Monday, March 23, 2020

two former Florida Keys residents commiserate and reflect during coronavirus upheaval


Old Seven Mile Bridge

From amiga I met circa 2010 in the Florida Keys, who later moved back to her home state:

HI Sloan,

Wish you would not keep popping out to the stores right now!  Glad you're writing more. I'm reading the news in The Keys too. Whatever happened to that shrink you used to talk with and post? Hope you're having fun back in Alabama. I am too but it’s fun to travel.  Ever going back to Keys on vacay?  It was kinda fun when I went summer 2018 for 5 days at Ocean Key Resort. Sad that the Dry Tortugas was complete rubble on the snorkel around the camp.

You could write more about your life of privilege.  We love hearing all about that house in the Keys.  MORE PHOTOS OF YOURSELF WHEN YOUNGER!! Do you "hear" from your parents or see signs / smells that they're nearby?

This is so scary and when I go feed a feral cat 20 minutes down the road, I see Walmart, Kroger and Meijer stores parking lots with many cars and these people must not understand the memo to stay home.

Okay stay well and stock up so you don't go out as much. Here is a photo of my beloved 10 month designer dog $$$$ puppy.

Me:

Been spending a lot of time, home, alone.

I need to buy a week's worth of meat when I grocery shop, but had I not gone to that grocery yesterday, I would not have had a juicy sneezing story to report at my blog today.

Don't know where I'd be safer than where I am. If I get this virus, I might be a goner, given my 77 years, borderline diabetes, tired kidneys and history of respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia.

Out for for a walk on sidewalk earlier today, a small, cute, white, leashed designer dog tried to make my acquaintance, and I told it (and its owners, a man and a woman) that it had to practice social distancing, or it might catch the virus from me and give it to its owners. Meaning, their cute designer dog might give the virus to me, other dogs, other people. Don’t know of dogs get the virus, but it can get on their hair when infected people pet them.

Every now and then I hear from the Key West shrink about something he is doing, sometimes he replies to one of my blog posts, which I email to number of people. I can imagine he and his wife, they are a good bit older than my 77, are doing all they can not to catch the virus. I hope they succeed at that.

If the Key West and Florida Keys governments keep all but essential businesses locked down and tourists away for the duration of this crisis - who knows how long it will last? - that will be financial doom for many people there, and the wealthy residents will survive and perhaps prosper by buying up distressed real estate.

A hurricane passing through there, hits, destroys, leaves, FEMA arrives. The virus will clobber all of America, FEMA will be impotent. How much money can the U.S. Treasury borrow and print? I suppose there is no limit?

Don't miss Key West or the Florida Keys, but do miss some friends there. We talk on telephone, text, email, sometimes Facebook.

My father has visited me many times in dreams, my mother only a few times. They point me toward something to address and sometimes suggest how to go about it.

Your writing suggestion might be relevant. Had nap dream of seeing a gadzillion permit swimming close to beach below Islamorada. Didn't have any fishing tackle with me and threw myself and a small Boston Whaler off a high place into the water and headed up to Islamorada to get some tackle, all I had was spinning rod. My father's home was near there. Woke up, read your email. Back in the old days, my father had a Whaler like that, and I fished the Islamorada flats many times in it. I never caught a permit, the most sought-after game fish down there, or probably anywhere.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

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