Self Quarantine

The present COVID 19 scare has shown just how incompetent our so-called president is. Today the DOW fell more than 2,500 points in the first 2 minutes of the opening bell and within a few points of 3,000 by the close of the day. For my part, I have decided to self-quarantine at home for the foreseeable future. This is because of my age together with my condition (COPD). This also means that for the present I will not be carrying out any substitution at the Academy, which may be closing down for a period anyway. All indications are that the country is falling into recession.

All of this is bad news for our egotistic president, who is completely fixated on self-image and on how well the stock market is doing. Only since Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate in which both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders showed themselves to be far more presidential than Trump, has he changed his tune somewhat regarding the Coronavirus pandemic.

I just spent 20 minutes chatting on videophone with my sister in the United Kingdom. She, like me, has self quarantined at home and is pretty depressed about it. Here in Vermont and neighboring states, all schools are closing at the end of classes today, restaurants, theaters, gyms, bars and many businesses except for grocery stores and pharmacies are banned from opening to the public. For my part, I have canceled a planned visit to my ophthalmologist down in Lebanon in early April.

I can't wait for Spring. My sister turned her camera outside to show me her magnolia tree in full bloom and her spring flowers. I have a bunch of bulbs to put in as soon as the ground unfreezes; daffodils, narcissi, croci, gladioli, and freesias. I uncovered my rose bushes a couple of days ago when most of the snow had melted, but guess what! We have a white carpet on the ground once again,