April 20th: Georgia prepares to re-open
Headlines
Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina Say Businesses Can Reopen Soon. Specific GA businesses such as gyms, hair and nail salons, massage centers, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors to re-open this Friday.
Ohio Governor DeWine announced today that K-12 schools in Ohio will remain closed for the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year.
Amazon-owned Whole Foods is quietly tracking its employees with a heat map tool that ranks which stores are most at risk of unionizing.
In the SF Bay Area at a huge Safeway warehouse in Tracy, 51 workers have coronavirus and one is dead.
Lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Berkeley (cumulative): 44 and 1 death (up from 41 cases).
Burger chain “Shake Shack” returns $10 million loan from the SBA’s “Paycheck Protection Program.”
My local coffee shop celebrates “4/20” with new offerings.
I got the big call again today. Just after I opened my front door I heard Brenda’s siren call, “Hey Danielle, you going anywhere today?” Told her I could absolutely make a grocery run, so we got that in motion. I love that she has my phone number, but we’re keeping it old school. I bought a bag of frozen tater tots that I’m pretty excited about. I just started thinking about tater tots and had to have them. I am a woman of simple tastes.
Before the big event, I swung by the coffee shop, acquired caffeine and chatted with David. I started promising last week that I would bring him baked goods and have now painted myself into a corner. David is questioning my intentions. I must bake to defend my honor. His greatest enjoyment is me insisting that today is THE DAY and trying to defend myself.
I called and sang “Happy Birthday” into my friend Kelly’s voicemail en route to the store. I hope it came out okay since I was wearing a mask. It may be a rendition for the record books.
Today’s briefing was as annoying as usual. The Governor of Georgia is going to start opening things as of this Friday. It just feels too soon - they shut down later than most states as it was. I texted a dear friend who’s an ER Doc in Atlanta and she is not excited. I know I can’t change anything by worrying, but it’s impossible not to.
On a happier note, I’m going to make Grandma Hartzell’s homemade caramel icing and spread over cupcakes. This is normally done for a cake, but cupcakes are easier because I can just pour the caramel over without having to spread it. I used to be the only Cousin who was able to successfully make the icing until Cousin Paula managed it last year for her son’s birthday. Caramel is a consistency that is incredibly easy to mess up and tricky to spread.
Just hung up with my sister who installed a fire pit on her own because she is a total badass. I’ve warned her that if I move home I will absolutely call her when something breaks or I need to do anything even remotely handy (i.e. hang curtain rods). In my first post-college homes when Denise visited, she hung drapes in my barren windows.
During my DC days, she was installing a curtain rod while I walked Hunter and I ran into a neighbor. She stopped in the street and looked at me, then back towards my townhouse. “Wait, I just saw you in your house!?” I had to explain that she actually saw my sister and we had a good laugh. I installed my own here and managed it, but it didn’t go well. I told Denise once that I paid some dude $40 via TaskRabbit to hang curtains in another room and could tell she was appalled. I still think it was $40 well spent.
What Does Dr. Fauci Say?
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” today, Dr. Fauci said: ““Unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen….“If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back,” he explained. “That’s the problem.”
Let’s hope states aren’t reopening too early.
Winners of the Internet
Here in SF, a man is handing out free coffee to essential workers -- from his kitchen window.
The late, great, Nora Ephron wrote an article titled “Deep Throat and Me: Now It Can Be Told, and Not for the First Time Eithert” about how she had been telling people who he was for years…but no one believed her. A great read from someone who has given us all so much joy.
As seen around Berkeley en route to the grocery. I don’t know why this person painted a squirrel on the side of the house, but it’s Berkeley…..so not that surprising.