How can it be 12 days since I last posted? It must be the distraction of improving weather, the amount of time I am spending on the garden, and getting ready to enjoy the outdoor season: bringing all the outdoor furniture up from the basement, cleaning the porch, patio and deck, putting covers back on all the cushions, moving all the plants that have been hibernating in the sun room out of doors; ferns for the urns on the front steps, and hanging from hooks above the balustrades on the porch, potted palms next to the wooden furniture facing Pearl street. There are the big self-watering planters filled with semi-tropicals on the deck off the sun room and the giant urns on the blue-stone patio. New plantings in the bare spots in the flowers beds, potting a new lime tree, an on-going losing battle with crabgrass and other unworthy competitors to my lawn. I could have a booth selling dandelion leaves for salad at the Wall Street farmer’s market on Saturday morning if I had the time. Re-seeding bare patches under the copper beech tree and the corner near the vegetable patch, seeding herbs and greens in tiny compostable pots that have to be misted twice a day. Cutting away dead leaves and growth from everything and moving the potted plants from beneath the living room windows to their appointed positions out of doors. Ahh....
The weather had been so cool, damp and dreary, that I had to take matters into my own hands and say enough is enough, that it was about time we moved from bare hints of spring to full on spring mode on May 14th, mainly to keep Marco from packing his bags and moving back to Tuscany, where temperatures are already well into the high seventies and eighties. Temperatures here rose as ordered. We hit 80 a couple of days ago which has delayed Marco’s imminent migration. I even enjoyed a pitcher of iced tea!
Meanwhile, in the wider world, 90,000 Americans are dead, and there have been 1,400,000 confirmed cases of the virus. 36,000,000 Americans have filed unemployment claims (Marco and I are not eligible) and armed civilian militia have overrun the Michigan state legislature and shut down Oregon’s demanding that the governments re-open the economies. Who are these people? They are clearly a small but vocal minority of the disparate groups of supremacists, right wing Christians, and hard line second amendment defenders who are being encouraged by the man in the white house (note to my great-grandchildren: many people in these times refuse to even speak the name of the current resident of the White House. Something we borrowed as a form of protest from the Harry Potter novel series where people were afraid to even mention the name of the antagonist -- Voldemort.) We’re not ‘afraid’ to mention his name, we just feel that he shouldn’t be given any form of legitimacy, not as a man, and certainly not at as a president.
Closer to home, here in Kingston, NY, a barber in a hipster-retro shop on John Street, has been cutting hair on the sly, in defiance of the shutdown, and has been diagnosed with the virus. Officials are searching for anyone who might have had their haircut by him (eye roll). On the brighter side, Liberato (Marco’s niece's fiance was finally able to legally open his brand spanking new barber shop in San Querico (Tuscany) this week and is booked solid for two weeks -- 97 appointments. It’s curious that the Kingston barber made international headlines. We heard about it from as far afield as Siena (IT) and Geneva (CH, not NY!) Most people are taking the shutdown seriously, but many are not, and it’s a very divisive topic. One security guard was shot, in Michigan, for telling a customer to put on a mask or leave the store. Another liquor store owner in Flint (Michigan clearly has anger management issues) was shot in the ankle for the same reason. Many people feel that the lock down is a useless exercise, that we should just open up and get it over with. It’s not killing as many as we thought it might, and cases have started to fall off in the worst hit places. But the whole point was to ‘flatten the curve’ to prevent the health care system from getting overwhelmed and to protect the vulnerable. That part has worked. So where do you begin, and how much is enough, to get the economy started again without creating new spikes and hot-spots of the disease and risk overwhelming the hospitals? The scientists argue that it can’t be done safely until we have tested most of the population to get a handle on how many people have already had it. Supposedly, 60% is a magic number for ‘herd immunity,’ above which the virus will slowly die out because it can’t sustain itself in a smaller pool, but that assumes that once you’ve had it, you are immune. The jury is still out on that. So much information, so little reliability. Example: Marco read in the Italian press today that the US had come up with a vaccine and was testing it. Here, however, the medical professionals are saying we are at least a year, maybe two, away from a vaccine. It’s no wonder people are acting crazy. Anyone can pretty much find someone out there who is saying exactly the thing that appeals to their fears and some of us act on those fears, with the encouragement of the 12-year old in chief, who says he is now taking hydroychloroquine, the efficacy of which is questionable and is said to have potentially harmful side effects. A couple of months ago, a couple in Arizona took it after he touted it. The husband died and the wife was hospitalized in serious condition. Well, let’s hope he manages to kill or incapacitate himself soon.
