
After that, we went to eat at a local restaurant, the Red Rock, where we sat outside on a back porch that we had all to ourselves in the shade. Then they invited us over to see the new house and what they've done with it so far. We talked a while about Covid-19 and it's affect on young children. She's a pediatric ICU nurse. We talked about what little we know about family health histories. She told MonsterMustDie and myself that Gwen, our birth mother, liked to eat oysters. She died of colon cancer that had metastasized. We looked at the back yard and talked about gardening. MonsterMustDie looked at a couple of pieces of art in the house, a small lithograph and a bronze statue, and agreed to do some research on them.

Today, MonsterMustDie identified the artist and small print and saw that it had an auction value in the neighborhood of $1000. Good choice on that one. He has not yet identified the statue.

The bad stuff: 

The low point for me today was hearing that Phil, the friend MonsterMustDie is trying to start a business with and is pining for most of the time, has decided to let his two oldest children play soccer now. They had a game today. I think this is a very bad decision but I know they have a new baby and are no doubt feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with the older two children while his wife is still recovering from a Cesarean birth. Phil and his wife are young, in their early 30's. I don't see any way their family can avoid exposure to Covid19 and infection that he could pass on to MonsterMustDie, who would probably become very seriously ill and would likely pass it on to me inevitably.

MonsterMustDie would never give up spending time with Phil and seems to take my concerns over it as a bit hysterical. Well, I don't want my life ruined more than it already could be by his carelessness or Phil's desperation. I can only beg him to please have both of them wear adequate masks around each other and wash their hands and wear gloves when possible. I can't police that, though.