That’s plenty on that topic. I don’t know if it is because we are safely ensconced in Kingston in a big house surrounded by lawns and stone walls and flowers that I don’t feel particularly under threat by the virus. But at the same time, I don’t feel the loss of human contact (other than with Cole, Ashe and Carter and the hugs). My time is my own, and I’m enjoying finding ways to fill it -- cooking, reading, planning for reopening my hospitality locations, gardening, studying, watching movies.... My biggest fears, really, are economic. When this is over, what will my investments be worth, what will the townhouse in Brooklyn be worth, how will I support myself, help Marco, and leave something to my son and grand kids when I go? Up until now those were not serious issues for me.
I do miss eating out in places where I know people or places where the food is particularly transcendent, but cooking at home and really investing in keeping food interesting, has been a pleasant challenge. And as I settle in to lock down -- it’s been two months now -- I find I am seeking less amusement in martinis, mushrooms, and space cookies, and more in reading, writing, studying and cooking and actually having a schedule for those activities. I also love the efficiency of online visual visits, both personal and for study and business. I’m staying in closer contact with so many of my friends than I did before lockdown. We have a call tonight at 7 p.m. with Joe and Vicki in LA which I am looking forward to, and we are doing a weekly family call on Sundays with the kids, Roy and CT in Hawaii, Maud in Brooklyn, Hedy and Firth and M and me here in Kingston.
Hawaii, by the way, is pretty safe. And here, in Ulster County, we’ve had fewer than 40 deaths and 1500 cases. And considering how many people like me have fled from the city to Kingston, I’m surprised it’s not higher. East Hampton, for example, was a hot spot because of all the rich NYC types that have homes there and left the city. Sorry, sorry. I promised to stop. Times article says that wealthier neighborhoods in NYC have lost 40% of their population! I’m so glad the kids are at our place to keep an eye on things. And Marco’s finding a rhythm, too. Check it out.
I finally plodded though to the end of Thomas Campanella’s book, “Brooklyn: The Once and Future City”. It was very, very informative, even if many parts of it would be far more interesting to civic planners and architects than to casual readers, but it really did put a lot in perspective on Brooklyn’s economic and social trajectory through nearly 300 years with some interesting segues into geological formations that impact the place still today. Sadly, as interesting and appealing a place as Brooklyn is, very little scholarly work has been done on it’s history. Until very recently, the focus has always been on Manhattan. It did correct a number of my own misconceptions. Importantly, despite the fact that Robert Moses was not thrilled at the design for the proposed Dodger Stadium at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, it doesn’t appear that he, on his own, could have stopped it. Research suggests that it was the disappearing fan base (fleeing the crime-ridden city in the 50s and 60s) that made the move to LA more an economic decision than has otherwise been speculated. And I’m no fan of Robert Moses. The study group, in the end, actually wanted to put the stadium complex in Park Slope, bordered by Sterling, Bergen, Vanderbilt and Boerum Place. What a disaster that would have been on so many levels!! Not the least of which would have been the United Jet that crashed in that spot in 1960. And the Weisberg’s wouldn’t have been my neighbors for 34 years because their house would have been razed.
Other non-essential slightly amusing details. Deer ‘resistant’ plants are not deer ‘proof’. And our herd doesn’t seem to be made up of fussy eaters. So, we are frustrated by the number of our plants that are being ravaged. Apparently, based on an internet search, Marco has discovered that piss and cayenne pepper are good home garden deer deterrents! Well... I am putting it to the test with a mixture of BOTH. I’ll keep you posted on results. (I won’t go into detail on how the mixture is obtained/prepared, interesting as it may be.) Hungry? Peanut butter, honey and banana -- not since I was 10 years old. Think I’ll write a kids’ Covid cookbook!
